Neither of two positions, stated on this list (S. Soloviov
and F. Lobov)
is, in my opinion, acceptable for Russian communists.
The former
practically coincides with the critique of this war by
the pro-Western
bourgeoisie and its hack ideologists like the "fighters
for human rights."
The latter is little else than a call for class
truce, capitulation before
the "nationally minded" bourgeoisie and bureaucracy.
As usual, the ruling ideology turns out to be that of
the ruling classes, doesn't it?
There can be no doubt that the main, direct enemy of our
working class
is the Russian state, the state of the bureaucracy and
bourgeoisie. No
foreign invader, no hater of Russia could bring so suffering
to the
toilers of our country as this ruthless, "our own" enemy
did.
There can be no hope for a new revolution and its defense,
without the
complete, to the ground, destruction of this state.
But it is of the utmost significance for the working class
of the
Russian Federation as to WHO will destroy this state.
Whether it
will be destroyed by Islamic fascists and Western ultraimperialists
(aided by the parochial interests of the ruling groups
in Russia--added
in English translation) . . . . or by the organized workers
of our
country.
The state and statehood are not the same. The defeatism
of the
Bolsheviks did not mean a call for the occupation of
the Russian Empire
by the German army and its imperialist partition.
The Great French
Revolution demolished the Bastille, but rose to the defense
of the
territorial integrity of France. If the German
troops had occupied Paris,
there would have been no Paris Commune.
But am I not exaggerating things? Isn't such
a scenario for Russian Federation too
far-fetched, unimaginable?
No, it is not. The loss of our statehood, the partition
of our country
into puppet territorial enclaves, even its direct military
occupation
are very real threats. Moreover, if during the
critical week in August
the people of Dagestan did not shield the strategic passes
leading to
the Caspian, today it could the turn for the rest of
the Northern
Caucasus, the south of Russia and Tatarstan. If
it were not for the
strategic nuclear forces, created by the Soviet people,
NATO planes
would have already bombed Mozdok and Rostov.
Furthermore, in case of a serious revolutionary threat
to the regime of
capitalist restoration the military intervention
is more than likely.
The Russian bourgeoisie and bureaucracy themselves will
call for this
intervention. This is how it always was and always
will be. What in
this case will be the attitude of the Western working
class and the
Left to the intervention by NATO? Will they want, will
they be able
to forestall such intervention, to prevent their imperialists
from carrying it out?
The experience of NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia
leads me to
conclude: NO. Not only they won't be able to, but,
to the large extent,
will not want to.
While the working classes of the West have been carrying
out the
economic struggle (at times successful) against their
bosses,
they firmly follow in the steps of the imperialist foreign
policy of
their ruling classes, remain saturated with the spirit
of imperial,
cultural, and even racial superiority. After all,
it were their sons,
not of bankers and industrialists, who sat in the cockpits
of NATO
bombers and aboard its air carriers, destroying the last
Balkan nation wo
still dared to stand up to imperialism.
To this conclusion, we must add another. As this
war demonstrated, not
an insignificant part of the Western Left have become,
consciously or
not, accomplices of new fascism, the "liberal" imperialism
of Clinton
and Blair, the imperialism of "human rights."
Never before in the history of capitalism its leading
countries were able
to achieve such degree of unity in their drive for global
domination, as
we see it today. All remaining and inevitable contradictions
between
them granted, we can now justly talk about the existence
of Western
ultraimperialism.
If so, then what is the REAL, PRACTICAL meaning of
the demands--raised by
ISWoR and their supporters in Europe, USA, and Canada,
i.e., in the
belly of the imperialist beast--in a most categorical
manner: "Russian
Troops Out of Chechnya!" and "Right for Self-Determination
to the Chechen People!"?
Abstracted from the real balance of forces in the world,
as if neither
NATO nor the medieval fascism of the Maskhadov-Basaev
regime, looking at
imperialists with hope, existed in it--these demands
make them
accomplices of "their own" imperialists, expressing their
most cherished
desires.
But don't we face another danger by defending our statehood,
the
territorial integrity of RF and, therefore, the unity
of our working
class, against Western imperialism, our compradors, and
Islamic
fascists? Don't we run the risk of degenerating
IN REALITY, IN PRACTICE
to social-patriotism? Don't we surrender to the
mercy of our class
enemy? Don't we promote "class peace" between the
oppressors and their
victims? Don't we help to strengthen our Pinochet
a la russe?
Yes, this is a terrible danger. Having avoided the
rocks of external
threats we may destroy ourselves against the hard place
of
internal
ones. This last danger is all the more real because
our movement is so
weak and fragmented, because our working class remains
demoralized by
its historic defeat and the barbaric conditions of its
existence.
What is to be done?
Should we keep silence as what by most part has
been happening? That
would be, no doubt, the worst of all possible solutions.
If we had even a small but bold and determined party of
the working
class, in my opinion, such a party would choose the following
tactics.
First of all, it would explain to the working class all
the complexity,
contradictions, and dangers of the present situation,
and would point
out at imperialism, capitalist restoration, and the weakness
of the
Russian proletariat as being mainly responsible for it.
This party
would appeal to the multinational working class of RF
to defend its
statehood and territorial integrity against imperialism
and bourgeois
separatism. It would appeal to the soldiers and
officers of the Federal
army to stop obeying the orders of counter-revolutionary
generals, to
go over to the side of workers, and turn their arms against
the state of
Russian bourgeoisie and bureaucracy.
But this remains only my personal opinion.
<snip>
Vladimir Bilenkin
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