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The difference between "national bolshevism" and "Three Worlds Theory":
British sailors captured by Iran went on TV April 1 to admit that they were trespassing in Iranian waters.(1) One female sailor Faye Turney also said on March 29 that the U.$. and British policies on Iraq and Iran were to blame.(2) Meanwhile, protests against the British broke out in Iran.(3) Additionally, I$rael's leading paper reported:
"The United States will be ready to launch a missile attack on Iran's nuclear facilities as soon as early this month, perhaps 'from 4 a.m. until 4 p.m. on April 6,' according to reports in the Russian media on Saturday."(4)The imperialist media on cue implied the statements by the British sailors were "coerced" from the "hostages," who are actually "criminals" as even the British sailors have admitted themselves. No thought ever goes in the Western media to the idea that people in the imperialist military are already "coerced" into not being allowed to talk about politics. The only time they are allowed to talk about politics is exactly this situation where the Iranian government has freed the sailors to speak the truth about what they were doing. Veterans for Peace does work among U.$. soldiers sent to Iraq. An article about them says:
They know from experience that the military frowns on dissent and doesn't go out of its way to educate soldiers regarding constitutionally protected ways to express their opinions on issues like war and peace.(5)Another example:
"Eicher said. 'In the military, when I heard protestors against the war, I didn't take it as a personal attack against me. Many soldiers were opposed to the war, but you can't voice that.'To be real, troops are not allowed to oppose the Iraq War, even when stationed in bases inside U.$. borders, never mind in Iraq. U.$. and British imperialists should at least let their troops speak out before they go saying that troops in Iran are "coerced" as "hostages.""Jonathan Reed, 27, of Traverse City, also recently joined Veterans for Peace after spending about a year in Iraq with the Army in 2005 and 2006.
"'As a soldier, you do what your leaders tell you to do. It's not a choice,' Reed said."(6)
The example of the British sailors and marines in Iran shows what it will take for truth to begin with imperialist country parasites. It will be a horrific process. It shows the truth of MIM Thought, that violence will occur first and truth later.
The Iranian capture of British occupiers is also important regarding the ideology of internationalism. Here we may speak in favor of all the activists in the imperialist countries who know in their gut that the Iranian action is a good thing. All such activists belong working with MIM. The people who are neutral or reflexively support the anti-Islamic or anti-Third World side are not real MIM material.
Here it would be useful to look at the role of white nationalism on the question of Iran's self-defense. So-called "national bolshevism" really has nothing to say about this hot event in the news. National bolshevism could be for Iran's self-defense, but it would also be for England's self-defense, since both supposedly need national bolshevik parties. So for example, those sailors and marines could belong to an English national bolshevik party that put their country first and they could be fighting other national bolsheviks in Iran, because the ideology of national bolshevism is a delusional failure.
National bolshevism is also a failure with regard to Iraq's borders. National bolsheviks in the united $tates are for closing the borders in a fit of economic suicide. Yet what if Syria and Iran were to close their borders with Iraq and what if retreating liberation fighters found themselves backed into a corner between U.$. forces and Syrian national bolsheviks just defending their border. The national bolshevik ideology does not really fit this situation either. There is no substitute for internationalism if we are going to be genuinely anti-imperialist.
That is why the "Three Worlds Theory"--even as promulgated by Deng Xiaoping before Mao died-- is superior. All the ideological critics pointed out that it covered up the bourgeoisie ruling in the Third World.
On the surface, the argument against Three Worlds Theory is class-based, but in reality it is the white nationalist parties of the West that jumped up to oppose the Three Worlds Theory or strategy. (We should say "strategy" if we think that the gap between the Third World and imperialist countries is not necessarily permanent to imperialism. We should say "theory" if we cannot imagine that there would be much change in the countries being super-exploited before the collapse of imperialism.)
Many parties in the West split over the Three Worlds Theory question but not the question of super-exploitation and how it affects their own class structure. The white nationalist parties are good at ferreting out the bourgeoisie of Third World countries, but not the bourgeoisie in their own countries, especially the bourgeoisified so-called workers.
The Three Worlds Theory is more accurate with regard to class structure than national bolshevism or white nationalism masquerading as Trotskyism, Marxism-Leninism or even Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. The Three Worlds Theory would get the target right: U.$. imperialism. Thus, in this Iran conflict with U.$. and British imperialism, the Three World's Theory grasps what is principal, the struggle against imperialism. It is the KKK, Lou Dobbs and Bob Afakean who are crying and saying "but, but, but. . " There is no "but." We have to take sides against imperialism. The Three Worlds Theory does; MIM does with or without the Three World's Theory, but the vast majority of imperialist country parties calling themselves communist have no real basis for their attack on national bolshevism. The lines of the revisionists, white nationalists and national bolsheviks are inseparable on class and national grounds, because they equate imperialism and oppressed nations and do not realize that the oppressor nations are also predominantly exploiter populations.
To really engage a class struggle, nationalism that unites exploited people is progressive. It is wrong to decry the Mexican flag when the exploited and super-exploited carry it in the migrant struggle inside U.$. borders. The Mexican flag is just a symbol of unity of large numbers of exploited people. It cannot be equated with the U.$. flag: quite the contrary, it has to be upheld in the flag-waving contests we see over the migrant question. Likewise, we cannot equate Iranian nationalism with U.$. or British nationalism. The economic content is not the same. The links between the bourgeois Iranian government and the Iraqi liberation fighters are real. The aid delivered by international communist organizations at this time cannot replace what Iran offers in this struggle; hence to oppose the Three World's Theory or strategy at this time is lending aid to oppressor nationalism.
Notes:
1. http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/01/iran.sailors/index.html
2. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/03/30/ap3569008.html
One imperialist paper took the chance to say that feminism is a failure
since Faye Turney has a three-year-old and she is on the frontlines;
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=386&id=504132007
3. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/global/article1599049.ece
4. "'US ready to strike Iran on Good Friday,'" Jerusalem Post 1Apr07.
5. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=51&ItemID=12458
6. http://www.record-eagle.com/2007/mar/18protest.htm