Phil Hearse reviews Yugoslavia - the Acid Test by Attila Hoare and Yugoslavia's Break-Up by Geoff Ryan; both published by Socialist Outlook. THERE CAN have been few international political events which have found the British far left so foundering as the war in ex-Yugoslavia. Indeed the perversity of the positions adopted by far left organisations boggles the imagination. rage which portrays the fighting between Serbian Chetniks, the Croat HVO and the Bosnian government forces as tribal rivalry and the battles of equally on the left have simply tail-ended this analysis, topped off wit a markest gloss It is high time that this failure was subject to a detailed critique, and at last we have one in Attila Hoare's withering polemic. Subtitled How Militant, Socialist Worker and Living Marxism capitulated to Westem imperialism and Serbiar nationalism in the Balkans. Hoare shows how these currents faithfully reproduced the views of Western governments.
Take the question of armins the Bosnian resistance to Serb and Croat aggression. Douglas opposed arming the Bosnian rewould 'only create a level kill. ing Ticia (as opposca to the very uneven killing field which currently exists). This statement word by writers for the SWP and Militant.
Right now a flotilla of Westem navy boats in patrolling off the Bosnian coast to prevent arms shipments into ex-Yugoslavia. This does nothing to prevent supplies geting to Serbia, or indeed Croatia; its sole effect Is to oistrm ano wcaken tne Bosnian resistance.
Self defence
Militant's main statement on chis question, written by Peter Taaite, supports the naht tor communities under attack to defend themselves - but then arques that Marxists could oniy support giving arms to carry out cally elected workers committees. Since such committees of course do not exist, then the night of communities being ethnically cleansed to defend themselves remains a worthy principie with no concrete aDprcanon!
One of the most common flict is the idea that the Western imperialist states are anti-Serbia or anti-Milosevic: hence the RCP's portrayal of Serbs as the 'nigers of Eurooe Victimised and demonised on all sides.
Attila Hoare robustly deflates this view, together with the quasi-Stalinist positions which underlie this, and much else in the far left's analysis.
The sad fact is that a big part of the British left has a simple analysis which is crude and outrageously wrong: Croats during the last world war were pro-Nazi Ustache, but the Serbs were the anti-Nazi partisans Today, in strict continuity with this. the Croats are pro-impenalist reactionaries, while the progressive Yugoslavia.
This type of thinking, a farrago of histoncal untruths and crackpot contemporary analysis, pervaaes so much of the Icit which prides itself on its militant 'anti-Stalinism'.
Geoff Ryan's pamphlet is a gins of the Yugoslavian crisis ond' Yugoslavia after the victory of Tito's partisans.
As Ryan shows, the left cannot come to terms with these inc rolc of the mattonal gucston and democratic tasks in the contemporary workd.
Indeed it is a crystal clear synoor or inc impovensacae of the bog-standard, lowestcommon denominator Marx ism' of the SWP and Militant that anything a bit more complione side and the bosses on the Attila Hoare pamphiet £1.50, Geoff Ryan pamphlet €1.00. From Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU. Add 36p postage.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No.47, July-August 1993. Page 8