CWI Social Democrats Lapdogs of U.S. Imerialism against Korea

[Dabrowski]

[From The Internationalist "U.S. War Provocations Push Korea to the Brink (http://www.internationalist.org/usprovocationspushnorthkoreatobrink1304.html)"]

But the most disgusting current case of this pro-imperialist Stalinophobia is the Committee for a Workers International (CWI) led by Peter Taaffe, in an article titled: “North Korea: Dictator threatens nuclear attack” (9 April)

The CWI article argues that South Korea is a “major threat” to Kim Jong Un because of “its higher living standards and certain basic elements of democracy.” Now let’s see, would those “basic elements” include the mass arrest of striking unionists, for example in the Ssangyong Motor Co. strike of 2009? Or the eight supporters of the Cliffite tendency in South Korea who faced sentences of up to seven years under the notorious National Security Law of 1948? The article also breathed a sigh of relief that “the initial response of the US to North Korea’s threats” had “thankfully been ‘ratcheted down’.”

So for these social democrats the problem is North Korea’s threats, “thankfully” taken in stride by the level-headed imperialists. The Maoists used to denounce the “running dogs of imperialism” (that is until Mao joined forces with U.S. imperialist butcher Richard Nixon against the Vietnamese). But the imperialism-thanking, cop-loving CWI are nothing but lap dogs of “their own” imperialist rulers. Maybe they can write leaflets to be air-dropped by the U.S. Air Force over North Korea like another anti-Trotskyist renegade, Max Shachtman, did in the 1950s Korean War.

[Q]

So, a few out of context snippets from said article (http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/6245) make for a thorough political critique these days? Please return when you have a little more substantial, kthx.

And what is that about whining about "Stalinophobia" and hailing Mao from a Trotskyist group? That struck me as peculiar.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

What bizarre world do these people live in? The CWI article mentions the South's crackdown on trade unionists, it suggests the hypocricy of Chinese and US demands for disarmament when they both have huge arsenals and it is critical of the US imperialism propping up the dictatorship of the South....

I mean, look at the ending of the two articles:


Today’s huge discrepancy in living standards between the North and the South means that most in the South see the huge cost of re-unification as being at their expense. Any struggle to re-unite the peninsula in the interests of working people needs to link the struggle against dictatorship and nuclear madness in the North with the struggle against the Chaebol in the South. The struggle for socialist democratic planning of publicly-owned industries, banks and the land would lay the basis for the longed for re-uniting of the peoples of Korea.


The League for the Fourth International has repeatedly demanded that all U.S. forces get out of Korea and called to abolish all U.S./U.N. sanctions on North Korea. While the U.S. would like to starve North Korea into submission and bring about the collapse of the DPRK with military provocation and possible attack, Trotskyists defend North Korea and fight for the revolutionary reunification of Korea, through socialist revolution in the South to bring down the chaebol and workers political revolution in the North to defend revolutionary gains and oust the parasitical bureaucratic caste that undermines them.

Apart from wording, that's pretty much exactly the same thing; namely, revolution in the south to pave the way for reunification.... It's clear that the Internationalist is ignoring all content to make out-of-context slander for the sake of slander. A much better criticism would be of the CWI call for publically-owned banks essentially being worker-run capitalism.

[Crux]

Spartoid critique always cracks me up. I'm not sure what to counter here? The IG spinning away wildly on tangents? Yes we do not adhere to the ideology of Mutually Assured Destruction. Now I could go ahead and actually cite the article The Internationalist claims to be criticizing but that would ruin the game wouldn't it?

For instance this (http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/6179) is what we had to say at the election hangman Park Chung-hee's daughter.

"The CWI article argues that South Korea is a “major threat” to Kim Jong Un because of “its higher living standards and certain basic elements of democracy.” Now let’s see, would those “basic elements” include the mass arrest of striking unionists, for example in the Ssangyong Motor Co. strike of 2009? Or the eight supporters of the Cliffite tendency in South Korea who faced sentences of up to seven years under the notorious National Security Law of 1948?"

As dishonest as usual. Meanwhile our article did say: The South Korean economy is dominated by a handful of family-run conglomerates or Chaebol. Trade union militants are constantly harassed and imprisoned for exercising the democratic rights to organise and to strike [...]. The struggle to create an independent political voice for the South Korean working class gathers urgency.

But you read what you want to read eh?

Q, as you well know the spartoid groups are big fans of the People's Bomb.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I wonder what happens to strike organizers in the DPRK?

[Sasha]

Best korea doesnt have strikes, the workers there can live on the rainbows and swallows coming out of kim jong un's glorious and eternal backside

[DasFapital]

you're a silly man and this is a silly post

[Aleksandr Karelin]

When I think of a left wing caricature I think of a white westerner defending a murderous dictatorship from a capitalist republican representative democracy with sections of the upper class, enabled by the state attacking it via monopoly capitalism.