RKOB
8th November 2012, 20:14
The failure of sectarian “anti-imperialism” in the West: Some general considerations from the Marxist point of view and the example of the democratic revolution in Libya in 2011
By Michael Pröbsting, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), www.thecommunists.net (http://www.thecommunists.net)
The new historic period which opened in 2007/08 with the beginning of the deepest crisis of the capitalist world economy since 1929 has brought deep ruptures and changes not only in the economic arena but also in the political and military. The revolutionary character of this historic period is expressed in the dramatic acceleration of the class contradictions. Some of the most important features of this are the Arab Revolution which started in early 2011 and the emergence of a new imperialist Great Power – China.
This deepening of the class contradictions sharpens the dramatic crisis of leadership of the working class and the oppressed. Since more than six decades – when the Fourth International collapsed politically and organizationally in 1948-53 – the proletariat does not possess a world party of socialist revolution. As a result the numerous struggles and revolutions of the workers and oppressed in the semi-colonial, Stalinist and imperialist countries were mislead by petty-bourgeois leaderships. Hence they did not succeed in the overthrow of the rulers and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
This crisis of leadership is felt particularly in the new period because the Arab Revolution and also other struggles are increasingly characterized by a seemingly contradictory constellation. Just democratic revolutions or national liberation struggles are mingled with the interference of this or that imperialist power. This is even more the case because the rivalry between imperialist powers – like the USA, the EU, China or Russia – is increasingly influencing a number of conflicts in the South. Hence, democratic liberation civil wars in and national defense war of semi-colonial countries which are in one way or another intermingled with imperialist interests, interference and rivalry will be an increasingly important phenomena in the new historic period.
Hence workers organizations and activists need to combine a correct understanding of the Marxist principles with a concrete analyzes of a given war or conflict. Only in this way it is possible to develop a revolutionary tactic in the interest of the international working class.
The Arab Revolution and the imperialist interference have created numerous confusions in the ranks of progressive movements. Many have adapted themselves to the pressure of pro-Western propaganda, other have joined the counter-revolutionary camp of the Gaddafi or Assad regimes in falsely seeing them as “anti-imperialist”. We have already dealt with a number of these positions and arguments in our book on the Arab Revolution. [1] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn1)
In the following article we want to explain more detailed the approach of the Bolshevik-Communists on these combined tasks and tactics and defend them against various arguments from the pro-regime, anti-revolution “anti-imperialist” camp. We will counter various arguments and myths concerning the Libyan Revolution.
We are anti-imperialist because we take the stance of the working class … and not the other way round
Let us start with a brief presentation of the general method how the RCIT approaches national democratic liberation struggles in semi-colonial countries which are intermingled with imperialist interference. We have summarized our method in our programme The Revolutionary Communist Manifesto:
“Particularly, where authoritarian regimes or the military openly trample on democratic rights, mass movements rise and fight with determination for their rights. Other states and even great imperialist powers try to exploit such domestic crises and are only too happy to expand their influence. The Bolsheviks-Communists support any real movement of the popular masses against the suppression of democratic rights. We reject any influence of reactionary forces and defend the national sovereignty of semi-colonial countries against imperialism. This can not mean that revolutionaries renounce the support of revolutionary-democratic movement. In reality, the imperialist meddling is no help for the revolutionary-democratic struggle, but threatens to undermine it. That is why we have supported progressive liberation struggles of the masses against dictatorships, but at the same time rejected sharply imperialist interventions. (E.g. the struggle of the Bosnians 1992-95, the Kosovo Albanians in 1999, the uprising against the Gaddafi dictatorship in Libya in 2011). Only when the imperialist intervention is becoming the dominant feature of the political situation, revolutionaries must subordinate the democratic struggle to the fight against such an intervention.
Similarly, this is the case in the still-existing degenerated workers states (such as Cuba or North Korea). We support real mass movement against the ruling bureaucracy (such as those in Eastern Europe, China and the USSR, 1989-91) and advocate for political revolution. However, we defend the achievements of the workers’ state (planning, state ownership, foreign trade monopoly, etc.) against any attempt for the introduction of capitalism.” [2] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn2)
Let us now elaborate our approach. Many leftists fail to understand the correct relationship between anti-imperialism and international working class solidarity. We are anti-imperialist because we are consistent supports of the working class and oppressed people liberation struggle for which imperialism is the biggest enemy. Our anti-imperialism is a consequence of our fundamental position on the class struggle and not an overriding principle, which resides above the class struggle.
This is why Marxists are capable to come to positions which are independent of the imperialist and petty-bourgeois 'public opinion' and ‘dependent’ on the class interests of the international working class. This is why we don’t get confused when the imperialist and petty-bourgeois 'public opinion' supports a just national or democratic liberation struggle. Marxists don’t make – like Pavlov’s dog – a minus where the Western imperialists make a plus. We however make sure that we develop an independent class position.
Our method is that during such just democratic or national liberation struggles we are on the side of the liberation fighters (who are mostly under bourgeois or petty-bourgeois leaderships) and support their military victory. We sharply differentiate between these progressive liberation struggles and the interests of the imperialist powers. While we support the first, we totally oppose the later. Hence we Bolshevik-Communists reject any imperialist interference and call for the defeat of the imperialist forces.
The public opinion in the imperialist world must not be the starting point for developing a position towards a war!
Sectors of the centrist left in the West defend a sectarian version – or let us better say a caricature – of anti-imperialism. They don’t look at a given struggle in its totality with all the various and often contradictory aspects. Instead they try to assess what is the official position of Western imperialism. They usually do this by looking to the so-called public opinion, i.e. the rhetoric of the bourgeois officials and media. And where the Western public opinion makes a plus, the sectarian makes a minus. In other words he or she sympathizes with those side in a given war with the Western public opinion despises.
Thus they arrive to one and the same position in all different kinds of wars: the Iraq war 1991, the Bosnian war 1992-95, the Kosova war 1999, the Afghanistan war 2001, the Iraq war 2003 and the Libyan civil war 2011. This is completely wrong. For Marxists the imperialist public opinion, while a factor which has to be taken into account, is neither the starting point nor the most important factor in deriving to revolutionary positions! It seems that various sectarians have forgotten this very basic truth! This failure leads them often to the scattered thoughts that we Marxists become “opportunists” and “capitulate to the pressure of imperialism”.
Let us give a few historic analogies: During the Slavs national liberation struggle on the Balkan against the Ottoman Empire in 1912/13, Russian imperialism was full of sympathy for it – of course because of its expansionist own class interests. However Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not conclude from this that one should not support their national liberation struggle. Which conclusion did Trotsky and the Fourth International drew from the fact that the imperialist and petty-bourgeois public opinion in Western Europe and Northern America was strongly in favor of the Republican antifascist government in Spain in 1936-39 or for the national liberation struggle of the Chinese toilers under Chiang Kai-shek’s leadership against Japanese imperialism from 1937 onwards? They certainly did not succumb to the imperialist and petty-bourgeois 'public opinion' when they gave critical but unconditional support to the Republican antifascist government’s or the Chinese struggles, but pursued the independent and internationalist working class viewpoint.
Marxists must not start from the consideration: “How can we as revolutionaries fighting in Western imperialist countries best oppose the pressure of ‘our’ bourgeoisie.” This is one-sided and thus opens the door to serious mistakes. It would be anti-imperialism for fools. One must start thinking from the viewpoint “what is the independent class policy in the interest of the international working class and the oppressed people”. In other words, how can we strengthen the working class struggle, organizations and consciousness? This is the only legitimate method how to approach questions of the class struggle. Otherwise one would descend to leftists in imperialist countries that start and end thinking around the question how to oppose their bourgeoisie.
Trotsky explained this approach very well in an article in which he polemicized against the sectarian method:
„In ninety cases out of a hundred the workers actually place a minus sign where the bourgeoisie places a plus sign. In ten cases, however, they are forced to fix the same sign as the bourgeoisie but with their own seal, in which is expressed their mistrust of the bourgeoisie. The policy of the proletariat is not at all automatically derived from the policy of the bourgeoisie, bearing only the opposite sign – this would make every sectarian a master strategist; no, the revolutionary party must each time orient itself independently in the internal as well as the external situation, arriving at those decisions which correspond best to the interests of the proletariat. This rule applies just as much to the war period as to the period of peace.“ [3] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn3)
How to approach various forms of imperialist military interventions?
In which respect can we speak about different forms of imperialist military interventions? Let us explain this by dealing with some examples of the past two decades. What was the difference between the Iraq wars in 1991 and 2003, the Afghanistan in 2001 on one hand and Bosnia 1992-95, Kosova 1999 and Libya 2011? What is our common method why we defend Afghanistan in 2001 albeit the Taliban were certainly not less dictatorial than Gaddafi and why we continued to support the democratic revolution in Libya against the Gaddafi regime despite the imperialist limited military campaign against the regime? The sectarians accuse us of capitulation to “the bourgeois-democratic public opinion in the imperialist countries”? But has there been a difference in the imperialist and petty-bourgeois 'public opinion'? One can hardly say that the public opinion was less hostile against the Taliban than against Gaddafi. Rather the opposite. The imperialist governments had all public meetings with Gaddafi and had to hastily eliminate the pictures from their official websites where one could see Sarkozy, Berlusconi, Blair etc shaking hands and exchanging jokes with the Libyan dictator.
So, what was the difference between the Iraq wars in 1991 and 2003, the Afghanistan in 2001 on one hand and Bosnia 1992-95, Kosova 1999 and Libya 2011? The answer is pretty simple. As historical materialists we first look to the developments of the classes. In Bosnia the war began in April 1992 as a national liberation struggle of the workers and peasants under the leadership of the Izetbegovic bureaucracy against the threatening oppression by the Serbian chauvinist state. Since 1987 the Milosevic regimes in Serbia had initiated a virulent campaign of Serbian chauvinism which targeted in particular the Kosova-Albanians but also most other nationalities in Yugoslavia. By this the Serbian bureaucratic caste wanted to secure its dominant position in the process of capitalist restoration. The Croatian bureaucracy tried to counter this by increasing the oppression of their Serbian minorities in Krajina and Slavonia. This increasing national oppression was related to the capitalist restoration to divert the masses attention from its social consequences. It was this background which started the series of Balkan wars in 1991 and into which various imperialist powers tried to interfere.
The same in Kosova which had a history of murderous oppression by the Serbia state since its annexation in 1913 and many national liberation uprisings since then. The last one started in March 1998. [4] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn4) The Libyan and the Syrian Revolution in 2011 also started as a democratic revolution as part of the Arab revolutions against the bourgeois dictatorships. So, contrary to interpretation of the sectarians, these civil wars started not as a conspiracy of imperialism – they were authentic liberation struggles of the workers and peasants.
In opposite to these examples, the situations in Iraq 1991 and 2003 or Afghanistan 2001 were different. In Afghanistan 2001 no progressive mass struggle did take place – the local civil war of the so-called United Front of Ahmad Shah Massoud against the Taliban didn’t bear any progressive potential. The national liberation struggle of the Kurdish people against the Baath regime in Iraq did have a just and progressive character but given its local nature in the north, it did not become the dominant factor in the political situation.
Related to this is another important difference between the two types of wars: The Iraq war 1991, 2003 or the Afghanistan war 2011 were not an interference of imperialism in ongoing liberation struggles. They were outright imperialist attacks to subjugate this or that nation.
One has to look concretely at these wars. For example in Bosnia or Kosova the imperialist war goals were not to conquer and subjugate Serbia but rather to contain the spreading of the national liberation struggle and by this to stop the destabilization of the regional order. In the case of Kosova, one should remember that shortly before the war, in spring 1997, there was the armed mass uprising in Albania. A successful liberation struggle in Kosova would have had massive consequences for starting a similar liberation struggle amongst the oppressed Albanian minorities in Macedonia and Montenegro.
Of course imperialist interference can change the character of a national liberation struggle. But this is not necessarily and always the case. In our book on the Arab Revolution we already referred to the examples that the imperialists also interfered in the Chinese national liberation struggle in the 1930s and 40s or in the guerilla mass movements in Eastern Europe against the Nazis during World War II. For example the British sent arms and officer to the Stalinist partisans of Tito and the USA sent even military aircrafts with US pilots to support the bourgeois Chiang Kai-chek forces. Did these lead the revolutionaries of the Fourth International to stop supporting these struggles?! No, and they would have been terrible wrong had they do so.
One has to concretely analyze if a given democratic or national liberation struggle becomes fully subordinated to the imperialist maneuvers and doesn’t possess any significant internal dynamic of a workers and peasant liberation struggle. If this is the case, Marxists must change their position and give up critical support for the national liberation struggle.
However, even here one has to analyze the process and its possible transformation and therefore be prepared for a necessary change in the position. For example when the Shiite workers and peasants in Southern Iraq upraised against Saddam Hussein in March 1991, both we Marxists and the imperialists understood the class meaning of this insurrection. It was a genuine democratic revolution of the workers and peasants. Therefore the Baathist army crushed it, the US troops and the imperialist and petty-bourgeois ‘public opinion’ cried crocodile tears about the poor Iraqis and the evil Saddam Hussein regime … but stood by and looked in relief when the uprising was crushed. And we Bolshevik-Communists? [5] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn5) We defended the Iraqi army against the US troops but we also defended the Shia masses against the Baathist army. Both the imperialists and the LRCI/RCIT changed their position not because they were inconsistent but because the struggle between the classes changed its character. It can also be the other way round that Marxist can first support a democratic revolution and later change this position. Only such a concrete and dialectical approach enables Marxists to elaborate an independent and internationalist working class position. This means a view point which focuses on the advance of the working class struggle, organizations and consciousness and not on the imperialist and petty-bourgeois ‘public opinion’.
