Exchange with NTI-CI on the Degeneration of the FLTI
We publish here an exchange between the International Trotskyist Nucleus – Fourth International (NTI-CI) and our tendency, on the subject of the degeneration of the Internationalist Leninist Trotkyist Fraction (FLTI). The only changes made are minor corrections to the translations.
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Date: Jul 14, 2020, 11:28 AM
Dear Comrades of the NTI-CI,
We are interested in your history and political positions in light of the extreme urgency for revolutionaries to remove all obstacles to solving the crisis of revolutionary leadership before human extinction overwhelms us.
Like you we support the CEP in its call for an IMT against Munzer’s slander and we do not separate moral questions from political questions. We also see that you have an interest in re-uniting the former militants forced out of the FLTI as it degenerated under Munzer’s leadership. We include ourselves in that exodus having been forced out in 2010 over China, causing the ‘explosion’ you talk about in your critique of the Crisis in the FLTI. https://ntici1938.wordpress.com/2020/05/29/la-crisis-de-la-flti/
We don’t agree that the degeneration in the FLTI began with your expulsion or even with our split over China in 2010. As you suggest in your analysis of the FLTI, its degeneration had started in its internal regime well before that. We did an analysis of that degeneration, as a consequence of the National Trotskyism of Morenoism, in our own balance sheet when we left. https://redrave.blogspot.com/2010/04/draft-balance-sheet-on-cwgs-relations.html
We also wrote Draft Theses on the Crisis and the World Situation in 2010 drawing out the consequences of the rise of China in shaping that crisis and the world situation. https://redrave.blogspot.com/2010/10/draft-theses-on-crisis-and-world_31.html
As we have discovered among the ex-FLTI militants we have spoken with, none of them have seen these two documents which puts the inter-imperialist rivalry between the US and China at the center. Munzer staged our expulsion with histrionics over his rotten bloc with the JRCP to fight for socialism in China to shut down democratic debate over this question.
We hope that you are open to reconsidering our position on China as correct in predicting the trajectory of China in the world in 2010 and essential to any revolutionary revolutionary program today. We leave it to you to read our documents on China by comparing the 2010 Draft Theses with our most recent analysis of the terminal crisis. http://www.cwgusa.org/?p=2395
We look forward to your response and a fruitful discussion.
Revolutionary greetings
Dave Brown
For the International Leninist Trotskyist Tendency
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NTI-CI answer on balance sheet
Date: Sat, Sep 19, 2020 at 8:16 AM
Subject: ANSWER
Comrades of the ILTT:
Comrade Dave Brown:
First of all, we would like to apologize for the delay in our response. Before writing to you we wanted to study your documents, not only on the Chinese question, but also on other very important questions of the class struggle at the international level. From the outbreak of the FLTI in 2010 until today, ten years have passed in which there has been no lack of confrontations between revolution and counter-revolution on an international level. Without revolutionary lessons from the most important events, any revolutionary regroupment is impossible. Unfortunately, we have seen that our differences are not limited to the character of China, but have deepened. For example, let us go to the Syrian question. In your document of March 3, 2020 you maintain the following:
On the side of the revolution we have the majority of the Syrian people who have stood against and been martyred by every assault from March 2011 to today. This includes the ‘civilians’ who remain resolute and the ‘moderate’ and ‘Islamic’ militias who despite being politically at odds, are in a military bloc against the regime. Internationally support is weak (never sufficient to properly arm and augment the militias), sporadic (US, Turkey and Arab states arming militias but at odds with the revolution) and ineffective (EU and Arab states attempts at diplomacy) and must be unless it actively takes the revolutionary side in the war against the regime. The question of whether Turkey’s military intervention measures up to that standard is currently being tested on the ground and in the air in Idlib.
On the side of the counter-revolution the Assad regime is backed by Russia. Without it, the regime would have been defeated in 2015 when the rebels held most of the country and several large cities including Aleppo and Idlib. The Arab states that suppressed the Arab Spring in their countries sided with the Assad regime but were incapable of defeating the Syrian revolution. Iran is a special case, as it was instrumental in engaging Russia to intervene in Syria. Therefore, in the absence of any major imperialist power siding with the revolution, Russia’s intervention swung the balance of forces decisively in favour of the counter-revolution (Idlib, Victory to the Syrian Revolution!).
We understand that the point here is that there was insufficient support from US imperialism and the EU for the revolution. That is, you consider the US and European intervention to be progressive. We do not agree with this statement. If we leave aside the moments when US and European imperialism directly attacked the revolutionary masses through NATO and military coalitions, and it is impossible to leave them aside, imperialism has intervened in Syria by arming the bourgeois army parties such as the ESL, ISIS, etc. so that they could disarm the rebel militias and disorganize the local coordination committees. This is not a “weak international support” but a counter-revolutionary intervention to destroy the revolution from within the resistance. This erroneous characterization leads you to conclude that the problem is that there is a lack of “a great imperialist power that would side with the revolution”.
