Why Iran Should Get the Bomb

[ñángara]

Nuclear Balancing Would Mean Stability
Foreign affairs Kenneth Waltz
...
In 1991, the historical rivals India and Pakistan signed a treaty agreeing not to target each other's nuclear facilities. They realized that far more worrisome than their adversary's nuclear deterrent was the instability produced by challenges to it. Since then, even in the face of high tensions and risky provocations, the two countries have kept the peace. Israel and Iran would do well to consider this precedent. If Iran goes nuclear, Israel and Iran will deter each other, as nuclear powers always have. There has never been a full-scale war between two nuclear-armed states. Once Iran crosses the nuclear threshold, deterrence will apply, even if the Iranian arsenal is relatively small. No other country in the region will have an incentive to acquire its own nuclear capability, and the current crisis will finally dissipate, leading to a Middle East that is more stable than it is today.

For that reason, the United States and its allies need not take such pains to prevent the Iranians from developing a nuclear weapon...

[Slavic]

I don't understand why any leftist would support the theory of Mutually Assured Destruction.

MAD theory only works if MAD theory never fails. Its the silliest thing I have ever heard of. I understand the ability for nuclear weapons to deter conventional warfare, but the risk is so damn high that its a silly way to promote peace. Not to mention supporting the arming of states from a leftist point of view is counter productive.

[sixdollarchampagne]

The idea that a hyper-reactionary, obscurantist, utterly repressive regime should have nuclear capability is appalling. When the Iranians come into possession of ICBM's, they can then attack North America with their nukes, which will truly open the door to a generalized Armageddon, I bet. The left ought to be campaigning, instead, against any government having the power to nuke anyone.

[Stirnerian]

The idea that a hyper-reactionary, obscurantist, utterly repressive regime should have nuclear capability is appalling. When the Iranians come into possession of ICBM's, they can then attack North America with their nukes, which will truly open the door to a generalized Armageddon, I bet. The left ought to be campaigning, instead, against any government having the power to nuke anyone.

In an ideal world, yes. But we don't live in an ideal world.

Iran, as it is presently constituted, is a reactionary semi-feudal nation, but it's not quite as awful as many of its critics suggest. It has a fairly functional bourgeois democratic system, for instance: elections in Iran are among the cleanest in the region. And its political institutions are not wholly theocratized: Ahmadinejad was elected, in part, on a populist platform that addressed some legitimate concerns, and fought pretty regularly with the clerics, which would have been completely impossible in an Iran as its enemies describe it.

I don't love Iran, and I'm certainly no anti-imperialist ideologue (I tried to justify Cromwell's invasion of Ireland in another thread, as far as that goes). In this case, though, more progress - in the small-p, capitalist sense - will be brought about by a stable, safe, modernizing Iran than by one fractured at Israel's hands.

Incidentally: Iran will never possess ICBM technology. The only nation with an interest in giving it to them, Russia, has a greater interest in limiting them to a proxy against Israeli-American encroachment.

[Antiochus]

You act as if Israel will behave rationally when it comes to Iran.

Some Israeli officials genuinely believe that Iran means to destroy them, whether or not that is true is irrelevant, but such a belief is there. If Iran gets a WMD, the Israeli gov. might very well launch a full scale attack, with maybe tactical WMD's (smaller yield) as a 'last resort'.

[Stirnerian]

You act as if Israel will behave rationally when it comes to Iran.

Some Israeli officials genuinely believe that Iran means to destroy them, whether or not that is true is irrelevant, but such a belief is there. If Iran gets a WMD, the Israeli gov. might very well launch a full scale attack, with maybe tactical WMD's (smaller yield) as a 'last resort'.

They may very well do that anyway, bomb or no. Better Iran have teeth sharp enough to bite back.

[The Jay]

Jesus Christ, no. Why the hell would I want a theocracy to have a damn nuke? Also, game theory isn't that good.

[Stirnerian]

Jesus Christ, no. Why the hell would I want a theocracy to have a damn nuke? Also, game theory isn't that good.

The best reason has nothing to do with Iran.

If Iran acquires a nuke and the situation between Israel and Iran stalemates, it will probably - not assuredly, but most likely - reduce pressure on the Americans to continue propping up the Zionist State. The public will come to see that the two nations will have entered a long period of détente and will become restive at the notion of continuing to pour money into another countries Cold War.

This seems counterintuitive, but it's not. As long as the threat of a potential nuclear Iran exists, the American public, in its typical state of war hysteria, will feel the need to Do Something About It. With a nuclear Iran as a fait accompli, this urgency will die down.

The only other ideal alternative for the Left is an anti-humanist one: that Israel should attack Iran before they acquire a bomb and hope it engenders a public backlash. This might achieve the goal - an America separated from Israel - but at a too-high and unnecessary cost in human life.

