Answering Critics of Workers World Party: On Iran and China
Posted by Mike E on June 25, 2009
Absent Cause, a new underground/dark culture zine, explores underground cultures, radical politics, hidden histories, feminist and queer sexualities, the gothic, surviving abuse, coping with mental illness, and the array of ways they intersect.
Kasama received the following piece from Greg Butterfield (aka Redguard). Greg is a longtime supporter of the Workers World Party and contributor to their newspaper WW, and has been engaging with the Kasama Project from its beginning.
Given the criticism that many have made here of these politics, it is helpful to hear them articulated and defended well. This pieces also appeared on Greg’s personal blog Absent Cause.
* * * * *
By Greg Butterfield
“That struggle is desirable which is possible, and the struggle which is possible is that which is going on at the given moment.’ This is precisely the trend of unbounded opportunism, which passively adapts itself to spontaneity.”
–Lenin, What Is To Be Done?
A great deal of criticism has been leveled at Workers World Party over its position on the Iranian elections. Not surprisingly, the critics frequently couple this with a denunciation of WWP’s position in support of the Chinese government’s actions to halt the Tiananmen Square protest movement in 1989.
It must be said straight away that, even if the uprising in Tehran had clear, anti-imperialist leadership, it would still be the principle responsibility of the movement in the U.S. and Europe to oppose imperialist intervention — military, political, economic, covert, etc. The fact that those who are rushing to support this movement do not in most cases even raise the issue or speak about the dangers of U.S. intervention says volumes about the sorry state of these “revolutionary” forces.
(WWP, of course, was one of a few organizations protesting the escalating war threats against Iran by the Bush regime in recent years and striving to bring this issue to the anti-war movement’s attention. Let me remind you, dear reader, that the Pentagon has an armada off the Iranian coast and is carrying out bloody terrorist occupations of Iraq to the West and Afghanistan to the East.)
No doubt there are protesters in Tehran – probably many of them – who believe that they are taking part in a genuine progressive struggle for progressive goals. No doubt, so were many of those in China in 1989 and in the subsequent “color revolutions” in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. But this does not change the objective character of the movement, or its relationship to imperialism and its efforts to weaken and take over the Iranian regime.
We have seen this all before: In China in 1989; in Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s; in Central Asia in the early 2000s; more recently in Lebanon: The “color (counter-) revolutions.” The imperialists employ this method in part because they can rely on large segments of the Western left, whether social-democratic or “revolutionary,” to fling history and theory aside to jump to the defense of the latest uprising, regardless of its social content – in effect, becoming their accomplices. (It’s more effective on those who like to consider themselves “revolutionary” than so-called “humanitarian interventions” of the Somalia type, which are still popular enough with liberals and social-democrats.)
If there is not a fundamental difference, then why have the U.S. and co. not jumped on the bandwagon of the revolutionary movements in Nepal? Venezuela? Bolivia? To ask the question, it seems to me, is to answer it – these are countries where genuine peoples’ movements with anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist leadership (at least of a strong section of the movement) are in unambiguous conflict with imperialism, are alert to the dangers of sugary U.S. promises and cash, and are aware that they must conduct the struggle on both fronts – against imperialism and the national ruling classes.
It’s sad but true: imperialism complicates the class struggle. This isn’t new. What is new is the increasing sophistication that U.S. imperialism exercises in influencing “popular uprisings” to topple embattled governments that stand in its path, in both workers’ states and bourgeois nationalist ones. This policy has taken a quantum leap in the post-Soviet, “unipolar” era.
Of course, it is easier to support a struggle that is not condemned or is even popular with the corporate media and bourgeois-liberal public opinion. But it is the responsibility of those who present themselves as anti-imperialists, communists and revolutionaries, especially here in the belly of the beast, to make use of the hard-fought lessons bequeathed to them and not be taken in by these deceptions to let the U.S. off the hook.
