david yaffe-imperialism, national oppression and the new petit bourgeoisie

8/13/2019 David Yaffe-Imperialism, National Oppression and the New Petit Bourgeoisie

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UK External Assets ( million) [6]

1962 % of total 1977 % of total

Private direct investment 3,405 27.1 14,700 11.1

Portfolio investment 3,200 25.4 7,300 5.5

Other (mainly oil companies) 1,465 11.6 4,400 3.3

UK banking and commercial claims 2,265 18.0 92,820 70.0

Public Sector 2,250 17.9 12,375 10.1

Total external assets 12,585 100.0 132,595 100.0

(Private direct investment - investment by UK companies in their overseas branches, subsidiaries andassociates. Portfolio investment - investment in a company which does not give a controlling interest.)

Money lent by financial institutions (i.e. banking claims) have increased between 1962 and 1977 from18% to 70% of the total external assets of the UK. Beside these figures the accumulated assets from privatedirect investment abroad - second only to the United States in the world - become quiet secondary. Cananyone now doubt the growing strength of British banking, and hence of British imperialism?

UK banking and commercial claims abroad alone were equivocal in amount to 75% of the GNP in 1977.A comparison of the size of UK banking assets and overall external assets with that of the GNP gives ussome guide to the vast scale of the sums involved.

million [7]

1962 1977

UK External assets (direct and indirect) 12,585 132,595

ialism, National Oppression and the New Petit Bourgeoisie: David ... http://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/yaffed/1979/imperiali...

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export income on debt servicing alone this year. Turkey has a debt of over $12 billion and has no visibleway of servicing this debt as all its export earnings are needed to match its oil bill. The debt of Chile,Morocco and Pakistan already approaches the equivalent of one half of GNP. At the end of 1976 India'stotal debt was more than twice, Argentina's nearly twice and Colombia's one and a half times their averageexports. [11]

Murderous regimes, many which share so much in common with fascism, act in the interest of British

and American finance capital so that extra-profits can be squeezed out of a working class and peasantryalready barbarically oppressed.

It is not just banking capital which is now turning to the oppressed nations of the world to squeeze outfrom these countries the maximum amount of surplus-value. A growing proportion of foreign direct investment is finding its way to the oppressed nations.

In 1975-76 the oppressed nations accounted for 36% of total international foreign direct investmentflows from the major imperialist nations as against 30% in 1969-70. More than three quarters of thisinvestment between 1974-6 came from 4 major imperialist nations, the US (42.1%), UK (12.7%), Germany

(11.8%), and Japan (10.4%). Latest figures for 1977 show private direct investment increasing to nearly $9billion. 26% of UK private direct foreign investment went to developing countries in 1975-6 as opposed to20% in 1969-70. 39% of US in 1975-6 as opposed to 27% in 1969-70.

A further indication of the massive growth of capital exports to the oppressed nations is the increase of portfolio investment from $1.2 billion in 1970 to $9.1 billion in 1976, an increase which is much faster thanthe growth of private direct investment. [12] Together with the even more rapid growth of loan capital, thesefigures demonstrate the scramble for imperialist super-profits. A handful of imperialist nations led by theirbanks exploit numerous oppressed nations, condemning the masses of these countries to brutal exploitation,unemployment and starvation, while under the yoke of viciously repressive regimes.

Imperialism denied

Given all this, given the central role of British imperialism in this process, how can the British left justifyits call for a vote for the Labour Party? How can it justify its alliances with social democrats who serve theinterests of British imperialism? It can do so only by denying what the Labour Party represents, that is, bydenying the existence of British imperialism itself. And sure enough, the SWP takes on the job.

