Re: Marxism and War: The Origins and History of Revolutionary Defeatism

Again, many critical arguments and questions! I will try to reply as 
briefly as possible.

1.Richard is worried if I resp. the RCIT supports the right of Ukraine 
to get weapons from Western countries. (I repeat that the focus of my 
pamphlet was a historical discussion of revolutionary defeatism – not a 
discussion of all issues of tactics in all wars today.) Anyway, yes, 
this right has been our position since the beginning of the war in 2022. 
(Richard, you might remember that you republished one of our articles on 
the Ukraine War on your blog some years ago.)

2.Concerning the Soviet-Polish War in 1920. I wrote in one of my replies 
that “/I am on the side of the revolutionary USSR/”. This was not an 
“assault” but part of the war of aggression which Poland started in the 
service of French imperialism when it invaded Soviet-Russia in spring 
1920. Naturally, every communist (including Trotsky and Radek), indeed 
every progressive worker in Europe was on the side of the Soviet army! 
It is something different if the march towards Warsaw – after the 
Soviets managed to expel the invaders – was tactically wise.

3.Mark asked about what were, in my opinion, the mistakes of Cannon and 
the SWP? Tony did already answer but let me add a few thoughts. Before 
doing so, I want to emphasize that there is criticism and criticism. I 
resp. the RCIT consider Cannon and the SWP as revolutionaries at that 
time – revolutionaries who made certain opportunistic mistakes.

Unsurprisingly, there existed a strong chauvinist sentiment among the 
masses in the first phase of the war (this was pro-U.S. imperialist 
consciousness, not so much “anti-fascist”). The SWP adapted to this. 
When the war began after the attack on Pearl Harbour, it took the party 
several weeks to publish a statement about the U.S. entering the war! 
And this was only after oppositionists in the party (inspired by the 
Spanish-Mexican Trotskyist Grandizo Munis) protested against the 
silence. And then, such statement was first published in the January 
1942 issue of "Fourth International", the theoretical organ of the 
party. It was not published in the party's newspaper, "The Militant", 
despite the wider circulation of that paper. Furthermore, this statement 
ignored the defeatist line which Trotsky had emphasised in the 
Transitional Program and other key documents of the Fourth International.

During his trial, Cannon answered the question “/Is it true that the 
party is as equally opposed to Hitler as it is to the capitalist claims 
of the United States?/” as follows: “/That is unanswerable. We consider 
Hitler and Hitlerism the greatest enemy of mankind. We want to wipe it 
off the face of the earth. The reason we do not support a declaration of 
war by American arms is because we do not believe the American 
capitalists can defeat Hitler and fascism. We think Hitlerism can be 
destroyed only be conducting a war under the leadership of the 
workers/". (James P. Cannon: Socialism on Trial, p.52)

So, this was clearly a deviation from Liebknecht’s/Lenin’s position that 
the main enemy for American workers is at home (and not in Germany)! 
Furthermore, he criticised America’s imperialist war because he doubted 
that it could achieve defeating Nazi-Germany – something which was 
obviously nonsense. So, since Roosevelt proved capable to defeat Hitler, 
should socialists have corrected their position into support for the 
U.S. war?!

Mark suggests that Cannon said this when he was on trial threatened with 
years of imprisonment. Since I stood myself twice at political trials, I 
am fully aware of the issue of legal considerations. However, Cannon and 
the SWP did not use the above-mentioned formulations only at the trial. 
The very fact that they printed his speech and distributed it widely and 
that they explicitly defended it against Munis and others critics shows 
that they fully stood by the political essence of such formulations.

4.Now to Tony’s reply. Let us start with the “lesser evil” issue. For a 
moment I thought that the problem might be my limited mastery of the 
English language (I don’t know if Americans prefer to say American 
language). But since I read the Lenin works in German language (one of 
the few advantages of Stalinism was that they built a German-speaking 
state with a huge and competent translation apparatus of many Soviet 
works), I am pretty sure that this is not an issue of misunderstanding.

It seems to me that Tony ignores the whole purpose of the “lesser evil” 
formulation. Usually (and understandably), people consider the defeat 
and occupation of their country by a foreign power as an evil. The 
slogan “lesser evil” relates to such sentiment by expressing, yes, it is 
an evil, but it is a lesser evil than a military victory of “our” ruling 
class. (I have dealt with this issue and the challenges for defeatist 
agitation in chapter 7 of our pamphlet “/The Political Psychology of 
Social-Chauvinism and How to Combat It/”, 
https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/the-political-psychology-of-social-chauvinism/)

Hence, Lenin’s “lesser evil” slogan (later adopted by the Third and 
Fourth International) was never a result of confusion. Such confusion 
existed only in Draper’s mind! If Lenin would have thought that Russia 
was the worst imperialist power not only for Russia but for all Marxists 
in Europe, why did he not openly advocate Germany’s victory?! He was 
certainly not known for being a coward fearing to be outspoken! Why did 
he, from the very beginning of the war, ferociously denounce the German 
social democrats for failing to oppose “their” imperialism if he would 
have sympathised with a German victory over tsarist Russia?!

5.I will deal only briefly with the issue of “Draper and the genetic 
fallacy” (as Tony calls it) because this is a secondary issue compared 
with the other questions. Of course, I don’t deny that people who say 
something wrong about one issue can not be right about another issue. 
That would be nonsense. But I did show that Draper was wrong on the 
issue of war and imperialism already since the 1940s so I doubt he was 
qualified to understand Lenin’s policy of defeatism against imperialist 
war in 1953/54.

