A Third Campist Would Call for Troops Out
When Max Shachtman developed his theory that the Soviet Union was a new kind of system called “bureaucratic collectivism” he was ridiculed by his former comrades in the US SWP for not supporting the Soviet working class. However, as history has shown, it was Shachtman’s analyisis that was far closer to the truth of the situation in the Soviet Union and precisely how it effected that class.
“He has given up on the gains of the workers state!” Joseph Hansen and others in the US SWP leadership cried without recognising that the supposed gains were far outweighed by the devastation and oppression felt by the class who those gains were supposed to be for.
I bring this up because I have been continually disturbed by the AWL’s use of Shachtman’s Third Camp analysis and their application of the ideas to Iraq. First and foremost, Shachtman’s analysis has credit precisely because he is most concerned with the effect on the working class, not a model or a system of government that claims to help the class. As applied to Iraq Shachtman’s Third Camp position would be actually in favour of troop withdrawal. Sorry to break it to you comrades.
Why do I say this?
Let’s look at the position that the working class finds itself in – both the Iraqi and US working class. It’s pretty self evident that the initial chaos brought about by the US invasion led to a series of events in which the day to day chaos in Iraq became commonplace. It is true that the sectarian killings are a major issue for Iraqi people and are committed by the members of the so-called resistance – however there is no historical precedent for the US restoring order in a foreign country in the midst of chaos and while they or their puppets are occupying a country. Look at Latin America for ample examples of how the US operates. The argument for the troops to not leave is therefore detrimental to the Iraqi working class and cannot be explained away by claiming the US is fighting for some ethereal “democracy” any more than the argument to protect the “gains of the workers state” was valid when one looked at how the Soviet working class was effected in reality.
Now, let’s look at the effect on the US working class. Over the past week there has been coverage of the possibility of the implementation of a draft in the US. Currently a poverty draft exists for the armed forces. Unlike the British army, most Americans join the US army, marines and so forth in order to get money for college or when options for employment have run dry. So the class is already being very heavily affected by casualties due to the occupation in Iraq. See the recent article in the Observer for a taste of what life is like for military families:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2147109,00.html
With the implementation of the draft however, there would be a whole new attack on the class. This would require all men above the age of 18 to face conscription to join an army of foreign occupation. This is bad for the class – in fact it’s a tragedy for the US working class in particular and the class as a whole. There is no sense in which the AWL can seriously not call for troops out when the US working class is forcibly being sent to kill the Iraqi working class due to the military ineptitude of US administrators.
If Shachtman’s Third Camp analysis is applied here, it is very easy to see why one can support such a position and also call for troops out. The AWL must urgently reassess their position particularly given the very real possibility that the US working class is now facing a new attack by the US ruling class in the implementation of a nationwide draft. Just as Shachtman did with the Soviet Union, they need to assess what the impact is on the class as a whole despite platitudes from both the US administration about “democracy” and the British far left about “resistance”. Both claim to be supporting the side that is for the class – third campists know better and so should the AWL.
Clive said,
August 17, 2007 at 11:58 am
I’m afraid I don’t follow at all what the AWL’s assessment of the current situation in Iraq has got to do with Shachtman’s (please get his name right!) analysis of the USSR. Both, surely, stand or fall on their own independent merits.
I don’t think resistance to the draft in the US is at issue – the AWL would oppose it, I am sure. (Wouldn’t you be able to oppose the draft, actually, without reference to Iraq at all? Maybe you wouldn’t. But it doesn’t seem to me self-evident that in order to oppose the draft you have to couple it with the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq).
If troops out now is the right slogan for Iraq, I think this has to be shown with reference to actual Iraqi realities. Jim’s post below highlights some of the complexities this involves – by analogy. Asserting that this or that follows automatically from the idea of a ‘third camp’ (still less ‘bureaucratic collectivism’) seems to me a feeble method of argument.
The argument is that in order to oppose the occupation of Iraq and whatever else goes with it, we don’t have to be lightminded about our use of slogans. I am very unpersuaded that ‘troops out now’ is a good slogan. If immediate withdrawal resulted in sectarian civil war even on half, say, the scale of India, we would not have served the Iraqi working class well.
