Abandoning Imperialism

43 Pages·2008·30.151 MB·English

by  Hosea Jaffe

HOSEA JAFFE
ABANDONING -
IMPERIALISM
II JacaBook II
Other publications by the same author Hosea Jaffe
ABANDONING
IMPERIALISM
Published in English
Marxian Light on Science, Cape Town 1941
Fascism in South Africa, Cape Town 1946
300 Years. A History ofS outh Africa, New Era Fellowship, Cape Town
1952; and APDUSA, Durban 1988
Colonialism Today, London 1962; Daresalaam 1988
The Pyramid of Nations, Luxembourg 1980
A History ofA frica, ZED, London 1986, 1988
European Colonial Despotism. A History of Oppression and Resistance in
South Africa, Karnak House, London 1994
Published by Jaca Book, Milan
Stana de! Suda/rica, 1980
Rapporti economici Europa-mondo net secondo dopoguerra, in L'Europa ne/-
1'o rizzonte de! mondo. It secondo dopoguerra e le trasformazioni de/la
vita socia!e, vol. VJTJ/2 of Ston'a d'Italia e d'Europa, directed by M.
Guidetti, 1985
Progresso e nazione. Economz'a ed ecologia, 1990
Economia delt'ecosistema, 1994
La Germam'a. Verso ii nuovo disordine mondrale?, 1994
Suda/nca. Ston'a politica, 1997
La lzberazione permanente e la guerra dei mondi, 2000
La trappola coloniale oggi. Suda/rrca, Israele, rl mondo, 2003
L'imperialismo dell'auto. Auto + Petrolio = Guerra, 2004
Introduzione a/la ston'a ea/la logica dell'imperialismo, 2005 (with L. Va-
sapollo and H. Galarza)
Davanti al colom'alismo: Engels, Marx e rl marxismo, 2007
Teon'a delt'Abbandono, in press 2008 (with English edition)
Was Capitalism Necessary?, due end 2008 (with English edition)
In preparation: The Antithetical Principles of Marxism: Historical maten~ \I Jaca Book \j
alism and Euroracism
First english edition
INDEX
September 2008
©2008
Editoriale J aca Book spa Mil
, an
Hosea Jaffe
all rights reserved
On the cover
. Amazon forest, © H. Silvestre/Ra ho
Openmg the trans-amazon road d p .
on some population's Ii£ di~ro uced severe imbalance
e con t10ns and on the biological
coverage o f Amaz zoru·a on a Ia rge scale. Preface 7
Introduction 9
Chapter one
ABANDONMENT AS CLASS
AND NATIONAL LIBERATION 13
Chapter two
DELINKING AS STATE ACTION;
ABANDONMENT AS STATE AND CLASS ACTION 25
Chapter three
ABANDONMENT AS FREEDOM OF ACTION
OF ANTI-IMPERIALIST MARXIST-LENINISM 33
Chapter four
MARX PLUS LENIN: CAPITALISM
COLONIALIST/IMPERIALIST POLITICAL-ECONOMY 41
ISBN 978-88-16-69201-5
Chapter five
To obtain information about ubli h d PERMANENT LIBERATION: TROTSKY'S
you can address Editor1'al J p B ske and sp lan•n e.· d works PERMANENT REVOLUTION AND ABANDONMENT 45
Vl.a Frua 11 20146 Mil e 1 aca oo SpA - erv1Z10 L ettori
. ' ano, te • 02/48561520-29 f:
e-mail: serviziolettori@jacabook. . . , ax_02/48193361 Chapter six
.It, tnternet: www.Jacabook.it ABANDONING EURAMERICAN-CENTRIC «MARXISM» 53
-
5
Index
PREFACE
Chapter seven
THE ARMIES, ENEMIES AND ALLIES
OF ABANDONMENT
61
Chapter eight
ANTI-IMPERIALIST ECOLOGY
71
Chapter nine
ABANDONMENT OF IMPERIALIST INVESTMENT
AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE
81
l'his work is an attempt to apply two basic principles of
Leninism to the methodology of liberatory anti-imperialism.
l'here really are many variants of anti-imperialism, from sys
temic reformism which does not challenge the imperialist
based capitalist system, as described first by Hobs~m and then
by Lenin, to futile anarchic exhibitionism. But Leninist anti
imperialism is antisystemic and revolutionary in being gener
ated by the national-liberatory class struggles of the colonial
and semicolonial workers of the «third world» against the
«first world» corporations, states, settlers of all classes, the
IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organisation, the United Na
tions and NATO, all of which racially oppress, super-exploit, di
vide and wage terrorist wars against their nations and peoples.
