Video: Blackfire “It Ain’t Over”

Iraq: what now?

At the end of June, US troops for the most part pulled out of Iraqi cities. What is the situation in Iraq now, and what path will the US follow as it seeks continued control in that country?

Following are two articles which, while not discussing these questions fully or deeply, give some indications of what is happening and what might happen. The first, by Patrick Cockburn, is from the London-based Independent, and the second, by Jason Ditz, is from antiwar.com.

Iraq: mission accomplished?

by Patrick Cockburn

More than six years after US forces captured Baghdad, American combat troops will withdraw from all Iraqi cities and towns by tonight, handing over full control to the 600,000-strong Iraqi army and police and marking a crucial step in Iraq’s return to independence.

Iraqi state television has been showing a clock with an Iraqi flag marking the time that remains until the US pull-out with the words: “June 30: National Sovereignty Day”. The Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who, although closely allied to the US, nevertheless calls its departure a “great victory”, has declared today a national holiday.

Bhattarai’s “New Type of State” and the Maoist Re-envisioning of Communism

How should future socialist revolutions avoid capitalist restoration? How can communists deepen the involvement of the people in decisionmaking? How we do better, building on the experience of socialism in the 20th century?

Baburam Bhattarai is a celebrated intellectual figure in Nepal and a top leader within the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [UCPN(M)]. After years underground in a rapidly growing guerilla uprising, that revolutionary organization now may stand on the threshold of completing this century’s first socialist revolution. For that reason alone, the ideas of this distinctly non-dogmatic communist movement are of interest around the world.

The following essay discusses and defends a particularly controversial analysis made by Bhattarai in 2004 — it is called “The Question of Building a New Type of State” and is available online here on the Kasama sites.  It was originally published in The Worker, organ of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, #9, February 2004.

It is, as you will see an argument for a new relationship between popular democracy and radical socialist revolution within this 21st century.

Such new Nepali Maoist theories and proposals on democracy and communist history have been the target of sharp criticisms — often centering on their approach to the state apparatus as a historical institution. Those criticisms featured prominently in open letters written by the Revolutionary Communist Party of the United States, and more recently by the Communist Party of India (Maoist).

Rosa L. Blanc, the author of the following piece, is a participant in our Kasama discussions — though, as usual, the Kasama Project itself does not formally endorse the particular analysis contained.

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Bhattarai’s “New Type of State”
and the Nepalese Maoist Re-envisioning of Communism in the 21st Century

by Rosa L. Blanc

Introduction

Baburam Bhattarai’s article entitled “The Question of Building a New Type of State” is at the center of many polemics today and has been the object of attack in the recent critique of the RCP to the Nepalese Maoists.

“Alarmed by the positions put forward in the ‘New State” article,” the following is how Revolutionary Communist Party,USA describes Bhattarai’s intervention:

1-”have loudly proclaimed loyalty to ‘democracy’—meaning Western-style bourgeois democracy,”
2-”expressed a negative verdict on the whole first wave of proletarian revolution,”
3-”advanced a series of arguments about democracy and dictatorship and how they related to the struggle in Nepal that,” the RCP argued, “would, if followed, lead to not establishing a proletarian dictatorship or to abandoning it if it were established.”
4-”basically placed the extension of formal democracy (including elections with competing political parties) at the heart of the socialist transition and as some kind of supposed “guarantee” for the prevention of capitalist restoration”
5-”proposed that upon reaching socialism the standing army could be dissolved and replaced by militias,”
6-”the model of the Paris Commune, with direct elections and recall of officials, was raised as a more positive model than the experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union and China.”
7-”argues that Nepal must first develop the productive forces before the revolution can advance further, and that only capitalism can achieve this… some compare him to China’s Deng Xiaoping.”
(From the RCP long essay in Revolution 160, March 29, 2009 entitled “On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement: Letters to the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) from the 
Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, 2005-2008 “)]

Given the distortions and misrepresentations of Bhattarai’s article in these current debates, I feel the need to summarize its main ideas so that people can judge for themselves. I want to contrast the way RCP summarizes this article with what the article really said.

Alastair Reith: Beneath Transformers 2’s All-American Surface

This review first appeared on Comrade Alastair, a revolutionary blog from New Zealand.

