There is an urgent problem and question facing the global anti-war movement. Although the world is more than 80% opposed to the U.$. war on Iraq, that is not the case in a handful of countries.
The question arises, which countries are they and why. From the beginning, the United $tates had the support of the majority of only one country--I$rael.(1)
Unfortunately, there are others as well who are phony in their opposition. England was never very strong in its opposition, never reaching the levels of opposition in say Hungary, where more than 80% oppose the war even if the UN would have endorsed it. As we go into war, Tony Blair's government did not fall despite the Labor Party's hold on power, and not the Conservative Party's. In fact, the English labor aristocracy swung into action for war, and the English public favored war by a 54 to 30% margin once the war started.(2) The rapid shift in opinion is a clue to all scientific Marxists that we are talking about a petty-bourgeois population in its entirety. Such a quick shift is not possible any other way.
Even more shocking was Australia where polls showed over 80% did not want the war without UN approval. Once the war started, Australians changed their minds: opposition fell from 70% to 47% in one week according to one poll of Australians.(3)
In contrast, as usual, the situation for Blacks within U.$. borders is different, just as MIM has said all along: "A Washington Post/ABC News poll taken Sunday showed that African Americans are far more likely to oppose the war than white Americans, and are generally more disapproving of President Bush's handling of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"Sixty-one percent of African Americans who responded to questions on the poll said they opposed 'the United States having gone to war with Iraq,' compared with 20 percent of white Americans who answered the poll."(4) Granted, some Blacks interviewed expressed some pretty foggy reasoning, but the outcome of the poll is only all the more surprising.
What the whole world needs to understand about these countries--the united $tates, England, Australia and I$rael --is that they are the core of world imperialism. The populations of these countries are different than the populations of most of the world's countries, because these populations are parasites on Third World labor. They obtain a very measurable surplus-value from the Third World which works at 50 cents an hour. What this means is that MIM was able to predict who would line up for Bush's "coalition of the willing" to attack Iraq --in terms of the public opinion (not who the CIA was able to bribe into being especially good individual government lackeys). In every issue of MIM Notes, we list which countries we can expect to be the trouble for world peace on page two. Where the labor aristocracy is a majority we can expect public support for predatory wars like this one. Out of 200 countries in the world, we can narrow down the likely candidates for war-mongering publics to a few countries, just by doing the class analysis.
Together, the core imperialist countries share in the same economic system. Likewise, the attitude of the typical European including the French and Germans is to want the war over soon, so Europeans can help with rebuilding and stake a financial claim on whatever goodies spill out of Iraq. The French and German imperialists have a different strategy than the Amerikkkan imperialists and the labor aristocracies dominating France and Germany picked up on that, right down to worrying whether the united $tates would ice out French and Germany companies from Iraqi business after the war.
The ordinary proletarian sympathy in the world is for the Iraqi people, fighting valiantly on their own soil against invaders. The proletariat abhors this war and feels at a visceral level for the Iraqi people being bombed, such as the Republican Guards who have no air force to match the Amerikkkan hyperpower.
In contrast, the petty-bourgeoisie numerically dominating in the united $tates, I$rael, Au$tralia and England can imagine the proletarian sentiment, but the petty-bourgeoisie has a different point of view. If we listen carefully to the petty-bourgeoisie, we will hear that it's opposition to the war was always a sham. To the proletariat, the petty-bourgeoisie appears to have no moral fiber to oppose the war. To be sure, the petty-bourgeoisie may even march with us and that is good, but its reasons for marching are very temporary. If we confuse ourselves with this petty-bourgeoisie, we too will fail to mobilize the people and find our movements temporary and without the possibility of carrying out long-term transformation.
The petty-bourgeoisie is the class wavering between the proletariat and the imperialists. If it fears that the proletariat can cause too many consequences in a particular war, the petty-bourgeoisie may oppose the war. Thus U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy wanted a larger coalition of attackers to go into Iraq. Others want a speedy war. The petty-bourgeoisie does not have moral fiber opposing this predatory war in principle. The petty-bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries has no real inkling of internationalism, except bourgeois internationalism. For the petty-bourgeoisie it's only a question of how much it will cost to prop the system of exploitation up.
This is the lesson we must learn in the global anti-war movement and it applies to all movements for social justice. U.$. imperialism has created a miracle in uniting every former republic of Yugoslavia in opposition to the war. Croats, Serbs, Bosnians and Albanians--they all oppose the U.$. war in hefty majorities. That's right: people just a few years ago killing each other in genocidal fury actually share a unity on this question. For once we can see, through whatever vagueness or fog there might be, the true proletarian unity of the people of former Yugoslavia. The proletariat put aside the practical questions of who their local enemies are supporting and felt solidarity with their class brothers and sisters in Iraq.
In contrast, we learn where people must focus their fire globally. The Amerikkkans, the I$raelis, English and Australians will not get it until they pay a price first. That's how it was in Vietnam, just to name one war, but it was also true in Grenada. Because there was no price to pay, there was no petty-bourgeois opposition to the invasion of Grenada. That's how it is with the petty-bourgeois population. If the imperialist populations pay no price they have no feelings for Third World people. If as in the Vietnamese case, the petty-bourgeoisie pays a price of massive death in war--then and only then can we speak of petty-bourgeois vacillation toward the proletarian side. In some cases, the petty-bourgeois vacillation consists in literal re-proletarianization caused by losses suffered in war.
