Internet
Statement 2005-17 On the character of the political activities of the so-called Anti-imperialistic Coordination (AIC) About
the influences on Iraq solidarity
Editorial preface: In connection with the organization of a conference about Iraq solidarity some arguments have occurred; it has become obvious that a major part of the organizers of this conference do not wish that we indicate some, in our eyes necessarily dismissible, aspects of certain circles which take part in this conference. To make it clear: not at all did our organization speak against the participation of Muslim organizations in the united front in Iraq. Rather, our point was whether the international solidarity favoured a development toward a secular, revolutionary, democratic society in Iraq. One cannot support every form of alleged resistance against the USA, particularly if it smacks of hitting mainly the civil population and undermining the resistance. Without doubt occupying powers guided by the USA commit most outrageous crimes in Iraq, and armed struggle against these occupying powers must be supported. Also a union of the forces, as wide as possible, must be demanded. In the same way there is no argument against, for example, officers of the former national power in Iraq participating considerably within this fight. But it must be possible to act against the fact that certain variants be abused, in order to promote rightist movements for instance in Europe or to however foil the protractedstruggle in Iraq. In this context we have repeatedly come across the so-called Anti-imperialistic Co-ordination (AIC). Clarifying how far the charges go, is the fact that Peter Wolter, a
repeatedly noticed editor of the newspaper "junge Welt"
(young world) has accused us of "poisoning the well", because
we had brought into public some indeclinable quotations which refer
to the ultra-rightist and neo-Nazi connection. On the AIC by Walter Grobe
Just to say it from the beginning: if one goes a little further into the question on the AIC and reads the written statements of exponents, such as Costanzo Preve whom the AIC, with its centre in Italy, propagates as an authoritative Marxist intellectual [1] - one finds some amazing points, but hardly Marxism. If Preve’s remarks are representative for the theoretical and political bases of the AIC, then the AIC is an organization, in which leading people stand in for the combination of a totally superficial and only fragmentarily understood "Marxism" and "Leninism" with bourgeois, rightist, most unprogressive, fascist and Christian-clerical views, and in which most of the activists probably have little clarity about it, at the same time. Immediately when reading Costanzo Preve, one comes across his continuous effort to refute or at best ignore the elementary Marxist opinions on the historical economic development, the development of the working class or the conditions of the communist movement. This philosopher appears like someone who has little notion of Marxism, he accepts only auxiliary statements of the same and essentially represents the same devaluing wisdoms as any old bourgeois and in particular green ideologists in answering the question of the today's developments of the classes:
It is worthwhile to criticize this passage somewhat in more detail because such opinions, which tie up to the fact of the reduction of the working class in certain countries, form the most fundamental argument for a non-revolutionary or only marginally revolutionary policy. For that purpose it also suits that the AIC actually never touches in its concrete policy on questions of the workers' movement in Europe as well as on questions of the international proletariat, and limits itself onto contradictions between political formations, nation states, nations and also political movements, which are in the long run all bourgeois or even pre-bourgeois. "Socialism", if the AIC mentions it at all, is defined down to a question of "equality", what aims back more than two hundred years into the past and was always regarded in Marxism as a reactionary distortion. The attitude to tacitly or openly derive from the reduction of the working class a non-revolutionary policy, is typical also for very many other leftist organizations, which do not analyze these questions and accept similar premises, such as Preve expresses here openly. They are completely wrong. It is by this way that there is not any authorization for AIC to present itself in a deep contrast to the numerous pseudo-leftist currents, because these premises are common to those and AIC. Preve acts as if he had never heard of counteractive factors as for instance the world-wide growth of the industrial working class, which at present takes place above all in Eastern Asia and other industrializing regions. If one realizes in certain other regions of the globe – as in European countries, particularily in Germany and Italy - a quite substantial reduction of the industrial working class already dragging on already for a long time, then this must be placed nevertheless in the context of global developments. If Preve were a Marxist, he could not possibly confound a reduction concentrating in certain countries with a general trend, which would completely run contrary to the laws of capital. Furthermore there is the demand of a Marxist to explain such phenomena of reduction not only economically but