Socialist Worker , in an article called 'Modern Imperialism', denies not only the importance of the exportof capital to the 'Third World' but also of a labour aristocracy whose existence is based on the super-profits

from those exports. The SWP tells us:

'In fact neither the export of capital nor the "superprofits" of imperialism play the role they once did. Itis arguable that there has been no net capital export at all (to the Third World) for long periods in the recentpast. Export of capital plays a vital role in modern capitalism but it is overwhelmingly export from onedeveloped country to another. Its economic significance is entirely differentIt cannot account for the"corruption" of "labour aristocracies"by the crumbs of superprofits.' [13]

Not only does the SWP choose to ignore the increasingly dominant role of banking capital over the last10 years but the very essence of imperialism is denied.


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This denial is a very useful one to an organisation which has cemented a political alliance with sectionsof the labour aristocracy in the ANL and which called for a vote for the Labour Party in the last election.With great distortion of the facts and an even greater ignorance of the theory the embarrassing alliance of the SWP with the agents of imperialism is brushed aside. After all how can one enter into an alliance withwhat has effectively been denied.

In the light of the above, it is not surprising that the SWP can give a platform to Tony Benn and other

Labour Party supporters in the ANL, since these too deny that Britain is an imperialist nation. Aremarkable article in the Morning Star cites 'left' Labour MP Tony Benn telling delegates at theAUEW-TASS annual conference this year that Britain is now a colony.

'Britain has moved from Empire to Colony status. "It is a colony in which the IMF decides our monetarypolicy, the international and multinational companies decide our industrial policy, and the EEC decidedour legislative and taxation policies."' [14]

No doubt Mr Benn would prefer the return of the Empire! The Morning Star saw no reason to commentfurther on this amazingly reactionary nonsense as the Communist Party itself in its document the Briti sh

Road to Socialism had already complained that Britain's entry into the Common Market 'imposed serious

limitations on the country's sovereignty'. [15] The Communist Party predictably supports the ANL andcalled on its members to vote Labour in the last election.

It is therefore no accident that in the very issue of their paper in which they call for support for theLabour Party, the SWP denies the existence of imperialism. [16] To do otherwise would force them torecognise the existence of the labour aristocracy and its alliance with British imperialism in the BritishLabour Party.

The labour aristocracy and imperialism

The high monopoly profits for a handful of very rich countries makes it economically possible to createprivileged sections among the workers in the advanced capitalist countries and to detach them from thebroad masses of the proletariat. These workers, a labour aristocracy, constitute the social basis of opportunism - they foster, give shape to and strengthen opportunism. By the very nature of Britishimperialism, especially its operations abroad, this opportunism assumes the form of national chauvinism andracism. This upper stratum of the working class represents the interests of the ruling class in the labourmovement. They have a material interest in the continuation of imperialism for it is the source of theireconomic and political privileges. The Labour Party in Britain has long given political expression to thislayer. Ernest Bevin, a Minister in the 1946 Labour government, expressed this quite openly:

'I am not prepared to sacrifice the British Empire because I know that if the British Empire fellit wouldmean the standard of life for our constituents would fall considerably.'

Bevin's 'constituents', of course, were not the mass of the working class but is upper strata, its privilegedlayers. [17]

Little has changed in Labour Party thinking since that time. David Owen, the Foreign Secretary of thelast Labour government, night have been a little short-sighted and tactless in continuing to openly supportthe Shah when his downfall was imminent but he did no more than express the real ties of the BritishLabour Party to British Imperialism.


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during the events at Soweto' and that its 'ability to influence the course of events in South Africa remainsnil.' It is then attacked for engaging in the 'course of armed struggle' which, according to the IMG, is ultra-left.[23] The SWP informs us that the 'struggle for national liberation in Southern Africa requires thecritical examination and, indeed, we would argue, the rejection of the ideology that has given expressionto that struggle - African nationalism'. However, 'to the extent that nationalist organisations like ANC, PAC,and BPC fight the apartheid system, they should be supported'. But we are warned that 'the leadership of the national liberation movements including the ANC have typically been petty bourgeois both in socialposition and in ideology.' [24] This criticism, which comes from a British organisation, is directed at amovement struggling against a racist state shored up by British imperialism. The ANC(SA) is not onlyfighting the South African racist state but is confronting its main backer, British imperialism.

