The following material is based on a speech by Sam Marcy, Chairperson of Workers World Party, to a Party meeting on March 2. It continues from last week.
The imperialist governments throughout the world have made Kuwait the central issue and are of course using it as a pretext for the military, economic and political domination of the entire region.
Nothing has consumed so many tons of paper as the scribbling of the imperialist journalists as they shed crocodile tears over the independence of Kuwait. Notwithstanding all that, and we have covered this earlier in our talk, the status of Kuwait as an independent question is one of immense importance.
Our position all along has been that the status of Kuwait is an issue to be decided first of all among the Arab people. So far as the working class and oppressed peoples here go, that should satisfy the requirement of a continuing anti-imperialist struggle, because our principal struggle must be directed against imperialism. It is the acid test for any progressive, let alone socialist or communist worker.
The internal class struggle and the internal struggle among the nationalities also must be decided by the Arab people, and of course without even the most innocuous form of imperialist intervention.
This doesn't mean, however, that our Party or any working class party has to have a totally aloof attitude, as though it is not concerned with the problems of the working class and the oppressed people in the Arab region. We are all part and parcel of the international working class, of the broad anti-imperialist movement, and the need for international solidarity of our class requires the participation of all concerned with the struggle.
From the viewpoint of Marxism and looking at it historically, one of the most fundamental issues in this struggle is the continuation of the bourgeois democratic revolution that the bourgeoisie began in France in 1789 and that has never been finished to this day.
The bourgeois democratic revolution in Marxist sociology means bringing bourgeois democracy to all sectors of the population, so that not only each person is treated by a common, equal standard, but also each nation. Wasn't this the very essence of the bourgeois revolution in 1789? Equality before the law. If the bourgeoisie were able to accomplish the equality of all nations, it would solve what we consider one of the most crucial issues of contemporary times, the oppression of one nation by another.
Take the American Civil War. It had as its historical objective the bringing of bourgeois democracy to the South. Slavery stood in the way. Of course, from a Marxist point of view, the struggle was not just a continuation and expansion of bourgeois democracy. What has not yet been fully discussed by bourgeois historians is that it was also a struggle over a transformation in the mode of production from one social system of exploitation to another, from chattel slavery to wage slavery and peonage.
The transformation of the economic anatomy of the old South, which put the Northern bourgeoisie in the saddle, only changed the form of exploitation, the form of the extraction of the surplus product from the sweat and blood of the Black people.
However, from the point of view of the bourgeoisie, their historical mission was to bring democracy throughout the whole country. But the Civil War didn't do that. It stopped halfway. There is still virulent racism all over the country. The bourgeois revolution is by no means complete.
Because the bourgeoisie didn't solve the national question, it has fallen to the revolutionary multinational working class, to communists, to solve it. Before we can even get to grips with the class question, we first have to have a clear understanding of the national question.
There have been many, many socialist groupings, not to speak of thousands of sincere progressives, who have come to grief in the struggle against slavery and racism, mainly because of the lack of understanding of the relationship between national oppression — primarily racism in this country — and capitalism. The intertwining of the two has made it especially difficult to pursue a relentless struggle against racism and national oppression.
If these two could be separated into two independent compartments, the task would at least be clear, if not solvable. But the two are inseparable, and therein lies the problem.
The bourgeoisie has not solved the bourgeois democratic revolution in Egypt, Syria, the Gulf states or anywhere else in the Middle East. If a whole nation, the Palestinians, can be deprived of their homeland, isn't that the surest proof that the bourgeois revolution hasn't been anywhere near accomplished?
Leaving aside for a moment the question of the class character of the future Palestinian state, its very existence with a territory of its own is the most elementary part of nationhood. Isn't that part of the pursuit of the bourgeois democratic revolution which should have been solved long ago? But imperialism planted in Palestine what has appeared to be an insuperable obstacle, the Israeli state, and evicted an entire people.
When Marx raised the slogan "Workers of the world unite," it was because the national question was being solved in Europe, or at least it seemed so. But the next hundred years showed that the bourgeoisie was not willing or capable of solving any of the national questions; on the contrary, it heightened and aggravated national oppression, to the extent where it became a fundamental feature of capitalism in the imperialist epoch.
Not only in Palestine but all over the Arabian Peninsula, the effort to complete the bourgeois democratic revolution has been thwarted.
The French Revolution allegedly succeeded in carrying through the bourgeois democratic revolution in its most progressive period. Then, however, Napoleon Bonaparte, who carried the bourgeois revolution forward in Eastern Europe and other parts of Europe, made a turn in his military strategy in 1798 and moved into Egypt. In his mind and the minds of his collaborators, he was bringing the bourgeois democratic revolution to the area. The French bourgeoisie thought of themselves as the leaders of democratic enlightenment.
