Vietnamese general Giap dies

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24403791

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-13561646


Obituary: General Vo Nguyen Giap

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70278000/jpg/_70278950_70278945.jpg Well into his 90s Giap remained engaged in Vietnam's political affairs
His surname Vo translates as "force" and his first name Giap means "strong armour", fitting perhaps for a man who helped bring about the defeat of major military powers.
A dedicated communist, Vo Nguyen Giap never received formal military training but made his reputation as a talented strategist who engineered victories against forces which were, technically, far better equipped.
Born in 1911 in Quang Binh Province in central Vietnam, then part of French Indochina, he was the son of a rice grower and attended local schools before, at the age of 14, joining a clandestine nationalist movement.
While studying at Hanoi University, from where he graduated with a doctorate, he taught history at a private school in the city.
He had a special interest in the military tactics of Napoleon, with one student recalling that he could draw the French Emperor's various battle plans from memory.
By 1938 he was a member of Ho Chi Minh's Indochinese Communist party, eventually helping him found a new coalition, the Vietnam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoa, commonly known as Viet Minh, dedicated to ending French colonial rule.
Giap organised armed groups and in 1944, returned to Indochina to wage guerrilla war against the occupying Japanese.
Defeating France Hanoi fell to Viet Minh forces on August 19th 1945 and Ho proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, appointing Giap as his new interior minister.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/53006000/jpg/_53006556_gethi010035215.jpg Giap was acknowledged to be a brilliant military strategist
The French recognised the new republic but, were reluctant to give up a rich source of rice and rubber in the south of the country, imposing tariffs to control international trade.
Giap assembled tens of thousands of guerrillas in the Tonkinese Mountains and began a hit-and-run campaign against French military and commercial interests.
Giap emphasised the need to attack in several locations at once, forcing the French to disperse their numerically superior forces.
His tactics, subsequently published in his 1962 book, People's War, People's Army, would be used to devastating effect against the Americans 20 years later.
The climax came in the valley of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 after the French parachuted in 12,000 troops, planning to take on Giap's forces in a pitched battle.
Unknown to the French, Giap had acquired US-made heavy guns which he had set up in the hills surrounding the drop zone.
The French forces, trapped in the valley, suffered a bombardment that lasted more than two months and lost 4,000 men before they surrendered in May, a victory which signalled the end of French colonial rule in the region.
Tet Offensive A ceasefire was signed in 1954 which divided Vietnam into two with promises of a referendum among all Vietnamese to determine the country's future.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/53007000/jpg/_53007276_44548813.jpg The Tet offensive was a massive psychological blow for the US
After the regime in the south reneged on the promise of a vote, a group of nationalists formed the National Liberation Front - or the Viet Cong as they were termed by American soldiers.
Fearful of the growth of communist influence in Vietnam the US committed aid and advisers to the south.
In 1965 the US landed troops in Vietnam and Giap committed divisions of North Vietnamese soldiers to back up the Viet Cong forces in the South.
He believed that the Americans had no stomach for a prolonged conflict in Vietnam. "To fight a protracted war is a big defeat for them,” he argued. "Their morale is lower than the grass."
Giap has long been credited with launching the hugely significant Tet offensive, but recent research suggests that he may in fact have been against this push - and he was visiting the Hungarian capital, Budapest, at the time of the campaign.
Coinciding with Tet, or the Lunar New Year in 1968, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces attacked more than 40 provincial capitals and went into Saigon itself even entering the US embassy.
They were eventually thrown back having lost more than 15,000 men but it was a massive psychological blow for the US, hardening opposition to the war back in America and contributing to the decision to withdraw.
Military legacy In 1975, two years after the final American combat troops had left Vietnam, communist forces took Saigon and proclaimed the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Giap retained his position as Minister of Defence and was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in 1976, retiring from government 6 years later.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/53007000/jpg/_53007274_gethi010035240.jpg He published several works of military strategy
He published a number of works on military strategy with at least one historian comparing him with leaders such as Wellington, Rommel and MacArthur.
The man known by his troops as "The Volcano" because of his ability to explode with rage did not receive universal approval.
The US commander in Vietnam, General Westmoreland deplored Giap's seeming cavalier attitude to large numbers of casualties among his own troops.
"Such a disregard for human life," said Westmoreland, "may make a formidable adversary but it does not make a military genius."
But well into his 90s he remained alert and engaged in Vietnam's current affairs and politics, meeting world leaders and speaking out about issues close to his heart.


He was a crafty military commander who consistently prevailed against difficult odds, in a day when 3rd world countries in Asia were finally gaining real independence from Europe. Apparently he also became a bit of a green after the war, criticizing massive bauxite mining plans. He's an interesting figure from a historical perspective, whatever is thought of the Vietnamese national struggle (or what it ended up becoming).

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Anywhere you can find his work "People's war, People's Army" for free

[MarxEngelsLeninStalinMao]

What were his relations with the Vietnamese government after Ho died? I know he was highly respected by the government, but I heard that he didn't like it's too pro-Soviet line and the market reforms. But anyways, he was one of the greatest revolutionaries in history.

[Magic Carpets Corp.]

Coinciding with Tet, or the Lunar New Year in 1968, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces attacked more than 40 provincial capitals and went into Saigon itself even entering the US embassy.
They were eventually thrown back having lost more than 15,000 men but it was a massive psychological blow for the US, hardening opposition to the war back in America and contributing to the decision to withdraw.
This is in reference merely to the first phase of the Tet Offensive. 9k anti-communist dead, 15k communist dead, and the anti-communist forces, primarily the ARVN and the Americans, outnumbered the communists 3 to 1. By the time the offensive wrapped up at the end of 1968, the ARVN and the Americans had 45,000 KIA, the communists had 44,000 KIA.


The US commander in Vietnam, General Westmoreland deplored Giap's seeming cavalier attitude to large numbers of casualties among his own troops.
"Such a disregard for human life," said Westmoreland, "may make a formidable adversary but it does not make a military genius."
Yeah right, NLF and the VPA suffered less casualties than the ARVN during the second phase of the Indochina War.

[Ismail]

Concerning his modern politics, the entry (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/world/asia/gen-vo-nguyen-giap-dies.html?partner=rss&emc=rss) on his death in The New York Times notes the following:

"He was regarded as an elder statesman whose hard-line views had softened with the cessation of the war that unified Vietnam. He supported economic reform and closer relations with the United States while publicly warning of the spread of Chinese influence and the environmental costs of industrialization.

[....]

In his final years, General Giap was an avuncular host to foreign visitors to his villa in Hanoi, where he read extensively in Western literature, enjoyed Beethoven and Liszt and became a convert to pursuing socialism through free-market reforms.

'In the past, our greatest challenge was the invasion of our nation by foreigners,' he told an interviewer. 'Now that Vietnam is independent and united, we can address our biggest challenge. That challenge is poverty and economic backwardness.'

Addressing that challenge had long been deferred, he told the journalist Neil Sheehan in 1989. 'Our country is like an ill person who has suffered for a long time,' he said. 'The countries around us made a lot of progress. We were at war.'"

So basically the same rationale given by the Vietnamese, Chinese and Laotian leaderships: controlled markets supposedly develop the productive forces faster, ergo they should be supported for the time-being.

[Paul Pott]

This ruined my day. I have nothing but respect for general Giap.

[Smith's Dream]

Say what you like about Vietnam and the path it took after liberation, that guy was on the right side of a bad war.

[Hrafn]

I'm... conflicted. Deeply so.

[erupt]

History will view him as the effective military strategist he was; his environmental, political, and economic concerns will be less relevant, since he was the driving force behind Vietnamese national liberation, which succeeded.

Ideology will be blind as to what there is to learn from him, specifically militarily.

[TheEmancipator]

Concerning his modern politics, the entry (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/world/asia/gen-vo-nguyen-giap-dies.html?partner=rss&emc=rss) on his death in The New York Times notes the following:

"He was regarded as an elder statesman whose hard-line views had softened with the cessation of the war that unified Vietnam. He supported economic reform and closer relations with the United States while publicly warning of the spread of Chinese influence and the environmental costs of industrialization.

[....]

In his final years, General Giap was an avuncular host to foreign visitors to his villa in Hanoi, where he read extensively in Western literature, enjoyed Beethoven and Liszt and became a convert to pursuing socialism through free-market reforms.

'In the past, our greatest challenge was the invasion of our nation by foreigners,' he told an interviewer. 'Now that Vietnam is independent and united, we can address our biggest challenge. That challenge is poverty and economic backwardness.'

Addressing that challenge had long been deferred, he told the journalist Neil Sheehan in 1989. 'Our country is like an ill person who has suffered for a long time,' he said. 'The countries around us made a lot of progress. We were at war.'"

So basically the same rationale given by the Vietnamese, Chinese and Laotian leaderships: controlled markets supposedly develop the productive forces faster, ergo they should be supported for the time-being.

When a tankie dies you will no doubt be the first to comment on a thread atributed to him, claiming he was actually a bourgeois counter-revolutionary who didn't lick Hoxha's arse.

Seriously, Ismail, give it a rest. I'm no great fan of Giap's politics either but I'm not sure what this adds to the discussion.

[Ismail]

When a tankie dies you will no doubt be the first to comment on a thread atributed to him, claiming he was actually a bourgeois counter-revolutionary who didn't lick Hoxha's arse.

Seriously, Ismail, give it a rest. I'm no great fan of Giap's politics either but I'm not sure what this adds to the discussion.Erm, Vietnam was literally the only self-proclaimed socialist country that enjoyed friendly ties with Albania (in part because the Vietnamese continued to praise Stalin and publish his works at least as late as 1989.) When Hoxha died the Vietnamese declared two days of national mourning in which the country's flag was flown half-mast.

Sinister Cultural Marxist and MarxEngelsLeninStalinMao were speculating about Giap's ideology after the 70's, so I answered them.

[KurtFF8]

Yeah I didn't actually see Ismail attackingGiap here.

Anyway it's good that this got some coverage in at least the British media but I haven't seen much of it at all in the American press

[fahadsul3man]

RIP general Giap one of greatest revolutionary anti imperialist figures ever

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Erm, Vietnam was literally the only self-proclaimed socialist country that enjoyed friendly ties with Albania (in part because the Vietnamese continued to praise Stalin and publish his works at least as late as 1989.) When Hoxha died the Vietnamese declared two days of national mourning in which the country's flag was flown half-mast.