The extent of Britain's involvement in South Africa is enormous. British companies account for over50% of total foreign investment in South Africa, which at the end of 1976 was estimated to be R19bn(10.5bn). South Africa accounts for one tenth of the total of UK overseas direct investment with a valueof some 4bn. In addition there is substantial indirect investment of about 3bn and invisible earningsrunning at over 1bn a year. [25]

The role of British banking in South Africa is a dominant one, and the South African subsidiaries of British banks account for a significant proportion of the total world operation of the parent banks. Thegrowth of the assets of two banks in South Africa, Barclays National (63% of shares held by Barclays) andStandard Bank Investment Corporation (59.5% shares held by British parent company) speak forthemselves.

Total Assets (Rm) [26]

1967 1978

Rankings in private

companies both in 1967 and1978

Barclays National 961 5,691.9 1

Standard Bank 824 4,619.7 2

The imperialist connections between Britain and South Africa clearly reveals the anti-imperialist

character of the ANC, since it is a liberation movement that is determined to overthrow the racist SouthAfrican state. [27] However, the British left is willing to give support to that movement only 'to the extentthat' and 'in so far as' it is anti-imperialist. This conditional support can only sow doubt in the minds of British workers about the kind of support they should give to the ANC(SA).

It is clear, however, that what requires ' critical examination ' is not the revolutionary nationalism of theProvisional Republican Movement and the ANC(SA) but the petit bourgeois ideology of the British left.More clearly than before we can see what lies behind the SWP article on 'modern imperialism'.

If capital exports to South Africa and to the 'Third World' are no longer necessary, if the advanced


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capitalist countries are no longer squeezing out super-profits from them, then there is no real necessity fornational liberation movements to take on an overtly anti-imperialist form. It is not surprising that the SWP,like the IMG and the others, dismisses liberation movements as (petit) bourgeois nationalist ones. It is notsurprising that the SWP does not regard these movements as central to the anti-imperialist struggleworldwide. The SWP denies the reality of imperialism in order to justify its lack of support for liberationmovements. They deny that these movements have chosen the only path to a better and just society - theanti-imperialist struggle. This denial on the part of the SWP and others highlights the privileged positionoccupied by such groups in the imperialist heartland.

The emergence of the new petit bourgeoisie and the alternatives facing it

The relative prosperity in the imperialist nations during the post-war boom was based on two essentialfactors: 1) the defeat of the working class before and during the Second World War, and 2) the dominantposition of US imperialism throughout the capitalist world. [28] This prosperity allowed bourgeoisdemocracy a certain lease of life. It gave rise to new privileged sections of the working class - the new petitbourgeoisie - sections of which were able to obtain lucrative positions as trade union officials, journalists,lawyers, politicians, academics, economists, teachers, civil servants and the like. The privileges and status

of these layers depends directly on the continuation of imperialism - the attempt to shore up the prosperityof the post-war boom through the super-exploitation of oppressed peoples.

The British petit bourgeois socialist groups, on the whole, draw their membership from these newprivileged layers - the new petit bourgeoisie. As the crisis of imperialism deepens these layers will be facedwith a choice. Either to side with the most oppressed sections of the working class, the blacks and the Irish,as well as the liberation movements struggling against imperialism. Or to seek to relative respectability andsecurity in alliance with the other privileged layers in the trade union and labour leadership. There is nomiddle road.

To side with the working class and the oppressed, to break with imperialism, means to break the alliancewith the labour aristocracy and its political organisations. It means to give up a relatively secure andprivileged existence in order to side with the oppressed. The British Intelligence document on theProvisional Republican Movement included a comment on this essential point: 'if members of the middleclass and graduates become more involved they have to forfeit their lifestyle.' The point is somewhatstarkly put but its meaning is admirably clear. The oppressed have made their choice, they will fight back,they will struggle against imperialism, in order to survive. The new petit bourgeoisie has a choice - to sidewith the oppressed, with the consequences that entails, or to defend material and political privileges by

joining with the oppressor.