also from the class struggle and to develop a policy, which resists being out-manoeuvred by such developments. We are of the opinion that for approximately 30 years the bourgeoisie, especially in Germany but also in other European countries such as Italy, has been operating, not by any means only under economic pressure, but also for political reasons to achieve a purposeful reduction of the industrial working class, in order to escape from the revolutionary consequences of the industrialization and proletarization of their countries, which began to show threateningly in the years around 1970. It even operates a substantial policy of population reduction above all in these two countries. Such directions also have an international background. These politics are class struggle fought by the bourgeoisie; therefore on a long-term basis one can advance toward it only by developing a concept of proletarian internationalist class struggle. I do not claim that that be easy or that we would have achieved already something substantial in concretizing because we are just an individual group, and concretizing and practising such a political approach needs many forces, but another direction of the work is impossible in principle. This is exactly what the entire concept of the AIC opposes more or less explicitly. However, from the beginning, there is not any revolutionary class struggle or any communist perspective, if one accepts the policy of the substantial reduction of proletariat in certain nations, if one does not bring up the core of the bourgeois anti-revolutionary efforts for discussion, or even accepts it directly, as this is the way how Preve comes across here. This passage of Preve is really ridiculous, basically it expresses the non-Marxist intellectual being fixed on the economic and demographic politics of shrinking, how it has been typical especially for the German and the Italian bourgeoisie during the last decades in dealing with their own countries, and it differs little from the bourgeois run-of-the-mill professors, who anyway always teach that actually there be no proletariat anymore, or, in their green radical variant, they also claim that it should be, in their countries at least, never more. The thesis of the decreasing structural weight of the working class does not only mean the political connection to the bourgeoisie in this its strategic concept, also it is simply essentially wrong, also wrong under bourgeois criteria, among other things also because the increasing international proletariat becomes retroactively also apparent in Europe. The international expansion of the capitalistic way of production, the increase of workers and capitalistic contradictions bring an inevitably strong political influence into Europe. Today, we live more intensively than ever before in a world society. The international capitalistic industrial production, the international goods and financial markets given thereby, the appropriate traffic and communication ways penetrate the different societies of the world ever more strongly, and the social vibrations, e.g. in China or other regions, have a direct and substantial impact also here in Europe as elsewhere. In order to say it with a tapered example: what East Asian workers do or do not do, is also of large weight for Europe. Already for this reason, world-wide, the "structural" and political weight of the working class does not decrease but increase. Preve sciocco. And also in the European countries, the industrial working class is not yet by any means insignificant in terms of figures and socially, despite the massive reduction of the last decades and the substantial tendency of the transfer of production abroad. It would be completely wrong to deny the fundamental possibility of a historical reviving of a revolutionary workers' movement in Europe, which is connected with international movements. Something as such would have a weight hardly to be estimated, and we as organization fight above all that all revolutionary forces strive for a re-approximation among themselves with such intentions. All these questions based on Marxism, which experience the most alive new impulses by today's world-wide economic and social development, do not seem to interest authors such as Preve. So far for the moment on the "Marxism" of Costanzo Preve and also the AIC. One only needs to look at any paragraphs in his current writings to see operating the effort, to be a non-Marxist, in ever new forms. Remarkable is, for example, the definition of "communism". Preve effectively says, communism actually exists analogously to the ancestral Christian meal in friendly common consumption, and rejects common production. It sounds as with any Christian or also Islamic preacher, who only bears one thing in mind: to make forgotten the socialization of production, the fundamental criterion of realization of Marxism. Some day the question should be asked, which Italian social layers or fringe groups feel addressed by such backward ideologies, which against the progressive social change of the world try to find support backwards. There must be nevertheless a social basis, however constituted, for it. Also to be asked is the question about the social basis of the ongoing rampant fascist directions and groups in all possible forms apparent there, which partially carry other characters than, for example, German neo-Nazis.
