Youth, Class & Party

Section VIII. Internationalism and Imperialism

Socialism is fundamentally internationalist both in its goals and methods. Under socialism the national state and nationalities will disappear through economic integration and intermarriage. Therefore, our approach to imperialism in particular and international politics in general is to lay the basis for the integration of nations and not to redistribute economic and military power among existing nations.

We seek to eliminate national oppression by working for the equality of all nations and to further the interests of laboring masses throughout the world. The RCY considers itself not as an American radical group but as the youth group of a national section of an international revolutionary vanguard. Therefore, we have no reticence about taking positions on and seeking to influence developments in other countries, rejecting the accusation that we, as Americans, “can’t tell other people what to do.”

Within the American left, imperialism is viewed in national and military rather than class terms. Imperialism is seen as national aggression motivated by great-power chauvinism and the profitability of foreign investment. In fact, imperialism is the alliance between the strong bourgeoisie in the metropolitan countries and the weak propertied classes in the backward countries. As Trotsky said of the 1925-27 Chinese Civil War: “Imperialism.., is not gunboats in the Yangtze River... but the political and economic bonds linking the native bourgeoisie with foreign capital.” Precisely because imperialist intervention against colonial uprisings reflect international capitalist collaboration, imperialism can only be defeated by the international solidarity of the laboring masses under working-class leadership.

Since World War II the U.S. has become the super-dominant imperialist power, greatly expanding its ownership of the worlds productive capacity (particularly in Western Europe) and becoming the world’s banker by imposing the dollar as the internationa1 currency. However, it would be wrong to conclude that the functions of American imperialism are simply motivated by the money-making activities of U.S. corporate and financial interests. The U.S. has undertaken to be the economic and military guardian of the bourgeois world order, defending the weak bourgeoisie in backward countries from their own masses. Half a million U.S. troops were sent to Vietnam because the Vietnamese ruling class was unable to suppress a peasant rebellion. The U.S. is able to play the role of world gendarme because of its objective military-economic strength and the low level of political class struggle in the U.S. Therefore, while it is absolutely essential to demonstrate solidarity with other peoples who are victims of U.S. imperialism, the key to defeating US. imperialism is by intensifying the American class struggle.

The Vietnam war may well become the turning point in the ultimate defeat of U.S. imperialism. It has demonstrated the military vulnerability of the American behemoth, undermined the economic and diplomatic hegemony of the U.S. within the capitalist world, forced unprecedented conditions of inflation and unemployment on a working class no longer accepting Cold War ideology and produced a new generation of American revolutionaries. However, the Vietnam war has yet to polarize American society along class lines. We seek to transform opposition to imperialist war into class war.

Antiwar activity has consisted of an endless series of respectable demonstrations, objectively in support of the “peace” wing of the bourgeois parties, organized by the equally endless front groups of the SWP/YSA; or various kinds of confrontations with the state organized by the New Left. We must purge the antiwar movement of liberal imperialist politicians, breaking the alliance between those opposed to U.S. imperia1ism in principle and those American imperialists favoring a different tactical line--an alliance which has prevented a class-struggle fight against the war. Driving the, liberal bourgeoisie out of the antiwar movement does not mean physically assaulting them on speakers’ platforms, but discrediting them politically among anti-war activists. Instead of semi-annual peace crawls or get-yourself-arrested confrontations we advocate labor antiwar strikes building up into a general strike. Since a number of major trade unions (e.g., UAW, Teamsters) have taken nominal antiwar stands, agitation directed at the labor movement for antiwar strike action is one of our most pressing tasks.

Since the military instrument of U.S. imperialism consists mainly of working-class youth, the RCY has a particular responsibility for developing a revolutionary strategy toward the armed forces. We raise the demand for a servicemen’s union which will defend soldiers’ rights against the brass and lay the basis for effective opposition to U.S. imperialism by the soldiers themselves. Recognizing the inherently reactionary nature of U.S. armed forces, the fight for soldiers’ political rights and material interests are subordinate to the overall struggle against imperialism. We support the abolition of the draft to prevent the ruling class from using the entire population as cannon fodder in imperialist war.