Napoleon and his military and scientific entourage — he brought scientists with him — thought they were going to free Egypt from feudalism, from enslavement by the dynasty of the Mamluks, and bring about a new democratic order. But that's not what happened.
The main reason he went into Egypt was to cut Britain off from India. The British carried out military maneuvers under Lord Nelson that stymied him. And so, not being able to do anything else, Napoleon abandoned the effort in Egypt and went back to France to conduct the war against Britain, which was his real objective.
When Napoleon went into Egypt, it wasn't for oil. Unlike today, there wasn't much of material value in northern Africa that he could bring back to Europe. Napoleon could get a geopolitical advantage, but that wouldn't bring the huge profits that the new bourgeoisie urgently needed in their struggle against the masses at home.
The British regarded Egypt as mainly a theater of operations in their struggle with France for commercial supremacy. But it was not an area to obtain super-profits. That wasn't possible at the time.
Contrast this with what Spain did in Peru. When the Spanish conquistadors under Pizarro invaded Peru, it wasn't for strategic reasons. It was to get the gold and silver from the sweat and blood of the Incan people.
This enriched both the nobility and the clerical aristocracy back in Spain, but this very enrichment by extractive industries did not help the Spanish bourgeoisie. It stunted their effort to develop because most of the money and the gold went to the aristocracy, which was so opposed to building capitalism that they even expelled the Jews as traders. And Spain was left behind as an industrial state, to this day.
The British, French and Dutch built on a different basis. They enhanced the home market by developing the capitalist system. Their industrial and commercial supremacy was used to subjugate the colonies. Marx and Engels said about capitalism in The Communist Manifesto, "The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls."
So in the early stages of capitalism, extractive methods were used to get the wealth from the oppressed peoples. In some cases, like in France, Britain and Holland, this helped to develop the capitalist system, and in other cases, like Spain, it stunted the growth of the bourgeoisie.
What the imperialists are doing in the Middle East now is precisely what Pizarro and his conquistadors did to the Incas. Are they not drawing out the blood of the Middle East in the form of oil? Aren't Bush, Cheney, Powell and Schwarzkopf the modern conquistadors? Only their dress and manner are different. They are not developing the area, notwithstanding all the construction schemes.
One of the reasons they are able to do it, aside from the fact that they are the most powerful class grouping, is that the national question has not been solved in the Arabian Peninsula.
Europe, on the other hand, is in some respects united. It is true that it is divided among the imperialists, but it has an Economic Community, it has a Common Market. It is developing all sorts of mechanisms to unify, which is also a task of bourgeois democracy in the imperialist epoch. But this is not happening in the Arab region. Of course, a great deal of the unity-mongering in Europe for decades has been to achieve a united anti-communist front under NATO, led by U.S. imperialism.
Marxists, in common with all progressive anti-imperialist and socialist forces, particularly in the working class movement, look forward to a unification of the Arabian Peninsula. It goes without saying, of course, that this does not at all mean the subjugation of one nation, the dominance of one over the other.
The self-determination of each nation is the sine qua non for its liberation, as well as for its unification. It is not an easy task, of course, given the pervasive influence and hegemony of imperialism. But without it, all talk of unification becomes a cover for other deleterious objectives.
There was a short-lived political union of Egypt, Syria and Yemen in the United Arab Republic from 1958 to 1961. This might have been a tremendous step forward, had it not had some of the negative elements of the bourgeois democratic revolution, such as domination of the smaller by the larger, and had it not been conceived partly as an effort to deter the growth and influence of the communist movement, especially in Syria.
But given the over-riding economic and political influence of imperialism, the effort at unification was at best only marginal.
To the Arab people it should not really matter in the long run whether it is Khaddafi who unifies them, or Nasser (who initiated the UAR), or Saddam Hussein, or a rebellious prince from one of the emirates or Saudi Arabia. The question is who will challenge imperialism and unite the Arabian Peninsula, not on the basis of the domination of one nationality over another but on the basis of equality.
Take Germany. At one time, there were a number of German states. When Bismarck decided to unite them in the struggle against France — France, the homeland of the great French Revolution — Marx and Engels agreed that unification of Germany was progressive. It united the German state and also gave an impulse to uniting the workers. They hoped it would lead to a socialist revolution, given the strength of the socialist movement at the time.
But as soon as Bismarck turned the war with France into one of conquest to capture Alsace-Lorraine, Marx and both the German and the French working class turned sharply and resolutely against Bismarck and his schemes.
France was unified on the same basis.