For cooperating in the solidarity with Iraq, naturally it would be inappropriate to demand that one must be Marxist. If Preve and the AIC had a non-Marxist theoretical basis, it would actually be no issue in connection with the solidarity work. It is rather those characteristics of the AIC open to the right and ultra-right, which are dangerous also in the Iraq solidarity. Therefore, it had to be my first concern to dissolve the blocking self-defence of the AIC – it was a Marxist organization, hence such reproaches principally would be misplaced. And now just begin with reading, e.g. the following lines of Preve:Here we meet the amazing view that the “Zionists", i.e. a certain political current of Judaism, which also takes a certain position in today's world system of imperialism, be the bosses of US imperialism. If during the preparation of the Iraq conference we have hit among others upon a document of the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance (IPA), an organization, which co-operates closely with AIC, in which the occupation of Iraq is called "US Zionist" or even "Zionist", then we see Preve here as the source, why our criticism on such obvious falsehoods, which must absolutely disorient the resistance, is substantially blocked by the AIC. If Preve was concerned, this organization would practice not only remedially "transverse front politics" as it was reproached by different critics, it would even be itself substantially a transverse front organization, which operates an impossible synthesis of communist with bourgeois and even with directly fascist principles, and this under subordination of the communist forces. Not without reason is Preve often quoted because of his persistent effort to annul the distinction between the left and the right. In my opinion a solidarity work, for example for the support of the Iraqi or the Palestinian people, in which originally Nazi-like views of a "world conspiracy of Judaism", which also subordinated the USA, are not only tolerated but positively represented, while its critics are threatened with exclusion, makes a fool of itself. This view is represented, as previously mentioned, also on the part of the Hamas, to whom the AIC probably does not dedicate in vain special solidarity (see also IS 2005-07 [German], IS 2004-23 [partly English], IS 2004-22 [English]). If one reads such things at Preve’s, it is not to be dismissed anymore as whimsical secondary matter that this author publishes whole books in fascist and/or fascistic-esoteric publishing houses. They are published there, because this thinking under its whitewash of alleged "Marxism" is compatible with these forces. The following section is to further clarify above all the problems of the practical political orientation of the AIC.
On December, 13th 2003 the AIC organized state-wide in Italy a demonstration "for the Iraqi people in resistance" against the USA and its confederate, the Berlusconi regime, however, according to own data, only approximately thousand humans attended it in Rome. Although from here and with hindsight, we cannot seize concretely the character of this demonstration and its political effect, we actually assume that, with it entitled demands for the support of the Iraqi people, it had a positive function as stating the solidarity of the Italian people, and this both against the Italian government as well as the social-democratic and revisionist parties in Italy. The latter, which apparently do not or not too obviously want to take position against the USA, polemized against the demonstration from this reactionary point of view. But also here, the negative fundamentals of the AIC politics cropped up. Because in the mobilization for the demo also explanations of support and co-mobilizations on the part of fascist forces were noticeable, the contra-propaganda, in particular by the pseudo-leftist forces mentioned, had its starting points. Reproaches appeared because of transverse front politics, i.e. systematic co-operation with fascists. AIC countered with the fact that the pseudo-leftist critics with their opposition to the demo were themselves actually operating in a transverse front, from the so-called Rifondazione Comunista up to Berlusconi’s openly neo-fascist coalition party. In contrast to this it would not be a big deal, if one or the other rightist appeared on the supporter’s list of the demo, which covered 1500 and more names, after all it is not possible to scrutinise each individual signatory; anyhow admitted fascists were stroked off (or so they say). On the whole, one could even agree with this argumentation, if it had been honest and not led by the purpose to cover own political-ideological affinities for certain extremely rightist currents, possibly even a tactical system in co-operation with such forces. Preferably it seems to concern such fascists or other ultra-rightists, who stand up for a fusion with Islam and a certain kind of "geopolitics", in which a right-polarized Europe forms one block with Islam in countries such as Turkey, Iraq and so on, under the slogan "all against America". Such affinities show up, surely inadvertently, all the more in self-defences of the AIC because of the procedures around the demo, and they form a parallel to the affinities, which become visible theoretically within Preve. On 12 Dec. 03 the AIC published an article, 11 pages long, by Willi Langthaler, a well-known exponent of the AIC, for defence against the "transverse front"-reproaches, however, not written in German; in German an unmarked shorter article with similar content appeared. Closer analysis shows that Langthaler tries to play down the participation of the supporters from the fascist or near-fascist and, at the same time, pro-Islamic scene with varnishing, omissions and feigned ignorance. Still more exposing, however, are the fundamental political statements of this article, which are precisely in line with those of Preve.
