Introductory Note:There was a debate within the FLTI regarding China, between a minority consisting of HWRS and the Communist Workers Group of New Zealand (CWG), and a majority consisting of the Latin American sections of the FLTI and the WIVL in South Africa. The July 2009 FLTI Congress agreed to continue the debate on China publically, before the global workers’ movement, pending further discussion at a future congress. This document, a letter written by CWG comrade DB to WIVL comrade SM in February 2010, responds to the majority’s criticism of the minority’s document on Haiti, which also relates to the debate on China. It was generated as an internal document, and has not been edited for grammar and style. See also the related letter on Haiti from HWRS to the LOI-CI (Argentina section of FLTI).
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In Defense of the Minority on Haiti
Dear Comrade [SM],
It seems that the closer we get to the promised reply of the majority on the China question the more shrill become the denunciations of the HWRS as a ‘pacifist left cover’ for US imperialism.
It would be easy for any group in the US to sit on the internet and prove its revolutionary credentials by demanding ‘defeat the US’ in Haiti. But any serious revolutionary must have a program to do this.
The statement on Haiti is a joint statement by HWRS and CWG the first draft of which appeared on redrave on the 15th, 3 days after the earthquake. It was subsequently amended to try to deal with the whole world situation underlying the the reality in Haiti in line with the minority’s perspectives.
The most important fact about this current US military occupation is its brazenness, in not even hiding the fact that that is what it is. In the 1990s and right up to 2004 the US has tried to paint its control of Haiti in terms of furthering ‘democracy’ in a failed state and until this invasion it even hid behind the UN to do it. Now, it exposes its iron fist even more directly than it has done in Honduras or Colombia. Why?
You say this is no more than the US defending its backyard from France, Japan and Germany in a crisis in which these rival imperialisms threaten US interests. We say rubbish. The US has nothing to fear from these subordinated imperialisms. France alone, is a potential threat in Latin America, but mainly because it has increasingly aligned itself with China, as in the case of its collaboration with the regimes in Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela. Unlike the majority of the FLTI, France now sees China as a potential rival of the US and is hedging its bets in dealing with China. The US also sees this and has pushed France out of the picture in Haiti.
In other words the minority has an explanation grounded in reality for the military escalation of US policy in Latin America, which includes the new invasion of Haiti to take over from the UN occupation.
This means that the US is shifting to an openly military offensive which of course will be opposed by the ALBA states using their military hardware supplied by China and Russia. Already we see the deployment of Russian attack helicopters against the US overflights of Venezuela. But as we all know, these regimes will do deals with the US since even with modern weaponry they are no match for its military power. Or more likely they will be destabilised and overthrown before the working class can break with them and organise and arm independently. And even if workers were to arm themselves in time, they could only win if US imperialism was defeated by the US working class going on the offensive against its own ruling class.
This is precisely the point of the call in our statement to mobilise US and French workers to strike against the military occupation. Do you want us to call on them to do so arms in hand? We also call on international solidarity to rebuild Haiti and for international defence committees to go to Haiti. We don’t openly call them militias as Haiti is under US military occupation and to call for an international brigade or milita would be tactically very foolish.
There is nothing pacifist in our position since we indentify the actual interimperialist rivalry that is behind the US military escalation and the obvious fact that this will lead to further military conflict in Latin America. And we have a program to defeat the US ruling class at home which says workers strike action to defeat the US occupation and no confidence in the Castroite/Bolivarian alliance with China which the real US pacifists are using as an international popular front to oppose US imperialism.
The majority on the other hand see the US as the only serious imperialist enemy in Latin America and will join military blocs with China against the US. In doing so they will practically disarm the workers and peasants militias because they will not be able to convince them of the dangers of a popular front with China in time for workers to break with the popular front and arm themselves independently.
Thus in Bolivia, the FLTI majority persists in seeing the Morales regime as agents for Totafina only and not the Chinese banks that are bankrolling Garcia Linera’s capitalist development. The FLTI majority cannot convince the miners vanguard that Morales promises cannot be paid for by a progressive ‘socialist’ ally China, because China is imperialist and must superexploit Bolivia’s resources and labor power and will soon own Bolivia’s national debt (directly and through Venezuela) and arm the regime to defend it in any conflict with other imperialist powers.
Thus while we do not say the the majority is pacifist, so long as it fails to recognise China as imperialist it cannot confront workers with this fact to break them from the pacifist politics of the popular front.
So comrade, before you throw the word pacifist around you need to do some serious thinking. As a contribution to that we would welcome the majority reply to the minority on China so that the basic difference between us can be further debated without the need for slanders.
revolutionary greetings
[DB]