trotskyists on afghanistan

[ibram]

Will someone let me know about the position of Trotskyists on the current situation in Afghanistan? Do they support the Taliban?

[Yehuda Stern]

There are many tendencies today that claim the banner of Trotskyism. Most of these claim they are against the occupation of Afghanistan, but refuse to give any support to the resistance under the pretext that it is led by reactionary forces like the Taliban. I am a member of a group which thinks the victory of the resistance is the most favorable outcome for the working class, because every blow to imperialism is in the workers' interests, while advocating for Marxist revolutionaries in Afghanistan to fight for the leadership of the resistance.

At any rate, I know of no Trotskyist group which specifically supports the Taliban.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The SWP does, with its "call for a Taliban victory."

[Die Rote Fahne]

The SWP is foolish.

[Muzk]

someone tell me what the fuck afghanistan has to do with trotskyism

[chegitz guevara]

The real question is whether a victory for imperialism or a victory for reactionary Islam is worse for the workers. In areas where imperialism wins, the workers movement eventually recovers. As far as I know, wherever reactionary Islam has taken power, the workers have not revived their movements. On the other hand, a defeat for imperialism lessens its grip around the world, so a defeat in Afghanistan makes it harder for the US to maintain control in Latin America.

[Comrade Gwydion]

I believe the (dutch) ISO calls for retreat of the western troops, without staying what they want to do about the Taliban. Probably, just like me, never really gave it good enough thought ^^;; That's why I'm a member, they also forget to think about important stuff :P


Personally, I think we should get out as early as possible. The Taliban is terrible, but we're not bringing anything better. How Afghanistan should go on? Difficult.

[Random Precision]

The real question is whether a victory for imperialism or a victory for reactionary Islam is worse for the workers. In areas where imperialism wins, the workers movement eventually recovers. As far as I know, wherever reactionary Islam has taken power, the workers have not revived their movements.

That's a very impressionistic argument. What countries has political Islam taken power in? Afghanistan and Iran? For the former, political Islam no longer controls the whole country. For the latter, there is actually a workers movement which is pretty strong for the conditions it is under. There's also Saudi Arabia, whose main industry was counting sand at the time of Islam's "takeover" and thus there was never any sort of workers movement. If you stretch it a bit you can maybe include Pakistan.

Furthermore, your argument sounds a bit like Shachtman's totalitarianism argument- since right-wing imperialist supported dictatorships all eventually collapse, but Stalinism is an invulnerable collectivist system that will never collapse, socialists are obliged to support US imperialism against any country claiming the smallest amount of support from the Soviet Union.

[blake 3:17]

We're for total withdrawal.

The only schemes I`ve heard of that make any sense, would be to stop the eradication of opium poppies, and let the Aghanis sell it at a fair market price. The Canadian government is proposing to grow opium in Alberta.

Feds mull plan to grow opium poppy in Alberta

By THE CANADIAN PRESS
Last Updated: 28th September 2009, 2:17am




OTTAWA -- Another kind of flower could be coming to Wild Rose Country.
A type of opium poppy used to make painkillers may be sown across southern Alberta's plains, a newly released document shows.

The federal government is giving thought to planting Canada's first commercial poppy crop and the parched Prairies are the perfect place to do it, says a briefing note for Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz.

"Parts of Canada, particularly southern Alberta, are ideally suited for the production of poppies," it says.

I think the Aghanis could do with the cash.

[chegitz guevara]

Counting sand? Nice dismissive attitude towards the Saudi working class.

I wouldn't include Pakistan, because reactionary Islam has never held political power there. Furthermore, the workers in Pakistan are quite unruly.

So, where has far right-wing Islam taken power? Saudi Arabia, as you point out, went that way in the 18th Century. Still, it has a working class today, and it's not all that well off. Sudan doesn't have much of a workers movement. Afghanistan, Mali, Northern Nigeria, parts of Algeria don't seem to have much in the way of active workers movements.