It is not WWP, with its opposition to imperialism, “who think the world is stuck 50 years ago,” as Rowland Robinson of the blog “By Any Means Necessary” claims. Rather, it is those who think that they can take a shortcut around the hard road of fighting imperialism that are living 30 – 50 – really, at least 70 years — in the past – back to the time of Max Shachtman and James Burnham, who elaborated the views later taken over by “Trotskyists” and “Maoists” of various types.
In fact, the position elaborated by these Western “revolutionaries” against Iran’s government (or China, or North Korea, or Hamas, etc.) is essentially identical to the doctrine of “Soviet social-imperialism” so popular with U.S. Maoists in the 1970s and 1980s. This amounted to drawing an equal sign between U.S. imperialism and the Soviet Union (or worse, calling the Soviet workers’ state the “main danger”) and thereby abandoning their anti-imperialist responsibilities toward Angola, Cuba, Ethiopia, Vietnam, etc., ad nauseum.
Who, in this crisis, is asking the fundamental questions about the role of U.S. imperialism? About who stands to benefit from a collapse of the Ahmadinejad government in the current situation? About what the collapse of the Iranian regime under these conditions will mean not only for the people of Iran, but for occupied Iraq and Afghanistan? For Palestine and Lebanon? Venezuela and Nepal? About how far a U.S. oil grab in Iran would set back the struggle in the Middle East, and here?
WWP and a few others are the ones asking these questions.
Sam Marcy, founder of the Workers World Party
Finally, a few words are necessary about the class character of People’s China and the charges leveled by Robinson and others that WWP values “tanks” over the peoples’ struggles.
In his piece “On the Problems of Marcyism and Global Class War,” Robinson states, “The best evidence that the Marcyists can present that China must be socialist and anti-imperialist is that of the United States’ hostility to China during the Cold War.” It’s tempting to say this is blatant lying, but I’ll be generous and call it ignorance of WWP’s position.
It is not WWP, but most of the U.S. left, including Maoists, Trotskyists and social-democrats of various stripes, that have taken the completely unscientific view that China magically turned capitalist without the destruction of the state that emerged from the 1949 revolution. Some base it on which political grouping is in power; some on the degree of market reforms; or on the penetration of Western capital in the economy. But really, the only difference between them is when they date it to – 1959, 1979, 1989.
[Author's note: It's important to say that there are revolutionary forces who come out of these movements -- particularly from the Maoist movement -- who have come to similar conclusions as WWP and carry out principled struggle against imperialism, including but not limited to, the Communist Party of the Philippines, Freedom Road Socialist Organization (Fight Back), the Socialist Unity Centre of India, the Anti-Imperialist Camp, etc.]
In the late 1960s and 1970s, when others were decrying the Cultural Revolution or slavishly following every twist and turn of the Chinese leadership, Sam Marcy and his co-thinkers were carefully looking at the revolution and its trajectory.
As early as the fall of Lin Biao in 1972, Marcy showed how, while the Cultural Revolution fell short of achieving its stated goals (as do many great and profound revolutionary struggles), it had fortified the Chinese workers’ state, particularly the relationship of the People’s Liberation Army and the masses, in a way that would safeguard China against counter-revolution in the coming period. And this is precisely what happened. (See in particular “The Cultural Revolution and the Fall of Lin Biao”)
China was not swept up in the counter-revolutionary wave that destroyed the Soviet Union and the Eastern European workers’ states in the late 1980s and early 1990sbecause the Chinese workers’ state was fortified to act in its self-defense in 1989 DESPITE the many abuses of the capitalist roaders in leadership of the government.
I take pride, as a member of Workers World Party, in knowing that we live and struggle by Trotsky’s profound words:
WW editorial — Iran: What Fraud?
http://www.workers.org/2009/editorials/iran_0625/Sam Marcy: A Victory for People’s China
http://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/sam90/1990html/s900125.htmVenezuela Denounces Interference Against Iran
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/venezuela170609.htmlAnti-Imperialist Camp – Iran: A Snub for the West
http://www.antiimperialista.org/content/view/6177/50/
Statement by a Group of Iranian Anti-war Activists about Iran’s Presidential Elections
http://monthlyreview.org/mrzine/iran100609.html
China cautions U.S. on Iran
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF20Ak03.html
Greg Butterfield's revenant avatar
Message to U.S. Peace Groups: A Little Humility, Please
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/veiluva190609.htmlLeon Trotsky: Balance Sheet of the Finnish Events
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1940/04/finnish.htm
To order the first two issues of Absent Cause, visit:
http://redguard.etsy.com Or email redguard@gmail.com to trade.
