FOR FULL EQUALITY OF NATIVE AND ADOPTIVE PALESTINIANS

FOR One Man, One Vote

expounded by Stalin in the autumn of 1924, went against everything the Bolsheviks and the Communist International, had preached. Such a notion could never have been countenanced by Marx or Lenin.”

Let us disengage ourselves from the Talmudic discussion about what exactly was said by Marx, Lenin or Stalin. This thesis of Woods means that in no country should Communists attempt to take over power; because if they will, it will be “socialism in one country”. Communists a-la Woods would peacefully wait until the world bourgeoisie surrenders its power on the planetary scale. If Woods were on the place of Joseph Stalin he would quietly return Russia to the Tsar or to Kerensky, in order to avoid this abomination of “socialism in one country”.

Woods ascribes this view to Lenin: “Lenin knew very well that unless the proletarian revolution triumphed in Western Europe, especially in Germany, the October Revolution would ultimately be doomed… How was it possible to construct a national socialism in a single country, let alone an extremely backward country like Russia?” In Woods' view, this means that after defeat of revolution of Germany in 1920, the Russian communists were to crawl back underground.

Such positions of Trots turns them into dear friends of the Western imperialism, for in their view, the nations of the world should endure their regimes until the Second Coming, i.e. the world revolution. Real Communists – branded as ‘Stalinists’ in Trots’ vocabulary – were and are for revolution, a takeover of power and socialism everywhere – now!  Mao and Lenin, Castro and Ho Chi Minh did not shy away from power, they did not say: “Oh no, we won’t seize power, our countries are too backward, we shall wait for the world revolution”; for they felt responsibility and love for their countries -- for China and Russia, for Cuba and Vietnam.

Whale No. 2. No to Patriotism.

Woods stresses: “Nationalism and Marxism are incompatible”; or Lenin’s hatred of Russian nationalism was so great that for some time after the October revolution the word “Russia” disappeared from all Soviet official documents.

Patriotism, love of one’s country, is a great force; this force should be fully utilised in our struggle against the enemy. Communism a-la Woods positions itself for globalisation; love for one’s country, this proud “Patria o Muerte” is anathema for a Trot. A Woods Communist should dislike or ignore his country and his people, should wish to have its very name erased; and should never attempt to bring his compatriots together to fight a foreign invasion or imperialist takeover. Woods disagrees with Zyuganov’s “characterization of Russia today as a colony, oppressed by foreign capitalists” as “this analysis leaves the door wide open to a policy of collaborating with the “progressive national (Russian) bourgeoisie” against the bad foreign capitalists.”

Comrade Woods, Western capitalists are indeed bad for the  health of Russians and other non-First-world nations. And real Communists – Stalinists to you – were for collaboration with national non-comprador bourgeoisie against Western imperialism. So did Mao when he collaborated with Kuomintang against Japanese, Stalin while fighting the Germans, Castro when he united Cubans against Yanksand Palestinian communists when they united with Fatah in their struggle against Zionist Jews. Real communists seek to create a broad coalition with nationalist forces in order to regain power in Russia, too.

Now in Iraq, the US occupation forces effectively opened the Iraqi economy for a Western takeover by granting equal access rights to the foreign companies. This act brings Iraqi nationalist forces into greater conflict with the imperialists. Objectively, Woods is on the side of Western TNC, as he precludes nationalist defence of people. Communists a-la Woods won’t cooperate with Iraqi nationalists against American imperialism, for nationalism is their main enemy.

This discussion of nationalism is not a new one. Marx and Lenin stated that communists should support nationalism of the oppressed nations and fight nationalism of the oppressors. However, the New World Order introduced a new keynote in the old discourse, for even the nations of the First World – of North America and Western Europe – are being undermined by the new policies of their masters.

For instance, Sweden, an extremely developed West European nation, now loses its industry: the famous SAAB car plants were bought by the TNC, closed down and the production moved into more profitable areas. Tens of thousands of skilled workers lost their jobs, while thousands of local owners were proletarianised. The same process takes place in the US, where industries migrate south, while their profits migrate to the Eastern Seaboard. Workers and small owners may now create a new nationalist coalition against their new trans-national masters.

