Homo Songun
19th August 2010, 05:09
From the bowels of archive.org. They ended up leaving CWI, I guess that means they didn't like the response?
MALVINAS WAR 20TH ANNIVERSARY AND THE IS/CWI
May 17, 2002
War is an acid test for the program, perspectives, strategy and tactics of all political formations, particularly those that stand on the left. Everything which is positive, which in action shows a way forward for the working class, is revealed. Conversely, everything that is rotten, which is false, is also laid bare. [PT], Draft: Afghanistan, Islam and the Revolutionary Left
These words from the General Secretary of the Socialist Party of Britain, also a senior member of the International Secretariat of the Committee for a Workers International (IS/CWI) constitute an historical truism. This truism takes on meaning only when applied in the form of an honest and sober analysis of the evolution of political formations policies and activities. A revolutionary socialist organization seeking to build on the legacy of the Bolsheviks in the time of V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky must take this principle most seriously when evaluating itself. To bend facts in order to justify wrong positions of the past in the light of current events leads elsewhere.
We do not draft this memorandum for the joy of arguing about ancient history. [PT] roused this sleeping dog when he resurrected the old discussion on the Malvinas war between British imperialism and semi-colonial Argentina in his Draft: Afghanistan, Islam and the Revolutionary Left Then the May 3, 2002 edition of the British newspaper The Socialist carried an article on the 20th anniversary of the Malvinas war titled "Thatchers war of saving face". This article reiterated the CWIs incorrect, incomplete analysis and the wrong position that flowed from it. In view of the important work to be done in Argentina, we, the Class Struggle Faction of the CWI (CSF), find it necessary to distance ourselves from the wrong positions on war and imperialism put forward by [PT] on behalf of the IS/CWI, and hopefully initiate a process whereby these mistakes and the grave damage they cause our international every time they are raised publicly can be reversed.
Marxism and the Malvinas
In a war between a semi-colony and an imperial power, victory for the imperial power will not only subject the workers and the oppressed of the defeated semi-colony to double oppression (whatever regime exists in the semi-colony plus imperialism), but also spells defeat for the entire international mass movement, including that in the home country of the imperialist aggressor. This is for three reasons. One, imperialisms victory emboldens it to further expand its domination. This victory is then broadcast over the world as a warning of what will happen to the mass movement in other countries should they dare to struggle to meet their historical needs. Two, the imperialist victory generally gives the imperial power additional resources through the enslavement of the semi-colony.
Three, the imperialist power, by means of successfully dragging its own working class to a victorious war, intoxicating it with further chauvinism and nationalism, strengthen its domination over the labor movement of the Metropolis. Therefore, as a rule, revolutionary Marxists tend to support the mass movement in the semi-colony against the imperial power.
In 1976, a military junta came to power in Argentina. During the six years of its rule, this brutal, criminal clique brutally murdered an entire generation of union activists, members of left wing parties, journalists and artists. In 1982, seeking to raise its prestige to a level where it could negotiate its continued existence with Argentinas disgruntled bourgeois parties, the junta invaded the Malvinas Islands - called the Falklands Islands by its imperial overlords in Britain.
The junta launched its attacks under three erroneous assumptions. First, they expected that Britain would just roll over and allow them to take the islands, preferring not to organize a costly military expedition to the other side of the Atlantic in order to retake so insignificant a territory as the Malvinas. Second, in the event that the British did undertake such a venture, the heavily outgunned junta expected that the United States would uphold its Cold War-era treaty to defend Argentina from attack by any extra-continental power. Third, the junta expected that it could control the mass movement of Argentinean workers role in the war.
Anti-imperialist consciousness in Argentina has been traditionally directed against Britain more than any other imperial power. Argentinas long history of anti-imperialist struggle includes their military defeats of British troops in 1806 and 1807; the struggle against British semi-colonization (1920-1940s); and the anti-imperialist consciousness developed during the early national bourgeois period of Juan Peron (1945-51).
Britains domination of the Malvinas has been a source of seething resentment for Argentineans of every social background for more than a century and a half. During the Malvinas War, a mass movement supporting Argentina, not the military junta, developed in Latin America with hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating in the streets of every country, especially Argentina. The mass movement took an anti-imperialist turn against both Britain and the US.
Therefore, even during the first stage of the invasion of the Islands by the Argentineans, before Britain launched its counter-offensive, Argentinean demonstrations had an anti-dictatorial tenor. When the military junta betrayed the fight against imperialism, as Marxists active in the area expected them to do, the mass movement turned on the junta and overthrew them.
The CWI did not offer clear analysis or leadership. The IS claimed that if they had had more information about Latin America, they would have had a different position. In the mid-90s, members of the IS of CWI expressed a desire to correct their mistaken characterizations and political positions during the Malvinas War. We waited in vain for their corrections.
Now, the distribution of [PT]s draft document and this article, re-affirming and deepening the false ideas expressed around the conflict in the 1980s signals a new shift to the right of the present leadership of the CWI. Apparently, they have decided not to search for the truth, but to further entrench themselves in their past mistakes.
This memorandum contains excerpts from the Socialist article. We will also refer to Chapter 20 of [PT]s 1995 book The Rise of Militant. The article is little more than an abridged version of this chapter. Finally, we will quote from [PT]s Draft: Afghanistan, Islam, and the Revolutionary Left.
Our comments about the positions follow each of the quotes. Quotes from both the book and the article are clearly marked between quotation marks and in italics.
To proceed:
The article "Thatchers war of saving face" contains the following sentence:
This minor war between two fading second or third division powers, cynically described as two bald men fighting over a comb, only lasted ten weeks. But it killed 255 British servicemen and some 800 Argentineans.
