Erstwhile radicals who drift rightwards in middle age are too plentiful to need exemplification. Their ranks include a fair chunk of leading Labour politicians and trade union leaders, for starters.
Then again, the world has changed tremendously over the last quarter of a century, say. Political analysis has to keep pace. Just because somebody advanced a position in 1983 and advances a contradictory position in 2008, it does not automatically follow that they are mutating into a reactionary.
This train of thought has been sparked, in part, by my toe-curling recollection of a student union meeting in the early eighties, at which I opposed a resolution calling for Chinese withdrawal from Tibet. My argument was that the Chinese annexation of 1951 had introduced proletarian property relations to a backward feudal country, and was therefore historically progressive. Such was the Trotskyist orthodoxy of the day.
Fast forward to now, and I am in full sympathy with the protests that have rocked Lhasa, illustrated by the smuggled-out picture of rioters courageously stoning a cop car. I now think firmly that Tibetans are entitled to self-determination, as are Chechnyans, Kashmiris and Palestinians. So have I moved right on this issue, or have I moved left?
Outside of a few whackjob cults, the idea that incorporation inside a 'workers' state' in possession of a command economy trumps all other conceivable considerations finds few takers. I guess the contemporary equivalent is the notion that putting oppressed nations in charge of their own affairs 'objectively aids imperialism' if the oppressor is an Islamist or former Stalinist country.
Britain's most widely-read leftwing blog, for instance, recently opposed independence for Kosova because it is said to constitute a 'gangster state', born of a 'great power-orchestrated' break-up of Yugoslavia, and dominated by prostitution and drug-trafficking.
Even if such obvious nonsense were true, it is hardly 'swallowing exaggerated Nato propaganda' to point out that 90% of the population of Kosova didn't want to remain a province of Serbia; end of chat. If a marriage has irrevocably broken down, no-one would deny a battered wife a divorce because some pig of a man won't give his consent.
What's more, the last time I checked, the far left wasn't arguing for the revocation of Italian independence on account of the role of organised crime in Sicily and Naples.
Again, 25 years ago, I used to insist - with full Marxist conviction - that apartheid was integral to South Africa as a social formation; therefore, only a process of permanent revolution could bring about its demise. Subsequent developments have revealed this position to be, in plain English, bollocks.
True, the democratic gains for ordinary black people since 1994 have not been matched by higher living standards. The bourgeoisie is still predominantly white, even if it has been forced to accomodate a black section. Yet however far short South Africa falls of what I would have wanted to see, it seems inherently a better place now than when Afrikaaner rule was untrammelled.
Similarly, a quarter of a century I would have maintained that the British ruling class was committed in perpetuity to the maintenance of a Unionist statelet in the North of Ireland. Yet the trajectory ever since the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 has been towards incorporation of the top layer of nationalists into the formal structures of governance
Fundamentalists leftists - fundamentalist republicans too, come to that - will point out that this is a far cry from a 32-county socialist republic. But it does offer an improvement on the bloodshed that previously prevailed, and a settlement with which the bulk of those effected clearly feel they can live.
What's the moral of this story? Well, if you are a young Trot reading this, never argue that 'there are no reformist solutions'. Not only is that a dull cliché, but the truth is - at least where an issue reduces essentially to a demand for democracy counterposed to a denial of democracy - there almost certainly is a reformist solution. What's more, it won't always be a sell-out or a step backwards, either.
Posted at 18:12, 17 March 2008
Comments (22)
Ere, Dave. How did you manage to post this on the 17th March when it's still only the 16th?
Surely the point is not that reforms are impossible, but that they are:
(a) not enough; and
(b) vulnerable to being taken away by the ruling class.
Janine - blog readership dips on Sunday nights. As I may be too busy to post tomorrow, I thought I'd use the same logic that sees Monday newspapers on the newstands the evening before.
And what I am trying to say - perhaps I haven't said it well enough - is that as a dogmatic young Trot I used to argue that reforms are structurally impossible. They clearly are not.
Do you really think that the Afrikaaners could reinstate apartheid now? That strikes me as historically impossible.
Dave
You are of course right - reforms that make things better have to be preferable to waiting for the revolution.
I think that's one of the reasons I've never joined a revolutionary group - a feeling that they welcome things like the minimum wage through gritted teeth because it might put the revolution back a fortnight.
