The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.14           April 8, 1996 
 
 
Letters  

China-Taiwan conflict
I am writing this letter to express my ambivalence toward your editorial "On the side of Chinese people" (Militant vol. 60, no. 12, March 25, 1996). I know you are against the U.S. intervention in the China-Taiwan affair, which I appreciate. I am unimpressed, however, by your tendency to patronize anyone - in this case, the current Chinese regime - who might be an opponent to the U.S. hegemony. I expect more sophistication from you.

Although there are some capitalist interests at stake, the current U.S.-China conflict is not, in my opinion, a capitalist-vs.-"the Chinese workers state" one as your editorial describes, assuming that the People's Republic of China is a socialist country. Right now the Chinese have few things against capitalist economy per se; their confrontation with the U.S. is not mobilized by socialism, but nationalism.

The Chinese nationalism, as well as the current China-Taiwan situation, is a co-product of imperialism, colonialism, and cold-war politics, for which the Chinese could not be blamed alone. However, the current Chinese regime has done so many brutal things to their own students and the Tibetans, in the name of national safety and integrity, that China's "right" to national reunification - as your editorial romantically put it - actually scares many Taiwanese, including myself.

As a Taiwanese student managing to keep his Chinese identity, I do not pretend to be a spokesman for the Chinese/Taiwanese, whose opinions are highly divided; I just want you to be aware that the China-Taiwan issue should not be simplified as your well-willingly editorial (and related report in that issue) did.

Hsin-chih Chen

Rego Park, New York

Quebec debate
In the March 4 Militant Michel Prairie did a thorough job of debunking the claim that the Quebecois are not an oppressed nation. Using the Ottawa government's own statistics, Prairie demolished the "rational basis" of Shaw's and Chirgwin's arguments. Unfortunately, chauvinism is not based on logic or reason and will not go away just because it has been disproved.

Let's take a close look at Lavina G. Shaw's peculiar letter. Shaw begins by describing herself as a "a socialist and an avid reader of the Militant." This has to be some sort of misunderstanding, as the letter doesn't contain the least trace of socialism. The political essence of Shaw's letter can be isolated in the following words: "my husband owned a small manufacturing business and applied for an operating loan to the federal government... was told he would have to move to Quebec if he wanted a loan. Consequently... the business went under."

Shaw blames the Quebecois for her husband's business failure. This scapegoating is then extended to blame the Quebecois for all of Canada's social ills. Is there unemployment? Then the "French" are stealing jobs from the white people. (Oops, I mean Anglophones.) Is the federal government cutting back on funds for medical care and education? Then it's because the awful, Catholic, "French" are stealing all the money!

World capitalism, including the Canadian variety, is in crisis. Unemployment is growing, farmers are losing their land, and small businesses are going under... because that's the way capitalism works. No plot by some special cabal is needed to explain the increasing impoverishment of the Canadian toilers; that's just the way capitalism behaves during a depression.

The logic of this kind of politics is to pit sections of the working class in struggle against on another, thus preventing any action against the ruling rich.

In addition to Shaw's effort, there have been two other letters in the Quebec discussion that are also rooted in Canadian imperialist patriotism. I am referring to the letter signed by J. C. Chirgwin (March 4 issue) and that signed by R. T. Jeroloman (March 18 issue).

Both Chirgwin and Jeroloman, in the end, ground their opposition to Quebec independence on the necessity of preserving the unity of the present Canadian state. They both justify this unity as necessary for military and economic war against the USA. Chirgwin derides support to Quebec independence as "a typical divide and conquer plan that would play right into the hands of the U.S. empire." Jeroloman says pretty much the same, but adds that the present Ottawa government is prosocialist (that should be news to Canadian workers!) and that unnamed socialist parties support Canadian unity and the Socialist Workers Party should follow suit in the name of socialist unity.

This point is the defining difference between communism and various types of procapitalist, reformist substitutes for socialism. When Messrs. Chirgwin and Jeroloman attack [Susan] Berman and Prairie, on the principled question of national self-determination, they are in fact attacking a 130-year-old Marxist continuity on the national question.

The basic line of support to the progressive nationalism of oppressed peoples was laid out by Marx and Engels in their support to the Irish struggle. In the period of the rise of the Russian revolution, Lenin and the Bolshevik leadership refined and honed Marx's theory and it is that tradition that the Militant upholds today.

Communists begin with the necessity for working-class unity. When a given working class as in Canada or the USA is divided between privileged and oppressed national groupings, the communists work to bridge these differences. The last century and a half of experiences has shown that unity can only come about when the worker-communists of the oppressing nation show in practice that they really do support the human rights of their brothers and sisters of the oppressed nation.

Messrs. Chirgwin and Jeroloman, you are typical representatives of that socialist tendency that Lenin called social imperialist, social patriot, meaning socialist in words, patriotic imperialist in real politics. Need I say that Lenin didn't mean this as a compliment?

There are serious political problems with being a patriot of an imperialist power like the USA or Canada. Being a Canadian patriot sort of rules out fighting for a revolution in Canada. After all, if a revolution in Quebec will undermine Canada's defense capability, think what an all Canada revolution will mean!

In the end it comes down to this: Are you a patriot of the imperialist fatherland, or a patriot of your class?

Roy Inglee

Wilmington, Delaware

P.S. If anyone wants to do some independent study, I recommend three titles available from Pathfinder Press: Ireland and the Irish Question by Marx and Engels, The National Liberation Movement in the East by Lenin, and Lenin's Final Fight.

The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of general interest to our readers. Please keep your letters brief. Where necessary they will be abridged. Please indicate if you prefer that your initials be used rather than your full name.

 
 
 
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