[Tim Cornelis]

>Iran
>Semi-feudal

Anyway, just because Iran is ultra-conservative, etc., doesn't mean they are crazy. I don't support any regime getting them though.

[John Nada]

Israel and Iran aren't the only nations in the region. In fact, if I remember correctly there was a Wikileaks where an US official pondered over a possible alliance between the two in the future, Netanyahu's posturing notwithstanding.

There's one country they both don't like, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia purchased some nukes on standby from Pakistan. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24823846 They damn near make any country other look rational. Still probably not dumb enough to use them.

However this could provoke an arms race. So suddenly Egypt needs them, then the other Gulf countries, Turkey, Sudan, Ethiopia, and so on. An arms race starts. More are made, then anti-ballistic missiles come, necessitating even more. Individually, not even the most unreasonable autocracy would want to use them, since even one is going to fuck shit up. However, this is too many variables for anyone. A frenzy could seize the area, with rather unfortunate consequences, to put it mildly.

It isn't that any nation has a right to nukes. My fear is there isn't anything you could do to stop anyone from getting them. It's 1940's technology. Much of which has been adopted by or from a ton of essential unrelated uses. Sanctions would damn near have to be an economic blockaded to stop it, and even then the technology and know-how is out there.

I remember there was a plot by the US to spread misinformation to set back Iran's program. Turns out they saw right through it, trouble shoot it and it helped them.:confused: The official who leaked this got prosecuted. He argued he was a scapegoat due to his race(black) The prosecution argued that it was in retaliation for perceived racism. If they thought they were that stupid he might of been on to something.

[Prof. Oblivion]

In an ideal world, yes. But we don't live in an ideal world.

Iran, as it is presently constituted, is a reactionary semi-feudal nation, but it's not quite as awful as many of its critics suggest. It has a fairly functional bourgeois democratic system, for instance: elections in Iran are among the cleanest in the region. And its political institutions are not wholly theocratized: Ahmadinejad was elected, in part, on a populist platform that addressed some legitimate concerns, and fought pretty regularly with the clerics, which would have been completely impossible in an Iran as its enemies describe it.

I don't love Iran, and I'm certainly no anti-imperialist ideologue (I tried to justify Cromwell's invasion of Ireland in another thread, as far as that goes). In this case, though, more progress - in the small-p, capitalist sense - will be brought about by a stable, safe, modernizing Iran than by one fractured at Israel's hands.

Incidentally: Iran will never possess ICBM technology. The only nation with an interest in giving it to them, Russia, has a greater interest in limiting them to a proxy against Israeli-American encroachment.

How on earth is Iran a "semi-feudal nation"?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The idea that a hyper-reactionary, obscurantist, utterly repressive regime should have nuclear capability is appalling. When the Iranians come into possession of ICBM's, they can then attack North America with their nukes, which will truly open the door to a generalized Armageddon, I bet.

Why would the Iranian government do that? Sure enough, the mullahs can find themselves at loggerheads with the US from time to time, but they're also capable - more than capable - of cooperation, from the US installing a Shi'a puppet government in Baghdad to the Iranian forces acting as the shock troops of American imperialism against ISIS.

The clerical regime in Iran has never been opposed to American imperialism, except highly reversibly and opportunistically, from its beginnings in the bloody butchery of Iranian workers and its role as an anti-Soviet outpost in the region, to the present. And of course, even if it was, it would be quite stupid for communists to support a bourgeois government - one particularly noted for its bloody, murderous treatment of workers, communists, of national minorities, of women and gay people - getting another weapon to turn against the workers.

The article in the OP is discussing how to arrange matters so that the region is stabilised - for further imperialist exploitation, now that the markets have been divided in a manner that is satisfying to the writer's "own" side, at least for now. That's definitely not our perspective. In fact the Iranian working class is one of the largest and potentially most important in the region. If there was soviet rule in Teheran, that would make up for a hundred dusty plains of the sort people like to fetishise. In light of that, it's especially misguided to give any kind of political support to the mullahs.

[Kill all the fetuses!]

Why would the Iranian government do that? Sure enough, the mullahs can find themselves at loggerheads with the US from time to time, but they're also capable - more than capable - of cooperation, from the US installing a Shi'a puppet government in Baghdad to the Iranian forces acting as the shock troops of American imperialism against ISIS.

The clerical regime in Iran has never been opposed to American imperialism, except highly reversibly and opportunistically, from its beginnings in the bloody butchery of Iranian workers and its role as an anti-Soviet outpost in the region, to the present. And of course, even if it was, it would be quite stupid for communists to support a bourgeois government - one particularly noted for its bloody, murderous treatment of workers, communists, of national minorities, of women and gay people - getting another weapon to turn against the workers.

The article in the OP is discussing how to arrange matters so that the region is stabilised - for further imperialist exploitation, now that the markets have been divided in a manner that is satisfying to the writer's "own" side, at least for now. That's definitely not our perspective. In fact the Iranian working class is one of the largest and potentially most important in the region. If there was soviet rule in Teheran, that would make up for a hundred dusty plains of the sort people like to fetishise. In light of that, it's especially misguided to give any kind of political support to the mullahs.

