Communists and National Liberation Struggles in Middle East - Opinion Piece from Maoist List by John Ball

In a recent A World To Win article about Palestine, it was stated that:'If they [potential supporters of the AWTW line] work to break themselves and others out of that Zionism-versus- Islamic-fundamentalism framework instead of tailing behind it, they can play a crucial role in both opening new eyes to Israelis crimes and the reasons behind it and unleashing the far broader support for Palestine than we have seen so far – support it objectively deserves, needs and could have today.'What this implies is that we should only support a communist or progressive national resistance to Israel.

But this is just the usual western left delusion.What are the communist forces in the Middle East? The revisionists such as the Iraqi Communist Party that sat on the Iraq Governing Council as collaborators when the US was carrying out its genocidal attack on Fallujah.

The Worker-Communist Party of Iraq and Iran whose mentor Hekmat openlysupported the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.The Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist- Maoist) who repeat the error of the 'Three Worlds Theory' by calling for 'revolutionaries' to fight to achieve the same objective as the US (overthrow of the current Iranian regime) in the event of a US invasion of Iran. The Three Worlds Theory was the theory that revolutionaries and progressives should effectively unite with US imperialism to defeat the perceived greater threat of the Soviet Union.

The CPI-MLM just takes the same dud theory and applies it to Islamic Fundamentalism. Communists have sold out the people of the Middle East too often to be trusted now. It is obvious that the US and its proxy Israel is the main enemy of the people of the Middle East and other oppressed nations. They have devastated Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Palestine.Why on Earth would the people of the Middle East choose to try to resist this dreadful force that is bringing their nations to ruin under the leadership of people that time and time again side with the country that is the cause of all their misfortune? It's absolutely ridiculous for communists to make such a meal of criticising national liberation movements like Hamas.

Yes, we know such movements can end up vacillating in their resistance to imperialism. But the communists who make this criticism of Hamas just use this as an excuse for siding with American imperialism in a far more decisive manner than groups like Hamas and Hezbollah have done.The vacillations of the national resistance movements are just used as an alibi by the communists for their capitulation to imperialism.

Rather than criticising groups like Hamas from such a position of abject weakness, communists should be criticising themselves for the way they have failed the people so dreadfully. Only once this is done can credibility be regained.Does any of this mean we should tail Islamicists? Not at all, though that is the slander thrown against all Maoists that disagree with the policy of fighting on the same side as US imperialism.

The Maoist line in the case of an attack on an oppressed nation is to unite with all forces that can be united with to resist the foreign invasion. The Maoists therefore form a United Front to wage a war of national resistance. This front must be led by the Maoists, not by the reactionaries.This leads to an obvious problem that initally the Maoist Party will be small and unable to lead. Therefore their priority is to build up their strength. This can and will lead to conflict with the reactionary government and the reactionary resistance movements, just as Mao's PLA fought with the Chiang Kai-Shek's army before and after the anti-Japan United Front had been formed.

Even while engaging in such conflicts Maoists must stress the line that the main enemy is the invader but that only the Maoists can lead successful resistance, not the reactionaries. Such a line is a world away from the line ofuniting with imperialism against local reactionaries.

Finally, we must avoid the moralism that says we, who are not in theMiddle East, should not tell them how to run their struggles. When Communist parties are going very badly wrong then it is our responsibility to point this out. The CPI-MLM has certainly not beenshy of expressing its criticisms of the CPN (M), so I hardly think moralistic considerations should concern us either.

SOURCE: Maoist List