Lessons of Betrayal
two-week-long operation starting 31 August 1996, the Iraqi army
of Saddam Hussein and the forces of the Kurdish Democratic Party
(KDP) led by Massoud Barzani joined forces in a surprising alliance
and occupied the entire territory of Iraqi Kurdistan. Barzani is
one of the pro-US Kurdish warlords who, along with the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by Jalal Talabani, were brought to
power by the United States and their allies through the Operation
"Provide Comfort" campaign during the Gulf War and formed the "Kurdish
Government". The joint forces of Saddam Hussein and Barzani quickly
pushed the PUK forces out of the areas it controlled and into Iran.
CIA operations in Arbil (the capital of the Kurdish Government)
were driven out and the US evacuated many of its agents into neighbouring
"Provide Comfort" was the final leg of the Gulf War in 1991, through
which the US forces built a military and intelligence post in northern
Iraq, where the borders of Iraq, Iran and Turkey meet. The Turkish
army, on the southern flank of NATO, took major responsibility for
this operation. In mid-September 1996, after the Iraqi army and
the Barzani forces pushed into Iraqi Kurdistan, the US announced
that it was abandoning what it called the "Safe Haven" project.
This project, which was said to "save" Kurds from the attacks of
the Iraqi regime, had the aim of giving a human face to the US occupation
of Iraqi Kurdistan.
regime was prohibited from setting foot inside this region or flying
over the skies of Kurdistan. The UN military and civilian forces
were stationed in towns, while the US military stayed near the border
with Turkey, in Zakho. The CIA launched its operations out of the
main Kurdish cities, like Arbil. Official and non-official organizations
of the European powers (mainly German and French) quickly established
themselves in this "haven". They busied themselves with intelligence
gathering, reconnaissance activities and cozying up to the Kurdish
leaders, in order to further their immediate and future imperialist
interests in Iraq. Some also carried out the sideline activity of
distributing imperialist handouts to the Kurds.
"Provide Comfort"/"Safe Haven" project was supposed to win a durable
foothold for a direct US presence. However, this strategy ran into
many unresolvable contradictions. The European powers began to contest
US plans. There was also concern that dividing up Iraq could be
a destabilizing factor for other imperialist-dominated states in
the region, such as Turkey, the Gulf states and Iran, which are
already enmeshed in political crises. Moreover, the creation of
a viable semi-colonial state in Iraqi Kurdistan proved to be a mammoth
task economically and politically. Frequent wars broke out between
the PUK and the KDP, the two factions of the "Kurdish Government".
The PKK (Workers Party of Kurdistan) from Turkey used Iraqi Kurdistan
as a staging area for carrying out its own insurgency against the
Turkish regime. The Islamic regime of Iran deployed its military
and secret agents in Iraq. The CIA-financed activities of the Iraqi
opposition, aimed at unseating Saddam Hussein, did not yield results.
The US strategy developed too many cracks to be repaired. So in
1995-96, the US ruling class began to talk about wrapping up the
project and pursuing its goals in other ways.
the forces of the Iraqi regime and Barzani moved into Kurdistan,
the US was quick to adjust itself to this new situation: they abandoned
"Safe Haven"/ "Provide Comfort" as if just waiting for the opportunity.
US newspapers announced that the US had given a coup de grace
to Operation "Provide Comfort". Barzani argued that what he did
was not contrary to the wishes of the US, because the US had insisted
on the sovereignty of Iraq, which meant no Kurdish state, and therefore
it was correct for the Kurds to resolve their problems with Saddam.
The US had already cut its "Provide Comfort" budget from $600 million
in 1992 to $21 million in 1996.
imperialists, in the role of world gendarme, cannot tolerate unauthorized
moves which would undermine their rule and status. Their ability
to punish Saddam has become "proof" of their so-called invincibility.
