ENG
Do not throw out the baby with the bathwater
Some remarks of the International Commission of the Central Committee of the RCWP on the article of the International Department of the Central Committee of the KKE in Rizospastis of April 1, 2023 "On the so-called "World Anti-Imperialist Platform" and its pernicious and disorienting character"
In Russia, however, as in other nations, the popular expression is widely used: "Do not throw out the baby with the bathwater." It is used as a disapproving statement, implying that by discarding or rejecting unnecessary details, one can lose the essential meaning. In other words, by giving up something clearly bad, you can lose something very valuable. This comparison immediately comes to mind when one reads the article of the Greek comrades "On the so-called 'World Anti-Imperialist Platform' and Its Pernicious and Disorienting Character" http://solidnet.org/article/CP-of-Greece-Article-by-the-IRS-of-the-CC-of-the-KKE-On-the-so-called-World-Anti-Imperialist-Platform-and-its-damaging-and-disorienting-position/
Our Greek comrades very angrily engaged in a largely fair criticism of the position of the World Anti-Imperialist Platform (WAP) (in another version, the platform itself - the World Anti-imperialist Platform (IAIP) - (wap21.org)). However, at the same time, the comrades not only do not notice the useful grains, but also simply sin against the truth, distorting the essence of things. Thus, the comrades of the KKE presented the matter in such a way that the RCWP allegedly took part in the activities of the platform, together with the Social Democrats and some Communist Parties (the Hungarian Workers' Party, the Communist Party (Italy), the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia, the RCWP, the Lebanese Communist Party, the Maoist Communist Party of Great Britain (ML), the Pole for the Communist Revival of France, etc.). However, the RCWP was never a member of the WAP, and did not sign the fundamental document - the Paris Declaration (Paris Declaration: The Growing Wave of Global War and the Tasks of the Anti-Imperialists - Platform (wap21.org). Moreover, it is precisely for reasons of disagreement with the assessment by the WAP comrades of the nature of the imperialism of the Russian Federation and unfounded, in our opinion, hopes for the People’s Republic of China as a consistently anti-imperialist force. We are much earlier than the International Department of the Central Committee of the KKE woke up, expressed to the comrades from the WAP their disagreement with the position that Russia and China are not imperialist powers and do not live at all at the expense of the super-exploitation of workers or the robbery of other countries of the world.
Moreover, we told the comrades that the guilt of the Russian bourgeois class in leading the peoples of the Russian Federation and Ukraine to a bloody battle between themselves is undeniable. It was the counter-revolution accomplished in the USSR that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and a series of wars in its republics: Sumgait, Karabakh, Transnistria, Tajikistan, Abkhazia, Chechnya, Ossetia, Donbass - all these are links in the same chain. In addition, we remember and remind everyone how Yeltsin, speaking in the US Congress, reported that communism in Russia was defeated and asked: "Lord, bless America!". And the same Putin asked to join NATO. And yet, drawing attention to the theoretical inconsistency of a number of the most important assessments of the comrades from the WAP, we nevertheless spoke at all the events of the platform and brought our communist point of view to the participants.
..................... http://cpsu.by/international/view/o_parijskoy_kommunisticheskoy__konferentsii__28_maya_2022_goda/?print=view ... (Forum in Paris, May 28, 2022)
Speech of Russian Communist Workers Party of the Soviet Union - Platform (wap21.org) (October 14, 2022 First meeting in Belgrade)
Speech of the Russian Communist Workers' Party at the conference in Belgrade (video) - Platform (wap21.org) (December 18, 2022, Belgrade)
Russian Communist Workers' Party - Platform (wap21.org) (March 5, 2023, Caracas)
Dmitrii Kuzmin, Russian Communist Workers' Party - Communist Party of Soviet Union (RCWP-CPSU) - Platform (wap21.org)https://wap21.org/?p=3630 (May 15, 2023, Seoul)
Why didn't we, unlike the Greek comrades, shout "Guard" and start branding the platform for its pernicious and disorienting effects?
We answer: because we did not perceive the comrades from the WAP as orthodox Marxists, they do not present themselves as such in the public space, and therefore it is somehow ridiculous and unproductive to criticize them for their not quite Marxist position. And for some reason, the comrades from the KKE enthusiastically took up this. Although they themselves noted that the composition of the platform mainly consists and the main role in it is played by social democratic parties, such as PSUV (Venezuela) and the People's Democracy Party (Korea). But at the same time, in a polemical fervor, as we have already figuratively expressed at the beginning, they threw out the child along with the bathwater. We explain that the Greek comrades did not notice, or rather did not agree with the main conclusion of the WAP participants that the main danger to the whole world today comes from the Western imperialist bloc led by the United States and its NATO shock detachment.