Since you a Trotskyist and ICL-FI sympathiser, I guess you do support North Korea having nuclear weapons, right? If no, then you just ignore the question, but if yes, then could you explain the difference between Iran and North Korea in so far as your argument presented in the bolded part of your post goes?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

First we got the bomb, and that was good...

The chief thing is that the ICL considers North Korea to have been a deformed workers' state since the establishment of the DPRK (the People's Republic of Korea having been one of Stalin's inimitable attempts to have some kind of "neutral", "democratic", mildly pro-Soviet capitalist government as a buffer region between the Soviet Union and world imperialism). So, if you accept that perspective, then you are going to treat nuclear weapons in the hands of the DPRK differently than nuclear weapons in the hands of bourgeois Iran (although both I and the ICL would still oppose - for whatever that's worth - any attempt to sabotage Iran's nuclear programme by "our own" states). Not only do nuclear weapons in the hands of the DPRK provide an additional guarantee against imperialist intervention in order to restore capitalism, when it comes to the army of a deformed workers' state, we can expect that even the officer corps will be split in the event of a political proletarian revolution (e.g. Maleter going over to the Hungarian revolutionaries). In the end, those weapons might even end up in the hands of Korean workers - provided imperialism doesn't destroy the Korean workers' state first.

[Devrim]

If you believe that North Korea is a workers' state there is a certain logic to your position. It's a big if though.

Devrim

[Os Cangaceiros]

I re-watched "The Fog of War" recently in a class (TFOW is a documentary in which Robert McNamara recounts his time as secretary of defense), and there was a pretty interesting part in which he recalls a meeting with Castro in the late 90s, IIRC, in which he asked Castro if he knew about all of the 60+ nuclear-equipped ICBMs in Cuba which were aimed at the USA. Castro replied that yes, not only did he know about how many missiles were on Cuba at the time, but he had urged Khrushchev to launch them at the United States. Castro was not stupid...he knew that such an action would entail the complete and utter destruction of Cuba. But he was willing to incur that action regardless.

That anecdote gave me pause and made me question the common point that self-preservation is a fail-safe measure against a nuclear attack. Not really trying to make a direct point about Iran though, just an interesting nuclear weapons-related thing I learned recently.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I think that this reflects a really dated conception of war. Or, at the least, kinda misses the shifting reality wherein war between states has been replaced by policing activity.
I don't think nuclear weapons are unrelated to this. They seem, to me, to be a sort of mutually beneficial relationship in which the threat of nuclear annihilation from outside can be used to discipline "internal" enemies.

[Kill all the fetuses!]

First we got the bomb, and that was good...

The chief thing is that the ICL considers North Korea to have been a deformed workers' state since the establishment of the DPRK (the People's Republic of Korea having been one of Stalin's inimitable attempts to have some kind of "neutral", "democratic", mildly pro-Soviet capitalist government as a buffer region between the Soviet Union and world imperialism). So, if you accept that perspective, then you are going to treat nuclear weapons in the hands of the DPRK differently than nuclear weapons in the hands of bourgeois Iran (although both I and the ICL would still oppose - for whatever that's worth - any attempt to sabotage Iran's nuclear programme by "our own" states). Not only do nuclear weapons in the hands of the DPRK provide an additional guarantee against imperialist intervention in order to restore capitalism, when it comes to the army of a deformed workers' state, we can expect that even the officer corps will be split in the event of a political proletarian revolution (e.g. Maleter going over to the Hungarian revolutionaries). In the end, those weapons might even end up in the hands of Korean workers - provided imperialism doesn't destroy the Korean workers' state first.

Nah, I know all of the that, what I was getting at - I guess I didn't make myself clear enough - is how that logic applies in the context of what you said in the bolded part. So you said that "...even if [Iran] was [opposed to American imperialism], it would be quite stupid for communists to support a bourgeois government - one particularly noted for its bloody, murderous treatment of workers, communists, of national minorities, of women and gay people - getting another weapon to turn against the workers." So why changing "bourgeois government" in this sentence for "deformed workers' state" changes not only the political stance, but also the argument itself, in so far as you claim that the workers could lay hands on the weapon in case of workers' state, but it would be turned against them in case of Iranian government. You also claim that in case of a political revolution in the country with the workers' state, the officer corps would split, but that's the same sort of argument you used a couple of days ago in case of a social revolution in a bourgeois country as well (unless you meant something different in that thread). Even if you didn't make that argument, it's fathomable that the split could occur in case of a social revolution occurring in a bourgeois country. So what makes it fundamentally different in so far as the logic of the argument and political stance itself is concerned?

