Some brief comments on Heiko Khoo first document on his China website by Steve Jackson Part 1

Steve Jackson has asked me to post the following document on my blog:-

This is the first part of Jackson's review of Khoo's document 1. Part 2 will be posted in the next 24 hours!


In the next few weeks I will be reviewing Heiko Khoo's documents on China. This first document is in response to his first document published by him on November 25th 2008 entitled "Chinse state intervenes in amid sharp fall in growth".


Khoo is generally correct that the top Bureaucracy in China will be forced into a certain re-orientation towards more domsetic production; and use of domestic services; certain Bureaucrats regaining their privliges by re-gaining control of firms closed down by Capitalists; there is still capacity for massive infrastructure projects; and more concessions will be made in an attempt to reduce and defuse the workers revolutionary threat to Stalinism. In his Hyde Park's Speaking Corner's presentation Khoo points out the development of a mightly working class of 300 million can potentially shake the world. In the course of that presentation he recorded an important fact that this working class in China is slightly bigger than the American and Western European working classes combined. Khoo is correct that if this working class moves it will shake the Chinese Bureaucracy.


Thornett in his report on the FI's 16th World Congress moves further to the right when he defines China as Imperialist. He made an absurd claim that it was "Chinese Imperialism that has created a sizeable part of the world working class". Trotsky wrote in the 1930s that if Socialist revolutions were not carried out in the Imperialist countries the organised working class would be reduced. This was one of the main reasons he called for German Fascism to be destroyed before they came to power. There is mass unemployment in the Third World and millions being made unemployed in individual Imperialist countries.


Imperialism has mainly used the semi-colonies as cheap raw materials and during Colonialism to dominate them with their products. Any developments such as the Tiger Economies and South Korea were to stop the Socialist Revolutions spreading from China and North Korea into these countries. All of those Tiger economies collapsed with their depression beginining in 1997. The Chinese workers' state carried on with their massive economic development because it is mainly based on production for use value. Thornett has broken with Permanent Revolution totally when he argues that Capitalism can develop China into a major Imperialist power. It was only by China by ending Imperialist domination by carrying a combined revolution of the Bourgeois-Democratic and Socialist tasks that it has emerged as a a major power. (I deal with the dual effect of Chinese Stalinism on the world scene by looking at China's role in the international division of labour - see part 2 of my document).


In reply to Thornett: where has Imperialism developed the infrastructure in Third World countries; which has cancelled a lot of debt from Africa; and build up public services such as schools and hospitals in the semi-colonies? Trotskyists disagree with the Chinese Bureaucracy's proping up Bourgeois Nationalists but recognise even linited anti-Imperialist actions can threatern losing billions for Western European and American Imperialist companies. It is precisely because Imperialism cannot but hinder these semi-colonies' developments that the Permanent Revolution is such a burning necessity


Due to the latest world Capitalist crisis Capitalism's decay is going to reveal itself more an more. This will open up revolutionary possibilities with the Chinese workers' state showing a major alternative to Capitallism. The potentual for Political Revolution which Trotskyists can take advantage and eventally lead will supplement this rise in world revolution. Thornett by defining Chinas as "Imperialist" means he will take an abstentionist position when the Chinese Bureaucracy helps certain semi-Colonial Bourgeoisies fight Imperialism.


This will also mean he be the right-wing of any anti-war movement which began with his semi-Third Campist line on NATO's war with Serbia in 1999 where he abadoned effectived defence of that workers' state against Imperialism by drawing an equal sign with Stalinism's crimes in Kosovo and the Imperialist intervention. It was only the AWL majority led by Matgamma which was more right wing than Thornett where they refused to condemm the NATO intervention into Serbia. T