And, as bloodsuckers, every time they want to punish him they punish
the masses of Iraq. So they threw their military weight around and
launched more of their mass-murder missiles at the Iraqi masses
to add to the numbers of those dying daily from the economic embargo
they have imposed on Iraq since the end of the Gulf War.
events exposed the fact that the Gulf War alliance the US imperialists
put together has unravelled. This time the US failed to rally more
than meagre support for its gunslinging against Iraq. Except for
the United Kingdom, the major European countries refrained from
extending the "no fly zone" prohibiting Iraq from flying over its
own skies. So the US extended it unilaterally. Russia vetoed the
US proposal to condemn Saddam in the UN and later announced that
Iraq has the right to defend itself. Contrary to the US position,
these other powers insisted on the implementation of the "oil for
food" deal, which allows Iraq to sell some of its oil. They did
not approve the establishment of the so-called "protection zone"
by the Turkish army along the Iraqi-Turkish border. Nonetheless,
the US asked Turkey to go ahead with it. But this did not occur
either. Later, Turkish Foreign Minister Ciller retracted Turkey's
plans and asked Saddam Hussein to take control of Iraq's borders
with Turkey. However, within a week she reconfirmed the plans for
the "protection zone". The problems facing the US were highlighted
further when Talabani's PUK forces made a comeback in mid-October,
with backing from the Iranian regime.
whole episode is an important sign of the depth of the troubles
of the imperialist system and of the failure of the goals the imperialists
proclaimed during the Gulf War. A considerable gap has arisen between
what the US wants and what it can get. Its vision of the New World
Order, which was baptized in torrents of blood in the Gulf War,
is not falling into place. Big counter-currents unleashed by the
intensification of the major contradictions of the world capitalist
system are undermining the US's position and control in many respects.
The US imperialists
announced their intention to forge a New World Order with the bloody
rampage in the 1991 Gulf War, which they carried out in alliance
with the other Western powers and the support of the ex-Soviet Union,
along with an array of lackeys from the Third World.
War came in the midst of the noisy crumbling of the walls of the
East bloc. The US imperialists and the other Western powers intended
to utilize their victory in the Cold War to deal with their own
deep crisis. The easing of contradictions amongst the imperialists
which resulted from dismantling a major flank of theirs in the East
- the Soviet-led bloc - presented the Western powers with opportunities
as well as necessities. At that time, an editorial in AWTW 1991/16
captured the situation clearly: "The arrogance of the US is to be
explained not so much by the increased opportunities now that the
Soviet Union is acquiescing in the US adventures, but more by the
necessity felt by all of the imperialists to reconsolidate and expand
their "spheres of influence". Clearly the post-World War
II order is coming to an end. Already the collapse of the East bloc
has sent the whole imperialist world into disarray. All of the imperialist
powers sense that now is the time to grab, and if they fail to do
so, their competitors will grab first. Countries long under the
domination of these imperialist powers are experiencing increased
hardship and unresolvable crisis and are seething with unrest and
of the pace of events in the Middle East today is not because Saddam
Hussein supposedly has "provoked" the US once again. Larger issues
regarding the Middle East policies of the imperialists and power
relations in the region are at stake. Because of this region's economic,
political and geo-strategic importance - in particular its oil resources
and location at the convergence of Asia, Africa and Europe - it
has always been one of the flash points of the world imperialist
system. Events here frequently mirror much of the intensity and
complex intertwining of important global contradictions, especially
those amongst the imperialists and between the imperialists and
the peoples of the world.
alliance and consensus which the US led through the Gulf War have
become quite relative. Frequently, on matters of global and regional
importance, there are a series of collisions before a fragile consensus
is reached - if indeed one is reached at all. There is intense rivalry
amongst the powers over profit and power grabbing in the Middle
East. The major European states keenly take note of any problems
in the US's ruling position and structures here and utilize every
opportunity to advance their own immediate and long-term interests.
For example, the favourable re-organization of the Iraqi economy,
centred around its petroleum, is being actively pursued by the European
powers - already French oil companies have secured major concessions
from the Iraqi government for the extraction and sale of oil in
after the Saddam-Barzani forces took over most of Iraqi Kurdistan,
the French sent a commercial attaché to Baghdad - the first and
only Western power to have done so. This infuriated the US more
than Saddam's incursion into Kurdistan. The French also played an
important role in mediating the recent conflict between Israel and
the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, who are backed by Iran and Syria.