Let us briefly deal with another historic example. Which positions should Marxists have developed in the 1953, 1956, 1968 or 1980-81 when the workers rebelled against the Stalinist bureaucracy in Eastern Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland?! Of course, the imperialist and petty-bourgeois 'public opinion' in the West was verbally in favor of these workers uprising because they hoped to weaken the Stalinists by tactically exploiting them. But only the Stalinists and living caricatures of Trotskyism like the Spartacists did come to the conclusion that because of the Western 'public opinion', one should defend the bureaucratic dictatorship against the workers. For the Marxists of course the starting point was not the imperialist and petty-bourgeois 'public opinion' in the West but the independent proletarian class interests. We therefore supported critically but unconditionally the revolutions in the East. While we supported these – unfortunately defeated – workers revolutions we at the same time opposed any form of imperialist attack.
Consequences for the military tactic
So we see that in implementing the same independent, internationalist working class line, one has to arrive in different situations to different conclusions because objective factors and class interests are involved. The same strategy of permanent revolution leads in different types of wars to different tactics. Only a mechanistic bonehead can be surprised by this.
Where the working class and the oppressed are not engaged in a direct struggle for power, i.e. outside of a revolutionary situation, the task of the overthrow of a given regime is subordinated to the task of the defense of semi-colonial country (or a degenerated workers state) against an imperialist attack. On the other hand, where we have the mobilization of the working class and the oppressed in a direct struggle for power as it is the case in a revolutionary situation, a civil war etc., Bolshevik-Communists fight for the victorious outcome of this class struggle. Of course we combine this with the fight against the imperialist attacks.
The Second World War is a model for such a contradictory situation. There we could see the application of a combined, dialectical approach of military tactics. The revolutionary Marxists of the Fourth International defended the Soviet Union against German imperialism – despite the formers alliance with Western imperialism. They sided with the colonial people against their imperialist occupiers – despite the Stalinists’ support for the British and French occupiers and despite the Allied imperialists’ support for the Chinese resistance against Japanese imperialism. The Fourth International also sided with the national liberations partisan armies against German imperialism in Europe and took a defeatist position against both imperialist camps in their conflict with each other.
So we see that in such contradictory cases, where so to say several wars take place in one war, it would be disastrous to pursuit one and the same tactic for all different wars or “sub-wars”. Quite the opposite, Marxists must call for a dual military tactic.
Only when the imperialist forces threaten to conquer a given semi-colonial country (or a degenerated workers state) and when at the same time the working class is not strong enough to take power, only then it becomes necessary to subordinate the struggle against the regime to the defense of the given semi-colonial country (or a degenerated workers state).
This is why we supported the national liberation struggle of the Bosnian people against the Serbian restorationist bureaucracy in 1992-95 while opposing any NATO attacks. This is why we supported the uprising of the Kosova-Albanians in 1997-99 while at the same time opposing NATO’s war against Serbia. This is why we said during the Gulf War both in 1991 and 2003 “Defend Iraq! Defeat Imperialism!” When the imperialist assault against Afghanistan started on 7th of October 2001 we called for the military victory of the Afghan resistance despite the Taliban leadership. And we called for the Hezbollah-led resistance in Lebanon 2006 and the Hamas-led resistance in Gaza 2008/09 both against the Israeli Apartheid state.
Such complications, amalgamations of different and contradictory interests in a given military conflict are likely to increase in the future. Why? Because of the increasing rivalry between imperialist power. Because of this rivalry, imperialist power are more and more motivated to interfere in local conflicts and civil wars and to exploit them to advance their influence and increase their profits. Unfortunately this aspect is completely ignored by many sectarians who fail to recognize that in addition to the old imperialist power – in North America, Western Europe and Japan – there are also new, emerging imperialist powers, in particular Russia and China. [6] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn6)
In our study on Chinese imperialism we have explained various possible consequences of this increasing rivalry between imperialist powers like the USA and China by taking the example of possible wars in the South China (or East) Sea region.
“Which position should the working class take in a military conflict between China (or the USA) with one of the smaller East Asian countries? Here we have to take into account the fact that countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, and Taiwan etc. are not imperialist powers. They are rather semi-colonial capitalist countries. (…) As we said in our program it is the Marxist principle to defend such semi-colonial countries against imperialist powers.
However it is not sufficient to state the Marxist principles on wars. In real life all forms of combinations, alliances, amalgamations of different interests etc. are possible and indeed are an important aspect of the class struggle. In formulating the correct revolutionary tactic Marxists have to coalesce the application of the Marxist principles of the class approach to wars with a concrete analysis of every war in its peculiarity and totality.
Concerning the South China (or East) Sea this means the following: Countries like the Philippines or Taiwan have had close alliances with US imperialism for many decades – or more concretely they are semi-colonies of the USA. Given these facts it is quite possible that there can be a war for example between the Philippines and China as it nearly happened in the summer of 2012. Concretely in this case the Philippine military forces acted in closest accordance with the US armed forces. In such a war we would have formally an imperialist power (China) on one side and a semi-colonial country (Philippine) on the other side. However in fact it would be a proxy war in the case of the Philippines, i.e. they would act as an extension of US imperialism. Thus the working class should not rally to defend the Philippines but should take a position of revolutionary defeatism as they would do in an inner-imperialist war.
However not all wars in the region are necessarily proxy-war. Vietnam for example – whose people heroically defeated first Japanese, than French and finally US imperialism in its liberation wars in the 20th century – has a history of being bullied by China. One just needs to remember the reactionary assault of the Chinese Stalinist bureaucracy on Vietnam in co-ordination with US imperialism in 1979. In principle Vietnam has a right to use the East Sea for fishing no less than China. Its resistance against being expelled from the Sea so that imperialist China can exploit it alone is justified. Hence Bolshevik-Communists could take in such a war a revolutionary defensist position on the side of Vietnam and a defeatist position concerning China.” [7] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn7)
The Marxist classics on contradictory factors in wars
It is true that imperialist powers at some point tried to utilize these democratic struggles for their purpose and interfere. This must be opposed by the Marxist forces. But as Lenin said in the epoch of imperialism the big powers will always try to interfere and utilize national and democratic conflicts. This must not lead Marxists to automatically take a defeatist position in these conflicts. It depends on which factor becomes the dominant aspect – the national, democratic liberation struggle or the imperialist war of conquest.
„Britain and France fought the Seven Years’ War for the possession of colonies. In other words, they waged an imperialist war (which is possible on the basis of slavery and primitive capitalism as well as on the basis of modern highly developed capitalism). France suffered defeat and lost some of her colonies. Several years later there began the national liberation war of the North American States against Britain alone. France and Spain, then in possession of some parts of the present United States, concluded a friendship treaty with the States in rebellion against Britain. This they did out of hostility to Britain, i.e., in their own imperialist interests. French troops fought the British on the side of the American forces. What we have here is a national liberation war in which imperialist rivalry is an auxiliary element, one that has no serious importance. This is the very opposite to what we see in the war of 1914-16 (the national element in the Austro-Serbian War is of no serious importance compared with the all-determining element of imperialist rivalry). It would be absurd, therefore, to apply the concept imperialism indiscriminately and conclude that national wars are “impossible”. A national liberation war, waged, for example, by an alliance of Persia, India and China against one or more of the imperialist powers, is both possible and probable, for it would follow from the national liberation movements in these countries. The transformation of such a war into an imperialist war between the present-day imperialist powers would depend upon very many concrete factors, the emergence of which it would be ridiculous to guarantee.“ [8] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn8)
In another article Lenin compared the possibility of imperialist interference in national liberation struggles for their aims with the possible interference of sections of monopoly capital in democratic struggles in imperialist countries. In both cases, Lenin argued, it would be wrong to refuse support for theses struggles because of this interference:
„On the other hand, the socialists of the oppressed nations must, in particular, defend and implement the full and unconditional unity, including organisational unity, of the workers of the oppressed nation and those of the oppressor nation. Without this it is impossible to defend the independent policy of the proletariat and their class solidarity with the proletariat of other countries in face of all manner of intrigues, treachery and trickery on the part of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations persistently utilise the slogans of national liberation to deceive the workers; in their internal policy they use these slogans for reactionary agreements with the bourgeoisie of the dominant nation (for example, the Poles in Austria and Russia who come to terms with reactionaries for the oppression of the Jews and Ukrainians); in their foreign policy they strive to come to terms with one of the rival imperialist powers for the sake of implementing their predatory plans (the policy of the small Balkan states, etc.). The fact that the struggle for national liberation against one imperialist power may, under certain conditions, be utilised by another “great” power for its own, equally imperialist, aims, is just as unlikely to make the Social-Democrats refuse to recognise the right of nations to self-determination as the numerous cases of bourgeois utilisation of republican slogans for the purpose of political deception and financial plunder (as in the Romance countries, for example) are unlikely to make the Social-Democrats reject their republicanism.” [9] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn9)
This methodological approach was later defended and developed by the Trotskyists. In our journal Revolutionary Communism we re-published an excellent article from Rudolf Klement, a secretary of Trotsky and a leading member of the Fourth International, on “Principles and Tactics in War”. In this article Klement elaborated the position of the Trotskyists and defended it against their sectarian critics:
“Class struggle and war are international phenomena, which are decided internationally. But since every struggle permits of but two camps (bloc against bloc) and since imperialistic fights intertwine with the class war (world imperialism—world proletariat), there arise manifold and complex cases. The bourgeoisie of the semi-colonial countries or the liberal bourgeoisie menaced by its “own” fascism, appeal for aid to the “friendly” imperialisms; the Soviet Union attempts, for example, to utilise the antagonisms between the imperialisms by concluding alliances with one group against another, etc. The proletariat of all countries, the only internationally solidarity—and not least of all because of that, the only progressive—class, thereby finds itself in the complicated situation in wartime, especially in the new world war, of combining revolutionary defeatism towards his own bourgeoisie with support of progressive wars.”
Klement defends a dialectical approach, arguing that “the proletariat, especially in the imperialist countries, requires, in this seemingly contradictory situation, a particularly clear understanding of these combined tasks and of the methods for fulfilling them.” Later, at the end of his article, he goes on to emphasize: “Thus we see how different war situations require from the revolutionary proletariat of the various imperialist countries, if it wishes to remain true to itself and to its goal, different fighting forms, which may appear to schematic spirits to be “deviations” from the basic principle of revolutionary defeatism, but which result in reality only from the combination of revolutionary defeatism with the defence of certain progressive camps.” [10] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn10)
It is this concrete, dialectical method which the Marxists classics developed and which we apply today to the different types of wars which take place in a world situation characterized by increasing contradictions and rivalry.
The civil war in Libya and the arguments of sectarian “anti-imperialism”
In the second part of this article we want to deal with one of the most recent examples of sectarian confusion: the condemnation of the Libyan Revolution in 2011 in the name of “anti-imperialism”. The RCIT supported the popular uprising since it was a democratic revolution against the reactionary bourgeois dictatorship of Gaddafi. We argued to fight inside the rebel movement against the bourgeois leadership of the TNC since the later tried – together with NATO imperialism – to contain the revolution and reduce it to the regime-change. We called for the deepening of the revolution by the formation of workers and popular councils and militias and its transformation of the democratic into a socialist revolution. We therefore strongly opposed the NATO attacks.
We in the RCIT summarized our position in summer 2011 as follows:
“Therefore it is important for activists to connect several tasks of the revolutionary struggle together:
* Participation in the mass struggle against the Gaddafi regime on the basis of a revolutionary program for the proletarian seizure of power.
* Fight within the insurgent masses against the bourgeois rebel leadership of Abduljalil, al-Esavi Jebril, etc.
* For the establishment of councils of workers, peasants, and the oppressed.
* For the establishment of an independent workers’ and people’s militia to enter the fight against the Gaddafi regime independently of the bourgeois leadership.
* For international solidarity with the rebels in Libya. For international brigades and weapons for the fight against Gaddafi’s troops.
* At the same time, however, fight against NATO! For the defeat of the NATO armed forces! For direct actions of the workers’ movement, especially in the NATO countries and in the countries where the imperialist forces and their accomplices have bases, in order to impede their military action and if possible to prevent them.” [11] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn11)
The sectarian “anti-imperialists” however sided with the reactionary Gaddafi regime and supported it against the popular revolution. Examples for such a reactionary position are the Liaison Committee of the Liga Comunista (Brazil), the Revolutionary Marxist Group (South Africa) and Socialist Fight (Britain) [12] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn12) or the ICL/Spartacists, the Internationalist Group/LFI of Jan Norden or the Stalinist group “Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)”.