As far as the "political vs. social revolution" argument is concerned I will try to reason along the Trotskyist lines and you can tell me if I am getting something right. In case of a bourgeois country with a bourgeois government and army, you can't have a situation where the socialists hold a significant portion of that government and army, because of the nature and structure of the bourgeois state, because of the power that the bourgeoisie has over that state etc. So it's not enough to merely have a political revolution in a bourgeois state - it must be a social revolution, which would inevitably lead to civil war. In case of the deformed/degenerated workers' state, this is different, because the state and army does in fact in large part consist of genuine socialists. Even the "non-genuine" ones could easily side with the socialist side instigating political revolution so that civil war is not only not inevitable, but not likely as well. Is it close? How do Trotskyist in fact distinguish between these sort of revolutions?

[Cliff Paul]

That anecdote gave me pause and made me question the common point that self-preservation is a fail-safe measure against a nuclear attack. Not really trying to make a direct point about Iran though, just an interesting nuclear weapons-related thing I learned recently.

Not to mention the later incidents in 1983 - the incident with Stanislav Petrov and the US training exercise that occurred just a month or two later.

I think if you replayed the history of the 20th century 100 times over, 99 times out of those 100 would have been plagued by nuclear war.

[Art Vandelay]

How do Trotskyist in fact distinguish between these sort of revolutions?

A social revolution entails an overturning of property relations, whereas a political revolution leaves them intact, while ushering in a new government. Trotskyists called for a political revolution within the USSR to oust the Stalinist bureaucracy, due to the fact that the nationalized planned economy had already been established in the wake of the October revolution.

So in Trotskyist theory:

October 1917 (social revolution)
France 1848 (policial revolution)
Tianamen 1989 (incipient proletarian political revolution)

[Kill all the fetuses!]

A social revolution entails an overturning of property relations, whereas a political revolution leaves them intact, while ushering in a new government. Trotskyists called for a political revolution within the USSR to oust the Stalinist bureaucracy, due to the fact that the nationalized planned economy had already been established in the wake of the October revolution.

So in Trotskyist theory:

October 1917 (social revolution)
France 1848 (policial revolution)
Tianamen 1989 (incipient proletarian political revolution)

Er, fuck it, let's argue on two fronts. :) Well, obviously nationalised planned economy can't be a definitive criterion in so far as nationalised planned economy can be a bourgeois one as well, right? For instance, isn't it a standard Trotskyist argument that Fascist nationalisation of the economy was actually a preservation of private property, while Soviet nationalisation was its destruction? Both there nationalisation and both implemented a planned economy yet they were fundamentally different in so far as social and political context within which they occurred and so the reasons for that were fundamentally different. I wonder how that relates to your argument.

But to be fair to myself, I was asking 870 (yes, you are still not Binks for me) what is the reasoning behind distinguishing political and social revolution in the context of his argument, not in this abstract way (which you present) with which I am quite familiar. To make myself clear: having two economies that are the same in their form, but different in their social content (bourgeois vs. proletarian, e.g. fascist Germany vs Soviet Russia), why would one be supportable by Trotskyists while the other one condemned. Or would you also call for political revolution in fascist Germany and not for social one?

[Rafiq]

The Iranian state, in effect, represents the closest form of 21st century Fascism, or it's equivalent, with regard to the geopolitical situation in the Near East. 1979 was arguably, and in many ways an authentic event. The problem is that Iran was, like virtually all other contenders to Communism during the cold war, demographically not composed of a majority of proletarians. We ought never forget the crimes of the Islamist butchers, but the failure of the Iranian Communists was in many ways reflective entirely of their incompetence in solving the question of 20th century Communism: They failed to integrate and mobilize the rural, agrarian and backward poor into an alliance with the urban proletariat. The end result was (consciously or otherwise) the then-beaten-down clergy to act as transcendental saviors of the capitalist order by mobilizing vast swaths of the rural, ignorance and illiterate poor against what was irrevocably perceived as an elitist minority of urbanized proletarians and intelligentsia. The revolutionary energy was displaced, and re-directed toward "the Imperialists". In times of revolution, it is the people who hark for blood, who will never be satisfied otherwise. In times of imminent revolution, the bourgeoisie or their functionaries could only ever mis-direct this vengeful energy by externalizing the antagonisms inherent to society onto something else, whether it is "Imperialism", "The Jew" or some kind of crises of spirituality.

And since, Iran has been a hotbed of (controlled, unlike rogue groups a la ISIS and Al Qaeda) reaction across the Near East. It has constituted a political platform, and ideological language which in effect was able to re-direct the INHERENTLY class based grievances and demands of ordinary people from Iraq to the Lebanon. As far as revolutionary strategy goes, Iran is situated uniquely in our favor - it possesses immense influence as well as a working-class predisposed to militancy. If we were able to take Iran, we would without doubt have the whole of the Levant. One thing to bear in mind here is that alone, Iran really doesn't amount to much outside of the Near East. It is a vital component of the pro-Russia axis, and it is arguable that American hostility towards both the Iranian and Syrian state have much less to do with Israel than we'd otherwise like to believe, and more to do with stamping out the geopolitical influence of the Russian state, absorbing the region into our imperial sphere of influence. This is precisely why Iraq had been invaded in 2004, and why the US had condoned the overthrow of the Libyan government.