CSF responds:
The idea that the Malvinas war was between two fading second or third division powers is a factual error of the first order. Out here beneath the blue sky, Britain remains a powerful industrial, military and financial power. It controls what may be the second largest empire in the world, with colonial and semi-colonial holdings on most continents. As in 1982, Britain continues to possess nuclear weapons (nuclear frigates, nuclear submarines, etc.) and the most advanced military weaponry and technology (including military satellites). Britain had the support of the US and every other imperialist power in its war efforts against Argentina.
On the other side of the coin, Argentina was a semi-colony of Britain until 1945, when it began its transition into being a semi-colony of the US, which it remained until the present. It has no colonial or semi-colonial holdings. The collapse of its economy, which was only a fraction of the size of that of Britain, was underway with the onset of the economic crisis in 1981, a year before the war. Most of Argentinas military hardware dates back to the 40s and 50s. Argentinas newest weaponry went out of style at least thirty years before Britains oldest hardware went into operation.
In Draft: Afghanistan, Islam, and the Revolutionary Left,[PT] gives us a piece of the reasoning behind his characterizing Argentina as an imperialist power:
[Argentina] was itself imperialist towards other countries in Latin America - exporting capital and exploiting them - as well as being exploited by the major imperialist powers.
CSF responds:
In this sentence, [PT] reduces imperialism to the export of capital and the exploitation of other countries. This bargain basement revisionism ignores the fact that in the struggle for a place in the world markets, even the most backward country fights to export capital and exploit other countries. Meanwhile, an imperial power dominates other countries markets and productive forces. Imperial powers guarantee the continuous exploitation of the productive forces of semi-colonies through political measures over their governments and regimes. In the case of colonies, an imperial power exercises direct political control over their productive forces.
Yet [PT]s streamlined theory of imperialism attains the absurd in the following analogy presented in Draft: Afghanistan, Islam, and the Revolutionary Left:
Moreover, [Argentina] had a more developed capitalist structure than pre-1917 Russia, for instance. The latter, according to Lenin and Trotsky, was both a semi-colony of Anglo-French imperialism and, at the same time, an imperialist oppressor of the 57% of the population of the Tsarist Empire who were non-Russians. Lenin and the Bolsheviks never supported Russia, a semi-colony, in the wars against Japan in 1905, for instance, or German imperialism in the First World War.
CSF responds:
Of course, the machinery and techniques employed in present-day Argentina is better than Russian (or British, for that matter) industrial infrastructure prior to 1917. As we have explained above, the level of industrial development of a single nation-state relative to the entire scope of human history is not the fundamental feature determining whether or not it is an imperial power, but the level of development of its productive forces relative to the rest of the world, and its political relations with those other countries.
In the time of Lenin and Trotsky, Russia oppressed dozens of nations directly and commanded a potent urban infrastructure and financial capital. Russias weakness relative to other imperial powers stemmed from the overwhelming backwardness of its vast rural areas, which included segments of the population that had not yet been introduced to the toothbrush. This weakness forced Russia to be somewhat dominated by the leading imperial powers of her time. In this aspect, pre-1917 Russia resembles present day Britain, which is relatively dependent on US imperialism, despite its powerful imperialist character.
Compared with todays imperialist countries (and advanced semi-colonies like Brazil and Mexico), the level of development of Argentinas industrial infrastructure roughly corresponds to that of minor capitalist countries in the 1910s counterpoised to that times big powers. Unlike pre-1917 Russia, Argentina does not have colonies, nor does it exercise political or economic oppression over other countries - the aspirations and designs of the Argentinean national bourgeoisie notwithstanding.
The Socialists article "Thatchers war of saving face" states:
The US State Department called the Falklands/Malvinas - isolated rocks (population 1,800 of British extraction) thousands of miles from Britain - a 150 year old pimple on the ass.
CSF responds:
This did not prevent the US from unambiguously supporting British imperialism despite the US many treaties with Latin American countries which clearly established that they US would support Argentina against any extra-continental aggression. The US supported Britain because of the imperialist principle of supporting imperialism against any and all challenges from colonies or semi-colonies.
The Socialist continues:
British imperialism obtained [the Malvinas Islands] in the 1830s.
CSF responds:
The article completely ignores how Britain obtained them. Britain invaded the Malvinas and massacred its Argentinean population. Some local guerrilla fighters, led by Gaucho Rivero, waged a war against the British invaders for years. Upon his capture, Rivero was sent to die in a British prison.
For generations Argentineans have been brought up to struggle to recover the Islands. This is what explains both the courage of the Argentinean conscripts in the face of the cowardly actions of their officers during the war and the mass support among young people for the struggle against British and American imperialism. The war over the Malvinas Islands only coalesced this historical hatred for British imperialism, and completely unmasked the role of American imperialism.
The Socialist paints a fantastic picture of an imagined revolutionary Argentina in those days:
But by 1982 the Argentinean junta was forcing the lid down on a head of steam. A series of general strikes had broken out. On 30 March, just three days before the attack on the Falklands/Malvinas, tens of thousands of young people and workers had defied the military in protests against unemployment, growing poverty and attacks on trade union and democratic rights.
To cut across this revolutionary class movement, junta leader Galtieri invaded the islands on 2 April whipping up support under the nationalist slogan reclaim the Malvinas.
CSF responds:
Had there been a series of general strikes and tens of thousands protesting the military government, there would in fact have been a revolutionary class movement in Argentina. The problem is that the general strikes referred to by the IS in its publications on the issue did not occur.