By Alastair Reith

The latest Transformers film will delight plenty of people. It is filled with explosions, some new characters, bucketloads of special effects and the puerile one liners and adolescent humour one expects from an action film of its nature. It’s also one of the most reactionary films I’ve seen in a very long time. While many will scoff at the idea of a political analysis of Transformers (“it’s just a movie! It’s not meant to be taken seriously!”), the sewage bubbling below its clean cut, all American surface needs to be exposed.

The film opens with scenes of people running in panic past military cordons at the scene of an apparent chemical spill at an industrial complex in China. This quickly turns out to be the site where a Decepticon (the evil baddie robots) has landed. Soon after this we are treated to the arrival of the knights in shining armour, the US military. We see a scene with officers discussing China’s closure of its airspace, and their decision to ignore this and send in Black Ops helicopters with a team of elite troops and Autobots (the nice goodie robots) to deal with the situation. This sets the tone for the rest of the movie. The US military scampers merrily around the world, invading China, demanding access to the airspace of its Egyptian and Jordanian client states, and generally acting as a planetary police force. This isn’t anything unusual, of course, with most Hollywood films treating the United States exactly this way – a good example is Spy Game, in which Robert Redford (retiring CIA officer) organises the disabling of a Chinese power plant and a bloody assault on a Chinese prison by US Navy Seals in order to rescue Brad Pitt (CIA spy captured trying to infiltrate the prison). In the eyes of Hollywood, US imperialism’s armed thugs can do no wrong and the world is their playground, and it is this wall-to-wall view that reaches the eyes of cinema-goers around the world.

Kasama Podcast: “Breaking With Crusty Leftism”

Click me to subscribe to this podcast series

This new podcast discussion explores the problems of isolation and conservative routine among radical folks and organizations. The views expressed here are (as you might expect) not any official expression by the Kasama Project itself — but part of an ongoing conversation about how to make a real, living revolutionary movement today.

Click here for the podcast page.

For the podcast subscription feed click on the image on the right >>

Luis V introduces and explains our plans for this podcast series >>

Communist Theory as Non-Dogmatic Anticipation

A conference was held in mid-March of this year in London on the Idea of Communism, featuring Alain Badiou, Slavoj Zizek, Toni Negri, Terry Eagleton, Jacques Ranciere, and others. Kasama published several reports and commentaries on the conference at the time. The following talk from one of the speakers, Alberto Toscano, is courtesy of the blog infinite thought. The announcement for this conference made clear that speakers would “not deal with practico-political questions” but with “Communism as a philosophical concept,” and in this paper Toscano considers what it means to be a communist philosophically, and how this relates to the specific historical situation and to the realization of communism in practice.

“The problem for Marx, the problem of communist politics and communist theory, will remain throughout that of a non-dogmatic anticipation. And this anticipation will mutate in accordance with the conjuncture.

“The specificity of communism stems from its intrinsic and specific temporality, from the fact that, while never simply non- or anti-philosophical, it is an idea that contains within it, inextricably, a tension towards realisation, transition, revolution. I now want to briefly draw the consequences of this argument in terms of four interlinked dimensions of the notion of communism which challenge the philosophical sufficiency or autonomy of the concept: equality, revolution, power, and knowledge.”

Communist Knowledge/Communist Power

by Alberto Toscano

For the purposes of this talk, I want to take Zizek’s opening remarks yesterday about the ‘patience of the concept’ as a license to zero in on the question of communism’s relationship to philosophy. I want do so in particular through the prism of what I’d like to call the politics of abstraction, a notion which I hope will be clarified as I proceed. As a cautionary note, this means that this paper will not address the immediate prospects of a communist politics, but simply consider what it might mean to be a communist in philosophy, and whether the idea of communism is indeed a philosophical idea. It also means that I will be engaging at various points in the quotation and discussion of Marx. This is not a matter of allegiance or authority – Marx is not a timeless standard of correctness – but stems from the need to define how philosophy was caught up in the very emergence of the idea of communism, and in what manner communism developed both from and against philosophy. This is a precondition, I think, for revisiting and possibly recasting the idea of communism today.

