Significance of Building Solidarity with Iraqi Civil Resistance

4. Differences between WCPI and MDS, and points for further examination

We, the Movement for Democratic Socialism, support the policies of the WCPI to struggle by espousing freedom, egalitarianism and secularism. This is in order to win the earliest possible withdrawal of the occupying forces from Iraq, which will make for a great step forward in demolishing the war system of global capitalism. Their policies to mobilize all the masses of the Iraqi people -- including, of course, women -- and try to win victory through international solidarity, give a vista to the world anti-war movement as well. We have to strengthen the Iraqi Civil Resistance, which is struggling to drive out the occupiers and to realize secularism and democracy in Iraq.

As much as we share these positions, there are, not surprisingly, some differences between us and the WCPI.

First, there is a difference in how to grasp the present world situation. They analyze the world as being ruled by two poles of terrorism. However, we analyze that the world is ruled by the global capitalism led by the U.S. and we regard Political Islam, globally, as a relatively small politico-economic force -- though, of course, not small in the Middle East and the Arab world. Besides, Political Islam was created and nurtured by the global capitalism of the U.S. and others, and we believe that the root cause of the deterioration of the situation in the Middle East lies with the U.S. and Israel. The worst criminals are the U.S. and its allies that started the Iraq war; it is not Political Islam that started the war. But at the same time, we believe that we have to dispel the Islamic armed forces in order to realize democratic socialism worldwide.

Next, about the vision of socialism to be built: There seems to be several points that we have to examine about the vision of socialism, for example, such points as the WCPI regarding the collapsed Soviet Union as a bourgeois state. The program of the WCPI stipulates that the 'workers' state,' which was brought about by the Russian revolution, 'was replaced by a new bourgeois state with a massive bureaucracy and military apparatus based on a state-capitalist economy.' Though it is a fact that the collapsed Soviet Union was a bureaucratic state, we cannot take the view that capitalism was revived in the USSR. Also, concerning how to achieve socialism, our program stipulates that 'the realization of democratic socialism will need a long and enduring process of worldwide change,' but the WCPI seems to be vague on this point.

Further, we can affirm their view, shown in chapter II, that we should not regard nationalism in the third world bourgeoisie as a priori progressive force from the point of view that, in the world following the collapse of the Soviet Union, there cannot be a way to proceed to socialist revolution via a national independent revolution. This view, however, needs further examination. Also, issues such as the evaluation of Khomeini of Iran and the class analyses of Political Islam remain to be examined further.

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