Gary said
“But this does not change the objective character of the movement, or its relationship to imperialism and its efforts to weaken and take over the Iranian regime.”
I’m not sure what the “objective character of the movement” is just yet. I see some images. I see the mass-produced English-language posters “Where is my vote?” which could very likely be the fruit of the $ 400 million Bush-era appropriation for “black ops”.
But I also see statements that give some hint at the ideological character of the movement:
http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m55423&hd=&size=1&l=e
and of course the Maoist statement circulated by AWTW and on Kasama.
So I’m not sure that the masses in the streets are generally serving as dupes of imperialism. I think it more likely that this is a largely middle-class uprising against the theocracy sparked by clear electoral irregularities and a contemptuous attitude towards the electorate my the mullahs. It may be confined to a far more narrow range of Iranian society that its various supporters hope; Ahmadinejad after all has a large social base and there’s some good evidence that he likely did win the election. And it may lack a Marxist-Leninist anti-imperialist perspective and be vulnerable to some outside manipulation. But I wouldn’t say its overall character at this point is as a tool for US reassertion of control and to prejudge it as such is unfair.
On the other hand I do think it important to note the obvious: a faction of the ruling class has been working overtime for several years to achieve “regime change” in Iran as part of the broader neocon agenda for the transformation of Southwest Asia. Specifically, they are demanding that the US bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities which they posit as a threat to the existence of Israel. They are engaging in a program of shameless disinformation to gather support for this attack, while the US tries to undermine the Iranian regime.
(http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22875.htm)
On May 23, 2007, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito reported on ABC News: “The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell ABC News.”
On May 27, 2007, the London Telegraph independently reported: “Mr. Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.”
A few days previously, the Telegraph reported on May 16, 2007, that Bush administration neocon warmonger John Bolton told the Telegraph that a US military attack on Iran would “be a ‘last option’ after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed.”
On June 29, 2008, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker: “Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.”
Isn’t it obvious that in such circumstances any sympathetic discussion of the protests has to be coupled with discussion of the contradiction between US imperialism and Iran, which is a more fundamental contradiction that that between the Iranian regime and its people?
Mike Martinez said
There are a few questions we need to ask ourselves.
- Were the elections in Iran rigged?
- Those protesting in Tehran, what are they protesting for?
- What is the class character of the protest?
- Do these protests benefit the working class of Iran or the international working class?
- Is US imperialism fanning the flames of rebellion in Iran for its own benefit?
- What does imperialism have to gain? and finally,
- Does US imperialism really care about democracy in Iran?
I am convinced by the many reports that have come out from Al Jazeera to the UN, that Ahmadinejad won the elections. There is absolutely no evidence of fraud and with all that has happened, if there were evidence it would have surfaced by now.
Just imagine the deep concequences for the world and for the Middle East and Palestine if the US can enter and occuppy Iran on the basis of “fighting the dictatorship and electoral fraud” and prop up Moussavi as a puppet. It would devastate the entire anti-imperialist movement and it would do it with a friendly face, Obama’s smile and the Pentagon’… Read Mores hand.
Don’t forget Iran is surrounded by US imperial troops on two sides and has a nuclear armed fleet patroling it’s shores. There are also many mercenarie private contractors that are used as proxy armies all over the region.
Gary said
I agree that the charge of electoral fraud may be just another piece of disinformation wielded by the regime change advocates.
Ahmadinejad from the day of his election was assaulted by a disinformation campaign (recall he was supposed to have been one of the students who seized the US embassy in 1979). His quotation of a speech by Ayatollah Khomeini (d. 1989) in which Khomeini had predicted that the “occupation of Quds [Jerusalem] would vanish from the page of time” has been repeated endlessly as a call from the Iranian government for Israel to be “wiped off the map” in the single most successful press disinformation campaign of this period. It’s closely associated with the campaign to depict Iran’s nuclear power program as singularly focused on the annihilation of the Jewish state.
