National Liberation - China as an example

[Lyev]

I understand that some socialist currents are opposed to struggles for self-determination. Why? Is it because it sometimes entails an alliance with the "progressive national bourgeoisie"? I think alliance is the foundation behind Mao's "Bloc of Four Classes" or whatever it is. But then, using China as an example, when Mao aligned himself with Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang didn't these bourgeois nationalists end up betraying the workers' movement by executing actual Trotskyists and Marxist-Leninists? I think this is right.

Yet would it have been possible for Mao to free himself from French, British and Japanese imperialism without allying himself with "progressive bourgeois" nationalists? And I actually think he seized on quite a prominent nationalist sentiment as a way of rallying people to his cause. Did he need to ally himself with the Kuomintang? If a deal between him and them was totally necessary, then we are left in a quandary because freeing yourself from imperialism is then made impossible without a seemingly reactionary, anti-worker move.

But then what do those in opposition to national liberation posit as an alternative? I mean, what is an indigenous population supposed to do? Sit complacently and be oppressed, or do something decisive about it? I hear Frantz Fanon has written some very astute about this whole issue. He was on the Algerian side, in the fight for independence from the French; is that right? I do actually have a copy of The Wretched of the Earth, but have yet to read it. Anyway, thanks in advance for your replies comrades.

[Red Commissar]

But then what do those in opposition to national liberation posit as an alternative? I mean, what is an indigenous population supposed to do? Sit complacently and be oppressed, or do something decisive about it?

I'm interested in hearing an answer about this too, really.

[Ismail]

A good read: http://ml-review.ca/aml/China/historymaotable.html

In any case, Mao Zedong was a pseudo-communist. His policies were distrusted by the Comintern, and even Mao himself admitted in the 1950's that "Stalin suspected that ours was a victory of the Tito type" on account of Mao's rightist views. Whereas the 1920's and early 1930's CCP called for proletarian revolution in the cities under the Marxist-Leninist theory, Mao instead monopolized control within the CCP, shat upon actual Communists entrusted by the Comintern, pursued his revisionist "People's War" scheme, and had the peasantry dominate everything.

Stalin himself warned the CCP pre-Right-Guomindang-massacre-of-the-Communists that:

It is necessary to adopt the course of arming the workers and peasants and converting the peasant committees in the localities into actual organs of governmental authority equipped with armed self-defence, etc.. The CP must not come forward as a brake on the mass movement; the CP should not cover up the treacherous and reactionary policy of the Kuomintang Rights, and should mobilise the masses around the Kuomintang and the CCP on the basis of exposing the Rights... The Chinese revolution is passing through a critical period, and.. it can achieve further victories only by resolutely adopting the course of developing the mass movement. Otherwise a tremendous danger threatens the revolution. The fulfilment of directives is therefore more necessary than ever before.The CC of the CCP pretty much ignored this.

Speaking of matters in general, Stalin stated that:

The victory of the revolution cannot be achieved unless this bloc is smashed, but in order to smash this bloc, fire must be concentrated on the compromising national bourgeoisie, its treachery exposed, the toiling masses freed from its influence, and the conditions necessary of the hegemony of the proletariat systematically prepared. In other words, in colonies like India it is a matter of preparing the proletariat for the role of leader of the liberation movement, step by step dislodging the bourgeoisie and its mouthpieces from this honourable post.

The task is to create an anti-imperialist bloc and to ensure the hegemony of the proletariat in this bloc. This bloc can assume although it need not always necessarily do so, the form of a single Workers and Peasants Party, formally bound by a single platform. In such centuries the independence of the Communist Party must be, the chief slogan of the advanced communist elements, of the hegemony of the proletariat can be prepared and brought about by the Communist party. But the communist party can and must enter into an open bloc with the revolutionary part of the bourgeoisie in order, after isolating the compromising national bourgeoisie, to lead the vast masses of the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie in the struggle against imperialism.See: http://ml-review.ca/aml/China/NotesChina.htm

The CCP should have actually remained on a Marxist-Leninist course, not a right-wing one as preached by Mao.

