Anthony Brain's letter to American Socialist Viewpoint on Libya and China!

TWO GREAT STRIDES FORWARD IN LATEST SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT! BY ANTHONY BRAIN


I have just looked at the latest issue of the American Trotskyist magazine Socialist Viewpoint. There are two good groups of articles which show a good positive evolution. On Libya you have come out clearly unlike most ex-Trotskyists who are Centrist or even reformist SV comes out against the counter-revolutionary rebel leadership.


There is a slight omission in SV not coming out clearly like I do for a military united front with pro-Gaddafi forces to defeat Imperialism. Fred Western within the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) has a better line than Alan Woods who only opposed the counter-revolutionaries one or two days before the Imperialists military intervened.


SV should criticize Western for not seeing Imperialism as the main enemy. It is Imperialism who are the main force stopping the development of productive forces within semi-Colonial countries. Trotsky argued that certain Bourgeois Nationalists have a dual character. They are exploited by Imperialism which is why they are at times in conflict with them. At the same time they fear the working class being mobilized even more because if workers become stronger they threaten all exploiting classes. Within the military united front with pro-Gaddafi forces against Imperialism Trotskyists keep our political class independence from those Bourgeois Nationalists to strengthen workers to combine the struggle against Imperialism with them to fight for a Socialist revolution. This is how Permanent Revolution is concretely fought for in Libya.


On China I welcome Glen Ford’s article. It is good that it suggests China is a workers’ state when he writes about an economy essentially based on socially useful production not profit. One of the reasons I supported SV from 2001 to 2007 was that it argued the battle in the workers’ states of Eastern Europe and Russia over whether Capitalism is restored is yet to be determined. On Kosovo I supported the SA majority led by Weinstein-Seligman, but were defeated by Foley-Mackler at the 2000 SA Convention. That minority formed SV in April 2001.


A few weeks ago I glanced at SV’s articles on the workers’ states between 2001 and 2004/5 which I did not read fully at the time. After re-glancing them I posted them on Facebook because I was impressed in how particular Nat Weinstein saw the Capitalist inroads in Eastern Europe and Russia as an example of uneven and combined development within transitional societies; how he understood the workers’ state developed within China due to the Permanent Revolution being carried out in a distorted way the bureaucratic caste; and how China’s success defeated for a period the Yeltsin wing of the Russian Bureaucracy.


As I have argued elsewhere there were/are always competing cliques within the bureaucratic caste which rules Russia. The re-emergence of the Medvedev wing of Stalinism shows this. In the beginning of 2009 I wrote in Marxmail that Medvedev wing reflected pressures of Imperialism on the Russian Bureaucracy and hoping to enhance the caste’s privileges through collaborating with Imperialism. During the next period we shall see the weakening of this wing because as the Asian Times wrote last Monday that after Imperialism was able to intervene in Libya is now going after the Russian Bureaucracy on at least five issues.


Putin’s wing of Stalinism while wanting to maintain global Capitalism because if world Capitalism is overthrown it would lead to Political Revolution within Russia wants to resist Imperialism encroaching on their privileges which is rooted in a workers’ state. Another point I made in that Marxmail submission was that Putinites would not tolerate due to the balance of forces within the Bureaucracy what they tolerated under Yeltsin.


Those a-aforementioned Weinstein articles will be remembered alongside my documents as trying to maintain Trotskyist continuity when the American SWP dumped Trotskyism during the 1980s; the ex-FIT majority degenerated after 1992; and after Foley/Mackler totally collapsed into Stalinphobia. The worse ideological effects of Liberal Bourgeois ideological offensive is finally beginning to wear off on middle class intellectuals. It is this middle class layer who cannot survive decaying Capitalism is when the new initial Trotskyist cadres will be forged. Once this cadre made up of intellectuals, and those who how to work among the workers and oppressed organised in revolutionary parties nothing will be able to prevent Socialist revolutions within the Imperialist countries as Capitalism becomes more and more unbearable!


Anthony Brain – June 9th 2011.

Birmingham, England