Police Murder Unarmed Arab Tourist in Miami

(Thanks to Luis for suggesting this)

A 29-year-old tourist vacationing with his girlfriend in Miami Beach was shot and killed by police the day before his flight home. (June 26)

Here is the surveillance video:

An article >

Kasama Pamphlet: Indian Maoists on Communist Controversies

Kasama has published a more readable, printable PDF version of the open letter from the Communist Party of India (Maoist) to the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

Open Letter to the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

[also web version]

“…in the name of struggle against dogmatism, there have been serious deviations in the International Communist Movement (ICM), often going into an even greater, or at least equally dangerous, abyss of right deviation and revisionism. In the name of creative application of Marxism, communist parties have fallen into the trap of right opportunism, bourgeois pluralist Euro-Communism, rabid anti-Stalinism, anarchist post-modernism and outright revisionism…”

Now in Greek: Mike Ely’s “Maoist Revolution In Tibet”

Mike Ely’s work on the “Maoist Revolution in Tibet” is now available in Greek translation.

It is also available in the original english version.

Η κινεζική επανάσταση και το Θιβέτ

Κυκλοφόρησε από τις εκδόσεις μας το βιβλίο Η κινέζικη επανάσταση και το Θιβέτ, που περιέχει κείμενα του Αμερικάνου αγωνιστή Μάικ Ιλάι που γράφτηκαν τη δεκαετία του 90 για το ζήτημα του Θιβέτ όταν αυτό βρίσκονταν και πάλι στο επίκεντρο, όχι εξαιτίας της επιλεκτικής ευαισθησίας των δυτικών ιμπεριαλιστικών δυνάμεων που εκφράστηκε πρόσφατα με αφορμή τη διεξαγωγή των Ολυμπιακών Αγώνων από την Κίνα, αλλά εξαιτίας μεγάλων κινητοποιήσεων μέσα στο ίδιο το Θιβέτ ενάντια στην πολιτική αφομοίωσης που ασκούσε,  η Κίνα στο Θιβέτ.

Στο βιβλίο, περιγράφεται αναλυτικά η ιστορική και πολιτική πλευρά του ζητήματος, ξεκινώντας από τα χρόνια κυριαρχίας των Λάμα στο Θιβέτ, πριν την επανάσταση, όπου περιγράφεται η καταπίεση, η εξαθλίωση και ο σκοταδισμός που επικρατούσε στις πλατιές μάζες του λαού του Θιβέτ. Στη συνέχεια, αναφέρεται στις μεγάλες αλλαγές στον τρόπο ζωής και σκέψης που έφερε η επανάσταση, στις κατακτήσεις του θιβετιανού λαού αλλά και στην προσπάθεια να αποτραπεί η αντεπανάσταση μέσα από τη δράση των κοκκινοφρουρών κατά τη διάρκεια της Μεγάλης Προλεταριακής Πολιτιστικής Επανάστασης. Τέλος, αναφέρεται στην περίοδο που κυριάρχησε η αντεπανάσταση στην Κίνα και την αντανάκλασή της στο Θιβέτ, καθώς και στο ρόλο του Δαλάι Λάμα στις νέες συνθήκες που διαμορφώθηκαν.

Τέλος, το βιβλίο προλογίζει ο Μανόλης Αρκολάκης που αναφέρεται στις τρέχουσες εξελίξεις στο Θιβετ και τις διαδηλώσεις που ξέσπασαν με αφορμή τους Ολυμπιακούς Αγώνες και αποσκοπεί μια σύντομη αναδρομή στα κύρια γεγονότα που καθόρισαν τις εξελίξεις στην περιοχή.

Honduras: Coup and Resistance

This was originally posted on thestar.com.

Honduras isolated over Zelaya ouster, leftists meet

By Mica Rosenberg

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) – Security forces faced off against angry supporters of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on Monday as leftist Latin American leaders met to thrash out a response to an army coup and the United States urged a return to democratic order.

Soldiers and police in riot gear lined up in formation in the grounds of the presidential palace in the capital, Tegucigalpa, facing around 1,500 demonstrators.

Protesters, some of them masked and carrying sticks, taunted solders and burned tires just outside the gates. A military helicopter clattered overhead.

Some 200 demonstrators had defied a night curfew and held an all-night vigil by the palace, while Venezuela’s firebrand President Hugo Chavez led talks with Zelaya and other allies in neighboring Nicaragua.