If this were so, then no revolution would ever be able to triumph. For no imperialism will ever side with the proletarian revolution. The real problem was the crisis of leadership, the betrayal of the reformist leaderships on an international level that surrounded the Syrian masses with the excuse that “imperialism was arming them”. With your position, which places imperialism as an “ineffective” ally, you strengthen the treacherous leaderships that surrounded the revolution. Finally, we do not agree with your call for a “Ceasefire,” a slogan which we believe can sow pacifist illusions among the masses. Instead, we articulate our program around the need to win the war and defeat the regime of Assad. Below we attach the link to our last position on Syria so that you can review it (1).
We must also point out that we do not agree with their “doubly defeatist” position on the Ukraine. We recognize the workers’ militias from the east who stood up to confront the government that emerged from the preventive counter-revolution of Maidan and its subordination to US imperialism and the EU. This is why we stand for the military victory of Dombas against Kiev, while fighting for a proletarian leadership of the civil war (2).
It is important to point out that unlike the great majority of the currents that claim to be Trotskyists in the US, you have put one of the axes of your policy in the struggle for the abolition of the police and for the self-defence committees. This is something we demand. However, we believe that the “Labour Party” tactic you are proposing is wrong. Today a revolutionary party can only develop in the self-organizing bodies that are emerging, in the factory committees. We do not see a process of mass unionization as in the 1930s, which gave rise to the CIO and Trotsky’s labor party tactics. You can consult our position on the U.S. here (3).
We would also like to ask you if you continue to demand, as we did in the 23 points, the struggle for the destruction of the Zionist State of Israel, since in the statements we were able to review, this program is not expressed. In our Workers’ Action No. 2, in a polemic with the Spartacist League, we developed the central part of our position on the Palestinian question (4).
Our position on the Chinese question is expressed in our document on the world situation, which we put to your consideration (5). We believe that many of the differences we have stem from our differences over China and Russia and their characterization of these as new imperialisms. We characterize these countries as relatively independent. We believe that the only thing that can prevent their semi-colonization or colonization by one or more imperialist powers is proletarian revolution. We are open to debate on the Chinese question, and would like to know if you are willing to reconsider your positions on the issues we have outlined above and on others that might emerge from a more thorough study of your documents. We believe that the healthiest thing to do under these conditions is to open a serious debate for the vanguard. In this way the vanguard workers could follow these debates, which will surely make it possible to make clear the agreements and differences, escaping as if from the plague of the Stalinist method of Munzer and his petty-bourgeois clique, of settling political differences by means of slanders, unfounded accusations and insinuations. I believe that what we are proposing here is the only thing that can allow us to explore the possibilities of advancing or not in an international regrouping.
We also refer you to our latest polemic with the FLTI leadership and the true Stalinist character of WIL, its official group in Zimbabwe (6).
Finally, we call on you to pronounce on our campaign for an International Moral Tribunal in the face of a Stalinist provocation by the leadership of the RCIT and its neo-Zapatista group, the ALS of Mexico (7).
An internationalist greeting, Tomás Cuevas, by the NTI-CI
PS. In relation to the FLTI’s balance sheet we want to tell you that having established discussions with different comrades and wings of the international faction’s outburst has made us advance, specify and even correct aspects of our balance sheet. We hope in the near future to publish a more finished balance of the degeneration of the international faction.
PS 2. We regret that we do not have all the documents available in English. If you consider it necessary, we could translate the ones you consider to advance the debate.
References:
1- https://ntici1938.wordpress.com/2020/05/06/mas-de-nueve-anos-de-genocidio-al-pueblo-sirio/
2- https://ntici1938.wordpress.com/2019/10/29/about-the-ukrainian-question/
3- https://ntici1938.wordpress.com/2020/06/04/in-the-face-of-the-murder-of-african-american-george-floyd/
4- https://ntici1938.wordpress.com/2017/11/17/accion-obrera-no-2/
5- https://ntici1938.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/on-the-world-situation/
6- https://ntici1938.wordpress.com/2020/09/01/a-scandalous-betrayal/
7- https://ntici1938.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/call-to-conform-urgently-an-international-moral-tribunal/
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27 September 2020
Comrades of NTI-CI,
Dear Comrade Tomas Cuevas,
Thanks for your reply to our letter of July 14, 2020
We will deal with the main points you make in order for clarity. First is your claim that we see the US as ‘progressive’ on the side of the revolution. If this were true, it would obviously be a capitulation to social imperialism and a liquidation of the revolutionary party. This is a serious charge based on a quote from one article taken out of context. This is surprising as we have written many articles on Syria (and MENA also) where we say the opposite – that the US is the No 1 terrorist, and main imperialist aggressor and invader in MENA.