Sinister Cultural Marxist and MarxEngelsLeninStalinMao were speculating about Giap's ideology after the 70's, so I answered them.

I wasn't speculating about his ideology, just commenting on the fact that after the war he became involved in environmental issues, particularly against the exploitation by large Chinese Capital of Bauxite deposits in the mountains of Vietnam. Also on the fact that he did criticize the Vietnamese party, even if he didn't really understand the fact that it was Vietnam's neoliberalism that was opening it up to those problems in the first place.

I don't know if real ideological precision should be expected from military leaders. He wasn't an economist, he was someone who knew how to organize peasants into an army and command it.


This ruined my day. I have nothing but respect for general Giap.

Why? The dude lived to 102 after living a life fighting two of the three most powerful Capitalist nations of the Cold War. He lived a pretty long, rich life in the end, no?

[Aleister Granger]

He's the embodiment of all the things all collegian Trotskyites say they want to be: an actual hard-boiled revolutionary. And he repelled two capitalist powers and one super power. And won. All three times. And lived. All three times. And he even survived to 102. 100-fucking-2. Most Americans are going to croak in their sixties they say.

Regardless of how you feel about communism, the man deserves every ounce of your respect.

I've seen some coverage of him. What's surprising is that, despite the fact he was a socialist, the media's been surprisingly respectful. Though I fear turning FOX News who are probably throwing a small party. Or at least a few high fives.

[TheEmancipator]

Sinister Cultural Marxist and MarxEngelsLeninStalinMao were speculating about Giap's ideology after the 70's, so I answered them.

I apologise.

[Devrim]

Personally I won't be shedding any tears over the death of a general in a capitalist army.

Devrim

[A.J.]

All genuine anti-imperialists should mourn the passing of General Giap.

R.I.P.

[Sir Comradical]

Personally I won't be shedding any tears over the death of a general in a capitalist army.

Devrim

What a revolting thing to say.

The imperialists torture a poor country trying to liberate itself from colonial subjugation, and this is your attitude to a man who led that resistance?

Despicable.

[Blake's Baby]

One gang of capitalists and imperialists, backed by foreign capitalists and imperialists, was replaced by another gang of capitalists and imperialists, backed by foreign capitalists and imperialists. What's the difference?

[A.J.]

One gang of capitalists and imperialists, backed by foreign capitalists and imperialists, was replaced by another gang of capitalists and imperialists, backed by foreign capitalists and imperialists. What's the difference?

National Liberation.

That's the difference.

[Ismail]

One gang of capitalists and imperialists, backed by foreign capitalists and imperialists, was replaced by another gang of capitalists and imperialists, backed by foreign capitalists and imperialists. What's the difference?I don't know who the second bunch of "foreign capitalists and imperialists" are supposed to be, considering that both the Soviet and Chinese revisionists tried to sell out the Vietnamese struggle in the 60's and 70's, while the US embargoed Vietnam until the 90's. The liberation struggle was endangered every which way, with all sides wanting to keep the country artificially divided as in the case of Korea.

Also Vietnam ousted Pol Pot, thus being welcomed as liberators by the Cambodian population. The only ones who denounced that act as "imperialist" were the Khmer Rouge itself, Maoists, and the USA, UK, China, etc.

[Blake's Baby]

National Liberation.

That's the difference.

Oh, the Vietnamese people were ruled by some Vietnamese people, backed by the USSR... instead of being ruled by some Vietnamese people, backed by the USA or France.

Oh, and they suffered during a 30-year war for it.

They must have been ecstatic.

[Ismail]

Oh, the Vietnamese people were ruled by some Vietnamese people, backed by the USSR... instead of being ruled by some Vietnamese people, backed by the USA or France.

Oh, and they suffered during a 30-year war for it.

They must have been ecstatic.Actually a number of pro-Soviet figures were imprisoned or executed throughout the 60's, such as Hoang Minh Chinh. Furthermore,

"[The] Vietnamese took the same position as the Chinese on the issues.... they did not participate in the World Communist Party Congress in Moscow in 1965 or the International Conference of Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow in 1969. They did not attend either of these two conferences because Brezhnev's foreign policy [still] included such ideas as 'peaceful coexistence', 'peaceful transition to socialism' and approaches toward the Third World on which the SRV differed in principle from the Soviets. Vietnam criticized the policy of the Khrushchev and Brezhnev administrations toward the Third World, particularly their economic assistance policy, as 'economism divorced from a class viewpoint.' This kind of criticism continued to appear in official publications up to 1967.

The Vietnamese did not join in the criticism of Stalin taking place in the Soviet Union and would not go along with the denunciation of Albania. In fact, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam maintains party and state relations with Albania to this day. Vietnamese translations of Stalin's writings are still published in Vietnam. The Vietnamese often used the occasion of Stalin's birthday (December 21) for their attacks on the non-Leninist policy lines of China and the Soviet Union, referring to Stalin as 'the great disciple of Lenin.'"
(Mio Tadashi (ed). Indochina in Transition: Confrontation or Co-prosperity. Tokyo: Japan Institute of International Affairs. 1989. pp. 82-83.)

"As the Brezhnev administration was launched, the Soviets adopted a policy different from that of Khrushchev and increased economic and military aid to Vietnam. Since Soviet aid to the Vietnamese national liberation war became more active in general under Brezhnev, Vietnam quit criticizing the Soviets as 'modern revisionist,' but still viewed his detente with the U.S. no different from Khrushchev's peaceful co-existence policy. Therefore, Vietnam never praised the detente policy, although grateful for the aid it sought and obtained from the Soviets."
(Ibid. p. 134.)

Of course Vietnam ended up being pro-Soviet, in part because the Soviets could give much more in terms of weapons and technical support to the Vietnamese and in part due to the opportunism of the Chinese leadership, which increasingly adopted an anti-Vietnamese stand which culminated in the invasion of Vietnam in 1979.

[Thirsty Crow]

Hey Dev, Blake, let's stop it they've got us, damn. We can admit, we're goddamn racists and supporters of imperialism.

(in anticipation of soon-to-come accusations :lol:)

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Blake's Baby - in the grand scheme of things, history proved you right, but I doubt many of the Viet Cong, or even Giap himself, really understood the material reality of the North Vietnamese government, or the problems which would come with pro-market reforms. He wasn't an economist and may have only had a general understanding of Marx's critique.

Franz Fanon "fought" (with a pen not a gun, of course) alongside a bunch of bourgeois Algerian nationalists that ended up being violent, greedy, narcissistic autocrats. I don't think we can blame him for what happened in Algeria, or the class character of the regime which took over. Likewise, Giap wasn't an economist or a Marxist scholar or even an intellectual like Fanon, he was just some schoolteacher who liked Ho Chih Mihn's message and was a good military strategist (of course, one who was willing to suffer a lot of casualties to win if he had to).


I don't know who the second bunch of "foreign capitalists and imperialists" are supposed to be, considering that both the Soviet and Chinese revisionists tried to sell out the Vietnamese struggle in the 60's and 70's, while the US embargoed Vietnam until the 90's. The liberation struggle was endangered every which way, with all sides wanting to keep the country artificially divided as in the case of Korea.

Also Vietnam ousted Pol Pot, thus being welcomed as liberators by the Cambodian population. The only ones who denounced that act as "imperialist" were the Khmer Rouge itself, Maoists, and the USA, UK, China, etc.

The Hmong and Montagnards didn't exactly welcome Vietnamese Imperialists as "liberators" when they were exacting their revenge for the fact that the Green Berets used them as proxies. Now there's a kazillion of them living in assorted corners of the USA because Vietnamese retribution was harsh.

[A.J.]

Oh, the Vietnamese people were ruled by some Vietnamese people, backed by the USSR... instead of being ruled by some Vietnamese people, backed by the USA or France.

Oh, and they suffered during a 30-year war for it.

They must have been ecstatic.

Are you seriously trying to suggest the relationship the USSR had with Vietnam resembled that between an oppressor and oppressed nation? :lol:

As it happens, my main criticism of the Soviet Union's role in the aforementioned liberation struggles is that it didn't provide the Vietnamese people with enough support.

[Ismail]

The Hmong and Montagnards didn't exactly welcome Vietnamese Imperialists as "liberators" when they were exacting their revenge for the fact that the Green Berets used them as proxies. Now there's a kazillion of them living in assorted corners of the USA because Vietnamese retribution was harsh.I fail to see how they're "imperialist" for that, unless Lenin was an imperialist for pursuing "decossackization" policies. The South Vietnamese government obviously didn't mind both groups being used as proxies, whereas the North obviously held a very different view.

[A.J.]

Blake's Baby - in the grand scheme of things, history proved you right, but I doubt many of the Viet Cong, or even Giap himself, really understood the material reality of the North Vietnamese government, or the problems which would come with pro-market reforms. He wasn't an economist and may have only had a general understanding of Marx's critique.

Franz Fanon "fought" (with a pen not a gun, of course) alongside a bunch of bourgeois Algerian nationalists that ended up being violent, greedy, narcissistic autocrats. I don't think we can blame him for what happened in Algeria, or the class character of the regime which took over. Likewise, Giap wasn't an economist or a Marxist scholar or even an intellectual like Fanon, he was just some schoolteacher who liked Ho Chih Mihn's message and was a good military strategist (of course, one who was willing to suffer a lot of casualties to win if he had to).



The Hmong and Montagnards didn't exactly welcome Vietnamese Imperialists as "liberators" when they were exacting their revenge for the fact that the Green Berets used them as proxies. Now there's a kazillion of them living in assorted corners of the USA because Vietnamese retribution was harsh.

The "vietnamese imperialists"? :confused:

Were the Vietnamese exporting capital to cambodia?

That's news to me.

[Blake's Baby]

Are you seriously trying to suggest the relationship the USSR had with Vietnam resembled that between an oppressor and oppressed nation? :lol:...

What does that even mean? The South was ruled Vietnamese, backed by the French (at first, then France dropped out of the SE Asian version of 'the Great Game), and the Americans... the North was ruled by Vietnamese, backed by the Chinese (at first, then China changed sides) and the USSR.

The people of Vietnam were oppressed certainly - by Vietnamese, Chinese, Americans, French, Russians, and international capitalism generally.


...As it happens, my main criticism of the Soviet Union's role in the aforementioned liberation struggles is that it didn't provide the Vietnamese people with enough support.

So you admit a) that North Vietnam were the USSR's proxies, and b) the USSR was shit to its allies.

