Nation and class

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flatly opposed British membership of NATO since the early 1960s.

Recent events make it necessary for us to look again at this entanglement. Although there have in the past been frequent failures of communication between the United States and its allies, it is doubtful whether there have ever been so many failures as have taken place during the last months.

The invasion of Grenada was a particular affront even to conservative opinion in Britain. All over Europe there is widespread support for the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, but in spite of specific appeals from such statesmen as Willy Brandt, an open CIA war has been carried on against this tiny country.

The confrontation in the Middle East is especially dangerous, and it is quite clear that the American decision to carry through direct attacks on Syrian forces was announced without any prior discussion, to the consternation of the European allies.

Unfortunately, there are, around the world, numerous other war zones in which this kind of forward policy by the United States' government could easily drag those associated with it into conflicts which GARTH Frankland upbraids me fur allegedly implying that Argentina "is some kind of imperialist nation" , and goes on to generously concede that this view "does have a certain logic for those who deny the right of nationalist governments to struggle against imperialism" (SO, January 12).

In fact, comrade Frankland's indignation is caused, in part, by a typesetting error: what I actually wrote in my letter was, ''This sort of pseudo-internationalism has nothing to do with Lenin and Trotsky, who started from a world overview but invariably focussed on the class struggle within both imperialist nations and oppressed nations'' 'Somewhere along the SO production line the last part of the sentence got lost, thus causing comrade Frankland fifteen different kinds of hernia at the thought that I was suggesting Argentina was imperialist. I don't think that, although Argentina clearly is not an "oppressed nation" in the sense that Lenin used the term, either.

But the good councillor's disagreement with me is not simply the result of a typographical error. His letter vividly illustrates my main point: that to elevate the relations between nations ("'imperialist" VS. "oppressed'; "metropolitan" VS. "periphery" etc). above class divisions, has an inevitable class-collaborationist logic. Comrade Frankland's emphasis is entirely upon what Argentine capitalists and workers supposedly have in common: "both • are victims of the big banks." So what does he propose — a popular front?

Compare this with Lenin: "Very often - even in most cases, perhaps - while the bourgeoisie of the oppressed countries does support the national movement, it is at the same time in accord with the imperialist bourgeoisie, that is, together with the latter it fights against all revolutionary movements and revolutionary classes ...we, as communists, should and will support bourgeois liberation movements in the colonies only when they are genuinely revolutionary." (Discussion on the National and Colonial Question, 1920).

So, far from denying 'the right of nationalist governments to struggle against imperialism," my concern simply to bring Lenin's criteria to bear on the question of under what circumstances and within what limits we should support the national bourgevisie.

•But in the case of Galtieri's invasion of the Falklands, all this is beside the point, anyway: Argentina is not an "oppressed nation" , the Junta were not "genuinely revolutionary" and the invasion was not a "liberation struggle" in any way at all!

In fact, comrade Frankland gets it wrong on every score: he bastardises Leninism by making the question of which category ('imperialist" or "oppressed") a nation slots into, his main criteria for deciding whether or nut to support the national bourgevisie; and in the case of Argentina he slots the nation into the wrong category, anyway!

DENHAM