6.Now on the issue of platonic anti-imperialism. (Tony, you have written 
about this in two different entries but I will reply to both at this 
place.) First, there is a certain misunderstanding. I did not say that 
Tony resp. his organisation never supports any struggle. What I did say 
is that he/they can not support anti-imperialist struggle of countries 
resp. rebel armies against this or that Great Power. So, when Tony 
refers to his/their support for Solidarność, Iranian popular uprisings 
or South African Black trade union struggles, it misses the point. We 
are discussing here about struggles against imperialist powers. As I 
said in my previous post, such struggles are usually led by 
(petty-)bourgeois forces. And from all what you say, you refuse to 
support anti-imperialist struggles like that of Argentina against 
Britian in 1982, Iraq against Western imperialism in 1991 and 2003, 
Afghanistan 2001-21, Iran 2025 and 2026, Ukraine 2022-26, Chechnya 
1994-96 and 1999-2009, Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel, etc.

In contrast, we have sided with those states resp. guerilla forces which 
opposed imperialist aggression. We did do so not only in leaflets and 
newspapers but also in numerous solidarity activities with migrant 
communities and other activities. One of our comrades in Russia, Felix 
Eliseev, has been sentenced in 2022 for his support for Ukraine to 14 
years in prison. (see e.g. 
https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/russia-greetings-from-felix-eliseev/) 
Our comrade Yossi Schwartz, an Anti-Zionist Jew in Israel for six 
decades, was three times arrested. He also acted as the legal 
representative of the PLO in Canada in the 1980s (until he resigned in 
protest against the policy which resulted in the Oslo deal). Another 
young Jewish comrade spent some time in prison because he refused to 
serve in the Israeli occupation army.In Argentina, leading comrades also 
faced repression because of their pro-Palestine activities. Our comrade 
Juan Carlos Beica was sentenced at a much-publicized trial but was 
acquitted in an appeal hearing because of a broad solidarity campaign by 
left-wing and workers organisations. Likewise, comrade Damián Quevedo 
was also sentenced because of anti-Zionist activities and spent three 
months in prison.And I myself have been a regular speaker at 
anti-imperialist demonstrations and was sentenced twice (in 2024 for 
ourpublic support for the armed resistance of the Palestinian people; in 
2006 for leading a group of activists which disrupted a public meeting 
of Zionist forces and brought it to a close.)

You say Marxists can not support a state which oppresses its people. 
This is what the anarchists say but not Marxists. All states oppress 
their people. But, as I explained in my last reply, this did not stop 
Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky from siding with such this or that state 
when they waged a just national war against a Great Power. You break 
with the whole tradition of Marxism.

You formally accept the label “semi-colonial” for countries like Iran, 
but you don’t recognize what this category expresses: a relationship of 
oppression and exploitation between imperialism and such countries. This 
is even true, to a certain degree, for the semi-colonial bourgeoisie. 
(see on this e.g. 
https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/whom-do-we-defend-when-defending-iran-against-imperialist-aggression/, 
https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/the-defence-of-iran-and-the-anti-imperialist-united-front-tactic/ 
and 
https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/iran-a-regional-imperialist-power-or-a-capitalist-semi-colony/)

You say how can we support the popular uprising against the Iranian 
regime in 2022 but side with the Iranian regime against the U.S./Israel 
in 2026? Why not? We regularly fight against the trade union bureaucrats 
but when they lead a struggle against the bourgeoisie, we will support 
such struggle and defend even them against the capitalists. Likewise, 
the Trotskyists opposed Chiang Kai-shek when he slaughtered the 
communists in 1927 but sided with him when he led a struggle against the 
Japanese invaders. For the same reason did the Trotskyists defend the 
USSR despite their bloody persecution by the Stalinist regime. The 
concrete nature of the struggle and the class character of the forces 
participating in it – this is decisive for the tactics of Marxists.

In all these conflicts, we lend support to the practical struggle but no 
political support to the regime or leadership. We don’t praise them as 
“anti-capitalist” or “anti-imperialist” and warn that they can not 
liberate the masses.

Best wishes,

Michael


Am 29.06.2026 um 21:04 schrieb Richard Fidler via groups.io:
> Among the issues evaded in the RCIT narrative is the question of 
> Ukraine's armament, a key point of differentiation with the pro-Putin 
> campists. The European and international solidarity movement defends 
> Ukraine's demand for weapons from capitalist states as part of its 
> armed response to Russia's aggression. The Ukraine socialists and 
> anarchists include the armed response in their defensive program while 
> politically opposing the Zelensky capitalist government and its 
> reactionary program, which undermines the popular resistance to 
> Russia's imperialist assault.
> The RCIT correctly denies that this war can be accurately 
> characterized as a "proxy war" between Russia and NATO. But does the 
> RCIT support Ukraine's demand that NATO powers supply it with the 
> weapons it needs to defend Putin's forces? The pro-Putin campists, 
> prominent in recent international conferences in Porto Alegre and 
> London, oppose Ukraine's armament (even though some think the invasion 
> was a mistake) and oppose the popular national resistance movement.
> The capitalist arms race has given rise to debates within the Ukraine 
> solidarity movement, some comrades suggesting support for conscription 
> as a means of introducing the working class to military training and 
> countering the professional officer caste that dominates the military 
> in every capitalist state. That is the context in which the old debate 
> over the Proletarian Military Policy arises.
>
> I don't know the RCIT position on this, but Michael's simplistic 
> response to my question about the Soviet assault on Poland in 1920 — 
> that as an "orthodox Trotskyist" he would defend it (notwithstanding 
> Trotsky's opposition!) — does not inspire confidence. The Zimmerwald 
> left opposed invasion, occupation and annexation. To this we might add 
> since 1917 efforts to export revolution, or regime change, and not 
> just by workers' states.
>
> Richard
> 


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