I admit, I haven't studied the subject too deeply. That's why I have questions, not solid positions.

[blake 3:17]

Do the Saudis even have a native working class? Or is it all guest workers?

[chegitz guevara]

The Saudis do indeed have a native worker class. To be sure, they have a lot of guest workers, but they are a country of millions of people. Not everyone can be a jet setting playboy.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Are the majority of the Saudi population indeed lumpen (not even lumpenproletarian)?

[Random Precision]

Counting sand? Nice dismissive attitude towards the Saudi working class...
So, where has far right-wing Islam taken power? Saudi Arabia, as you point out, went that way in the 18th Century. Still, it has a working class today, and it's not all that well off.

The Saudi working class did not exist before the kingdom. These days there is not much of an indigenous working class, although there has been a lot of militancy among imported South Asian workers in oil.


Sudan doesn't have much of a workers movement. Afghanistan, Mali, Northern Nigeria, parts of Algeria don't seem to have much in the way of active workers movements.

Afghanistan is not fully in the grip of political Islam. Neither is Mali. You'll have to be a bit more specific for "northern Nigeria" and "parts of Algeria", in how they are dominated by that movement.

[Wanted Man]

someone tell me what the fuck afghanistan has to do with trotskyism

Afghanistan has something to do with just about every political movement, including trotskyism, but also other socialist tendencies. How do they analyse it, what do they think should happen, and what conclusions can we draw about these groups from their positions?

People often make the mistake of thinking that marxism is some sort of dogma. Like when people say about the Afghan War: "We cannot take any position on what is happening there now, in the real world; only proletarian revolution can solve it", while avoiding saying anything about how this would work out in practice. The reality is that, to have any kind of credibility, communists can't just avoid major current events.

[BobKKKindle$]

The SWP does, with its "call for a Taliban victory." No, the SWP does not. The SWP argues that as long as Afghanistan remains under imperialist occupation the main object of political struggle for the working class, insofar as there is a working class in Afghanistan, will be the occupation, and not the exploitation of the domestic ruling class (who are in any case closely bound up with the imperialists) or other issues that socialists want to see resolved, such as womens' rights, and so we support all people who are currently fighting to remove the occupying forces, even if we do not agree with all of their aims and principles, or the methods that they are using to fight imperialism. We in the SWP would obviously prefer it if the resistance in Afghanistan (and Palestine, and Iraq...) were being led by a revolutionary party that wanted to overthrow capitalism and liberate women from the shackles of Islamism at the same time as carrying out a military struggle against imperialism but the fact of the matter is that this is not the case, and it is nonsensical to think that workers in these countries are suddenly going to be won round to revolutionary socialism (and reject groups like Hamas, whose popular support derives from the fact that they are doing the resisting at the moment) whilst their country is still under occupation - hence we hold that the expulsion of the occupiers by any group is progressive, as it will open up a space in which radical ideas and class struggle can emerge. When the Taliban do things that we find reactionary like stoning women who have been found guilty of adultery we condemn them as reactionaries, in the same way that we condemn groups like Hamas when they ban strikes, and at no point have we said that we support either of these groups in particular, as oppossed to the resistance as a whole, which is heterogeneous. It is downright reactionary of people like the CPGB and AWL to say that people in occupied countries only have the right to resist their occupiers if they do so in a way that "socialists" in imperialist nations find acceptable - the job of socialists in Britain and all other imperialist states is to acknowledge that there is such a thing as an unconditional right to resist, and that imperialism is never progressive in any way whatsoever.


without staying what they want to do about the TalibanIt is not the job of Dutch socialists to decide "what to do about the Taliban", that is for the people of Afghanistan themselves to decide. If it were the case that they regarded the Taliban as a more serious danger or oppressive force than the occupation, then it would not be the case that the Taliban and other sections of the resistance receive popular support, which they do, as can be seen from the fact that they have been able to sustain recruitment (the number of militants who have been killed is far greater than the US and British government's original estimates of the Taliban's support base, hence they must be getting new recruits from somewhere) and currently control more than 70% of the entire country, with assistance from local populations. In any case, it is unwarranted to assume that, in the event of the occupiers being withdrawn, the whole of the Afghan population would simply embrace the Taliban, as, historically, a defeat for imperialism has given oppressed populations greater confidence to fight back against other sources of oppression.