It will not be easy to determine whether the French had a role in
funnelling arms by Iran through Syria to the Hezbollah, but the
imperialists have a long tradition of working out their "peacetime"
rivalries through proxies.
especially Germany and France, also have acute contradictions with
the US over Iran. This is reflected in their serious opposition
to the US economic embargo (and the US's possible military plans)
against Iran, which is aimed at destabilizing the Islamic Republic
government and/or forcing a favourable re-organization of power
amongst the comprador-feudal classes in Iran, as well as affecting
the regime's position in the region.
the revolution in Iran, the European powers played a major role
in blocking Soviet influence on Iran's economy and politics and
keeping the country tightly knit into the Western bloc. This was
done on behalf of the bloc as a whole, including its leader, the
US, whose influence in Iran had been shaken by the 1979 Iranian
revolution. Now that the Cold War is over, these European powers,
mainly Germany and France, want to turn their influence in Iran
into a strategic presence, giving them more leverage in the Middle
East. German imperialism never abandoned its "Berlin-Teheran, Berlin-Baghdad"
slogan, which is meant to express the need and drive of the German
imperialists to carve out an area of influence in the Middle East.
regional policies of the US are also being contested. For its part,
the US has launched important initiatives to organize regional security
structures. To this end, the Turkish and Israeli armies are formally
working together to build a powerful axis to bully the region. Egypt
is said to be preparing to join the axis. This regional gendarmerie
will be integrated with the help of the direct US military presence
in Turkey and the Gulf. Other countries like Iran are being asked
to accept this framework. But whether this vision will succeed this
time, no one can say; as one song goes, "don't speak too soon, the
wheel's still in spin".
the Masses of the Region
US efforts to re-organize and consolidate its rule in this region,
in particular the so-called Middle East peace process, are at best
in a precarious and changing state. Even though Yasir Arafat's sell-out
of the national resistance of the Palestinian people was a great
service to imperialism and the Israeli state, the "peace" process
has failed to tame the masses of Palestine and resolve many acute
problems that the imperialists and the reactionary states face in
this part of the world. The contradiction has intensified between
the imperialist system and the peoples, who are being increasingly
squeezed and trampled upon, but are also being thrown into struggle.
is also reflected in the shaky situation of the Yankee client states
in the Middle East. Some of the Gulf states are boiling with political
and economic crisis, and US bases in Saudi Arabia have been targeted
by bomb attacks. Bill Clinton complained that if the US uses ground
forces or its pilots land on Iraqi soil, he is afraid that the humiliation
they suffered in Somalia will be repeated, with US soldiers dragged
and kicked in the streets by the people. In this most recent crisis
between the US and Iraq, even the Turkish ruling class refused to
allow its Incirlik bases to be used for bombing Iraq. Saudi Arabia
also refrained, and Kuwait only agreed after dragging its feet.
These US clients are now afraid of intensifying their own political
crisis by being too closely identified with the US. (This tendency
is increased by the fact that European states like Germany have
considerable influence over regimes such as Turkey, even while the
US remains the dominant imperialist power.)
peasants in Turkey are in revolt, and the new so-called "modern"
Islamic government of Turkey was seriously challenged and exposed
by the heroic struggles of the revolutionary political prisoners,
who staged a hunger strike during the summer of 1996. The masses
of Jordan recently rioted against King Hussein's tripling of bread
prices, a result of the liberalization policies of the imperialist
economic agencies. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak is trembling at the thought
of similar revolts by the hungry masses in his country. Moreover,
the people will not forget and forgive the killing field created
by the US and the other imperialists and their lackeys in the Gulf
Government" - Eager Agent of Imperialists
round of events in Iraq was particularly important because it brought
to a logical conclusion the so-called "pragmatic" policies of the
bourgeois-feudal leaders of the Kurdish national resistance. During
the Gulf War, these leaders welcomed the occupation of Iraqi Kurdistan
by the imperialist forces in return for a little piece of power
for themselves. These leaders promised the Kurdish masses a better
destiny under the guardianship of US imperialism. They told the
people that the US imperialists - who had just slaughtered tens
of thousands of Iraqis and are still hated around the world for
the millions of Vietnamese they massacred in the hope of crushing
their just struggle for national liberation, and who are the only
power on earth to have ever used nuclear weapons - will liberate
the Kurdish masses from their national oppression and misery. What
sick and twisted logic! They promoted the US imperialists among
the masses and put up pictures of George Bush on walls as the "father"
of the Kurds. US Rambo cowboys from Washington came and went, gave
speeches, proclaimed "democracy for the Kurds" and together with
the CIA acted as overseers of the Kurdish government.
