Middle East Archive | Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism
The counter-attack of imperialism in order to stabilize and intensify its domination in the area, in the framework of the arrangement between the superpowers, has lately taken a most horrible shape.
In Jordan, the massacre of the remnants of the Palestinian Resistance Movement is being accomplished to the rejoicing and support of the Zionists and the consent of the “progressive” Arab states. The Palestinian organizations have been led from disaster to disaster, defeat to defeat, by the petit-bourgeois leadership whose connections with the Arab reaction and policy of non-intervention in the internal affairs of the Arab countries have placed them in the camp of imperialism while spouting revolutionary clichés. The Security Council resolution and the Rogers plan – which we have vigorously opposed – are the local manifestations of the global arrangement of “peaceful coexistence” which is destined to hold back the development of a revolutionary force in the area, to perpetuate class exploitation and national suppression.
Coexistence with imperialism means surrendering to imperialism. This strategy is a consequence of the “theory of stages” implemented by both Moscow and Peking. The meaning of this theory is that national liberation is a necessary stage prior to a socialist revolution, and that in the underdeveloped countries, due to the weakness of the bourgeoisie, the primary task of the proletariat and the peasants is to ally themselves with the national bourgeoisie. This is an alliance against imperialism and the feudal forces, and the establishment of a “national front,” an interclass coalition leaving the national bourgeoisie in power. In the name of this theory, Moscow and Peking have pushed the Communist parties to support petit-bourgeois regimes and bourgeois governments. Adoption of this theory by the various Stalinist parties has pushed them into interclass alliances, exempted them from the necessity of establishing an independent organization of the working class and from the necessity of educating the masses for the task of taking power; and eventually it has caused their liquidation, when their class “ally” felt himself strong enough for that This was the cause of die massacre of the workers in China in 1927, in the Spanish Civil War, in Greece, in Indonesia, in Ceylon, the massacre in Jordan and the slaughter in the Sudan.
In the Sudan, the Communist Party has been impelled to support Numeiry’s petit-bourgeois regime and the formation of a popular front with him. Here, too, the regime launched a campaign of persecution against the Communists while strengthening its relations with the Soviet Union. The size and vitality of the Communist Party in the Sudan caused the ruling bureaucracy in the USSR to restrain it, because of its desire to remain in peaceful coexistence with imperialism. Without this desire, the counterblow launched against those who deposed Numeiry would not have been possible. Indeed, Hasham Al-Atah did carry out a military coup d’etat, but he assured the legality of the activity of the Communist Party and the trade unions. This was sufficient for the followers of the existing order, Ghadafi and al-Sadat, under the auspices of Moscow and Peking, who would sacrifice him on the altar of the imperialist “arrangement.” Moscow, who kept silent at the persecutions of the Communists in the Sudan some months before the coup and even after its failure, broke her silence only after she had been accused by Numeiry of supporting the coup. The verbal warfare against Numeiry was launched only after the execution of the Sudanese Communist Party leaders. And Peking outdid Moscow by sending a cable of congratulations to Numeiry on his return to power.
The Stalinist bureaucracy and the parties following it – all those who stand for an interclass alliance on behalf of national unity and patriotism at the stage of national liberation preceding social liberation – are responsible for every drop of blood shed in the Sudan and previously in Jordan. A Communist Party which supports a national front with the “democratic” bourgeoisie betrays the real interests of its members, betrays the socialist revolution in favor of the interests of the bureaucracies in Moscow and Peking.
As for the Palestinian struggle, it should be stated frankly that the attempt of most of the Palestinian organizations to fight Zionism only, based on national unity, is doomed to failure. There is no national liberation without expelling imperialism and its allies in the area, i.e., without a socialist revolution. The way to accomplish this is by the establishment of an all-Middle-East proletarian party which would fight imperialism, Zionism and Arab reaction for the socialist revolution.
Middle East Archive | Encyclopedia of Trotskyism
Marxists’ Internet Archive
Last updated on 19.8.2006