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News Service of The Leftist Assembly Vol. 11· Iss. 3

- Thomas Sankara

Without further ado, here's the third issue of the Red Star Volume 11:

Perhaps one of the first true wars of national liberation was the Haitian Revolution from 1791 to 1804. A slave rebellion occurred in the French colony of Saint-Domingue. At various points fighting against the plantation owners, the French royalist military, and the Napoleonic French military. The rebel leader Toussaint Louverture successfully drove out the slave-owners, and freed all slaves. With the Jacobins coming to power in France and their abolition of slavery, Louverture and the government of people of color was recognized for a time. However, with the Directory and eventually Napoleon, the bourgeois forces of reaction, taking power from the radical Jacobins, the French decided to take the island back. A violent and bloody campaign ensued, which ended in the death of Louverture and much of the French expeditionary force. At the end of it, however, Jean-Jacques Dessalines reigned as “Emperor” of a free Haiti and most of the French settlers, who had once prospered from the labour of Haitian slaves, lie dead from the 1804 ‘Massacre.’ In 1825, the French would return with an invasion force demanding compensation for the loss of its slaves. Even with the downfall of the Bourbon restoration, the bourgeois Second Republic would see the debt paid. However bloody the Revolution became, and despite the fact it culminated in a reactionary Empire (a consequence of the lack of development due to exploitation), it freed Haiti and its people from the bloody boot of French imperialism and culminated one of the first successful anti-imperialist movements in history.

Continuing with the French, the French bourgeois revolution is an interesting topic, and one I believe fits here. Whilst the French Revolution is correctly held up as the very definition of a bourgeois revolution, there was a very real left and radical wing of the revolutionaries despite the under-development of the proletariat in late 1700s France, consisting mostly of the sans-culottes of Paris. Robespierre, often mistakenly glorified (of this I am guilty) by people on the Left was not part of this left, though he was also not on the right. Robespierre and the Jacobins were a revolutionary centre, channeling the forces of the proletariat from the leftist street violence in Paris to the centrist Terror, which he utilized to destroy the right-wing Girondins, but also to destroy his political opponents in the left-wing Enragés and Hébertists. Thus, whilst channeling the left-wing political energy of the proletarian sans-culottes from the initial left-wing nationalism that destroyed the monarchy, Robespierre’s Jacobins maintained the dominance of a radical bourgeois bloc that prevented the proletarians (whose position was impossibly weak outside of Paris) from seizing power whilst maintaining pressure upon the right-wing liberal bourgeois. This contradiction, as the Jacobin Saint-Just realized, had “frozen the Revolution.” The energy of sans-culottes was maintained by a bourgeois political centre interested in their idealistic notion of republicanism who crushed the left-wing powers and had begun to reconcile with the right-wing bourgeois power before the Thermidorian Reaction. This marked the end of the left-wing nationalism of the French Revolution and its transformation to a stagnant bourgeois Directorate and then the further right-wing reaction with the rise of Napoleon, who fund support in many right-wing revolutionaries from the Revolutionary Period.

Whilst the 1800s contained many left-wing nationalist movements, such as the national Revolutions of 1848, I find the next good example of left-wing nationalism in the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, in China. It was not the Revolution itself that was left-wing, but many of the actors within it. Briefly, the 1911 Revolution brought down the Qing and led to the establishment of the Republic China, which itself was quickly supplanted by reactionary warlords throughout regional China due to the weak position of the bourgeoisie in the country. The Republic remained centered in Beiyang while it fought against Yuan Shikai, a military warlord who had proclaimed himself Emperor of China. After this war, China remained fragmented but the Republic had survived. The left-wing nationalism of the Chinese Republic is found not necessarily in its struggle against reaction, but in the political thought of Sun Yat-Sen, President of the Republic, and his established Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party of China. Sun Yat-Sen laid out Three Principles of the People: Mínzú (a nation freed from Imperialist domination), Mínquán (a bourgeois democracy fused with Chinese cultural tradition), and Mínshēng (“The People’s Livelihood,” a Georgist-inspired criticism of capitalism). Sun’s left-nationalist leanings were reinforced by his recognition of the Soviet Union and his policy of direct cooperation with the Communist Party of China. Unfortunately, Sun would die of cancer in 1925, leaving the Kuomintang bitterly divided between three groups: a left-wing that favored cooperation with the Communists, a bourgeois right-wing that favored the establishment of a bourgeois republic and exclusion of the Communists, and the military wing led by Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang would ally with the right-wing and betray the Communists, massacring them again the Northern Expedition, and then ally with reactionary forces and establish himself as Generalissimo. Despite the failure of the Kuomintang’s left and the bourgeois revolution, there was a clear left-wing viewpoint in the national liberationist ideas espoused by Sun Yat-Sen.