What then, could be said about the muck regarding its acquirement of Nuclear weapons? A distraction which establishes no real political dichotomy for Communists aside from a recognition of the reality of the geopolitics. The dichotomy is a false one - one that reeks of the revolting chauvinism prior to the invasion of Iraq. The petty expressions of popular sentiment in the last few years both in the US and Western Europe completely confirm the unauthentic nature of the "politics" of foreign policy, it is a distraction and American Imperialism couldn't survive a second without Russian imperialism, whether it aims for complete global hegemony or not (Imperialism as a global system wherien all powers are contingent upon the existence of others). Who cares if they acquire Nuclear weapons? The Iranian people are not spontaneously predisposed to Islamism politically, the tension that is present in a country like, say, Pakistan isn't there. In Pakistan social antagonism, or its displaced expression takes the form of Islamism which the state has to tame with public policy - in Iran, the state doesn't have to "appease" the population into moderation as it is the sole source of Islamist ideology. So one, the threat that it is an unstable country wherein WMD's can fall into the wrong hands is incredibly stupid as it ignores Pakistan. Two, the notoin that the country is run by a bunch of madmen is equally bullshit - if the country was run by madmen, it wouldn't have survived, gained the geopolitical power that it did during the past few decades. Those scumfuck mullahs know exactly what they're doing. It makes absolutely no difference whether they acquire it or not, aside from being a deterrence to a foreign invasion. Unconditionally we ought to oppose military intervention, but we also ought to recognize that the destruction of the Iranian state, or its overthrow would in the long term be favorable to us. There can never be a formidable equivalent to ISIS or the Islamist insurgency in Libya in Iran, the nature of Islamist ideology is entirely and wholly different. One could even argue that if anything, the overthrow of the Iranian state could greatly weaken international Islamism in general because as a result of its integration into the global capitalist totality, a political dichotomy has already arisen in Iran wholly in opposition to Islamism. There is presently not much of an organic reproduction of ruling Islamist ideology there outside of the demagogic populism of the country's previous president - Islamism, ideologically, has its sole basis in the direct repressive political violence of the state - in other words, the people of Iran are more and more predisposed to secularism with the intensification of social antagonisms there.

[Cliff Paul]

Er, fuck it, let's argue on two fronts. :) Well, obviously nationalised planned economy can't be a definitive criterion in so far as nationalised planned economy can be a bourgeois one as well, right? For instance, isn't it a standard Trotskyist argument that Fascist nationalisation of the economy was actually a preservation of private property, while Soviet nationalisation was its destruction? Both there nationalisation and both implemented a planned economy yet they were fundamentally different in so far as social and political context within which they occurred and so the reasons for that were fundamentally different. I wonder how that relates to your argument?

You're not looking at the economic/social relations here and instead just looking at the surface. Yes, Nazi Germany had some nationalization of key industries (just like most of Western Europe at the time), but fundamentally there was no change in social relations. You still had a bourgeoisie and a proletariat. Whether or not these class relations were mediated through private business or nationalized industries doesn't change the underlying class relations.

On the otherhand, there is no bourgeoisie in the USSR.

[Kill all the fetuses!]

You're not looking at the economic/social relations here and instead just looking at the surface. Yes, Nazi Germany had some nationalization of key industries (just like most of Western Europe at the time), but fundamentally there was no change in social relations. You still had a bourgeoisie and a proletariat. Whether or not these class relations were mediated through private business or nationalized industries doesn't change the underlying class relations.

On the otherhand, there is no bourgeoisie in the USSR.

Well, isn't it precisely what I am saying in the part quoted by you where I talk about the Trotskyist argument? Am I really so unclear in my attempts to convey my ideas/questions?

The point I am trying to make is simple: successful social revolution in a bourgeois state would lead to workers' state. Successful political revolution in a deformed workers' state would lead workers' state. So why support the second state and not the first? Presumably because the second revolution is easier? I mean, if it was harder to win in the second case as opposed to the first one, then it wouldn't make sense to support the deformed workers' state in so far as it is easier to establish workers' state through a social revolution in a bourgeois state, right? So how exactly is it easier and where do you draw the line?

[Cliff Paul]

So how exactly is it easier and where do you draw the line?

I can't really answer that because the Trotskyist idea that there is somehow a distinction between social and political revolutions is baffling to me.