In the US, there are nationalist forces - from Patrick Buchanan to Gore Vidal to Justin Raimondo - who object to world-wide plans of trans-national imperialism. Real communists – Stalinists for Woods – would cooperate, interact, influence these forces in the struggle against common enemy. Communists a-la Woods would preserve their virginal and doctrinal purity; for them, the fight against nationalism is more important than fight against imperialism.

In Europe, local nationalist forces stand up against the American onslaught in culture and economics; here again, real Communists will interact with the anti-globalisation movement, while Woods would fight local nationalism and objectively support TNK.

3. Whale No. 3 Alliance with Jewish nationalism.

Despite his anti-nationalism, there is a sort of nationalism acceptable to Woods, namely, trans-national Jewish nationalism. A Woods communist would fight every nationalism save the Jewish one. For him, Stalin was bad, for he tolerated and utilised Russian nationalism and fought against Jewish nationalism.

He states: “The Bolshevik Party had always fought against anti-Semitism”. True; but this is only half of truth. The second half missed by Woods is that the Bolshevik Party under Lenin and Stalin had always fought against Jewish nationalism.

As every Jewish nationalist, Woods repeats the mantra of Stalin’s anti-Semitism. He writes: “One of the most repulsive features of Stalinism was its anti-Semitism.” Does Woods mean that Stalin adhered to a racial theory of Semitic and Nordic races? Unlikely; this son of Georgia was not particularly Nordic. Does he mean that Jews were persecuted as racial group under Stalin? Obviously not, for Stalin’s daughter was married to a Jew; some of his best comrades and party leaders had Jewish wives (Molotov to Voroshilov) - or Jewish sons and daughters-in-law (Malenkov,  Khrushchev). So much for racism. Were Jews discriminated against under Stalin? In 1936, at the pinnacle of Stalin’s power, his government included nine Jews, among them Foreign Minister Litvinov, Home (secret services) Minister Yahoda, the foreign trade minister etc. Did Stalin ever expressed hatred or even acute dislike of Jews? No; he actually declared that every anti-Semite would be shot.

However, Stalin was an enemy of Jewish nationalism. When some prominent Soviet Jews planned to create a Jewish state in Crimea after the expulsion of Crimean Tatars, Stalin put paid to their plans. When some Jews tried to ally with Zionism, he did not tolerate it. He attempted to check Jewish over-representation in the power structures, as Jews were overrepresented in  the Party, the Government and Secret Services of the Soviet state and constituted over 50% of Cheka-GPU-NKVD top echelon.

This is what Woods calls “Stalin’s anti-Semitism”. [He is aware of problem of “over- and under-representation” as long as it concerns Russians, for he writes: 

“The drive to russify the non-Russian peoples is shown by the composition of the leading bodies of the "Communist" Parties of the Republics. In 1952, only about half of all leading officials in the Central Asian and Baltic Republics were of local nationality. Elsewhere, the proportion was even lower. For example, in the Moldavian Party only 24.7 per cent were Moldavians, while only 38 per cent of recruits to the Tajik Party in 1948 were said to be Tajik.”

Woods opens a dangerous (for him) route of discourse. How many leading officials in the Trotskyite parties in the US and Europe were, and are, of “local nationality”? Using Woods’ logic, a high proportion of Jews indicates their drive to judaise. Or this argument can be used only against the Russians?]

Stalin wanted to have Jews serving the Soviet state; but he did not want the Soviet state to serve a Jewish agenda. As a result, Jews retained some of their privileges, but their exalted position went down a notch or two, and a good thing: the party and the government were opened to people of ‘local nationality’.

Conclusion.

The saga of Woods is a timely reminder of present-day Western Trotskyism’s sorry state. The Western Trots keep themselves at arm’s length from other comrades; sabotage local revolution in the name of “world revolution”; they are anti-patriotic, anti-nationalist, unable to attract masses, often connected to Jewish nationalist circles. Their slogans are attuned exclusively to minorities; they think of gays and immigrants, Jews and single parents; but the majority is of no interest for them. This explicit and obsessive attraction to minorities is a non-communist, even anticommunist trend. Communism is for majority against minority; for dispossessing minority in the name of majority.