In the Paris Declaration, the comrades of the WAP, in particular, very correctly note:
- We are witnessing the growing belligerence of the United States towards countries that it considers an obstacle to its superiority - in relation to Iran, to the DPRK and especially in relation to Russia and China.
- The war in Ukraine is not the result of "Russian aggression", but of the Western imperialist desire for war – in particular, the US military engine, which aims to strengthen the weakening hegemony of American imperialism over the world
- The war really began when the U.S. financed, armed, and orchestrated the fascist coup in Kiev in 2014.
- NATO has been relentlessly pursuing war against Russia since the collapse of the USSR, to which it has steadily promoted hostile military bases along Russia's borders - despite false assurances in the last days of the USSR that NATO would not move "a single step to the east."
- The ceasefire in Donbass, which was promised in the Minsk-2 agreement of 2015, has never been respected by the United States, Britain or NATO, which continued to arm and encourage Ukrainian fascists. While the Ukrainian side continued to bombard resilient civilian areas, it also built huge fortifications across the Donbass, and its armed forces underwent extensive training and reorganization from NATO. This turned the country into a NATO member in all but name – the one that was home to NATO's largest army.
In their analysis, the comrades of the WAP allowed themselves to draw attention to the differences in the international communist movement in the assessment of the war in Ukraine:
The same Paris Declaration noted:
"As NATO-backed forces in Ukraine continue to wage their proxy war against Russia, two lines have emerged in the international communist movement. On the one hand, there are those who insist that the war is an inter-imperialist conflict in which the workers have no side; while on the other, those who believe that only one side is waging an aggressive imperialist war, while the other side is waging a just war of self-defense. These two lines differ sharply in their explanation of the present war and, consequently, in the attitude they ask the workers to adopt towards it.”
After analyzing the situation, the comrades from the WAP made their own conclusion, which the Greek comrades did not like very much:
"Taking into account all of the above, it is clear that while the imperialists are waging an unjust and criminal war of aggression by proxy, the Russian side, in its alliance with the peoples of Donbass, is waging a just war of self-defense against the imperialist attack, which is at the same time a national liberation war of the oppressed Russians in Ukraine.
We also consider it essential that the workers fight back and expose the lie that they have "no side" in this war, as it is between "two imperialist groups" that are the enemies of the working people and the oppressed masses.”
To put it simply, in the theoretical dispute that is going on in the Communist movement and which was expressed in the signing in Havana of two alternative statements: "Resolution on the imperialist war on the territory of Ukraine"
(Solidnet |22nd MIKW, RESOLUTION on the imperialist war on the territory of Ukraine) and "The struggle against US and NATO imperialism, striving for world hegemony, is the most important task of progressive forces!"
Solidnet,22ndIMCWP,TheStruggleAgainstUSAandNATOImperialismwhichSeekWorldHegemonyistheKeyTaskoftheProgressiveForces)
comrades from the WAP took the side of those parties that see that the goal is to establish the world hegemony of US imperialism in the twenty-first century with the active and explicit use of fascism.
They agreed with the conclusions of the Statement: "The Communist and Workers' Parties stand in solidarity with the just anti-fascist struggle of the working people of Donbass, supported by the Russian Armed Forces. We oppose US imperialism, which uses fascist methods in foreign policy, which, with the direct participation of NATO countries, is actually waging a war to defeat Russia at the hands of the puppet bourgeois-nationalist Ukrainian regime.
We declare that we will do everything possible to prevent Russia from repeating the fate of Yugoslavia, Iraq or Libya, which is fundamentally opposed to the interests of the world workers' movement. The reaction seeks to establish its new order rigidly and for a long time. Russia may not lose this war against Nazism."