Sounds like a client-relationship of a minor local power to a superpower to me.

[Ismail]

So you admit a) that North Vietnam were the USSR's proxies, and b) the USSR was shit to its allies.

Sounds like a client-relationship of a minor local power to a superpower to me.Except in the 1960's the Soviets and Vietnamese weren't allies, which any work dealing with the Sino-Soviet dispute would make clear. The Soviets adopted a hesitant attitude towards Vietnam because of this and because of the efforts of the Soviet revisionist clique to come to an agreement with US imperialism.

The South Vietnamese government was a neo-colonial one, set up by the West to stymy the unification of the country which, by Eisenhower's own admission, would have voted overwhelmingly for the Communists in any election. It cannot be compared to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam which was set up by the Vietnamese themselves.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I fail to see how they're "imperialist" for that, unless Lenin was an imperialist for pursuing "decossackization" policies. The South Vietnamese government obviously didn't mind both groups being used as proxies, whereas the North obviously held a very different view.


The "vietnamese imperialists"? :confused:

Were the Vietnamese exporting capital to cambodia?

That's news to me.

Vietnamese capital did not exist in the S Vietnamese Hmong and Montagnard homelands. The NVA won, and expanded Vietnamese capital to those areas. When people use the word "Imperialism", all to often they differentiate imperialism from non-imperialism based on some assumed national boundary - what goes on in "legal" Vietnam isn't imperialism, and what goes on "outside" of "legal" Vietnam would be. Well, I don't think Native Americans would approve of that definition of imperialism, and with good reason. The UN-recognized borders don't define where the nation ends and imperialism begins.

Also Ismail you should be able to see the huge historical difference between a reactionary Cossack soldier and a Hmong peasant-turned-guerrilla. For one thing, the Hmong are an isolated, impoverished mountain nation which speak their own language while the Cossacks were military tribes that had received centuries of state endorsement.

[A.J.]

What does that even mean? The South was ruled Vietnamese, backed by the French (at first, then France dropped out of the SE Asian version of 'the Great Game), and the Americans... the North was ruled by Vietnamese, backed by the Chinese (at first, then China changed sides) and the USSR.

The people of Vietnam were oppressed certainly - by Vietnamese, Chinese, Americans, French, Russians, and international capitalism generally.

So your making an assertion that Vietnam was at some time "oppressed" by "the Russians"(I'd prefer if you used the term Soviet's but I digress).
I therefore challenge you to support this claim providing verifiable proofs.


So you admit a) that North Vietnam were the USSR's proxies, and b) the USSR was shit to its allies.

Don't you realise you're completely contradicting yourself here.

[A.J.]

Vietnamese capital did not exist in the S Vietnamese Hmong and Montagnard homelands. The NVA won, and expanded Vietnamese capital to those areas. When people use the word "Imperialism", all to often they differentiate imperialism from non-imperialism based on some assumed national boundary - what goes on in "legal" Vietnam isn't imperialism, and what goes on "outside" of "legal" Vietnam would be. Well, I don't think Native Americans would approve of that definition of imperialism, and with good reason. The UN-recognized borders don't define where the nation ends and imperialism begins.

What on earth do Native Americans and "UN-recognised borders" have to do with anything?

[Blake's Baby]

proof?

'The Vietnamese people do not live in a world communist society'.

All the proof necessary, I think.

A 'soviet' is a council. Were the Vietnamese oppressed by councils? I doubt it.

Contradicting myselff by saying that North Vietnam was allied to the USSR and the USSR treat it like shit? I don't see that as a contradiction - unless you think 'that's his dog, he doesn't feed it' is a contradiction. The USSR had a bunch of clients (China, once upon a time; Poland: Romania; Albania etc); the USA had a bunch of clients (France; the UK; West Germany; Japan etc). It was the time of the blocs, choices for international diplomacy were scarce. Nothing in the 'sucking up to imperialist powers' means that said imperialist power has to be nice to you (or even manage your subservience efficiently).

[A.J.]

proof?

'The Vietnamese people do not live in a world communist society'.



How's that "proof" Vietnam was ever oppressed by the USSR?:confused:

[Ismail]

Vietnamese capital did not exist in the S Vietnamese Hmong and Montagnard homelands. The NVA won, and expanded Vietnamese capital to those areas. When people use the word "Imperialism", all to often they differentiate imperialism from non-imperialism based on some assumed national boundary - what goes on in "legal" Vietnam isn't imperialism, and what goes on "outside" of "legal" Vietnam would be. Well, I don't think Native Americans would approve of that definition of imperialism, and with good reason. The UN-recognized borders don't define where the nation ends and imperialism begins.Except you haven't actually demonstrated an imperialist relationship. Revenge and reprisals on an ethnic group for being identified with collaboration with the enemy is obviously not nice, but to compare that to, say, the Trail of Tears makes little sense.

Also I'd imagine the South Vietnamese government was content with enjoying the good graces of tribal leaders. It was the self-described revolutionary states like Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, etc. that worked to undermine (if not destroy) such social relations, obviously with mixed results as they were carried out in wartime conditions.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

This will be my most objective comment on this, because while I do agree with people saying he was the general of a capitalist society, etc. Giap was a military genius.

Many people dismiss Giap as a military genius with things such as his use of "human wave" attacks but these people are missing the point. Giap did not support these attacks but was forced upon him by Chinese advisers saying it worked in the Korean War (as Cecil B. Currey notes in his great biography). His tactics at Dien Bien Phu were phenomenal, even going as far as to use Napalm attacks against French forces. (They used the smoke from the napalm to shield themselves).

I will not comment on Vietnam as a capitalist society, etc. because others have done so. Looking at Giap from a purely "military history" view he is nothing but a genius.

[Zealot]

Anywhere you can find his work "People's war, People's Army" for free

I got this book too. Rip out the foreword written by the American anti-communist translator and you have yourself a good book.

Also, Giap did come under suspicion during the purges of pro-Soviet members in the party under Ho's leadership. In any case, he was a great military strategist who played a major role in liberating Vietnam. R.I.P.

[Blake's Baby]

How's that "proof" Vietnam was ever oppressed by the USSR?:confused:

Because the master of master oppresses me also; the Vietnamese people were oppressed by the Vietnamese ruling class, North and South; and in turn the ruling classes of North and South were the tools of the USSR/China and USA/France.

'Vietnam', as opposed to 'the Vietnamese', is a bourgeois nation. How can a 'nation' be oppressed? Only people can be oppressed.

[A.J.]

Because the master of master oppresses me also; the Vietnamese people were oppressed by the Vietnamese ruling class, North and South; and in turn the ruling classes of North and South were the tools of the USSR/China and USA/France.

'Vietnam', as opposed to 'the Vietnamese', is a bourgeois nation. How can a 'nation' be oppressed? Only people can be oppressed.

^I'm hitting my head against a brick wall here.

You make a series of assertions without providing one iota of proof to support them(y'know like something resembling primary material evidence). When I then request you provide some sort of proof to back up your bold claims, how do you respond, yet more baseless assertions!

:rolleyes:

[Raquin]

Because the master of master oppresses me also; the Vietnamese people were oppressed by the Vietnamese ruling class, North and South; and in turn the ruling classes of North and South were the tools of the USSR/China and USA/France.

'Vietnam', as opposed to 'the Vietnamese', is a bourgeois nation. How can a 'nation' be oppressed? Only people can be oppressed.
You've been emberassed quite a lot in this thread so I'm not sure whether it is fair to embarrass you any more, but seriously, this ultra-left asininity that you spewing out is just sad at this point. Here is a suggestion: take a break from vomiting your ultra-left dogma for a while, and instead read a book on the intricacies and nuances of Cold War politics.

North Vietnam had complicated and tense relations with both the Soviets and the Chinese, which even the least competent bourgeois historians wouldn't describe as anything comparable to master-slave relations. And France, an American client? After the relations between De Gaulle and the UK/US went to shit in the late 50s(specifically after the Suez Crisis in 1956 - the British response to the crisis was to align itself even closer to American interests, the French response was to distance itself from the UK and UK's new daddy, America)? France didn't align itself to American interests until late in Mitterand's reign, the French support for the Gulf War generally being considered the turning point.

And look, Engels being so bourgeois, talking about the oppression of nations and oppression by nations, not "people":

Allow me, dear friends, to speak here today as an exception in my capacity as a German. For we German democrats have a special interest in the liberation of Poland. It was German princes who derived great advantages from the division of Poland and it is German soldiers who are still holding down Galicia and Posen. The responsibility for removing this disgrace from our nation rests on us Germans, on us German. democrats above all. A nation cannot become free and at the same time continue to oppress other nations. The liberation of Germany cannot therefore take place without the liberation of Poland from German oppression. And because of this, Poland and Germany have a common interest, and because of this, Polish and German democrats can work together for the liberation of both nations.

What an anti-communist Stalinist, that Engels.

[Sir Comradical]

Ultimately the treacherous line taken by the likes Blake's Baby, Devrim, and a few others is nothing more than the logical dead-end of the theory of state capitalism, which has proven itself time and time again to be utterly reactionary since it ignores the obvious reality that the decolonisation of the third-world owes a great deal to the existence of countries like the USSR. Comparing the USSR's relationship with the third-world to actual imperialism, for example British imperialism which transformed India from one of the richest places in the world to one of the poorest, is so wildly off the mark it's beyond ridiculous.

[Ismail]

The idea that nations cannot be oppressed is absurd. Where's that come from? A caricature of Luxemburg's position on self-determination?


Ultimately the treacherous line taken by the likes Blake's Baby, Devrim, and a few others is nothing more than the logical dead-end of state capitalism, which has proven itself time and time again to be utterly reactionary since it ignores the obvious reality that the decolonisation of the third-world owes a great deal to the existence of countries like the USSR. Comparing the USSR's relationship with the third-world to actual imperialism, e.g. British imperialism which transformed India from one of the richest places in the world to one of the poorest, is so wildly off the mark it's beyond ridiculous. Some of us from post-colonial countries recognise this better than others.I don't see how viewing the USSR of the 60's and 70's as state-capitalist somehow invalidates the national liberation struggle of the Vietnamese people. What's important is that at differing times both Soviet and Chinese revisionism tried to have the Vietnamese dance to their pro-US tunes in the context of the war and were rebuffed. The Albanians met various times with Vietnamese officials and stressed both the justness of their cause and the dangers of Soviet and Chinese social-imperialism.

