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The international workers vision of a movement that can 17800088804884889 mposing the rule of the tank without Any such project will in evitably confront the ideas of Leon Trotsky. It is no accident, for example, that Joe Slove and other leaders of the south African Communist Party are went wrong' in the Soviet This is not just an historical question, a question of the fac hat Trotsky led the figh against the rise of Stalinism in he Soviet Union. It is a matter of the pontcal content of that fight and its contemporary relevance In fact Trotsky analysed the the contacleons bureaucratic command and predicted its conomy crisis and collapse in a way which makes uncanny reading after what has happened in the Soviet Union. Key to Trotsky's analysis separate 'economics' from 'politics.
He insisted that a socialised could only ensure high quality production, if it was under thi democratic control of the workers, and harnessed their Creave onesoleon trast, he insisted, a bureaucratic could only result, eventually, in stagnation and collapse socialised есолоту plus democratic workers control - is the only viable solution against the bureaucratic command and the capitalist market. Which is why all debates feasible socialism must eventually confront Trotsky's ideas.
Internationalism Opponents of Trotskyism situation in each country was an uneven crystallisation of the •sements of the world process The world could not be undernational situations, but was dominated by the developments of world capitalism and the international class struggle.
This understanding underpinned Trotsky's internationalism. In a world of rapidly advancing international integration or capitansm. with economies dominated by taraou corporations, the need for the international organisation of the workers movement and especially of its component is vital.
No idea of Trotsky's has been more controversial than that of permanent revolution. It is a simpleidea. In the jargon it says that national anel democratic tasks of the revolution cannot be solved outside of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Put plainly, it says that in the semi-colonial and dominated countries the way forward to industrialisation can only be opened up by a radical break vith imperialism The third world is littered with countries thrown into poverty, misery and despair. In bourgeois nationalist governments have taken power with promises of modernisation and Almost invariably they fail, generally declining Into corrupt dictatorship Permanent revolution points out the necessity for the worki national and derat national and democratic Struggies in the third world. and the fatal consequences of any 'stages' theory - the notion that the struggle for socialism should beabandoned until after the methods for constructing a revolutionary workers' party; the revolutionary working class independence; women's liberation for the workers' united front.
Focusing all these writings is the idea of leadership the necessity to renovate the labour movement from top to bottom. Time and again Trotsky returns to the disparity between the ob jective strength of the labour ovenien and the wotkins class, and its capacity to reorganise society on socialist lines, and the political weakness of its organisations - dominated by a collaborationist bureaucracy.
Herejects any notion that this is a problem which will be sonaneous overcomes y by 'struggle. On the contrary, the renewal of the labour movement is a fight which has to be consciously prepared and organised through a struggle inside the mass organisations and movements of the working class for the programme of workers' power.
contrary to wnatis common ly alleged, Trotsky loathed sec ultra-left impatience. While he was organising the Fourth International he repeatedly insisted that his supporters reject attempts to go outside the existing labour movement, or be making propaganda, a which many latter-day ympathisers have ignored.
There are vital elements of socialism today which cannot be simply found in Trotsky's in particular the centrality of struggles for women's liberation and in defence of ecology But the cessful struggle for these goals - the mon worker s powerdirectly connects with Trotsky's legacy. If socialism is to be 'refounded - reorganised and strengthened - the ideas of Leon Trotsky will be a crucial aspect of that process.
"The new state was based on the expulsion of the Palestinians... Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were now in refugee camps..." ONLY a small minority of the world's Jewish population lives in Israel. There are many more lews in the United States; probably as many New Yorkas in Ísrael itself. As a solution to the problem of anti-Semitism, Israel is no solution.
The roots of today's conflict over Palestine le in the wave or anti-Semitism which swept eastern Europe in the last part of the 19th century. The founder of modern Zionism, Theordor ( le we ns coose ts State in 1896. At that time the idea that a jewish state would solve anti-semitism was fiercely contested in the world's Jewish population; many Jews in Eastern Europe adhered to the mass socialist movement. war, Palestine was part of the Ottoman empire. After the war, it 1917 British Zionists managed to persuade the British government to 0811978 88 889008 08885 creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. This was summarised in the 'Balfour Declaration'.
British imperialism hoped to stabilise its grip on t the area by creating a loyal, client population - as a counterweight to the Arabs and rival imperialist powers.
Until 1917 there had only been 60,000 Jews in Palestine. Between 1919 and 1923 this increased to 100,000.
Massive campaign
Under the protection of the British and with the authonty of the Ballour Under the Zionist gun: Palestinians on the West Bank perialism, a decisive foothold in the region This became important during the 1950g, as pan-Arab nationalism began to rise. Nationalist regimes came to power throughout the Arab world, portantiy Nasser's regime in Egypt.
In 1956, Nasser decided nationalisation of the Suez canal, then owned jointly by France and Britain. To defeat this, Britain, France and Israel aunched a joint invasion of Egypt ir protests, joined by US of fluence in the Middle East, forced the International News Behind Middle East Conference left wing alliance. much of the country. most imwere forced to leave.
Woridewies
president HisenFearing the consequences, Syria's Hafaz Assad sent his army to occupy he Palestinian position in Lebanon vas dealt a final blow by the Israeli in vasion in 1981. Despite a couragoou efence of Beirut the Palestinian fighter Thus the fedayeen were dispersed, and the Palestinian population in Lebanon became the victim of terrible atrocities, noticeably the horrific mas voice for sacre at the refugee camps in Sabra and Chatila. This was carried out by Maronite militias, under the supervision of the Istaen army In 1974, after the Arabs had been defeated in the 1973 war. the PIO ledaetsmup made a new poutcal 'democratic, secular Palestine', in which Israeli lews would be united with Palestinian Arabs on the basis of equality, was in practice aban0010, Araiat now ouat ora *two-state' solution, involving a Palestinian state in Gaza and the It is against this bea that the Isments on the West Bank is aimed. The West Bank and Fast Terusalem. won in 1973, have been effectively incorporated into Israel. Miltary defeat Lebanon. the military sirusele o the Palestinians has been effectively defeated. But the Palestinian masses in the occupied territories, especially the youth, replied in the mid1980s with the Intifadah - the mass civilian uprising.
defensive again. Its brutal suppression of the uprising gained international condemnation.
The Gulf war wasa new defeat for thel Palestinians, imperialist domination of the Middle East is now much more powertul than in the 1950s. Reactionary Arab governtanced themselves from the Palestinian The cause of Palestine cannot be won outside of an overturn of imperialist rule in the Arab East. That means that the national struggle of the Palestinians must be linked to the fight of Arab workers to defeat the reactionary Arab reximes, who nave stabbed the Fale tinian struggle in the back at every turn.
Permanent Revolution