The US in Syria
Comrades, we certainly do not see the US as a ‘progressive’ force in Syria or anywhere in the world. It is the main counter-revolutionary power in the world today. In MENA the US has intervened over decades and especially since the first Gulf War in 1991. However, in Syria today the US has no strong or immediate interest in changing the status quo, that is, the Assad regime (or some alternative bourgeois regime which suits US imperialism). Since the ’82 Lebanese civil war the Assad family has never challenged Israel and the status quo in the Middle East.
Therefore, in Syria the US interest is to negotiate a stable regime that does not directly challenge Israel nor US interests in the region. We have also argued that the US is not interested in challenging Russia’s role in propping up Assad, so long as US wider interests are not challenged. This is clear from the failure of Obama to impose his ‘red line’ on Assad, the embargo on SAMs that could be used against the regime, and the attempts to sponsor militias to support an alternative bourgeois regime to replace Assad.
Nor do we agree that ISIS was deliberately armed by the US. Its core militants are Iraqi Sunnis who were jailed by the US from 2003 onwards, and its arming results from captured US arms and equipment during the insurgency. To suggest otherwise is to advance a conspiracy theory that denies the capacity of Iraqi insurgents to mobilise and fight imperialist occupation. The US special forces have fought ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and allied with the Kurds in East Euphrates, and are now occupying oil fields in that region formerly captured by ISIS, all in the defence of the status quo which it has largely created. We defend ISIS against the US. The real project of US imperialism in the region, especially under Trump, is to use its proxies to ensure that the US/EU policing of client regimes in MENA continues to serve its economic interests.
Therefore, the point of our article you quote from is not that US imperialism is ‘progressive’. That is a misrepresentation in the context of the full article. You quote some sentences as if we are implying that the US has an interest in defending the revolution. No! The US would only support the Syrian revolution if it advanced its overall interests in the region which are counter-revolutionary through and through. The point of the article is talk about the stand that revolutionaries take in the course of a national revolution when an imperialist power (or a regional power like Turkey) takes a side in the revolution in its own interests? It is important to look at objective situation in all of its concrete aspects to weigh up the balance of forces of revolution and counter-revolution so as to arrive at practical actions that advance the revolution.
All of this is in the context of the Syrian national democratic revolution that was capable of defeating the Assad regime without direct imperialist aid until Russia intervened. Since then the revolution has been in retreat and is now finally trapped in Idlib surrounded by its enemies. As we point out, the militias have nowhere to go, and the people who support the revolution see no way out except a ceasefire that buys time for the revolution. Their hopes that the US and the EU will negotiate a ceasefire and arrive at a ‘democratic’ solution have been destroyed. They have no option but to take advantage of Turkey’s interest in including Idlib into a buffer zone along its border.
The Ceasefire as Tactic
For revolutionaries the military tactics in that situation are not solved by proclaiming “advance the revolution” in the abstract but only by spelling out the tactics necessary to do so. Among them will be how to take advantage of the clashing interests among the imperialist powers and their regional proxies. One of those tactics is a ceasefire that buys time until material aid from revolutionary workers around the world can come to the aid of the revolution. As we all know the crisis of revolutionary leadership has prevented any worthwhile campaign to be mounted by revolutionaries to arm, let alone join, the Syrian revolution.
In the article you quote from we state:
“Putin and Assad were against the ‘terrorists’ surviving anywhere. Astana was never observed on the ground and the gains made by the regime backed by Russian and Iranian forces tore it up. Assad’s revenge, as elsewhere in Syria, was the total destruction of towns and cities and the targeting of civilians, men women and children, schools and hospitals. This was to be the total destruction of the revolution. Turkeys response was to defend its buffer zone, by invoking a humanitarian crisis of the million refugees camped on its borders, and defending its authority under Astana to maintain observation posts inside Idlib. This situation then quickly escalated within weeks from a few soldiers on the ground to masses of tanks and infantry, and then F-16s in the air.”
Facing this objective situation of the revolution in retreat, revolutionaries must evaluate the intervention of semi-colonial Turkey in Idlib in March this year to create a ceasefire and a buffer zone. We argue Turkey made use of its alliance with Russia to pressure Assad into agreement. We say Turkey is objectively siding with the Syrian revolution in its own interests. Should this provoke a military conflict between Russia and Turkey we would defend Turkey. At the same time, we see that the US and EU have no current interest to intervene in Idlib on the side of the revolution against the regime and its Russian backers, as their interests are elsewhere.