As the crisis of imperialism deepens the leadership of the petit bourgeois organisations of the British leftare making their choice. Increasingly they are siding with those supporting imperialism and attacking thosetaking up the armed struggle against imperialism.

The struggle continues internationally

Internationally British imperialism is increasingly being challenged as the struggle of the oppressedintensifies. The magnificent struggles of the South African blacks, at its height during the Soweto uprising,is now simmering again beneath the surface as South African racist state, backed and supported by British


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imperialism, intensifies its brutal oppression. But the courage and example of the ANC freedom fighterslike Solomon Mahlangu, murdered recently by the South African racist regime, will not go unavenged. TheANC(SA) has now stepped up its activities in South Africa itself - the armed struggle will now intensify.

British imperialism has been given little respite. For as one struggle temporarily ebbs another comes tothe boil. The Iranian people came out in the streets in their millions to put an end to the savage and barbaricdictatorship of the Shah - a dictatorship which was engineered by and which could only survive through the

direct intervention of British and American imperialism.

As the struggle of the Patriotic Front, of SWAPO and the Irish people painstakingly go forward, Britishimperialism shows it can only maintain its rule by brutality, repression, corruption and lies. Its rule abroadshows the working class here what lies in store for it as the crisis of imperialism deepens.

and at home.

The revolutionary movement in Britain faces a vitally important task. The greatest threat to Britishimperialism in the coming period is a movement which unites the struggle of the working class in Britainwith the struggle against national oppression both at home and abroad.

The conditions for this exist already. As we have said black workers in this country suffer under a doubleyoke both as blacks and as workers. As part of the oppressed they know there is no way forward other thanthe struggle against the state. As members of the working class they are better placed than any other sectionof the exploited to help raise the consciousness of the mass of workers. This they are able to do more thanat any time before precisely due to the disillusionment that many workers have experienced through thebetrayal of their interests by the Labour Party. This is most striking in the case of low paid workers and inthe public and service sectors. It is no accident that it is precisely in these sectors, where black and Irishworkers labour side by side with their non-black comrades that this disillusionment has been carried

furthest.

The recent economic struggles of British workers has increasingly brought sections of them into conflictwith their trade union leadership and the Labour Party. The low paid workers in the state sector ignored thepleas of the labour and trade union leadership not to undermine the election prospects of the Labour Partyand continued with their strikes and pickets in the winter months of 1978-9. These workers shouted downthe 'platform' of trade union leaders after the massive demonstration in January 1979 because they feltbetrayed. The May 1979 National Conference of the NUPE had motions on the agenda calling for theunion to disaffiliate from the Labour Party. This experience of British workers can be built on, and theirconsciousness raised, only if they are won to a movement in opposition to British imperialism.

The revolutionary movement in Britain will be advanced only through resolute commitment to thestruggles of the oppressed. It must help to consolidate the vanguard which already exists in Britain and isnow fighting the British state. It must also provide the organisational means whereby the less advancedworkers can rise to the ranks of the vanguard itself. To do this will necessarily demand a struggle againstwhat is now the greatest barrier to building a revolutionary party in Britain - the petit bourgeois socialistorganisations of the British left.

The break with petit bourgeois socialism.


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In 1903, before his break with Marxism, Plekhanov stressed the importance of ruthless criticism directedeven more at the false friends of the working class than its open enemies.

'Open enemies were less dangerous because they were no longer able to blunt the class-consciousness of the proletarians, whereas petit bourgeois socialist with their "classless" programmes were still influencingmany workers.' [29]

As the crisis of imperialism deepens those that cover up for the Labour Party, who call for its re-election

on a more democratic and socialist basis, today are a greater danger to the working class than theCallaghans and the Healeys who have already been exposed. Those who claim to 'fight' racism through theANL and so cover up for the racism of the Labour Party and the British state are more dangerous to theworking class than the Powells and the Bidwells. Those who refuse to give unconditional support to thosefighting British imperialism in Ireland or South Africa are more dangerous to the working class than the RoyMasons, and the David Owens.