The coup in the impoverished country — triggered by a dispute over Zelaya’s push to extend presidential terms — is the biggest political crisis to hit Central America in years and posed a test for U.S. President Barack Obama as he tries to mend Washington’s battered image in Latin America.

Indian Maoists Speak: On International Controversies Among Communists

The following document is a major comment by the leading Politbureau of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) on controversies within the international Maoist movement. It was sent to the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) on May 20, 2009, and has now been made public.

As the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has maneuvered on the doorstep of seizing state power, there have emerged a series of open letters from other communist parties — engaging the approach taken by the Nepali Maoists, and struggling over major controversies facing  communist revolution internationally.

Previously Kasama published an exchange of letters between the RCP,USA and the UCPN(M). Now we are sharing this  document by the Indian Maoists.

For now, we are also making this letter available in pdf format. We will be posting a more readable PDF version, in pamphlet format,  Monday evening.

* * * * * * *

“…in the name of struggle against dogmatism, there have been serious deviations in the International Communist Movement (ICM), often going into an even greater, or at least equally dangerous, abyss of right deviation and revisionism. In the name of creative application of Marxism, communist parties have fallen into the trap of right opportunism, bourgeois pluralist Euro-Communism, rabid anti-Stalinism, anarchist post-modernism and outright revisionism…

“‘Fight against dogmatism‘ has become a fashionable phrase among many Maoist revolutionaries. They talk of discarding ‘outdated’ principles of Lenin and Mao and to develop MLM in the ‘new conditions‘ that are said to have emerged in the world of the 21^st century. Some of them describe their endeavour to ‘enrich and develop‘ MLM as a new path or thought, and though this is initially described as something confined to revolution in their concerned country, it inexorably assumes a ‘universal character’ or ‘universal significance‘ in no time. And in this exercise individual leaders are glorified and even deified to the extent that they appear infallible. Such glorification does not help in collective functioning of Party committees and the Party as a whole and questions on line are hardly ever raised as they stem from an infallible individual leader. In such a situation it is extremely difficult on the part of the CC, not to speak of the cadres, to fight against a serious deviation in the ideological-political line, or in the basic strategy and tactics even when it is quite clear that it goes against the interests of revolution. The ‘cult of the individual’ promoted in the name of path and thought provides a certain degree of immunity to the deviation in line if it emanates from that individual leader.”

The full document is here >

Video: Artists Against Apartheid’s “Sun City”

A 1985 initiative following “We are the World” — which brought a more explicitly political and radical edge to the wave of artistic efforts. This happened at a high tide of U.S. war fever (vis a vis the soviet union) — and represented a lot of positive impulses to focus attention on the struggle and oppression of people all over the world (and the corrupt U.S. role in propping up that oppression).

More >

Ben Peterson: On the Nepal Debate

Thanks to Ben for suggesting that we publish this. It also appears on his blog Lal Salam.

“In no way should the Peoples State in Nepal be dismissed, it was a highly significant part of the peoples war, and was able to make significant gains for women, people of low caste, ethnic nationalities and local governance, however, this state simply was not strong enough to be able to stand on its own against the central Kathmandu government. In time, it may have been able to develop into such a state, however this would have been a long and bloody process, and events transpired which fast-tracked the revolution and brought it to urban areas and across the country. This was the conquest of one state over the other, but it was politically, and not physically or militarily.”

“As Marxists, we understand that the state has a class basis, however no one is born with that knowledge. The Maoists time in government showed in practice that no matter what people vote for, a revolution can not be simply elected. More then any speeches the experience of a people’s government in a bourgeois state has shown the masses of people that radical change is necessary, when previously many had illusions in the prospects of a peaceful gradual change. It has become apparent to the people of Nepal that imperialism is central to the state, not because the Maoists said so, but because of the role of the India and American governments in overthrowing the elected government. With only propaganda, revolutionaries would have struggled to convince a majority of people, but, by making principled decisions, more and more people have been pushed into the revolutionary camp, and have become open to revolutionary ideas.”

“Within Nepal revolutionaries have already used this tactic within their parallel state structures during the peoples war. Elections were held, and what forces for the opposition parties were left in these areas were allowed to participate. It opened a way for the revolutionaries to get feedback from the grassroots. In some areas these opposition groups did quite well in these elections, and this showed the Maoist party in which areas they were not fulfilling their tasks well, in which areas there had developed a bureaucracy or an automatic way of doing things, and in which areas they needed to improve. In this way they were able to build more responsive party, with closer links to the masses.”