To quote Marx, "Every revolution dissolves the old order of society; to that extent it is social. Every revolution brings down the old ruling power; to that extent it is political... But whether the idea of a social revolution with a political soul is paraphrase or nonsense there is no doubt about the rationality of a political revolution with a social soul. All revolution – the overthrow of the existing ruling power and the dissolution of the old order – is a political act. But without revolution, socialism cannot be made possible. It stands in need of this political act just as it stands in need of destruction and dissolution. But as soon as its organizing functions begin and its goal, its soul emerges, socialism throws its political mask aside."

[Fourth Internationalist]

The destinguishing of political revolutions and social revolutions isn't to say there are revolutions that are only social with no political effects and revolutions that are only political with no social effects. As 9mm said, "A social revolution entails an overturning of property relations, whereas a political revolution leaves them intact, while ushering in a new government." Perhaps the terms use inaccurate wording, but I don't think it's possible to argue there aren't two categories of revolution that need to be distinguished.

[Kill all the fetuses!]

Why wouldn't my Trotskyist comrades help me out? I am genuinely interested in the questions I posted.

[Art Vandelay]

Why wouldn't my Trotskyist comrades help me out? I am genuinely interested in the questions I posted.

I'll do my best to respond at some point this weekend. I've been slacking both in real life and online in regards to political stuff, as I've been quite busy as of late. Haven't forgot about your post though.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Nah, I know all of the that, what I was getting at - I guess I didn't make myself clear enough - is how that logic applies in the context of what you said in the bolded part. So you said that "...even if [Iran] was [opposed to American imperialism], it would be quite stupid for communists to support a bourgeois government - one particularly noted for its bloody, murderous treatment of workers, communists, of national minorities, of women and gay people - getting another weapon to turn against the workers." So why changing "bourgeois government" in this sentence for "deformed workers' state" changes not only the political stance, but also the argument itself, in so far as you claim that the workers could lay hands on the weapon in case of workers' state, but it would be turned against them in case of Iranian government. You also claim that in case of a political revolution in the country with the workers' state, the officer corps would split, but that's the same sort of argument you used a couple of days ago in case of a social revolution in a bourgeois country as well (unless you meant something different in that thread). Even if you didn't make that argument, it's fathomable that the split could occur in case of a social revolution occurring in a bourgeois country. So what makes it fundamentally different in so far as the logic of the argument and political stance itself is concerned?

I think we ought to distinguish between two scenarios. First, the conscript army splits, with the proletarian and the poor plebeian element going over to the revolution. In this scenario, the officer corps remains on the side of the old order, with at most, certain officers (like Brusilov) going over to the revolution "in ones and twos". This is our prediction for a social revolution in a bourgeois state. The second scenario is that the entire army splits, with most of both the soldiers and the officers going to the revolution. This is our prediction for a political revolution in a deformed workers' state.

This is not simply speculation - it describes the course of the Hungarian Revolution, the most developed incipient political revolution in history. There, the Hungarian armed forces mostly went over to the revolution. General Maleter went from an official of the Hegedus government to the unofficial leader of the radical elements (while Nagy was busy undermining the revolution in every way humanly possible). The forces fighting against the revolution were Soviet troops - many of which were outright lied to concerning the events in Hungary - and the AVH, the political police.

The idea is not necessarily "the workers will get the bomb". The idea is that a political revolution is a struggle to conquer the state, instead of smashing it. That is the chief difference - we thing the apparatus of the bourgeois Iranian state needs to be smashed. But if there is a political revolution in the DPRK, the proletariat, instead of smashing the existing state apparatus, would clean it up (obviously this would mean the end of some parts of the apparatus - such as the state security department) and subordinate it to the proletariat.


As far as the "political vs. social revolution" argument is concerned I will try to reason along the Trotskyist lines and you can tell me if I am getting something right. In case of a bourgeois country with a bourgeois government and army, you can't have a situation where the socialists hold a significant portion of that government and army, because of the nature and structure of the bourgeois state, because of the power that the bourgeoisie has over that state etc. So it's not enough to merely have a political revolution in a bourgeois state - it must be a social revolution, which would inevitably lead to civil war. In case of the deformed/degenerated workers' state, this is different, because the state and army does in fact in large part consist of genuine socialists. Even the "non-genuine" ones could easily side with the socialist side instigating political revolution so that civil war is not only not inevitable, but not likely as well. Is it close? How do Trotskyist in fact distinguish between these sort of revolutions?

I don't think the personal convictions of state officials are the determining factor here. The bourgeois state in Chile was at one point run by people who genuinely considered themselves to be socialists, after all. But it was a bourgeois state - it was structurally subordinated to the interests of the bourgeoisie. In the Soviet Union (or Hungary), there was no bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie had been smashed. The relations of production, while not having the definite character and long-term stability that characterises a mode of production, were not capitalist in nature.

The deformed workers' state is an outlier, an anomaly - a counterrevolutionary proletarian regime, a state based on proletarian forms of property (not socialist but transitional) run by lieutenants of the imperialist bourgeoisie etc. But it is our perspective that it can be revitalised from the ground up, that the existing apparatus can be made to serve a victorious proletariat. The same is not the case for a bourgeois state.