[blake 3:17]

I mean, what is an indigenous population supposed to do? Sit complacently and be oppressed, or do something decisive about it?

An oppressed people won't just sit by -- resistance WILL happen. It's a question of who participates and how.


I hear Franz Fanon has written some very astute about this whole issue. He was on the Algerian side, in the fight for independence from the French; is that right? I do actually have a copy of The Wretched of the Earth, but have yet to read it. Anyway, thanks in advance for your replies comrades.
__________________


Fanon did warn about what did happen in Algeria. Read it.

Edited to add:
In any case, Mao Zedong was a pseudo-communist. His policies were distrusted by the Comintern, and even Mao himself admitted in the 1950's that "Stalin suspected that ours was a victory of the Tito type" on account of Mao's rightist views. Whereas the 1920's and early 1930's CCP called for proletarian revolution in the cities under the Marxist-Leninist theory, Mao instead monopolized control within the CCP, shat upon actual Communists entrusted by the Comintern, pursued his revisionist "People's War" scheme, and had the peasantry dominate everything.


I've never come across this from a Stalinist perspective -- these attitudes are what I generally criticize my Trot friends for...

[Barry Lyndon]

Pay no attention to Hoxha fellator Ismail, to whom the words of Stalin are truth in and of themselves, because they flow from the mouth of the one-man proletariat in the office chair. Never mind that Stalin himself told the Chinese Communist Party to dissolve themselves into the 'progressive' Guomindang, even telling them to hand over their membership lists to Chiang-Kai-Shek. This led to a predictable betrayal on the part of the Guomindang in 1927 and the massacre of up to 200,000 Chinese leftists and trade unionists in Shanghai and elsewhere. It was out of this almost total destruction of the communists urban base that the Mao put forth his peasantry-centric strategy. Stalin then washed his hands of the whole matter and supported the Guomindang all the way up to their collapse in the late 1940's.
Unlike Ismail, I tend to judge leaders based on their actions and policies rather then their words.

With regards to national liberation in general, I think that it depends on the circumstances-there's no one-size-fits-all approach. Usually the Communists themselves start out too small and weak to overthrow imperialism on their own, they usually need to collaborate to some degree with other political forces, some of which may be reactionary. To say otherwise is ultra-left and idealist. I guess the important distinction to be made is between socialists temporarily allying themselves with those political forces and those subordinating themselves to them. I think of how the PFLP aligns itself with Hamas at the moment to resist the Israeli occupation, for instance.

[Invincible Summer]

With regards to national liberation in general, I think that it depends on the circumstances-there's no one-size-fits-all approach. Usually the Communists themselves start out too small and weak to overthrow imperialism on their own, they usually need to collaborate to some degree with other political forces, some of which may be reactionary. To say otherwise is ultra-left and idealist. I guess the important distinction to be made is between socialists temporarily allying themselves with those political forces and those subordinating themselves to them. I think of how the PFLP aligns itself with Hamas at the moment to resist the Israeli occupation, for instance.


This x 10 000. To try and apply any method verbatim in terms of anti-Imperialism, socialist revolution, etc is not only idealistic, but it negates material analysis.

[Barry Lyndon]

To focus on the current situation, I'd like to know the anti-national liberation stance on the defeat of imperialism and liberation of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. Do they oppose the withdrawal/defeat of imperialist troops in those countries because that would be "supporting Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan imperialism"?

As a separate question, what is the Hoxhaist stance on Soviet revisionism? They seem to be toeing the post-Stalin Soviet line on Maoism.

I have discovered that ultra-lefts of various stripes(whichdoctor being a prime example), cover their white nationalism and First World chauvinism in attacking 'Third World nationalism/populism/identity politics'. They don't understand that it is difficult for people suffering under imperialist rule to grasp their high-minded liberal cosmopolitanism, and instead be focused on driving murderous invaders out of their country.
Of course national liberation is not socialism, but it is a step in the right direction. Clearly, traditional national liberation has no succeeded in breaking the chains of neo-colonialism, but that doesn't discredit national liberation per se, that only means it needs to be re-evaluated.