In a way, Communism is Christianity castrated by Occam’s Razor. St Paul dispossessed the Jews and gave their spiritual treasure to the majority, to the whole mankind. Marx dispossessed the capitalists and gave their material treasure to the majority.

Preoccupation with minorities is, therefore a sign of anticommunists, and Trots provide imperialists with support from the left. Woods speaks disparagingly of five-hundred thousand-strong Russian Communist Party; I doubt whether his organisation has even five hundred members

In short, the advice of Woods is as good for the communists as the advice of the New York Times: it leads into isolation, sectarianism and political suicide. Celia Hart will do the right thing if she rejects his suit: friends of Cuba are real communists who are ready to act in real conditions, to interact with real partners, warts and all, and fight real enemies. Woods and other Western Trots will always find a good and moral reason to be against Cuba in critical moment: if not for its human rights record, then for the unashamed masculinity of its leader or for its production of cigars.

--------------------------------

Appendix 1

Cuba, Stalin and Trotsky

(Israel Shamir replies to Celia Hart whose essay "Socialism in one country" and the Cuban Revolution appeared in TRICONTINENTAL MAGAZINE http://www.walterlippmann.com/celia-hart.html as A contribution from Cuba, by Celia Hart onMay 10, 2004)

Dear Celia,

I applaud your beautiful essay and share your faith in vitality of Cuban revolution. However your anti-Stalinist fervour seems to be out of place, a remnant of Khrushchev’s de-Stalinisation. 'Stalinist' is a Trotskyite slang for a Communist, the word they use to curry favour in the eyes of anti-Communists. Even if you like Leon Trotsky you do not have to be against Joseph Stalin. Years and decades passed by, and we should be able to accept the adversaries of yesteryear, like Marx and Proudhon, or Stalin and Trotsky.

Much of what you say is built on misunderstanding. You wrote about internationalism, but all your examples are taken from the inter-Latin scene. There is mutual help of Cubans, Dominicans, Argentines, even Angolans or Spaniards - but all of them belong to one Iberian civilisation. It is a sort of internationalism, but I doubt the nations mentioned are really all that different from each other in their traditions. All of them are Catholic, Iberian (Castilian, Gallego, other Spanish or Portuguese) by language and united by blood and history.

Joseph Stalin ruled a country which is a civilisation by itself; a vast continent with many nations and languages; whose interrelations with Western Europe were, at best, troublesome. He was an internationalist, too, and Russians under Stalin supported the Spanish Republic and the Red Army of Mao. But he was a Russian internationalist, and his first duty was to the people of the USSR. Leon Trotsky did not understand the continuity of Russian history. He was involved in terrible persecution of the Church, in robbery and destruction of churches. He was involved in mass executions of peasants and workers, of officers and of intelligentsia. He lost the war with Poland and failed to make peace with Germany. He alienated Russian intellectuals and working people. In his drive for permanent revolution he did not pay enough attention to Russia; it was his undoing.

Joseph Stalin made the Soviet Union a strong modern state, ensured full employment, rights of workers, free education and health care. He created the industrial base and advanced science. He fought and won the hardest of wars Russia ever experienced. Under his rule, Socialist Russia survived endless assaults of the American imperialism. He kept down pro-Western and pro-Capitalist forces in the country.

Now the people of Russia look back at Stalin's days - no, not with nostalgia, but with understanding that it was heroic period of their fathers' life.

All Communist forces in Russia and in Europe are being described as 'Stalinist' if they do not accept Pax Americana. The Trotskyites in Russia are pro-Western and pro-American force, even more anti-Russian than Leon Trotsky was. The same is true about many (though not all) Trot groups in Europe.

By all means, be interested in Trotsky's legacy, but do not be dismissive about real Soviet Communism, the one that helped Cuba and the one you call now 'Stalinism'.