Granted this makes life quite difficult, in terms of working out exactly what to say and how to pose things. But life, unfortunately, is quite difficult.
Simon B said,
August 17, 2007 at 12:06 pm
If you say “Troops out now!”, can I also suggest “Start all out civil war now!”, “End Freedom of speech, movement and association now!” and “Death to the Iraqi trade unions!”.
Simon B said,
August 17, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Sorry I meant “Death to the Iraqi trade unions now!”.
I know ‘now’ is what makes it properly principled and anti-imperialist, so I must get it right.
twp77 said,
August 17, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Sorry for the sloppy spelling error and spell check – it has now been corrected.
The reason that I am bringing up the Third Camp issue is that this is precisely how the AWL’s position has been explained to me by AWLers! They claim that because of Shachtman’s position their organisation has a Third Camp position and that because of this position they cannot call on “troops out now” because in essence this would mean siding with one of the camps.
The point of Shachtman’s argument is that it was based on the realities faced by the working class – not some idealised version of what SHOULD be happening to the working class. I think that Jim’s assertions in the past that US occupation is preferable because the US is internally a democracy are not in fact third campist.
The troops out now argument is the only one that makes sense to me as someone who considers themselves a third campists because I am looking at what effect the occupation has on the class as a whole which is precisely what Shachtman did when coming up with his theory of bureaucratic collectivism. I think this has become even more urgent with the issue of a draft in the US and I don’t see how it is possible to oppose the draft but not call for troops out.
The point is that the focus should be on the class and how it is affected.
As for Simon B’s assertions – well that’s your view – but I think the working class is taking the brunt now and will continue to do so as long as the occupation continues. It is a very obvious fact when you look at casualty figures for both Iraqis and troops.
modernityblog said,
August 17, 2007 at 2:46 pm
TWP,
I am interested, what is the likelihood of a nationwide Draft?
I can’t see how that would work politically, 1) as Bush is a lame duck and couldn’t force it through. His fellow Republicans in the Senate want to put as much distance as they can from him and the War (to keep their seats), any future presidential Republican candidate mentioning the draft would probably lose
2) Democrats (the likely next incumbent of the Presidency), might consider it? but would they do it? doesn’t it admit defeat?
3) surely what will happen after the US formally leaves Iraq** is a period of isolationism and reorganisation of the US military, with enticements rather than draft to bring in troops?
I would be interested to hear about the draft and its probability
[** I would suspect that the US won't really leave Iraq fully, they will significantly reduce their troop numbers and come to some arrangement (maybe with the Kurds) for a very large US military base in the country]
Dr Paul said,
August 17, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Max Shachtman and his supporters left the US Socialist Workers Party in 1940 as revolutionary Marxists; by the time he joined the Socialist Party in 1958 he was rapidly becoming a right-wing social democrat. Shachtman’s group sloughed off rightward-moving individuals and currents right from the start. The important question is this: was it their analysis of the Soviet Union as a new form of class society, one that was less able to afford democratic rights than advanced capitalist states, that drew them away from Marxism towards social democracy and worse (a few Shachtmanites became the precursors of neo-conservatism)? Or was it other factors? The revolutionary Marxist movement saw a fair amount of defections to social democracy, liberalism, etc, after 1945; only a small amount of them adhered to Shacthman’s analysis of Stalinism as a new class society. Nonetheless, I would reckon on its being a factor in their rightward trajectory.
Jim Denham said,
August 17, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Yet, Doc, Hal Draper and plenty of other “Shachtmanities”, *didn’t* drift to the right. And plenty of Stalinists and “orthodox” Trots, did. So I reckon your assessment that ther is something deep within Shachtmanism that predisposes its followers to ending up as rightists, is flawed. You yourself acknowledge that of the revolutionary Marxists who defected to liberalism or the right “only a small amount of them adhered to Shachtman’s analysis”…I think you’ve answered your own point most eloqently.
Lobby Ludd said,
August 17, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Jim, you say that plenty of other “Shachtmanities” didn’t drift to the right. I would be interested to know who they were and what political formations they ended up in, if any.
