GROUPING OF BRITISH MEMBERS
From Gorbachev to
the Gulf
FOLLOWING the events in Eastern Europe in 1989, imperialism is launching its most ferocious offensive against the international working class since the Second World War — the Gulf war being merely the first shot in this — with unprecedented collaboration from the Soviet leadership and social democracy. This is shaking the international working class movement to its foundations — potentially creating its deepest recomposition since 1933. 1989 — a turning point in world history
The developments in Eastern Europe in 1989, the imperialist unification of Germany and the process leading to the destruction of a series, if not necessarily all, of the workers' states in Eastern Europe outside the USSR, were a turning point in world history — the greatest defeat of the international working class since the 1930s. Inevitably, this victory for imperialism in 1989, and Gorbachev's policy of concessions to it, made imperialism more not less violent and aggressive. The events in Eastern Europe and Gorbachev directly enabled imperialism to proceed from the economic holocaust against the Third World to military intervention, with the Gulf war being simply the first of the new north/south wars
222 International Marxist Review that will follow.
From the very beginning the leadership of the Fourth International completely misunderstood this dynamic of the events in Eastern Europe and of Gorbachev, welcoming them and seeing them as an advance, not defeat, of the international class struggle. That analysis and political line collapsed with the imperialist unification of Germany and the Gulf war with the majority amendments at the World Congress reorienting itself.
In reality the greatly reduced fear of anti-capitalist revolution and with Gorbachev leading the Soviet bureaucracy to a new and closer collaboration with imperialism, and the USSR itself in deepening crisis, imperialism has been able to go onto the offensive not simply against Eastern Europe but against the Third World. This will be accompanied in the 1990s with a new offensive against the "welfare state" in Western Europe.
The 1989 events in Eastern Europe were therefore a fundamental turning point in world history not simply for Europe and for the workers' states but most fundamentally of all for the relation of the imperialist states to the Third World. The end of the post-war world political situation
A rupture was created in the world political situation as it existed since the aftermath of the World War II. From 1949 to 1989, despite the Cuban and Vietnamese revolutions, the structure of world politics had remained essentially constant with workers' states in Eastern Europe and parts of Asia (plus Cuba) and a rising struggle in the semi-colonial countries confronting imperialism, the last major wave of this struggle coming in the Iranian, Nicaragua and Grenadan revolutions in 1978-79. The events of 1989, in contrast, saw a fundamental change in the world situation through the restoration of capitalism in East Germany, the creation of a unified imperialist German state, and the fact that capitalism will be clearly restored in a series of countries of Eastern Europe outside the USSR.
The Gulf war was the first manifestation of this shift. Newly strengthened by these victories, imperialism immediately took the offensive in the first place against the Third World. The Gulf war was simply the first paroxysm of this. If the break up of capitalist stability created the need for massively stepped-up imperialist intervention, Gorbachev's course and the victories of capitalism in Eastern Europe created the possibility for imperialism to undertake that course. The inevitable outcome of Gorbachev and the events of Eastern Europe was a massive new offensive of imperialism against the
Second, the Gulf war itself, and Gorbachev's support for it, was followed by the renewal of imperialism's drive into Eastern Europe — towards Yugoslavia, Romania and Albania — and reinvigorated the pro-capitalist forces
Third, the counter-revolutions in Eastern Europe, and first of all East Germany, in turn lay the basis for a new drive through the 1990s against the welfare state in Western Europe — starting with Germany where capital will necessarily try to reduce the costs of unification by equalizing down living standards in West Germany. If, and to the degree that, this is successful in
Germany this will be passed on by competitive pressure to the rest of West-
Biggest working class recomposition since World War II
Confronted with these developments, the general international line of class struggle called for is evident. It requires an alliance of the masses of the semi- colonial countries, plus the workers' states (themselves) plus the working class and anti-imperialist movement in the imperialist countries against the imperialist bourgeoisies and their projects. Such a line however is in direct contradiction with that of Gorbachev who, on the contrary, proposes an alliance between the Soviet bureaucracy and the imperialists against the masses of the Third World a, the Soviet-US alliance in the Gulf war being the most advanced expression of this collaboration against "regional conflicts". Imperialism itself however naturally utilizes Gorbachev's line not simply to step up its attacks on the Third World but to tighten the grip on the USSR itself.
The imperialists are divided with one part favouring a deal with Gorbachev against the semi-colonial countries, that is the joint resolution of "regional conflicts", and another part favouring an attempt to break up the USSR as a means of securing the restoration of capitalism within at least parts of its
This sharp turn in the objective political situation, the most important since the post-war period, and the sharp clash it poses not simply with imperialism but with the line of the Soviet leadership, starting with Gorbachev, necessarily produces the greatest political recomposition of the working class since
World War II — in a fundamental hisorical sense since 1933 and the coming to power of Hitler (which was the last comparable, through greater, defeat of
The starting point and driving force of this recomposition is that 1989 repled by Yeltsin within the Soviet Union itself.
ern Europe.
borders.
the international working class).
From Gorbachev to the Gulf 223
Third World — one which will costs millions of lives.
224 International Marxist Review resented a new historical stage in the bankruptcy of Stalinism. The Soviet leadership was shown to be not merely incapable of extending socialist revolution - the Yugoslav, Chinese, Vietnamese and Cuban revolutions has all taken place against the line of the Soviet bureaucracy — but incapable of even defending the existing workers' states. The Soviet bureaucracy had led Eastern Europe into a total impasse.