which struck an alliance with the Iraqi regime on 31 August 1996
and for the moment took over the areas controlled by Talabani's
PUK, has a long history of being propped up by the CIA. [For a history
of these parties, see AWTW 1986/5] In 1975, the KDP, led
by Molla Mostafa Barzani (Massoud's father), surrendered the Kurds'
national resistance to the Iraqi regime; this has come to be known
as the Great Ashbatal, the great surrender. This came as a result
of the US stabbing the Kurdish forces in the back and helping the
Iraqi regime. In the aftermath of the Great Ashbatal, the PUK was
formed by Talabani (who had earlier split from the KDP), in collaboration
with a group of young revolutionaries, in order to resurrect the
Kurdish national struggle. For years the PUK led a just war against
the regime of Saddam Hussein. Later it degenerated first into a
pro-Soviet imperialist group and then into an openly pro-US force.
the Gulf War, the US and other imperialist forces united these two
parties in the "Kurdish Government" they set up in northern Iraq.
The pillar of this "Kurdish" political power was the imperialist
occupation forces themselves. The two parties carved out areas of
rule for themselves and relied on the local feudals and bigshots
to build their respective power structures. Most of the big feudals
and bureaucratic and military bigshots, who once were allies of
Saddam Hussein, retained their economic and social privileges and
positions under the protection of the PUK and the KDP. However,
soon sporadic wars broke out between these two parties over power
and money grabbing (of funds channelled by the imperialists to this
government, revenue from border checkpoints, and prospective receipts
from the "oil for food" deal).
this puppet government, the situation of the masses grew even more
desperate. The villages burned and emptied by the brutal aerial
and land attacks by Saddam's army lay idle. The masses were never
encouraged to go back and develop agriculture in order to become
independent both from the Iraqi regime, which had placed an embargo
on the region, and from the pitiful imperialist hand-outs, most
of which went straight into the pockets of the Kurdish ruling parties
and their corrupt cronies.
important economic activity of the Kurdish government was collecting
the revenues from Iraqi commercial transactions across Turkish and
Iranian border customs checkpoints, which went respectively to the
KDP and the PUK. This situation outraged the masses of Kurdistan.
They started to rebel. On numerous occasions, PUK and KDP forces
opened fire on the people. In late winter of 1992, for example,
when this government still was new, the masses in the township of
Nassr near As Sulaimaniya demonstrated against the local authorities
because the PUK had been stealing food from them while its cadres
took special privileges. The PUK forces shot and killed three people.
this government, feudal practices, especially against women, flourished:
men could freely kill their wives, daughters or sisters on grounds
of "infidelity" or "flirting". According to a report by a local
group, 75 women were killed in the town of Dihok alone in a few
months in 1996.
not surprising that the Kurdish government not only failed to turn
the region under its control into a base area for the advance of
the Kurdish national movements of Iran and Turkey, but it even cooperated
with the regimes of those countries to chase and hunt down the revolutionaries
from there. One of the hallmarks of its mercenary activities on
behalf of the reactionary regimes of the region was to initiate
a war against the PKK from Turkey. Propaganda preparations for the
war were launched by Talabani personally. He made a speech in the
Kurdish parliament and explicitly defended the "New World Order"
and the "democracy" which it supposedly gives birth to, and said,
"We are told that we are traitors, sell-outs and puppets. But the
US and the British have warned us that they will not help us if
the PKK uses our soil. The PKK are terrorists. We tell them to go
negotiate and compromise with the Turkish regime."
government also gave a blank cheque to the secret services and military
forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran to assassinate Iranian revolutionaries
and attack the Kurdish forces of Iran, who for more than 10 years
have been using Iraqi Kurdistan to organize their struggle against
the Iranian regime. In the summer of 1996, the PUK forces gave cover
to a 2000-strong military unit of the Islamic Republic to pass 150
kilometres from the Iranian border almost up to the doorstep of
the Iranian KDP headquarters inside Iraqi Kurdistan, in order to
stage a vicious attack on them.
is just one more proof that any movement, however just, that is
led by feudal and bourgeois forces will surely end up "cutting"
separate deals with the enemies even against their own national
brethren, because this is what the bourgeoisie and bourgeois ideology
are - self-centred. The Iraqi regime's horrendous crimes against
the Kurdish people will never be forgotten nor forgiven by the oppressed
masses and the revolutionaries in this region. But this cannot justify
jumping on the bandwagon of big imperialist criminals. In fact,
in the Gulf War, one of the goals of the imperialists in targetting
a criminal like Saddam Hussein was to cover their own mis-deeds.
