We thank Paul Le Blanc for advertising this series of valuable online meetings.
More about Paul Le Blanc : Paul Le Blanc has for many years been a teacher and activist in Pittsburgh. His writings include “Lenin and the Revolutionary Party” and “A Short History of the US Working Class”. Source ; https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?auteur181
Socialism or Barbarism – Why Rosa Luxemburg Matters Today
With Paul Le Blanc & Helen Scott, co-editors of the acclaimed Rosa Luxemburg: Socialism or Barbarism collection of writings. Rosa Luxemburg was one of the most brilliant minds ever drawn to the socialist movement – an outstanding theorist & a political activist. This forum will look at the relevance of her ideas for transforming a world in crisis today – & how her work was broad in scope tackling capitalism and socialism; globalisation & imperialism; war and peace; social struggles, unions & parties; class, gender, race; the interconnection of humanity with the environment & more. Part of the Socialist Ideas Series – presented by Arise – a Festival of Left Ideas & Labour Outlook.
It is published on the ISJ site, a British website :
“International Socialism is associated with the [British] Socialist Workers Party, but articles express the opinions of individual authors unless otherwise stated. We welcome proposals for articles and reviews for International Socialism..”
This article comes with a strong recommendation from Joan McKiernan :
“This terrific article should be widely circulated….
“I must say that with all the classes I had long ago in the IS (International Socialists) on the Russian Revolution, I have no recollection of discussions of Ukraine. So the author’s discussion of that history is important for all of us involved in supporting Ukraine now.”
Paul Le Blanc is launching a new book in Dublin on Tuesday November 7 (the anniversary of the October revolution) in the New Theatre, behind Connolly Books in Temple Bar. Doors open at 7pm, with Paul Le Blanc giving a short talk on Lenin’s politics and theories starting at 7:30. This will be followed by an interview including opportunity for some questions from the crowd.
Paul Le Blanc reviews a critical thread of Marxist theory and history on the right of national self-determination, and the question of Ukraine, concluding that revolutionaries today need to defend the current resistance to the Russian invasion including its rights to seek arms.
In his critique of ultra-left sectarianism, Lenin denounced a tendency to present quotes from Marx as the basis for settling on a tactical orientation to guide us through the complexities of our own time. He insisted that “what is most important, that which constitutes the very gist, the living soul, of Marxism” is “a concrete analysis of a concrete situation.” That is certainly the case when we are considering realities so complex as the Russian-Ukrainian War.
I have attempted such a “concrete analysis of a concrete situation” in an 8900-word article entitled “Making Sense of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine” for the online publication Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal. In the final 2400 words of the article, I seek to relate the larger analysis of the invasion to previous Marxist theory and lessons from revolutionary history. I urge readers to consult the first 6500 words of the larger article. At the same time, I am hopeful that my review here of some of the relevant history and theory will be useful for those working to sort things out regarding these momentous developments.
We wish to thank Dick Nichols, European Editor of the Australian Magazine Green Left Weekly, who drew our attention to an important article on Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, written by the well-known Marxist scholar and historian Paul Le Blanc.
The author takes the side of Ukraine Against Russia :
I favour the defeat of Vladimir Putin’s invasion and victory for Ukrainian self-determination.
I oppose imperialism in all its forms – including Putin’s invasion and NATO.
I oppose capitalism and favour its replacement with the genuine political and economic democracy of socialism everywhere: the United States, Ukraine, Russia etc.
A momentous development has drawn my attention away from the unfolding climate catastrophe on which I have been riveted. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a major factor fragmenting the left-wing forces I hoped would become a major force in the revolutionary struggle for climate justice and human survival. Recently, I have met Russians and Ukrainians — and others from Brazil, Argentina and the United States — who have all made it clear to me that I cannot avoid dealing with this issue.1
In this article, I will attempt to do three things:
Review what some on the left assert either in favour of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or against the Ukrainian response;
Review Russian and Ukrainian realities and views on the war; and
Touch on essential aspects of Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s invasion (including where the weapons come from).
In the footnotes I offer sources that have influenced my analysis and that I believe may be useful for those seeking to make sense of these realities. But I owe it to readers to indicate my own position from the outset. This is my bottom-line:
Review Author : Ian Parker is a Manchester-based psychoanalyst and a member of Anti*Capitalist Resistance.
This book was first published in 2014 in French – the English language translated edition is recent. The content preceded the genocidal Russian invasion of all Ukraine in 2023, which is reshaping the radical left all over the world. In my opinion a notable feature of the pro-Ukraine solidarity left which is today emerging everywhere, is a political convergence between healthy revolutionary Marxist (Trotskyist) currents and anarchist inspired revolutionaries.