In areas where imperialism wins, the workers movement eventually recovers. As far as I know, wherever reactionary Islam has taken power, the workers have not revived their movements.It seems that the inevitable conclusion of this sorry line of argument is to oppose demands like "troops out now", given that it is Islamists who are leading the resistance in many countries, and would probably gain power in the event of the occupation being expelled, if only for a short period of time.

[Die Neue Zeit]

No, the SWP does not.

Yes it does. It is perfectly consistent with the slogan "We are all Hezbollah!"

I didn't get this from the Weekly Worker, by the way, but from other left sources that emphasize this more in their national liberation attitudes. [Because the CPGB only talks of an "alliance with political Islam," to quote Macnair.]


The SWP argues that as long as Afghanistan remains under imperialist occupation the main object of political struggle for the working class, insofar as there is a working class in Afghanistan, will be the occupation, and not the exploitation of the domestic ruling class

Say the same opportunists who backed the reactionary mujahedeen against the "imperialist" Soviets? State capitalists they may have been (right from the Bolshevik beginning), but only in rare instances did they export finance capital, and Afghanistan was not such an instance. :rolleyes:

[Irish commie]

I would also like to add that the presence of the occupation is in fact increasing taliban support and it is possible that much of this will be lost when the occupers leave. The IRA in the Ireland were always quite catholic conservative but we by in large supported them on the basis that they were fighting a imperialistic occupation. Whatever the situation in afhganistan it is the right of the afghani people no to be occupied.

[Wanted Man]

In areas where imperialism wins, the workers movement eventually recovers.

Where and when did that happen? :confused: Even if what you said happens every single time, correlation still does not imply causation.

[Psy]

The real question is whether a victory for imperialism or a victory for reactionary Islam is worse for the workers. In areas where imperialism wins, the workers movement eventually recovers. As far as I know, wherever reactionary Islam has taken power, the workers have not revived their movements. On the other hand, a defeat for imperialism lessens its grip around the world, so a defeat in Afghanistan makes it harder for the US to maintain control in Latin America.

What about Iran, the working class in Iran seems to shaking the reactionary capitalist Islam state. Reactionary Islam doesn't seem to have any support inside of Iran outside of the state thus we have Iranian riots being everyone else vs the Iranian state where even the petite-bourgeoisie joined in the riots against the state. If you ask me reactionary Islam has no staying power thus no long term threat to the working class.

[BobKKKindle$]

Yes it does. It is perfectly consistent with the slogan "We are all Hezbollah!"Firstly, regardless of whether you think that this is consistent with supporting the Taliban or not, you put "call for a Taliban victory" in quotation marks, so unless you can provide evidence that the SWP used that phrase in its literature or as a slogan, you seem to be decieving people on purpose, which is exactly what I would expect of you and your friends in the CPGB. Secondly, the slogan "We are all Hezbollah!" in no way infers that we do not support other sections of the Lebanese resistance or that we would be oppossed to a revolutionary party taking the place of Hezbollah as the dominant section of the resistance, it was simply intended to emphasize our opposition to the way Hezbollah was being characterized, i.e. as a fanatical Islamist movement with no popular support outside of the Shia community that is/was just as bad as (if not worse than) the Israeli state. It was not endorsed by the party centre so they evidently felt that there was something wrong with it, but I personally thought it was fine, as long as you understand it in the context of what was happening at the time.


