The view from Pakistan
Anti-imperialist forces must fight their own ruling
class
The following is taken from an analysis of the situation
in Afghanistan by Taimur Rahman of the Communist Workers and
Peasants Party of Pakistan.
Why is the U.S. interested in attacking Afghanistan now?
Only simpletons would believe that the real intentions are
"retribution" for New York City. No, the 2 million homeless
people are being created only to unite Afghan istan under U.S.
control to lay the foundation for an oil pipeline [running from
the former Soviet Union to the Indian Ocean via
Afghanistan].
The Taliban have proved to be too "rowdy." They have their
own ambitions of Saudi/Pakistani/Talibani global Islamic
expansionism. Their tribal brand of Islamic fundamentalism has
isolated them and attracts too much attention. Therefore, the
U.S. prefers to play ball with another group of Mujahideen and
monarchists: enter the Northern Alliance and King Zahir
Shah.
Some people believe that we should choose the "lesser of the
two evils." Others believe that we should support the Taliban.
We propose that both solutions are incorrect.
What is to be done?
It is clear that outside powers have meddled with
Afghanistan's affairs too long. Outside powers have brought
ruin to the country. Therefore, the Communist Workers and
Peasants Party of Pakistan feels that all communists must work
concertedly to destroy, first and foremost, the influence on
Afghanistan of the ruling classes of their own respective
countries. This must be a united strategy of all communists in
the world with respect to Afghanistan. Let us look at the
alliances.
Pakistan is supporting the Taliban. [This was written before
Pakistan, under enormous U.S. pressure, switched sides--WW.]
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and India are supporting the Northern
Alliance. The U.S. imperialists have supported all
fundamentalist groups at one time but feel that their current
interests are best served by supporting the Northern Alliance
and King Zahir Shah.
Therefore, it is the foremost (but by no means the sole)
duty of Pakistani communists to expose the role of the
Pakistani ruling class in relation to its support of the
Taliban. In a word, the Pakistani communists must cut the hand
that feeds the Taliban. We would become apologists of the
Pakistani ruling class if we did not oppose the Taliban.
However, we cannot let our opposition to the Taliban merge,
under any circumstances, with the rhetoric of the U.S.
imperialists or their stooges in Pakistan. Therefore, in the
current historical setting, we must play the tricky role of
opposing the U.S. imperialists and their stooges in Pakistan,
in such a manner that we simultaneously educate people about
the history of fundamentalism.
We have to show the connection between fundamentalism and
the ruling class of Pakistan. We must uphold that a genuine
anti-imperialist struggle has to be a struggle against the
ruling classes of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
At the same time, we feel that it is the duty of comrades in
India, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to expose the role that their
governments have played in backing fundamentalist Mujahideen
such as the Northern Alliance. They would become apologists of
their ruling classes if they did not do so, or attempted to
paint these fundamentalists in more "liberal" colors. The
tendency to paint the Northern Alliance in "liberal" colors
must be fought tooth and nail. This plays into the hands of the
imperialists at this point in time, when they wish to create
legitimacy for the Northern Alliance and King Zahir Shah.
We also feel that communists in Europe and America must
mobilize domestic support against war in any country under the
guise of fighting terrorism. The biggest terrorist machines on
Earth, the imperialist armies, can create only terror to put up
oil pipelines. If European or U.S. parties were to accept the
notion that their governments could play a "progressive role in
Afghan-istan" today, they would be guilty of the worst kind of
social chauvinism. It would reveal that they understand nothing
about the Northern Alliance or the history of involvement of
imperialism in Afghanistan.
We advocate that all communists, everywhere in the world,
must stand shoulder to shoulder and resist any attack on any
Third World country by any imperialist country. This does not
mean that we support the Taliban but that we support the people
of Afghan istan against an imperialist terrorist machine a
million times the size of the Taliban and 100 million times
more vicious.
Anti-imperialist movement
in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Many people with good intentions think that they should
support the lesser of two evils because there is no other
option. This is completely wrong.
In Afghanistan and in Pakistan there is a communist movement
working towards an anti-imperialist revolution. These movements
have been suppressed by the ruling classes and fundamentalists
backed by imperialists, but they have not been eliminated.
Because of these difficult circumstances, the communist parties
have been forced to take a low profile.
Movements in other countries can help these anti-imperialist
forces by pulling back and destroying imperialist intervention
that shores up anti-communist fundamentalism. They would NOT
help the communists of Pakistan and Afghanistan by passively
allowing imperialist intervention to strengthen one
fundamentalist group over another.
Rest assured that even in war-ridden Afghanistan, there is a
third way. Lenin liked to say that proletarian movements in
oppressed countries must be supported even if they are in their
"embryonic form." How can we win, if we are not aiming to? The
genuine anti-imperialist and Marxist-Leninist forces will
become stronger in the measure that imperialism is stopped from
intervention in any Third World country.
We must also avoid the tendency to paint the Taliban and the
fundamentalist parties as "anti-imperialists." The imperialist
system does not only exist in the United States alone; it is a
global system of production. Therefore, anti-U.S. sentiment is
not necessarily anti-imperialism.
Imperialism is a system of monopoly capitalism. It has roots
in the class structure of Third World countries. In Pakistan,
for example, the ruling class is composed of the civil military
bureaucracy (the strongest component of the ruling class), the
feudals, and the 22 big capitalist families that monopolize
60-70 percent of industrial production.
In Afghanistan the ruling class does not exist in a national
stable sense, but consists of changing alliances between
feudals and tribals who have organized themselves as Islamic
fundamentalists. The ruling class in both these countries is
not a "revolutionary national bourgeoisie" that can play an
"anti-imperialist role," such as Lenin wrote about Sun Yat-sen
in China. This ruling class is part and parcel of the
imperialist system.
Therefore, an anti-imperialist movement, regardless of
whether it is Marxist-Leninist or democratic or Islamic, can
only be a movement that seeks to destroy the ruling class. In
other words, only a movement against the ruling class in
Pakistan and Afghanistan can be considered an anti-imperialist
movement.
Such is certainly not the nature of the Taliban or the
fundamentalists. They are merely paramilitary forces, recruited
mostly from the lower middle class (petty bourgeois) of the
civil military bureaucracy and feudal mafia in Afghanistan and
Pakistan. The current conflict is not too different than the
conflict between U.S. imperialists and Noriega in Panama. Did
Noriega represent an anti-imperialist movement? The answer is
self-evident.
Only the Afghan people can decide their own destiny.
Fundamentalism cannot be destroyed by imperialist intervention.
It can only be destroyed by a popular struggle by Pakistani and
Afghani people. Millions of people have suffered because of
them and are resisting.
If the anti-imperialist movement in the West is able to
destroy the intervention in Afghanistan, it will have performed
a great service to the anti-imperialist movement in Pakistan
and Afghanistan. All the bloody tentacles have to be withdrawn
from the body of Afghan society. Every comrade in their
respective country must work to destroy the tentacle that feeds
reaction from their own country.
We feel that this is the correct Marxist-Leninist position
to take in the current historical epoch.
Reprinted from the Oct. 18, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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