editorial is quite correct to assert that only the 'sclf organisation of the oppressed.. can pave the way for socialism." But this is not immediately useful to those who are about to be lacerated by the bullets of the Mujahedin. While the SAF were there they at least mitigated their worst affects,
Khomeni's counter-revolution was an enormous setback for the revolutionary movement: can we favour the proconditions for the creation of a similar state in
The PDPA Stalinists instituted a number of significant reforms: abolishing bride prices, establishing schools, and various important Tand reforms. Its replacement by those who advocate in their refuge camps the stoning of women adulterers, who are in the pay of US imperialism and have a political programme beat left behind in the seventh century, would be disastrous.
It is with uncharacteristic disregard for the lives of thousands that SO can countenance the regime of Hehmalyar i Islamic — financed by reaction and fuelled by religious backwardness. A political solution and a Marxist current await to be brought into being in Afghanistan.
Whatever the possibilities of cither in the short term, they are hindered by abandonment of the country to the Mujahedin. Its rule will mean mass murder, miscry and barbarism. To watch it unfold over the next year is a sickening prospect. Simon Kennedy Afghanistan 2 John Lister's uticle and also the editorial statement on Afghanistan (SO 13) attempt a position somewhere between a defencist (ie Marxist) position and the 'third camp' degeneration of the SWP(UK). As such they are full of contradictions. We are told that whilst we should have favoured a Soviet troop withdrawal all along we are also told that now they are withdrawing this represents a defeat for the working class!
Of course it is true, as John states, that the Soviet hureaucracy had no intention of sovietising Afghanistan but was merely: interested in securing the rule of a left Bonapartist regime within its sphere of influence. This line was clearly emphasised at the time of the intervention in 1979 by the ousting of the Khalq Faction and the murder of Amin and the installation in power of the Parcham Faction (the more conservative of the two PDPA factions). Despite this, should the Marxist response have been to join in the imperialist orchestrated chorus and demand That Soviet troops withdraw - or should it have been to demand procisely that the Soviet burcaucracy sovietise Afghanistan? That is demand that the burcaucracy base itself on the independent mobilisations of the Afghan workers and peasants and commit itself to the expropriation of the ruling classes and the establishment of a workers' state.
In relation to the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1940, the former position was maintained by Schachtman whilst the latter was maintained by Trotsky, If John and other comrades claim to hold a Trotskyist position then the onus is on them to show why it was correct to oppose a Soviet withdrawal from Finland but correct to have called for a Sovier withdrawal from Afghanistan.
It is obvious that the Soviet burcaucracy got into deeper and deeper water throughout the 1980s but this must be seen as a product of the rightist oricntation of the bureaucracy and the Parcham Faction of the PDPA, resulting in the dismantling of many of the gains of the 1978 revolution in order to pacify the hig landlords and other forces who had an interest in overthrowing the regime. This culminated in the PDPA abandoning any claim to be a Marxist-Leninist party at the end of 1988.
By setting themselves against the establishment of a workers' state the Soviet hureaucracy and the Parcham Faction demobilised sections of the Afghan masses and also encouraged the Mujahedin in their counter-revolutionary war. The Afghan crisis confirms Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution, Namely that in the underdeveloped and oppressed nations. national liberation can only be achieved under the proletarian dictatorship, whilst the Menshevist-Stalinist, bourgeois-democratic line leads to defeat.
It is no accident that Socialist Organiser. who were the most vociferous on the Marxist left in favour of a Sovict withdrawad from Afghanistan at the time of the intervention, have today abandoned any pretence at defending a marxist position on the workers" states and explicitly defend the position of Schachtman against those of Trotsky. The line of Socialist Organiser on Afghanistan is part of their consistent capitulation to imperialist pressure as expressed in their positions on the Maivinas, Palestine, Ireland
Whilst the international politics of Socialist Outlook can in no way be compared to the social chauvinist cretinism of Socialist Organiser, Afghanistan stands out as the exception that proves the rule. A failure to correct this wrong position may result in today's exception becoming tomorrow's rule. Patrick Scott
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