On the class character of the Gaddafi state
As we showed in an article on the Libyan Revolution sectarians tend to leave open the class character of the Gaddafi regime. [13] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn13) Often the Gaddafi regime was simply characterized as “anti-imperialist”. One of the most bizarre examples of this in the past was the praise for Gaddafi’s “revolution” by the WRP of Gerry Healy. The WRP claimed that “Gaddafi has politically developed in the direction of revolutionary socialism and he has shunned the palaces and harems of some other Arab leaders. (…) For this reason he has become the undisputed leader of the Libyan people and his name is now synonymous with the strivings of the oppressed in many countries.” [14] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn14) The sectarian groups mentioned above also misunderstood the class character of the Gaddafi regime.
For us in the RCIT the Gaddafi regime was a state-capitalist, bourgeois-bonapartist dictatorship. As several other semi-colonial regimes it managed to achieve a certain room for maneuver thanks to the huge oil resources.
The truth behind the often praised social achievements of Gaddafi’s state was that the regimes used the huge oil rent – in addition for its own wealth and the creation of an overblown security apparatus – for the conservation of the Libyan class society. Typical for a parasitical semi-colonial bourgeoisie it didn’t use the billions and billions of oil dollars for the creation of a domestic industry and a significant domestic working class. Instead it retained as much as possible to enrich themselves and to keep the tribal structures in order to avoided a proletarization of the society. Why? Because the reactionary Gaddafi regime wanted to avoid a confrontation with a strong domestic working class.
Of course it needed many workers. As a result it applied the kind of “solution” which the imperialist bourgeoisies is doing since decades to increase their industrial reserve army for super-exploitation: it imported migrants. So like the parasitic Gulf dictatorships the Gaddafi regimes super-exploited at least 682.000 migrant workers (2010) who constitute nearly 29% of the whole labour force of 2.37 million! [15] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn15) There are other figures which even speak of about 1.5 or even 2.5 million migrant workers in Libya. [16] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn16) If one takes into account that in semi-colonial countries the working class constitutes only a part of the whole labor force (since this category also includes the petty-bourgeoisie, the salaried middle class etc.), we can safely assume that in Libya – like the Gulf States – the migrants constituted an even higher share of the working class.
Therefore the Gaddafi regime was to a large degree based on the super-exploitation of the migrant sectors of the working class. Despite the “socialist” rhetoric of the Gaddafi regime, the migrant workers had no right to join a trade union. The “anti-imperialist” Gaddafi had the same approach to the migrant workers like the corrupt oil rent regimes in the Gulf region.
Another argument in defense of the Gaddafi regime is the modernization of the country after “the colonel” came to power by a coup d’état in 1969. This is undoubtedly true as the urbanization rate of 85.5% shows. But the same is true for all the reactionary Gulf monarchies and the whole Middle East! This is a result of the world-wide capitalist process of urbanization and proletarization and not of specific efforts of the Gaddafi regime. Hence the urbanization rate of the population is similar high as in Libya in Saudi Arabia (82.3%) and Jordan (83.4%) or even higher like in Lebanon (86.3%), Kuwait (98.4%) or Bahrain (95.9%). [17] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn17)
Despite the “anti-imperialist” and progressive credentials of the sectarians for the Gaddafi regime, it was fully integrated in the capitalist world economy and the imperialist order. It was completely dependent of oil exports to the world market. It derived from this about 95% of its export revenues and up to 70% of its annual GDP. [18] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn18)
The “socialist” Gaddafi regime also had important foreign investments in the imperialist world, particularly in Italy. There it owned a 7% share of the biggest bank (UniCredit). [19] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn19) It also owned shares of the aircraft and armament corporation Finmeccanica, the energy corporation Eni, the car producer Fiat or the major football club Juventus Turin. All in all it had a FDI outward stock in 2010 of 13.3 billion US-Dollars – higher than of many other semi-colonies (and 21% of the GDP in this year). [20] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn20)
In addition to this, it also intensified its collaboration with the Western imperialist powers in the 2000s. It opened its economy for imperialist foreign investment. Libya had more imperialist foreign investment than many other semi-colonial countries – the FDI inward stock in 2010 was 19.3 billion US-Dollars which is 31% of the GDP in this year (62.4 Billion US-Dollar). [21] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn21)
This also included several US corporations like ConocoPhillips, the third-largest U.S. oil company, which holds a 16.3% share in Libya's important Waha concessions, Marathon Oil Corp (who holds another 16% share), Hess Corp (8% share) or Occidental, the fourth-largest U.S. oil company. [22] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn22)
In addition to this, Gaddafi developed close political ties to the imperialist powers. His regime joined the U.S. created "Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership." in 2005. (It includes 11 African so-called "partner countries”: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal.) This alliance organizes annual joint military exercises under the code name "Flintlock". [23] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn23)
The Gaddafi regime guaranteed the European Union to suppress the possibility for migrants to reach Europe from Libya. In October 2010 this “anti-imperialist” leader signed a deal “to combat the flow of illegal migrants to Europe” for which he received 50 million Euro. [24] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn24) The CIA too felt that on could do business with Gaddafi so they collaborated with him in the torture of “terror suspects”! [25] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn25)
All this in addition to the well-known murderous suppression of the slightest sign of resistance of the Libyan people. Despite the sectarians praises for the Gaddafi regime, it was a bloody bourgeois dictatorship against which the working class and the popular masses had every reason to rise up!
Gaddafi understood his class position certainly better than many of these “anti-imperialists”. When the Tunisian workers and poor took the streets against the Ben Ali dictatorship, Gaddafi lectured them. Gaddafi solidarized openly with the Tunisian dictator Ben Ali and attacked the Tunisian people for overthrowing him! The Electronic Intifada reported about a speech from Gaddafi: “Gaddafi turned to pay homage to Ben Ali, whom he refers to as “Zine”: ‘I do not know anyone from Bourguiba [Tunisia’s first post-independence president] to Zine, but Zine for me is the best for Tunisia. He was the one who gave Tunisia pride of place [in terms of economic growth]; I don’t care whether you like him or not, whether you’re against him or not; I tell you the truth, regardless; do you think that Zine gives me money, glory or any kind of reward for saying this? He gives me nothing, but I tell you the truth. I’m usually candid with the Arab public, pointing out the truth to them. No one is better than Zine at the moment. What I wish is not for Zine to remain in power till 2014 [which is one of the concessions/promises Ben Ali made in his third and last speech before his flight to Saudi Arabia] but for him to remain in power for life, okay! If anyone close to Zine is corrupt or if Zine himself is corrupt, they should stand trial. Bring your evidence and try them; this is usually a normal practice. But it’s inadmissible that whenever there is corruption, we burn our country and kill our children at night. Ala Tunis al-salaam.’” [26] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn26)
True, there were repeatedly conflicts between the Gaddafi regime and US/EU imperialism. When US president Reagan bombed Tripoli in 1986 we unconditionally defended Libya. However as we said in summer 2011, this doesn’t change the bourgeois class character of the regime: “The Gaddafi regime has always been a state capitalist bureaucratic dictatorship. Like several other regimes in the semi-colonial world, Tripoli was also temporarily in conflict with the major imperialist powers. But this does not alter its bourgeois character. Similarly, the war between the west and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in Iraq changes nothing about the bourgeois capitalist class character of the latter.” [27] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn27)
Are the workers and youth today in a better or in a worse position than under the Gaddafi dictatorship?
The sectarian “anti-imperialists” claim that in Libya the counter-revolution – i.e. NATO imperialism and its agents, the supposedly “racist” rebels – has won the civil war. Consequently they consider the outcome as a defeat for the working class.
We on the other hand think that the Libyan Revolution ended in a partial victory for the working class and the oppressed because it defeated the bourgeois-bonapartist Gaddafi regime. True, the bourgeois, pro-imperialist leadership around the TNC tries to hijack this unfinished democratic revolution and turn it into a democratic counterrevolution. However this process is far from completed. What we have today in post-Gaddafi Libya is a crisis-ridden regime which is divided by various factions. It is divided not only by power struggles but also – and to a large degree because of – the pressure of the masses. What we have today in Libya is a partial dual power situation. What constitutes this partial dual power situation?
1) The masses are armed (between 125.000 and 200.000 men in a country of about 5-6 million people!) and organized in many militias under no central control; [28] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn28)
2) The masses have repeatedly brought down various hated figures of the new regime by mass demonstrations, strikes including local general strikes, riots and armed actions;
3) The workers have formed new trade unions and are organizing themselves in rank and file structures. They have more rights and power than under the Gaddafi regime.
The old state apparatus is thoroughly shattered and weakened. It tries to reconstitute itself by integrating NTC leaders with remnants of the old Gaddafi regime (which shows how reactionary this “anti-imperialist” regime was!). But there are still about 60 or so independent militias in the country with 125.000 and 200.000 armed men. These armed men have repeatedly attacked leading figures of the new regime. For example on 8th May this year, two hundred militiamen opened fire on the prime minister’s Tripoli office with anti-tank guns, forcing al-Keib to briefly take flight. They a number of times have sided with workers and youth who protested on the streets. This shows that there are better possibilities of the workers and oppressed to fight for their rights against the regime than under Gaddafi.
In Misratah, one of the heroic centers of the revolution and one of the most important industrial towns, the workers and militias staged a three day general strike ”for bread and a decent health system, against the inflation and against those who want to expropriate our fight: the TNC.” During this they destroyed the local headquarters of the TNC. On the streets of Misratah and other towns one can see written on the wall the anti-imperialist slogan: "today in Libya, tomorrow in Wall Street!" There have been many strikes in Benghazi where an independent trade union federation is said to have been formed. Youth organizations are repeatedly demonstrated in Benghazi and protested against the new government and former Gaddafi functionaries. In January this year these protests forced Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, the transitional council’s deputy chief, to resign.
In Misratah and Tripoli the port workers are organizing in rank and file assemblies and call for the continuation of the revolution and the ousting of all former Gaddafi managers and directors. So do the oil workers. Many workers strikes are reported from Benghazi. [29] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn29)
Another positive consequence of the Libyan revolution is the progress of the national liberation struggle of the Tuareg people in Mali who created the Azawad Republic albeit this achievement is endangered by the Islamist movement Ansar Dine. [30] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn30). Again this shows in our opinion that the partial victory of the democratic revolution in Libya is advantageous for the oppressed people.
So, against the sectarian “anti-imperialists” we insist that the working class and the oppressed are today in a better position to fight for their interest and for the continuation of the revolution than they were under the chains of the Gaddafi dictatorship – despite the unfinished character of the revolution and indeed its bourgeoisification.
Of course, all this can change and indeed will change if the working class does not overcome its crisis of leadership. But so it is too in Greece and in all unfinished revolutions around the world. This is why the overcoming of the crisis of leadership is decisive.
But this cannot be achieved if one confuses a revolution with its leadership, if one joins the counterrevolution because of a wrong leadership of the revolution! It can only be done by joining the revolutionary masses and fighting inside their ranks against the bourgeois leadership.
It is also telling that the revolutionary masses do obviously not wish back the old regime and does not turn to the Jamahiriya. It is still sick with hatred for Gaddafi (leaving aside some tribes related with him). The main contradiction line of the class struggle today is not between the popular masses and the rebels but between the pro-rebel popular masses and organized rebels on one hand and the new regime of the TNC on the other hand.
Why did NATO intervene militarily?
But, the sectarian “anti-imperialists” argue, why did NATO intervene militarily in Libya if not to get rid of the Gaddafi regime as an obstacle for their influence? First, we answer, one has to recognize that NATO’s military intervention was not planned long before but rather improvised. As we showed above only some months before they made good business and shook hands with Gaddafi. The NATO intervention was an improvised reaction to the massive spreading of the revolution which in the case of Libya militarized rapidly – because of Gaddafi’s bloody oppression of the 17th February Uprising.
Until then the Arab Revolution was relatively peaceful and hence left the possibility for the imperialist powers to come to a certain agreement with the new rulers (in particularly the Islamists like the Muslim Brothers). But the beginning of the Libyan civil war threatened to change the whole scenario and to transform the Arab Revolution into an armed regional uprising. It could have meant the endangering of the imperialists secure access to the oil resources and the end of Israel amongst many other things. Therefore the imperialists were desperate to contain the Libyan revolution and to politically expropriate its leadership.
On the urban and tribal factors in the civil war
Another argument put forward by the sectarian “anti-imperialists” is the claim that the rebels were rooted rather in the backward Eastern parts of Libya where chauvinism and al-Qaida is supposed to be very strong. The more modern Western parts of Libya with a strong progressive, more modern tradition were rather pro-Gaddafi – so the argument goes.
As a matter of fact tribal ties were not only important in the East but for the Gaddafi regime too. One just needs to remember where Gaddafi fled after the fall of Tripoli: To his tribe in Sirte! It is also significant that while Tripoli was the formal capital of Libya, Gaddafi moved most of the governments’ ministries to … Sirte. The regime preserved the backward tribal society as much as it could.
In addition to this, one should look concretely to the centers of the revolution. By early March 2011, i.e. before a single NATO bomb has fallen, the Libyan workers and popular masses took power in five of the seven biggest cities (Benghazi, Misrata, Bayda, Zawiya, Ajdabiya). In Tripolis there was a mass uprising in the days after 17th February which led to the burning down of several governmental buildings. But given the high concentration of the armed state apparatus they were brutally smashed. This should make pretty clear that the revolution was a very urban affair and had the support of the majority of the urban popular masses. During this time there were none or only very small pro-Gaddafi rallies. The victory of the Libyan revolution was because of this mass support, not because of the NATO intervention.