Er, fuck it, let's argue on two fronts. :) Well, obviously nationalised planned economy can't be a definitive criterion in so far as nationalised planned economy can be a bourgeois one as well, right? For instance, isn't it a standard Trotskyist argument that Fascist nationalisation of the economy was actually a preservation of private property, while Soviet nationalisation was its destruction? Both there nationalisation and both implemented a planned economy yet they were fundamentally different in so far as social and political context within which they occurred and so the reasons for that were fundamentally different. I wonder how that relates to your argument.

But to be fair to myself, I was asking 870 (yes, you are still not Binks for me) what is the reasoning behind distinguishing political and social revolution in the context of his argument, not in this abstract way (which you present) with which I am quite familiar. To make myself clear: having two economies that are the same in their form, but different in their social content (bourgeois vs. proletarian, e.g. fascist Germany vs Soviet Russia), why would one be supportable by Trotskyists while the other one condemned. Or would you also call for political revolution in fascist Germany and not for social one?

Hm, I think one ought to be careful here. Trotsky called fascism the "planned economy of capitalism" in the sense that (some of the) fascists tried to use modern scientific planning to save capitalism from itself. A parallel could be drawn to the "War Socialism" of Rathenau and Ludendorff during WWI. But this was not really the sort of planned economy that socialists advocate. And in fact there was quite a bit of denationalisation under fascist regimes.

But let us assume that there is a bourgeois regime, fascist or otherwise, that has the same form as the nationally-delimited planned economy of the transitional state. In fact, I can think of one such bourgeois regime - Croatia in the early nineties (a bourgeois state that had to invent a bourgeoise where none existed previously). The point is that changing the social content of the relations of production is the difficult task - changing the juridical form they take is (relatively) easy. So Croatia needed a social revolution at that point - even though the state apparatus formally administered scores of nationalised enterprises, it needed to be smashed, it couldn't simply be cleaned up and used by the proletariat. (A social revolution was needed to, for example, do away with profit as the main accounting indicator, to sweep away those who were treating the formally nationalised companies as their private property etc.)



Why wouldn't my Trotskyist comrades help me out? I am genuinely interested in the questions I posted.

Sorry, as you've probably noticed I haven't really had the time to post lately. I just moved to a new office, and I'm pretty exhausted. My reply schedule is crazy. I think I have unanswered PMs from several weeks ago.

[Kill all the fetuses!]

I think we ought to distinguish between two scenarios. First, the conscript army splits, with the proletarian and the poor plebeian element going over to the revolution. In this scenario, the officer corps remains on the side of the old order, with at most, certain officers (like Brusilov) going over to the revolution "in ones and twos". This is our prediction for a social revolution in a bourgeois state. The second scenario is that the entire army splits, with most of both the soldiers and the officers going to the revolution. This is our prediction for a political revolution in a deformed workers' state.

This is not simply speculation - it describes the course of the Hungarian Revolution, the most developed incipient political revolution in history. There, the Hungarian armed forces mostly went over to the revolution. General Maleter went from an official of the Hegedus government to the unofficial leader of the radical elements (while Nagy was busy undermining the revolution in every way humanly possible). The forces fighting against the revolution were Soviet troops - many of which were outright lied to concerning the events in Hungary - and the AVH, the political police.

This is way too mechanical. A deformed workers' state isn't equal to deformed workers' state. When Trotsky developed the theory, the 20th century Communism was alive and kicking, the Communist ideology was present, planned economy was giving fruit etc - all the possibilities and rationale for such theory was present. But now you have 21st century deformed workers' state, where Communist ideology is not present, the Communist movement is not present etc. Take for instance North Korea, it is a nationalist, racist regime, where even the pretence to Communist ideology within the ruling circles or population itself is not present and haven't been for a long while. The military leadership itself is a part of the ruling caste and has a material interest in the status-quo etc. Take China or Belarus (degenerated workers' state, right?) where the bourgeoisie has already developed to a significant extent etc. I fathom that it's rather unlikely that, say, North Korean officers' corps would split mechanically to the side of the proletariat in so far as they have a material interest in the status-quo and have no pretence or predisposition to Communist ideology.

Trotsky took for granted that socialist planned economy was working better than the capitalist one in so far as the former developed means of production quicker. He said that the biggest fault of the bourgeoisie is that they (and so capital itself) become an obstacle to the development of productive forces. Now, to what extent would he have supported - or rather to what extent does it make sense to support - a deformed workers' state in light of absolute stagnation of the productive forces. In so far as that's the biggest fault of the bourgeoisie, then the ruling caste of North Korea is much more at fault for the same thing. So even on Trotsky's own standards the support for such regimes at least in light of current circumstances seems very dubious. I mean, it's not only the forces of production themselves, but the entire ideological structure of society based on it that raises questions - I think it's obvious that South Korea not only advanced forces of production much closer towards socialism, but the Liberal ideology built upon it created much better predispositions for Communist ideology to emerge, much better edifice for it, compared to North Korea.