Ahmadinejad has made it easier for the regime change advocates (as Rafsanjani and Khatami know) by making his preposterous comments about the Holocaust. Still, Iran is obviously not a threat to anyone; the assertion that is is needs to be countered with logic and history and threats TO Iran by the US and Israel should be exposed and challenged.
I think what the WWP folks are saying is; let’s not mistake what is in fact a threat to Iran as a movement forward. But without knowing what’s being discussed on the streets, or in meetings preparatory to gatherings on the streets, it’s hard to know whether this is a “color revolution” running its course (one of the possibilities on John Bolton’s checklist prior to bombing)or something with anti-imperialist possibilities.
garyt said
thanks for posting this.
i’m in no way a follower of the WWP, but by posting this you’ve definitely stepped up your cred in my book.
i would love to see a more formally organized debate on this subject. i really am not sure where i stand yet so i appreciate you covering both sides.. it says a lot.
Mike E said
Mike Martinez asks some questions that are important:
- Were the elections in Iran rigged?
Yes. And always were. Just like elections in the U.S. are essentially and permanently rigged.
And then (on top of that) there are special cases of PARTICULAR fraud (Mayor Daley steals chicago votes for JFK in 1960, Supremist Court taps Baby Bush in 2000 etc.)
- Those protesting in Tehran, what are they protesting for?
Again and again, a very simplistic assumption emerges that things are always “one thing” — that they have a single defining nature, and that we can (with very little work) uncover it.
The fact is that “those protesting Teheran” are, obviously, fighting for many things — with many different levels of understanding. And like people in intense struggle and sacrifice, their understanding and demands change quickly — and they regroup and cross-fertilize in ways that were not possible in “ordinary times.”
On one level, there is a demand to reverse the election (or to have another one, or whatever). But who thinks that is the essence or core of all this? Or that it would remain the essense of things?
- What is the class character of the protest?
I find this kind of question very odd. And I’m not sure how others determine class character, and i have no idea what Mike means by these terms.
But, all through political life I have seen such questions wielded in the most crudely reductionist way.
For example: What was the “class character” of Mao’s revolutionary army?
We have all seen this question answered in two ways:
a) reductionist: It was a peasant army, therefore could not be a workers army, therefore could not be a socialist army, therefore….
b) or in a strangely idealist way: Though demographically and sociologically it was a peasant army, it was led by a line that was (in its essense) a proletarian line, and so regardless of the nature of the people in this army, the movement overall had a proletarian essense. (In other words, for some forces “proletarian” is reduced to an idelogical market, and the label is affixed to signify retroactive approval.)
On another level, lets assume for a moment that “the class character” of the movment is mainly urban middle class. What are we to draw from that?
What was the class character of the Sixties upsurge in the U.S.? What was the class character of the student antiwar movement? While much of the Black liberation struggle stirred working class and impoverished sections of the people, certainly much of the social movements of that time (women, cultural, art, antiwar) were middle class in their “class character.” And? What are we to deduce from that? That they are not significant? that they are suspicious? that they are not real? That they are not as good as whatever is, at the moment, stirring “the workers”?
This is very class reductionist, and leads to very bad analysis.
- Do these protests benefit the working class of Iran or the international working class?
Leaving aside the assumption that one can simple announce what “benefits” the working class of the world…
Let me say that i seems clear that we can say that this break in the normal functions and straitjacket of the Islamic regime is HIGHLY beneficial to oppressed people all over the world. It helps discredit the politicized Islamic reaction that has so sapped the strength of more radical and secular politics. It will create networks and radicalized scenes all over iran — that will certainly have a huge impact on the future.
- Is US imperialism fanning the flames of rebellion in Iran for its own benefit?
Du-uh. Certainly. And while that may be obvious to us (i.e. to revolutionaries debating here). It is something we need to expose widely and energetically, so it is known much more broadly.