[Ismail]

Never mind that Stalin himself told the Chinese Communist Party to dissolve themselves into the 'progressive' Guomindang, even telling them to hand over their membership lists to Chiang-Kai-Shek.I've already just noted that the CC of the CCP ignored Stalin's concerns (and subsequent Comintern directives), which stressed caution and that "It is necessary to adopt the course of arming the workers and peasants and converting the peasant committees in the localities into actual organs of governmental authority equipped with armed self-defence, etc."

Furthermore the Guomindang was indeed seen as progressive. How could it not when Sun Yat-sen openly praised Lenin, when Sun was stressing the importance of the Chinese revolution following a "Russian pattern" in a private letter to Chiang,* and when the Guomindang was widely seen as a party "subservient to Moscow" by various Western powers? Don't forget that from 1928-1932 the CCP continued to work with the left-wing of the Guomindang against Chiang Kai-shek.


This led to a predictable betrayal on the part of the Guomindang in 1927 and the massacre of up to 200,000 Chinese leftists and trade unionists in Shanghai and elsewhere. It was out of this almost total destruction of the communists urban base that the Mao put forth his peasantry-centric strategy. Stalin then washed his hands of the whole matter and supported the Guomindang all the way up to their collapse in the late 1940's."Predictable" how? The leader of the Guomindang in 1927 was Wang Jingwei, who was a left-winger and who called for greater cooperation between the Guomindang and the CCP. Chiang Kai-shek initiated a coup d'état. It wasn't predictable. The Guomindang went from being seen as a pro-Soviet organization to being split into a left and right-wing whose leaders were hostile to each other. The left continued to be seen as pro-Soviet and both wings were seen as being able to beat one-another.

I ask you to read a link I noted in my last post, because I think it establishes pretty well that it was, in the main, the CCP which took bad lines including excessive trust of the Guomindang in all of its forms, not Stalin (or the Comintern): http://ml-review.ca/aml/China/NotesChina.htm (http://www.anonym.to/?http://ml-review.ca/aml/China/NotesChina.htm)

Mao's peasant-centric "strategies" were anti-Marxist. Hoxha noted this.
Lenin said that in the period of imperialism, in every revolution, hence, also in the democratic revolution, the anti-imperialist national liberation revolution and the socialist revolution, the leadership must belong to the proletariat. Although he talked about the role of the proletariat, in practice Mao Tsetung underestimated its hegemony in the revolution and elevated the role of the peasantry. Mao Tsetung has said: "....the resistance to Japanese occupiers now going on is essentially peasant resistance. Essentially, the politics of New Democracy means giving power to the peasants"....

Mao Tsetung also preached the thesis on the hegemonic role of the peasantry in the revolution as the road of the world revolution. Herein lies the source of the anti-Marxist concept that considers the so-called third world, which in Chinese political literature is also called "the countryside of the world", as the "main motive force for the transformation of present-day society". According to the Chinese views, the proletariat is a secondrate social force, which cannot play that role which Marx and Lenin envisaged in the struggle against capitalism and the triumph of the revolution, in alliance with all the forces oppressed by capital.

The Chinese revolution has been dominated by the petty-and middle bourgeoisie. This broad stratum of the petty-bourgeoisie has influenced the whole development of China.

Mao Tsetung did not base himself on the Marxist-Leninist theory which teaches us that the peasantry, the petty-bourgeoisie in general, is vacillating. Of course, the poor and middle peasantry play an important role in the revolution and must become the close ally of the proletariat. But the peasant class, the petty-bourgeoisie, cannot lead the proletariat in the revolution. To think and preach the opposite means to be against Marxism-Leninism. Herein lies one of the main sources of the anti-Marxist views of Mao Tsetung, which have had a negative influence on the whole Chinese revolution. The Communist Party of China has not been clear in theory about the basic revolutionary guiding principle of the hegemonic role of the proletariat in the revolution, and consequently it did not apply it in practice properly and consistently.(Imperialism and the Revolution, 1978, pp. 420-423.)



