Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 20:10:18 +0100
Subject: Re: M-G: Albania: No responsibility, no slogans!


Vladimir B makes some interesting points in his reply to me. Most of them
are dealt with by Dave B in his posting. I'd like to comment on what
Vladimir says towards the end of his remarks.


>There is a danger to make too much or too little from these events.

This is facile. The important thing about Albania, like Romania and the
overthrow of Ceauscescu, is that there is no way this can be passed off as
anything but a revolutionary situation, a popular uprising going for the
overthrow of the government and most likely the regime too. In Albania with
the complete arming of the population into the bargain. It is unprecedented
and should be given the attention it merits.


>But I prefer to concentrate on the positive side and see in them a token
>of existing revolutionary potential internationally.

I agree. But it's more than a token. This is yet another spark with the
potential to set off an international prairie fire.


>But this means an
>even greater responsibility on the part of revolutionary marxists.
>The problem is that I don't see even a hint of recognizing this in
>the statements from London and now from Hugh.

Our responsibility lies in our efforts to build a revolutionary
internationalist party -- the Fourth International -- capable of making
concrete interventions in such revolutionary situations as the one now
unfolding in Albania. More on this below.

>Who are those "sceptics"
>who are responsible "more than any others" ?  And who the hell cares
>who they are!  I have a feeling that many trotskyists suffer from
>a certain form of psychological timelag; they still feel being in
>opposition, even if they triumphantly pronounce their stalinist
>enemy dead. They seem not to realize that there is no one left to
>blame responsible for anything but themselves.

Again, this is superficial. It underestimates the grip of
counter-revolutionary forces on the international labour movement. It fails
to see the damage inflicted while there was a counter-revolutionary troika
of bloody opposition to Trotskyism -- imperialism, Stalinism and
Social-Democracy -- and fails to appreciate the time and effort needed to
repair the damage and intervene full blast. It also fails to appreciate
that only the Stalinist faction in the Troika has been blown away (even
though its shadows still flit in the murkier corners of the world and
places like the marxism-list). Imperialism is still forcing us into
opposition, and Social-Democracy, though reeling and enfeebled, still
controls the labour movement in a lot of important countries.

The sceptics, too, academics, anarchists, and non-party socialists or
"Marxists", are very real and a dead weight in the struggle to build a
fighting revolutionary party. They're the "socialism is dead" crew that
moved from Euro-Stalinism to complete pessimism on the sell-out of the
Soviet Union by the Stalinist bureaucracy. They're the people who keep
chanting that the working class is disappearing from the stage of history,
and whenever they can't deny its existence they chant instead that it's no
longer a revolutionary proletariat. Their responsibility is easy to
demonstrate. Just imagine what a difference it would make if they started
writing books and articles with a view to explaining the inevitability of
events such as we're witnessing in Albania, the role the working class
should play in such events and the need to overthrow capitalism and set up
proletarian dictatorships working towards socialism.

"No one left to blame" is the wrong way to put it. We're not copping out of
any responsibility for our actions and the way they should be aimed. What
we are doing is pointing to concrete problems for the development of an
international revolutionary response that are due to the existence of
treacherous leaderships in the workers' movement and false and misleading
schooling about Marxism on the left. We aren't the only ones responsible
for the current situation, and Vladimir knows this very well.


>They understand the need for party-building,
>but they want first to "prepare" for party-building.  The Albanian
>masses could then reasonably object: <<if you are not capable even of
>party-building among themselves and can only "prepare" for this, what
>makes you to believe that you can give sound advice on a much more
>complicated matter of making a revolution. Why do you call us to base
>our non-existing revolutionary government in our non-existing workers
>councils, instead of only "preparing" for workers councils?
>Why do you expect from us more than you expect from yourself?  Why
>do you only "take positions" not *actions*?>>  And so on and so forth

The "preparation" mentioned here is misunderstood by Vladimir.
Party-building is carried on at all sorts of levels, from miniscule to
intercontinental. It is done, it isn't waited for. On the other hand, a
small group of a few individuals can see itself as a preparatory
organization, and will hardly want to call itself a party, let alone a mass
party. The same goes internationally. An authoritative workers'
revolutionary international cannot just be proclaimed, but must be worked
for. None of this kind of preparation gets in the way of interventions in
the working class struggle. What it might do is limit the means with which
we can intervene. That's not the same thing. The whole imaginary dialogue
Vladimir presents is abstract. In such a dialogue we would be helping in
the struggle, and pointing out what we see as the best way of helping  the
struggle forward, politically and organizationally.