- Does US imperialism really care about democracy in Iran?
Again du-uh. Meet the Shah, meet the overthrow of Mossadegh. And amillion other examples of the U.S. promotion of its interests in highly contradictory ways.
And again while that may be obvious to us (i.e. to revolutionaries debating here). It is something we need to expose widely and energetically, so it is known much more broadly.
- What does imperialism have to gain?
I think that the U.S. seeks to gain the stabilization of its hegemony in the Middle East. A weakening of the Iranian regime (let alone a “regime change”) is one of the few ways the U.S. can imagine pulling a “victory” out of the debacle in Iraq.
Similarly (by the way) the collapse of the Russian Tsar had all kinds of benefits for imperialists like britain, france and the U.S. — including in oppressed countries and the third world. It is generally true that when a significant and reactionary force is weakened (by the struggle of the people) that other reactionaries rush in to benefit. So what? Can you imagine all the ways this can be used to justify coming to terms with the swine who strangle human lives — in china, or iran, or korea.
When the day comes that we are weakening U.S. imperialism in historic and hopefully fatal ways… I guarantee you, there will be those who point out that this will enable China to finally settle with the Tibetans, or Russia to bully turkey or a dozen other scenarios. So what?
The important thing is to find and promote the places where something new and radically different can burst out, amid the ugly scrambling and collisions of reactionaries. And to fight (within those openings) for the most radical and thoroughgoing revolutions possible — in the direction of socialism and communism.
Koba said
Gary, thanks for sharing more evidence of US maneuvers to encircle Iran and interfere with its political life. You’re absolutely right that there is too little exposure and opposition to US and Israel threats on the left.
I think there are two important wedges to be driven; in exposing the cynical, self-interested hollow “support” of the opposition by those US imperialists with aims to meddle in Iran and to expose Mousavi as another figurehead of theocracy with blood on his hands:
The less the protests are contained by Mousavi’s and the “Mullahs Lite” framework the more revolutionary potential will be realized.
I think it’s likely Ahmadinejad won. I think revolutionaries reserving such reverence for bourgeois elections is at best, flimsy. How many times do communists run for office “lose fairly” and decidedly using this logic? Is there evidence yet of fraud in the most literal legal sense? Not that I’ve seen. Is it suspicious that victory was claimed so forthrightly and immediately in a country that relies so heavily on hand balloting? Yes. The point now is that what is clear is that the resistance now is no longer over the election but over the very legitimacy of the Islamic republic.
Speaking of burden of proof, is there evidence that the opposition movement is “pro-imperialist” in the way that WWP has charged? I think there’s a dangerous instrumentalist tendency to discredit anything that vilifies the regime as “imperialist propaganda” while promoting any information in its favor. Is there a deliberate disinformation campaign against Ahmadinejad? Of course. There is also intense information control by the regime itself that attempts to strangle any dissension.
The problem with the theory of Global Class War is that it reduces the world to a geopolitical chessboard between “bourgeois” and “proletarian” nations, completely ignoring the actual character and class dynamics within nations. It is a world carved out of 1950′s Cold War realpolitik, the world is radically different. Where do the so-called “BRIC” economies stand on this chessboard? How low has the bar fallen if China is still a “Workers State”? It is a politics of self-deception and defeat: the best we can do is settle for the “lesser evil.” It is the same as those in US elections that say revolutionaries must be resigned to fighting the “ultra-right” by voting Democrat. It is stifling and removes the chance for a revolutionary alternative pole to be raised. After all, if the governments of “proletarian” nations of the world (i.e. the majority of the world) that come into occasional conflict with US imperialism must be supported, you can’t support revolutionary movements that aim to overthrow them. If the US had more outrightly threatened Rwanda in 1994 would it be our duty to become cheerleaders of genocidiares? Is there no way to oppose both US imperialism and corrupt capitalist regimes?
