textfiles/politics/SPUNK/sp000015.txt

    from Workers Solidarity No 33

    paper of the Irish anarchist
    Workers Solidarity Movement

             Imperialism

WHAT USED TO be called the white man's
civilising mission has returned with a
vengeance.  Suddenly white  Europeans and
Americans once more have to bring peace and
harmony to the rest of the world by stamping on
dictators, stopping the Islamic bomb and
introducing economic stability.  If all this
wasn't tough enough the Japanese are
cheating with unfair trade practices and
unusual work practices.

This has been the message of European and U.S.
politicians and media for the last two years or so.  Since
the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Russian
empire a new struggle is taking place.  Initially there was
lots of talk of the peace dividend, that huge re-allocation
of resources that would occur as military production was
switched to a more humane usage.

Instead what we are seeing is the re-division of the world.
The cold war has ended the same way as the 1st and
2nd World Wars, with a furious scramble by the victors
for the prizes.  Within a decade it is likely that Japan
will be threatening world peace, or at least that is what
we will be told.  In fact what is happening is that driving
force of twentieth century history, old-fashioned
imperialism.

When George Bush talked during the gulf war of a new
world order, policed by the United States it was not just Iraq
he had in his sights.  The U.S. is a declining economic power
but is still by far the world's most powerful military  power.
The U.S. wants to be in a position to police any country
which steps out of line with its economic interests.

This in the short term means all those brutally
underdeveloped countries of Africa, Asia and Central
America.  In the long term it means Japan.  In recent years
the American regime has demonstrated the role of this
policeman in Panama, Grenada, Nicaragua and El Salvador
among other countries.  Like all policemen this one will not
be influenced by concepts of democracy or justice but rather
will serve wealth and U.S. interests alone.

It is this ability of countries like the former Soviet Union,
the U.S., Britain and others to dominate not just their
immediate neighbours but countries on the other side of the
globe that marks them out as something special.  Many other
countries would like to share this ability but despite
investing huge percentages of their Gross National Products
in the military are unable to do so.

GULF WAR

The Gulf War demonstrates what is likely to happen when
one of these regional powers steps out of line with the
imperialists interests.  The Iraqi military machine on paper
looked a formidable opposition, in practise it was incapable of
fighting a real imperialist power.  Calling countries like
these imperialist is about as useful as referring to Fianna
Fail or the Tories in Britain as 'fascist'.

The ability of countries to dominate large areas of the globe
is seen most obviously by their military strength.  Military
strength is however just a reflection on the real driving
force of imperialism, economic power.  The demands of the
large economies for markets, raw materials and products
makes imperialism an inescapable part of capitalism.

Those who own and control the large 'multi-nationals' also
control the actions of the governments of the imperialist
countries.  The use of military might by the imperialist
countries flows from the bosses' demands that their
companies should control the markets and raw materials of
other countries.  The interests of United Fruit for instance
has been behind many of the U.S. interventions in Central
America.

WORLD WAR III

The U.S. control of Central America has meant the exclusion
from these markets of Japanese goods. As well as supplying
cheap labour to the U.S. bosses the Central American
countries rely on the U.S. for almost all of their exports and
imports. In the U.S. itself the Japanese are allowed access to
no more than 33% of the car market.

A consensus has been created throughout U.S. society which
identifies the Japanese as the cause behind the U.S.
recession.  This has included some of America's unions and
libreral Democrats like Jessie Jackson.  One consequence has
been a rising number of physical attacks on Asians in
general.

The economic war between the U.S. and Japan has already
warmed up.  For American bosses it means bigger profits as
they convince American workers that it is the Japanese
rather then capitalism that are responsible for
unemployment.  Alliances between bosses and workers
against another country mean little or no effective class
struggle at home.   This in turn means low wage rises and
crap working conditions.  The U.S. is one of the few
countries where workers saw a real reduction in wages in
the 1980's.

It is this sort of prejudice that European bosses hope to
build on through the E.C.  Most European countries have
already seen it on a national level.  In Ireland a milder
version is currently being  pushed through the "Buy Irish"
ad's.  Our interests as workers lie with the workers of other
countries, not our gombeen green bosses.

