Re: <nettime> The Left Needs a New Strategy

[Dmytri Kleiner <dk@telekommunisten.net>]

On 2021-01-19 14:27, Bruce Robinson wrote:

> I agree with Andreas.  It is a far better example of Dmytri's much
> vaunted 'proletarian internationalism' to support those in China, and
> that the moment particularly Hong Kong, fighting for their rights
> against the repressive and anti-working class regime.
The core idea in proletarian internationalism is to turn your weapons 
against the class enemy at home, so unless you are in Hong Kong, I'm not 
sure how that is an example of it.
If you are not in Hong Kong, you also have no agency there, so your 
support can only be heard by your local government, so what is you hope 
to achieve? Aggression by our governments towards China? What specific 
support do you want to give?

> I cannot see
> any reason why the Chinese Communist Party should be considered part
> of an international left, assuming that being on the left has
> something to do with democracy, socialism and working class self
> emancipation.
The party needs to be held to account by the mobilized working class, 
like any instrument, it is the Chinese workers that make up a part of 
the international left, and from everything we know, their demands are 
being met by their government and the party, but, as the Harvard Study 
also notes, that will only be true so long as the government and the 
party continues to deliver on the people's demands.
As for the functioning of the Chinese Government, I once again recommend 
Daniel A Bell's work, this video, introduced by Canadian cringelord 
Moses Znaimer, is a good starter: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30OGjUCbiDY

> Dmytri will no doubt denounce this as 'third way'. I
> would describe myself as a Third Camp socialist as these are the only
> criteria by which to measure regimes and movements against the aims
> that I see as fundamental to any kind of real human liberation.
I suggest that human development figures and approval rates are probably 
the best way we have to measure human liberation.

> On that basis I reject having to choose between US and Chinese
> imperialisms.
You don't need to chose anything, the imperialism of your own government 
is on you, as you have the agency to do something about it. If you chose 
not, you are not rejecting it, you are enabling it.

> (There has been a recent wave of arrests in Hong Kong including many
> of the leaders of the independent trade union movement. There is a
> meeting on January 30th with speakers from the UK labour movement and 
> HK unions here: https://www.facebook.com/events/247169266771050/)
I would suggest that the Labour movement in the UK has some pressing 
issues at home to address, and it's unclear to me what sort of strategy 
could be undertaken by them that would improve the conditions of workers 
in Honk Kong, or why I would expect the former colonial master, under a 
brutal Conservative regime, with no recourse to any strategy except 
aggression, to play a helpful role here.
If there is some strategy with which UK labour could help HK workers, 
without heightening aggression, let me know what that is.
Meanwhile, UK labour has been bamboozled by Brexit, gutted by weaponized 
bad faith charges of antisemitism and watches helplessly as immiseration 
in the UK grows.
Workers everywhere have struggles to attend to.

A strategy where workers everywhere directly intervene in all struggles 
everywhere is not a viable strategy. A strategy where workers everywhere 
focus on their local struggles, while confronting their own governments 
aggression against workers abroad is viable, and this is what 
proletarian internationalism calls for.

> I am not in favour of ending this discussion bureaucratically. But
> what I find hard to take is the 'live and let live' attitude towards
> Dmytri's contributions by some who have responded. His positions are
> something the real left needs to fight against.
My positions are also those of groups like Vijay Prashad's Tricontental 
Institute, do these groups also need to banished from left in your view?
"Rather than tackle the great social and economic challenges within the 
US, its ruling class has taken refuge in anti-Chinese rhetoric." -- The 
Country Where Liberty Is a Statue, Vijay Prashad.



[1] 
https://www.thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/2-united-states-democracy/
--
Dmytri Kleiner
@dmytri
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