This book follows hard on the heels of Davanti al colonia
li.rmo. Engels, Marx e il Marxismo (Jaca Book, Milan 2007),
which described and condemned the imperialism of Engels
with respect to the French imperialist seizure of Algeria in
I 830, the USA colonialist wars of the mid-19th century against
Mexico and the Italian annexation and colonization of «Er
itrea» in 1890; the racism of their articles to the «New York
Daily Tribune» in the 1850's on certain African and Asian
6 7
Preface
?eopl~s ~nd their Germanic chauvinism regarding the inter- INTRODUCTION
1m penahst wars of the late 19th century in Europe. In this
boo~ there was also a criticism of Marx's eulogies of the us
president Abraham Lincoln, whose anti-«negro» racist
speeches in the 18~0's and early 1860's were well-published
and known at the tune. He called this apartheid man «a sim
pl~ _s~n of the_ working class» (op. cit., p. 57). This book also
cnt1c1zed the1r enthusiastic support for the (land-robbing
genocidal, racist) European settlers. '
~ ~eed to make it absolutely clear that my adherence to
Lenm1st-Marxis_m is in no way due to any feeling for Marx
(whose ~urorac1sm and Eurocentric, Europeanist historiog
raphy I fmd as deplorable as the iconic Marxism of the «so
cialists» of and from the EU and us perpetually trying, with un Coilins/Sansoni Italian-English Dictionary: «Abandon: free
fort_unate success, to recolonize liberation movements in Asia dom of manner; surrender to natural impulses; being unre
Afoc~ an? their «Latin America» settlerdom). My Leninist~ strained».
Ma~~1sm I~ d~e only to the scientific correctness of 1) Lenin's Winston Dictionary/Encyclopaedia, London, c. 1930:
ant_1-unpenalism and 2) Marx's two great contributions: his «Abandon: to give up; to forsake; to desert. Obsolete: to sub
to~1cal materi~sm (in Critique ofP olitical Economy and Grun due, control, banish, drive out».
drzsse) and his '!'agna opera, Capital and Theories ofS urplus From the 1885 Berlin conference to divide up Africa
Val~e. As for his theory that the «western proletariat» is po among the European colonial powers, European Socialists
tentially revolu_tionary because of a «class struggle» between abandoned Africans, Asians and Native Americans to colo
labour and capital, I have, ever since my 300 Years. A History nialism and imperialism. By the end of the 20th century, im
of South Africa (Cape Town 1952) and Colonialism Today perialist countries and Socialists abandoned their own poor
(London 1962), proved it a wrong theory and a disaster in his est semicolonies in Africa. Those they had reduced to death
torical practice. by famine and landlessness they abandoned to racist «white»
settlerdom in America, Australia and South Africa.
Hosea Jaffe, The Second International abandoned the colonial work
18th July 2008 ers from even before their betrayal of their own «bourgeois
proletariat» (Lenin), in the first interimperialist world war.
The Third International led by Stalin and USA and European
«Communists» abandoned the African, Caribbean and Asian
peoples to full-scale imperialist exploitation, racist oppression
and wars. The Fourth International betrayed its founder,
8 9
Abandoning imperiafam Introduction
Trotsky, by abandoning the Palestinian people to Israeli set Their World Bank. Their International Monetary Fund. Their
tlerdom, the Indian people to the bloody British/Socialist/im World Trade Organization. Their Security Council and per
P:rialist partition of India in 1948, all workers to the imperi haps, with it, the USA-controlled «United Nations». Their
alist slogan of «A Socialist Europe», the peoples and nations right, centre and left political parties. The «bourgeois prole
of Socialist Yugoslavia to the «ethnic wars» of imperialist tariat» of the «first world». The national bourgeoisie of the
mastered «self determination» and the very first workers' «third world». And all the enemies of States who beat impe
S~a~e in the world, the USSR itself, to Eurocentric Stalinopho rialism in Socialist revolutions.
b1a 10 1990. Now the Euramerican «left» is abandoning China They took back the USSR. And they want to take back
a~d Cuba. We were abandoned by the bourgeoisie of imperi Cuba and China, above all. We will not abandon them to im
alism and to imperialism by the «first world»1 working class perialism. We have the power to abandon and the power to
and their Socialists. We followed their «unity of the working be loyal. We have all the power of all meanings of the word
class», their «class struggle» and we abandoned our own «Abandon». The abandoned have the power to abandon. It is
struggle for national liberation. a power only the abandoned have. Abandonment is the
w_e aband~ned our nations in America, our aboriginal politic of the anti-imperialist class struggle.