For the full piece >

Stonewall!

Storme’ DeLarverie’s memory (quoted on punkpink):

“A cop said to me: ‘Move faggot’, thinking that I was a Gay guy.  I said, ‘I will not!  And, don’t you touch me.”  With that, the cop shoved me and I instinctively punched him right in the face.  He bled!  He was then on the ground — not me!”

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June 28, 2009 is  the 4oth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, a watershed moment in the history of the modern LGBT movement. Rowland is the instigator of the By Any Means Necessary blog, where this piece first appeared under the title “The History and Legacy of the Stonewall Rebellion.”

by Rowland Keshena

The Stonewall Riots were a series of violent clashes between New York City cops and groups of gay and transgender people. It all began on the early morning of the 28th of June 1969, and proceeded to last for several days. The clashes became a watershed for the worldwide gay rights movement, never before had gay and transgender people moved and acted together in such large numbers to forcibly resist police harassment directed towards their community. My intent here is to tell the history of Stonewall, and to attempt to do justice to its legacy.

Read the rest of this entry >

Video: Iran’s Streets & MJ’s “They Don’t Really Care About Us”

This is a slideshow of the Iranian uprising to an MJ soundtrack. Itis not clear who made it, but its politics may be hinted at when it contains a complaint that the Persian Gulf is being remade into an “Arabian Gulf.” However in any case, this video is still of interest, and the images are striking. (Thanks to Koba for pointing it out.)

Zizek on Iran: Time for a Drop into the Abyss?

Found on Infinite Th0ught. Slavoj Zizek is one of a number of prominent leftists, including Noam Chomsky and Judith Butler, who have signed an Open Letter of Support to the Demonstrators in Iran.

* * * * * *

“Whatever the outcome, it is vitally important to keep in mind that we are witnessing a great emancipatory event which doesn’t fit the frame of the struggle between pro-Western liberals and anti-Western fundamentalists.”

By Slavoj Zizek
When an authoritarian regime approaches its final crisis, its dissolution as a rule follows two steps. Before its actual collapse, a mysterious rupture takes place: all of a sudden people know that the game is over, they are simply no longer afraid. It is not only that the regime loses its legitimacy, its exercise of power itself is perceived as an impotent panic reaction.

We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice, but it goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss. When it loses its authority, the regime is like a cat above the precipice: in order to fall, it only has to be reminded to look down…

In Shah of Shahs, a classic account of the Khomeini revolution, Ryszard Kapuscinski located the precise moment of this rupture: at a Tehran crossroad, a single demonstrator refused to budge when a policeman shouted at him to move, and the embarrassed policeman simply withdrew; in a couple of hours, all Tehran knew about this incident, and although there were street fights going on for weeks, everyone somehow knew the game is over.

Is something similar going on now?

Piecing Together Michael Jackson

His songs are part of the soundtrack of our lives — a fusion of irresistible talent with Motown soul and funk and disco and….

It is impossible to quickly comment on the passing of Michael Jackson — even though, in many ways, it feels like he’s been gone for many years. There is no way to simply sum up all the complex skeins of his life and work. What we can do is simply create this space for people to comment, discuss and remember.

Michael Jackson was never someone associated with political activism or rebellion. But he certainly lived at many sharp intersections of race, gender, narcissist celebrity culture, intimate abuse and alienation, tabloid-hyped controversy, and remarkable artistic creation.

There is inevitably much to say about him.  I suspect this will be a place where there are very divergent views to share.

[Note: It is not possible to embed youtube videos (the embedding is disabled on his videos). But they are easily found here.]

U.S. Covert Psywar on Iran: Part of the Situation

The following was posted on one of our threads as a comment on Redguards’ defense of Workers World Party.

Gary starts to lay out some of the available information on U.S. covert operations in Iran — which are important to excavate and expose.

By Gary

Redguard wrote:

“But this does not change the objective character of the movement, or its relationship to imperialism and its efforts to weaken and take over the Iranian regime.”

I’m not sure what the “objective character of the movement” is just yet. I see some images. I see the mass-produced English-language posters “Where is my vote?” which could very likely be the fruit of the $ 400 million Bush-era appropriation for “black ops”.