The United States, on the other hand, is the result of arbitrary annexations — California, Texas, Arizona and the others. The territory annexed extends all the way to Hawaii and Alaska. That's how the U.S. empire was formed. It took in tow a number of nationalities that have been oppressed ever since. We don't agree with any of the annexations, but we note how important they were for capitalist development.
Looking at the struggle on the Arabian Peninsula from the point of view of the unity of the region against imperialism, unification, even if forcible, is not necessarily reactionary if it is done on the basis of equality and autonomy. It depends on the results of the struggle and the motivation.
Isn't it a fact that Bolivar in South America attempted the same thing — to unite all the separate republics?
Why was it okay for Bismarck, okay for the U.S., okay for France, but wrong for Saddam Hussein and the Revolutionary Command Council?
If it were just an arbitrary seizure, unrelated to a broader dispute, it certainly would be a question that the Arab people should decide, even if that meant their forceful intervention. But the question is how to intervene without giving aid and comfort to the imperialists and opening the door to them. How do you do that?
Let's assume (but not concede) that it was done wrongfully, that Kuwait was independent, and that Saddam Hussein arbitrarily decided it was time for Iraq to take over this area for nationalist purposes alone, unrelated to Arab unity, unrelated to the Palestinian question. If they could avoid imperialist intervention, then it would be correct for the other Arab states to oppose it. Once it was agreed that it was wrongfully done without relationship to borders or history, a good case could be made among the Arab states as to what was wrong and what was right. Does it help Arab unity? Does it do harm in the struggle against imperialism?
But talking concretely, what did happen?
In the first place, Iraq claims — and the claims can be substantiated — that Kuwait is part of ancient Mesopotamia and always has been. Until the Ottoman Empire, it was part of Iraq.
There was not much international discussion about this. Certainly there could be a great deal of discussion and historical documentation among the Arab people and Arab scholars. Iraq, Kuwait and others were subjugated by the imperialists, especially the British and the French. But the 1958 revolution in Iraq, which was a bombshell, threw out the old monarchy there and largely got rid of the domination of the oil monopolies. The revolutionary government under General Kassim raised the question of Kuwait. It was the revolution that propelled it.
The British thereafter, seeing all that happening — and I'm skipping a lot — decided they had better withdraw militarily from Kuwait.
They did, but they established a so-called independent government there and lobbied for international recognition.
So what happened was that the revolution upset the old relationship and the British, after a lot of maneuvering and discussion in the Foreign Office and the House of Commons — it's all documented — decided that the best thing to do was to lay the groundwork to withdraw the troops, but at the same time to give Kuwait all the external indicators of an independent government.
Without going into the internal political struggle in Iraq itself, which was stormy and difficult, I will say that when the British withdrew they thereby encouraged the Kuwaiti government to apply for membership in the United Nations. Who opposed it? None other than the Soviet Union. Ambassador Zorin took the floor and explained that the withdrawal of troops alone did not make an independent nation. The other levers of domination were all still there. The oil companies and the old monarchy were tools of the British. It couldn't have been said better.
And so when the application came before the United Nations, the Soviet Union correctly vetoed membership. And that should have ended the dispute.
But then Kassim of Iraq was overthrown. The new reactionary government in Iraq validated the British claim. Thereafter, that government was overthrown. So there was no clear recognition by the Iraqi government of the independence of Kuwait, until this very day.
Over all these many years, instead of unity developing to end imperialist exploitation, on the basis of national self-determination, there has been an entirely different trend, one toward divisiveness and decentralization in the Arabian Peninsula. The imperialists are good at this. It helps hold everyone in tow. So there's not the kind of unity that exists in Europe, say, despite all the national divisions there.
At the time when, under British instigation, Kuwait applied for membership in the UN, it was still a question how the other Arab countries would look at it. While the British were there, everybody was for the withdrawal of British troops. But when, after 1962, the Iraqi government made known its intention to either annex Kuwait or at least challenge its so-called independence, it began a controversy in the Arab countries.
Both Syria and Egypt said they were opposed to British troops being there but were for the independence of Kuwait. So did Saudi Arabia. Practically the same line-up you have today. They opposed it because they saw in it the strengthening of the Baghdad regime. I dare say they would oppose it for the same reason now. It is narrow nationalism, and at the same time it points up a fundamental theoretical proposition.
What is the state? Are the state and the nation one and the same thing? The Palestinians have no state at the present time, but they are a nation. We do not equate the state with the nation.
A state is the instrument of a ruling class. Today, that can be either the working class or the bourgeoisie. The bourgeois state is progressive only when it overthrows feudalism, brings about bourgeois democratic reforms and accelerates capital development. But the state is an organ of domination by the ruling class.