The British SWP moved towards defending Serbia against NATO on the justification it was a semi-colony. Despite their wrong theory on Serbia this represented a left turn! There was also an opportunist zig-zag when Tony Cliff in a reply to the ISO suggested that the IST adapt to the the Russian foriegn policy on the basis that it would weaken American Imperialism. As a Trotskyist I do believe in utilising the Russian workers' state being in conflict with Imperialism to weaken Capitalism and strengthen forces for the world Socialist revolution. Alex Callincios retreated into classical Third Campism at an anti-NATO confernce in October/November 1999 when he argued that the Russian Bureaucracy is not at times anti-Imperialist. I wish that I could in my contribution quoted Trotsky in a 1937 article entitled "Not a Workers and not a Bourgeois state" that the Russian Bureaucracy reflects Imperialist pressures on the workers' state and on the other hand it is in conflict with Imperialism because they need to defend their privliges based on that workers' state which Imperialism attempts to overthrow. Starting from Trotsky's analysis I would have said the Soviet Bureaucracy after all the sacrifices of World War 2 did not want Imperialism to use Eastern Europe as buffer states to attack them again. There were big dangers of a Third World War when NATO bombed Serbia beause it was aimed to strenghen Capitalist restorationist forces throughout Eastern Europe and ex-Soviet countries and NATO's bombing started the same month that 3 ex-Warsaw Pact countries joined NATO. Callincios in a April 1999 anti-NATO public meeting in Birmingham capitulated to Petty-Bourgeois forces in the anti-NATO movement a Third World War by arguing for UN troops in Kosovo. This was a complete break from a Leninst-Trotskyist position of opposing Imperialist interventions in all its guises. Myra-Tanner Weiss wrote in a 1954 Fourth International article that Stalinphobia and adaptation to Stalinism are both polar opposites which are both Petty-Bourgeois. This was when she was with Cannon and before she made her own adaptations to Stalinism in the late 1950s which Cannon opposed. It is still scientifically correct! (This article by Tanner-Weiss is available on Marxist Internet Archive under Fourth International magazine archive)


Another indication of this rightward move was when the Socialist Resistance majority in 2008 during the Russian-Georgian war dumped defence of that workers' state who were fighting an Imperialist-influenced Georgian regime which if Georgia won would have strengthed Capitalist restorationist forces by concillationist elements to Imperialism from among those Bureaucrats would have been strengthened. The SR majority were neutral unlike when they supported a Capitalist Kosovo state independence from a workers' state in 2008. During this war the SR majority argued for the first time that Russia was "Imperialist". If the SR majority had supported Georgia with most of the opprssed (even among the Muslim community) being supportive of Russia in checking American Imperialism's ability to dominate the world would have reduced their influence in the anti-war movement to a rump. The British SWP were at six and sevens on this war. Lindsey German was Third Campist on this war in Socialist Worker dismissing it as "Inter-Imperialist". Callincios adapted to the pro-Russian mood when he said in the same paper that Russia had shown that the West could be beat if Imperialism was stood upto. How is that possible when he usually defines Russia as "Imperialist"?


Where I disagree with Khoo is that he is not clear in his first document that the Bureaucracy will have to be overthrown by Political Revolution led by the working class. When Napolean made that famous statement in the 19th century about a sleeping giant if aroused he realised Imperialism was lucky in having miltiary supremacy over most of Asia (except Japan) and may only last for a certain period of time. This is is why all the Imperialist powers united in 1900 to crush the Boxer rebellion. Even with all the limitations of Chinese Stalinism a Socialist revolution occured which is shaking the world. George Novack argued in an article on transitional societies that even in the 1960s there was a lack of understanding the complexities of these workers' state and other political questions which required a transitional appraoch. Novack pointed out that you can have processes unfolding such as Stalinist political counter-revolututions which have extreme contradictions which history resolves. This article can be found on the Marxist Internet Archive under Novack. In that article Novack traced the role of transition in the natural and social scicnces.


Khoo echoes Micheal Pablo and Harry Frankel that the Bureaucracy will allow genuine working class representation. Joseph Hansen argued in a spring 1953 American SWP internal document against Frankel that his anoligies with the Soviet Bureaucracy sharing power with the working class with how declining Liberal Aristocracies shared power with the rising Bourgeosies was a major mistake on Frankel's part. As Hansen points out even in that epoch of the rising European Bourgeoises it required several Bourgeois revolutions to establish Capitalism. Hansen argued that the Bureaucracies could not tolerate any real workers' demoracy because workers once they organised threatened the Bureaucracies with potential Political Revolutions. The 1989 Eastern European events shows quite clearly that other Bureaucratic factions can use mass upheavals for their own ends. It also revealed they could share power with Bourgeois elements provided they accept the Bureaucracies rule. This is why I see Eastern Europe still as degenerated workers' states because Capital can only exist by Bureaucratic factions allowing them to operate. In order for the Bourgeois layers to became ruling classes requires the overthrow of the Bureaucrats standing in the way of Capitalist restoration and defeating the workers resisting their social gains being destroyed. Jim Cannon argued against Pablo and Frankel corectly that the Bureaucracies will not peacefuly give up their privliges to either the workers or Capitalists!