Stalinism. posted by Richard Seymour

George Galloway is a Fidelista, and is damned. Arthur Scargill keeps the faith with the ex-USSR and is rebuked. Eric Hobsbawm is both 'an apologist for Stalinism' and 'not a Stalinist' according to Johann Hari.

Now, Alex Callinicos has his knuckles rapped for describing Nick Cohen as an 'ex-Leftist':

Why is Nick Cohen an ex-leftist? Did he make a statement recently that I missed? I'd be surprised to hear it. Pending some fresh information, I assume that Alex Callinicos so characterizes Nick Cohen because he (Nick Cohen) supported the war to get rid of Saddam Hussein. All those years of criticizing Stalinism and Stalinists, and this is what has become of socialist democracy for one of the SWP's leading thinkers: only one possible viewpoint on the war. [Emphasis added]

Imagine there being only one possible viewpoint on the war. Actually, don't vex your imagination. Oliver Kamm has already concluded the matter for us:

"The supporters of war have a monopoly of morality on the subject. There is no reputable anti-war position."

This outlandish claim was cited by Normblog recently. Approvingly, the context would suggest, since the author of that blog admits that the thought had given him some trouble but no longer did. Then there is the constant refrain about the "pseudo-Left" who opposed the war on Iraq and who even, the dirty bastards, went so far as to support the right of Iraqis to resist the subsequent occupation.

I am less interested in Callinicos' barb at Cohen than the uses of the term 'Stalinism'. The ex-Stalinist Harry Saunders likes to throw around the charge of Stalinism from time to time, particularly at those who support anti-imperialist movements. (I don't want to take up space here, but I've posted a few retorts to Harry's muddled piece here ). Johann Hari encourages his readers to believe that because Respect houses George Galloway and a few former affiliates of the Muslim Association of Britain, it comprises "totalitarians in an unconvincing leftwing costume". Christopher Hitchens was convinced before the war that the antiwar movement was populated by "pseudo-Marxists who, deep in their hearts, have a nostalgia for the days of the one-party State and who secretly regard Saddam as an anti-imperialist".

Given that practically all of these people insist that we must, without criticism, support the Iraqi Communist Party and the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, which is dominated by the former, I somehow doubt that they have a principled opposition to Stalinists as such. The ICP may once have apologised for Saddam's brutality, (that cost them), but in the current lexicon of Cohen, Hari and others, they are nothing less than 'socialists', 'democrats' and so on. The PUK, beloved of Hitchens, Cohen and the other gruesome array of pro-war apologists cited above, have a record of collaboration with Saddam, as well as with Iran and Syria (Islamist and Baathist tyrannies, respectively). Dr Barham Salih, whose words are so often adduced to shame the antiwar Left ("complete moral failure" etc) likes to cozy up to the Iranian regime - indeed, he owes a lot to them. Iran helped the PUK in its civil war with the KDP, and was rewarded with carte blanche to murder Iranian Kurds hiding out in the north of Iraq.

If you really want to find Stalinists, Baathists and theocrats, they are easy enough to spot. Just have a look at the Interim Iraqi Government. If you want to know who their allies are, they are generally to be found writing lazy, bellicose missives in the liberal press. Stalinism as an ideology (not a state formation) has a complex history. Its devotees have been courageous, and they have also been treacherous. Suffice to say, I don't think it takes much courage to support the world's largest imperialist power as it destroys Iraq.