Israel Shamir

2. This letter of mine was forwarded by a Trot, Roland Garret on a left-oriented Spanish list with following intro by Garret:

From: Roland garret

The is a letter from a Stalinist, who still believes in Stalin. Who does not understand or refuses to acknowledge the horror of Stalin and Stalinism. When he talks of the Spanish Republic, he forgets that the lack of Soviet aid in Spain allowed imperialism to feel secure from revolution. To start WWII, or to finish WWI, which was stopped by the 1917 Revolution. The Bolsheviks never supported capitalist wars. Stalin did.

3. My response to Garret:

Roland Garret, I believe in Jesus Christ and venerate His Holy Mother. Probably it should be even worse for a Trot than 'believing in Stalin'. Stalin for me is an important historical figure, not a substitute of God; for God does not need any substitutes. A person who respects, say, Churchill's or Jose Marti's contribution to mankind does not have to 'believe' in them. 'Stalinists' do not exist - it is just a Trot-made label to be attached on a Communist. Equally, 'Horrors of Stalin and Stalinism' is but a classic cliché of anti-Communists. In connection to Cuba, people you describe as 'Stalinists' are great supporters of Cuba, while people who speak of 'Stalin's horrors' usually are enemies of Cuba.

As for historical question whether Russian help to the Spanish republic was sufficient: Russia lacked means of delivery and could not do much more. Do not forget that the Red Army took severe beating from Poland in 1920 and from Finland in 1940. It is also possible that real and justified fear of a western crusade against Soviet Russia also placed some limits to Russian aid. Russians did not feel their country is just 'a match to lit the bonfire of world revolution' and did not want (and could not) export revolution beyond the borders of their civilisation. The Russian Communists were not some Red equivalent of neo-cons keen to expand their ideological domination: they were ready to help, but did not wish to impose their will. Trots, on the other hand, were extremely aggressive, like the neo-cons, and were willing to disregard all consequences of their rash actions.

With comradely regards

Israel Shamir

Jaffa

_________________
Responses of readers
Re: Celia in the Woods:

From Ken Freeland:

Shamir,

There is some fascinating insight contained in your penultimate sentences below.  The "preoccupation with minorities" argument against Trotskyite Communists is novel, timely and needed.  I hope you will soon write an analytical piece on this question, exploring it further. If you don't, maybe I will!  It is also very relevant to note, en passant, the Trotskyite provenance of modern neoconservativism!

As to your Occam's Razor argument, while I think that you are close to an important truth here, I also think that you are overlooking a few key factors.  In the first place, I cannot understand the Occam's Razor metaphor, since that concept is about explanation, not ethics.  I think saying that it was "mutilated by a blunt utilitarianism" would have been much closer to the truth.  And yet, was it not Marx's atheism rather than his utilitarianism that caused him to widen out the applicability of socialism by making it "scientific" and, as it were, secular?  Here again you are mining rich terrain: the nexus between Jesus' "Kingdom of Heaven"  (Kingdom of God), the Christian Church, and socialism (and by extension Communism), is well worth explicating.  However, there are teleological issues that you do not address, pertaining to the very debate about Christian nonresistance (nonviolence) vs. revolutionary violence that you and I are having in the background.  I think that the one cannot be discussed without the other.

Peace,
Ken

Dear Israel,

The back and forth between you and Alan Woods raises the crucial question of whether nationalism is a positive (or potentially positive) force in our efforts to defeat oppression. But the weakness of the discourse -- on both sides -- is the implicit acceptance of the Marxist idea that social change is governed by laws that operate independently of the subjective aims of the people involved. In the Marxist framework, this idea is "historical materialism." An earlier version of it was Adam Smith's "invisible hand." For Marx, social laws (which he claimed to have discovered) made socialism and then communism inevitable despite the fact that ordinary people acted only in their self-interest and did not have socialism or communism as a subjective aim. For Adam Smith, the invisible hand would ensure that capitalism would make the best possible society for everybody despite the fact that individuals pursued only their own self interest. The marxist approach to the nationalism question is to try to figure out whether or not the path to socialism and then communism first passes through a stage in which the working class allies with the local capitalist class. What's missing from this approach (whichever way one answers the question) is a focus on the subjective thinking and aims of ordinary people.