la~d 1n Australia, Africa, the Caribbeans and Asia to imperi Abandonment banishes imperialism from our petroleum
alist powers and settlers. We abandoned our continents and reserves, refineries and pipelines.
islands to them. We abandoned our ancient freedom. We The colonial oppressed will abandon them (drive them
were the abandonees of colonialism for five centuries and of out) from the oil-based vehicle industry - the major capitalist
imperialism for its first century. We know all about abandon industry - and pave the way for a public transport industry
ment. Or so we thought. based on trains, tubes and trams. We'll abandon our own
Or so we thought. But we did not abandon those who abandonment to imperialist corporations, settlers and «first
abandoned us to colonialism and imperialism - for six hun world» populations of our mines, lands, minerals, gold, oil
dred years since Henry the Navigator set foot in Morocco. We and raw materials.
will never know what abandonment means until we are not We'll abandon work that causes the essentially imperialis
its victims but its masters. tic «hothouse effect» which is now heating our planet and its
Just think what the world would be and look like if and species to destruction. We'll make OPEC abandon allowing im
when we abandon the imperialists. All imperialists. The im perialist corporations to exploit and explore our oil fields, and
peri~list _States led by the USA, European Union and Japan. their car drivers and planes to use our oil.
The1r mighty labour-devouring transnational and national We'll abandon all classes and States that abandon our
corporations. Their racist settlers in so-called Latin America lands, seas and skies.
South Africa and Palestine under the Israeli Jewish heel'. We'll abandon our own class collaboration with «first
world» bourgeois proletarians, racist settlers and «third
world» national bourgeoisies (the three classes that collabo
1 The States of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD). rate with and enable imperialism to function). We'll abandon
-
10 11
Abandoning imperialism
(boycott a?d leave to die) the collaborators in Iraq, Palestine, Chapter one
South Afnca and other semicolonies of imperialism. ABANDONMENT AS CLASS
. Our struggle will be in every current and obsolete mean AND NATIONAL LIBERATION
mg of the ~ord «Abandon», i. e. both in the sense of breaking
our colonial slave me?tality and in the sense of freedom. By
freedom we _mean without restraint on national and class
struggles agamst imperialism.
_Our b_asic ~eaning: non-collaboration and Delinking and
national liberation from imperialism.
Hosea Jaffe, London
16thJune 2006
The centre stage of political economy in the 21st century for
Eurocentric «Marxists» is occupied by the class struggle be
tween the capitalist class and their working class in Europe,
North America and Japan (the leading States of the «first
world»). Socialism versus capitalism is the Eurocentrk di
chotemy. Imperialism and the anti-imperialist struggle of
«third world» classes, States and peoples are off-centre stage,
in the «periphery» of Braudel, Rosa Luxemburg and Waller
stein. For Eurocentric «Marxists» capitalism can be or not be
imperialistic; imperialism is not the essential ontology or
being of capitalism, let alone its leitmotiv, purpose or design;
only the division into classes is fundamental and the division
of the nations, peoples and classes themselves is secondary.
Leninist Marxists see the capitalist world quite differently:
they see capitalism as having been born more in Columbian
America then in feudal Europe; more out of the class and na
tional struggles between European colonial nations and set
ders on the one side and the lndios nations and African slaves
on the other side in America, Africa and Asia than out of the
class struggles in Europe between the bourgeoisie and the
feudal classes. They see the world as divided into colonialist
- 13
12
· Abandonment as class and national liberation
Abandoning imperialism
sional pyramid at the apex of which there is not one class but
~d imperialist nations and classes on the one hand and colo
four, and at the base of which there are six sets of workers:
rual nations, workers and peasants on the other side.