Unlike Ismail, I tend to judge leaders based on their actions and policies rather then their words.Revisionism starts in words and is carried out in actions. This is why we talk about the "Secret Speech" of Khrushchev in 1956, which was "words," but which the effects of were made pretty clearly in the ensuring years as the USSR dismantled attempts at socialist construction and pursued an anti-communist foreign policy.

From the rightist "Three Flowers Campaign" and insistence from the very start of the "four blocs" of China and that socialist construction would not become a reality for "a long time" (Chou Enlai, 1949, quoted in International Herald Tribune, August 14, 1978, cited by Hoxha, p. 434.) onwards into the anti-Marxist "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" which was more of a military putsch and which practically liquidated the CCP. Not to mention Mao's anti-communist foreign policy, which aligned Chinese interests with American ones, and the formation of the "Three Worlds Theory," which was so blatantly revisionist that even a vast majority of Maoists reject it.

* Shao Chuan Leng and Norman D. Palmer. Sun Yat-sen and Communism. New York: Frederick A. Praeger Publishers. 1960. pp. 75-76. Ironically enough Sun considered Wang Jingwei, who would be the head of the Left Guomindang, as being able "to accept this policy" yet Sun himself apparently saw Chiang as sufficiently left-wing at the time of his death to send letters with such content in them.

[ContrarianLemming]

didn't these bourgeois nationalists end up betraying the workers' movement by executing actual Trotskyists and Marxist-Leninists? I think this is right.

Do you have any idea how many socialists Mao killed?

[Ismail]

Do you have any idea how many socialists Mao killed?Indeed. Gao Gang and other Marxist-Leninists who Mao was afraid of due to their "closeness" to the Soviet Union under Stalin and their support of Marxism-Leninism were killed and/or driven from public life because they noted Mao's pseudo-communism and conciliatory views towards the "patriotic" bourgeoisie.

[Lenin II]

Pay no attention to Hoxha fellator Ismail, to whom the words of Stalin are truth in and of themselves, because they flow from the mouth of the one-man proletariat in the office chair. Never mind that Stalin himself told the Chinese Communist Party to dissolve themselves into the 'progressive' Guomindang, even telling them to hand over their membership lists to Chiang-Kai-Shek.

That is a very odd statement coming from you, a Trot who admires Mao.

Apparently, so did Mao:


Mao Zedong, the Secretary of the Communist Party of China, states about the cooperation of the Japanese with the Trotskyists: 'only a short while ago in one of the divisions of the Eighth Revolutionary Peoples' Army, a man by the name of Yu Shih was exposed as a member of the Shanghai Trotskyist organisation. The Japanese had sent him there from Shanghai so that he could do espionage work in the Eighth Army and carry out sabotage work.
'In the central districts of Hebei the Trotskyists organised a 'Partisan-Company' on the direct instructions of the Japanese headquarters and called it a 'Second Section of the Eighth Army'. In March the two battalions of this company organised a mutiny but these bandits were surrounded by the Eighth Army and disarmed. In the Border Region such people are arrested by the peasant self-defence units which carry out a bitter struggle against traitors and spies.
'Trotskyist agents are being sent to the Border Regions where they systematically apply all methods in their sabotage work against the cooperation of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. They try to destroy the morale of the soldiers of the Eighth Army, the students and the people of the Border Regions. They try to incite people against the United Front, against the Central Government, against the war of independence, against Marshal Chiang Kaishek.'



'China is not only determined to beat the Japanese but also to strengthen the National and United Front and to extend it. Only very few people want to have an understanding with the Japanese and fight against the Central Anti-Japanese Government and the United Front... If we do not destroy these people then it will be difficult to be victorious against the Japanese. But the Chinese people - and with them the Communists, the progressive elements in the Kuomintang and the other parties - are determined to carry out the struggle to a victorious conclusion.'

http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv3n2/trotsky.htm

[Ismail]

And of course Bill Bland in the first chapter of his Class Struggles in China (linked to in my first post and in my signature) notes how Mao basically wanted the CCP to be subservient to the right-wing (then the only wing) of the Guomindang—Chiang Kai-shek, post-World War II, after the Japanese were expelled from the country.