(Much as I hate to say this, this is a genuine question.)
Jim Denham said,
August 17, 2007 at 10:26 pm
The best known was Hal Draper, whose group the “independent Socialists” was linked to Cliff’s International Socialists for many years, and having the same initials, used the same logo. As far as I know, Draper (who is now dead) and his comrades have remained revolutionary socialists to this day.
Will said,
August 17, 2007 at 11:34 pm
Yawn
Will said,
August 17, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Phrase-mongering shit never got anyone anywhere.
When are you dipshits going to fucking realise?
“third camp” — oh for fucks sake – go and fuck yourselves you utterly stupid lighter than air phrasemongering total twats.
I’m giving up on this place.
Jim! If you want to post at the DSTPFW give me an email. You’ll be welcome to join us. This crew of ignorant tits are beneath you.
Will said,
August 18, 2007 at 12:35 am
ModBlog would be fun at parties.
“Answer a straight question: did you or did you not overcook the risotto?”
Dear fucking me.
I will leave you tossers to toss your shit now.
Tossers.
Will said,
August 18, 2007 at 12:44 am
Are you not ashamed to be assocaited with crap like this Jim?
Show some fucking balls man!
voltaires_priest said,
August 18, 2007 at 10:54 am
Will: stop fucking appealing to Jim. He doesn’t have a veto over what gets posted here, and he doesn’t want one. Also, not being (in spite of reputation) a pro-war leftist, he might not fit in as well on the Trots as you think.
twp77 said,
August 18, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Will – why do you think it’s “crap”? The AWL describe themselves as Third Campists and so has Jim in the past. Can you at least tell me why you think my argument is shit instead of calling me a tosser?
twp77 said,
August 18, 2007 at 2:46 pm
To answer the question on former Shachtmanites – a numer of those who followed the US IS or the Draper group ended up in Solidarity who I worked with when I moved back to Salt Lake City, Utah for a time. Not what I would describe as social democrats but not quite “revolutionary socialists” either. However, they are one of the best far left organisations in the US today as far as analysis is concerned. A number of their members write for the publlication Against the Current which is makes for rather good reading, particularly on the US labor movement.
Here is their website: http://www.solidarity-us.org/ecosocialism
Against the Current: http://www.solidarity-us.org/atc
modernityblog said,
August 18, 2007 at 2:48 pm
its a shame that an otherwise interesting thread has been so comprehensively disrupted
a pity I thought the issue of the Draft was relevant to the real world, and TWP’s points were political, it is just a bit silly that some people couldn’t respond to them with political arguments
twp77 said,
August 18, 2007 at 2:50 pm
And Modernity – on the question of a draft see this section from the article link that I posted from last week’s Observer:
“‘War tsar’ calls for return of the draft to take the strain
America’s ‘war tsar’ has called for the nation’s political leaders to consider bringing back the draft to help a military exhausted by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In a radio interview, Lieutenant General Douglas Lute said the option had always been open to boost America’s all-volunteer army by drafting in young men in the same way as happened in Vietnam. ‘I think it makes sense to consider it,’ he said. Lute was appointed ‘war tsar’ earlier this year after President Bush decided a single figure was needed to oversee the nation’s military efforts abroad.
Rumours of a return to the draft have long circulated in military circles as the pressure from fighting two large conflicts at the same time builds on America’s forces. However, politically it would be extremely difficult to achieve, especially for any leader hoping to be elected in 2008. Bush has previously ruled out the suggestion as unnecessary.
Lute, however, said the war was causing stress to military families and, as a result, was having an impact on levels of re-enlistment. ‘This kind of stress plays out across dinner tables and in living-room conversations within these families. Ultimately the health of the all-volunteer force is going to rest on those sorts of personal family decisions,’ he said.