Or to what extent one can support China or other quickly developing degenerated or deformed workers' states when there is already presence of strong and numerous bourgeois, which is quickly growing etc.

I mean, where do you draw the line? When does deformed workers' state ceases to be a deformed workers' state or at least ceases to be worthy of support? Are there any such circumstances at all? What if military itself becomes a ruling caste? What if forces of production and hence preconditions for socialism are actively destroyed or deliberately made to stagnate? These questions are already implicit in above paragraphs.


The idea is not necessarily "the workers will get the bomb". The idea is that a political revolution is a struggle to conquer the state, instead of smashing it. That is the chief difference - we thing the apparatus of the bourgeois Iranian state needs to be smashed. But if there is a political revolution in the DPRK, the proletariat, instead of smashing the existing state apparatus, would clean it up (obviously this would mean the end of some parts of the apparatus - such as the state security department) and subordinate it to the proletariat.

Well, what else does "smashing" the state mean that destroying the bourgeoisie. It's just restating the problem we are discussing in different words. If it's easier to "smash" the bourgeois state in a social revolution than to "clean it up" in a political revolution, then it doesn't make sense to support deformed workers' state as opposed to a bourgeois state. And that's precisely the question we are discussing, right?


I don't think the personal convictions of state officials are the determining factor here. The bourgeois state in Chile was at one point run by people who genuinely considered themselves to be socialists, after all. But it was a bourgeois state - it was structurally subordinated to the interests of the bourgeoisie. In the Soviet Union (or Hungary), there was no bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie had been smashed. The relations of production, while not having the definite character and long-term stability that characterises a mode of production, were not capitalist in nature.

The deformed workers' state is an outlier, an anomaly - a counterrevolutionary proletarian regime, a state based on proletarian forms of property (not socialist but transitional) run by lieutenants of the imperialist bourgeoisie etc. But it is our perspective that it can be revitalised from the ground up, that the existing apparatus can be made to serve a victorious proletariat. The same is not the case for a bourgeois state.

Yeah, but that misses the point completely, I think. If the entire ruling caste and military would be hostile to a political revolution, then workers' state theory and its political implications would collapse upon itself. From what you've said about the military corps etc. it is obvious that subjectivity, in fact, is the key factor in such circumstances.

But as far revitalization of the workers' state goes, I know this is your perspective, but that's besides the point. We are discussing the truth, the actuality, the potential of such perspective in the current circumstances, where deformed and degenerated workers' states are becoming ever more deformed and ever more degenerated.


Hm, I think one ought to be careful here. Trotsky called fascism the "planned economy of capitalism" in the sense that (some of the) fascists tried to use modern scientific planning to save capitalism from itself. A parallel could be drawn to the "War Socialism" of Rathenau and Ludendorff during WWI. But this was not really the sort of planned economy that socialists advocate. And in fact there was quite a bit of denationalisation under fascist regimes.

But let us assume that there is a bourgeois regime, fascist or otherwise, that has the same form as the nationally-delimited planned economy of the transitional state. In fact, I can think of one such bourgeois regime - Croatia in the early nineties (a bourgeois state that had to invent a bourgeoise where none existed previously). The point is that changing the social content of the relations of production is the difficult task - changing the juridical form they take is (relatively) easy. So Croatia needed a social revolution at that point - even though the state apparatus formally administered scores of nationalised enterprises, it needed to be smashed, it couldn't simply be cleaned up and used by the proletariat. (A social revolution was needed to, for example, do away with profit as the main accounting indicator, to sweep away those who were treating the formally nationalised companies as their private property etc.)

So you need a social revolution to do "do away with profit as the main accounting indicator"? Are you sure about this one? Soviet Russia to a large extent relied on profit-based accounting. So does China, so does Belarus and so do other deformed workers' states. Treating nationalised companies as private property was also very much a reality in these states (to an extent, that is). I mean, to an extent that there is no bourgeoisie, it doesn't matter what sort of shitty policies does the ruling caste implement, right? Because the potential to clean it up is there, no? But either way it's really besides the point, because that was a reply to 9mm's claim that "planned economy" was the basis of Trotkyist support for workers' state... We can easily skip this one in so far as I know the argument (and agree with it), was simply trying to provoke 9mm (in a good way, that is).


Sorry, as you've probably noticed I haven't really had the time to post lately. I just moved to a new office, and I'm pretty exhausted. My reply schedule is crazy. I think I have unanswered PMs from several weeks ago.

Yeah, I know you are busy and all that; this message wasn't directed at you. In fact, it wasn't directed at anyone in particular, I just wanted to bump the thread up so that someone responds. :)

Either way, thanks for the reply.