[Ismail]

As a separate question, what is the Hoxhaist stance on Soviet revisionism? They seem to be toeing the post-Stalin Soviet line on Maoism.The USSR was a state-capitalist and social-imperialist power by the 1960's.

As Hoxha said in 1969:

The recent events, especially those in Czechoslovakia, are a catastrophic defeat for the whole of modern revisionism, which most obviously indicates its complete degeneration, especially of the head of modern revisionism—the Khrushchevite clique of the Soviet Union, into a social-fascist and social-imperialist clique. Nobody should allow himself to be deceived by the maneouvres to conceal this degeneration with demagogy, with the slogans of "internationalism." It is the duty of all the real Marxist-Leninists and revolutionaries to expose and smash this dangerous manoeuvre. In the first place, the Soviet people themselves must rise with determination against this imperialist aggressive course and should not allow the Khrushchevite renegade clique in power to use Soviet men and women, the Soviet armed forces, for the realisation of its imperialist and oppressive aims. One should not forget for a single moment the great teaching of Marx that the people of a country that oppresses other peoples are not and can never be free.And in 1978:

The important task the Marxist-Leninist parties are faced with is to strengthen proletarian internationalism...

By stressing this important line, which is a primary task of the Marxist-Leninist parties in order to be able to launch a frontal attack on world capitalism, its enslaving policy, as well as on its intrigues, trickery and alliances with Soviet, Titoite, Chinese, Italian, French, Spanish and other modern revisionisms, these parties will create a powerful front which will become ever more unbreakable day by day. If they act in unity and all strike at the forces of reaction together, if they expose all the intrigues which capitalism and modern revisionism concoct in various ways in order to put down the revolution and quell the class struggle, their triumph is assured.
The revolutionary alliance of peasants and workers has been part of communism since the beginning. You seem to be espousing a left communist dogma of pure workers revolution. What do you think this flag represents but the peasant-worker alliance?There is a distinct difference between the proletariat and lower peasantry in alliance (with the proletariat in the lead) and the peasant-centric, anti-worker ideology espoused by Mao.

As Hoxha noted in Imperialism and the Revolution:

Experience shows that the peasantry can play its revolutionary role only if it acts in alliance with the proletariat and under its leadership. This was proved in our country during the National Liberation War.

The Albanian peasantry was the main force of our revolution, however it was the working class, despite its very small numbers, which led the peasantry, because the Marxist-Leninist ideology, the ideology of the proletariat, embodied in the Communist Party, today the Party of Labour, the vanguard of the working class, was the leadership of the revolution. That is why we triumphed not only in the National Liberation War, but also in the construction of socialism.

Despite the innumerable difficulties we encountered on our road we scored success one after another. We achieved these successes, in the first place, because the Party thoroughly mastered the essence of the theory of Marx and Lenin, understood what the revolution was, who was making it and who had to lead it, understood that at the head of the working. class, in alliance with the peasantry, there had to be a party of the Leninist type. The communists understood that this party must not be communist only in name but had to be a party which would apply the Marxist-Leninist theory of the revolution and party building in the concrete conditions of our country, which would begin the work for the creation of the new socialist society, following the example of the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union of the time of Lenin and Stalin. This stand gave our Party the victory, gave the country the great political, economic and military strength it has today. Had we acted differently, had we not consistently applied these principles of our great theory, socialism could not have been built in a small country surrounded by enemies, as ours is. Even if we had succeeded in taking power for a moment, the bourgeoisie would have seized it back again, as happened in Greece, where before the struggle had been won, the Greek Communist Party surrendered its weapons to the local reactionary bourgeoisie and British imperialism.

Therefore, the question of hegemony in the revolution is a very important matter of principle because the course and development of the revolution depend on who is leading it.