A draft would revive bad memories of the turmoil of the 1960s and early 1970s when tens of thousands of young men were drafted to fight and die in Vietnam. Few other policies proved as divisive in America and the memories of anti-war protesters burning their draft cards and fleeing to Canada are still vivid in the memory.”
modernityblog said,
August 18, 2007 at 3:27 pm
agreed TWP,
I think the draft in the US is the political kiss of death, the politicians will get out of the present pickle by reducing commitments (out of Iraq, etc) and thus take off the strain and pressure on the military
Jules said,
August 18, 2007 at 8:37 pm
VP wrote “Will: stop fucking appealing to Jim. He doesn’t have a veto over what gets posted here, and he doesn’t want one. Also, not being (in spite of reputation) a pro-war leftist, he might not fit in as well on the Trots as you think.”
Leftists – the popinjays? You’ve got to be kidding!
Since when were dehumanising, elitist, power worshipping little twats considered to be on the “left”?
Jim Denham said,
August 18, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Since the SWP started sucking up to Galloway, that’s when, Jules.
voltaires_priest said,
August 19, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Jules; I think it’s fair to describe the drink-soaked ones as on the left, albeit that they got it horribly wrong over the Iraq war (and if I recall correctly one or two of them had some funny ideas over Lebanon too). I think it’s also fair to call them “pro-war” though, although one or two of them at least object to this.
Dr Paul said,
August 19, 2007 at 2:27 pm
To reply to Jim D, the Shachtmanite position was that the Soviet Union and other Stalinist states were a new form of class society, a totalitarian form of society that could not tolerate the democratic rights that the working class had won in many capitalist countries, especially the advanced ones. This implied that there was more scope for the left to develop and take power in a bourgeois democracy than in a Stalinist state; and it also implied that the former should be defended against the latter — on the proviso that the concept of the Third Camp of the working class was pushed to the background.
From the start, commencing with James Burnham, Shachtmanites sloughed off rightward-moving individuals and currents, putting the Third Camp to the background, or out of the picture altogether. Shachtman eventually came to identify the Third Camp with the labour bureaucracy in the USA, the class-collaborationist, pro-imperialist gang who have sold out the US workers time and again.
I happily accept that there were Shachtmanites who remained revolutionary Marxists to the end, or are still going as such. They accept the primacy of the Third Camp, not rejected it, or like Shachtman defined it out of recognition. But the question remains about Stalinism as a new form of class society — a central factor in the Shachtmanite analysis. Daft as the ‘degenerated workers’ state’ is — how can it be a workers’ state if the workers are fully excluded from any form of power? — Trotsky (if not some of his successors) recognised that Stalinism was not a new form of class society, but was an unstable social formation emerging from the specific historical experience of the Soviet regime (backwardness, isolation, etc). Indeed, with great prescience, he wrote in 1936 that the Soviet bureaucracy would eventually have to convert state property into its private property if it were to survive — that it did in 1991, with the Chinese regime doing it over the past couple of decades. This surely should knock on the head any idea of a new form of class society having emerged after 1929.
In short, the dynamic driving many Shachtmanites from Marxism was their abandonment of the Third Camp; but I do think that their analysis of the Soviet Union, China, etc, as a new form of class society — that is, something fairly permanent, not historically short-lived and temporary — helped in their shift towards social democracy, liberalism or neo-conservatism.
johng said,
August 19, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Most estimates of the carnage of partition on the Indian subcontinent put the figures for the dead between one and two million. Given that at the time the population was about three hundred million its fairly obvious that proportionately the carnage in Iraq is already much worse then the partition of India. If Clive could tell me exactly how British or American troops are doing anything whatsoever to avert this carnage (which is getting worse and worse) I’d be interested to hear about it. Is there any rational argument against the view that the presence of foreign troops is simply making the situation worse? I’ve never heard one.
johng said,
August 19, 2007 at 5:41 pm
On reflection those figures and what they mean are rather shocking really. Its an indication of what happens when the entire debate is centred around the defence of western credibility rather then whats actually happening on the ground in Iraq. the last four years in Iraq has been worst then the partition of the subcontinent in the late 1940’s. And yet discussion continues as if there was nothing more at stake then the reputation of those who supported this unmitigated disaster. Its surreal.
voltaires_priest said,
August 19, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Whilst I actually do agree with the immediate withdrawal of troops and therefore disagree with the vast majority of the AWL, I still can’t help but pass comment on John’s peculiar tracing back of cause from effect. Yes, the carnage in Iraq is terrible. But in and of itself that clearly doesn’t “prove” that the continued presence of the troops is what is making it worse.