Say the same opportunists who backed the reactionary mujahedeen against the "imperialist" Soviets?Once again, we did not give support specifically to the Mujahideen, we supported the whole of the resistance movement, including groups such as RAWA, even though we were never under the illussion that any of them were revolutionary. The fact that the Soviet Union did not export finance capital to Afghanistan or most other countries does not undermine the imperialist nature of the occupation. Not all wars are imperialist in the sense that the imperialist power seeks to invest in the territory they are occupying (this was not true of Israel's war against Gaza, for example) but they are still imperialist wars insofar as they are designed to secure the interests of the ruling class of the imperialist country, including the protection of its investments and markets elsewhere, and the victory of the imperialist power in such conflicts strengthens imperialism as a world-system and imposes an additional constraint on the class consciousness of workers inside the imperialist power itself and inside the country that has fallen under occupation. By arguing that the invasion of Afghanistan was not imperialist just because the Soviets didn't want to invest in Afghanistan you are implying that during the imperialist epoch of capitalism it is possible for some wars to be imperialist and others not, whereas we Marxists understand that imperialism was and is an all-encompassing world-system, such that it is impossible to understand the actions of any state without reference to that world-system and the interests of individual states (and other political actors) within it.


(right from the Bolshevik beginning)Why does it not surprise me that you deny the ability of working people to abolish capitalism and build a society based on their own interests?

[chegitz guevara]

Where and when did that happen? :confused: Even if what you said happens every single time, correlation still does not imply causation.

Look throughout Latin America.

[chegitz guevara]

What about Iran, the working class in Iran seems to shaking the reactionary capitalist Islam state. Reactionary Islam doesn't seem to have any support inside of Iran outside of the state thus we have Iranian riots being everyone else vs the Iranian state where even the petite-bourgeoisie joined in the riots against the state. If you ask me reactionary Islam has no staying power thus no long term threat to the working class.

Iran is different, and I didn't include it deliberately. The revolution in Iran in 1979 was a workers revolution. There were even workers councils in 1979. Political power was consolidated by the clerical class, but they were never able to crush the workers movement.

[chegitz guevara]

It seems that the inevitable conclusion of this sorry line of argument is to oppose demands like "troops out now", given that it is Islamists who are leading the resistance in many countries, and would probably gain power in the event of the occupation being expelled, if only for a short period of time.

It seems that way, yes. Marx didn't oppose all imperialist adventures. He supported the Austrians attacking the Ottomans and seizing Bosnia-Herzegovina. So, even if Marx was wrong, I have to admit the possibility that sometimes imperialism might actually be progressive compared to other social forces. I don't believe this is the case, but I need to investigate it. Marxists need to be unafraid to confront their own dogmas.

[A.R.Amistad]

Here is Socialist Action's view on the subject.

http://www.socialistaction.org/ritscher10.htm

[Devrim]

Iran is different, and I didn't include it deliberately. The revolution in Iran in 1979 was a workers revolution. There were even workers councils in 1979. Political power was consolidated by the clerical class, but they were never able to crush the workers movement.

The working class in Iran was absolutely crushed in the 80s and thousands of communists were murdered. What are you talking about?


It seems that way, yes. Marx didn't oppose all imperialist adventures. He supported the Austrians attacking the Ottomans and seizing Bosnia-Herzegovina. So, even if Marx was wrong, I have to admit the possibility that sometimes imperialism might actually be progressive compared to other social forces. I don't believe this is the case, but I need to investigate it. Marxists need to be unafraid to confront their own dogmas.

Why did he support it though? I think that the answer to that question is more interesting than the fact that he did support it. It is deeply connected to the period, and I think that it is clear from Marx's work that he wouldn't take that position today.

Devrim

[Wanted Man]

Look throughout Latin America.

Depending on how you define "recover", you could say the same thing about Iran, but it would also be false (as Devrim pointed out). In several Latin American countries, reactionary forces allied to the US not only entered office, but they also managed to utterly crush the workers' movement, as well as any other opposition. Why do you think they took power in the first place?