And further on in the article you quote from, we go on to say:
“Revolutionaries who claim the tradition of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky must agree. We support the Syrian Revolution against the counter-revolution. The revolutionary people who refuse to live under Assad can make use of any support offered their cause, whether or not their long-term objectives with their allies are the same. The revolution must live to fight another day, just as the militias on the South of Syria who surrendered to Assad in return for safe passage to (ultimately) Idlib. Yet, in defending Turkey’s military intervention on the side of the revolution we do not agree with its bourgeois national pro-imperialism, its political regime, nor its oppression of the Kurds. But if the war escalates into a wider war between two main protagonists, Russia and Turkey, we take the side of the oppressed semi-colonial nation against the imperialist oppressor nation.” [emphasis added]
Trotsky on revolutionary tactics
The larger question which the article addresses is: how do revolutionaries orient themselves in a semi-colonial civil war when outside powers are intervening? First, we have to characterize those powers as imperialist or not, together with their active political and economic interests, so as to have a correct program. Second, when two or more imperialist powers are clashing over territory and taking sides in a civil war, while we are for the defeat of all imperialist powers, can we take advantage of this clash of interests? As Trotsky said in his ‘Learn to Think’, in the relation to Algeria, we can postulate a situation where fascist Italy arms the revolutionary movement, clashing with colonial France. This situation requires more subtlety than an abstract dual defeatism. Workers in Italy would continue to fight to overthrow the fascist regime at home but also ensure that the arms reached the Algerian insurgents. But where such an opportunity arises, Trotskyists must clearly warn revolutionaries that the interests of imperialism are never progressive, but in fact counter-revolutionary.
In Syria, as elsewhere, we follow Trotsky’s method. The national democratic revolution begins with a fight for transitional demands for national self-determination, democratic rights and economic reforms. Of course, the bourgeois factions compete to align with imperialist powers to form new regimes to exploit and oppress the masses. Therefore, our program has to expose the counter-revolutionary nature of imperialism and its bourgeois lackeys. To succeed the workers and poor peasants have to break from the national bourgeoisie and their imperialist overlords. This requires a Trotskyist international to fight for the leadership of the democratic revolution to transform it into permanent revolution for socialism.
To quote again from the same article:“We unconditionally take the side of the workers and poor farmers who are the life blood of the revolution. We call for a ceasefire and a Workers’ and Farmers’ government in Idlib supported by all the Arab masses, and defended by workers internationally. But for this to succeed the workers of the Middle East, in particular of Turkey and Iran must overthrow their authoritarian regimes and take the leadership in the anti-imperialist fight, breaking with their imperialist masters and overthrowing their pro-imperialist bourgeois ruling classes. We demand that the workers of Europe, and the other imperialist powers, fight to open their borders to migrants and refugees fleeing the exploitation and oppression of centuries, and build antifascist militias and workers councils capable of overthrowing their ruling classes, liberating the oppressed semi-colonies as part of the global socialist revolution, under the leadership of a new revolutionary communist international.”
Russia: ‘independent’ or ‘imperialist’? In the above discussion on the question of revolutionary tactics taking advantage of conflicts among imperialist powers, we characterise Russia as imperialist, and its interest in Syria is that of an imperialist power. It came to the aid of Assad when his regime was threatened by the revolution. Putin advanced Russia’s imperialist interests by making an alliance between Syria, Turkey and Iran against the Arab revolution as a whole and to strengthen the wider Russia/China bloc.
There is no evidence that Russia is sacrificing its own interests to play the role of a US proxy in Syria. Russian and US interests are not aligned in Syria but nor do they justify an open conflict unless Russia challenges the US occupation of the East Euphrates region. This is now becoming a strong possibility according to the latest developments. In that event our position is one of dual defeatism because the two imperialist blocs that are contesting control of MENA, from Morocco to Iran, must both be defeated by a victorious Arab Democratic Revolution that is completed as the Permanent Revolution for a United Federation of Socialist Republics. However, on the question of whether Russia is ‘independent’ or ‘imperialist’, we agree with you, this must be part of the larger debate we continue to have on China. We see this as a critical debate because in our opinion it marked a significant degeneration in the FLTI. We would certainly like to develop the debate on this question in the wider discussion that is taking place among ex-militants of the FLTI. Meanwhile we have circulated a short article summarising the main points at issue as we see them and have published it online.
On the other questions you raise, on Israel, Ukraine and the RCIT, and the question of amending our balances on the FLTI, we expect that these will also be part of the agenda for discussion among all the ex-militants who are contributing to developing a balance of the FLTI to settle a score with National Trotskyism in order to build a healthy Trotskyist current in Latin America as part of a healthy international. We look forward to a productive and fruitful debate.
Comradely greetings
Dave Brown (for International Leninist-Trotskyist Tendency)
27 September 2020