On the “racist” Libyan rebels and attacks against Sub-Saharan Africans migrant workers
A major argument of the sectarian “anti-imperialists” is their claim that the migrant workers – and in particular black migrants – have been expelled by the “racist” Libyan rebels. It is certainly true that there have been attacks against Sub-Saharan Africans migrant workers because of their skin. However the sectarian “anti-imperialists” completely distort the whole picture.
First, it is wrong to give the impression that Sub-Saharan Africans migrants have been singled out and expelled from Libya because of the racist motives of the Libyan rebels. The truth is that most migrant workers – amongst whom Sub-Saharan Africans were only a minority (the biggest group was from Egypt) – have fled the country. Why? Simply because of the civil war. Because of the war the oil production and the economy as a whole broke down, hence the migrant workers were not paid anymore and in addition there was a huge insecurity given the civil war. As a result between February and June 2011, about half a million migrants fled the country. [31] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn31) The fact that Arab migrant workers fled as well as Sub-Saharan African migrant workers is a clear proof that the war conditions and not racism was the main reason for the mass departure of migrant workers.
Secondly, chauvinist sentiments were fuelled by the fact that Gaddafi strongly resorted to Sub-Saharan African as mercenaries. This is no surprise given its weak support amongst the people.
Thirdly, there are many reports about racism and brutal treatment of Sub-Saharan Africans already before February 2011 by the Gaddafi regime itself! Why do the sectarian “anti-imperialists” only focus on the chauvinism exerted by rebels but not by Gaddafi police and soldiers?! This is particularly absurd given the fact that while it is disputed if the Libyan rebels targeted systematically Sub-Saharan Africans migrants, it is undisputed that the Gaddafi regime targeted and expelled systematically Sub-Saharan Africans migrants! At least since the year 2000 the regime deported systematically refugees. According to a Gaddafi-friendly (!) Chinese website “tens of thousands of Nigerians, Ghanaians, Chadians, and many more from Niger, Gambia and Sudan were deported” [32] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn32). There is no room for interpretation. For example in January 2008 Gaddafi himself proclaimed officially to deport all illegal refugees. "The authorities decided to start immediately the operation of gathering all foreigners living illegally in Libya and deporting them" [33] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn33). And all this was openly done in coordination with the European imperialism with which Gaddafi signed deals to “secure” their border against African refugees. So, we see, it was Gaddafi himself who was an “agent of imperialism” and who racist targeted Sub-Saharan Africans migrants!
Therefore, even if we would accept the view that the Libyan rebels targeted systematically Sub-Saharan Africans migrants and expelled them, even then this would make them certainly not more racist than the “anti-imperialist” Gaddafi regime which the sectarians shamefully defended.
To whom did the solidarity of the Arab working class belong to?
Let us finally also point out that the popular masses in the Middle East also understood better than the sectarian “anti-imperialists”, which camp in the Libyan civil war was closer to their class interests. It is telling that throughout the Arab world the masses demonstrated in solidarity with the Libyan Revolution. On the other hand, where were acts of support of the masses for the Gaddafi regime – leaving aside the Syrian state media?! It is a fact that working class organizations like the Tunisian trade union federation UGTT or the Hoxhaist party PCOT were all in solidarity with the Libyan revolution and today with the Syrian revolution. Such mass factors should weigh hundred times more than conspiracy theories and cruel stories about “the racists murder Libyan rebels”!
Summary
In this article we showed that the Marxist approach to wars and uprisings, into which imperialist powers try to interfere, is very different from the attitude of the sectarian “anti-imperialists”. While they make mechanistically always a minus where the bourgeoisie in their country makes a plus, the Marxists approach such wars and uprisings from an internationalist and independent working class perspective. We support those uprisings and civil wars which are favorable for the advance of the working class struggle, organizations and consciousness. We fight against those forces whose triumph is a direct and immediate threat for the working class struggle. For the same reason we oppose all forms of imperialist attack since the strengthening of imperialism automatically means a disadvantage for the working class.
This leads necessarily to the application of a combined, dialectical approach of military tactics. In World War Two we could already see this when the Fourth International had to combine defensist and defeatist tactics. Such combined, dual military tactics also have to be applied today and probably more so in the future. Given the increasing inner-imperialist rivalry – particularly if one takes the rise of emerging Chinese imperialism into account – we will see more and more cases where imperialist forces try to interfere and exploit civil wars in the semi-colonial world.
The unfinished democratic revolution in Libya in 2011 is an example for this. The Bolshevik-Communists supported the popular uprising because it was a just liberation struggle against the reactionary bourgeois dictatorship of Gaddafi. We argued to fight inside the rebel movement against the bourgeois leadership of the TNC which tried – together with NATO imperialism – to contain the revolution and reduce it to the regime-change. We called for the deepening of the revolution by the formation of workers and popular councils and militias and the transformation of the democratic into a socialist revolution. For this reason we fought against the NATO attacks since they just helped to contain the revolution.
The arguments of the sectarian “anti-imperialists” for their siding with the Gaddafi regimes are totally wrong. They ignore the bourgeois and pro-imperialist character of the regime. It was a deep enemy of the working class. The outcome of the civil war at the moment bears the character of an unfinished democratic revolution. It succeeded in getting rid of the dictatorship. The working class and the oppressed today have more possibilities to organize and to arm themselves to fight for their rights. However the working class does not possess a revolutionary workers party which can lead it to a successful socialist revolution. For this reason the domestic bourgeoisie and the imperialists succeeded until now in containing the revolution, i.e. in stopping the working class from taking power. Building such a revolutionary workers party as part of the Fifth International – the World Party of Socialist Revolution – remains the chief task for revolutionaries in Libya and world-wide. The RCIT dedicates its forces to achieve this task.
Footnotes
[1] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref1) While the book, written by Michael Pröbsting, has been published in German language, the chapter on the Libyan civil war was translated into English and published in the RCIT’s journal Revolutionary Communism No. 1. It appears also on our website www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/libya-revolutionary-tactics (http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/libya-revolutionary-tactics)
[2] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref2) RCIT: The Revolutionary Communist Manifesto, pp. 45-46, www.thecommunists.net/rcit-manifesto/revolutionary-struggle-for-democracy (http://www.thecommunists.net/rcit-manifesto/revolutionary-struggle-for-democracy)
[3] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref3) Leon Trotsky: Learn to Think: A Friendly Suggestion to Certain Ultra-Leftists (1938); in: Trotsky Writings 1937-38, p. 332f. (Emphasis in the Original) The RCIT re-published this text in Revolutionary Communism No. 5 (2012).
[4] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref4) We published in the late 1980 and the 1990s a lot of analytical and programmatic material – including two booklets – about the history of Yugoslavia and the Balkan wars in German language and some in Serbo-Croatian. Those who wish to have a copy of these shall contact us.
[5] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref5) At that time we were part of our predecessor organization, the League for a Revolutionary Communist International (LRCI), which renamed itself in 2003 into League for the Fifth International (LFI). The majority of the founding cadres of the RCIT were before leading members of the LFI. In the process of the LFI’s majority degeneration into centrism these cadres were expelled or resigned from it in 2011. More on this see “Where is the LFI drifting? A Letter from the RCIT to the LFI comrades”; in: Revolutionary Communism No. 3, June 2012, www.thecommunists.net/theory/centrist-degeneration-of-lfi (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/centrist-degeneration-of-lfi)
[6] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref6) See Michael Pröbsting: China‘s transformation into an imperialist power. A study of the economic, political and military aspects of China as a Great Power; in: Revolutionary Communism No. 4 (August 2012), p. 4-32, online: www.thecommunists.net/theory/why-china-is-imperialist (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/why-china-is-imperialist)
[7] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref7) See Michael Pröbsting: China‘s transformation into an imperialist power. A study of the economic, political and military aspects of China as a Great Power; in: Revolutionary Communism No. 4 (August 2012), p. 22-24, online: www.thecommunists.net/theory/why-china-is-imperialist (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/why-china-is-imperialist)
[8] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref8) W. I. Lenin: Über die „Junius“-Broschüre (1916), in: LW 22, S. 316; in English: V. I. Lenin: The Junius Pamphlet(1916); in: CW 22, p. 310-11
[9] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref9) W. I. Lenin: Die sozialistische Revolution und das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Nationen (1916), in: LW 22, S. 149f. ; in English: V. I. Lenin: The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1916); in: CW 22, p. 148
[10] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref10) Rudolf Klement: Principles and Tactics in War (1938); in The New International (Theoretical journal of the Socialist Workers Party, US-American section of the Fourth International), May 1938, Vol. 4, No. 5, pp. 144-145. The RCIT re-published this text in: Revolutionary Communism No. 4 (2012), pp. 44-46.
[11] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref11) Michael Pröbsting: The intervention of the imperialist powers in Libya, the struggle of the masses against Gaddafi’s dictatorship and the tactics of revolutionary communists”; in: Revolutionary Communism No. 1, September 2011, www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/libya-revolutionary-tactics (http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/libya-revolutionary-tactics)
[12] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref12) For the unconditional defence of Libya against Imperialism! For a Military United Front with Gaddafi to defeat NATO and the CIA armed "rebels"! No confidence in the government of Tripoli; only by arming all the people and by the permanent revolution can we win the struggle! Statement on Libya by the Liga Comunista of Brazil, the Revolutionary Marxist Group of South Africa and Socialist Fight of Britain, 21 April 2011; in: Socialist Fight No. 6 (2011), p. 36
[13] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref13) Michael Pröbsting: The intervention of the imperialist powers in Libya, the struggle of the masses against Gaddafi’s dictatorship and the tactics of revolutionary communists”; in: Revolutionary Communism No. 1, September 2011, www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/libya-revolutionary-tactics (http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/libya-revolutionary-tactics)
[14] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref14) Statement of the WRP Political Committee, 11th December 1981, published in News Line, 12th December 1981
[15] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref15) See International Organization for Migration: World Migration Report 2010. The Future of Migration: Building Capacities for Change (2010), p. 135; UNCTAD: Handbook of Statistics 2010, p. 468
[16] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref16) See International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH): Exiles From Libya Flee To Egypt (2011), p. 4
[17] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref17) See UNCTAD: Handbook of Statistics 2010, pp. 468-476
[18] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref18) See African Economic Outlook 2012, Libya 2012, p. 4
[19] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref19) Antonio De Bonis: Italy and the Libyan crisis, 5.4.2011, http://www.antoniodebonis.com/2011/04/italy-and-libyan-crisis.html
[20] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref20) World Investment Report 2011, p. 191; World Bank: World Development Report 2012, p. 398
[21] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref21) World Investment Report 2011, p. 191; World Bank: World Development Report 2012, p. 398
[22] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref22) See Reuters: Factbox: U.S. oil companies' interests in Libya, 22.2.2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/22/us-libya-usa-oilcompanies-idUSTRE71L5Y820110222
[23] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref23) U.S. Africa Command: The Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership, http://www.africom.mil/tsctp.asp
[24] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref24) See Bjarte Vandvik: The EU's dubious refugee deal The EU is paying Libya to deal with refugees seeking a new life in Europe. Can we trust Gaddafi's regime to look after them? The Guardian, 20 October 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/20/eu-refugee-libya-gaddafi
[25] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref25) See Ben Hubbard: Libya: CIA Reportedly Worked Closely With Gaddafi Intelligence Services, The Associated Press, 09/03/11 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/03/libya-cia-gaddafi-intelligence_n_947764.html
[26] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref26) Quoted in Nouri Gana: Libya’s tragedy, Gaddafi’s farce, The Electronic Intifada, 22.2.2011, http://electronicintifada.net/content/libyas-tragedy-gaddafis-farce/9814
[27] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref27) Michael Pröbsting: The intervention of the imperialist powers in Libya, the struggle of the masses against Gaddafi’s dictatorship and the tactics of revolutionary communists”; in: Revolutionary Communism No. 1, September 2011, www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/libya-revolutionary-tactics (http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/libya-revolutionary-tactics)
[28] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref28) See International Crisis Group: Holding Libya Together: Security Challenges after Qadhafi (December 2011), p. 30
[29] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref29) Many such reports can be found on the website of the Libyan Youth Movement http://www.shabablibya.org and also one from the centrist Trotskyist FLTI which publishes a number of reports from revolutionary militias and port workers assemblies http://libyarevolutionupdate.blogspot.com.ar/
[30] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref30) For more on this see our article “For a free and socialist Azawad! Our attitude to the freedom struggle of the Tuareg people in Mali”, by Johannes Wiener; in: Revolutionary Communism No. 3, June 2012, www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/mali-free-azawad/ (http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/mali-free-azawad/)
[31] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref31) See International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH): Exiles From Libya Flee To Egypt (2011), p. 4
[32] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref32) Immigrants of Libya, China.org.cn, March 23, 2011 http://www.china.org.cn/world/2011-03/23/content_22202161.htm
[33] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref33) Mass refugee exodus in Libya, 22 January 2008, http://www.amnesty.org.au/refugees/comments/8335/
By Michael Pröbsting, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), www.thecommunists.net (http://www.thecommunists.net)
The new historic period which opened in 2007/08 with the beginning of the deepest crisis of the capitalist world economy since 1929 has brought deep ruptures and changes not only in the economic arena but also in the political and military. The revolutionary character of this historic period is expressed in the dramatic acceleration of the class contradictions. Some of the most important features of this are the Arab Revolution which started in early 2011 and the emergence of a new imperialist Great Power – China.