On March 30, 1982, a wing of the labor bureaucracy did organize a demonstration demanding a greater role in discussing wages and working conditions. Comrades of the CSF participated in this demonstration. It was small, with no more than a couple of thousand people. It was organized as part of a bourgeois multi-party front demanding changes in the economic plans of the dictatorship and broader civilian-military collaboration in drafting them.
Therefore, while the military junta did whip up nationalist sentiments, there was no revolutionary class movement to cut across. Moreover, the plans for the invasion were drawn months before the demonstration cited by The Socialist. The juntas fundamental strategy was to try to achieve some kind of agreement with the bourgeois parties, not to suppress a non-existent revolutionary class movement.
The Argentinean newspaper Clarin synthesized the situation in their article on the 20th Anniversary of the war:
This does not mean that [the military government] were surrounded: the social protest was just beginning and the political parties just began coordinating actions in the multi-party commission (Peronists, the UCR, PI, and Christian Democrats) but they were just skirmishes.
The Socialist then re-states the CWIs wrong position from 1982:
We opposed the juntas invasion, done in the interests of financiers and capitalists who wanted control of oil and other resources and also to head off a revolutionary movement against Galtieris regime.
CSF responds:
We call this strain of Marxism economic reductionism. While untapped oil reserves in the South Atlantic may have played a role in imperialist response to the juntas invasion, the essential question was not economics, but the principle of defending imperialism from a challenge from one of its semi-colonies.
Establishing a better negotiating environment with the reemerging bourgeois parties was the priority for the Argentinean dictatorship, which was already planning to privatize state companies. Neither the suppression of a non-existent revolutionary movement, nor oil and other resources, were their immediate aims.
The Socialist article contains the following sentence:
Despite the company island nature of the Falklands (see box), the Tories invoked the islanders as a reason for fighting. Socialists couldnt ignore the islanders fate...
CSF responds:
One does not have to be a socialist or a Marxist to suspiciously regard the information presented in the war propaganda of a right wing bourgeois government. In its May 3 issue, The Socialistis apparently still taking Margaret Thatchers Tories war propaganda at face value - 20 years after it was released.
The May 3 article does not restate the CWI position on the fate of the islanders. [PT], in The Rise of Militant, is not so shy. In the following sentence, adduced from the 1995 tome, he sums up this position and why they had it:
The democratic rights of the 1,800 Falklanders, including the right to self-determination, was a key question in the consciousness of British workers.
CSF responds:
At the time of the Malvinas War, a few hundred employees of Britains Falkland Islands Company, some British government employees, and the members of a military garrison were the islands only inhabitants.To assign oppressed nation status to a few hundred employees of an imperial government and corporation working in annexed territory represents an innovation in Marxist thought for which the CSF has no use. We are grateful that [PT] included the necessity that mothered this particular invention in the same sentence: adaptation to the consciousness of British workers. This adaptation to the existing level of consciousness in the British working class crops up again and again in the statements and activities of the CWI, and we will return to this topic in this very memorandum.
The Socialist:
We said: Labor must demand a general election in order that a Labor government can support and encourage workers opposition in Argentina.
CSF responds:
Would a Labor government encourage workers opposition in Argentina before or after they witch-hunted the Militant Tendency out of the Party? Or is The Socialist talking about a Labor government trying to form a fifth column among Argentinean workers to defend the right of British imperialism in the Islands?
We cannot fathom how the CWI arrived at the conclusion that a Labor government in 1982 would have fomented Argentinas nonexistent revolutionary movement by encouraging, workers opposition in Argentina. Especially considering that [PT] wrote in The Rise of Militant that Labor,Önot only supported Thatcher, but demanded a war against Argentina. In fact, Labor support was a vital ingredient in the steps leading to the sending of the Task Force.
More incredibly, The Socialist published the following statement:
As an alternative to Thatchers war, we called for international class action against the junta such as trade union blacking of trade.
CSF responds:
This is a preposterous, reactionary statement. The article is actually saying that they opposed the military actions of Thatcher but proposed instead sanctions to protect British imperialist possessions abroad.
The article, talking about Britain and Thatchers government adds:
The mass unemployment and destruction of capital had led to rioting the previous year. Yet, from a terrible position in the polls, the Tories swept to a landslide victory in the 1983 general election.
CSF responds:
Obviously, this was helped by the Labor Party and those on the left, who bought the idea that Thatcher was out to defend democracy against dictatorship, and the right to self-determination for group of employees of an imperialist British company. The Socialist still counts itself among those leftists.
In fact, it was the failure of the British working class leadership to confront Thatcher head on during the Malvinas war that guaranteed her continuance as the British working class worst nightmare. Again, a military victory for imperialism is not only over the country that loses, but also its own working class.
More distortions of the truth from The Socialist article:
US imperialism under right-wing president Reagan saw this war as a fight between two allies - both declining economic powers. Reagan only sided with Britain reluctantly as Britain was a more central part of US imperialisms worldwide plans rather than just in their plans for Latin America. They were afraid though what effect the war would have on Argentina.
CSF responds:
It seems that The Socialist bought Reagans propaganda. The US offered to mediate the dispute saying that both countries were their allies. Meanwhile, the US was allowing the British to use its satellites and intelligence and had already agreed to give the British military assistance in a war against Argentina.
Of course they played the neutral card while Britain prepared its task force to appease the other Latin American countries. But the US mediators role in the British-Argentina dispute was not different than its role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today. Once the British task force was ready to depart, the US' diplomatic mask came off and Reagan sided publicly and unconditionally with Britain and Thatcher.
In The Rise of Militant, [PT] raised the problems with anti-imperialist propaganda and agitation:
To force the withdrawal of the Task Force would have involved the organization of a general strike, which itself would have posed the question of the coming to power of a socialist government. Yet at the outset of the war, such a demand would have received no support from the British workers.