~eninist Marxists also see that imperialism has divided the
dominant Euramerican capitalists into first class imperialists
~t horn~ and se~ond class imperialists in the shape of settlers
ill «La~-~enca», South Africa and Israel. They see this pri
m~ry d1v1~1~~ of the global capitalist class parallelled by the
pn~a~y div1S1on of the international working class into 1) im
penahst and colonial proletarians and 2) first class colonial
workers, namely those of Eastern Europe now in the Euro EFGHIJ
pean ?nion since 2005-2006 and the second and third class
c?lomal workers in Africa, Asia, «Latin America», the Car
Here A is the capitalist imperialist class, B the settler imperial-
nbeans _a~d Oce~n_ic Islands. As if this divide et impera does
ist class, c the imperialist petit bourgeoisie and D the imperi
not suH1c1ently d1v1de the colonial working class, imperialism
alist working class; E the anti-imperialist workers States, Cuba,
added ~no_ther. Alongside this international division of both
China and North Korea, F the semicolonial ex workers' States
the c~p1talist ~nd working classes is the further division of the
Vietnam, Cambodia, the ex USSR and Serbia, G the semi
working class ill the imperialist countries: the «home» «white»
colonies in Asia, Africa, the Americas and Oceanic Is~ands, II
workers and the immigrant apartheid-style «black» «col
the racially exploited non-Europeans inside the imperialist
ored» and «asian» workers (some 10% of all workers 'in Eu
dominated States, I the «Indies» and ex Africans in «Latin
~ope and Australasia and over 25 % Mexicans and «negroes»
America» and J the neocolonial States Poland, Latvia, Lithua
m the ~SA alone). These colonial workers in the imperialist
nia Estonia and the Balkans, which were corrupted by Euro- '
count~1es exten? and divide the workers in the colonies (we )
use this term to illclude the predominantly semicolonial «third pean Union.
A holds some 150 million, B some 250 million, including
world» States). The colonial proletariat is thus seen as a
imperialistic settler workers, C some 400 million and D some
whole_, triply divided: those in the semicolonies a~d colonies
400 million, totalling an effective «first world» of about 1.2
those ill t_he impe~ialist ~o~ntries and those Eastern European~
coopted ~to the 1mpenalist European Union. The global class billion people.
These classes exploit and oppress E of some 1.4 billion na-
structure ts thus many times more complicated than that seen
tionally liberated people, F of some 300 million, G of over 3
and understood by the simplistic EU-USA-centric Socialists and
billion super-exploited and exploited semicolonial people, H
Communists (?f ~ «Internationals» and their relics). They see
over 100 million in the imperialist States, I over 200 million in
the world c~p1t_alist system as «capitalists/working class».
<<Latin America», and J some 100 million in the «neo Lome»
The c~p~tal1st system, as seen through the lens of histori
of the EU, totalling an effective «third world» of over 5 billion
cal matenalism by Marxist-Leninists, is infinitely more com
people, making a world total of over 6.3 billion by 2006.
plex and may be represented as a multiform three dimen-
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14
Abandoning imperialism Abandonment as class and national liberation
«Socialism» or «AIMism»? •first world» and the «third world». We do not need the
, /,11ses that need us. In this way we acquire freedom of man
The real world under the capitalist mode of production is lH'r and get unrestrained (by our enemies and false friends).
thus infinitely more complex than the simpleton Eurocentric In Lhis way Abandonment bas the positive meaning of «Aban
«Marxist» capitalist/proletariat antithesis. Indeed it is more ,lon» in the sense of «surrender to natural impulses», the <<im
synthesis than antithesis. The overhwelming majority of the pulses» here being class and national liberation. Our AJM pro
«left», for this reason, is not Socialist but Socialist-imperialist poses Abandon in all its three dictionary meanings.
or, as Lenin wrote, social-chauvinist. The left is overwhelm [n terms of the global reality of capitalist-imperialism (re
ingly part of imperialism. Lenin abandoned the word «Social Vl'r sably equal to imperialist-capitalism) Abandonment im
ist» for «Communist» after the Second International became plies class and national struggles not within the context of the
a party to the first interimperialist war of 1914-1918. For unpletonic «capitalist/worker» paradigm, but in terms of the
Lenin to call oneself or be called «Socialist» was a deep insult I\CD/EFGHIJ class-nation paradigm. Let us consider Aban
to one's Marxist intellect. Now, nearly a century later, «Social onment in this actually verifiable and real paradigm involv
ism» is a word that stinks in the nostrils of anti-imperialists, ~ not two but eight class-based social formations. We view
whomsoever they follow. Indeed «I am an anti-imperialist 110 our critics objectively, not by their words or banners: any
Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyist» («AIMist») is clumsy looking and d~ments made by anti-imperialists of enemies or their col
longer than the simpletonic «I am a Socialist», but is more re borators are not based on the declared or undeclared inten-
alistic and makes more sense. AIM.ism is the political philoso ons of those judged, nor on their banners, but only on
phy of the idea of Abandoning imperialism as a general pol hl·ther or not they objectively served imperialist interests.