This deepening of the class contradictions sharpens the dramatic crisis of leadership of the working class and the oppressed. Since more than six decades – when the Fourth International collapsed politically and organizationally in 1948-53 – the proletariat does not possess a world party of socialist revolution. As a result the numerous struggles and revolutions of the workers and oppressed in the semi-colonial, Stalinist and imperialist countries were mislead by petty-bourgeois leaderships. Hence they did not succeed in the overthrow of the rulers and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
This crisis of leadership is felt particularly in the new period because the Arab Revolution and also other struggles are increasingly characterized by a seemingly contradictory constellation. Just democratic revolutions or national liberation struggles are mingled with the interference of this or that imperialist power. This is even more the case because the rivalry between imperialist powers – like the USA, the EU, China or Russia – is increasingly influencing a number of conflicts in the South. Hence, democratic liberation civil wars in and national defense war of semi-colonial countries which are in one way or another intermingled with imperialist interests, interference and rivalry will be an increasingly important phenomena in the new historic period.
Hence workers organizations and activists need to combine a correct understanding of the Marxist principles with a concrete analyzes of a given war or conflict. Only in this way it is possible to develop a revolutionary tactic in the interest of the international working class.
The Arab Revolution and the imperialist interference have created numerous confusions in the ranks of progressive movements. Many have adapted themselves to the pressure of pro-Western propaganda, other have joined the counter-revolutionary camp of the Gaddafi or Assad regimes in falsely seeing them as “anti-imperialist”. We have already dealt with a number of these positions and arguments in our book on the Arab Revolution. [1] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn1)
In the following article we want to explain more detailed the approach of the Bolshevik-Communists on these combined tasks and tactics and defend them against various arguments from the pro-regime, anti-revolution “anti-imperialist” camp. We will counter various arguments and myths concerning the Libyan Revolution.
We are anti-imperialist because we take the stance of the working class … and not the other way round
Let us start with a brief presentation of the general method how the RCIT approaches national democratic liberation struggles in semi-colonial countries which are intermingled with imperialist interference. We have summarized our method in our programme The Revolutionary Communist Manifesto:
“Particularly, where authoritarian regimes or the military openly trample on democratic rights, mass movements rise and fight with determination for their rights. Other states and even great imperialist powers try to exploit such domestic crises and are only too happy to expand their influence. The Bolsheviks-Communists support any real movement of the popular masses against the suppression of democratic rights. We reject any influence of reactionary forces and defend the national sovereignty of semi-colonial countries against imperialism. This can not mean that revolutionaries renounce the support of revolutionary-democratic movement. In reality, the imperialist meddling is no help for the revolutionary-democratic struggle, but threatens to undermine it. That is why we have supported progressive liberation struggles of the masses against dictatorships, but at the same time rejected sharply imperialist interventions. (E.g. the struggle of the Bosnians 1992-95, the Kosovo Albanians in 1999, the uprising against the Gaddafi dictatorship in Libya in 2011). Only when the imperialist intervention is becoming the dominant feature of the political situation, revolutionaries must subordinate the democratic struggle to the fight against such an intervention.
Similarly, this is the case in the still-existing degenerated workers states (such as Cuba or North Korea). We support real mass movement against the ruling bureaucracy (such as those in Eastern Europe, China and the USSR, 1989-91) and advocate for political revolution. However, we defend the achievements of the workers’ state (planning, state ownership, foreign trade monopoly, etc.) against any attempt for the introduction of capitalism.” [2] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn2)
Let us now elaborate our approach. Many leftists fail to understand the correct relationship between anti-imperialism and international working class solidarity. We are anti-imperialist because we are consistent supports of the working class and oppressed people liberation struggle for which imperialism is the biggest enemy. Our anti-imperialism is a consequence of our fundamental position on the class struggle and not an overriding principle, which resides above the class struggle.
This is why Marxists are capable to come to positions which are independent of the imperialist and petty-bourgeois 'public opinion' and ‘dependent’ on the class interests of the international working class. This is why we don’t get confused when the imperialist and petty-bourgeois 'public opinion' supports a just national or democratic liberation struggle. Marxists don’t make – like Pavlov’s dog – a minus where the Western imperialists make a plus. We however make sure that we develop an independent class position.
Our method is that during such just democratic or national liberation struggles we are on the side of the liberation fighters (who are mostly under bourgeois or petty-bourgeois leaderships) and support their military victory. We sharply differentiate between these progressive liberation struggles and the interests of the imperialist powers. While we support the first, we totally oppose the later. Hence we Bolshevik-Communists reject any imperialist interference and call for the defeat of the imperialist forces.
The public opinion in the imperialist world must not be the starting point for developing a position towards a war!
Sectors of the centrist left in the West defend a sectarian version – or let us better say a caricature – of anti-imperialism. They don’t look at a given struggle in its totality with all the various and often contradictory aspects. Instead they try to assess what is the official position of Western imperialism. They usually do this by looking to the so-called public opinion, i.e. the rhetoric of the bourgeois officials and media. And where the Western public opinion makes a plus, the sectarian makes a minus. In other words he or she sympathizes with those side in a given war with the Western public opinion despises.
Thus they arrive to one and the same position in all different kinds of wars: the Iraq war 1991, the Bosnian war 1992-95, the Kosova war 1999, the Afghanistan war 2001, the Iraq war 2003 and the Libyan civil war 2011. This is completely wrong. For Marxists the imperialist public opinion, while a factor which has to be taken into account, is neither the starting point nor the most important factor in deriving to revolutionary positions! It seems that various sectarians have forgotten this very basic truth! This failure leads them often to the scattered thoughts that we Marxists become “opportunists” and “capitulate to the pressure of imperialism”.
Let us give a few historic analogies: During the Slavs national liberation struggle on the Balkan against the Ottoman Empire in 1912/13, Russian imperialism was full of sympathy for it – of course because of its expansionist own class interests. However Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not conclude from this that one should not support their national liberation struggle. Which conclusion did Trotsky and the Fourth International drew from the fact that the imperialist and petty-bourgeois public opinion in Western Europe and Northern America was strongly in favor of the Republican antifascist government in Spain in 1936-39 or for the national liberation struggle of the Chinese toilers under Chiang Kai-shek’s leadership against Japanese imperialism from 1937 onwards? They certainly did not succumb to the imperialist and petty-bourgeois 'public opinion' when they gave critical but unconditional support to the Republican antifascist government’s or the Chinese struggles, but pursued the independent and internationalist working class viewpoint.
Marxists must not start from the consideration: “How can we as revolutionaries fighting in Western imperialist countries best oppose the pressure of ‘our’ bourgeoisie.” This is one-sided and thus opens the door to serious mistakes. It would be anti-imperialism for fools. One must start thinking from the viewpoint “what is the independent class policy in the interest of the international working class and the oppressed people”. In other words, how can we strengthen the working class struggle, organizations and consciousness? This is the only legitimate method how to approach questions of the class struggle. Otherwise one would descend to leftists in imperialist countries that start and end thinking around the question how to oppose their bourgeoisie.
Trotsky explained this approach very well in an article in which he polemicized against the sectarian method:
„In ninety cases out of a hundred the workers actually place a minus sign where the bourgeoisie places a plus sign. In ten cases, however, they are forced to fix the same sign as the bourgeoisie but with their own seal, in which is expressed their mistrust of the bourgeoisie. The policy of the proletariat is not at all automatically derived from the policy of the bourgeoisie, bearing only the opposite sign – this would make every sectarian a master strategist; no, the revolutionary party must each time orient itself independently in the internal as well as the external situation, arriving at those decisions which correspond best to the interests of the proletariat. This rule applies just as much to the war period as to the period of peace.“ [3] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn3)
How to approach various forms of imperialist military interventions?
In which respect can we speak about different forms of imperialist military interventions? Let us explain this by dealing with some examples of the past two decades. What was the difference between the Iraq wars in 1991 and 2003, the Afghanistan in 2001 on one hand and Bosnia 1992-95, Kosova 1999 and Libya 2011? What is our common method why we defend Afghanistan in 2001 albeit the Taliban were certainly not less dictatorial than Gaddafi and why we continued to support the democratic revolution in Libya against the Gaddafi regime despite the imperialist limited military campaign against the regime? The sectarians accuse us of capitulation to “the bourgeois-democratic public opinion in the imperialist countries”? But has there been a difference in the imperialist and petty-bourgeois 'public opinion'? One can hardly say that the public opinion was less hostile against the Taliban than against Gaddafi. Rather the opposite. The imperialist governments had all public meetings with Gaddafi and had to hastily eliminate the pictures from their official websites where one could see Sarkozy, Berlusconi, Blair etc shaking hands and exchanging jokes with the Libyan dictator.
So, what was the difference between the Iraq wars in 1991 and 2003, the Afghanistan in 2001 on one hand and Bosnia 1992-95, Kosova 1999 and Libya 2011? The answer is pretty simple. As historical materialists we first look to the developments of the classes. In Bosnia the war began in April 1992 as a national liberation struggle of the workers and peasants under the leadership of the Izetbegovic bureaucracy against the threatening oppression by the Serbian chauvinist state. Since 1987 the Milosevic regimes in Serbia had initiated a virulent campaign of Serbian chauvinism which targeted in particular the Kosova-Albanians but also most other nationalities in Yugoslavia. By this the Serbian bureaucratic caste wanted to secure its dominant position in the process of capitalist restoration. The Croatian bureaucracy tried to counter this by increasing the oppression of their Serbian minorities in Krajina and Slavonia. This increasing national oppression was related to the capitalist restoration to divert the masses attention from its social consequences. It was this background which started the series of Balkan wars in 1991 and into which various imperialist powers tried to interfere.
The same in Kosova which had a history of murderous oppression by the Serbia state since its annexation in 1913 and many national liberation uprisings since then. The last one started in March 1998. [4] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn4) The Libyan and the Syrian Revolution in 2011 also started as a democratic revolution as part of the Arab revolutions against the bourgeois dictatorships. So, contrary to interpretation of the sectarians, these civil wars started not as a conspiracy of imperialism – they were authentic liberation struggles of the workers and peasants.
In opposite to these examples, the situations in Iraq 1991 and 2003 or Afghanistan 2001 were different. In Afghanistan 2001 no progressive mass struggle did take place – the local civil war of the so-called United Front of Ahmad Shah Massoud against the Taliban didn’t bear any progressive potential. The national liberation struggle of the Kurdish people against the Baath regime in Iraq did have a just and progressive character but given its local nature in the north, it did not become the dominant factor in the political situation.
Related to this is another important difference between the two types of wars: The Iraq war 1991, 2003 or the Afghanistan war 2011 were not an interference of imperialism in ongoing liberation struggles. They were outright imperialist attacks to subjugate this or that nation.
One has to look concretely at these wars. For example in Bosnia or Kosova the imperialist war goals were not to conquer and subjugate Serbia but rather to contain the spreading of the national liberation struggle and by this to stop the destabilization of the regional order. In the case of Kosova, one should remember that shortly before the war, in spring 1997, there was the armed mass uprising in Albania. A successful liberation struggle in Kosova would have had massive consequences for starting a similar liberation struggle amongst the oppressed Albanian minorities in Macedonia and Montenegro.
Of course imperialist interference can change the character of a national liberation struggle. But this is not necessarily and always the case. In our book on the Arab Revolution we already referred to the examples that the imperialists also interfered in the Chinese national liberation struggle in the 1930s and 40s or in the guerilla mass movements in Eastern Europe against the Nazis during World War II. For example the British sent arms and officer to the Stalinist partisans of Tito and the USA sent even military aircrafts with US pilots to support the bourgeois Chiang Kai-chek forces. Did these lead the revolutionaries of the Fourth International to stop supporting these struggles?! No, and they would have been terrible wrong had they do so.
One has to concretely analyze if a given democratic or national liberation struggle becomes fully subordinated to the imperialist maneuvers and doesn’t possess any significant internal dynamic of a workers and peasant liberation struggle. If this is the case, Marxists must change their position and give up critical support for the national liberation struggle.
However, even here one has to analyze the process and its possible transformation and therefore be prepared for a necessary change in the position. For example when the Shiite workers and peasants in Southern Iraq upraised against Saddam Hussein in March 1991, both we Marxists and the imperialists understood the class meaning of this insurrection. It was a genuine democratic revolution of the workers and peasants. Therefore the Baathist army crushed it, the US troops and the imperialist and petty-bourgeois ‘public opinion’ cried crocodile tears about the poor Iraqis and the evil Saddam Hussein regime … but stood by and looked in relief when the uprising was crushed. And we Bolshevik-Communists? [5] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn5) We defended the Iraqi army against the US troops but we also defended the Shia masses against the Baathist army. Both the imperialists and the LRCI/RCIT changed their position not because they were inconsistent but because the struggle between the classes changed its character. It can also be the other way round that Marxist can first support a democratic revolution and later change this position. Only such a concrete and dialectical approach enables Marxists to elaborate an independent and internationalist working class position. This means a view point which focuses on the advance of the working class struggle, organizations and consciousness and not on the imperialist and petty-bourgeois ‘public opinion’.