Instead of always pointing out the weaknesses of reforms we should sometimes seize them with enthusiasm as they boost confidence and therefore increase the chance of protest activity.
The trade union recognition laws are a good example of that.
Britain's most widely-read leftwing blog, for instance, recently opposed independence for Kosova because it is said to constitute a 'gangster state'
The politics of the former Yugoslavia is one of a number of areas where the main posters on the said blog find themselves at odds with many of its regular commenters, myself included. The debate's still better over there - largely because it's more open and less dismissive of rivals on the left.
'Scuse me, what's Britain's most widely read left blog?
good post Dave - however are there young trots nowadays?
Sue - follow the link. (I think the title actually belongs to Lenin's Tomb, more's the pity.)
good post Dave,
Funny that, how many "anti-imperialist" blogs are covering the violent repression in Tibet? 1? 2? out of 1000s?
like that old excuse on the railways, wrong type of leaves on the line, must be the wrong type of repression in Tibet?
A bit of a "staw man" ?
And...Er,.. isn’t there a slippage here between “reforms” and “reformist SOLUTIONS”?
One of the most frightening things I ever heard was Blair saying, "we must reform liberty" in 2006.
you can always rely on modernity, the own goal king of Decentry:
http://decentpedia.blogspot.com/2008/03/tibet.html
Eggs,
aa you're someone who seems to expressed a "genuine defence of human rights", do you think they only apply to Europeans? or only applicable in Tunbridge Wells?
does internationalism stop when the country concerned has no links to America or Britain?
is modern day anti-imperialism really anti-imperialism or just a cover for crude anti-Americanism?
And do "insurgents" only get condemned for burning shopkeepers to death , killing unarmed supporters of the occupation etc. if they are Iraqi insurgents, or Palestinian "insurgents", but not if they are Tibetans ?
modernity,
do you think asking total strangers long rhetorically loaded questions provides as much pleasure as sexual activity with water voles? Please answer yes or no and don't try to avoid the question.
Small point, Dave - should you have said "Andy N writing at... said" rather than "Britain's most widely read left wing blog said", since it's a group blog, and may have more than one opinion.
I'm working on this one, since the Wardman Wire now has about (counts on fingers) 8 or 9 regular contributors. Trying to work out how to avoid other people being blamed for my opinion!
Dave you were advocating Tibetan repression when you were a young man. In your middle age your supporting a revolt against repression, its not a rightward drift, its an improvement.
I would argue that you are more left-wing now than when you were back at Uni.
Is Mr Eggs Benedict aware that bestiality has just been made a crime in the Netherlands? It was already a crime here. I just wondered if he could give us his opinion on that issue of the day.
Eggs benedict is one sick puppy
Phil; in what sense is the debate at SU "open"? The moderation is so intense at times that whole threads disappear.
Dave, I don't believe that reforms are structurally impossible. Didn't as a young Trot. Don't as a middle-aged Trot.
Just to take one of the issues raised up - Kosovo/a - I've been uneasy about independence for a number of reasons, Yugonostalgia not being amongst them. Whilst it's true to say that the great majority - 90% plus - of Kosovan Albanians wanted independence from Serbia (and before that Serbia-Montenegro, FRY, SFRY etc etc), it is also true to say that there is a geographically discrete area to the north of Kosovo/a that does not want to be incorporated into a putative Kosovan state that has shown scant regard for its community (notwithstanding the evils wrought upon the Kosovars by the Serbian regime). Should this statelet surround Mitrovica, using the same logic as displayed by some of the left, be allowed to secede and join with Serbia ? Should the east of Macedonia be allowed to do the same to Albania? And moreover, if we take the wish for self-determination to its logical conclusion, should we allow Republika Srpska to split from Bosnia - Hercegovina and reunite with Serbia. I could (and I do) go on.
It seems the big problem is that certain states are seen by the liberal left as 'innately evil' and different standards are expected from each state, based on some frankly dubious assessments of Post World War 2 history.
No Ric, I'm not coming from an 'inate evil' demonology. And I appreciate that the standard Wilsonian/Leninist self-determination model is sometimes difficult to apply in eastern Europe, where the dispersion of ethnic groups is far more diffuse than in western Europe.
But 90% is a pretty decisive majority; yes, there should be appropriate safeguards for Serbs, but they cannot be granted a veto in the circumstances.