Syria and Burma as Worker's States???

[Proletarian Ultra]

The wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformed_workers'_state) claims that CWI once considered Syria and Burma to be deformed worker's states. Is this accurate? If so, are they the only group to have done so?

[Q]

The wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformed_workers'_state) claims that CWI once considered Syria and Burma to be deformed worker's states. Is this accurate? If so, are they the only group to have done so?

Too bad the claim is unsourced and I can't find any such references on socialistworld.net either. Does anyone have a source to back up this claim?

Edit:
Ah, it seems to come from this piece from 1978 (http://www.marxist.com/TUT/TUT4-4.html). Could anyone confirm or deny about this?

[Lulznet]

How can Burma be a Workers State when it has a Anti-Communist Junta in power? :rolleyes:

[Bonobo1917]

I found this: http://http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/1415 It is an article from 2004, from a member of the Swedish CWI section, published with no comment that indicates the CWI as such does not agree. Therefore, I take it that this is more or less the CWI vision back then.

The article explains how under Ne Win's dictatorship (from 1962 onwards) nationalisation became the policy. A quote: "All foreign corporations, banks and bigger companies were nationalised and capitalism was eliminated from Burma. The larger private savings were confiscated with no or little compensation." Capitalism was abolished, according to the author!

Another quote: "Ne Win’s regime was a primitive imitation of Stalinism in the Soviet Union or China, disguised with "Buddhist ideas". " A third one: "Instead of a worker’s revolution in Burma, it was the military elite that found a way out of the crisis by creating a replica of the Stalinist regimes in China and the Soviet Union."

Well, as the CWI considered the Soviet Union and China to be workers' states back then, it follows that they consider Burma's regime under Ne Win to be a workers'state as well. They don'n t use the term 'workers state'in regard to Burma. But they apply the concept. Wikipedia's claim seems te me correct, as far as Burma is concerned at least.

I find it all a bit absurd. But that is because a theory which says that you have workers' states just because the whole economy is nationalised and under forms of 'central planning' is itself an absurd theory. At least the CWI was consistent: USSR under Stalin a workers' state? Burma under Ne Win also a workers' state. I would say both were neither, but that is another matter.

[danyboy27]

How can Burma be a Workers State when it has a Anti-Communist Junta in power? :rolleyes:

well, there was a rambo movie on it, so...they are probably commies for 54% of the world now.

http://www.damonx.com/images/cine-rambo2.jpg

[mosfeld]

I don't really know a lot about Syria. But Syria, alongside with Libya, are as far as I know the only two Arab countries who support the Palestinian resistance and are radically Anti-Zionist. Not to mention that the largest protest against the Gaza War took place in Damascus with a whole 1 million people showing up. That's a plus, I guess. I watched a documentary called "Vacation in the Axis of Evil" or something like that and the streets were flooded with pro-Palestinian merchandise. I thought it was fairly cool.

On topic though, It's not a workers state. Neither is Burma.

[Sasha]

well, syria's rulling party is baath'ist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria#Baath_Party_rule_under_Hafez_al-Assad.2C_1970.E2.80.932000)

since baath'ism is in name (arab) socialist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baath_Party) its no suprise socialist movements initaly supported baathism

[Proletarian Ultra]

well, syria's rulling party is baath'ist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria#Baath_Party_rule_under_Hafez_al-Assad.2C_1970.E2.80.932000)

since baath'ism is in name (arab) socialist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baath_Party) its no suprise socialist movements initaly supported baathism


The Baath party governs Syria as part of a popular front that includes two factions of the communist party. Up until a couple of years ago, the popular front included only socialist and left-wing nationalist parties. The possible exception to that, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, is a signatory to the Pyongyang Declaration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyongyang_Declaration) anyway.

Syria's Ba'ath party was extremely radical-left when it took power under Salah Jadid - at one point they were talking about people's war in the Middle East. By that point the Syrians had purged the right-wing party founders. Less so under Assad, but Syria had/still has a very large nationalized sector.

So...Syria is a bit of a puzzle if you accept certain premises about states...

[Jolly Red Giant]

Edit:
Ah, it seems to come from this piece from 1978 (http://www.marxist.com/TUT/TUT4-4.html). Could anyone confirm or deny about this?
I can confirm it - the CWI did regard Syria and Burma as deformed workers states. The document you link to was a discussion document between the CWI and the NSSP in Sri Lanka in 1978. At the time discussions were taking place about the NSSP affiliation to the CWI.

I would suggest reading the document as it primarily addresses the issue of the permanent revolution in the neo-colonial world and discusses the nature of deformed workers states in the neo-colonial world.

[Saorsa]

So far was Mao from the model of the proletarian revolution that on entering Shanghai and other cities, workers who had seized their factories and met Mao with demonstrations of red flags were instantly shot in order to 'restore order'!
:confused:
:mad:
:confused:
:lol:

T is for Trotsky... but apparently not for 'truth'.

[Jolly Red Giant]

T is for Trotsky... but apparently not for 'truth'.

M is for Maoist...and also for 'misguided'

[AK]

I laughed at the title of this thread... then realised some idiot years ago believed it to be true... then I laughed even harder.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Ted Grant, the leader of the group that the CWI came out of, argued that Syria and Burma were deformed worker's states:

"The Cuban Revolution, beginning with bourgeois democratic leadership and aims, ended in the organisation of a form of Proletarian Bonapartism. The Ethiopian revolution, like that of Syria and Burma, seems to be developing on the lines of sections of the officer corps, leaning on the support of the workers and peasants, purging the country of feudalism and then with the incapacity and feebleness of the native bourgeois carrying the revolution through by expropriating the bourgeoisie which has shown itself incapable of leading the fight for the development of a modern economy. With the backwardness of the country, the limited understanding of the military caste leadership leads them to accept 'socialism', i.e. the military-bureaucratic caste system on the model of Russia, China and Cuba, as the solution to the problems of economic expansion so imperatively necessary for the country. The economic might of Russia and China, which is abolishing backwardness with seven-league boots, acts as a mighty magnet. The narrow national limitedness of the rulers in Stalinist states far from repelling them acts as a mighty attraction. Not least of the attractions consists in the organisation of 'socialism' and the privileges of the military and bureaucratic castes, which the intelligentsia and military middle layers would consider to be the natural order of society." - Ted Grant, The Iberian Revolution (http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/1975/05/iberia.htm)

[Saorsa]

M is for Maoist...and also for 'misguided'

Even gonna try and defend the lies your wee 'international' was telling about the Chinese Revolution? Or alternatively, provide some evidence that Mao was met by striking workers who he promptly ordered shot?

I doubt it. Not really your style. But I'm sure you have some cops or prison guards to go hang out with, or a fascist murderer to arrange a speaking tour for :)