The effects of imperialism on different countries varies, for
many of the underdeveloped countries it means that their
exports are permanently underpriced and their imports
overpriced as they have no control over access to
international markets.  It means an enormous burden of dept
to the imperialist countries in return for outdated or
inappropriate technology and military equipment.

It means a government whose sole role is to ensure the
country stays profitable for the imperialists with low wages,
tame or non-existant unions and few safety laws.  It
commonly means famine and death as proxy wars are fought
between imperialist powers there.

IMPERIALISM KILLS

Imperialism's casualties in the last decade have included
100,000 Iraqi's, more as a show of force then anything else, 3
million Ethiopians in a country which exported food
throughout the famine, 50,000 Nicaraguans in an effort to
topple a government less disposed to American interests.
Were it not for the death and destruction it would be funny
that the West poses as part of the solution.  The imperialist
powers are not part of the solution, they are the problem.

The sheer level of destruction guarantees some resistance to
imperialism wherever it is found.  Commonly this takes place
through the mechanism of National Liberation Movements
like the Provos or Sandanistas.  Such movements attempt to
unite sections of the bosses with the workers in order to
throw out imperialism and restructure the economy. This is
in the interests of the native ruling class rather then of the
imperialist ruling class.

Sometimes such movements take up socialist sounding ideas
in order to gain support from the workers.  Sometimes as in
Cuba or Vietnam this occurred because they allied
themselves with a different imperialist power (U.S.S.R)
against the imperialist power that they were fighting (U.S.).
The interests of the workers are not central to such
movements, whether or not the workers gain is incidental.
In practise gains are commonly made by workers in terms of
education and health care as the new system attempts to
build and maintain an industrial base.  This also helps to
create loyalty to the new regime.

Apart from providing markets and sources of cheap  raw
materials, imperialism has another plus for the bosses.  It is
used in the imperialist countries to get workers to side with
their bosses against the people of other countries.  Workers
identify with the soldiers of 'their' imperialist armies who
share their language and  traditions rather then with the
workers of the oppressed nation.  Anarchists in these
countries have to be able to break this  cross-class unity in
order to challenge the bosses.

NO WAR BUT THE CLASS WAR?

The nature of the national liberation movements has led
some anarchists in the past to make the mistake of arguing
that such struggles are not relevant.  This is commonly based
around the slogan "No War but the Class War".  During the
Gulf War, for instance, British groups like the Class War
Federation argued that the outcome of the war was
irrelevant and that it was wrong to call for an Iraqi victory
as - among other reasons - this meant British soldiers would
die.

The logic of seeing the problems in those terms would be to
support an imperialist victory once the war was in progress.
Those groups who worried about the number of British
Squaddies who would die had their wish fulfilled, only a very
few were killed.  In Iraq this meant enormous casualties due
to indiscriminate bombings and the deliberate destruction of
basic infrastructure.

The position taken by the rest of the left was at least as
absurd.  Nearly all the "revolutionary" left called for "Victory
to Iraq".  In calling for victory to Iraq the implication was
that it was an Iraqi victory and not an American defeat
which was important.  Yet Saddam, even if he had beaten
the Americans, would have just as quickly rejoined their
camp or that of one of the other imperialist powers.  The
Iraqi ruling class might have wished for a free hand in the
region but their interests clearly lay in stable relations with
one or the other imperialist powers.

WHO CAN DEFEAT IMPERIALISM

The only force in the region capable of dealing a lasting blow
to imperialism are the workers and peasants who live there.
Rather then supporting the Iraqi ruling class (however
'critically') or worrying about British squaddies it was these
forces socialists should have supported.  The Trotskyist
presentation of Saddam as the "objective anti-imperialist"
was rubbished by the unfolding of events.  The war ended
when the Iraqi ruling class and the imperialists both
recognised that their common enemy, the working class in
Iraq, had moved centre stage.