Öthe demand for a general strike, particularly at the outset of the war, would have received no support, even from the advanced section of the working class. Even those who declared in favor of stopping the war drew back from calling for a general strike. Nor would the call to stop the war or even to withdraw the fleet have provided a basis even for a mass campaign of demonstrations, meetings, and agitation. This is because it left unanswered, in the eyes of workers, the vital question of the rights of the Falkland Islanders and the question of opposing the military police dictatorship in Argentina
CSF responds:
It is correct to describe the obstacles to waging an anti-imperialist struggle. What is not a revolutionary method is to present those obstacles as justification for not waging such a struggle. Nobody can demand success from a difficult campaign. However, we have the responsibility to demand the political will to act on principles from a revolutionary organization, particularly on critical issues such as an imperialist war.
The CWI material demanding the general strike was never produced. Moreover, all kinds of concessions were made around the issues of the Falkland Islanders and the question of opposing the military police dictatorship in Argentina.
And, when [PT] wrote The Rise of Militant, he tried to fill in some of the gaps in past policies:
Öa different emphasis would have been needed to be adopted by Argentine Marxists. This would have necessitated calling for the expropriation of all imperialist assets in Argentina, starting with those of British imperialism. At the same time, they would have called for the arming of the working class, and by implication the overthrow of the military dictatorship, as a means of winning the war.
CSF responds:
While one may argue with this or that formulation of this position, the fundamental points are that:
a) The IS of the CWI never raised this program during the Malvinas
War. We took this passage as a kind of self-criticism.
b) If they had, they would have advised Argentinean revolutionaries to attack British imperialist properties near Buenos Aires, but not in the Malvinas Islands.
c) Those positions are now, once again, erased and omitted in the May 3, 2002 article in The Socialist and Draft: Afghanistan, Islam, and the Revolutionary Left.
But in Draft: Afghanistan, Islam, and the Revolutionary Left, [PT] again re-writes history in order to admonish other tendencies:
Genuine Marxists in Argentina or Latin America as a whole would have opposed the Galtieri dictatorship in Argentinas drive towards a war over the Malvinas/Falklands in 1982, as we opposed Thatchers war preparations in Britain.
CSF responds:
This statement again ignores factual and historical data. There was no drive towards war over the Malvinas/Falkands in 1982 in Argentina. Only a very small circle of top generals knew of the plans for the invasion. The troops in the first wave of attack were told of the plan en route to the Malvinas.
In fact, one thing the junta was right about is that they did not need to drive towards war with Britain. They knew the rejection of British and US imperialism that was nested in the Argentinean population. Actually, this rejection was the reason why the junta took power in the first place.
[PT], who failed take up anti-imperialist tasks in Britain, however, sounds very anti-imperialist...in Argentina:
However, once the war had begun, Marxists in Argentina would go into the army if called up, at the same time advancing a revolutionary program. They would have demanded the expropriation of British investments. But why stop there? All imperialist assets should be nationalized, which in turn would pose the need for the state take-over of Argentine capital.
CSF responds:
This correct approach was taken by several Trotskyist organizations immediately after the first newspaper was published with the news of Argentinean commandos arrival on the Malvinas.
Same document:
Not an atom of support - critical or otherwise - would have been given to the Galtieri dictatorship, which the LIT unfortunately did. In effect, a revolutionary war against the British would have been advocated by real Argentine Marxists.
CSF responds:
[PT] raises this point in response to members of the remnant of the Argentinean LIT who absurdly argued that the Taliban merited critical support from Marxists in its war against the US. It is also true that some left wing political forces, both in Argentina and elsewhere, capitulated to the junta, such as the Communist Party, who had supported the junta since its inception.
But there was no political support for the Junta among any of the Argentinean Trotskyists groups and, at the most, some of them placed themselves in the military camp against Britain with the Argentinean government, a formulation we strongly disagree with but that could not be confused, as [PT] does with political support for the Junta.
Moreover, Trotskyists in Argentina sharply criticized at all points the conduct of the war by the military government. Some made calls for the democratic self-organization of the rank and file soldiers and denounced the treachery and cowardice of the officers facing the war. On the other hand, we were and are partisans of the position expressed in one of the revolutionary papers of the time: To defeat the British pirates, we need to defeat the pirates in the government house.
Of course, in 1982, the Argentinean working class waging revolutionary war against the British was wholly absent from the CWIs material along with calls for the British working class solidarity with the Argentinean mass movement. Instead, the British party argued for Argentinas defeat in order to guarantee the rights of employees of the Falklands Islands Company and the British government to remain British subjects, mangling the definition of an oppressed nationality in the process. This could be construed as a policy of critical support for imperialism, which is exactly how the Argentinean workers understand it, directly before they laugh the CWI out of countenance. Without correcting this position, the CWI will remain a marginal force in Latin America in general and Argentina in particular.
In June 2001, the EC of the US section sent a resolution to the IS/CWI advancing several months the events that finally unfolded last December in Argentina. Among the points raised in that resolution was a request for a discussion to correct, among other things, the mistakes made during the Malvinas war by the IS/CWI. The IS/CWI never answered the resolution, never addressed the issue.
Now we know why.
The article "Thatchers war of saving face" can by found on the World Wide Web pressing the May 3 button at the following address:
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/TheSocialistContents.htm
The Rise of Militant should be available through CWI publications: PO Box 3688, London E11 1YE.
Draft: Afghanistan, Islam, and the Revolutionary Left, is available through the CWI.