So great was the demoralization and disorientation created by Stalinism that in a series of Eastern European countries the working class, even if not generally organized as a class, rose in movements either acquiescing in, at best, or, at worst, actively sanctioning the restoration of capitalism. It was the greatest display of historical bankruptcy in history.
While no analogy is exact, the best starting point for the consideration of the international situation of the workers' movement is indeed that following 1933. Then the international working-class movement has been given, in the role it played in the rise to power of Hitler, an indelible lesson in the bankruptcy of Stalinism.
A decade followed in which the international working class movement recomposed itself — most advanced programmatically in the shape of the Fourth International but also in terms of mass currents in the emergence of Mao Tse-Tung's leadership of the Chinese Communist Party against Stalin's representatives and the Ho Chi Minh leadership of the Vietnamese Communist Party and the mass Trotskyist LSSP in Sri Lanka and the major influence exercised by Trotskyists in Vietnam in the 1930s. In that decade a new, more advanced programme, that of Trotsky summarized in the Transitional programme of the Fourth International, and eventually a new organization, the Fourth International were created alongside, in a few cases fusing with, mass currents to the left of the Soviet leadership. The new process of reorganization of the international working class after 1989 is necessarily starting in the same way. Some elements of that emerging recomposition and leadership naturally predate the crisis of 1989 — the FSLN, the FMLN and left currents in the working class movement, left currents in the national liberation movements. IN a different form and subject to different constraints, because it holds state power, but nonetheless, part of a non-Stalinist current, is also the leadership of the Cuban Communist Party. Other new forces have been shaken up by the events of 1989 themselves or by their own national experiences.
Prior to 1989 however, the quasi-totality of such currents looked to the Soviet leadership, believing that whatever its crimes and "inadequacies" the Soviet bureaucracy was in some sense "on their side". Gorbachev's course and the events of 1989 have radically shaken this up. The most advanced
From Gorbachev to the Gulf 225 forces of the international proletariat found themselves in total and direct confrontation with the line of Gorbachev on the Gulf, appalled by the events in Eastern Europe, and the tens of millions of deaths they know will result from the imperialist offensive in the Third World. It is the greatest reorientation of the international working-class vanguard since 1933, driven by the greatest defeat since this period and the most important political events for four decades. A whole series of these currents are reassessing the historical balance sheet of Stalinism.
These vanguard forces however, cannot be brought together, and a new more advanced programme or organization formed, simply by ideas. It requires as in the 1930s, huge common experiences. The Gulf war, after the negative experience of 1989 itself, was precisely the first of these events forging a new working class vanguard and new recomposition of the international working class — the contemporary equivalent of the Spanish civil war, the French popular front, or the struggles in China against Japanese imperialism in the 1930s which forged a new working class vanguard after 1933. The Gulf — first of new North-South wars
All forces throwing themselves actively into the fight against the Gulf war were going not simply against imperialism but also against Gorbachev. A whole range of forces engaged in that struggle — ranging from left social democrats, nationalist and left Stalinists through explicit revolutionaries and involving a series of sections of the masses. All forces seriously participating in that struggle are politically interesting. In most imperialist countries a combination of left social democrats, left Stalinists, left Greens and the majority of the peace movement opposed the war in an alliance against the imperialists, Gorbachev supporters, right social democrats, Eurocommunists, right Stalinists, right Greens and the right wing of the pacifist movement. In the semi-colonial countries the divisions traversed an even wider range of organizations — taking in nationalists and Islamic fundamentalists.
What was also notable and further clarified their nature was that those currents which had emerged leading the events in Eastern Europe fully supported the war. Czechoslovakia under Havel sent troops to the Gulf. Walesa and the Hungarian government declared support — as did the chief aides of Yeltsin. Internationally many of those forces which had been most enthusiastic about the events in Eastern Europe played no significant role in the anti-war movement or did not even support it. A number of forces which had previously been on the intellectual left supported the war. The result was that a massive recomposition of forces took place not pri-
226 International Marxist Review marily on the basis of historical ideological references but, as is always the case historically, on the basis of the key current problems of the class struggle. The key alliances and political forces were formed accordingly. Put historically, in the space of two years the international working class vanguard passed through two massive tests which brought it into violent conflict with the Soviet leadership under Gorbachev — the first being the events in Eastern Europe and the second, much more positive in that there was at least an anti-imperialist struggle and an anti-imperialist mass movement. being the Gulf.
Naturally, one issue, even one as big as the Gulf, is not enough to forge a new working-class vanguard. That, as in the 1930s, will require a second. third (and more) experiences. It is impossible to foresee exactly what next such test and benchmark will be. But what is clear is that in the increasingly unstable state of the world economy — above all the Third World but also in the imperialist countries — such developments are inevitable, producing not simply a major shift in the structure of world politics (that has already taken place) but a major historical recomposition of the international working class movement. International relation of forces after Gulf war
Finally, defeating Iraq, and even the restoration of capitalism in a series of Eastern European countries, do not even remotely lay the basis for a new capitalist boom. Only two developments could restabilize the situation of the world capitalist economy — either a devastating defeat of the working class in the imperialist countries or the restoration of capitalism in the USSR. Clearly neither of these are on the immediate agenda.
General instability therefore, in particular in the Third World, and economic problems inside the imperialist countries will continue to characterize the world situation.
Because of the economic chaos which grips the Third World the US will not be given a respite from such struggles — the Gulf is not the last but merely the first of many wars imperialism will have to fight. A new offensive of imperialist pillage and North-South wars is opening. In carrying out that struggle imperialism confronts the strongest forces in the world — the 3,000 million people condemned to poverty and oppression by imperialism. Against that force not even the United States has or will prevail.