The liberation of the oppressed masses anywhere in the world cannot
be sought at the expense of other oppressed peoples. This will only
lead to disaster for all the people.
and his PUK, who have a reputation as "left"-leaning, were very
proud of themselves for formulating the "clever" policy of begging
for some kind of Kurdish state by offering their services to the
imperialists in exchange. Yet begging for a little power in Iraqi
Kurdistan in return for services to the imperialists has always
been the policy of the CIA-paid clan leader Barzani - but without
the decorous label of "Realpolitik". Talabani scorned every revolutionary
principle and claimed to be a "practical leader", unlike his "dogmatic"
critics who only "preach" revolutionary principles; he talks as
though revolutionary principles are for hoodwinking people and collecting
soldiers from amongst the masses while reactionary, pragmatic, narrow
nationalist policies are for "practicality"! Using this same logic,
the PUK applauded Soviet social-imperialism when it was a strong
imperialist power. These mis-leaders' practicality has always been
very unpractical for the masses, because it only has served to prolong
their oppression and intensify their misery. With this logic, political
principles were bought and sold on the auction block. With this
logic, revolutionaries from Iranian and Turkish Kurdistan were served
up to their hungry regimes. This is what Massoud Barzani's father
and then his brother and he himself have been doing for the past
three decades to the revolutionaries from Iran and Turkey and even
to the militants of the PUK.
claimed that the formation of this CIA-backed Kurdish government
was the first step to an independent Kurdish state. Instead, it
was the decisive step in liquidating the Kurdish national resistance
as it has existed since the aftermath of the Great Ashbatal of the
KDP in 1975. We cannot say whether Barzani is more "practical"-minded
than Talabani. They can decide that for themselves. In any case,
it is crucial that the oppressed masses be armed with the truth:
that the only road, and for that matter the shortest and most practical
road to their liberation, is the proletarian internationalist road
charted by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. For people such as Talabani
and his class, however, the shortest way to "power" is to hook up
with the reactionary and imperialist powers. The oppressed Kurdish
masses must be consciously armed with the understanding that their
own class interests and those of the bourgeois-feudal and bigshot
Kurds are not the same. The paths promoted by these bourgeois-feudal
forces cannot lead to anything good for the masses.
Kurdish forces are now complaining about the "US abandoning the
Kurds". The US, France and Britain have a long history of playing
the "Kurdish card" to further their colonial and neo-colonial interests
in this region. At the time of the Gulf War in 1991, they played
it, and now they are playing it again. The imperialists have actually
been very consistent towards the Kurds. In the "practicality" game,
no one can beat them.
Let us look
squarely at reality and ask the bitter questions. The masses and
progressive and revolutionary forces in Iraqi Kurdistan have a long
history of resisting their national oppressors and waging revolutionary
struggle as well as inspiring and assisting revolutionaries from
other countries. Their national aspirations have been betrayed and
trampled upon more than once by the imperialist powers - first the
British and later the US. Why then in Iraqi Kurdistan did unity
with imperialism replace unity with the oppressed peoples of the
region against imperialism?
the bourgeois-feudal class forces in Kurdistan who led this alliance
with imperialism and formed the heart and backbone of the so-called
"Kurdish Government". No other political force would have been chosen
by the imperialist powers for this matter; the bourgeois-feudal
forces are the class allies of world capitalism within the oppressed
nations. But the bitter fact is that their policy won a widespread
national consensus and following. In other words, some other class
forces, mainly representing the outlook and aspirations of the urban
middle bourgeoisie and petite bourgeoisie, adopted a line and policy
that, intentionally or unintentionally, fed into the imperialist
policies of the US and its allies on Iraq and Kurdistan and strengthened
the pro-imperialist policies of the PUK and the KDP. Many revolutionary-minded
forces who did not really intend to help the formation of a pro-imperialist
consensus, but who failed to wage the necessary struggle that the
aggression of the imperialists against Iraq demanded, landed in
the same corner as the Rambos.