This happened when uprisings broke out throughout Iraq.
Although they had a religious or nationalist base these
uprisings saw the formation of workers councils (shoras) in
many of the larger cities.  Saddam was left his elite divisions
and allowed by the U.S to fly helicopters against the
uprisings throughout Iraq.  The combination of the Iraqi
army and the deals stitched up by the nationalist leaders of
the uprising meant that the Iraqi ruling class has regained
control of the situation.  Saddam the "objective anti-
imperialist" performed his age old function of guaranteeing
stability and oil for the imperialists.

The lessons of the Gulf war can be applied generally.  No
bosses government whether a dictatorship as in Iraq or the
more liberal regime of the Sandanistas can be really
described as anti-imperialist.  When faced with a choice
between the revolutionary anti-imperialism of the workers or
compromise with imperialism they will always choose the
latter.  Workers in those countries have two enemies, their
own ruling class and the imperialist powers.  Neither of
these are potential allies, even in the short term.  The role
of a revolutionary organisation in those countries is to build
towards a situation where the workers and peasants can take
control.

The same applies in general to national liberation
movements like the ANC or the Provos.  The idea that the
working class should work for national liberation first and
then emerge to assert its own class interests shows no
understanding of the nature of such movements.  Only an
anarchist revolution can hope to end imperialist exploitation
of a country.

WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?

Does this mean we say there is no difference between the
national liberation movements and the imperialists.  It does
not.  Our problem with such movements is that they offer no
solution to the problem of imperialism.  It is however
imperialism that is the problem.  Therefore anarchists have
to defend the right of such movements to fight against
imperialism, particularly anarchists in the imperialist country
itself.

Anarchists in Britain, for example, have to take a clear
position on Ireland.  The British ruling class in the past has
been able to defuse opposition internally by uniting all
classes against 'common enemies' in Argentina and Belfast.
As long as the British working class supports the British
government on Ireland or does not see it as an important
issue it will find it more difficult to take up independant
working class politics elsewhere.  British anarchists must be
prepared to defend the Provos against the state by pointing
out that they are not the real problem.  They must be
prepared to call for troops out no matter how difficult this
might be.  Concretely  this means  arguing to British
workers that it is 'their' state and not the Provos that is the
cause of the conflict in Ireland.

In Ireland anarchists have to be not only willing to defend
the Provos but capable of putting forward a real solution to
the conflict.  The Provos today have no solution beyond calls
for UN involvement and the demand for talks with the
British government.  We need to be able to build a
movement that in the South is able to undermine the basis
of the southern clerical state.  In the North we have to be
able to unite Protestant and Catholic workers with them in
the fight for an all-Ireland workers republic.  This will be not
only in opposition to British imperialism and its loyalist
puppets but also to the green nationalist bosses.

On a wider level we are entering a new period of imperialism.
The break up of the cold war world will mean a rush by the
victors for new spheres of influence.  Ireland is bound to be
involved on the fringes of this through the E.C. and the
U.N.  Both these bodies are dominated by the big imperialist
powers.

The U.N. is a talking shop for the ruling class of the world.
It gives a veto to the victorious imperialist powers of World
War II and so it can only act in their interests.  The E.C. is
designed to act in the interests of the European bosses.  It
provides them with a super state through which they hope
to compete with the rival imperialists of Japan and the U.S..

We need to expose the real nature of the U.N. and build
opposition to any Irish involvement in 'peacekeeping'.  Our
class is international, our allies are the workers of all
countries, our enemy is the "Buy Irish" green bosses.

Andrew Flood

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Workers Solidarity Movement can be contacted at
     PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland

Some of our material is available via the Spunk press electronic archive

             by FTP to etext.archive.umich.edu or 141.211.164.18
              or by gopher ("gopher etext.archive.umich.edu")

in the directory /pub/Politics/Spunk/texts/groups/WSM
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Workers Solidarity Movement can be contacted at
     PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland

Some of our material is available via the Spunk press electronic archive

             by FTP to etext.archive.umich.edu or 141.211.164.18
              or by gopher ("gopher etext.archive.umich.edu")

in the directory /pub/Politics/Spunk/texts/groups/WSM