Ironically India was one of the best examples of Soviet social-imperialism.

[Sir Comradical]

What's important is that at differing times both Soviet and Chinese revisionism tried to have the Vietnamese dance to their pro-US tunes in the context of the war and were rebuffed.

lolwut

[Ismail]

lolwutThere were a number of pro-Soviet figures in the 60's who were expelled and arrested or executed. The Vietnamese also refused to endorse the Soviet revisionist lines on "peaceful coexistence," their condemnation of Stalin, etc. The Soviet and later Chinese revisionists tried to get the North to capitulate to the USA; the response against the pro-Soviet elements was recognized by the Soviets as a rebuff to their efforts to impose a capitulationist line on the Vietnamese.

On the Chinese specifically, to quote an old post of mine:

In the first place, any reasonably detailed discussion of the visits of Nixon and Kissinger to China will note that one of their goals was to harm the DRV's struggle. As one book notes, both men knew that "by opening to China, they would be able to make North Vietnam feel more isolated and vulnerable." (Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography, p. 334.) And "the North Vietnamese had drawn the inescapable conclusion that China valued its relationship with the United States more than its revolutionary unity with the DRV." (Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, p. 197.)

Kissinger in his memoir Years of Upheaval noted that China "profoundly distrusted" the DRV and that if the Paris Peace Accords failed "Hanoi would achieve hegemony in Indochina without a fight, discredit the United States internationally as a paper tiger, and create on China's southern border a powerful Vietnamese state... in Indochina, American and Chinese interests were nearly parallel... Zhou Enlai... had always urged a ceasefire much like what we had achieved, the implication of which inevitably would permit the South Vietnamese government to survive. Unlike many of our domestic opponents, he never pressed us to overthrow Thieu and to install Hanoi's puppet regime."

In Mao: The Unknown Story (yes, I know it's a dubious source, but this bit is confirmed by other sources) the authors relate the following on page 585: "When Chou went to Hanoi immediately after Kissinger's first visit, to explain Peking's move, he got an earful from North Vietnam's leader. 'Vietnam is our country;' Le Duan protested; 'you have no right to discuss the question of Vietnam with the United States.' After Nixon's visit, Chou returned to Hanoi, and got an even worse reception."

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

What on earth do Native Americans and "UN-recognised borders" have to do with anything?

well, the fact that Imperialism can victimize groups within a country's internationally recognized borders. The Hmong and Montagnards lived within Vietnam's territorial orders.


Except you haven't actually demonstrated an imperialist relationship. Revenge and reprisals on an ethnic group for being identified with collaboration with the enemy is obviously not nice, but to compare that to, say, the Trail of Tears makes little sense.


Considering the numbers driven first into drab refugee camps and then to the US (not to mention those just killed outright), the comparison might be more apt than you say. Driving Laotian Hmong out of Laos to help put the Pathet Lao in power I think was more problematic than some Leftists would like to admit. I guess the question which remains to be answered is the long-term economic effects, and what happened to the areas depopulated by the NVA and Pathet Lao.

[Raquin]

lolwut
Yeah, unfortunately this is true. In order to avoid confrontation with the United States, the Soviets continuously tried to get the communist Vietnamese to make peace with the South. This was probably less about revisionism as the other guy said and more about the fact that in the 50s and 60s, the Soviet leadership, in line with its humanistic outlook, was terrified of sparking a third World War. Either way, the Soviet attempts to hijack North Vietnam's foreign policy and steer it towards capitulation to the South and the United States failed and the most blatant pro-Soviet party members(as mentioned on the last page) were arrested and purged and a few were even executed.

The Chinese also tried to manipulate the North into surrendering, but for their own narrow interests. They considered a united Vietnam, regardless of whether it is a united communist Vietnam or a united capitalist Vietnam, a threat and a regional rival, so their policy regarding Indochina was to try and maintain the status quo; i.e continuing the division of Vietnam. This also contributed to stirring animosity between the Vietnamese party and the Chinese one(though of course they had ideological differences as well, and as we all know, ideological differences in the context of communist politics can lead to some very serious disputes - and while we are on this subject, the Vietnamese and the Soviets also clashed a lot on ideological subjects).

Thus to speak of the Vietnamese as either Chinese or Soviet clients is absurd. If the Vietnamese communists were Soviet clients why would they openly purge and sometimes execute pro-Soviet party members? Makes as much sense as the Wehrmacht executing French Hitlerites in 1940.

[Devrim]

What a revolting thing to say.

The imperialists torture a poor country trying to liberate itself from colonial subjugation, and this is your attitude to a man who led that resistance?

Despicable.

Ha, ha, I am quite amused that you find this 'revolting'. It's hardly the term I would use to describe 'not shedding a tear'. There was some pretty revolting stuff said about Thatcher when she died, but nobody has said anything 'revolting' on this thread, which is quite strange really considering Thatcher and Giap are both equally reactionary figures.

Devrim

[Sir Comradical]

Ha, ha, I am quite amused that you find this 'revolting'. It's hardly the term I would use to describe 'not shedding a tear'. There was some pretty revolting stuff said about Thatcher when she died, but nobody has said anything 'revolting' on this thread, which is quite strange really considering Thatcher and Giap are both equally reactionary figures.

Devrim

I really am lost for words...

[Ismail]

I really am lost for words...I wouldn't be surprised if a left-com came into the thread equating Giap's military efforts to rebuff French and American invasions of Vietnam with Thatcher's retaking the Falklands from Argentina.

[A.J.]

I think this thread proves, if there was ever any doubt, that this "left-communism" fringe movement is an agency in the service of imperialism.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I think this thread proves, if there was ever any doubt, that this "left-communism" fringe movement is an agency in the service of imperialism.

Or it's the movement which points out the very large theoretical mistakes made by Cold War era autocracies that has historically led to counterrevolution.

[synthesis]

I think this thread proves, if there was ever any doubt, that this "Marxism-Leninism" fringe movement is an agency in the service of a slightly different brand of nationalism and capitalism.

Fucking burned you. Doesn't feel so good now, does it? The tables have turned... I'm running out of stock gloating phrases here.

[A.J.]

Fucking burned you. Doesn't feel so good now, does it? The tables have turned... I'm running out of stock gloating phrases here.

You suffer from an infantile disorder.

No offence or anything.

[synthesis]

You suffer from an infantile disorder.

No offence or anything.

I also want to add that I think it's hilarious that you and the other Marxist-Leninists think people are "agents of imperialism" because you don't understand how someone can oppose the imperialism of their own country and not support the state of a different country at the same time. (As if anyone gives a shit which government leaders we support!)

[Thirsty Crow]

You suffer from an infantile disorder.

No offence or anything.
Oh yeah. After all, this contemporary ultra-left is much like the impatient and young German communists of the late 1910s and early 20s, right?

[Tim Cornelis]

I really am lost for words...

A general supporting a bourgeois regime (symptoms: governance from above, ministers, heads of state, conventional police and army), advocating market reforms, wage-labour, commodity production. That can fairly be assessed as being "reactionary" in the sense that it embodies bourgeois politics.

To Marxist-Leninists, romanticism and wishful thinking appear to override Marxist analysis.

[Ismail]

A general supporting a bourgeois regime (symptoms: governance from above, ministers, heads of state, conventional police and army), advocating market reforms, wage-labour, commodity production. That can fairly be assessed as being "reactionary" in the sense that it embodies bourgeois politics.

To Marxist-Leninists, romanticism and wishful thinking appear to override Marxist analysis.And what about his undeniably progressive traits, i.e. being a leading figure of the Vietnamese national liberation war, whose strategy relied on the resistance of the whole people against foreign occupiers? He wasn't a policy-maker when it came to economics or government so that's hardly relevant to any consideration of his life.

To "left-communists" words appear louder than actions.

Edit: Also it's odd for you to list "market reforms" considering you've claimed various times elsewhere that planned economies are inherently inferior to market-based ones.

[synthesis]

And what about his undeniably progressive traits, i.e. being a leading figure of the Vietnamese national liberation war, whose strategy relied on the resistance of the whole people against foreign occupiers? He wasn't a policy-maker when it came to economics or government so that's hardly relevant to any consideration of his life.

They were "progressive" traits in the sense that they helped push out imperialism in favor of establishing a domestic bourgeoisie. Personally, I don't care if anyone supports it as long as they don't pretend it has anything to do with genuine working class politics.

[Blake's Baby]

And what about his undeniably progressive traits, i.e. being a leading figure of the Vietnamese national liberation war, whose strategy relied on the resistance of the whole people against foreign occupiers? ...

What does the fact that they were 'foreign' have to do with it?

It seems to 'national socialists' where someone is from is more important than what they do.

Of course, the government in the south was a Vietnamese government so your nationalist bullshit makes no sense.


...
He wasn't a policy-maker when it came to economics or government so that's hardly relevant to any consideration of his life....

True, he was a general, a butcher-of-people. What he thought of politics or economics is hardly relevant to being guilty of mass-murder.


...To "left-communists" words appear louder than actions.

And to Stalinists, support for any old butcher is better than nothing.

Tim's not a Left Communist by the way - but I absolutely support his position on this.

[Ismail]

What does the fact that they were 'foreign' have to do with it?Well, unless you can cite examples of a country invading and colonizing itself, and thus establishing a colonial or neo-colonial relationship...


Of course, the government in the south was a Vietnamese governmentInsofar as it was staffed by Vietnamese, yes. Insofar as South Vietnam was an artificial entity created by US and French imperialism and subservient to it, no. It was an illegitimate government of collaborators fundamentally at odds with the objective interests of the Vietnamese people.


True, he was a general, a butcher-of-people. What he thought of politics or economics is hardly relevant to being guilty of mass-murder.Considering the record of French and US imperialism in Vietnam, this is an amusing statement.


Tim's not a Left Communist by the way - but I absolutely support his position on this.Yeah, I get the adherents of "left-communism" and anarchism confused sometimes because the former considers the latter a "proletarian milieu" and in many cases they are barely distinguishable. I guess the biggest difference is that anarchism can lay claim to continued relevance in the world and still has some basis in working-class politics, although that doesn't apply to the sort of anarchist Cornelis is.