Other left-nationalists would follow: Nasser’s Egypt and attempted United Arab Republic, the various African and Latin-American anti-imperialist rebels that adopted Marxism-Leninism in their struggle, and especially the 26th of July Movement led by Fidel Castro. Castro’s revolution started as a nationalist and bourgeois revolution against the imperialist-supported government of Batista. The support that Batista had from the international bourgeoisie necessitated that Fidel’s movement move to the left to find support from the proletariat and workers in order to win their revolution and consolidate their gains. Fidel saw this and did just that, though some members of his own revolutionary movement would turn against him for it. It is most interesting to note that the bourgeoisie created its own opposition here: had the bourgeoisie not supported the puppet regime of Batista to ensure their economic domination of Cuba, it is probable that the Revolution would’ve stayed on a bourgeois course. However, the natural contradictions of capitalism here, that of the bourgeoisie maximizing their profits in spite of worker resistance and oppression, caused the Revolution to become left-wing and turn to socialist and Communist political movements to supplement its strength.

The last, and perhaps the best example of left-wing nationalism, is the Black Nationalist movement and the American Indian Movement. Frantz Fanon, Harry Haywood, and Huey Newton among others would all integrate Marxist-Leninist thought on the national question into the struggle for national liberation of African-Americans and Africans across the world. Harry Haywood in particular would exercise his influence in the CPUSA to develop a policy calling for an autonomous black nation in the “Black Belt” of the American South, to finish the bourgeois revolution started by Reconstruction. Haywood participated in the Scottsboro Case, organized many popular front black organizations, a part of the “Long Civil Rights Movement” historiography. Unfortunately, Haywood would be marginalized in the CPUSA after its adoption of Browderism, and he would go to found the New Communist Movement, a Maoist current consisting of many parties, the most notable of which is the Revolutionary Communist Party (unfortunately, the RCP has fallen into a kind of cultic-like worship of Avakian, who regurgitates basic Marxist talking points like its his own new theory. The black-based legacy of RCP has led to organization within prisons and Black Nationalist movements, though). The American Indian Movement is an indigenous civil rights and nationalist movement formed to fight the racist Indian Termination laws that sought to “assimilate” Native Americans into urban white society. AIM led occupations of notable monuments, led “Long Walks” and advocated for indigneous self-determination, despite FBI informants and infiltration. The indigneous activist Leonard Peltier, running in 2020 on the PSL Vice-President ticket, was incarcerated as a political prisoner for his work with AIM.

In conclusion, the idea that nationalism is always a right-wing movement and needs to be opposed is a white colonial attitude and settler mentality. Asian and African people of color and the indigneous communities have the right to fight against settler-colonial society and imperialist domination to protect themselves from racism, discrimination, and exploitation. Many bourgeois revolutions can also be deemed as left-wing nationalist due to their fight against the ancien regime, reactionism, and endorsement of ‘civic nationalism,’ such as that of the French Revolution.

Libertasnia

A Marxist History does a wonderful job of highlighting the various contradictions in the stages of historical and societal development from the hunter-gatherer period to World War I. It is a good started in these areas to understand Marx's analysis of the various contradictions in each economic system that has led to its historical successor, or why certain systems didn't appear in certain regions whilst they did in others.