The ruling class in Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia is the compradore bourgeoisie, that is, it leans in the direction of compromise with the imperialist bourgeoisie. Of course, there are periods when they can be completely at odds with the imperialists. But precisely because they are bourgeois, they also lean in the direction of not just coexistence with imperialism, which is unavoidable, but also collaboration against the interests of the masses and other nations. Iran and Iraq are also bourgeois states.
Nations, however, can exist without a state.
We Marxists look forward to the destruction of the bourgeois state and the erecting of a workers' state, not only here in the imperialist homeland but everywhere, that withers away as class contradictions are dissolved. The elimination of the workers' state by gradual processes means that eventually all the administrative functions will be carried out by the people without the necessity of repression and compulsion.
All states, whether bourgeois or workers' states, are also organs of repression and domination. Lenin explained that in Soviet Russia, even after the bourgeoisie was overthrown, there could exist a bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie. How could that be? Because the very nature of the state depends upon social inequality, and therefore it cannot be altogether progressive.
So once, when Lenin went to address a meeting and saw a banner there that said, Long live the workers' state of the Soviet Union, he said, You know, that is the wrong slogan. We don't want it to live long. We want it to wither away so that there won't be a state, so that we'll have communism. The state to us is a transitional, transitory thing.
On the Arabian Peninsula, there are bourgeois states, most of them in competition and rivalry with each other. In 1962 they were properly opposed to British military intervention, but they were also opposed to Kuwait being taken over by Iraq, and they're opposed to it now too. But that time they stood formally on the proposition of self-determination and independence. This time they lined themselves up with the imperialists and made the situation much worse.
By lining up with imperialism, any progressive aspect of their opposition to the annexation of Kuwait by the Iraqi regime was lost. If, without the intervention of imperialism, you say that Kuwait should be independent of Iraq, you have a valid position. It's for self-determination; the Kuwaitis can decide it themselves. But if in the course of this there is an imperialist attack on Iraq, then you've got to subordinate your opposition to the acquisition of Kuwait by Iraq to the struggle against imperialism.
Iraq says the Kuwaitis, under the influence of U.S. imperialism, were deliberately provoking Iraq, deliberately cutting in on the oil market, and that it was a setup by the imperialists to take over the region. Wasn't it necessary to subordinate all the other issues in the interests of the anti-imperialist struggle?
The self-determination of nations should not be viewed as an abstraction irrespective of time and circumstances. On the contrary, it must be examined in the light of the particular epoch and the historical circumstances surrounding it.
Take, for instance, the slogan of self-determination for Kuwait. Ever since the British took it over and turned it into a colony, with or without the external trappings of an independent state, that slogan only could have meaning if the corroded, corrupt, hereditary monarchy were overthrown by a popular rising of the masses. Self-determination could then be decided by the masses of Kuwait.
But to talk about Kuwait's independence or self-determination as long as it is ruled by the monarchy left behind by the British is a deception. Even if the monarchy were to go through one of those rigged referendums for which imperialism is well known, would that be self-determination? Who determines self-determination in reality? In the historical context we are dealing with, both before and after the holocaustal invasion by U.S. imperialism, to talk about self-determination and independence for Kuwait is simply ridiculous.
The Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria, who raised this in the sixties when the British were leaving, knew well enough that Kuwait was not independent and could not exercise self-determination freely. It was dominated by the British and U.S. oil companies and the monarchy was an instrument of imperialist rule. So that raising the question of Kuwait as an independent country capable of exercising self-determination is altogether deceptive. To counterpose it to Iraq's intervention could not further self-determination but only served as a cover for imperialist intervention.
Equally wrong, absolutely terrible, are those in the U.S. movement who mouth the phrases of the imperialist bourgeoisie, using self-determination as a pretext. There is a time for us to raise the question of Kuwait, but we have to know which battle comes first. The main battle is that of all the oppressed nations against imperialism.
There had to be a realization — not only by Mubarak but Khaddafi and Assad — that the anti-imperialist struggle is far more significant than a piece of territory which would enhance the material and political standing of Baghdad; that in the long run, even if Saddam Hussein pictured himself, as is often said in the imperialist press, as a Napoleon-like unifier, it was not that great a threat. The greater threat is imperialism.
There are important political problems in this region, as there are anywhere else. And they lend themselves to a socialist, that is, a proletarian internationalist viewpoint and not a narrow nationalist one, either on the part of Egypt or Saudi Arabia or anybody else.
We communists will fight in the spirit of proletarian internationalism, first and foremost in the struggle against imperialism, on the basis of guarding the right of self-determination for each and every nationality, on the basis of socialist equality. This is our goal. It is consistent with the class struggle. It is consistent with all of the progressive ideas of the French Revolution and above all with the task of the socialist revolutions since — that of overthrowing imperialism.
Last updated: 19 February 2018