The Clarin article can be read at: http://old.clarin.com/diario/2002/04/02/p-367001.htm
MALVINAS WAR 20TH ANNIVERSARY AND THE IS/CWI
May 17, 2002
War is an acid test for the program, perspectives, strategy and tactics of all political formations, particularly those that stand on the left. Everything which is positive, which in action shows a way forward for the working class, is revealed. Conversely, everything that is rotten, which is false, is also laid bare. [PT], Draft: Afghanistan, Islam and the Revolutionary Left
These words from the General Secretary of the Socialist Party of Britain, also a senior member of the International Secretariat of the Committee for a Workers International (IS/CWI) constitute an historical truism. This truism takes on meaning only when applied in the form of an honest and sober analysis of the evolution of political formations policies and activities. A revolutionary socialist organization seeking to build on the legacy of the Bolsheviks in the time of V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky must take this principle most seriously when evaluating itself. To bend facts in order to justify wrong positions of the past in the light of current events leads elsewhere.
We do not draft this memorandum for the joy of arguing about ancient history. [PT] roused this sleeping dog when he resurrected the old discussion on the Malvinas war between British imperialism and semi-colonial Argentina in his Draft: Afghanistan, Islam and the Revolutionary Left Then the May 3, 2002 edition of the British newspaper The Socialist carried an article on the 20th anniversary of the Malvinas war titled "Thatchers war of saving face". This article reiterated the CWIs incorrect, incomplete analysis and the wrong position that flowed from it. In view of the important work to be done in Argentina, we, the Class Struggle Faction of the CWI (CSF), find it necessary to distance ourselves from the wrong positions on war and imperialism put forward by [PT] on behalf of the IS/CWI, and hopefully initiate a process whereby these mistakes and the grave damage they cause our international every time they are raised publicly can be reversed.
Marxism and the Malvinas
In a war between a semi-colony and an imperial power, victory for the imperial power will not only subject the workers and the oppressed of the defeated semi-colony to double oppression (whatever regime exists in the semi-colony plus imperialism), but also spells defeat for the entire international mass movement, including that in the home country of the imperialist aggressor. This is for three reasons. One, imperialisms victory emboldens it to further expand its domination. This victory is then broadcast over the world as a warning of what will happen to the mass movement in other countries should they dare to struggle to meet their historical needs. Two, the imperialist victory generally gives the imperial power additional resources through the enslavement of the semi-colony.
Three, the imperialist power, by means of successfully dragging its own working class to a victorious war, intoxicating it with further chauvinism and nationalism, strengthen its domination over the labor movement of the Metropolis. Therefore, as a rule, revolutionary Marxists tend to support the mass movement in the semi-colony against the imperial power.
In 1976, a military junta came to power in Argentina. During the six years of its rule, this brutal, criminal clique brutally murdered an entire generation of union activists, members of left wing parties, journalists and artists. In 1982, seeking to raise its prestige to a level where it could negotiate its continued existence with Argentinas disgruntled bourgeois parties, the junta invaded the Malvinas Islands - called the Falklands Islands by its imperial overlords in Britain.
The junta launched its attacks under three erroneous assumptions. First, they expected that Britain would just roll over and allow them to take the islands, preferring not to organize a costly military expedition to the other side of the Atlantic in order to retake so insignificant a territory as the Malvinas. Second, in the event that the British did undertake such a venture, the heavily outgunned junta expected that the United States would uphold its Cold War-era treaty to defend Argentina from attack by any extra-continental power. Third, the junta expected that it could control the mass movement of Argentinean workers role in the war.
Anti-imperialist consciousness in Argentina has been traditionally directed against Britain more than any other imperial power. Argentinas long history of anti-imperialist struggle includes their military defeats of British troops in 1806 and 1807; the struggle against British semi-colonization (1920-1940s); and the anti-imperialist consciousness developed during the early national bourgeois period of Juan Peron (1945-51).
Britains domination of the Malvinas has been a source of seething resentment for Argentineans of every social background for more than a century and a half. During the Malvinas War, a mass movement supporting Argentina, not the military junta, developed in Latin America with hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating in the streets of every country, especially Argentina. The mass movement took an anti-imperialist turn against both Britain and the US.
Therefore, even during the first stage of the invasion of the Islands by the Argentineans, before Britain launched its counter-offensive, Argentinean demonstrations had an anti-dictatorial tenor. When the military junta betrayed the fight against imperialism, as Marxists active in the area expected them to do, the mass movement turned on the junta and overthrew them.
The CWI did not offer clear analysis or leadership. The IS claimed that if they had had more information about Latin America, they would have had a different position. In the mid-90s, members of the IS of CWI expressed a desire to correct their mistaken characterizations and political positions during the Malvinas War. We waited in vain for their corrections.
Now, the distribution of [PT]s draft document and this article, re-affirming and deepening the false ideas expressed around the conflict in the 1980s signals a new shift to the right of the present leadership of the CWI. Apparently, they have decided not to search for the truth, but to further entrench themselves in their past mistakes.
This memorandum contains excerpts from the Socialist article. We will also refer to Chapter 20 of [PT]s 1995 book The Rise of Militant. The article is little more than an abridged version of this chapter. Finally, we will quote from [PT]s Draft: Afghanistan, Islam, and the Revolutionary Left.
Our comments about the positions follow each of the quotes. Quotes from both the book and the article are clearly marked between quotation marks and in italics.
To proceed:
The article "Thatchers war of saving face" contains the following sentence:
This minor war between two fading second or third division powers, cynically described as two bald men fighting over a comb, only lasted ten weeks. But it killed 255 British servicemen and some 800 Argentineans.