However, Faulkner falls short in his analysis when he tries to critique "Stalinism." He presents the failure of the Revolutions of 1918-23 as the last hope for socialism, and that their loss had already written the Soviet Union out (admittedly, this fear was shared by Lenin). He admits that rapid industrialization was crucial to Soviet survival, critiquing Bukharin's "Socialism at a Snail's Pace," but them sharply criticizes Stalin for doing just that. Faulkner critiques Stalin for the abandonment of the world revolution and the adoption of "Socialism in One Country," but simultaneously acknowledges that the USSR was vulnerable to "dismemberment" by foreign powers, a threat by which a national policy of exporting revolution would've only made worse.

He critiques the Comintern's policy of non-negotiation with Social Democrats, yet he recognizes the German Communists' reluctance to work with the SPD in the aftermath of the Berlin Betrayal: is it truly unfeasible that the Comintern thought corrective action was needed to prevent a replay of that very event? And yet then, when the Comintern reverses the policy in favor of the "Popular Front" strategy, Faulkner critiques the Comintern for allying with "liberals" and not agitating for concessions in the face of liberal weakness. Which is it? Hindsight is 20/20, the Comintern could not have possibly realized very course of action and followed through successfully. How can Faulkner analyze so meticulously, and correctly, the contradictions of socio-economic systems but not the contradictions within his own ideologically-driven polemics?

In his analysis of the Spanish Civil War, the contradictions do not stop. He quotes George Orwell, who gave up his comrades to the government and disavowed the very cited work (Homage to Catalonia), to give the impression that it was the PCE and the Popular Front Republican Government that caused the collapse of the Republic, not the CNT and POUM that incited workers in Barcelona to resist the very army that protected them from the Nationalists. Perhaps the repression of the POUM and CNT was too harsh, but they refused to support the Popular Army in Franco; decentralization is fine and well unless that decentralization leads to the weakening of the movement in the midst of war against fascism.

Faulkner then equates the genocidal actions of the Nazis with the various atrocities committed on the civilian population by the Soviet advance into Axis territory, as if this isn't a problem with every war-time offensive in history. Not only that, but he places the blame squarely upon Stalin: was Stalin there personally ordering every soldier to go and do something horrendous to civilians? No, but with the propaganda calling the fight the "Great Patriotic War" (something obviously needed for morale during the Nazi invasion), Faulkner says he did. Faulkner's uncited "estimations" of people incarcerated in the GULAG system during the war (as if every nation doesn't imprison possible dissidents during such conflicts) do not match up with those of Viktor Zemskov, the prime researcher on the topic (it possible I am wrong here, but I have studied Zemskov's works and I don't think Faulkner is correct here).

According to Faulkner, Stalin was to have his cake and eat it too. That contradiction is where Faulkner falls short thanks to his ideological leanings. It does not, however, lessen the usefulness and solid analysis provided pre-WWI and post-Cold War.

Faulkner even praises the CIA-supported trade union Solidarity for its resistance to "Stalinism," and describes post-Gang of Four China as a "Stalinist police state" despite anyone possibly able to be described as Stalinist being deposed along with the Gang of Four.

Faulkner bounces back from his sectarianism after the Cold War: he offers a solid critique of neoliberal imperialism under the guise of "humanitarian intervention" and the "War on Terror." He also provides easy-to-understand analysis of the artificial demand propped up by the financial sector in today's capitalism, one of the main crises of our time and the cause of the 2008 Recession. However, his conclusion did come to be: the Recession did not become the Second Great Depression as he predicted it would, and there was no huge overthrow or change in the capitalist system after the Occupy Movement.

Faulkner ends his conclusion with a summary of the various forms capitalism has taken, and a timeline.

TL;DR: Faulkner does a good job of analyzing societal contradictions that lead to historical development pre-WWI and post-Cold War, but his sectarianism limits him to making unhelpful Trotskyist criticisms that often contradict themselves. If there was 3.5 Stars, I'd give it, but the crucial miss in analyzing the Soviet Union brings the book down to 3 Stars

Libertasnia