of these forces who call themselves revolutionary, anti-imperialist,
"proletarian" and "Marxist" vigourously opposed the imperialist
rape of Iraq. They did not expose andoppose the presence of the
imperialist occupation forces in Iraqi Kurdistan. They did not organize
the masses to understand the nature of imperialism as a class enemy
and as a national enemy which has never hesitated to trample upon
the national independence of the Kurds and all the oppressed nations
of the world, nor did they use Kurdistan's own history to show this
truth in a living way. They did not call upon the masses to reject
an alliance with the biggest criminals on earth, to oppose them
and wage struggle to oust their forces from Kurdish soil. They did
not vigourously expose the nature of the "Kurdish government" as
an imperialist appendage, a government of feudal-bourgeois class
forces and national sell-outs. They did not expose the leaders who
promoted the Israeli model of "national salvation".
extent that some of these forces criticized the "Kurdish government",
it was merely for not providing enough freedom for the opposition
to organize unions, to hold mass rallies to protest against unemployment,
and so on. They were content to hide their basically nationalist
and reformist outlook behind "workerism". They did not try to broaden
the vision of the masses and train them to be sensitive and raise
their fists against every aspect of oppression of the different
strata of people in the society and worldwide. Is this not a key
difference between the proletarian outlook and a narrow-minded bourgeois
outlook which takes the specific forms of nationalism, economism,
and pragmatist expediency?
and reformism of some these forces is revealing. For example, in
July 1995, a group called the Workers' Communist Party of Iraq (WCPI),
which had a base of activities in some urban areas controlled by
the PUK, issued a programme for the resolution of the problems of
Iraqi Kurdistan. While this organization itself is not very important,
its line and programme is illustrative of the dangers of an economist
and social-democratic approach. They called for "Complete withdrawal
of the military and police forces of the central state [meaning
the Iraqi regime - AWTW] under the supervision of the UN
forces and the international authorities" and "initiation of a referendum
in Iraqi Kurdistan under UN supervision in order for the people
of this region - Kurds and non-Kurds - to decide whether they want
to form an independent state or stay in the framework of Iraq. The
outcome of this referendum will be official and lawful and binding."
is a typical social-democratic illusory outlook of the reformist,
petit-bourgeois and bourgeois intellectuals in the oppressed nations.
These people even consider themselves "anti-imperialist". They have
denounced the PUK and the KDP as nationalist parties who are "pawns
of the US and the West and the states of the region" (Resolution
of the Political Bureau of the WCPI).
group will pardon us some questions: Are the "international authorities"
different creatures than the same "US and the West"? And is not
the UN an international forum of these powers and their client states?
Did not the "Kurdish Government" come into being also through an
electoral process which was "supervised" and sanctioned by the "UN
forces or international authorities"? Was not this same programme
carried out by your "international authorities" already? And was
it not because of this that objectively or programmatically you
abided by it?
no force, however small, came out to rip away these bourgeois and
petit-bourgeois class blinders and show the reality of the world
to the masses through a revolutionary proletarian internationalist
prism. This kind of outlook and politics was the only alternative
to the pro-imperialist slavish philosophy that the feudal-bourgeois
forces were dripping into the veins of the Kurdish workers, peasants
say it was justified to adopt the policy of supporting this CIA-organized
government against Saddam Hussein in order to stave off his crimes
against the Kurds. But excuse us, why should you run from the criminal
Saddam Hussein into the laps of the US imperialist baby-killers
and beg for justice? Why run at all from one reactionary to the
other? Why tail this dead-end tradition of Kurdish feudal-bourgeois
forces who only see the masses as pawns, and are total strangers
to concepts such as "self-reliance"? The fact that some Iraqi Arab
forces who oppose Saddam Hussein also adopted the strategy of relying
on the imperialists to struggle against Saddam Hussein shows that
this is a question of class outlook, not nationalism per se.
true that some of these Kurdish forces called for solidarity and
unity between the Arab and Kurdish masses of Iraq. That is good.
But solidarity and unity between the proletarians and oppressed
peoples of the world, which we Maoists call proletarian internationalism,
is not a question of morality or mutual aid, nor is it optional.