The immorality of this war was there for all to see, with everyone from the proletariat to the Pope condemning it. The rallies marched in their millions and Amerikkkans knew about it, as did the rest of the world, but Amerikkkans did not feel the same way: the Amerikkkan population, the English, Au$tralian and I$raeli populations failed the test. These populations do not feel the basic proletarian sympathies that decent people do globally. The imperialist country populations can only learn internationalism the hard way, just as the Germans had to de-Nazify the hard way.
Any military strategy, any geopolitical strategy, any diplomatic strategy and any agitation and propaganda strategy premised on rallying Amerikkkans, English, Au$tralians and I$raelis as if they had populations composed of 90% proletarians like the Trotskyists say is doomed to failure. With the war in progress and poll after poll showing Amerikkkans supporting the war in over 70% of cases, we see yet again how precisely accurate MIM has been in the past in speaking of ignoring the majority and mobilizing the bottom 20% when it comes to countries like England and the United $tates and we see yet again what petty-bourgeois logic our critics accept when they deny the MIM analysis of the labor aristocracy. Whether it would be a military mistake of counting on warriors who are not there or the more mundane question of doing agitation work that fails to tell the population the truth about itself, the underlying problem is the same: we should not mistake the labor aristocracy for the proletariat. No one does the imperialist country population any favor by calling it "proletarian" when in fact it must go through a difficult road of criticism-self-criticism-transformation to overcome its former enemy status.
The vast majority of those calling themselves "Marxist" cannot be taken seriously if they continue to deny the correctness of MIM's analysis. They demonstrate their lack of scientific capacity. Those "waging a fight for the middle" of the U.$. population numerically would have had to have opposed the war only if 100,000 (some such number which pollsters have explored, 30,000 deaths according to one 1999 poll asking Amerikkkans how much death they would accept to stop Iraq from acquiring weapons of mass destruction(5)) of U.$. troops would die in it. A high casualty rate is the only circumstance under which we could have rallied a majority of Amerikkkans against the war. In contrast, MIM sees itself as having an internationalist duty to oppose the war whether the Amerikkkans lose 10 soldiers or 100,000. Polls will show that a majority of Amerikkkans support war if they lose only 10 dead, but will oppose it if they lose 100,000 dead. There is no way to "wage a fight for the middle" in such a circumstance without surrendering internationalist principle. We MUST expect to lose the majority and still oppose the war, even if the situation is a Grenada-type situation where the United $tates attacks a country of 100,000 people. Fighting for the numerical middle or even worse, the 90%, would mean sacrificing opposition to war on every single country in the world except the "major powers" themselves. There is NO WAY to fight for the 51% or the 90% in U.$. public opinion and still be able to oppose every U.$. war of aggression on even the smallest of countries. Any so-called Marxist who says differently must be cast out of our movement as a liar. This much grip on reality our peace movement needs to obtain. It is only the proletariat that will instinctively know where its sympathies lie in the David versus Goliath scenario of opposing U.$. imperialism.
The fact that the imperialist countries are parasitic in their populations as a whole puts a wrinkle in the work of the international peace movement. On the other hand, the existence of the u.$. superpower running amok has a real potential to create proletarian unity at a concrete level globally. The only way such an imperialist power can be stopped is through international cooperation, especially within the Third World and with the ex-Soviet bloc countries.
That means that the proletariat will have to put aside its false consciousness, its conflicts within itself that can lead no where. It will require the formation of the equivalent of a proletarian United Nations, a United Nations that expels the United $tates, I$rael, England and Au$tralia. The current United Nations contributed to disarmament of Iraq and spying on Iraq's military defenses, only to give the u.$. imperialists a less costly way of attacking Iraq, not to bring peace. The United Nations is indeed discredited: it appeased Bush the occupier of Iraq.
The countries not exploiting the whole world will have to unite under proletarian leadership if they ever expect to guarantee the interests of the majority of their populations. Even those fighting in ex-Yugoslavia for instance can see that the majority of the population in the imperialist countries has seen to its narrow self-interest. In contrast, in most of the world's countries, only a tiny minority of lackeys can ally with u.$. imperialism. A real advance for the world's majority will require international solidarity to shut down and take over U.$. business and a united front to confront U.$. wars around the globe. The attack in Iraq should result in Amerikkkans going out of business everywhere from Indonesia to Namibia. The silver lining in having a formidable enemy like the united $tates is that it is capable of producing the concrete unity of the international proletariat, itself an even more formidable but slumbering giant. By overcoming such an enemy as u.$. imperialism, the international proletariat may gain the tools necessary to bring peace to the whole world.
Notes:
1. http://www.msnbc.com/news/885222.asp?0cv=KB10
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2883171.stm
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2880519.stm
4. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21346-2003Mar24.html
5. Triangle Institute of Strategic Studies, http://www.poli.duke.edu/civmil/summary_digest.html