Vol. 72/No. 12      March 24, 2008

An article in the March 10 issue was titled “Kosova ‘independence’ includes continued NATO occupation.” It argued—beginning with the quote marks around the word independence—that Pristina’s February 17 Declaration of Independence did not genuinely establish Kosova as an independent nation. The main reason presented was the continued presence of NATO troops and the pending arrival of European Union administrators.

But Kosova is independent. The presence of imperialist troops there in no way changes that fact—or the degree to which communists champion what Kosovar working people have accomplished. The Albanian majority had been subjected to superexploitation and discrimination by the Serbian government. Having gotten the boot of Serb oppression off their necks, working people now fight for jobs, economic development, and workers’ rights from a higher plane.

Imperialist troops operate in dozens of nations that have won independence throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. But it would be absurd to argue that working people in Africa, for example, are today no better off than when they chafed under the tyranny of British, French, Belgian, or Portuguese colonial masters.

Independence in Kosova is an unintended consequence of the imperialist war drive, as is the autonomy Kurds have carved out in Iraq. These are unwelcome developments for the imperialists that they are too weak to reverse. Nonetheless, Washington showed its true face when it gave the green light to the recent Turkish invasion in northern Iraq directed against the Kurdish people.

The editorial printed in the March 17 issue had a defensive tone, suggesting Militant readers should be disappointed with the outcome of the struggle for self-determination in Kosova. While characterizing independence as an advance, it stated: “Given the defeats inflicted by the Stalinist regime in the former Yugoslavia, the national struggle in Kosova does not begin with a revolutionary proletarian leadership.”

But where in the world today—outside of revolutionary Cuba—do struggles by working people, from trade union fights to battles for national liberation, “begin with revolutionary proletarian leadership?” Marxists champion all struggles by the oppressed and exploited, regardless of their leadership.

The March 17 editorial also said, “Only through the fight for self-determination will space open up for a communist leadership to emerge that can forge links to anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggles worldwide.” But the fight in Kosova today is not for self-determination. That was already won. That victory has opened up space for workers and farmers in Kosova to develop their organization and confidence.

In December 1917, right after the victory of the Russian Revolution, the Bolshevik government granted independence to Finland. Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, a right-winger who persecuted the Finnish Communist Party, became president. “We were aware that the present hero of Finland Svinhufvud … was our public political enemy and that in the future he would spare no one of us,” wrote Bolshevik Commissar of Justice I. Steinberg. “But if we set the Finnish people free from Russian oppression, there will be one historical injustice less in the world.”  
 
 
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