In contrast to the Marxist (and Adam Smith's) view, I believe that the most important factor determining social change is the subjective thinking and aims of the majority of ordinary people. If people feel right in wanting, and know that they are joined by the majority of people in wanting, a society based on equality and democracy and solidarity, and if they are consciously and explicitly pursuing that goal, they will very likely get it. But if they believe that they are wrong, or that they are all alone, in wanting society to be based on equality and democracy and solidarity, and if they believe instead that most people want something very different and rightly so -- say a capitalist society but without the foreign capitalists, or perhaps a Marxist regime which, while being very undemocratic, will nonetheless increase economic production so that one day in the vague future a more equal society will be possible -- then that is what they very likely will get. In other words, mass movements tend to succeed in making their part of the world be what they subjectively and explicitly aim to make it be, for better or for worse.

So, I think we should deal with the nationalism question by asking how our attitude towards nationalism affects the subjective thinking of ordinary people today: does it make them more confident that they are right, and not alone, in wanting a society based on equality and democracy and solidarity? Or does it make them think they are wrong and alone in wanting such a world? Can we please pursue the question of nationalism in this different, non-Marxist formulation?

I will end by saying that when I consider nationalism in this non-Marxist framework, it is an idea which impedes rather than helps people to think clearly about what they really want the world to be.

--John Spritzler

spritzler@comcast.net

Shamir responds:

Dear John, I share your view of importance of men's thinking and feeling; and I do not ascribe to the concept of 'invisible hand' in Marxist or Smith's version. For me, there is freedom of will; and it reaches all the way down.

However, love of patria is a positive and good feeling. Homer and Pindar admired it; best men of past and present expressed this sentiment. That is why I do not look at patriots as on a negative force.

My own views were formed under influence of TS Elliot and Simone Weil, both quite patriotic.

As for nationalism, it is a 19th century phenomenon; we still use this word, but the meaning is different. I am not for nationalism, but absolutely for patriotism, if you see the difference! 

Spritzler replies:

I still believe we need to be careful with this idea of patriotism. If I said to people who didn't know me well that "I am a patriotic American" and didn't follow that sentence with a lot of explanation and clarification, I am sure that people would draw exactly the wrong conclusion about what I
believe. So I don't say it.

Shamir replies:

John, you can be - and realistically so – a patriot of New England, or of New York, or of California; or of the South etc. Texans, Southerners, New Englanders, Californians have a perfectly real patriotism. As for the US of A – it is a temporary political construct which we should undo anyway :-)
An All-American 'Patriotism' is actually something else - it is an equivalent of our 'Europeanism' or 'Pan-Arabism', thus not the real thing. So it is all right to be against "American patriotism", but in the name of real regional patriotism.

From German Leyens, Malaga

Dear Mr. Shamir:
Although it doesn't affect the essence of your article, your info about Saab is incorrect. It was GM (or GMC) who bought Saab quite a few years ago. They are considering moving part of the production to the US ¡! and CONSIDERING the closure of their Swedish plants, which of course is a tragedy. There are negotiations with the unions, see
http://www.emf-fem.org/index.cfm?target=/info_press/press/EN/PR160904_en.cfm
Kind regards
Germán Leyens

From Richard Wilcox, Tokyo

My main reason to write is to say how interesting I found your article, Saga
of the Woods. Very educational. As far as defending Stalin, it has been
drilled into our Western brains that the former SU was hell on Earth (well,
now it really is under the IMF/World Bank regime-- the final death blows to
any civilization). How much of a monster was Stalin really? I read carefully
your reply to Celia and understand your creating a context for Stalin's
behavior, and that you were not portraying him as perfect. But how many
people did Stalin really do in? I remember reading one figure from some
supposedly reliable source that Stalin killed nearly a hundred million
people (I think it was Thom Harmann, a Democratic party radio pundit). But
since the former SU had only that many to begin with, this is absurd.