"Renunciation of the idea of the hegemony," stressed Lenin, "is the most vulgar form of reformism".(Imperialism and the Revolution, pp. 423-424)

As Foto Çami, a theorist of the PLA, said in 1980 of Albania's own revolution:

By making a correct analysis of the economic situation in the country, the ratio of classes, the changes which occurred after the fascist occupation and the complicated international situation during the Second World War, the Party knew how to work out a correct political strategy and tactics, which led to the great historic victory of the people's revolution. It did not stand by, waiting till a high level of economic development was reached, till capitalism developed in extension and the working class could be formed in large numbers, as the various opportunist elements preached, but it hurled itself into action and, in the course of the struggle, created the great alliance with the peasantry which constituted the overwhelming majority of the population of the country, became the architect of the broad union of the Albanian people in the Anti-fascist National Liberation Front, set up a new army of the people and for the people, laid the foundations of the new people's democratic power and connected closely the question of national liberation with the question of social liberation....

Closely connected with the relationship between the economy and politics is also the question of the development of the people's revolution into the socialist revolution. As is known, due to its low level of socio-economic development, Albania in the past did not directly cope with the tasks of the socialist revolution. However, in the historical conditions in which the revolution was carried out in Albania, all the possibilities for the country to go over to socialism existed. In the epoch of imperialism, as Lenin has pointed out, when the world system of the capitalist economy has been created, the economies of individual countries cannot exist as independent units, but as links in the world economy of capitalism. And as long as the imperialist system as a whole is mature for the socialist revolution, then the economic backwardness of the country is not an insurmountable obstacle to the development of the democratic revolution into the socialist revolution. On the other hand, in the period of the fascist occupation of the country and of the Second World War, the tasks of a democratic character were closely interconnected with the tasks of a socialist character. The struggle against fascism in our country was objectively a struggle against the capitalist and imperialist order, fascism being its offspring. The main exploiting classes of the country – the feudal owners and the big bourgeoisie, made common cause with the foreign occupier. The National Liberation War was closely connected with the great Patriotic War of the socialist Soviet Union. This created the objective premises not only for the transformation of the National Liberation War into a deep-going people's revolution, but also for the development of this revolution into a socialist revolution. The decisive factor which utilized these premises and realized this revolutionary process was the leadership of the working class and of its communist party.

... when the people's democratic or national democratic revolutions are guided by the proletariat and its Marxist-Leninist vanguard, then all the possibilities exist, with the solidarity and support of the socialist and revolutionary forces of the world, for the democratic revolution to be transformed into the socialist revolution and these two revolutions to be linked up as two stages of the same and uninterrupted revolutionary process.

With the establishment of the people's power, as the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, after the liberation of the country from the foreign invaders and the local traitors, a new contradiction which is characteristic especially of the countries which embark on the socialist road inheriting a great backwardness from the past, arose in Albania. This was the contradiction between the advanced form of the political power and the backward state of the economy, between the socialist character of the political power and the feudal-bourgeois character of the economic relations. For this contradiction to be resolved it was essential that the centuries-long backwardness of the country should be overcome. The only correct road was that of liquidating the old relations of production, beginning from the liquidation of the hangovers of feudalism and the interference of foreign capital, which were the main cause of this backwardness and their replacement with the new socialist relations of production, which would open a broad road to the development of the forces of production. With the carrying out of the people's revolution the Party had created the essential political conditions for the construction of socialism in Albania, bypassing the painful capitalist road of suffering and misery. The political power, the dictatorship of the proletariat became the main weapon in the hands of the Party, the working class and the working masses for the socialist transformation of the country.Etc. See: http://ciml.250x.com/archive/pla/foto_cami_1980_2.html

So to say that Hoxhaists espouse a "left communist" view of events is absurd considering that Albania was also a predominantly peasant-based society.

[Ismail]

What sources indicate that Maoists have espoused that? Mao stressed the peasantry as the chief ally of the proletariat, but I have not seen where he advocates anti-worker ideology.You're free to read the relevant section of Imperialism and the Revolution online: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/imp_rev/imp_ch6.htm

There is also the aforementioned Class Struggles in China by Bill Bland, which is in my signature and which examines the period of 1935-1997 in China in detail.