Recognizing the essence of imperialism as the tie between the colonial bourgeoisie and foreign capital, we reject all Third World Maoist theories that the colonial bourgeoisie has more in common with their laboring masses than with the imperialist bourgeoisie. United fronts between revolutionary socialists and bourgeois nationalists are necessarily temporary and unstable affairs, justified only when fighting concrete acts of imperialist aggression (e.g., fighting for political independence or the withdrawal of foreign troops) or domestic reaction which threaten the democratic rights of the working class. Under no circumstances do we become prisoners of bourgeois nationalism, supporting all policies which are justified by nationalist rhetoric which bring the colonial bourgeoisie into conflict with foreign powers. In many cases the colonial bourgeoisie seeks to strengthen the national economy through intensifying the exploitation of the working class, such as raising taxes to subsidize state-supported industry (e.g., the Jagan government in Guyana).We defend the right of colonial governments to pursue nationalist economic policies without foreign intervention, but we adamantly oppose those policies when they are at the expense of the laboring masses. Furthermore, the colonial bourgeoisie often practices military adventurism and mini-colonialism of its own, usually justified in terms of nationalist rhetoric (e.g., Sukarno’s forays into Malaysia and New Guinea).

Recognizing the underlying bourgeois character of the colonial world, we support neither side in wars between backward states (e.g., India vs. Pakistan, Indonesia vs. Malaysia, A1geria vs..Morocco), regardless at these states temporary alliances with the U.S. or Soviet Union and China. We make an exception where national self-determination and survival is involved, such as Biafra and East Bengal where we give unconditional military support to the oppressed nations.

While recognizing the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people, we oppose both sides in conflicts between Israel and the Arab states, since the Arab states represent the interests of their own national bourgeoisies and not those of the Palestinian refugees. For the same reasons we are opposed to Zionism since Zionism maintains that all Jews have similar interests which supercede class lines. Such attitudes implicitly condone attacks of the Israeli ruling class against the Israeli working class, especially against the Oriental Jews and Arab workers living in Israel. We call for total secularization of Israel and the Arab states, no annexations, and full recognition of the rights of the Palestinian Arabs including the choice of repatriation or compensation for their forced eviction from their homeland. Israeli annexations following the 1967 war should be returned to the Arab states.

In the deformed workers states we simultaneously defend the workers’ interests against the imperialist interests and their own state bureaucracies. The Hungarian Revolution, the Shanghai general strike of l966 and dock workers’ riots in Poland demonstrate that all Stalinist bureaucracies profoundly oppress their own working classes. This oppression can only be ended by overthrowing the bureaucratic caste and establishing workers democracy based on the power of workers councils. The Soviet Union’s support for India in the war against China, Maoist support for the massacre of East Bengalis and Castro’s repudiation of his followers in Latin America and support for Allende demonstrate that all Stalinist governments betray socialist principle for narrow, nationalistic diplomatic interests. Only by replacing the Stalinist parties with parties unalterably committed to internationalism can the power of the Sino-Soviet states be used to further the struggle for world socialism. Recognizing that collectivized property and economic planning constitute a major qualitative gain for the workers in the Sino-Soviet states, we unconditionally defend these property forms against imperialist attacks and capitalist encroachment.

Internationalism, like other elements of our program means nothing unless embodied in organizational form. Unless we are part of an international party, we can neither influence revolutionary activity abroad nor engage in political interaction with our comrades in other countries in a manner that will have continuity and impact. The Second International has become a minor vehicle of international ruling-class collaboration through the intermediary of the reformist trade-union bureaucracy. The Third International systematically subordinated world revolution to the diplomatic maneuvering of the Soviet bureaucracy and was finally liquidated during World War II as one of Stalin’s many gifts to Churchill and Roosevelt. The Fourth International was founded in 1938 to win the working masses away from the twin guardians of the bourgeois order within the workers movement–Stalinism and Social Democracy. During the post-WWII economic stabilization and Cold War the Fourth International fell prey to opportunists and revisionists. We are confident that the battle against revisionism will proceed toward the real goal we have dedicated ourselves to--the rebirth of the Fourth International as the world party of proletarian revolution.

-general line adopted by RCY Founding Conference

3 September 1971.

-final version approved by RCY National Bureau

28 November 1971

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