The case Galoppini A journalist named Enrico Galoppini was a significant co-signatory of the call to 13 Dec. 03. From his activities something can be read off, what Langthaler and the AIC want to cover up. First, the web search results show: Galoppini is not simply "an Arabist" (this is how Langthaler calls him), a scientist, who, just like this, signed out of sympathy with the Iraqi people. Namely as Arabist he stepped out so far with a very certain book, "Il Fascismo e l'Islam" in which he adresses the historical relations between fascism and Islam. These were in such manner that after all in 1937 Mussolini let himself declare "defender of Islam" and accepted a so-called “Sword of Islam" from representatives of the same. Also the German Nazis strove in a similar way.And if one sees that Galoppini’s book appeared in the publishing house "All'Insegna del Veltro", which propagates in part directly Mussolini and Nazi-fascist apologias, in part reactionary-utopian stuff of a allegedly culturally superior coming world power Europe on a social-reactionary basis bound to connect itself with Islam, which offers a book with quotations of the Islamic hangman of communists Khomeini etc., a publishing house, whose web page confronts the visitor first of all with the picture of a fat swastika, then... then the assumption suggests itself that one does not necessarily need to also read Galoppini’s guaranteed ultra-rightist stuff. Perhaps Langthaler can submit once a sound review of the work of this "Arabist" Galoppini to us? That would be only a service in return because on his part Galoppini with his own call to the demo on 13 Dec. 03 came to the aid of the AIC. The call appeared in the magazine "Rinascita", which pleads for a "National Socialist movement", and was overwritten: Anyhow, here we see the conception opposite to the statement on the part of the AIC, the reproach of the transverse front politics to their address be unsubstantial. By the way the speaker of the AIC, Moreno Pasquinelli, when opening the demo on 13 Dec. 03 said explicitly, the demo was open "for all without exception", and went as follows into the problem of the participation of fascists: "Fascism and the fascists are our principal enemy today? Absolutely not. It really appears to me as a pleonasm [2], to have to explain on a list of anti-Americans and anti-imperialists who the main enemy is today...."On the basis of an individual case, which Langthaler obviously does attempt to cover, not without reason but in vain, one can thus already determine the following:
Langthaler himself wanted to admit still less:
With Tiberio Graziani we get down to a name, which here as well as with other causes, is figured as supporting caller, together with other fascists, for AIC. Tiberio Graziani is indeed not responsible for the crank Nazi page "iron crown", as that had been reproached apparently incorrectly by critics of the AIC. He is, however, jointly responsible for another page and magazine of quite similar fascist-mystic, pro-Islamic and at all pro-religious contents: "Eurasia", together with others and a certain Claudio Mutti, which AIC itself designates here as Neo-fascist, and whom others even call a central intellectual figure of the Italian Neo-fascism. If this "Eurasia" editorship is not a right-wing extremist alliance, then perhaps Horst Mahler and R. Oberlercher form an anti-imperialistic circle of friends? Also this fact about Tiberio Graziani and "Eurasia" has certainly hardly stayed hidden to AIC in reality, and it is a cheap trick, to disclaim their cooperation on" iron crown ", which someone had incorrectly maintained, but to ignore the leading cooperation on "Eurasia", a web page, which is completely similar and in addition refers to the "iron crown" as guiding star. In sovereign combinatory its author Martin A. Schwarz shows whose mind’s children those people from “Eurasia” are in one of his headlines:
in which figure the "Reich"-idea of well-known provenance, a "geopolitical" expansion of a dreamed European reactionary great power towards Asia, and the fusion with Islam in approximately 30 characters. And this is a policy, of which characteristic elements, if not in word choice, but in essence, can be absolutely regained in the AIC principles. AIC propagates Islamic-fundamentalist organizations like Hamas and cuts off the discussion over its reactionary bases; AIC aims at an anchorage in corresponding directions in Iraq, AIC invents crazy ideas about the combination of all forces one can think of under the slogan "anti-Americanism", in which a European Union, if it became a power and opposed the "empire", would have quite its place, and an expansion of such a power into the Islamic range on such reactionary bases would only be consistent. Langthaler, together with a well-known journalist of the newspaper 'Junge Welt' (‘Young World’) Werner Pirker, is author of a book, which expressly demands "anti-Americanism" as common content of the global fight in the current development stage. This is provoking imbecility. Despite all indignation about the imperialistic crimes of the USA, leftists and revolutionaries have always rejected to place the fight against US imperialism under the label "anti-Americanism" which diverts from the argument with the capitalistic economic bases of imperialism and from proletarian internationalism, which itself obstructs the connection with currents of resistance in the USA and offers to all other imperialists and reactionaries in the world a welcome diversion of their own piggish efforts. "All against America" or "All against the empire" are watchwords of reactionaries and are intensely used, e.g. by German neo-Nazis as is well known. It was especially them who, casually noted, have plentifully reasons to cover their own connections and those of their historical models to US imperialism with anti-American fuss.