Moreover in this particular case an entire history that cries out to be studied and learned from is whitened out. One of the most effective Cold War strategies the US employed was the promotion of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East to undermine the secular nationalist and communist anti-imperialist movements. The result is the mujaheeden, the Taliban, the Pakistani madrassahs, etc. An entire generation of communists were liquidated by the betrayal of the Islamists in 1981 in Iran. The very reason there is little organized left in Iran today is the 1988 execution of thousands of leftist prisoners. Could there be a more chilling precedent? This is the regime you want to defend?
Mike E said
Greg writes:
I have to ask who is referred to here. I don’t know of any left forces who don’t oppose U.S. attack on Iran. Is it true that there are leftists forces who don’t even “raise the issue” of U.S. intervention? Who?
Green Red said
Peoples reslessness due to years of being in terrible conditions and poverty, women having half human value in father’s will, workers not getting paid for months and still workin under gunmen, people’s anger over why the money coming from oil must be spent in Lebonan and Palestine but not in Iran itself…..
Look brother Mike Martinez, defending Venezuela, Cuba and… is one thing, defending Iraq, Iran, etc. government is another. As Mr. Ely pointed, of course, the US intervention ANYWHERE is wrong. No doubt about that but, what about a whole nation gotten sickened of a theocracy? Should they remain in – similar to European dark ages – everyday life?
Chavez or other progressive politicians making aliance with various countries in opposition to the US does not change the nature of those states’ system. Go, search for the latest talk dauther of Che Guevara had after visiting Iran and talking about Che Guevara’s aspirations and then, when students express their absolute negative feelings toward the clergy regime her stating that liberty is a strggle that should continue…
shinethepath said
It should also be noted that the author, Greg Butterfield, claims that the Communist Party of the Philippines upholds China as still a “socialist state” is terribly false and he should correct it. The implication is made in “Author’s note” section on the “Maoist tradition.” Recent ideological statements by the Communist Party of the Philippines has already casted the Chinese state as revisionist and state-capitalist.
http://www.wengewang.org/read.php?tid=17951
This statement was signed with the Communist Party of India (Maoist), Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist, Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany, and other Maoist organizations.
In fact this statement is clearly places the Communist Party of the Philippines ideologically opposed to the analysis of Workers’ World Party, Socialist Unity Centre of India, and Fight Back!.
CPP use to carry a similar line to these organizations in the period of rectification in the early 90s’ and the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, but this is no longer their stated political line.
Green Red said
Thanks a lot Ka Shine the Path for exposing false propagandas about the Maoist Communist Party of Philippine.
saoirse said
thanks for the clarification stp. It was still my impression that the CPP upheld the earlier line.
Green Red said
Hello again Greg… we haven’t seen each other since that occasion Sam Marcy spoke about acting like Jehova Witnesses in distribution….
Regardless of differences, still here John, Maggie and Scott are doing well and you know, IAC does what it does.
This rough translation is from a Shah supporting paper, same as said on BBC, etc.
Paper Dogness Knee Hetter (sic) published in Sweden exposes the fact that Ayatollah regimes have complete sophisticated control over the Telephone, Cell Telephone and Internet through the thing Nokia has sold Iran’s ruling regime..
but Nokia/Seimens boss that is a Finish German swears he did not want to help regime for spying and censorship to Iranian regime!?
…. Regime got it 6 months ago… with it all communications were listened to. Till now paper says other regimes only presumed that Iran contols phones and E mails but now it is clear like hell that they control….. mobile, sms, chatting, e mail and they can alter e mails and sms to confuse receiving party(ies)..
Machine was sold second economic part of 2008 and since then regime had experimented and practiced before the election time….
for example women rights arrested people (salute to them all – GR) during being interogated they figured out regime officials have all their emails and sms printed as a part of the legal file. Such sever thing needs lots of investment that only has happeneed in Iran and, China….
sourece http://www.asreemrooz.com
Asre Emrooz Vol21, No 4924 June 26 2009
Now that aside as far as i have heard through variuous sources… currently using calling cards in Iran is not possible calling abroad and, only land phone lines can be used… Lots of out of Iran TV stations – somehow through German or French imperialists being bribed, their satelites are blocked and cannot be reached by their special antenas and aside all this, the number of innocent Iranians killed is way, way higher than reported.