icy, both nationally and internationally. o examples: AIM condemns both the Al Qaida group led
Especially since the death of Lenin and Trotsky and world Bin Laden and the Fourth International group led at the
war n, and with the inherent participation of Euramerican c: by Ernest Mandel for their declared and proven support
centric Socialists and Communists, capitalist imperialism has r the USA imperialist-led war which drove the USSR Red
itself not only abandoned the poorest African and Oceanic m1y and airforce out of Afghanistan. I should say here that
semicolonies but persuaded that left and its collaborators in a letter from Mandel he said that he agreed with my de
the «third world» to abandon 1) the cause of national libera nrc (following Lenin's own policy for Afghanistan) of the
tion from and 2) the class struggle against capitalist-imperial Army's right to defend Afghanistan against imperialist in-
ism. These Socialists have abandoned their AIM. ion and subversion (in this case via the «mujahideen» and
But AIM is now forced by the real nature of its dual ene iban), but that he qad to obey the official policy of the ex
mies, Eurosocialism and capitalist-imperialism, to abandon tivc of the Fourth International.
both of them. Abandon is here used in its «obsolete» sense of The Fourth International did it under the red banner of
«subdue, banish and drive out». Simultaneously it retains its ternational Socialism and Al Qaida under the black banner
common current sense: «to give up, to forsake, to desert» im 1slamic fundamentalism, as it had worked as armed agents
perialism and its Socialist and class collaborators in both the lJSA-led imperialism when the latter armed and paid Sad-
- 16 17
Abandoning imperialism Abandonment as class and national liberation
dam Hussein in the Iraq-Iran war of the 1970's. Both Stalino geois proletariat») and collaboration between the workers and
phobic and islamic fundamentalism were, in the case of peasants of EFGHIJ. That difference is that the first collabora
Afghanistan, agents of the USA and NATO (note: 20 years on, tion crosses the politically, socially and economically unstable
NATO now officially occupies Afghanistan). AIM's Abandon bridge between colonialist/imperialist classes and colonial/
policy applies as much against the Al Qaida as against the Eu semicolonial classes, which constitutes the great international
ropean left (e.g. Fourth International) agents of imperialism. barrier erected by imperialism since it began, at the end of the
We see nothing bona /ide in Al Qaida and other islamic fun 19th century (as Lenin himself said in his classic Imperialism,
damentalism in Iraq, any more than in Afghanistan, since the the Highest Stage ofC apitalism).
US-led invasions of 2001. There is a difference in principle be The class collaboration between E'FGHIJ and D is the hall
tween them and anti-imperialist nationalists (Saddam Hussein mark of simpletonic Socialism. For AIM this collaboration is a
had elements of both in his own long history). corollary of the fundamental class unity of toilers EFGHIJ ex
Abandon policy embraces non-collaboration also with ploited and oppressed by A (the imperialist bourgeoisie
nominally «anti-imperialist» religious fundamentalism. Like proper) and B, with the social collusion of C and D. AIM in
wise, albeit with much more perspicacity and difficulty with cludes the unity of EFGHI with D, but under strict conditions
respect to bogus «anti-imperialist» campaigns and «fronts» of non-racial equality. ·
formed by Euramerican Socialists, Communists and anar Abandon policy faces a particular problem of how the
chists (e.g. the latter were funded by the Ford Foundations in EFGrIT workers can deal with the perennual intrusions into
the «Stop the War Coalition» marches in London in 2002-6 their ranks of the «first world» Socialist left. Let us take as an
and in the World, European, African et al. Social Forums). example of this their declared support for the 1956 «hungar
Abandon in these two cases means excluding or policing such ian revolution». The US president Bush visited Hungary in late
dangerously disruptive pseudo-anti-imperialist objective June 2006 in order, he stated, to solidarize with Hungary's
agents of imperialism, or refusing their entry into marches and anti-USSR position then and its pro-USA-EU-NATO and anti
fronts and Delinking from those provably controlled and di Communist position now. Almost the entire non-Stalinist So
rected by them. This applies to nearly all «Socialist» or «rad cialist «left» supported the «hungarian revolution». It was di
ical» fronts in South Africa, which exploit the demands for rected on the spot by European social democrats, the Vati
land of the still racially oppressed non-europeans. can's man, cardinal Mindszenty (who gave the radio call to
In the latter case the obsolete meaning of «Abandon» (to arms against the USSR «invaders»). In South Africa the pres
control, banish, drive out) applies. ent author saw Hungarian «revolutionaries» board apartheid
trains from Cape Town to Malawi where they helped British
imperialism and its «white» settlers bloodily crush an African
Abandonment and international working class unity peasants uprising against racism and Fascistic exploitation on
the land. The South African NEUM1 and the weekly newspa-
There is a difference in principle between collaboration of any
of EFGHI (and even J) with D (what Lenin called the «bour-
Non European Unity Movement.
18 19