>To conclude. Revolutionary marxists in Europe must openly acknowledge
>that they have failed (again!) to create any organizational presence
>in Albania and most of Eastern Europe in the face of the spontaneous
>protest movements against restorationist regimes in this region.

This is true. It also explains the importance of the struggle with the
liquidationist positions of the Pabloite leadership in the Fourth
International a few years after the end of World War II. The lack of a
revolutionary organizational presence in Eastern Europe is due to a
combination of the bestial repression of revolutionary working class
tendencies by the Stalinists and the refusal of liquidationist
fake-Trotskyist leaderships to organize -- on the grounds that the
bureaucrats would be forced to carry the revolution further to save their
own skins!!


>As the result, these movements continue to be blocked and demoralised by
>the political cliques of all stripes formed from the remnants of the
>neo-stalinist bureaucracies.  The grave responsibility for this rests
>*entirely* on those groups and individuals who identify themselves
>with revolutionary marxism.   No amount of triumphalism about the
>alleged demise of stalinism in Europe can conceal this new failure.
>
>Unless this responsibility is recognized, all proclamations and good
>wishes of the international organs like LCMRCI re Albanian revolt and
>similar developments must be considered irresponsible phrase-mongering.

Does Vladimir fail to see the responsibility of the treacherous leaderships
in the labour movement? Is the battered woman *entirely* responsible for
the brutality of her man and her failure to defend herself? This is
nonsensical. Historical responsibility does not only rest with those who
represent a progressive line. No one else is going to build a revolutionary
international for us, that's for sure, but the concrete historical
conditions in which the building takes place must be taken into account,
and this includes the pressures and blows directed against the building by
its enemies. If you realize the difficulties you're up against, it's easier
to avoid demoralization when the going's tough. Vladimir's line here is a
kind of voluntarism. In fact it reminds me a bit of the totally unrealistic
goodness preached in Dostoevsky's Idiot. Innocence of this sort is useless.
Hegel is incredibly scathing about Innocence in the Phenomenology of the
Spirit, because it's totally unreal, it doesn't face up to the real
problems of life. And in the labour movement, treacherous leaderships and
overcoming them is the biggest problem of all.


>To fulfill their revolutionary duty to the Albanian people, revolutionary
>marxists should immediately undertake an extraordinary international
>effort with the objective to facilitate the creation of revolutionary
>cells in the country, establish reliable communication with them, and
>provide necessary means for building at least a minimal infrastructure for
>revolutionary organization in legal and underground conditions.
>If necessary, those revmarxists who live in core capitalist countries
>should be subjected to a special "Albanian" levy in order to finance
>these tasks.
>
>It is only through collective actions like this, inspired by the masses in
>>revolt and having recognized our full responsibility for everything that
>>happens to them, we can build our Party, and without any "preparation."


Here Vladimir gives a recipe for intervention that is absolutely dependent
on successful party-building. If you're in a party, you can begin
considering actions like this. The contribution of funds included. If
you're outside, you're nowhere.

But there are a couple of oversights in Vladimir's picture.

Most importantly, the objective is not conspiratorial but revolutionary.
The better we help in the struggle, the better our chances of getting
revolutionary organizational tasks accomplished. Even then, there's nothing
straightforward about it, as the difficulties experienced by our Simon
Bolivar Brigade in Nicaragua illustrate.

Establishing reliable communication means establishing political trust, and
this is not something that's done overnight, especially if you are a
stranger. As for the "responsibility", this is something that must be
monitored by both party militants and revolutionary fighters as the
situation develops. Frequent balance sheets need to be drawn up. But we can
only take full responsibility for our *own* actions and decisions, we can't
take responsibility for the enemy's actions.


Cheers,


Hugh














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