CSF responds:
The idea that the Malvinas war was between two fading second or third division powers is a factual error of the first order. Out here beneath the blue sky, Britain remains a powerful industrial, military and financial power. It controls what may be the second largest empire in the world, with colonial and semi-colonial holdings on most continents. As in 1982, Britain continues to possess nuclear weapons (nuclear frigates, nuclear submarines, etc.) and the most advanced military weaponry and technology (including military satellites). Britain had the support of the US and every other imperialist power in its war efforts against Argentina.
On the other side of the coin, Argentina was a semi-colony of Britain until 1945, when it began its transition into being a semi-colony of the US, which it remained until the present. It has no colonial or semi-colonial holdings. The collapse of its economy, which was only a fraction of the size of that of Britain, was underway with the onset of the economic crisis in 1981, a year before the war. Most of Argentinas military hardware dates back to the 40s and 50s. Argentinas newest weaponry went out of style at least thirty years before Britains oldest hardware went into operation.
In Draft: Afghanistan, Islam, and the Revolutionary Left,[PT] gives us a piece of the reasoning behind his characterizing Argentina as an imperialist power:
[Argentina] was itself imperialist towards other countries in Latin America - exporting capital and exploiting them - as well as being exploited by the major imperialist powers.
CSF responds:
In this sentence, [PT] reduces imperialism to the export of capital and the exploitation of other countries. This bargain basement revisionism ignores the fact that in the struggle for a place in the world markets, even the most backward country fights to export capital and exploit other countries. Meanwhile, an imperial power dominates other countries markets and productive forces. Imperial powers guarantee the continuous exploitation of the productive forces of semi-colonies through political measures over their governments and regimes. In the case of colonies, an imperial power exercises direct political control over their productive forces.
Yet [PT]s streamlined theory of imperialism attains the absurd in the following analogy presented in Draft: Afghanistan, Islam, and the Revolutionary Left:
Moreover, [Argentina] had a more developed capitalist structure than pre-1917 Russia, for instance. The latter, according to Lenin and Trotsky, was both a semi-colony of Anglo-French imperialism and, at the same time, an imperialist oppressor of the 57% of the population of the Tsarist Empire who were non-Russians. Lenin and the Bolsheviks never supported Russia, a semi-colony, in the wars against Japan in 1905, for instance, or German imperialism in the First World War.
CSF responds:
Of course, the machinery and techniques employed in present-day Argentina is better than Russian (or British, for that matter) industrial infrastructure prior to 1917. As we have explained above, the level of industrial development of a single nation-state relative to the entire scope of human history is not the fundamental feature determining whether or not it is an imperial power, but the level of development of its productive forces relative to the rest of the world, and its political relations with those other countries.
In the time of Lenin and Trotsky, Russia oppressed dozens of nations directly and commanded a potent urban infrastructure and financial capital. Russias weakness relative to other imperial powers stemmed from the overwhelming backwardness of its vast rural areas, which included segments of the population that had not yet been introduced to the toothbrush. This weakness forced Russia to be somewhat dominated by the leading imperial powers of her time. In this aspect, pre-1917 Russia resembles present day Britain, which is relatively dependent on US imperialism, despite its powerful imperialist character.
Compared with todays imperialist countries (and advanced semi-colonies like Brazil and Mexico), the level of development of Argentinas industrial infrastructure roughly corresponds to that of minor capitalist countries in the 1910s counterpoised to that times big powers. Unlike pre-1917 Russia, Argentina does not have colonies, nor does it exercise political or economic oppression over other countries - the aspirations and designs of the Argentinean national bourgeoisie notwithstanding.
The Socialists article "Thatchers war of saving face" states:
The US State Department called the Falklands/Malvinas - isolated rocks (population 1,800 of British extraction) thousands of miles from Britain - a 150 year old pimple on the ass.
CSF responds:
This did not prevent the US from unambiguously supporting British imperialism despite the US many treaties with Latin American countries which clearly established that they US would support Argentina against any extra-continental aggression. The US supported Britain because of the imperialist principle of supporting imperialism against any and all challenges from colonies or semi-colonies.
The Socialist continues:
British imperialism obtained [the Malvinas Islands] in the 1830s.
CSF responds:
The article completely ignores how Britain obtained them. Britain invaded the Malvinas and massacred its Argentinean population. Some local guerrilla fighters, led by Gaucho Rivero, waged a war against the British invaders for years. Upon his capture, Rivero was sent to die in a British prison.
For generations Argentineans have been brought up to struggle to recover the Islands. This is what explains both the courage of the Argentinean conscripts in the face of the cowardly actions of their officers during the war and the mass support among young people for the struggle against British and American imperialism. The war over the Malvinas Islands only coalesced this historical hatred for British imperialism, and completely unmasked the role of American imperialism.
The Socialist paints a fantastic picture of an imagined revolutionary Argentina in those days:
But by 1982 the Argentinean junta was forcing the lid down on a head of steam. A series of general strikes had broken out. On 30 March, just three days before the attack on the Falklands/Malvinas, tens of thousands of young people and workers had defied the military in protests against unemployment, growing poverty and attacks on trade union and democratic rights.
To cut across this revolutionary class movement, junta leader Galtieri invaded the islands on 2 April whipping up support under the nationalist slogan reclaim the Malvinas.
CSF responds:
Had there been a series of general strikes and tens of thousands protesting the military government, there would in fact have been a revolutionary class movement in Argentina. The problem is that the general strikes referred to by the IS in its publications on the issue did not occur.