Of course the workers' movement "recovered" after being completely devastated, it wasn't going to get much worse, was it? By that point, it became acceptable to legalise unions again, stop sending in the army to shoot protestors, etc. The task had been completed.

Now it is going the other way again, but do you really think that this will be allowed to happen forever, especially once it actually risks putting them out of business for good? Of course not, we've already seen the coup attempt in Venezuela in 2002, the secessionists in Bolivia, the coup in Honduras, etc. The workers' movement in these countries has "recovered", but it's nowhere near to actually taking power, and there is not the bogeyman of the Soviet Union this time, but that doesn't stop all the attempts to violently repress them before it's too late.

So anyway, maybe we should support the coup in Honduras; once they've offed all the union leaders and restored "democracy", maybe the workers' movement will "recover" after all! :rolleyes: So yeah, have fun investigating and confronting your dogmas on this issue...

[chegitz guevara]

Way to completely miss the point. Of course, when confronting dogmas, that is to be expected.

Here's the thing, just because you questions something, doesn't mean you reject it. It means you test it, and see it it really applies. Too often I see from my fellow comrades a knee jerk response to something, no thought.

Anyway, the workers movements in Latin America were not crushed utterly. They were suppressed, but, for example, the labor movement was key in bringing down the Brazilian dictatorship. Labor helped bring down the dictatorship in Argentina. Workers continued striking during the Bolivian dictatorship, etc.

Even in Iran, despite the severe repression the labor movement faced, it was never destroyed. It continued to exist and kept coming back. We don't see that in the Gulf states. We don't see it in KoSA. We don't see it in Afghanistan.

A lot of leftists are invested in a brown-red alliance. They are so opposed to imperialism that they fail to recognize they are allying with an enemy of labor. One which will turn on them in the moment of victory. One which will grind them into paste.

No, maybe that's a hit we have to take. Maybe our choices are between two different defeats. I'd like to see an option for a victory over both enemies, but one can't will it into being. In any event, which defeat is worse? From which defeat will it be easier to recover?

[ibram]

"the victory of the resistance is the most favorable outcome for the working class, because every blow to imperialism is in the workers' interests"

Then you think Stalin was quite right when said:
“The struggle of the Emir of Afghanistan for the independence of Afghanistan is an objectively revolutionary struggle, in spite of the monarchistic cast of the views of the Emir and his associates since it weakens, disunites and undermines imperialism”?

[BobKKKindle$]

chegitz guevara, you seem to be taking a confused position here, this thread is not about whether socialists should embrace Islamist movements, because they clearly shouldn't for all of the reasons you've mentioned, this thread is about whether it is right for socialists to support workers and peasants when they struggle against imperialism in countries like Afghanistan even when their resistance struggle is centered around Islamist organizations and movements like the Taliban. We have seen that when workers are living under the rule of an occupying power the effect is to undermine the intensity of domestic class struggle because the presence of the occupation represents the most immediate and intense source of oppression for those workers, such that, as long as it remains in place, the occupation will be the main object of political struggle, and workers may turn to reactionary movements like Hamas when their is no revolutionary organization capable of leading the resistance, even when these movements are led by hostile class forces and clamp down on trade union rights. It is only when the occupation has been removed that we can expect class struggle to emerge, because only at this point is it possible for workers to turn their attention away from the threat of being bombed and shelled every day, i.e. what working people endure when their country is targeted by imperialism, and towards concerns that are directly linked to their status as workers and bring them into contact with domestic elites, such as trade union rights and working conditions. Although you are right in saying that the working class was never strong in Afghanistan under the Taliban, there is no reason to believe that there would be an increase in working-class militancy if the occupation succeeded in destroying the Taliban, not only because workers would continue to fight against the occupation, but also because, as one of the most underdeveloped countries in the world, most of Afghanistan's population continues to work on the land, and there has never been a revolutionary party capable of mobilizing urban residents.