[Per Levy]

Yeah, I get the adherents of "left-communism" and anarchism confused sometimes because the former considers the latter a "proletarian milieu" and in many cases they are barely distinguishable. I guess the biggest difference is that anarchism can lay claim to continued relevance in the world and still has some basis in working-class politics, although that doesn't apply to the sort of anarchist Cornelis is.

if you want to go there, of how much relevance is hoxhaism/anti-revisionist stalinism nowadays?

as for giap himself, well as far as i see it after the war he was a high ranking politician, so he had a good life on top of the state, while the vietnamese working class continued to be exploited and had no influence on the state that supposedly represented them.

[Ismail]

if you want to go there, of how much relevance is hoxhaism/anti-revisionist stalinism nowadays?Obviously more than "left-communism." To give one example: the PCMLE in Ecuador held seats in the national legislature as late as this year. Of course that doesn't confirm revolutionary credentials, but in terms of influence those claiming to uphold the line of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin do have more of it than any "left-communists."

[erupt]

I'd imagine most users on here fit somewhere between your two (Ismail and Blake's Baby) opinions.

I still don't understand how a military general, even if he was willing to send many soldiers to their death to accomplish his military goal, could be considered a mass-murderer. Giap was most definitely a killer, as all generals, lieutenants, soldiers and other active military personnel are, but murderer makes it sound as if he killed out of malice, rather then military pragmatism.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Obviously I and a couple others here are not claiming that, even though Ho Chi Mihn was probably a genuine communist, that the movement itself was capable of establishing a worker's state.Naturally that's impossible considering that Vietnam was politically isolated from both blocs and was bombed with the amount of explosives used in both world wars. What I and others are saying is that the Vietnamese national liberation movement was historically progressive. To say that it was somehow an inter-imperialist conflict when Vietnam was a semi-colonial precapitalist society and no faction of the cold war gave them any significant level of support in comparison to the level of support that the south government got is patently absurd. Really the only way to call it an inter imperialist conflict is to abandon the Marxist concept of imperialism in it's entirety. The only reason I could think for "Communists" holding such a line is so they can use some leftist lingo to appease their liberal friends. "Left" Opportunism laid bare and naked.


as for giap himself, well as far as i see it after the war he was a high ranking politician, so he had a good life on top of the state, while the vietnamese working class continued to be exploited and had no influence on the state that supposedly represented them.


One of the first fundamental laws of dialetical materialism is that motion is constant, a bourgeois progressive movement is just that, bourgeois progressive. Once its progressive tasks are fulfilled then there is nothing progressive left in it. No one is defending the current Vietnamese regime other than the fact that it is more progressive than what would have resulted from and American victory

[synthesis]

I would say it was an inter-imperialist conflict in the same sense that the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan was an inter-imperialist conflict, with one side serving as a proxy for another imperialist power that possessed nuclear capabilities.

[Ismail]

I would say it was an inter-imperialist conflict in the same sense that the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan was an inter-imperialist conflict, with one side serving as a proxy for another imperialist power that possessed nuclear capabilities.The North was distrusted by both the Soviet and Chinese revisionists who wanted the national liberation struggle subdued for their own interests. The South was a neo-colonial entity which was dependent American support for its existence. The former state came into existence as a result of the anti-fascist and later anti-colonial struggle, the latter state was created by the French and American imperialists to impede a united Vietnam.

The comparison with Afghanistan would only begin to make sense if the Chinese (or, somehow, Soviet revisionists) invaded the North, killed Ho Chi Minh, and installed a puppet regime. Even then it'd just mean the Vietnamese would have one extra imperialist power to kick out of their country.

Claiming Afghanistan was an inter-imperialist conflict also makes little sense. An inter-imperialist conflict would be World War I. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by contrast was an act of imperialism, in which the native populace rose up in a just struggle against the occupiers.

[Blake's Baby]

Some of us don't see ourselves as 'leftist' in the way you do. 'The Left' is 'the left wing of capital' - just a different team for managing state capitalism. We think you're just an unsuccessful faction of the bourgeoisie. We don't see the difference between Stalinists and social democrats, for example.

We're revolutionaries, we're for the overthrow of all existing social conditions, capitalism and all states - Vietnam, Cuba, China, the USSR (as was) along with Britain, USA, France and all the rest.

So, not all people that you think are 'the Left' were for 'a victory of N Vietnam'. For some of us was a faction-fight inside the world bourgeois class. People who took sides in supported the bourgeoisie against soem other bourgeoisie. That's not the self-liberation of the working class, it's betrayal of the working class.

[Brotto Rühle]

I'm astounded when Stalinists use the "we are mote relevant than you" tactic. That's how they disprove anything, really. "Trotskyism, when was the last Trotskyist revolution?" "My ideology has SIX parties, bot just TWO!" or, as ismail said.

I can't emphasize enough how petty and irrelevant THOSE arguments are. DO YOU KNOW HOW POPULAR SOCIAL DEMOCRATS ARE IN CANADA? 100 SEATS IN PARLIAMENT!!!!!!!!!!!! Honestly, nobody cares how popular a group of incorrect people are, and ideologies don't make revolutions.

[A.J.]

I'm astounded when Stalinists use the "we are mote relevant than you" tactic. That's how they disprove anything, really. "Trotskyism, when was the last Trotskyist revolution?" "My ideology has SIX parties, bot just TWO!" or, as ismail said.

I can't emphasize enough how petty and irrelevant THOSE arguments are. DO YOU KNOW HOW POPULAR SOCIAL DEMOCRATS ARE IN CANADA? 100 SEATS IN PARLIAMENT!!!!!!!!!!!! Honestly, nobody cares how popular a group of incorrect people are, and ideologies don't make revolutions.

It's not irrelevant at all.

The constant failure of both of trotskyism and this "left-communism" to create any sort of presence within the labour movement quite clearly illustrates how flawed both these movements are ideologically.

The proof is indeed in the pudding.

Furthermore, what I always find incredibly ironic about trotskyism and "left-communism" is their continual use of 'workerist'-style sloganeering despite their being completely isolated from the industrial working class.

[Brotto Rühle]

It's not irrelevant at all.

The constant failure of both of trotskyism and this "left-communism" to create any sort of presence within the labour movement quite clearly illustrates how flawed they are ideologically.

The proof is indeed in the pudding.

Furthermore, what I always find incredibly ironic about trotskyism and "left-communism" is their continual use 'workerist'-style sloganeering despite being completely isolated from the industrial working class throughout their histories.

Just because the legacy of Stalinism was intrinsic to the failure of Paris 68, the crushing of the formation of workers Soviets in Hungary in 56 and east Germany in 53, the oppression of workers in every state they ruled, the exploitation of workers in every state that the Stalinists set up a bourgeois dictatorship (USSR, Albania, etc.), etc. Doesn't make it a good thing.

The German betrayers of the working class, the SPD had IMMENCE proletarian support. Doesn't make them right, or the best thing ever.

Call us workerist all you want. What you really mean is that we believe the working class is to form the state, to manage production, to liberate itself. Not some clique of revisionist Stalinist elitists.

Having influence over the working class means nothing, especially when your theory and practice are anything but proletarian.

[Rational Radical]

Fanon and James are required reading for a greater understanding on the colonial/post-colonial situation. As anti-imps go on and on about "a nation's right to self determination " or national liberation they miss a fundamental argument and accurate prediction Fanon makes,which is the physical resistance against colonial exploitation/for decolonization is necessary but once co-opted by national/native bourgeoisie it put one set of bourgeoisie in power in place of another,the same goes for James in which he talks about the unrest and class struggle in newly independent Haiti . Most anti-imps seem to skim through the "Pitfalls of National Consciousness"and the dilemmas faced by Toussaint L'Ouverture (ie a hierarchy of power and newly emancipated laborers of Haiti responses to it),and by doing this they seem to come out supporting nationalist bourgeois states instead of opposing colonialism.strictly on class lines. Internationalists who haven't read Fanon or CLR James should very much do so,it'll give them better understanding of why 3rd world workers needed to be free of their racist colonial masters but also is aware and critical of the native bourgeoisie,this is a much better argument then saying "well I'm a eurocentric Marxist,after all that's where the industrial revolution started"etc. which makes you seem like you only see potential of WASP of being the only revolutionary body or that you disregard the struggles of oppressed peoples in a workerist fashion

[Tim Cornelis]

Edit: Also it's odd for you to list "market reforms" considering you've claimed various times elsewhere that planned economies are inherently inferior to market-based ones.

No I haven't. I have claimed that competitive markets are a more efficient and effective means of capital management than command economies. I have never (since I became a communist that is) argued planned economies are inherently inferior to market-based ones. If you have evidence to the contrary you can report me for restriction.

The reason I listed it is because not even in terms of distribution is he differentiable from conventional capitalist ideologues and that even from a Marxist-Leninist perspective he can't properly be described as communist. Irrespective of his achievements in Vietnam and whether or not he was progressive or speculating what actions he would have undertaking in a revolutionary situation, upholding the beliefs he did implies conducting himself in a counter-revolutionary manner in the event of a workers' revolution. Hence, the epithet of "reactionary" doesn't necessarily sound inappropriate to me.

Additionally it draws a parallel between Thatcher -- whom had been invoked earlier in the discussion by someone else -- and Giap both advocating liberalisation of the economy.


Yeah, I get the adherents of "left-communism" and anarchism confused sometimes because the former considers the latter a "proletarian milieu" and in many cases they are barely distinguishable. I guess the biggest difference is that anarchism can lay claim to continued relevance in the world and still has some basis in working-class politics, although that doesn't apply to the sort of anarchist Cornelis is.

I'm not an anarchist either. Incidentally, it seems odd that "my anarchism" is not relevant to working class politics (and not only since I'm not an anarchist) whereas "other's anarchism" is -- where does this difference arise? Personally I don't think anarchism is relevant to working class politics, outside Spain and Sweden -- but even there they're hardly a major player.

[KurtFF8]

We're revolutionaries, we're for the overthrow of all existing social conditions, capitalism and all states - Vietnam, Cuba, China, the USSR (as was) along with Britain, USA, France and all the rest.

What kind of revolutionary would be for the overthrow of the Cuban government? :confused:

[Blake's Baby]

One who thinks that the Cuban government is state capitalist.

[Ismail]

I'm not an anarchist either.Then what are you?