[Ismail]

I asked for Maoist sources, not Hoxhaist ones.:)Both Hoxha and Bland quote Mao's works. E.g. Hoxha quotes "Essentially, the politics of New Democracy means giving power to the peasants." (Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, vol. 3, pp. 177-178, Alb. ed.)

Bill Bland's entire writing style is to comment and then quote, over and over again.

[Zanthorus]

I understand that some socialist currents are opposed to struggles for self-determination. Why? Is it because it sometimes entails an alliance with the "progressive national bourgeoisie"?

That's part of it. However a much bigger part is that no isolated nation can hold out on it's own against a much stronger Imperialist power and national "liberation" struggles inevitably end up allying themselves to another Imperialist bloc and becoming a tool of Imperialism.

You will note that the communist groups which support national "liberation" of one form or another are all in someway tied up with soviet or chinese realpolitik. Essentially national "liberation" was useful to those groupings because it helped give more support to their own Imperialist coalitions.


But then what do those in opposition to national liberation posit as an alternative? I mean, what is an indigenous population supposed to do? Sit complacently and be oppressed, or do something decisive about it?

Struggle for an end to Imperialism by uniting with the working class internationally to overthrow capitalism.

[GracchusBabeuf]

Struggle for an end to Imperialism by uniting with the working class internationally to overthrow capitalism.
To focus on the current situation, I'd like to know the anti-national liberation stance on the defeat of imperialism and liberation of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. Do they oppose the withdrawal/defeat of imperialist troops in those countries because that would be "supporting Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan imperialism"??

[Lyev]

That's part of it. However a much bigger part is that no isolated nation can hold out on it's own against a much stronger Imperialist power and national "liberation" struggles inevitably end up allying themselves to another Imperialist bloc and becoming a tool of Imperialism.Is there any source for this? Where has this happened? I don't deny it of course, but a concise and concrete example would prove useful. Did China do so, to rid themselves of British, French and Japanese imperialism? I suppose Vietnam is an example; an alliance with PRC and the USSR to fight off America, and then the French before that, although I'm not sure that funding and aid from the USSR and PRC started properly until America intervened. Why does accepting offers of support from these said countries make Vietnam a "tool" for imperialism? I suppose now we have to prove (or disprove) that the PRC and USSR, respectively, were both imperialist.
You will note that the communist groups which support national "liberation" of one form or another are all in someway tied up with soviet or chinese realpolitik. Essentially national "liberation" was useful to those groupings because it helped give more support to their own Imperialist coalitions.What do you mean? This is kind of irrelevant now since China is most obviously capitalist, in some form or another (we can leave the debates about deformed worker's state vs. state capitalist for another thread) and the USSR no longer exists. So who else is there for for nations to ally themselves with, in the struggle for self-determination? Who, for example (if anyone) has the PFLP aligned themselves with?

[Zanthorus]

?

I would support the withdrawal of troops from those areas and the end of bloodshed yets. However I hold no illusions as to wether or not this would lead the "liberated" country towards socialism. If the struggle to defeat Imperialism doesn't coincide with the international struggle for socialism then the "liberated" country will be forced onto the world market to trade with capitalist countries.


Is there any source for this? Where has this happened? I don't deny it of course, but a concise and concrete example would prove useful.

Cuba is a pretty obvious example.


Did China do so, to rid themselves of British, French and Japanese imperialism?

IIRC, the PLA had aid from the USSR during the civil war.


I'm not sure that funding and aid from the USSR and PRC started properly until America intervened

I don't think it's necessarily relevant at what point the country started recieving backing from the imperialist bloc. The point is that capitalism is an international system. No one country can survive on it's own. Therefore any country which "liberates" itself and especially those that "liberate" themselves in order to install "socialism" are going to need to ally to an Imperialist bloc at one point or another to defend their interests. Even if they don't end up allying with another Imperialist bloc in an explicit military way, capitalism is an international system. No country today can survive without trading it's goods on the world market because there are goods which can only be had from certain places.


Who, for example (if anyone) has the PFLP aligned themselves with?

Well pretty much the entire international community besides Israel and the US opposes the occupation of Gaza and supports the palestinians right to national self-determination.