Let us briefly deal with another historic example. Which positions should Marxists have developed in the 1953, 1956, 1968 or 1980-81 when the workers rebelled against the Stalinist bureaucracy in Eastern Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland?! Of course, the imperialist and petty-bourgeois 'public opinion' in the West was verbally in favor of these workers uprising because they hoped to weaken the Stalinists by tactically exploiting them. But only the Stalinists and living caricatures of Trotskyism like the Spartacists did come to the conclusion that because of the Western 'public opinion', one should defend the bureaucratic dictatorship against the workers. For the Marxists of course the starting point was not the imperialist and petty-bourgeois 'public opinion' in the West but the independent proletarian class interests. We therefore supported critically but unconditionally the revolutions in the East. While we supported these – unfortunately defeated – workers revolutions we at the same time opposed any form of imperialist attack.
Consequences for the military tactic
So we see that in implementing the same independent, internationalist working class line, one has to arrive in different situations to different conclusions because objective factors and class interests are involved. The same strategy of permanent revolution leads in different types of wars to different tactics. Only a mechanistic bonehead can be surprised by this.
Where the working class and the oppressed are not engaged in a direct struggle for power, i.e. outside of a revolutionary situation, the task of the overthrow of a given regime is subordinated to the task of the defense of semi-colonial country (or a degenerated workers state) against an imperialist attack. On the other hand, where we have the mobilization of the working class and the oppressed in a direct struggle for power as it is the case in a revolutionary situation, a civil war etc., Bolshevik-Communists fight for the victorious outcome of this class struggle. Of course we combine this with the fight against the imperialist attacks.
The Second World War is a model for such a contradictory situation. There we could see the application of a combined, dialectical approach of military tactics. The revolutionary Marxists of the Fourth International defended the Soviet Union against German imperialism – despite the formers alliance with Western imperialism. They sided with the colonial people against their imperialist occupiers – despite the Stalinists’ support for the British and French occupiers and despite the Allied imperialists’ support for the Chinese resistance against Japanese imperialism. The Fourth International also sided with the national liberations partisan armies against German imperialism in Europe and took a defeatist position against both imperialist camps in their conflict with each other.
So we see that in such contradictory cases, where so to say several wars take place in one war, it would be disastrous to pursuit one and the same tactic for all different wars or “sub-wars”. Quite the opposite, Marxists must call for a dual military tactic.
Only when the imperialist forces threaten to conquer a given semi-colonial country (or a degenerated workers state) and when at the same time the working class is not strong enough to take power, only then it becomes necessary to subordinate the struggle against the regime to the defense of the given semi-colonial country (or a degenerated workers state).
This is why we supported the national liberation struggle of the Bosnian people against the Serbian restorationist bureaucracy in 1992-95 while opposing any NATO attacks. This is why we supported the uprising of the Kosova-Albanians in 1997-99 while at the same time opposing NATO’s war against Serbia. This is why we said during the Gulf War both in 1991 and 2003 “Defend Iraq! Defeat Imperialism!” When the imperialist assault against Afghanistan started on 7th of October 2001 we called for the military victory of the Afghan resistance despite the Taliban leadership. And we called for the Hezbollah-led resistance in Lebanon 2006 and the Hamas-led resistance in Gaza 2008/09 both against the Israeli Apartheid state.
Such complications, amalgamations of different and contradictory interests in a given military conflict are likely to increase in the future. Why? Because of the increasing rivalry between imperialist power. Because of this rivalry, imperialist power are more and more motivated to interfere in local conflicts and civil wars and to exploit them to advance their influence and increase their profits. Unfortunately this aspect is completely ignored by many sectarians who fail to recognize that in addition to the old imperialist power – in North America, Western Europe and Japan – there are also new, emerging imperialist powers, in particular Russia and China. [6] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn6)
In our study on Chinese imperialism we have explained various possible consequences of this increasing rivalry between imperialist powers like the USA and China by taking the example of possible wars in the South China (or East) Sea region.
“Which position should the working class take in a military conflict between China (or the USA) with one of the smaller East Asian countries? Here we have to take into account the fact that countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, and Taiwan etc. are not imperialist powers. They are rather semi-colonial capitalist countries. (…) As we said in our program it is the Marxist principle to defend such semi-colonial countries against imperialist powers.
However it is not sufficient to state the Marxist principles on wars. In real life all forms of combinations, alliances, amalgamations of different interests etc. are possible and indeed are an important aspect of the class struggle. In formulating the correct revolutionary tactic Marxists have to coalesce the application of the Marxist principles of the class approach to wars with a concrete analysis of every war in its peculiarity and totality.
Concerning the South China (or East) Sea this means the following: Countries like the Philippines or Taiwan have had close alliances with US imperialism for many decades – or more concretely they are semi-colonies of the USA. Given these facts it is quite possible that there can be a war for example between the Philippines and China as it nearly happened in the summer of 2012. Concretely in this case the Philippine military forces acted in closest accordance with the US armed forces. In such a war we would have formally an imperialist power (China) on one side and a semi-colonial country (Philippine) on the other side. However in fact it would be a proxy war in the case of the Philippines, i.e. they would act as an extension of US imperialism. Thus the working class should not rally to defend the Philippines but should take a position of revolutionary defeatism as they would do in an inner-imperialist war.
However not all wars in the region are necessarily proxy-war. Vietnam for example – whose people heroically defeated first Japanese, than French and finally US imperialism in its liberation wars in the 20th century – has a history of being bullied by China. One just needs to remember the reactionary assault of the Chinese Stalinist bureaucracy on Vietnam in co-ordination with US imperialism in 1979. In principle Vietnam has a right to use the East Sea for fishing no less than China. Its resistance against being expelled from the Sea so that imperialist China can exploit it alone is justified. Hence Bolshevik-Communists could take in such a war a revolutionary defensist position on the side of Vietnam and a defeatist position concerning China.” [7] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn7)
The Marxist classics on contradictory factors in wars
It is true that imperialist powers at some point tried to utilize these democratic struggles for their purpose and interfere. This must be opposed by the Marxist forces. But as Lenin said in the epoch of imperialism the big powers will always try to interfere and utilize national and democratic conflicts. This must not lead Marxists to automatically take a defeatist position in these conflicts. It depends on which factor becomes the dominant aspect – the national, democratic liberation struggle or the imperialist war of conquest.
„Britain and France fought the Seven Years’ War for the possession of colonies. In other words, they waged an imperialist war (which is possible on the basis of slavery and primitive capitalism as well as on the basis of modern highly developed capitalism). France suffered defeat and lost some of her colonies. Several years later there began the national liberation war of the North American States against Britain alone. France and Spain, then in possession of some parts of the present United States, concluded a friendship treaty with the States in rebellion against Britain. This they did out of hostility to Britain, i.e., in their own imperialist interests. French troops fought the British on the side of the American forces. What we have here is a national liberation war in which imperialist rivalry is an auxiliary element, one that has no serious importance. This is the very opposite to what we see in the war of 1914-16 (the national element in the Austro-Serbian War is of no serious importance compared with the all-determining element of imperialist rivalry). It would be absurd, therefore, to apply the concept imperialism indiscriminately and conclude that national wars are “impossible”. A national liberation war, waged, for example, by an alliance of Persia, India and China against one or more of the imperialist powers, is both possible and probable, for it would follow from the national liberation movements in these countries. The transformation of such a war into an imperialist war between the present-day imperialist powers would depend upon very many concrete factors, the emergence of which it would be ridiculous to guarantee.“ [8] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn8)
In another article Lenin compared the possibility of imperialist interference in national liberation struggles for their aims with the possible interference of sections of monopoly capital in democratic struggles in imperialist countries. In both cases, Lenin argued, it would be wrong to refuse support for theses struggles because of this interference:
„On the other hand, the socialists of the oppressed nations must, in particular, defend and implement the full and unconditional unity, including organisational unity, of the workers of the oppressed nation and those of the oppressor nation. Without this it is impossible to defend the independent policy of the proletariat and their class solidarity with the proletariat of other countries in face of all manner of intrigues, treachery and trickery on the part of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations persistently utilise the slogans of national liberation to deceive the workers; in their internal policy they use these slogans for reactionary agreements with the bourgeoisie of the dominant nation (for example, the Poles in Austria and Russia who come to terms with reactionaries for the oppression of the Jews and Ukrainians); in their foreign policy they strive to come to terms with one of the rival imperialist powers for the sake of implementing their predatory plans (the policy of the small Balkan states, etc.). The fact that the struggle for national liberation against one imperialist power may, under certain conditions, be utilised by another “great” power for its own, equally imperialist, aims, is just as unlikely to make the Social-Democrats refuse to recognise the right of nations to self-determination as the numerous cases of bourgeois utilisation of republican slogans for the purpose of political deception and financial plunder (as in the Romance countries, for example) are unlikely to make the Social-Democrats reject their republicanism.” [9] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn9)
This methodological approach was later defended and developed by the Trotskyists. In our journal Revolutionary Communism we re-published an excellent article from Rudolf Klement, a secretary of Trotsky and a leading member of the Fourth International, on “Principles and Tactics in War”. In this article Klement elaborated the position of the Trotskyists and defended it against their sectarian critics:
“Class struggle and war are international phenomena, which are decided internationally. But since every struggle permits of but two camps (bloc against bloc) and since imperialistic fights intertwine with the class war (world imperialism—world proletariat), there arise manifold and complex cases. The bourgeoisie of the semi-colonial countries or the liberal bourgeoisie menaced by its “own” fascism, appeal for aid to the “friendly” imperialisms; the Soviet Union attempts, for example, to utilise the antagonisms between the imperialisms by concluding alliances with one group against another, etc. The proletariat of all countries, the only internationally solidarity—and not least of all because of that, the only progressive—class, thereby finds itself in the complicated situation in wartime, especially in the new world war, of combining revolutionary defeatism towards his own bourgeoisie with support of progressive wars.”
Klement defends a dialectical approach, arguing that “the proletariat, especially in the imperialist countries, requires, in this seemingly contradictory situation, a particularly clear understanding of these combined tasks and of the methods for fulfilling them.” Later, at the end of his article, he goes on to emphasize: “Thus we see how different war situations require from the revolutionary proletariat of the various imperialist countries, if it wishes to remain true to itself and to its goal, different fighting forms, which may appear to schematic spirits to be “deviations” from the basic principle of revolutionary defeatism, but which result in reality only from the combination of revolutionary defeatism with the defence of certain progressive camps.” [10] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn10)
It is this concrete, dialectical method which the Marxists classics developed and which we apply today to the different types of wars which take place in a world situation characterized by increasing contradictions and rivalry.
The civil war in Libya and the arguments of sectarian “anti-imperialism”
In the second part of this article we want to deal with one of the most recent examples of sectarian confusion: the condemnation of the Libyan Revolution in 2011 in the name of “anti-imperialism”. The RCIT supported the popular uprising since it was a democratic revolution against the reactionary bourgeois dictatorship of Gaddafi. We argued to fight inside the rebel movement against the bourgeois leadership of the TNC since the later tried – together with NATO imperialism – to contain the revolution and reduce it to the regime-change. We called for the deepening of the revolution by the formation of workers and popular councils and militias and its transformation of the democratic into a socialist revolution. We therefore strongly opposed the NATO attacks.
We in the RCIT summarized our position in summer 2011 as follows:
“Therefore it is important for activists to connect several tasks of the revolutionary struggle together:
* Participation in the mass struggle against the Gaddafi regime on the basis of a revolutionary program for the proletarian seizure of power.
* Fight within the insurgent masses against the bourgeois rebel leadership of Abduljalil, al-Esavi Jebril, etc.
* For the establishment of councils of workers, peasants, and the oppressed.
* For the establishment of an independent workers’ and people’s militia to enter the fight against the Gaddafi regime independently of the bourgeois leadership.
* For international solidarity with the rebels in Libya. For international brigades and weapons for the fight against Gaddafi’s troops.
* At the same time, however, fight against NATO! For the defeat of the NATO armed forces! For direct actions of the workers’ movement, especially in the NATO countries and in the countries where the imperialist forces and their accomplices have bases, in order to impede their military action and if possible to prevent them.” [11] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn11)
The sectarian “anti-imperialists” however sided with the reactionary Gaddafi regime and supported it against the popular revolution. Examples for such a reactionary position are the Liaison Committee of the Liga Comunista (Brazil), the Revolutionary Marxist Group (South Africa) and Socialist Fight (Britain) [12] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn12) or the ICL/Spartacists, the Internationalist Group/LFI of Jan Norden or the Stalinist group “Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)”.