Incidentally, it seems odd that "my anarchism" is not relevant to working class politics (and not only since I'm not an anarchist) whereas "other's anarchism" is -- where does this difference arise? Personally I don't think anarchism is relevant to working class politics, outside Spain and Sweden -- but even there they're hardly a major player.Anarchism played a major role in the working-class history of a number of countries, including the USA. Although contemporary anarchism is largely a petty-bourgeois phenomenon, one can still locate anarchist workers. Where anarchism has a hold on the working-class it can express in some form proletarian ideology. Case in point: the PCE sought cooperation with the CNT and praised Durruti, who likewise worked with Soviet officers during the civil war and supported the Popular Front.


Just because the legacy of Stalinism was intrinsic to the failure of Paris 68,The Albanians and Chinese praised the French workers and students and pointed out the treacherous activities of the Soviet and French revisionists who sought to turn the strikes into a reformist direction. Of course the Albanians and Chinese also denounced the ultra-leftists like Cohn-Bendit and others who went from posing as the most revolutionary figures ever to turning into apologists of capitalism within the ensuing decades.


We're revolutionaries, we're for the overthrow of all existing social conditions, capitalism and all states - Vietnam, Cuba, China, the USSR (as was) along with Britain, USA, France and all the rest.And what practical steps are taken to actually combat imperialist capitalism in Britain, the USA, France "and all the rest"? I'm pretty sure folding your arms and saying "this battle between an imperial power and an ex-colony is inter-imperialist somehow" does not advance anything other than one's own irrelevance.

[synthesis]

The North was distrusted by both the Soviet and Chinese revisionists who wanted the national liberation struggle subdued for their own interests. The South was a neo-colonial entity which was dependent American support for its existence. The former state came into existence as a result of the anti-fascist and later anti-colonial struggle, the latter state was created by the French and American imperialists to impede a united Vietnam.

The comparison with Afghanistan would only begin to make sense if the Chinese (or, somehow, Soviet revisionists) invaded the North, killed Ho Chi Minh, and installed a puppet regime. Even then it'd just mean the Vietnamese would have one extra imperialist power to kick out of their country.

Claiming Afghanistan was an inter-imperialist conflict also makes little sense. An inter-imperialist conflict would be World War I. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by contrast was an act of imperialism, in which the native populace rose up in a just struggle against the occupiers.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was an inter-imperialist conflict because the insurgency would have been crushed in less than a year were it not for U.S. support. (It was slightly different than most, of course, because the U.S. wasn't as concerned with the Afghanis winning as they were with drawing out the conflict for as long as possible in order to drain Soviet resources.) And who do you think North Vietnam got all their guns from?

All Cold War conflicts were inter-imperialist conflicts. The Sino-Soviet split was the result of China regaining its imperial foothold, not any difference of ideology.

[synthesis]

Some of us don't see ourselves as 'leftist' in the way you do. 'The Left' is 'the left wing of capital' - just a different team for managing state capitalism. We think you're just an unsuccessful faction of the bourgeoisie. We don't see the difference between Stalinists and social democrats, for example.

We're revolutionaries, we're for the overthrow of all existing social conditions, capitalism and all states - Vietnam, Cuba, China, the USSR (as was) along with Britain, USA, France and all the rest.

So, not all people that you think are 'the Left' were for 'a victory of N Vietnam'. For some of us was a faction-fight inside the world bourgeois class. People who took sides in supported the bourgeoisie against soem other bourgeoisie. That's not the self-liberation of the working class, it's betrayal of the working class.

I would also add that it would be the height of hubris for any communist in the Western world to presume that their "support" of any state in a conflict makes a shred of a shit of difference, at least after the fall of the Soviet Union. I notice this gets dragged out a lot - "how can you claim to be a Marxist if you don't support Chavez or Gadhafi or Kim il-Jong or Idi Amin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Amin#International_relations)?"

The flip side of this would be the people moralizing about "support for Gadhafi" in the context of opposing Libyan intervention. It's the result of people being unable to conceive of the possibility that someone could oppose imperialism without "supporting" one side or the other.

[Blake's Baby]

I agree. Equally, one can be opposed to Gadhaffi (or Saddam Hussein, or Assad), without supporting NATO intervention.

When workers go on strike and refuse the rhetoric of 'national unity', or refuse to handle military shipments (as happened in the US and Britain between 2001-2003 when the 'War on Terror' was being loudly trumpeted by the US and British bourgeoisies) then that's a genuine expression of internationalism - refusal to go along with imperialist intervention. Doesn't in any way imply support for Saddam Hussein or the Taleban.

This was the position of the 'No War but Class War' groups - no support for either side, but support for workers directly working against intervention.

[KurtFF8]

One who thinks that the Cuban government is state capitalist.

I just find it strange that some Leftists like to focus on nations that are consistently targeted by the most powerful imperialist countries for critique.

For example even if Cuba is "state capitalist" (I of course reject this as I find it has little basis and I have yet to see a cogent argument to back it up), why is it that some Leftists feel the need to call for the overthrow of those countries in the cross hairs of the most powerful capitalist countries rather than focusing their attention on the imperialist policies of the states where they are trying to organize?

Anyway this is perhaps a side conversation better suited for another thread, although I do find it strange that Leftists (even those whom support the "state capitalist" theories of Cliff and the like) wouldn't recognize the importance of anti-colonial struggles and why the Left rightfully supported them.

[Blake's Baby]

Don't read much do you?


...

We're revolutionaries, we're for the overthrow of all existing social conditions, capitalism and all states - Vietnam, Cuba, China, the USSR (as was) along with Britain, USA, France and all the rest...


What kind of revolutionary would be for the overthrow of the Cuban government? :confused:


One who thinks that the Cuban government is state capitalist.


I just find it strange that some Leftists like to focus on nations that are consistently targeted by the most powerful imperialist countries for critique...

In fact, you don't even read conversations you're talking part in.

Of course my activity is concerned with the British state and British capitalism. That's where I am. My ability to do anything that negatively impacts on the Cuban, Chinese or Vietnamese states is practically nil. You are 'focussing' on Cuba. I mentioned Cuba, along with six other countries by name, and 'all the rest'.

[synthesis]

It seems he didn't read this post, either:


Some of us don't see ourselves as 'leftist' in the way you do. 'The Left' is 'the left wing of capital' - just a different team for managing state capitalism. We think you're just an unsuccessful faction of the bourgeoisie. We don't see the difference between Stalinists and social democrats, for example.

Also, I notice this is another tendency of left-moralists:


For example even if Cuba is "state capitalist" (I of course reject this as I find it has little basis and I have yet to see a cogent argument to back it up), why is it that some Leftists feel the need to call for the overthrow of those countries in the cross hairs of the most powerful capitalist countries rather than focusing their attention on the imperialist policies of the states where they are trying to organize?

The inability to recognize that someone can care about more than one thing at the same time.

[Ismail]

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was an inter-imperialist conflict because the insurgency would have been crushed in less than a year were it not for U.S. support. (It was slightly different than most, of course, because the U.S. wasn't as concerned with the Afghanis winning as they were with drawing out the conflict for as long as possible in order to drain Soviet resources.) And who do you think North Vietnam got all their guns from?The fact that much of the resistance was opportunistically armed by the Americans does not actually change the fact that the defeat of the Soviet forces was the order of the day for the Afghans. And just as the Soviet and Chinese revisionists simultaneously armed and sought to undermine the Vietnamese national liberation struggle in order to variously pressure and strike deals with the Americans, the Americans let their Pakistani allies do what they wished with Afghanistan after the goal of expelling the Soviets was accomplished, hence the rise of the Taliban.

I don't see how receiving arms or other forms of opportunistic support from one imperialist power negates the actual content of a movement, otherwise the Bolsheviks should have been denounced as German agents for receiving funding, and their efforts to overthrow Tsardom and the Provisional Government denounced as part of an inter-imperialist conflict.

The Soviet and Chinese revisionists could have completely withheld their guns from the Vietnamese, it doesn't matter; the fact they were armed by them is an aside considering that you don't uphold the national liberation struggle to begin with.

[Blake's Baby]

The difference is the Bolsheviks (who certainly, from the point of view of the Imperial High Command, were 'German agents') were intervening in a situation that the working class had already created. I'm not aware that the Vietnamese working class had overthrown the French occupation of Indo-China, instituted 'dual power', and then had a 'leadership' sent in from Moscow. I'm also not aware that the Bolsheviks were sent to Russia in the sealed train in order to fight the British and French.

'Turn the Civil War into an Imperialist War!' said no Lenin ever.

[Ismail]

The difference is the Bolsheviks (who certainly, from the point of view of the Imperial High Command, were 'German agents') were intervening in a situation that the working class had already created. I'm not aware that the Vietnamese working class had overthrown the French occupation of Indo-China, instituted 'dual power', and then had a 'leadership' sent in from Moscow. I'm also not aware that the Bolsheviks were sent to Russia in the sealed train in order to fight the British and French.

'Turn the Civil War into an Imperialist War!' said no Lenin ever.So in other words you cannot logically argue the position that the Bolsheviks receiving the backing of Imperial Germany in their endeavors somehow changed the character of the working-class struggle against the war and for soviet power. Now explain why the Soviet and Chinese revisionists sending arms to the Vietnamese somehow changed the character of their popular struggle against American imperialism, as synthesis is arguing.

[Blake's Baby]

The struggle against the Tsar and the war began without the Bolsheviks; the 'popular struggle' (what does that even mean?) against the French (let alone the Americans) did not begin without the Russian-backed Communist Party of Indochina; therefore the initial situations are utterly different.

The German High Command did not create the revolutions in Russia - the working class did (the German High Command just tried to exploit the situation). The Russians did create the situation in Vietnam - the working class didn't.

Clear?

[synthesis]

The fact that much of the resistance was opportunistically armed by the Americans does not actually change the fact that the defeat of the Soviet forces was the order of the day for the Afghans. And just as the Soviet and Chinese revisionists simultaneously armed and sought to undermine the Vietnamese national liberation struggle in order to variously pressure and strike deals with the Americans, the Americans let their Pakistani allies do what they wished with Afghanistan after the goal of expelling the Soviets was accomplished, hence the rise of the Taliban.

I don't see how receiving arms or other forms of opportunistic support from one imperialist power negates the actual content of a movement, otherwise the Bolsheviks should have been denounced as German agents for receiving funding, and their efforts to overthrow Tsardom and the Provisional Government denounced as part of an inter-imperialist conflict.

The Soviet and Chinese revisionists could have completely withheld their guns from the Vietnamese, it doesn't matter; the fact they were armed by them is an aside considering that you don't uphold the national liberation struggle to begin with.