It is an outlook and policy which is a life-and-death requirement
for every real revolution. This requirement is dictated by the way
the world is organized and functions, by the class structure prevailing
in the world. This global structure is the setting for and interpenetrates
with the class alignment of forces in each and every country. Not
grasping this relationship has always led to deviations among the
revolutionary forces - including separating the nature and positions
of the local reactionary regimes from the imperialist powers that
dominate these countries.
gives rise to two kinds of deviations, both of which could be seen
during the Gulf War in 1991 and afterwards. First, some forces (along
with many masses who yearned to hand a defeat to the imperialist
powers) desperately hinged their hopes on Saddam Hussein and his
army to fight against imperialist aggression, forgetting that the
Iraqi regime was organized by the imperialists themselves to serve
their system and could not and would not put up serious resistance
to imperialist aggression. When it serves their interests, the imperialists
even resort to toppling some of their own client regimes. Some of
these regimes might resist being shoved aside, but that does not
change their nature. Counting on the so-called "anti-imperialist"
Arab regimes has been a widespread illusion among revolutionaries
in the Arab countries. This form of nationalism has been a hindrance
to the development of a real proletarian internationalist fighting
detachment in the Arab countries.
wrong tendency has been to side (intentionally or not) with imperialist
forces under the illusion that the imperialists would extend their
system of rule in their own countries - bourgeois democracy - to
their neo-colonies. Nothing is further from the truth. Fascistic
dictatorial rule in the neo-colonies and the bourgeois-democratic
form of bourgeois dictatorship in the imperialist countries are
two sides of the same coin: the latter is possible because of the
former, just as the prosperity of relatively large sections of people
in the imperialist countries is possible because of the heart-wrenching
poverty of the broad masses in the oppressed nations. The imperialists
rule these neo-colonies through their alliance with the big pro-imperialist
bourgeoisie and feudals and their reactionary state. The strategy
for overthrowing the reactionary states should be based on this
reality. These states and their imperialist masters are both targets
of the new democratic revolution, as a prelude to the socialist
of a period in the national resistance movement of Iraqi Kurdistan
also calls for another look at the nature of and solution for the
national question. This experience once more sheds light on the
deep Marxist-Leninist-Maoist truth that the national question is
a class question. This means it cannot be solved by bourgeois-feudal
forces and narrow nationalist ideologies.
oppression within the state boundaries of countries dominated by
imperialism is built into a bigger structure of dependency on imperialism,
and it cannot be solved in separation from the overarching national
question of the epoch, which is the enslavement of whole nations
and peoples by imperialism. National oppression, like other democratic
problems, chiefly feudal oppression and exploitation, must be solved
through a democratic revolution. But this democratic revolution
can only be led by the proletariat in alliance with popular class
forces (principally the poor and landless peasantry). It must be
guided by a proletarian revolutionary programme, goal and perspective,
that is, as a transitional step to the socialist revolution and
as a base for world proletarian revolution.
national question, like every other problem in this world, different
classes have different solutions. That is why we say that the national
question, in the final analysis, is a class question. It can be
and must be solved as a subordinate part of the process of carrying
out the new democratic and socialist revolutions. This means the
whole process of revolution needs to be led by a single party based
on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and rooted among the oppressed of all
nations within the country.
revolutionary, far-sighted, proletarian politics is not an easy
task, especially on difficult terrains such as Kurdistan. But all
terrains have their own kind of difficulties. These difficulties
act as a pull and a burden on the minds of the revolutionaries to
deviate to nationalist, pragmatic and reformist politics. These
pulls act upon weaknesses inherent in the outlook of revolutionaries
who do not have a communist ideology. Therefore, adopting correct
ideology is key in arriving at correct political solutions for problems.
In short, revolutionaries need to arm themselves with the scientific
ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
of the last six years in Kurdistan must be summed up and the masses
armed with this understanding. The advanced revolutionaries, including
the revolutionary intellectuals of Kurdistan, should lead them in
doing so - but they must be guided by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to
be able to do a thorough job of turning a bad thing into a good
these are not lessons to be summed up only by the masses and revolutionaries
in Iraqi Kurdistan. The same classes and the same tendencies, the
same comprador-feudal aspirations in the garb of "national liberation"
and even "Marxism", exist in other movements, certainly in the Kurdish
national movements in Iran and Turkey, but also beyond. These bitter
experiences must be synthesized and their lessons brought to bear
on other revolutionary struggles that the proletariat and peoples
are waging. The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement exists as
an embryonic centre, a key task of which is to help the advanced
forces in each country to grasp Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, which is
the concentration of the world-historic experiences of our class
in its quest to wipe out the reactionaries and imperialists from
the face of the earth. This is the best way RIM can assist the advanced
revolutionary elements and groups in Iraq and throughout Kurdistan.