But I also see statements that give some hint at the ideological character of the movement. And of course the Maoist statements circulated by AWTW and on Kasama. (For example here, here and here)

So I’m not sure that the masses in the streets are generally serving as dupes of imperialism.

On Iran’s Elections: Legitimacy, Fraud, and Openings for Revolution

Is the winner legitimate here too?

The issue for revolutionaries is  really not whether Ahmadinejad ‘legitimately won’ most of the votes or not? Who gives a shit ultimately? The election itself is not legitimate — because this whole system is an oppressors’ system, a dictatorship of mullahs resting on a structure of capitalism. It is all illegitimate, and needs to be seen that way. And swept away.

by Mike Ely

So what is the point of all this hashing (among leftists) over “Did Ahmadinejad really win or not? Did he have a landslide?”

It is very strange to see some argue that if Ahmadinejad would have won even without fraud and vote stuffing — then somehow he has a legitimate right to rule.

Who set those terms for this moment? Who decided that this is a measure of who is right, and who is wrong in Iran and in the larger world?

There is in that a strange legitimizing of bourgeois politics (in both Iran and, by extension, in the U.S. and elsewhere.)

And it comes out sharply when people start portraying the Islamic theocracy in Iran as some kind of advance, as something precious. For example, the Workers World (see “What Fraud?“), connects their defense of Ahmadinejad with such positive assessment of the Iranian system:

” The Iranian people have benefited enormously from their revolution and cannot easily be turned back.”

I rejected this notion of “gains of 1979” elsewhere, and won’t repeat those arguments here.

But the basic fact is all these governments are bullshit (the U.S., Iran, the Iraq of Saddam Hussein and of today, Russia, France, and so on around the world): They all represent oppressors and criminals — without exception. All of their various electoral systems are carefully and institutionally rigged — stacked against the people’s interests in fundamental ways. And they all routinely involve layers of fraud, manipulation, demagoguery, deceit, bribery, coverup and much more.

But then, there come moments (flashes of conjuncture) when the nature of these political structures becomes VISIBLE more broadly. The underlying reality becomes VISIBLE to millions. There is a de-legitimization of institutions and governments that deserve no legitimacy. And it is a good thing for birthing more radical revolutionary movements.

Some initial thoughts:

In Iran: This election was rigged — fundamentally — in the sense that only supporters of the status quo could get in — and in the sense that any real opponents of this order have faced prison, torture and execution.

This particular “rigging” is a form that the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie” takes in Iran. Electoral democracy is typically “rigged” in capitalist countries — in the U.S. it is done by the two party mechanism, the winner take all system, the need for zillions of dollars to be a “serious candidate,” the media ability to decide who is “credible” and who is “fringe” and so on.

Answering Critics of Workers World Party: On Iran and China

Absent Cause, a new underground/dark culture zine, explores underground cultures, radical politics, hidden histories, feminist and queer sexualities, the gothic, surviving abuse, coping with mental illness, and the array of ways they intersect.

Kasama received the following piece from Greg Butterfield (aka Redguard). Greg is a longtime supporter of the Workers World Party and contributor to their newspaper WW, and has been engaging with the Kasama Project  from its beginning.

Given the criticism that many have made here of  these politics, it is helpful to hear them articulated and defended well. This pieces also appeared on Greg’s personal blog Absent Cause.

* * * * *

By Greg Butterfield

“That struggle is desirable which is possible, and the struggle which is possible is that which is going on at the given moment.’ This is precisely the trend of unbounded opportunism, which passively adapts itself to spontaneity.”
–Lenin, What Is To Be Done?

A great deal of criticism has been leveled at Workers World Party over its position on the Iranian elections. Not surprisingly, the critics frequently couple this with a denunciation of WWP’s position in support of the Chinese government’s actions to halt the Tiananmen Square protest movement in 1989.

It must be said straight away that, even if the uprising in Tehran had clear, anti-imperialist leadership, it would still be the principle responsibility of the movement in the U.S. and Europe to oppose imperialist intervention — military, political, economic, covert, etc. The fact that those who are rushing to support this movement do not in most cases even raise the issue or speak about the dangers of U.S. intervention says volumes about the sorry state of these “revolutionary” forces.