On the class character of the Gaddafi state
As we showed in an article on the Libyan Revolution sectarians tend to leave open the class character of the Gaddafi regime. [13] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn13) Often the Gaddafi regime was simply characterized as “anti-imperialist”. One of the most bizarre examples of this in the past was the praise for Gaddafi’s “revolution” by the WRP of Gerry Healy. The WRP claimed that “Gaddafi has politically developed in the direction of revolutionary socialism and he has shunned the palaces and harems of some other Arab leaders. (…) For this reason he has become the undisputed leader of the Libyan people and his name is now synonymous with the strivings of the oppressed in many countries.” [14] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn14) The sectarian groups mentioned above also misunderstood the class character of the Gaddafi regime.
For us in the RCIT the Gaddafi regime was a state-capitalist, bourgeois-bonapartist dictatorship. As several other semi-colonial regimes it managed to achieve a certain room for maneuver thanks to the huge oil resources.
The truth behind the often praised social achievements of Gaddafi’s state was that the regimes used the huge oil rent – in addition for its own wealth and the creation of an overblown security apparatus – for the conservation of the Libyan class society. Typical for a parasitical semi-colonial bourgeoisie it didn’t use the billions and billions of oil dollars for the creation of a domestic industry and a significant domestic working class. Instead it retained as much as possible to enrich themselves and to keep the tribal structures in order to avoided a proletarization of the society. Why? Because the reactionary Gaddafi regime wanted to avoid a confrontation with a strong domestic working class.
Of course it needed many workers. As a result it applied the kind of “solution” which the imperialist bourgeoisies is doing since decades to increase their industrial reserve army for super-exploitation: it imported migrants. So like the parasitic Gulf dictatorships the Gaddafi regimes super-exploited at least 682.000 migrant workers (2010) who constitute nearly 29% of the whole labour force of 2.37 million! [15] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn15) There are other figures which even speak of about 1.5 or even 2.5 million migrant workers in Libya. [16] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn16) If one takes into account that in semi-colonial countries the working class constitutes only a part of the whole labor force (since this category also includes the petty-bourgeoisie, the salaried middle class etc.), we can safely assume that in Libya – like the Gulf States – the migrants constituted an even higher share of the working class.
Therefore the Gaddafi regime was to a large degree based on the super-exploitation of the migrant sectors of the working class. Despite the “socialist” rhetoric of the Gaddafi regime, the migrant workers had no right to join a trade union. The “anti-imperialist” Gaddafi had the same approach to the migrant workers like the corrupt oil rent regimes in the Gulf region.
Another argument in defense of the Gaddafi regime is the modernization of the country after “the colonel” came to power by a coup d’état in 1969. This is undoubtedly true as the urbanization rate of 85.5% shows. But the same is true for all the reactionary Gulf monarchies and the whole Middle East! This is a result of the world-wide capitalist process of urbanization and proletarization and not of specific efforts of the Gaddafi regime. Hence the urbanization rate of the population is similar high as in Libya in Saudi Arabia (82.3%) and Jordan (83.4%) or even higher like in Lebanon (86.3%), Kuwait (98.4%) or Bahrain (95.9%). [17] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn17)
Despite the “anti-imperialist” and progressive credentials of the sectarians for the Gaddafi regime, it was fully integrated in the capitalist world economy and the imperialist order. It was completely dependent of oil exports to the world market. It derived from this about 95% of its export revenues and up to 70% of its annual GDP. [18] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn18)
The “socialist” Gaddafi regime also had important foreign investments in the imperialist world, particularly in Italy. There it owned a 7% share of the biggest bank (UniCredit). [19] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn19) It also owned shares of the aircraft and armament corporation Finmeccanica, the energy corporation Eni, the car producer Fiat or the major football club Juventus Turin. All in all it had a FDI outward stock in 2010 of 13.3 billion US-Dollars – higher than of many other semi-colonies (and 21% of the GDP in this year). [20] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn20)
In addition to this, it also intensified its collaboration with the Western imperialist powers in the 2000s. It opened its economy for imperialist foreign investment. Libya had more imperialist foreign investment than many other semi-colonial countries – the FDI inward stock in 2010 was 19.3 billion US-Dollars which is 31% of the GDP in this year (62.4 Billion US-Dollar). [21] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn21)
This also included several US corporations like ConocoPhillips, the third-largest U.S. oil company, which holds a 16.3% share in Libya's important Waha concessions, Marathon Oil Corp (who holds another 16% share), Hess Corp (8% share) or Occidental, the fourth-largest U.S. oil company. [22] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn22)
In addition to this, Gaddafi developed close political ties to the imperialist powers. His regime joined the U.S. created "Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership." in 2005. (It includes 11 African so-called "partner countries”: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal.) This alliance organizes annual joint military exercises under the code name "Flintlock". [23] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn23)
The Gaddafi regime guaranteed the European Union to suppress the possibility for migrants to reach Europe from Libya. In October 2010 this “anti-imperialist” leader signed a deal “to combat the flow of illegal migrants to Europe” for which he received 50 million Euro. [24] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn24) The CIA too felt that on could do business with Gaddafi so they collaborated with him in the torture of “terror suspects”! [25] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn25)
All this in addition to the well-known murderous suppression of the slightest sign of resistance of the Libyan people. Despite the sectarians praises for the Gaddafi regime, it was a bloody bourgeois dictatorship against which the working class and the popular masses had every reason to rise up!
Gaddafi understood his class position certainly better than many of these “anti-imperialists”. When the Tunisian workers and poor took the streets against the Ben Ali dictatorship, Gaddafi lectured them. Gaddafi solidarized openly with the Tunisian dictator Ben Ali and attacked the Tunisian people for overthrowing him! The Electronic Intifada reported about a speech from Gaddafi: “Gaddafi turned to pay homage to Ben Ali, whom he refers to as “Zine”: ‘I do not know anyone from Bourguiba [Tunisia’s first post-independence president] to Zine, but Zine for me is the best for Tunisia. He was the one who gave Tunisia pride of place [in terms of economic growth]; I don’t care whether you like him or not, whether you’re against him or not; I tell you the truth, regardless; do you think that Zine gives me money, glory or any kind of reward for saying this? He gives me nothing, but I tell you the truth. I’m usually candid with the Arab public, pointing out the truth to them. No one is better than Zine at the moment. What I wish is not for Zine to remain in power till 2014 [which is one of the concessions/promises Ben Ali made in his third and last speech before his flight to Saudi Arabia] but for him to remain in power for life, okay! If anyone close to Zine is corrupt or if Zine himself is corrupt, they should stand trial. Bring your evidence and try them; this is usually a normal practice. But it’s inadmissible that whenever there is corruption, we burn our country and kill our children at night. Ala Tunis al-salaam.’” [26] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn26)
True, there were repeatedly conflicts between the Gaddafi regime and US/EU imperialism. When US president Reagan bombed Tripoli in 1986 we unconditionally defended Libya. However as we said in summer 2011, this doesn’t change the bourgeois class character of the regime: “The Gaddafi regime has always been a state capitalist bureaucratic dictatorship. Like several other regimes in the semi-colonial world, Tripoli was also temporarily in conflict with the major imperialist powers. But this does not alter its bourgeois character. Similarly, the war between the west and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in Iraq changes nothing about the bourgeois capitalist class character of the latter.” [27] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn27)
Are the workers and youth today in a better or in a worse position than under the Gaddafi dictatorship?
The sectarian “anti-imperialists” claim that in Libya the counter-revolution – i.e. NATO imperialism and its agents, the supposedly “racist” rebels – has won the civil war. Consequently they consider the outcome as a defeat for the working class.
We on the other hand think that the Libyan Revolution ended in a partial victory for the working class and the oppressed because it defeated the bourgeois-bonapartist Gaddafi regime. True, the bourgeois, pro-imperialist leadership around the TNC tries to hijack this unfinished democratic revolution and turn it into a democratic counterrevolution. However this process is far from completed. What we have today in post-Gaddafi Libya is a crisis-ridden regime which is divided by various factions. It is divided not only by power struggles but also – and to a large degree because of – the pressure of the masses. What we have today in Libya is a partial dual power situation. What constitutes this partial dual power situation?
1) The masses are armed (between 125.000 and 200.000 men in a country of about 5-6 million people!) and organized in many militias under no central control; [28] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn28)
2) The masses have repeatedly brought down various hated figures of the new regime by mass demonstrations, strikes including local general strikes, riots and armed actions;
3) The workers have formed new trade unions and are organizing themselves in rank and file structures. They have more rights and power than under the Gaddafi regime.
The old state apparatus is thoroughly shattered and weakened. It tries to reconstitute itself by integrating NTC leaders with remnants of the old Gaddafi regime (which shows how reactionary this “anti-imperialist” regime was!). But there are still about 60 or so independent militias in the country with 125.000 and 200.000 armed men. These armed men have repeatedly attacked leading figures of the new regime. For example on 8th May this year, two hundred militiamen opened fire on the prime minister’s Tripoli office with anti-tank guns, forcing al-Keib to briefly take flight. They a number of times have sided with workers and youth who protested on the streets. This shows that there are better possibilities of the workers and oppressed to fight for their rights against the regime than under Gaddafi.
In Misratah, one of the heroic centers of the revolution and one of the most important industrial towns, the workers and militias staged a three day general strike ”for bread and a decent health system, against the inflation and against those who want to expropriate our fight: the TNC.” During this they destroyed the local headquarters of the TNC. On the streets of Misratah and other towns one can see written on the wall the anti-imperialist slogan: "today in Libya, tomorrow in Wall Street!" There have been many strikes in Benghazi where an independent trade union federation is said to have been formed. Youth organizations are repeatedly demonstrated in Benghazi and protested against the new government and former Gaddafi functionaries. In January this year these protests forced Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, the transitional council’s deputy chief, to resign.
In Misratah and Tripoli the port workers are organizing in rank and file assemblies and call for the continuation of the revolution and the ousting of all former Gaddafi managers and directors. So do the oil workers. Many workers strikes are reported from Benghazi. [29] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn29)
Another positive consequence of the Libyan revolution is the progress of the national liberation struggle of the Tuareg people in Mali who created the Azawad Republic albeit this achievement is endangered by the Islamist movement Ansar Dine. [30] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn30). Again this shows in our opinion that the partial victory of the democratic revolution in Libya is advantageous for the oppressed people.
So, against the sectarian “anti-imperialists” we insist that the working class and the oppressed are today in a better position to fight for their interest and for the continuation of the revolution than they were under the chains of the Gaddafi dictatorship – despite the unfinished character of the revolution and indeed its bourgeoisification.
Of course, all this can change and indeed will change if the working class does not overcome its crisis of leadership. But so it is too in Greece and in all unfinished revolutions around the world. This is why the overcoming of the crisis of leadership is decisive.
But this cannot be achieved if one confuses a revolution with its leadership, if one joins the counterrevolution because of a wrong leadership of the revolution! It can only be done by joining the revolutionary masses and fighting inside their ranks against the bourgeois leadership.
It is also telling that the revolutionary masses do obviously not wish back the old regime and does not turn to the Jamahiriya. It is still sick with hatred for Gaddafi (leaving aside some tribes related with him). The main contradiction line of the class struggle today is not between the popular masses and the rebels but between the pro-rebel popular masses and organized rebels on one hand and the new regime of the TNC on the other hand.
Why did NATO intervene militarily?
But, the sectarian “anti-imperialists” argue, why did NATO intervene militarily in Libya if not to get rid of the Gaddafi regime as an obstacle for their influence? First, we answer, one has to recognize that NATO’s military intervention was not planned long before but rather improvised. As we showed above only some months before they made good business and shook hands with Gaddafi. The NATO intervention was an improvised reaction to the massive spreading of the revolution which in the case of Libya militarized rapidly – because of Gaddafi’s bloody oppression of the 17th February Uprising.
Until then the Arab Revolution was relatively peaceful and hence left the possibility for the imperialist powers to come to a certain agreement with the new rulers (in particularly the Islamists like the Muslim Brothers). But the beginning of the Libyan civil war threatened to change the whole scenario and to transform the Arab Revolution into an armed regional uprising. It could have meant the endangering of the imperialists secure access to the oil resources and the end of Israel amongst many other things. Therefore the imperialists were desperate to contain the Libyan revolution and to politically expropriate its leadership.
On the urban and tribal factors in the civil war
Another argument put forward by the sectarian “anti-imperialists” is the claim that the rebels were rooted rather in the backward Eastern parts of Libya where chauvinism and al-Qaida is supposed to be very strong. The more modern Western parts of Libya with a strong progressive, more modern tradition were rather pro-Gaddafi – so the argument goes.
As a matter of fact tribal ties were not only important in the East but for the Gaddafi regime too. One just needs to remember where Gaddafi fled after the fall of Tripoli: To his tribe in Sirte! It is also significant that while Tripoli was the formal capital of Libya, Gaddafi moved most of the governments’ ministries to … Sirte. The regime preserved the backward tribal society as much as it could.
In addition to this, one should look concretely to the centers of the revolution. By early March 2011, i.e. before a single NATO bomb has fallen, the Libyan workers and popular masses took power in five of the seven biggest cities (Benghazi, Misrata, Bayda, Zawiya, Ajdabiya). In Tripolis there was a mass uprising in the days after 17th February which led to the burning down of several governmental buildings. But given the high concentration of the armed state apparatus they were brutally smashed. This should make pretty clear that the revolution was a very urban affair and had the support of the majority of the urban popular masses. During this time there were none or only very small pro-Gaddafi rallies. The victory of the Libyan revolution was because of this mass support, not because of the NATO intervention.