This Definiton of "left" is fundamentally wrong, fraudulent, and simply aims right at the levelling of the differences between the left and the right, of which the AIC has been justly accused. If AIC explains, they be against the levelling, then one cannot accept this explanation in view of such opinions. The intention of wanting to preserve the difference can be present, if at all, only most superficially, because here "left" is emptied of its contents already from the beginning. The “left" does not historically and theoretically receive its contents from "poor classes", whether probably it also takes their side, but from the modern proletariat. "Leftist" opinions do not define this modern proletariat by its poverty, but first and foremost by its position in modern industrial production and its interest in the abolition of private property in the means of production. Leftist opinions, even if not necessarily Marxist, are at least close to these central topics. [3] There continue to be enormous masses of poor peasants in the world who, for example, formed the main force of the anti-colonial revolutions of the 20th century. They were the main allies of the proletarian-communist forces for example in the October Revolution and the Chinese revolution. However, they stand objectively between two perspectives: to climb up as sole owners or to follow a socialist way. Impoverished small owners, like any petit-bourgeois layers especially in rich countries, are also often susceptible to rightist and fascist agitations. From the beginning, the reference to "poor classes" in the express contrast to the explicitly rejected reference to the modern international industrial working class is open for social demagogy, e.g. for church social demagogy, but also especially for fascist, because it does not answer the question from the start of how poverty is socially eradicated. In the long run it serves its perpetuating. If Langthaler as the AIC at all, avow the so-called
"poor classes", or as it is said elsewhere with them, a so-called "plebeiandom" as the basis
of the alleged revolutionary strategy and retouch the specific of the
modern proletariat - being able to carry out liberation in socialism
and communism – they open the floodgates to right
demagogy and anticommunist agitation from the beginning. The fact that
in connection to the demo of 13. Dec. 2003, such confederates arose
highly visible, in whose bibliographies positively figure both the swastika
as well as the Islamic fundamentalism of e.g. a Khomeini – also
of a typical leader of "poor classes" – in this connection
is becoming a detail of significance. From such affinities counter-revolutionary
blood smell blows over here. To sum up: What this polemic on the political bases of the AIC is all about It is not my only concern to advance toward a policy, which in my eyes can lead only to frustration or just to the openly right metamorphosis, but more still a polemic, which moves to the centre the addressed basic questions of the international development of the working class and thus Marxism and therefore develops concrete political tasks. Probably the existing conceptions with Preve, Langthaler, Albani etc. are not fully at present for some activists with AIC and/or RCL (Revolutionary Communist League), for whom revolution and communism are the goals, perhaps it is not possible for them offhand to seize their contrast to Marxism, but also their reactionary function in today's world-wide development; more, than to scribe these questions polemisingly, this article, however, cannot not claim only now. By the way, the AIC addresses certain cultural questions, questions of nations etc. up to certain degrees, which are ignored by the dominant "leftists" or dismissed in a reactionary way. For such questions we also have an interest; they are connected closely with the direct questions of the development of the international working class. We are not followers of economist flatness. 10. March 2005 (Translation from
the German original
[1] Apparently, there are hardly translations of Preve’s writings in German. Why? Would it be inappropriate, if the German-speaking activists of AIC could argue with this thought directly? [2] Pleonasm: using more words than necessary; "a tiny little child" [3] AIC means in contrast to this, one could not propagate anymore the revolution for the abolition of the private property at means of production, because the earlier communist movement had failed, and therefore, the watchword was loaded with a negative mortgage. However, interest of the working class in the socialization of means of production is animated again every day of wage labour, independent of whether this or that earlier movement failed, and therefore the question, whether and how it is to be carried out under the new conditions, cannot be excluded. Members of the AIC should ask themselves once whether they want to confront dozens of millions of proletarians in the sweating booths of Eastern Asia with 12 or 14 daily working hours with the demand better not to think about the abolition of this slavery. And these conditions also win soil again in Europe.
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