Many thanks, with an open mind always,

Richard in Tokyo

From Anton Baumgarten

Your weakness, imo, is your romance with figures like Buchanan.  B. is
an ideologue of the past stage of capitalist development, his nationalism is that of a farmer or a shop owner, even of a national industrialist.  These are the layers who
from time to time suffer in the hands of the expansionist imperialist
bourgeoisie.  The problem is that the Trots thrive on the
productivist thread within classical marxism, which takes the side of
the most advanced forms of capital.  To give one poignant example,
during the NEP Lenin  argued that the communists must look for unity
with big capitalists against peasantry and small proprietors.  You see,
in the end, it is not mom' & pap's corner shop that has given us the
Internet to thrash the neocons :)

In connection to Cuba, people you describe as
             'Stalinists' are great supporters of Cuba, while people who speak of
            'Stalin's horrors' usually are enemies of Cuba.

Yes, this point must be emphasized again and again. The majority of
Western Trotskyist groups are in cahoots with their imperialists IN
PRACTICE. Imperialists did not care about Marxist professors and even
union leaders. They even did not care about their home-grown
anti-imperialists. There was only one thing that they feared, because
knew real worth of things, that was the Soviet Union, Red China,
Castro's Cuba. But in truth, it was only the SU that they REALLY feared.
Alas, you and I did not know the real worth of things back in the USSR.
Youth is superficial, Soviet youth of our time was doubly so.

One book you may find useful contra Wood is Erik van Ree's  The
Political Thought of Joseph Stalin. Routledge, 2002.  He has a lot to say about Stalin's "betrayal".

From klomckin:

Trotsky ordered executions several times.  You might
read about his role at Kronstadt for example.  The following
is from one of Stalin haters, Robert Conquest:

"During the period when Trotsky held power, he was, whatever
his personal magnetism, a ruthless imposer of the Party's will
who firmly crushed the democratic opposition within the Party
and fully supported the rules which in 1921 gave the ruling
group total authority.  And the crushing of the Kronstadt
rebellion was as much his personal battle honor as the seizure
of power had been.  He was the leading figure among the
doctrinaire Leftist Bolsheviks who were finding it hard to
stomach Lenin's concessions to the peasantry, and preferred a
far more rigorous regime, even before Stalin came round to the
same view...he would have used, as ever, as much violence as
he thought necessary--and that would not have been a small
amount. (THE GREAT TERROR by Robert Conquest (1990)  Page 412)

Or how about this from that Trotskyite Deutscher.

[Footnote]: In a letter to Lyova (19 November 1937) Trotsky
relates that, when the issue came before the Politburo, he was
for attacking Kronstadt while Stalin was against it, saying
that the rebels, if left to themselves, would surrender within
two or three weeks.  Curiously, in his public polemics against
Stalin (and in his biography of Stalin) Trotsky never
mentioned this fact, although he usually made the most of any
instance of Stalin's political "softness" or deviation from
Lenin's line.  Is it that Trotsky somehow felt that in this
case "softness" might redound to Stalin's credit? (THE PROPHET
OUTCAST by Isaac Deutscher 1963  Page 437

From Marek Glogoczowski

Excellent text, tovariszcz Israel Adam,

Finally I start to grasp both your attitude towards St. Paul, and the attitude of Trots (several of my Polish-Jewish comrades circa 1968) towards the question of nationalism, which I had troubles to understand until now. I have very clear souvenirs of the period of "stalinism" in Poland 1949-56. It was a rough period, but for me (age 7-14 yrs old) it was exciting like the growth of calves "in cool" - the method of cattle breeding outside the warmth of the barn - about which method I've read in Yearly Calendar 1953, at the age of 10, while living through the very cold winter with my grand parents, small rich farmers in mountainous Zakopane. (Where you are always invited. methods of heating of the house slightly improved since 1950-ies, no need to go to anymore to freeze one's ass in an outside, mountain air ventilated shiot.)

By the way, the worst moment of this stalinist experience, was the death of Joseph Vissarionovitch on March 8. Not only I started crying, when my uncle said loudly in family "finally this son of the bitch died", but the next day all my school was supposed to stay in silence, and growing darkness, for one hour gathered in the gymnastic saal (zal). It was early spring evening, just after a very sunny and warm day, and I got cold from immobility and growing cold, and remained in the bed for the next week.

Iz konsomolskim privietom,

Marek