Together, we must make the hard lessons of the past illuminate the
future. As Chairman Mao says, the road is tortuous, but the future
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism on the Political Stage
War II structures of the political and economic rule of the imperialists
in different parts of the world are crumbling. In many places, in
the absence of a revolutionary alternative powerfully coming to
the fore to forcefully replace them, a lot of anarchy results on
the political scene. In addition to the different popular forces
who come to resist the obsolete and miserable system of imperialism
and seek change, the decay of the system is giving rise to many
centrifugal forces. For example, the fall of the East bloc unleashed
contradictions that had almost seemed frozen. The resurgence of
warlords in different countries and regions is a sign of how much
the old imperialist world order has broken down and how existing
power structures are unable to tame and subordinate these reactionary
scene in different parts of the Middle East appears messy and confusing.
Some reformist forces (including the Workers' Communist Party of
Iraq) deplore these kind of situations as "dark scenarios". By this
they mean that the "forces of backwardness" (religious obscurantists,
but also others such as the peasantry!) are setting the political
terms, as opposed to the so-called "forces of progress", meaning
the workers, but also the bourgeoisie of these countries. So what
should the masses and revolutionaries do when confronted with the
"dark scenarios"? Help to keep the imperialists and their reactionary
semi-colonial state structures from falling apart?!
"bright scenario" is this: a tidy stage on which the forces of "progress"
are lined up on one side and all the reactionaries on the other
side, while the reactionary states and their imperialist overlords
are able to prevent the various forces from talking through the
barrel of a gun. These people warn the revolutionary forces against
messing up the scene even more by resorting to armed revolution!
But the truth of the matter is that the lack of proletarian armies
on the stage is the main problem in these situations.
an army led by a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist party can rise above the
divisions stemming from national and local boundaries and unite
the oppressed around their class interests against imperialism,
semi-feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism and lead a self-reliant
war against all kinds of oppression, including national oppression.
The presence of such an army would have sharply polarized the field
in the interests of the people and the revolution and broken out
of the vicious circle of fighting to replace one reactionary clique
of bourgeois-feudals with another one.
stage in many countries will be increasingly occupied by a wide
range of forces. Flags with false claims designed to enlist the
sacrifices of the masses will cloud the sky. This is already the
case in many places: feudal warlords with religious obscurantism
and feudal-bourgeois as well as petit-bourgeois forces with nationalist
ideologies are all claiming to lead the masses out of the madness
of class society and imperialist domination.
of the imperialist powers to influence the reactionary class forces
in these countries and sow seeds of instability in each other's
backyards will encourage illusions about these powers among the
masses (and among the revolutionaries, for that matter). As Lenin
pointed out, even the reactionaries cannot do much without the masses
in today's world. Reactionary and imperialist forces will cynically
play with the longing of the masses to fight against their arch-enemies
and will try to enlist them as cannon fodder. So this complex situation
is bound to present the revolutionary communist forces with difficulties
in carving out the road of the proletariat and people, including
to initiate people's war and build the people's own armies.
Nonetheless, this same complex and contradictory situation will
weaken the relative cohesion and stability of the central state
structures and will increase the ability of the masses, if led by
a genuine Maoist party in people's war, to deal blows to the reactionary
states and make revolution. The complexity of the situation acts
as a pull on many revolutionaries and even the masses to hold back
and wait for a clearer sky. But revolutions are made in the midst
of turbulence. The revolutionary communists must study the contradictions
in today's situations and find the ways to hew the proletarian revolutionary
path amidst confusion and disorder. It is key to establish an unmistakable
proletarian revolutionary identity and programme in sharp contrast
to the nature and programme of all other forces and show the class
nature and interests behind the different flags waved before the
masses. And more importantly, to fight to turn this into a material
force, to fight for our flag to be held by the masses and to find
ways in the midst of difficulties to project this proletarian programme
through bold revolutionary political struggles and principally through
a people's war guided by and imbued with this proletarian revolutionary