On the “racist” Libyan rebels and attacks against Sub-Saharan Africans migrant workers
A major argument of the sectarian “anti-imperialists” is their claim that the migrant workers – and in particular black migrants – have been expelled by the “racist” Libyan rebels. It is certainly true that there have been attacks against Sub-Saharan Africans migrant workers because of their skin. However the sectarian “anti-imperialists” completely distort the whole picture.
First, it is wrong to give the impression that Sub-Saharan Africans migrants have been singled out and expelled from Libya because of the racist motives of the Libyan rebels. The truth is that most migrant workers – amongst whom Sub-Saharan Africans were only a minority (the biggest group was from Egypt) – have fled the country. Why? Simply because of the civil war. Because of the war the oil production and the economy as a whole broke down, hence the migrant workers were not paid anymore and in addition there was a huge insecurity given the civil war. As a result between February and June 2011, about half a million migrants fled the country. [31] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn31) The fact that Arab migrant workers fled as well as Sub-Saharan African migrant workers is a clear proof that the war conditions and not racism was the main reason for the mass departure of migrant workers.
Secondly, chauvinist sentiments were fuelled by the fact that Gaddafi strongly resorted to Sub-Saharan African as mercenaries. This is no surprise given its weak support amongst the people.
Thirdly, there are many reports about racism and brutal treatment of Sub-Saharan Africans already before February 2011 by the Gaddafi regime itself! Why do the sectarian “anti-imperialists” only focus on the chauvinism exerted by rebels but not by Gaddafi police and soldiers?! This is particularly absurd given the fact that while it is disputed if the Libyan rebels targeted systematically Sub-Saharan Africans migrants, it is undisputed that the Gaddafi regime targeted and expelled systematically Sub-Saharan Africans migrants! At least since the year 2000 the regime deported systematically refugees. According to a Gaddafi-friendly (!) Chinese website “tens of thousands of Nigerians, Ghanaians, Chadians, and many more from Niger, Gambia and Sudan were deported” [32] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn32). There is no room for interpretation. For example in January 2008 Gaddafi himself proclaimed officially to deport all illegal refugees. "The authorities decided to start immediately the operation of gathering all foreigners living illegally in Libya and deporting them" [33] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_edn33). And all this was openly done in coordination with the European imperialism with which Gaddafi signed deals to “secure” their border against African refugees. So, we see, it was Gaddafi himself who was an “agent of imperialism” and who racist targeted Sub-Saharan Africans migrants!
Therefore, even if we would accept the view that the Libyan rebels targeted systematically Sub-Saharan Africans migrants and expelled them, even then this would make them certainly not more racist than the “anti-imperialist” Gaddafi regime which the sectarians shamefully defended.
To whom did the solidarity of the Arab working class belong to?
Let us finally also point out that the popular masses in the Middle East also understood better than the sectarian “anti-imperialists”, which camp in the Libyan civil war was closer to their class interests. It is telling that throughout the Arab world the masses demonstrated in solidarity with the Libyan Revolution. On the other hand, where were acts of support of the masses for the Gaddafi regime – leaving aside the Syrian state media?! It is a fact that working class organizations like the Tunisian trade union federation UGTT or the Hoxhaist party PCOT were all in solidarity with the Libyan revolution and today with the Syrian revolution. Such mass factors should weigh hundred times more than conspiracy theories and cruel stories about “the racists murder Libyan rebels”!
Summary
In this article we showed that the Marxist approach to wars and uprisings, into which imperialist powers try to interfere, is very different from the attitude of the sectarian “anti-imperialists”. While they make mechanistically always a minus where the bourgeoisie in their country makes a plus, the Marxists approach such wars and uprisings from an internationalist and independent working class perspective. We support those uprisings and civil wars which are favorable for the advance of the working class struggle, organizations and consciousness. We fight against those forces whose triumph is a direct and immediate threat for the working class struggle. For the same reason we oppose all forms of imperialist attack since the strengthening of imperialism automatically means a disadvantage for the working class.
This leads necessarily to the application of a combined, dialectical approach of military tactics. In World War Two we could already see this when the Fourth International had to combine defensist and defeatist tactics. Such combined, dual military tactics also have to be applied today and probably more so in the future. Given the increasing inner-imperialist rivalry – particularly if one takes the rise of emerging Chinese imperialism into account – we will see more and more cases where imperialist forces try to interfere and exploit civil wars in the semi-colonial world.
The unfinished democratic revolution in Libya in 2011 is an example for this. The Bolshevik-Communists supported the popular uprising because it was a just liberation struggle against the reactionary bourgeois dictatorship of Gaddafi. We argued to fight inside the rebel movement against the bourgeois leadership of the TNC which tried – together with NATO imperialism – to contain the revolution and reduce it to the regime-change. We called for the deepening of the revolution by the formation of workers and popular councils and militias and the transformation of the democratic into a socialist revolution. For this reason we fought against the NATO attacks since they just helped to contain the revolution.
The arguments of the sectarian “anti-imperialists” for their siding with the Gaddafi regimes are totally wrong. They ignore the bourgeois and pro-imperialist character of the regime. It was a deep enemy of the working class. The outcome of the civil war at the moment bears the character of an unfinished democratic revolution. It succeeded in getting rid of the dictatorship. The working class and the oppressed today have more possibilities to organize and to arm themselves to fight for their rights. However the working class does not possess a revolutionary workers party which can lead it to a successful socialist revolution. For this reason the domestic bourgeoisie and the imperialists succeeded until now in containing the revolution, i.e. in stopping the working class from taking power. Building such a revolutionary workers party as part of the Fifth International – the World Party of Socialist Revolution – remains the chief task for revolutionaries in Libya and world-wide. The RCIT dedicates its forces to achieve this task.
Footnotes
[1] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref1) While the book, written by Michael Pröbsting, has been published in German language, the chapter on the Libyan civil war was translated into English and published in the RCIT’s journal Revolutionary Communism No. 1. It appears also on our website www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/libya-revolutionary-tactics (http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/libya-revolutionary-tactics)
[2] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref2) RCIT: The Revolutionary Communist Manifesto, pp. 45-46, www.thecommunists.net/rcit-manifesto/revolutionary-struggle-for-democracy (http://www.thecommunists.net/rcit-manifesto/revolutionary-struggle-for-democracy)
[3] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref3) Leon Trotsky: Learn to Think: A Friendly Suggestion to Certain Ultra-Leftists (1938); in: Trotsky Writings 1937-38, p. 332f. (Emphasis in the Original) The RCIT re-published this text in Revolutionary Communism No. 5 (2012).
[4] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref4) We published in the late 1980 and the 1990s a lot of analytical and programmatic material – including two booklets – about the history of Yugoslavia and the Balkan wars in German language and some in Serbo-Croatian. Those who wish to have a copy of these shall contact us.
[5] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref5) At that time we were part of our predecessor organization, the League for a Revolutionary Communist International (LRCI), which renamed itself in 2003 into League for the Fifth International (LFI). The majority of the founding cadres of the RCIT were before leading members of the LFI. In the process of the LFI’s majority degeneration into centrism these cadres were expelled or resigned from it in 2011. More on this see “Where is the LFI drifting? A Letter from the RCIT to the LFI comrades”; in: Revolutionary Communism No. 3, June 2012, www.thecommunists.net/theory/centrist-degeneration-of-lfi (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/centrist-degeneration-of-lfi)
[6] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref6) See Michael Pröbsting: China‘s transformation into an imperialist power. A study of the economic, political and military aspects of China as a Great Power; in: Revolutionary Communism No. 4 (August 2012), p. 4-32, online: www.thecommunists.net/theory/why-china-is-imperialist (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/why-china-is-imperialist)
[7] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref7) See Michael Pröbsting: China‘s transformation into an imperialist power. A study of the economic, political and military aspects of China as a Great Power; in: Revolutionary Communism No. 4 (August 2012), p. 22-24, online: www.thecommunists.net/theory/why-china-is-imperialist (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/why-china-is-imperialist)
[8] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref8) W. I. Lenin: Über die „Junius“-Broschüre (1916), in: LW 22, S. 316; in English: V. I. Lenin: The Junius Pamphlet(1916); in: CW 22, p. 310-11
[9] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref9) W. I. Lenin: Die sozialistische Revolution und das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Nationen (1916), in: LW 22, S. 149f. ; in English: V. I. Lenin: The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1916); in: CW 22, p. 148
[10] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref10) Rudolf Klement: Principles and Tactics in War (1938); in The New International (Theoretical journal of the Socialist Workers Party, US-American section of the Fourth International), May 1938, Vol. 4, No. 5, pp. 144-145. The RCIT re-published this text in: Revolutionary Communism No. 4 (2012), pp. 44-46.
[11] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref11) Michael Pröbsting: The intervention of the imperialist powers in Libya, the struggle of the masses against Gaddafi’s dictatorship and the tactics of revolutionary communists”; in: Revolutionary Communism No. 1, September 2011, www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/libya-revolutionary-tactics (http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/libya-revolutionary-tactics)
[12] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref12) For the unconditional defence of Libya against Imperialism! For a Military United Front with Gaddafi to defeat NATO and the CIA armed "rebels"! No confidence in the government of Tripoli; only by arming all the people and by the permanent revolution can we win the struggle! Statement on Libya by the Liga Comunista of Brazil, the Revolutionary Marxist Group of South Africa and Socialist Fight of Britain, 21 April 2011; in: Socialist Fight No. 6 (2011), p. 36
[13] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref13) Michael Pröbsting: The intervention of the imperialist powers in Libya, the struggle of the masses against Gaddafi’s dictatorship and the tactics of revolutionary communists”; in: Revolutionary Communism No. 1, September 2011, www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/libya-revolutionary-tactics (http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/libya-revolutionary-tactics)
[14] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref14) Statement of the WRP Political Committee, 11th December 1981, published in News Line, 12th December 1981
[15] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref15) See International Organization for Migration: World Migration Report 2010. The Future of Migration: Building Capacities for Change (2010), p. 135; UNCTAD: Handbook of Statistics 2010, p. 468
[16] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref16) See International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH): Exiles From Libya Flee To Egypt (2011), p. 4
[17] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref17) See UNCTAD: Handbook of Statistics 2010, pp. 468-476
[18] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref18) See African Economic Outlook 2012, Libya 2012, p. 4
[19] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref19) Antonio De Bonis: Italy and the Libyan crisis, 5.4.2011, http://www.antoniodebonis.com/2011/04/italy-and-libyan-crisis.html
[20] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref20) World Investment Report 2011, p. 191; World Bank: World Development Report 2012, p. 398
[21] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref21) World Investment Report 2011, p. 191; World Bank: World Development Report 2012, p. 398
[22] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref22) See Reuters: Factbox: U.S. oil companies' interests in Libya, 22.2.2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/22/us-libya-usa-oilcompanies-idUSTRE71L5Y820110222
[23] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref23) U.S. Africa Command: The Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership, http://www.africom.mil/tsctp.asp
[24] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref24) See Bjarte Vandvik: The EU's dubious refugee deal The EU is paying Libya to deal with refugees seeking a new life in Europe. Can we trust Gaddafi's regime to look after them? The Guardian, 20 October 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/20/eu-refugee-libya-gaddafi
[25] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref25) See Ben Hubbard: Libya: CIA Reportedly Worked Closely With Gaddafi Intelligence Services, The Associated Press, 09/03/11 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/03/libya-cia-gaddafi-intelligence_n_947764.html
[26] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref26) Quoted in Nouri Gana: Libya’s tragedy, Gaddafi’s farce, The Electronic Intifada, 22.2.2011, http://electronicintifada.net/content/libyas-tragedy-gaddafis-farce/9814
[27] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref27) Michael Pröbsting: The intervention of the imperialist powers in Libya, the struggle of the masses against Gaddafi’s dictatorship and the tactics of revolutionary communists”; in: Revolutionary Communism No. 1, September 2011, www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/libya-revolutionary-tactics (http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/libya-revolutionary-tactics)
[28] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref28) See International Crisis Group: Holding Libya Together: Security Challenges after Qadhafi (December 2011), p. 30
[29] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref29) Many such reports can be found on the website of the Libyan Youth Movement http://www.shabablibya.org and also one from the centrist Trotskyist FLTI which publishes a number of reports from revolutionary militias and port workers assemblies http://libyarevolutionupdate.blogspot.com.ar/
[30] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref30) For more on this see our article “For a free and socialist Azawad! Our attitude to the freedom struggle of the Tuareg people in Mali”, by Johannes Wiener; in: Revolutionary Communism No. 3, June 2012, www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/mali-free-azawad/ (http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/mali-free-azawad/)
[31] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref31) See International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH): Exiles From Libya Flee To Egypt (2011), p. 4
[32] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref32) Immigrants of Libya, China.org.cn, March 23, 2011 http://www.china.org.cn/world/2011-03/23/content_22202161.htm
[33] (http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/#_ednref33) Mass refugee exodus in Libya, 22 January 2008, http://www.amnesty.org.au/refugees/comments/8335/