Gabriel said,
August 19, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Is it possible that there is such a thing as a Schachmanite cult of the personality, or can that sort of thing only happen to us Stalinists?
Jim Denham said,
August 19, 2007 at 11:24 pm
I think, Gabriel, that you’ll find most self-confessed “Shachtmanites”:
a/ Have trouble even spelling their mentor’s name;
b/ are pretty critical of his record -particularly in his final years…
…but that does not diminish his contributions to Marxism.
johng said,
August 20, 2007 at 11:40 am
I’m not trying to ‘prove’ any such thing. Given that this is the view of most of Iraq’s population and indeed most British officers in the field I was wondering what your arguments were against this position. Given the outlandish nature of claiming the contrary its surely up to those who hold the strange position that the presence of the troops is helping matters to explain exactly why they think this is true. anyone who knows anything at all about colonial occupations of this kind will know that it is invariably the case that such things are made worse by the presence of foreign troops (from India to Aden to just about anywhere else you care to mention). Colonial occupations and Sectarian politics go togeather like a horse and carriage. They certainly do so in Iraq, a country which until five years ago had no traditions of mass sectarian politics. Despite Saddam Hussain’s dictatorship one in six of the population are currently in mixed marriages. One suspects this was a more integrated population then exists in most western countries.
johng said,
August 20, 2007 at 11:41 am
‘peculiar cause and effect’. Voltaire clearly belongs to the ‘nothing to do with us’ crowd.
Dr Paul said,
August 20, 2007 at 8:53 pm
John G wrote: ‘Despite Saddam Hussain’s dictatorship one in six of the population are currently in mixed marriages.’
One thing one can say about Ba’athism is that it wasn’t in principle sectarian, even though in Iraq in practice it came to rest rather more upon the Sunni population than amongst others. Politically it was repressive, there’s no doubt of that, but it didn’t necessarily discriminate against religious groups. For instance, I do not think that Christians were repressed on a religious basis. I doubt if the regime was particularly worried about, say, Sunni-Shia marriages, or other mixed marriages, and,as Iraq was a modern country compared to much of the Middle East, one can’t be surprised that such relationships took place, particularly in the cities. It’s worth remembering that women played a more prominent role in Iraq under the Ba’ath than in many other Middle Eastern countries.
Ba’athism was a typical national liberation movement; it was contradictory in the way such movements are. It brought in many social reforms. But the way it went, with its repression of political rivals and the grotesque personality cult around Saddam Hussein, is sadly typical of such movements. However, what Iraq is lumbered with now is going to be worse; little or none of the social reforms that Ba’athism introduced, and much of the negative features of the old regime matched with state theology in the Sunni and Shia areas, and clan-based gangsterism in the Kurdish area.
Jim Denham said,
August 20, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Dr Paul: I don’t disagree with much of what you say. However, I do think that to describe the grotesque, genocidal (against the Kurds and Marsh Arabs). fascististic brutality of Ba’tahism as “a typical national liberation movement” is a little unfair to most national liberation movements, which, whatever their faults, are not usually genocidal fascists. The IRA, for instance, was often sectarian towards Protestants, but was not genocidal: there is a qualitative difference.
voltaires_priest said,
August 20, 2007 at 9:20 pm
John;
How so? It’s fairly obvious point of history that you don’t judge cause purely by circumstances after an event. You need a bit more than that. You’re also capable at your best of doing more than simply talking rhetorical bollocks, so be a good chap and give it a go.
Will said,
August 24, 2007 at 12:37 am
I like* (that’s irony you shitsuckers*) how the majority of interlocutors here are utter fucking morons (thick, wankers, twats, fuckwits, arseholes etc etc).
Semi-educated cunts with nothing to contribute other than what makes ideological (i.e., operating in a fashion of which its practitioners are unconscious) shit. You ignorant pieces of filth.
You have not yet found yourself, you have lost yourself. Visible Panty Line is the least of your worries.
Long Live Israel!
voltaires_priest said,
August 24, 2007 at 7:45 am
Stupid misanthropic fucker.