If the U.S. had sent troops into Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, or if the Soviets had sent troops into Vietnam, it would have meant nuclear war. So they did the next best thing: used the local population as a proxy. Are you really arguing that supplying guns and other munitions has no effect on the outcome of a war? Were the Vietnamese going to make those weapons themselves?

During the Cold War, if an armed national liberation struggle overthrew a Western colonial government or proxy dictatorship, it didn't mean they became independent; it just meant they went over to the Soviet axis. That's the cost of doing business. What is the qualitative difference between believing the post-colonial governments' rhetoric about being "for the people" and believing the claim of the Chinese Communist Party that they are in any way Marxist? It seems like someone would have to be pretty gullible to buy into the latter, but because of decades of New Left moralizing - of course, in opposition to Western imperialist rhetoric - we in the West don't look at the former the same way.

Finally, with regards to the Russian Revolution, the German government did fund the Bolsheviks for imperialist reasons. The crucial distinction is that it wasn't for imperial hegemony over Russia - it was simply taking advantage of volatile domestic politics to remove Russia as an imperial competitor. Within a few decades this would be negated regardless.

[Ismail]

The struggle against the Tsar and the war began without the Bolsheviks; the 'popular struggle' (what does that even mean?) against the French (let alone the Americans) did not begin without the Russian-backed Communist Party of Indochina; therefore the initial situations are utterly different.Are you seriously saying that the struggle against French colonialism and opposition to the interference of American imperialism (which was associated with the continuing efforts to keep Vietnam divided and under foreign rule) originated with the Vietnamese Communists and did not have its basis in much wider trends? Armed struggle against the French certainly predated the establishment of the Indochinese Communist Party.

A popular struggle is one which is supported by the whole people, especially the working-class and peasantry. Lenin termed the Russian Revolution of 1905-07 a people's revolution because it enjoyed the support of the emerging classes and strata of society, along with the poor peasantry, though all of these had their own interests in mind, had different estimations of how far the revolution should go, etc. Likewise in Albania the national liberation war of 1941-44 was a people's revolution, for it encompassed the interests of the vast majority of the country against the Italian and later Nazi German occupiers with their monopolizing economic policies (which alienated petty-bourgeoisie, worker and peasant alike) and all-around national oppression.


The German High Command did not create the revolutions in Russia - the working class did (the German High Command just tried to exploit the situation). The Russians did create the situation in Vietnam - the working class didn't.When did the Soviets "create" the Democratic Republic of Vietnam?


If the U.S. had sent troops into Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, or if the Soviets had sent troops into Vietnam, it would have meant nuclear war. So they did the next best thing: used the local population as a proxy. Are you really arguing that supplying guns and other munitions has no effect on the outcome of a war? Were the Vietnamese going to make those weapons themselves?I am not talking about the outcome of a war, I am talking about its character. Trotsky, for example, doubted that an absence of Lenin in Russia in 1917 would have still led to the October Revolution. That Imperial Germany sought to take advantage of events in Russia for its own purposes does not change the character of those events, though it obviously did help influence the outcome.


During the Cold War, if an armed national liberation struggle overthrew a Western colonial government or proxy dictatorship, it didn't mean they became independent; it just meant they went over to the Soviet axis. That's the cost of doing business. What is the qualitative difference between believing the post-colonial governments' rhetoric about being "for the people" and believing the claim of the Chinese Communist Party that they are in any way Marxist? It seems like someone would have to be pretty gullible to buy into the latter, but because of decades of New Left moralizing - of course, in opposition to Western imperialist rhetoric - we in the West don't look at the former the same way.China sought to become a social-imperialist superpower rivaling the USA and USSR, and sought to use its growing influence against the Vietnamese national liberation struggle, as part of forging a tactical alliance with US imperialism against Soviet social-imperialism.

The fact that the defeat of US imperialism in Vietnam ended up with Vietnam turning pro-Soviet does not actually negate the fact that the Americans had invaded Vietnam, had set up a puppet regime before that in an attempt to stymy national unification, and that the defeat of US imperialism in Vietnam served the interests of both the Vietnamese and American (not to mention the world) working-classes, because in the case of the former it got rid of the primary contradiction: the division of the country and its occupation by US imperialism.

[synthesis]

The idea that a war has some sort of intrinsic "character" is an incredibly simplistic and idealist conception of how war actually is. There are people giving orders and people taking them, just as in every other aspect of capitalist life.


The fact that the defeat of US imperialism in Vietnam ended up with Vietnam turning pro-Soviet does not actually negate the fact that the Americans had invaded Vietnam, had set up a puppet regime before that in an attempt to stymy national unification, and that the defeat of US imperialism in Vietnam served the interests of both the Vietnamese and American (not to mention the world) working-classes, because in the case of the former it got rid of the primary contradiction: the division of the country and its occupation by US imperialism.

And created a new contradiction: the division of the country between the Vietnamese working class and the Vietnamese bourgeoisie, with the Soviet Union holding imperial interests.

(Ironically - especially given the assertion that it was a victory for the Vietnamese working class - these ex-Soviet orbit countries are the Western bourgeoisie's favorite new playthings, because the hyperexploitation coupled with the naked state repression creates some pretty favorable conditions for corporations seeking to relocate their operations from more worker-friendly legislative environments.)

[Ismail]

The idea that a war has some sort of intrinsic "character" is an incredibly simplistic and idealist conception of how war actually is. There are people giving orders and people taking them, just as in every other aspect of capitalist life.This is rather absurd and doesn't match with how Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin evaluated wars. Some wars are progressive whereas some are reactionary, some are civil wars in which progressive and reactionary classes do battle, some are aggressive whereas some are defensive, some have the character of inter-imperialist wars and some have the character of national liberation wars, etc.


And created a new contradiction: the division of the country between the Vietnamese working class and the Vietnamese bourgeoisie, with the Soviet Union holding imperial interests.Certainly, although this contradiction now became primary; it wasn't "created" as soon as the national liberation struggle ended, otherwise this would mean that national liberation struggles are supra-class in content.


(Ironically - especially given the assertion that it was a victory for the Vietnamese working class - these ex-Soviet orbit countries are the Western bourgeoisie's favorite new playthings, because the hyperexploitation coupled with the naked state repression creates some pretty favorable conditions for corporations seeking to relocate their operations from more worker-friendly legislative environments.)And who is to blame for that? The Vietnamese bourgeoisie or the workers and peasants who played the leading role in the liberation of their country from French colonialism and US imperialism? Using similar logic Russia today is somehow "ironic" proof that the revolution of October 1917 was not a victory for the working-class, which can only work if you completely ignore all that went between.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

even though Ho Chi Mihn was probably a genuine communist

Not true. He admitted otherwise multiple times.

The guy was a nationalist who harbored soviet economic support. He's admirable for heading a movement that removed the colonial occupation of Vietnam (and being able to fight off the armies of two world powers), but that's all he is.

The guy was not interested in socialism and was not a socialist. He wanted an independent Vietnam, not a society where the means of production is no longer owned by a separate class. He got his dream; Vietnam is an independent country. An independent capitalist country with virulent anti working class laws.

EDIT: Hmm. I was looking up CWI articles in the hopes that they might have an example for me to use. God-damn their history section on indochina is full of historical inaccuracies. Apparently top-down Buddhist and Hindu dynasties are 'co-operatively owned societies'! Ha!

[KurtFF8]

Don't read much do you?

In fact, you don't even read conversations you're talking part in.

I read it just fine, so save your condescending comments for elsewhere. (It's just amazing the stuff people say when they're behind a keyboard)


Of course my activity is concerned with the British state and British capitalism. That's where I am. My ability to do anything that negatively impacts on the Cuban, Chinese or Vietnamese states is practically nil. You are 'focussing' on Cuba. I mentioned Cuba, along with six other countries by name, and 'all the rest'.

Yes I brought out Cuba because I often discuss Cuba, but you seem to have missed my point. When a story like this one about someone who directly fought against imperialism (and in General Giap's case, much more than most anti-imperialist fighters) happens, the only comment some Leftists have to say is about how he wasn't really a revolutionary and shouldn't really be praised, even though he directly fought against the very international system we all claim to agree we're up against.

I just don't understand why that's always the first response by some Leftists. Not analyzing the significance of struggles like the conflict between Vietnam and France/USA but rather talking about how we should oppose the opposition to France/USA because they weren't socialist-y enough for our particular sect's taste, etc.

[Devrim]

Yes I brought out Cuba because I often discuss Cuba, but you seem to have missed my point. When a story like this one about someone who directly fought against imperialism (and in General Giap's case, much more than most anti-imperialist fighters) happens, the only comment some Leftists have to say is about how he wasn't really a revolutionary and shouldn't really be praised, even though he directly fought against the very international system we all claim to agree we're up against.

I just don't understand why that's always the first response by some Leftists. Not analyzing the significance of struggles like the conflict between Vietnam and France/USA but rather talking about how we should oppose the opposition to France/USA because they weren't socialist-y enough for our particular sect's taste, etc.

To make it clear, people who are arguing against the hagiography of this dead general are not arguing that he wasn't 'socialist enough' or that he didn't fight imperialism well enough.

What they are saying is that both sides in the war were equally reactionary. Both blocks and their satellite states were equally reactionary. It is not that Giap wasn't anti-imperialist enough. He was a general in an imperialist army. It is not that they weren't socialist enough, but that they were capitalist and anti-working class to the core.

I have no particular interest whatsoever in Cuba, but it is clearly a capitalist state, and as such, like all other states, will have to be overthrown by the working class if there is to be communism.

Devrim

[Ismail]

What they are saying is that both sides in the war were equally reactionary. Both blocks and their satellite states were equally reactionary. It is not that Giap wasn't anti-imperialist enough. He was a general in an imperialist army. It is not that they weren't socialist enough, but that they were capitalist and anti-working class to the core.South Vietnam was established by the French and US imperialists, the North was established through the efforts of the Vietnamese themselves during and after WWII. The North sought large-scale land reform and other democratic measures, the South opposed such land reform and labeled any possible left-wing sentiment as "communist." Hand-waving away these and other aspects of the struggle because "both sides are capitalist" assumes that the interests of the working-class are able to develop under any and all forms of capitalist rule, that somehow a divided and bombed-out Vietnam would have been just as beneficial to the working-class movement there than Vietnam today.

And again, the Soviet and Chinese revisionists sought to undermine the Vietnamese struggle, something no "left-communist" in this thread has actually addressed.