The comrades from the International Department of the Central Committee of the KKE clearly did not like these conclusions, and they again begin to cite as arguments those propositions that have already been critically analyzed in the discussion by the RCWP as scientifically untenable and politically erroneous. It is a question of understanding and interpreting Lenin's theory of imperialism. Correctly naming the five Leninist signs of imperialism known from textbooks, the comrades from the KKE in the article again go away from the most important Leninist position arising from the law of uneven development, about the formation of a handful of predators plundering the whole world, and conclude about their notorious imperialist pyramid: “Imperialism is monopoly capitalism, and today all capitalist states are integrated into the imperialist system and are characterized by unequal relations interdependence, relations of competition and cooperation. Of course, this does not mean that they all have the same power, have the same capabilities, but it does mean that all bourgeois classes participate in the division of the spoils, in the division of surplus value produced throughout the world by the working class, based on the political, military and economic power of each state.”
Here again and again the Greek comrades seem to forget Lenin's words that “capitalism has now singled out a handful (less than one-tenth of the world's population, with the most "generous" and exaggerated calculation, less than one-fifth) of especially rich and powerful states, which are plundering the whole world with a simple "clipping of coupons." (V.I. Lenin: "Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism").
The Greek comrades accuse the comrades from the WAP of reducing the entire anti-imperialist struggle to anti-Americanism, exaggerating the role of the United States and presenting it as the highest evil. "Thus, the United States is distorted as an empire of the modern colonial system, where all other allied states are "subject" to them."
We have already answered this argument more than once, and we must say as many times as necessary: That the core of Lenin's theory of imperialism, along with its economic basis - the monopolization of production - is the proposition that a handful of leading imperialist powers, which have carried out the division of the world and are fighting for its redistribution, under imperialism plunder all other bourgeois countries. Today, the essence of imperialism has not changed. Now this handful is headed by the United States of America. Is Greece an imperialist country? Or even much more powerful EU countries? By and large, none of the governments of these countries today can disobey the United States, cannot show independence, which is remarkably confirmed by the entire practice of imposing sanctions against the Russian Federation. Moreover, their introduction at the request of the United States is clearly to the detriment of themselves! Don't you see it? Not to see that today this handful of the most powerful predators, led by the United States and NATO, are forming, in Lenin's words, "a solid basis for the imperialist oppression and exploitation of the majority of nations and countries of the world, the capitalist parasitism of a handful of the richest states!", is, from our point of view, a very big mistake. And today they rob not only by cutting coupons, but also by shaving and beating with the help of military force and reanimated fascism. And our Greek comrades, as it turns out, are trying to return the situation to the state when they let them cut their hair, but do not shoot? A strange position for the Communists.
The WAP does not call itself a Marxist organization, and one can understand its theoretical errors and gaps, but the Greek comrades must understand the issues in a scientific way. They blame the platform for the fact that the WAP rejected the struggle for socialism. It's just that comrades in today's situation focus on the main danger - fascism on the part of the imperialist bloc of the United States and NATO. And they call on all honest and progressive forces of the world to fight it. We admit that it is really bad to fight imperialism and fascism, but to keep silent about the struggle for socialism, but it is much better than hiding behind some abstract struggle for socialism in general, to evade a concrete struggle against fascism and imperialism today. It is better to go to the same comrades from the WAP and similar detachments of the working people, who are not yet so enlightened and not yet advanced, and, waging an anti-imperialist struggle with them, to introduce into it the understanding of the need to develop into a struggle for socialism. This is what our party is doing, cooperating with the WAP. And what the leadership of the KKE does not want to do yet.
Separately, we want to say a few words in defense of the PDPK, about which the Greek comrades somewhat disparagingly referred to as "the South Korean organization (the People's Democracy Party) that fell from the sky. We are engaged in theoretical disputes with this party, incl. about the nature of imperialism in the Russian Federation and the position of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China, and we are far from delighted with their positions, but we think it is not worth presenting them as having fallen from the sky. First, it is simply not scientific, and humanly indecent. And secondly, we have known the comrades for a long time as trying to study Marxism, incl. resorting to the help of such authorities as Comrade Tamila Yabrova and others. The comrades have long and painstakingly studied the issue of the war in Ukraine and eventually signed the Statement "The struggle against US and NATO imperialism, striving for world hegemony, is the most important task of progressive forces!" For them, the struggle for socialism is a thing from practical politics.
We know their anti-imperialist orientation, including their work among the masses in Korea itself. For several years now, comrades have been holding a daily, round-the-clock picket in Seoul at the US embassy demanding that American troops get out of the peninsula. We know their anti-imperialist anti-Japanese work. In the end, we know their open position in support of the DPRK and the unification of the Motherland, for which many party members have passed through prison dungeons. Therefore, it is clearly not worth talking about comrades that they fell "from the sky".