The crisis shows us the open enemies of the working class - the false friends have to be struggle againstand exposed. The RCG will do its utmost to be at the centre of the struggle to destroy the influence of these'false friends'.

David Yaffe

June 1979

Notes

[1] Socialist Worker Editorial 21 August 1969

[2] Socialist Worker 30 September 1978

[3] Given the record of the Labour Party it might have come as a surprise to readers of left-wingnewspapers to be told on the front page of Socialist Worker 12 May 1979 immediately after the Toryelection victory, that 'The ruling class is back in office'. Moreover, readers might also have wondered whatSocialist Challenge (IMG) 10 May 1979 was supporting when it argued, immediately after the election,'Kick out the Tories for a Labour Government'. The major organisations to the left of the Labour Party inthis country very seldom unite - at least not if they can help it. Yet in the period leading up to the GeneralElection in 1979 we saw the most unprecedented unity ever. It was a unity which apparently required nodiscussions, no conferences, no compromises. It was a unity that amazingly stretched from the so-called

'Stalinists' of the New Communist Party, through the Social Democrats of the Communist Party, to theirmirror image in the trotskyist movement, the International Marxist Group, the Socialist Workers Party andthe Workers Revolutionary Party. What all these organisations were doing, no matter what reasons theygave, was telling workers becoming disillusioned with the Labour Party, pleading with black and Irishworkers considering boycotting the election, to come to the assistance of a pro-imperialist and racist party -to vote Labour. Outside the Labour and trade union bureaucracy itself, the Labour Party found itsstaunchest allies in the petit bourgeois socialist organisations of the British left.

In the period leading up to the election the RCG conducted a Boycott campaign under the banner of


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Hands Off Ireland! We attended over 35 Labour Party meetings throughout the country heckling anddisrupting the meetings of Jim Callaghan and his Cabinet Ministers. We made Ireland into an election issue.In doing this we gave expression to the stand already taken by thousands of Irish workers. The Irish Post 5May 1979 reported the results of a poll of the intentions of Irish workers in the general election. 31.5%indicated that they did not intend to vote. The vast majority of these traditional Labour supporters weretaking this position because of Labour's record on Northern Ireland.

[4] See The Anti-Nazi League and the Struggle Against Racism RCG pamphlet (2 nd Edition) 1979

[5] Bank advances as a proportion of the market value of companies' liabilities increased from 7.8% in1960 to 33.7% in 1976. See Bank of England Quarter ly Bulletin June 1977

[6] Bank of England Quarterly Bullet in June 1975, June 1978. Attention was drawn to these points bythe Anti-Apartheid Movement nearly three years ago. See Good and Williams, South Africa: The Crisisin Britain and the Apartheid Economy 1976 p15. Significantly the SWP chose to ignore this.

[7] Ibid. and CSO National Income and Expenditure 1967-77. The measurements for GNP are at

current prices.

[8] Financial Times 19 March 1979

[9] See World Financial Markets Morgan Guaranty Trust March 1976, May 1979. These credits arethose publicly announced. According to Morgan Guaranty, for the period 1974-76, these credits were onlysome 43% of total bank credits. The rest were unpublished direct borrower to lender arrangements. See

British Banks and South Africa Christian Concern for South Africa 1979 p31

[10] World Financial Markets op cit Jan 1979

[11] See Financial Times 30 May 1978, 26 March 1979 and 31 May 1979

[12] Investing in Developing Countries OECD 1978 pp105-121

[13] Socialist Worker 28 April 1979

[14] Morning Star 23 May 1979

[15] The British Road to Socialism 1978 p13

[16] Socialist Worker 28 April 1979

[17] Cited in Towards Socialism Fontana Library 1965 p194. This point is made in the article 'Racism,Imperialism and the Working Class' in this issue of Revolutionary Communist 9

