The relevance of the article “Lenin and imperialist war”

The day before yesterday, in History, Politics and Economics, I published a Turkish translation of Leon Trotsky’s February 1939 article entitled Lenin ve emperyalist savaş [Lenin and imperialist war]. Yesterday, on X, I posted a short thread beneath the announcement of this translation. Below, I present the ideas expressed in that thread in a more organised and fully developed form.

In 1998, the left-liberal Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP) organised a march from Ankara to Incirlik, where the United States maintained a military base, in protest at Washington’s preparations for war against Iraq. On the same day, a protest march was also held in Istanbul, ending in front of the US Consulate.

ÖDP Chair Ufuk Uras (b. 1959) [*], in his press statement prior to the Incirlik march, declared: “We do not want war.” The slogan most frequently repeated throughout the march was: “Neither Sam nor Saddam!”

Yet Trotsky, in the article we published yesterday, explicitly rejects such pacifist formulas: “It is impossible to fight against imperialist war by sighing for peace after the fashion of the pacifists.”

Immediately afterwards, he relays Lenin’s warning: “One of the ways of fooling the working class is pacifism and the abstract propaganda of peace. Under capitalism, especially in its imperialist stage, wars are inevitable.”

Trotsky also recalls Lenin’s remark: “Without a number of revolutions the so-called democratic peace is a middle-class utopia.”

Ufuk Uras

The pacifist discourse on peace adopted by the ÖDP leadership -who would never even entertain the idea that a series of revolutions across the world is necessary for lasting peace- and Uras’s words were precisely an expression of that reactionary “middle-class utopia.”

At the simultaneous rally in Istanbul, the microphone was in the hands of Zekiye Arıkel Hasançebi (1953-2020) [**]. Hasançebi called on the American people to stop Bush, and on the Iraqi people to rid themselves of Saddam as swiftly as possible -naturally accompanied by that same dreadful slogan: “Neither Sam nor Saddam!”

Trotsky, in his article, sets out with complete clarity where socialists must stand in such a situation: “…in the struggle between a civilised, imperialist, democratic republic and a backward, barbaric monarchy in a colonial country, the socialists are completely on the side of the oppressed country notwithstanding its monarchy and against the oppressor country notwithstanding its ‘democracy.’”

That is to say, socialists do not remain neutral when war breaks out between imperialist and non-imperialist states -even if the former present themselves as the world’s most advanced democracies. And today, unlike in 1998, most of those “democratic” states have either slid into authoritarianism, handed political power over to fascist or proto-fascist forces, or are well on the way to doing so.

Returning to the 1998 example: this stance did not, of course, imply the slightest political support for Saddam’s profoundly reactionary, repressive and corrupt capitalist regime. Yet, in the face of an assault by an imperialist power, standing with the oppressed nation is the only way to defend the historical interests of the international working class.

Today, US imperialism is openly and brazenly threatening Venezuela.

So, will those who once chanted “Neither Sam nor Saddam” now also remain neutral between imperialist powers such as the US and the EU, and Venezuela?

And will their excuse for doing so be the wretchedness of Maduro’s government in Venezuela? [Indeed, these middle-class “leftists” were only yesterday applauding Chávez while he was still alive, hailing his radical nationalist petty-bourgeois leadership as “21st-century socialism.”]

For anyone who has grasped the perspective outlined in Trotsky’s article, the stance to be taken today is clear: without offering the slightest political support to the government headed by Maduro and its corrupt regime, we must support the Venezuelan people and stand for the defeat of US imperialism.

If, today, there are those who defend the line of “Neither Sam nor Maduro” in the name of the left, in the name of socialism, know that they are the most insidious enemies of the working class.

The editors of Fourth International, in presenting Trotsky’s article, wrote: “We can think of nothing more appropriate for 1942 than the publication of Trotsky’s brilliant summary of the Leninist conclusions from the war 1914–1918.”

The same holds true today.

Trotsky’s article remains one of the most relevant guides - not only for understanding 1998, but also for grasping today and tomorrow, and for determining the correct political stance in line with the historical interests of the international working class.

As the editors of Fourth International noted: “No program other than Lenin’s offers today salvation to mankind.” (emphasis mine)

Comrade Lenin Cleanses the Earth of Filth - Viktor Deni (1920)

[*] A left-liberal politician and academic. Founding chair of the ÖDP. In 2007, he entered the Turkish Grand National Assembly as an independent MP with the support of Kurdish nationalists. At critical moments -including the constitutional referendum- he backed the AKP. In 2009, he handed over the ÖDP leadership to Hayri Kozanoğlu and subsequently took part in establishing the left-liberal Equality and Democracy Party (EDP).

[**] Before the 12 September military coup, she was a member of the Kremlin-aligned Stalinist Socialist Workers’ Party of Turkey (TSİP). After the coup, she was forced to live abroad for a time as a political refugee. Later, she held various positions in the Socialist Unity Party (SBP), the United Socialist Party (BSP) and the ÖDP -organisations that rapidly shifted from Stalinism towards left-liberalism.