[Devrim]

something no "left-communist" in this thread has actually addressed.

Ismail, I am not interested in addressing anything that Stalinists have to say in this thread. I have no intention of getting involved in a debate around it. I merely commented to show that other views are available.

I think that there are languages in which people have to address the arguments of the Stalinists. English is not one of them. Within the English speaking world these ideas are totally marginalised even within the already marginalised strata, which is the left, and surely you must appreciate that when someone from such a marginal current as the communist left says you are in that sort of position you are in a very bad way indeed.

Some people may want to take up your arguments, but personally I have far better things to waste my time on.

Devrim

[synthesis]

I, on the other hand, am more than willing to waste my time on this topic.


This is rather absurd and doesn't match with how Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin evaluated wars. Some wars are progressive whereas some are reactionary, some are civil wars in which progressive and reactionary classes do battle, some are aggressive whereas some are defensive, some have the character of inter-imperialist wars and some have the character of national liberation wars, etc.

The American Civil War, for example, had a progressive outcome, but it's ridiculous to say that it was a "progressive war." Do you really believe that the Union was motivated primarily by progressive ideology?


And who is to blame for that? The Vietnamese bourgeoisie or the workers and peasants who played the leading role in the liberation of their country from French colonialism and US imperialism? Using similar logic Russia today is somehow "ironic" proof that the revolution of October 1917 was not a victory for the working-class, which can only work if you completely ignore all that went between.

It's not about "blaming" anyone, it's about addressing the systemic reasons why these wars never produce anything but a different form of capitalism.

Historically, the outcome has simply been to wipe away the remnants of feudalism in Russia, not anything to do with socialism. At some point you're just being stubborn if you don't start wondering why every single one of these wars has ultimately produced nothing but capitalism.

(This is, by the way, the position of Marx and Engels on the subject. Nationalism - an umbrella under which lies national liberation - is progressive only when it helps to disassemble elements of feudalism, as the nation-state is a construct of capitalism and the bourgeoisie. Once the national liberation struggle has succeeded, the revolutionaries have just become straight-up nationalists.)

[Ismail]

The American Civil War, for example, had a progressive outcome, but it's ridiculous to say that it was a "progressive war." Do you really believe that the Union was motivated primarily by progressive ideology?At that time the American bourgeoisie still had a revolutionary role vis-à-vis the slaveowning system. The war became a popular one precisely because the bourgeoisie found out they had to wage it on a revolutionary basis, not merely to bring the states back into the Union (as was the original goal), but to destroy the institution of slavery, precisely as Marx said would occur.

I don't know why you take issue with it being called a "progressive war." The proletariat isn't "motivated primarily by progressive ideology" either, but upholds such an ideology because it is in its class interest, which is what ideology ultimately expresses.


(This is, by the way, the position of Marx and Engels on the subject. Nationalism - an umbrella under which lies national liberation - is progressive only when it helps to disassemble elements of feudalism, as the nation-state is a construct of capitalism and the bourgeoisie. Once the national liberation struggle has succeeded, the revolutionaries have just become straight-up nationalists.)I don't see where I was denying this, or the fact that the national liberation struggle in Vietnam was obviously bound up with the struggle against the remnants of feudalism.


I think that there are languages in which people have to address the arguments of the Stalinists. English is not one of them. Within the English speaking world these ideas are totally marginalised even within the already marginalised strata, which is the left, and surely you must appreciate that when someone from such a marginal current as the communist left says you are in that sort of position you are in a very bad way indeed.No, I assume the "left-communist" saying this is either an imbecile or delusional considering that "Stalinist" (by their criteria) parties past and present have been infinitely more influential than any "left-communist" current. This includes the English-speaking world where you have the CPUSA, PSL and FRSO, CPC and CPC-ML, CPGB-ML, SACP and so on (all qualifying as "Stalinist") which are far more notable than "left-communists" in these countries.

[synthesis]

I don't see where I was denying this, or the fact that the national liberation struggle in Vietnam was obviously bound up with the struggle against the remnants of feudalism.

Then maybe we're miscommunicating. I thought you were saying that national liberation has anything to do with the socialist mode of production. If you're just saying that it can only ever develop the capitalist mode of production, then we're on the same page.

[synthesis]

I read it just fine, so save your condescending comments for elsewhere. (It's just amazing the stuff people say when they're behind a keyboard)

I find this puzzling, because it really wasn't that harsh or personal.


I just don't understand why that's always the first response by some Leftists. Not analyzing the significance of struggles like the conflict between Vietnam and France/USA but rather talking about how we should oppose the opposition to France/USA because they weren't socialist-y enough for our particular sect's taste, etc.

I would wager that left-communists are assuming that most people on this forum already understand what you believe to be the significance of national liberation struggles, and are seeking to promote a different perspective on it: criticism from the left, rather than in defense of imperialism.

And that last part is so, so disingenuous and intellectually dishonest. Nobody has ever said that anyone "should oppose the opposition" to colonialism - I repeat, nobody thinks that - and your conception that the point of contention is that national liberation struggles "weren't socialist-y enough" really shows a lack of effort at trying to understand the arguments of the people you're debating with. I think at this point, historically speaking, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that national liberation struggles have anything to do with the socialist mode of production, besides possibly preparing elements of the capitalist mode of production for the creation of it.

[Blake's Baby]

I think it's pretty clear that 'national liberation' at this stage in history is merely about the attempt to remove a capitalist economy from the hegemony of one state and attempt a more 'independent' development, but also that it has been impossible to do so, in any serious way, for a century (or more). The 'national liberation' of both Finland and Poland in 1917 led to both rapidly becoming clients of Germany, for example, and I can't see any state since that time that has not just moved its position from being the colony of one state to being the client of that or another powerful state.

[Ismail]

Then maybe we're miscommunicating. I thought you were saying that national liberation has anything to do with the socialist mode of production. If you're just saying that it can only ever develop the capitalist mode of production, then we're on the same page.National liberation revolutions, like bourgeois-democratic revolutions, can be transformed into socialist revolutions if led by the working-class and its vanguard. Obviously when this isn't the case the national bourgeoisie, which was hitherto forced to rely on the working-class and peasantry, is put into a position where it can consolidate its rule and turn against the popular movement.


I think it's pretty clear that 'national liberation' at this stage in history is merely about the attempt to remove a capitalist economy from the hegemony of one state and attempt a more 'independent' development, but also that it has been impossible to do so, in any serious way, for a century (or more).Imperialism was still weakened by decolonization, and it is still occasionally threatened by measures undertaken by the national bourgeoisie (hence the coups against the likes of Árbenz and Mossadegh.) The fact that said national bourgeoisie cannot consistently oppose imperialism makes clear the fact that it is the working-class movement which can best uphold the national liberation struggle and carry it out to its logical end, that of the socialist revolution.

Albania's 1976 Constitution made a powerful statement of economic independence when it stated that, "The granting of concessions to, and the creation of, foreign economic and financial companies and other institutions or ones formed jointly with bourgeois and revisionist capitalist monopolies and states, as well as obtaining credits from them, are prohibited in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania." In 1990 various bourgeois commentators noted this was the greatest handicap in the efforts of the revisionists to integrate Albania into the world capitalist system. Albania had become a country with no foreign debts and with a consistent international line not dictated by any imperialist power.


The 'national liberation' of both Finland and Poland in 1917 led to both rapidly becoming clients of Germany, for example, and I can't see any state since that time that has not just moved its position from being the colony of one state to being the client of that or another powerful state.Finland experienced a civil war between Red and White factions, with the latter triumphing only because of German troops assisting it. Keeping Finland and Poland as parts of Soviet Russia (while declaring self-determination for every other part of the Tsarist Empire) would have identified the Bolsheviks with the Tsarist policy of national oppression, which would have been even worse for the working-class movements of those countries.

[Binh]

Anywhere you can find his work "People's war, People's Army" for free

http://www.army.gov.au/Our-history/Primary-Materials/Vietnam-1962-to-1972/~/media/Files/Our%20history/AAHU/Primary%20Materials/Vietnam%201962-1972/Documents/Peoples%20War%20Peoples%20Army%20by%20General%20Vo %20Nguyen%20Giap.pdf

You're welcome. :)

[synthesis]

National liberation revolutions, like bourgeois-democratic revolutions, can be transformed into socialist revolutions if led by the working-class and its vanguard. Obviously when this isn't the case the national bourgeoisie, which was hitherto forced to rely on the working-class and peasantry, is put into a position where it can consolidate its rule and turn against the popular movement.

When has this ever not been the case? Again, when these "revolutions" eventually but ultimately produce nothing but a different form of capitalism every single time, when do you have to start considering the possibility that it can never produce a socialist mode of production? Just because a movement has support from the working class doesn't mean it has a working class character. By that definition, a fascist revolt against what you'd call "revisionist" Soviet occupation could be considered as at least containing the seeds of socialism.

[Ismail]

When has this ever not been the case? Again, when these "revolutions" eventually but ultimately produce nothing but a different form of capitalism every single time, when do you have to start considering the possibility that it can never produce a socialist mode of production? Just because a movement has support from the working class doesn't mean it has a working class character. By that definition, a fascist revolt against what you'd call "revisionist" Soviet occupation could be considered as at least containing the seeds of socialism.Notice I said "led by the working-class and its vanguard." Such was the case in Albania, where the national liberation became a socialist revolution.

And the USSR itself under the Soviet revisionists, as the Albanians noted, had in effect operated like a social-fascist state.

[synthesis]

Notice I said "led by the working-class and its vanguard."

This might be a broader topic of discussion, but it seems like you're defining "vanguard" as "anyone who claims to speak for the working class." Wouldn't your definition then apply to, say, Strasser-esque anti-Soviet insurgents?

[Ismail]

This might be a broader topic of discussion, but it seems like you're defining "vanguard" as "anyone who claims to speak for the working class." Wouldn't your definition then apply to, say, Strasser-esque anti-Soviet insurgents?No, I don't know how you can interpret "the working-class and its vanguard" as anything other than a communist party. Fascism is not a working-class ideology and does not represent working-class interests.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

RIP general Giap one of greatest revolutionary anti imperialist figures ever

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

You, as a comrade in such an underdeveloped country as Pakistan, should be especially weary of the 20th century type of "anti-imperialism" which, as I hopefully don't need to remind you, ended in a catastrophic historical dead end and near defeat of the Proletariat's cause. "People's war" and Peasant insurrection is no business for Communists to take on again.