[Marxism] What do Koreans think?

[Politicus E.]

Prior to being removed from the list, Sam B wrote the following.

"This question came up within the last year in India. Let us recapitulate.

"About a year ago, the Indian parliamentary left (CPI and CPI(M))
withdrew support from the Congress government because the Congress
government was perceived to be getting too close to the USA. I.e. the
Indian parliamentary left acted out of anti-imperialism ...

"Thus, when the alternatives were secularism and anti-imperialism, the
Indian parliamentary left chose anti-imperialism.

"Was this the correct choice? I think it was an irresponsible one. The
potental danger to the Indian masses (especially to non-Hindu
minorities in India) at this time, is much greater from the rabid
Hindu right-wing, than from imperialism.

"So, the Indian parliamentary left's decision to choose
anti-imperialism over protecting secularism was quite irresponsible ..."

The CPI(M) only ostensibly supported an anti-imperialist politics.
Their agitations against U.S. imperialism in S. Asia were perhaps
laudable. On the other hand, the party also tacitly approves (and
approved) of the foreign policy stance of the Indian state and its
ruling classes when those elements direct (or directed) their
aggressions towards their South Asian neighbors. The party has not
developed a anti-imperialist political stance on the question of
Indian foreign policy in the turbulent post-Soviet period.

Contradictions abound in their political positions. This is clear in
the ‘independent’ foreign policy that was espoused within the common
minimum program and various party documents.  The CPI(M) has engaged
in political activities consistent with the strategic objective of the
Indian state and its ruling fractions to attain ‘Great Power’ status.
What is a ‘Great Power’ if nothing else than a bourgeois conception of
imperialism?

Their notion of ‘independent’ foreign policy has been confused and
came to connote a defense of imperialist aspirations for the Indian
state. An ‘independent foreign policy’ has been transformed to mean
support for multi-polarity—or the right of the Indian state itself to
be accepted as an imperialist power. It wishes to be an imperialism on
equal footing with the other ones.

I do not believe that the CPI(M) was anti-imperialist in the period to
which Sam referred.

epoliticus

--
"In the tender annals of Political Economy, the idyllic reigns from
time immemorial ... the present year of course always excepted."
-- A German refugee, circa 1867 --

http://epoliticus.wordpress.com/