Then you think Stalin was quite right when said: Not really, because no independence struggle is revolutionary in the sense of posing a threat to the existing mode of production, and, in any case, it seems to me foolish to try and undermine someone's (in this case, my) credibility by giving them a quote from someone whom they regard as a reactionary and getting them to agree with it - whatever he might have said at some point in time, Stalin was the representative of a bureaucratic class, which ruled an imperialist state.

[manic expression]

It seems that way, yes. Marx didn't oppose all imperialist adventures. He supported the Austrians attacking the Ottomans and seizing Bosnia-Herzegovina. So, even if Marx was wrong, I have to admit the possibility that sometimes imperialism might actually be progressive compared to other social forces. I don't believe this is the case, but I need to investigate it. Marxists need to be unafraid to confront their own dogmas.

Not to make any sort of statement on that, but there are a few things I'd like to add. Imperialism hadn't come into existence at that point, IIRC. Further, the Ottoman Empire was still figuring out whether they would legalize the printing press in the 19th Century, so there are some feasible reasons for the argument you mentioned. Just a few things to consider.

[chegitz guevara]

You make a strong case, BobKKKindle$, and one that I had not considered.

[Lyev]

I'm kind of echoing what others have said here, but for me it's a question of priority; in the current conditions, who do you want removed first? The western imperialists or the native Taleban? You can't remove both at once, obviously, and I don't think NATO have made any process in pinning down and eradicating a guerrilla army propelled by extremism. They can kill as many Taleban as they want, but they simply can't eradicate the belief that the Islamist extremists uphold. Anyway, if eradication of the Taleban is really their sole aim in the east, I guess they're shooting themselves in the foot- the native Afghanis indefinitely don't want foreign armed men in their land so the most obvious form of resistance to such an occupation is to align the Taleban.

But, anyway, back to the point; I see it as a kind of pile and the things at the top of the pile need removing first before anything else below the pile can be done away with. At the top of the pile are the imperialists, then the Taleban, then the Afghan ruling class, then finally the normal Afghan workers. First the foreign, oppressive imperialists need removing, then the equally oppressive Taleban, then finally can the ruling classes be dealt with. In a ideal world they could be all be removed in one fell swoop, but that simply won't happen.

[blake 3:17]

The occupation pushes people into the Taliban.

From the Associated Press:

DEA agents among 14 Americans dead in Afghanistan

By ROBERT H. REID and HEIDI VOGT (AP) – 22 hours ago

KABUL — A U.S. military helicopter crashed Monday while returning from the scene of a firefight with suspected Taliban drug traffickers in western Afghanistan, killing 10 Americans including three DEA agents in a not-so-noticed war within a war.
Four more troops were killed when two helicopters collided over southern Afghanistan, making it the deadliest day for U.S. forces in this country in more than four years.
U.S. military officials insisted neither crash was believed a result of hostile fire, although the Taliban claimed they shot down a U.S. helicopter in the western province of Badghis. The U.S. did not say where in western Afghanistan its helicopter went down, and no other aircraft were reported missing.
The second crash took place when two U.S. Marine helicopters — a UH-1 and an AH-1 Cobra — collided in flight before sunrise over the southern province of Helmand, killing four American troops and wounding two more, Marine spokesman Maj. Bill Pelletier said.
The casualties marked the Drug Enforcement Administration's first deaths since it began operations here in 2005. Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium — the raw ingredient in heroin — and the illicit drug trade is a major source of funding for insurgent groups. Full AP story here: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hvWEqwq3CrRvaQCmt21MfoYhjZJQD9BJ27AG0

I find it a bit sad to find anything cheerful in death, but every Westerner killed speeds up the process of us getting out.

As I believe I said above, we need get our troops out immediately and stop the eradication of opium poppies. If the NATO countries actually cared about the Afghani people they'd be buying the poppies or crude opium at decent market rates.