[18] See for example, Socialist Worker 7 October 1978 and 7 April 1979, Inprecor (FourthInternational) 7 August 1978, Morning Star 3 March 1979 and British Road to Socialism op cit p14,Socialist Challenge 4 January and 5 April 1979, Newsline 19 December 1978, New Worker No 32 1978.For a Republican answer to the British left see 'The English Left, Revolutionary Cover Blown Away' in AnPhoblacht/Republican News 3 February 1979


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[19] Socialist Challenge 24 November 1977. For an attack on the British left's betrayal of IrishRepublicanism see Hands Off Ireland! No 4 May 1978 p11-14

[20] During the RCG's boycott Labour campaign, we were confronted by Socialist Unity and IMGsupporters who tried to shout down our slogan 'Hands Off Ireland - Boycott Labour'. Socialist Unity and theIMG called on us to vote for the pro-imperialist Labour Party. The United Troops Out Movement sent aletter to the RCG asking us to support Brendan Gallagher against Roy Mason. The letter reassured us that

there was no danger of Mason losing as a result of Gallagher standing since Roy Mason had an enormousmajority. UTOM's 'opposition' to British imperialism will not go as far as opposition to the pro-imperialistLabour Party.

[21] See An Phoblacht/Republican News 12 May 1979

[22] The Communist Party has always given support to the ANC(SA), seeing its struggle as a legitimatestruggle for national liberation. This is in stark contrast to its attitude to the Provisional RepublicanMovement.

[23] See Socialist Challenge 9 June 1977, 16 June 1977 and Southern Africa in Crisis (IMG) p37

[24] Alex Callinicos and John Rogers, Southern Africa after Soweto Second Edition 1978 pp193, 195,210. Our emphasis.

[25] Financial Times 25 January 1979

[26] Top Companies, Financial Mail 29 March 1968 and 20 April 1979

[27] The Revolutionary Communist Tendency (RCT) in a leaflet attacks the ANC(SA), arguing that 'TheANC stands compromised with the South African working class'. The RCT also attacks the Provisional

Republican Movement in similar fashion; 'republicanism tends towards compromise with imperialism' (see Revolutionary Communist Papers No 4 p34). It is no surprise therefore to find an article, in the sameissue, supposedly defending Lenin's Imperialism , no mention of the labour aristocracy or any understandingof finance capital. Indeed it purposely distorts Lenin's position when it misquotes a passage from

Imperialism :

'a "fight" against the policy of the trusts and the banksis mere bourgeois reformism and pacifism.'

No wonder they pour scorn on anti-imperialist movements fighting against the 'policy of the trusts andbanks'. Their understanding has little in common in Lenin's, for the part missed out when added gives quite

a different meaning to the quoted passage. In full it reads,

'a "fight" against the policy of the trusts and the banks that does not affect the economic basis of thetrusts and banks is mere bourgeois reformism and pacifism.' ( CW Vol 22 p271. Our emphasis)

The programme of the ANC(SA), The Freedom Charter, contains the demand to nationalise the banksand monopoly industries. Readers, therefore, will not be shocked to learn that the founding members of theRCT were expelled from the Revolutionary Communist Group in 1976 for national chauvinism.

Since the RCT, like other petit bourgeois organisations, denies the reality of British imperialism its call


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for workers to abstain in the general election is no more than an adolescent pose.

[28] See Paul Bullock and D Yaffe 'Inflation, the Crisis and the Post-War Boom' in RevolutionaryCommunist 3/4 November 1975

[29] Plekhanov Selected Works Vol II Lawrence and Wishart 1976 (Britain 1978) p675. Plekhanov'sdefence of Marxism against its petit bourgeois critics is essential reading for serious revolutionaries today.Lenin advised all Communists to study Plekhanov: 'and I mean study - all of Plekhanov's philosophicalwritings, because nothing better has been written on Marxism anywhere in the world'. ( CW Vol 32 p94)

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