This sums up well communist policy on imperialist war in general and on interimperialist conflicts. But more needs to be said on working-class policy toward imperialist wars and occupations of oppressed peoples—particularly those now under way in Iraq, Palestine, and Afghanistan.

These wars certainly express interimperialist rivalries, but they are also wars of conquest in colonies or semicolonies.

As the Militant has often noted, in such conflicts communists side with the oppressed people, regardless of its formal leadership. Such solidarity lends support to national liberation forces and, where they do not yet exist, helps create the conditions for their emergence—as well as helping to consolidate a workers vanguard in the imperialist countries.

Thus in 1938, even as Trotsky opposed illusions that pacifist efforts could prevent a war between “democratic” imperialism and Nazi Germany, he also favored active support for oppressed nations such as China against imperialist wars of conquest.

As the Militant has stated, this policy is equally applicable to the imperialist wars and occupations in the Mideast today.

With respect to Iraq, the Militant has stressed the obstacles represented by the military prowess of U.S. imperialism, the reactionary character of the Baathist current, and the political disorientation of antiwar protests. All this is true, and it makes the fight for withdrawal of imperialist troops more difficult—but not impossible.

I hope the Militant will say more on the transitional forms through which working-class solidarity with the Mideast peoples undergoing imperialist occupation can be expressed.

John Riddell Toronto, Ontario

See It’s what you’re for that counts, not what you’re against

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