On March 30, 1982, a wing of the labor bureaucracy did organize a demonstration demanding a greater role in discussing wages and working conditions. Comrades of the CSF participated in this demonstration. It was small, with no more than a couple of thousand people. It was organized as part of a bourgeois multi-party front demanding changes in the economic plans of the dictatorship and broader civilian-military collaboration in drafting them.
Therefore, while the military junta did whip up nationalist sentiments, there was no revolutionary class movement to cut across. Moreover, the plans for the invasion were drawn months before the demonstration cited by The Socialist. The juntas fundamental strategy was to try to achieve some kind of agreement with the bourgeois parties, not to suppress a non-existent revolutionary class movement.
The Argentinean newspaper Clarin synthesized the situation in their article on the 20th Anniversary of the war:
This does not mean that [the military government] were surrounded: the social protest was just beginning and the political parties just began coordinating actions in the multi-party commission (Peronists, the UCR, PI, and Christian Democrats) but they were just skirmishes.
The Socialist then re-states the CWIs wrong position from 1982:
We opposed the juntas invasion, done in the interests of financiers and capitalists who wanted control of oil and other resources and also to head off a revolutionary movement against Galtieris regime.
CSF responds:
We call this strain of Marxism economic reductionism. While untapped oil reserves in the South Atlantic may have played a role in imperialist response to the juntas invasion, the essential question was not economics, but the principle of defending imperialism from a challenge from one of its semi-colonies.
Establishing a better negotiating environment with the reemerging bourgeois parties was the priority for the Argentinean dictatorship, which was already planning to privatize state companies. Neither the suppression of a non-existent revolutionary movement, nor oil and other resources, were their immediate aims.
The Socialist article contains the following sentence:
Despite the company island nature of the Falklands (see box), the Tories invoked the islanders as a reason for fighting. Socialists couldnt ignore the islanders fate...
CSF responds:
One does not have to be a socialist or a Marxist to suspiciously regard the information presented in the war propaganda of a right wing bourgeois government. In its May 3 issue, The Socialistis apparently still taking Margaret Thatchers Tories war propaganda at face value - 20 years after it was released.
The May 3 article does not restate the CWI position on the fate of the islanders. [PT], in The Rise of Militant, is not so shy. In the following sentence, adduced from the 1995 tome, he sums up this position and why they had it:
The democratic rights of the 1,800 Falklanders, including the right to self-determination, was a key question in the consciousness of British workers.
CSF responds:
At the time of the Malvinas War, a few hundred employees of Britains Falkland Islands Company, some British government employees, and the members of a military garrison were the islands only inhabitants.To assign oppressed nation status to a few hundred employees of an imperial government and corporation working in annexed territory represents an innovation in Marxist thought for which the CSF has no use. We are grateful that [PT] included the necessity that mothered this particular invention in the same sentence: adaptation to the consciousness of British workers. This adaptation to the existing level of consciousness in the British working class crops up again and again in the statements and activities of the CWI, and we will return to this topic in this very memorandum.
The Socialist:
We said: Labor must demand a general election in order that a Labor government can support and encourage workers opposition in Argentina.
CSF responds:
Would a Labor government encourage workers opposition in Argentina before or after they witch-hunted the Militant Tendency out of the Party? Or is The Socialist talking about a Labor government trying to form a fifth column among Argentinean workers to defend the right of British imperialism in the Islands?
We cannot fathom how the CWI arrived at the conclusion that a Labor government in 1982 would have fomented Argentinas nonexistent revolutionary movement by encouraging, workers opposition in Argentina. Especially considering that [PT] wrote in The Rise of Militant that Labor,Önot only supported Thatcher, but demanded a war against Argentina. In fact, Labor support was a vital ingredient in the steps leading to the sending of the Task Force.
More incredibly, The Socialist published the following statement:
As an alternative to Thatchers war, we called for international class action against the junta such as trade union blacking of trade.
CSF responds:
This is a preposterous, reactionary statement. The article is actually saying that they opposed the military actions of Thatcher but proposed instead sanctions to protect British imperialist possessions abroad.
The article, talking about Britain and Thatchers government adds:
The mass unemployment and destruction of capital had led to rioting the previous year. Yet, from a terrible position in the polls, the Tories swept to a landslide victory in the 1983 general election.
CSF responds:
Obviously, this was helped by the Labor Party and those on the left, who bought the idea that Thatcher was out to defend democracy against dictatorship, and the right to self-determination for group of employees of an imperialist British company. The Socialist still counts itself among those leftists.
In fact, it was the failure of the British working class leadership to confront Thatcher head on during the Malvinas war that guaranteed her continuance as the British working class worst nightmare. Again, a military victory for imperialism is not only over the country that loses, but also its own working class.
More distortions of the truth from The Socialist article:
US imperialism under right-wing president Reagan saw this war as a fight between two allies - both declining economic powers. Reagan only sided with Britain reluctantly as Britain was a more central part of US imperialisms worldwide plans rather than just in their plans for Latin America. They were afraid though what effect the war would have on Argentina.
CSF responds:
It seems that The Socialist bought Reagans propaganda. The US offered to mediate the dispute saying that both countries were their allies. Meanwhile, the US was allowing the British to use its satellites and intelligence and had already agreed to give the British military assistance in a war against Argentina.
Of course they played the neutral card while Britain prepared its task force to appease the other Latin American countries. But the US mediators role in the British-Argentina dispute was not different than its role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today. Once the British task force was ready to depart, the US' diplomatic mask came off and Reagan sided publicly and unconditionally with Britain and Thatcher.
In The Rise of Militant, [PT] raised the problems with anti-imperialist propaganda and agitation:
To force the withdrawal of the Task Force would have involved the organization of a general strike, which itself would have posed the question of the coming to power of a socialist government. Yet at the outset of the war, such a demand would have received no support from the British workers.