John Meehan August 31 2023
Anarchism is a tricky subject for many Marxists. We know that anarchists should be our allies, but there is bad blood between us and them; blood, anarchists would say, that is mainly theirs. This book Revolutionary Affinities: Towards a Marxist-Anarchist Solidarity (2023, PM Press) by two Marxists, Michael Löwy and Olivier Besancenot, just translated into English, shows that this way of viewing the history overlooks many connections between the two traditions, and, more than that, there are many things that we Marxists need to learn from anarchism.
Confusions
There are a number of sticking points that are bound up with representations of anarchism in popular culture and the bitter history that Marxists keep repeating to account for failures of revolution. One is the appropriation of the term by liberal individualists – those who want to keep a distance from any particular political commitment because they don’t trust “politicians” (which is of itself often an understandable suspicion of authority) – and they tend to use the term as an excuse. How many times have you heard a friend or family member say that they won’t take a position or do anything to change the world because they are “a bit of an anarchist”? But there are plenty of bureaucratic and apolitical characters around the world who use the term “Marxist”, so that isn’t good reason to tar all the anarchists with the same “petit bourgeois” brush.
Diane Abbott – A statement from Jewish Voice for Labour
Sir Keir Starmer’s British Labour Party has suspended Britain’s first Black woman MP following a letter published in the Observer in response to an article about racism in the British State, as reported by Skwawkbox.
The JVL response is below. Sun 23 Apr 2023
Diane Abbott, 2017. Photo from Wikipedia
The suspension of Diane Abbott is yet a further attack on our freedom to debate very important issues in the Labour party. Her original letter was not antisemitic and the way some critics have rounded on her as if it were is cynical and unhelpful.
As a prominent Black Labour MP she cannot avoid discussing the way Black and Asian people are in the frontline of racist oppression – and the way the Black experience has been downplayed in the Labour Party. This was identified by Martin Forde in his report as a hierarchy of racism. The wording of Diane’s letter was unfortunate in that it appeared to compare forms of racism. Diane has rightly apologised for this.
The Marxist writer and activist John Molyneux died in Dublin on December 11 at the age of 74. John was a longstanding member of the International Socialist Tendency, first as a member of the International Socialists/Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in Britain, later as a member of the Socialist Workers Party/Network in Ireland.
John was one of the generation of ’68. He joined the International Socialists in Britain in 1968 after being radicalised by the antiwar movement and the global revolutionary upsurge of that year. He soon became one of the group’s leading theorists and most popular speakers.
The congress of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (New Anticapitalist Party) took place on 9-10-11 December. It resulted in a separation of the party. The first statement published was adopted by the platform winning 48.5% of the votes. The second by the platform obtaining 45.5% of the votes.
This reader of the Fourth International site noticed today (December 8 2022) there is no entry for Ireland. Up to a few days ago Socialist Democracy(SD) was on the list, but that entry has now been removed. https://fourth.international/en/organisations
SD left the Fourth International on November 8 2022.
SD has expressed strong public disagreements with the policies adopted by the Fourth International since the mid 1990’s.
Today the organization’s site is a nest of transphobic articles. It promotes a campist policy on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Socialist Democracy & Evangelical Christianity – bet you never thought you would see that coalition !!”
A comrade recently asked me “Socialist Democracy & Evangelical Christianity – bet you never thought you would see that coalition !!” The organization defended the far-right teacher Enoch Burke, who is currently in an Irish jail.
Our ‘Ireland-Ukraine: International Solidarity of the Left’ public meeting in Dublin on Tuesday 4th October is postponed due to the illness of the principal speaker Yuliya Yurchenko. Our apologies to all for any inconvenience. We will announce the date for a re-arranged meeting as soon as possible. We wish Yuliya a speedy recovery.”
Irish Left With Ukraine
Yuliya Yurchenko – an active supporter of the European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine (ENSU) – speaks at this Dublin meeting along with Irish trade union speakers and others. https://ukraine-solidarity.eu/
Yuliya Yurchenko, author of Ukraine and the Empire of Capital: From Marketization to Armed Conflict (Pluto, 2018). She is a Lecturer in International Business and Researcher at the Public Services International Research Unit, the Centre for Business Network Analysis, and the Political Research Centre at the University of Greenwich.
Putin’s attempt to conscript up to a million young Russians to fight in Ukraine is failing. In less than one week, more than 300,000 young Russians have sought refuge in neighbouring countries like Georgia and Kazakhstan. Hundreds of thousands are expected to seek exile in the next few weeks. We call on West European countries to open the borders to these courageous and principled young Russians, in the name of peace and justice.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 