And we will also make a small comment on the arguments of the Greek comrades in their analysis of the nature of Russian imperialism. We, as mentioned earlier, do not at all share the position of the WAP with the assessment of the Russian Federation as an anti-imperialist force. We consider very useful and basically correct the analysis of the KKE with factual digital material in assessing the strength and role of imperialism in all countries. Examples and facts about the Russian Federation, the Chinese economy, and China's policy in foreign economic expansion are especially useful. We ourselves define Russian imperialism as in its formation, young, growing, but already possessing an enviable appetite. However, it is not yet able to resist the powerful collective Western bloc led by the United States, which is working to suppress a competitor and even dismember the Russian Federation in order to profit from the whole flock by tearing apart prey, as it was after the collapse of the USSR. The Greek comrades, on the basis of certain statistics, are trying to show Russian imperialism as fully established and competitive, capable and leading aggression for the redistribution of spheres of influence. This is presented by the comrades as follows: "And as you know, the export of capital, in contrast to the export of goods, means the production of surplus value, which is extracted from the host country by the country exporting capital. Until 2014, Russia ranked eighth in the world among exporters of foreign direct investment, and due to sanctions imposed in 2018, it dropped to 18th place in the world ranking. At the same time, the volume of FDI from Russia in 2021 reached $65.189 billion, of which $1.808 billion was invested in the CIS countries, and $63.381 billion in non-CIS countries. According to the World Bank, Russia ranks fifth among the creditors of "developing" countries after China, Japan, Germany and France[5]".
Following this example, we consider it necessary to note the following. According to the website of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, "direct investments" from the Russian Federation abroad in 2021 amounted to $65.9 billion. On this we agree with the Greek comrades. But it should be noted right away that for some reason the authors of the International Department of the Central Committee of the KKE did not bother to consider the content of these so-called direct investments. 71.5% ($47.1 billion) of all "investments" went to Cyprus. If you add the Bahamas, Bermuda, Luxembourg, Monaco, Singapore and the island of Jersey to Cyprus, this will be 86.3%. However, as far as we know, no noticeable large factories have been bought or built by Russian capital. These are not multibillion-dollar loans to weak countries, the distribution of which is distinguished by the United States. This is not the acquisition of oil fields in Kazakhstan or seaports in Greece, which is what Chinese capital is doing. This is not so much the export of capital as the withdrawal of profits from Russia to offshore. Simply put, the robbery of the country by its native bourgeoisie and its foreign partners.
By the way, after the legalization of these withdrawn profits offshore, some are returned back to Russia, but under the sauce of supposedly foreign investments, in order to have preferential conditions and legal protection. For example, for a decade and a half, 224,8 billion dollars have been withdrawn to Cyprus, 182,3 billion dollars have been received back from Cyprus!
The difference, as you can see, is solid. Most likely, she went to buy yachts, villas, planes, etc.
For comparison, the figures for the export of capital and goods are given in the table:
Country/2021 Export of capital, USD. U.S. Export of goods, U.S. dollars
Russia 65.9 billion 494.4 billion
China 178.8 billion 3 362.3 billion
USA 6 490 billion 1 759 billion
As you can see, the export of goods from Russia in 2021 amounted to $494.4 billion. against 65.9 billion dollars. "foreign direct investment". That is, now the export of goods, and not the export of capital from the country, is of decisive importance for the bourgeoisie of the Russian Federation.
Conclusion: there is no need to talk about any particularly important importance of the export of capital from Russia. Moreover, of all Russian exports of goods, the lion's share is made up of raw materials and primary processing products, which is typical for dependent countries. This does not in the least justify Russian capitalism, does not make it more humane, but as Marxists we must objectively see the situation in order to make correct assessments of the causes and nature of the ongoing and possible wars. In this case, the figures confirm the defensive nature of capitalist Russia's war against much stronger and more aggressive predators.
Summing up what has been said, we return to where we started the conversation - Do not throw out the child with water.
As Lenin taught, one cannot win with the vanguard alone. What is needed is the unity of the working class, the attitude of the broad masses and the mobilization of the forces of all the adherents of peace, including the possible supporters of bourgeois democracy closest to the working people in confronting the main danger. In this case, the advancing fascism of the United States and NATO.In this struggle, anti-imperialist movements and organizations are allies to us, the communists.
We are in the same anti-imperialist system in this war!
Published on the RCWP website on July 19, 2023