Öthe demand for a general strike, particularly at the outset of the war, would have received no support, even from the advanced section of the working class. Even those who declared in favor of stopping the war drew back from calling for a general strike. Nor would the call to stop the war or even to withdraw the fleet have provided a basis even for a mass campaign of demonstrations, meetings, and agitation. This is because it left unanswered, in the eyes of workers, the vital question of the rights of the Falkland Islanders and the question of opposing the military police dictatorship in Argentina
CSF responds:
It is correct to describe the obstacles to waging an anti-imperialist struggle. What is not a revolutionary method is to present those obstacles as justification for not waging such a struggle. Nobody can demand success from a difficult campaign. However, we have the responsibility to demand the political will to act on principles from a revolutionary organization, particularly on critical issues such as an imperialist war.
The CWI material demanding the general strike was never produced. Moreover, all kinds of concessions were made around the issues of the Falkland Islanders and the question of opposing the military police dictatorship in Argentina.
And, when [PT] wrote The Rise of Militant, he tried to fill in some of the gaps in past policies:
Öa different emphasis would have been needed to be adopted by Argentine Marxists. This would have necessitated calling for the expropriation of all imperialist assets in Argentina, starting with those of British imperialism. At the same time, they would have called for the arming of the working class, and by implication the overthrow of the military dictatorship, as a means of winning the war.
CSF responds:
While one may argue with this or that formulation of this position, the fundamental points are that:
a) The IS of the CWI never raised this program during the Malvinas
War. We took this passage as a kind of self-criticism.
b) If they had, they would have advised Argentinean revolutionaries to attack British imperialist properties near Buenos Aires, but not in the Malvinas Islands.
c) Those positions are now, once again, erased and omitted in the May 3, 2002 article in The Socialist and Draft: Afghanistan, Islam, and the Revolutionary Left.
But in Draft: Afghanistan, Islam, and the Revolutionary Left, [PT] again re-writes history in order to admonish other tendencies:
Genuine Marxists in Argentina or Latin America as a whole would have opposed the Galtieri dictatorship in Argentinas drive towards a war over the Malvinas/Falklands in 1982, as we opposed Thatchers war preparations in Britain.
CSF responds:
This statement again ignores factual and historical data. There was no drive towards war over the Malvinas/Falkands in 1982 in Argentina. Only a very small circle of top generals knew of the plans for the invasion. The troops in the first wave of attack were told of the plan en route to the Malvinas.
In fact, one thing the junta was right about is that they did not need to drive towards war with Britain. They knew the rejection of British and US imperialism that was nested in the Argentinean population. Actually, this rejection was the reason why the junta took power in the first place.
[PT], who failed take up anti-imperialist tasks in Britain, however, sounds very anti-imperialist...in Argentina:
However, once the war had begun, Marxists in Argentina would go into the army if called up, at the same time advancing a revolutionary program. They would have demanded the expropriation of British investments. But why stop there? All imperialist assets should be nationalized, which in turn would pose the need for the state take-over of Argentine capital.
CSF responds:
This correct approach was taken by several Trotskyist organizations immediately after the first newspaper was published with the news of Argentinean commandos arrival on the Malvinas.
Same document:
Not an atom of support - critical or otherwise - would have been given to the Galtieri dictatorship, which the LIT unfortunately did. In effect, a revolutionary war against the British would have been advocated by real Argentine Marxists.
CSF responds:
[PT] raises this point in response to members of the remnant of the Argentinean LIT who absurdly argued that the Taliban merited critical support from Marxists in its war against the US. It is also true that some left wing political forces, both in Argentina and elsewhere, capitulated to the junta, such as the Communist Party, who had supported the junta since its inception.
But there was no political support for the Junta among any of the Argentinean Trotskyists groups and, at the most, some of them placed themselves in the military camp against Britain with the Argentinean government, a formulation we strongly disagree with but that could not be confused, as [PT] does with political support for the Junta.
Moreover, Trotskyists in Argentina sharply criticized at all points the conduct of the war by the military government. Some made calls for the democratic self-organization of the rank and file soldiers and denounced the treachery and cowardice of the officers facing the war. On the other hand, we were and are partisans of the position expressed in one of the revolutionary papers of the time: To defeat the British pirates, we need to defeat the pirates in the government house.
Of course, in 1982, the Argentinean working class waging revolutionary war against the British was wholly absent from the CWIs material along with calls for the British working class solidarity with the Argentinean mass movement. Instead, the British party argued for Argentinas defeat in order to guarantee the rights of employees of the Falklands Islands Company and the British government to remain British subjects, mangling the definition of an oppressed nationality in the process. This could be construed as a policy of critical support for imperialism, which is exactly how the Argentinean workers understand it, directly before they laugh the CWI out of countenance. Without correcting this position, the CWI will remain a marginal force in Latin America in general and Argentina in particular.
In June 2001, the EC of the US section sent a resolution to the IS/CWI advancing several months the events that finally unfolded last December in Argentina. Among the points raised in that resolution was a request for a discussion to correct, among other things, the mistakes made during the Malvinas war by the IS/CWI. The IS/CWI never answered the resolution, never addressed the issue.
Now we know why.
The article "Thatchers war of saving face" can by found on the World Wide Web pressing the May 3 button at the following address:
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/TheSocialistContents.htm
The Rise of Militant should be available through CWI publications: PO Box 3688, London E11 1YE.
Draft: Afghanistan, Islam, and the Revolutionary Left, is available through the CWI.
The Clarin article can be read at: http://old.clarin.com/diario/2002/04/02/p-367001.htm