The “Trotskyist” RRP in Russia fails to support the Palestinian resistance against the Zionists’ genocide in Gaza
By Alexey Sedov, Denis Sokolov and Michael Pröbsting, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 6 February 2024
The genocidal war of the Zionist state in Gaza is the most important event in the current world situation. This is even more so as it is currently transformed – with the U.S. attacks against Yemen, Iraq and Syria – into an Israeli-American war against the Arab peoples.
The war embodies the attempt of the settler state to crush the Palestinian resistance and to expel the population from Gaza. Furthermore, U.S. imperialism tries to regain its domination over the Middle East.
For all these reasons, this war is a crucial test for each and every socialist organisation. The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) and its sections in Russia and in Israel / Occupied Palestine have unconditional supported the heroic resistance, currently led by Hamas, against the Zionist state. Likewise, we fully side with other forces fighting the Israeli or the Western imperialists (like the Houthis in Yemen). In all these conflicts we advocate the military victory of the Palestinian and pro-Palestinian forces and the defeat of the Zionist and imperialist enemies. At the same time, the RCIT has always emphasized that such support for the practical struggle does not mean that we lend political support to these forces. [1]
Like many other socialist and democratic forces, sections of the RCIT have been actively involved in practical solidarity activities with Palestine. [2] In Austria, several pro-Israel forces have laid a criminal complaint against Michael Pröbsting, the International Secretary of our organisation, accusing him of “incitement to commit terrorist offenses.“ [3]
“A clear stance against both Hamas and Israel”?
Unfortunately, the Revolutionary Workers Party in Russia (RRP) has a very different approach. On their internet channels, they only published a single document of their organisation on the Gaza War – as this would be a secondary sideshow in the global class struggle!
In fact, there would have been no harm if the RRP leadership would have forbear to publish such statement! [4] While this document expresses general sympathy with the Palestinian people – there is rarely any socialist, democrat or ordinary person with an inch of conscience in the world who does not so – it goes not beyond such a statement of compassion combined with a few empty phrases about the need for socialism.
The RRP fails to state a single word about the necessity for socialists to support the Palestinian resistance against the Zionist invaders. In fact, nearly all parties of the Palestinian people support the armed struggle against Israel’s genocide – from petty-bourgeois Islamists (mainly Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad), nationalists (like the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and the Popular Resistance Committee) to left-wing organisations (e.g. the Popular respectively the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine).
Shamefully, the RRP refuses to lend such support. Worse, they put Hamas, the leading force of the Palestinian resistance, on equal levels with the Israeli Apartheid state, currently committing one of the worst massacres in modern history! After explaining the reactionary nature of Israel, the RRP statement continues: “Hamas itself is also reactionary.”
Consequently, the RRP concludes that it opposes Hamas and Israel equally: “Marxists must take a clear stance against both Hamas and Israel, while advocating the complete liberation of the Palestinian people from occupation.” Remarkably, in stating their fundamental opposition, they name even Hamas before Israel!
True, Marxists politically oppose Hamas. We want to build a revolutionary party which can replace Hamas as the leading force of the national liberation struggle. But we side with this petty-bourgeois mass movement against the Zionist monster which tries to annihilate the Palestinian people. Let’s be clear: only an idiot or a lackey of reaction can put Hamas on the same level as the terrorist settler state!
It should be added that in Russia, Hamas is not considered as a terrorist organisation – in contrast to nearly all Western imperialist countries. Hence, even from an opportunist point of view there is no excuse for the RRP’s shameful denunciation of the leading Palestinian resistance organisation!
The tradition of Ted Grant: adaption to social-imperialism
The RRP’s coward stance on the Gaza War is no accident. It is deeply rooted in their political method which stems from the right centrist tradition associated with Ted Grant and Militant/CWI. As we did show in a special pamphlet, Grant and his followers have repeatedly refused to support national liberation struggles of peoples in (semi-)colonial countries against imperialist oppressors. To name a few examples we refer to the Malvinas War between Britain and Argentina in 1982, the nationalist resistance against the British occupation of Northen Ireland, the armed struggle of the Iraqi people against U.S./UK imperialism in 1991 and 2003 or the Ukraine’s war of national defence against Russian imperialism since February 2022. [5]
Marxists have an expression for such a policy which is particularly appropriate for organisations operating in imperialist countries – as it is the case with the Russian RRP: adaption to social-imperialism.
The material basis of such adaption to social-imperialism is the economic and political power of the imperialist state as well as the strength of the bureaucratic apparatus of “left-wing” bourgeois parties. In Russia, an imperialist power since more than two decades, [6] the misnamed “Communist Party of the Russian Federation” (KPRF) is such a social-imperialist party which wholeheartedly supports Great Russian chauvinism, [7] including Putin’s reactionary invasion of the Ukraine.[8] Its leader Gennady Zyuganov has close relations with Putin since many years and is a regular guest at the Kremlin. [9]
Despite the KPRF’s character as a social-chauvinist “Ruskij Mir” party which unconditionally supports Putin’s imperialist war, the RRP calls it “a traditional proletarian party” in which it works hard as “disciplined party members”! It regularly supports the KPRF at elections and even stood candidates on its list. [10]
It is therefore hardly surprising that a group which fails to consistently oppose its “own” imperialist enemy equally fails to oppose another imperialist enemy (like Israel)!
In short, the RRP leaders have repeatedly failed to take an internationalist and anti-imperialist stance. Authentic socialists must draw conclusions from this: break with the such opportunist mis-leaders and join forces with those who advocate the policy of revolutionary struggle against imperialist powers – be it Israel, the U.S. or Russia!
[1] We refer readers to a special page on our website where all RCIT documents on the 2023-24 Gaza War are compiled, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/compilation-of-articles-on-the-gaza-uprising-2023/.
[2] See on these our reports on these subpages: https://www.thecommunists.net/rcit/rcit-activities-in-2024-part-1/, https://www.thecommunists.net/rcit/rcit-activities-in-2023-part-4/, https://www.thecommunists.net/rcit/rcit-interventions-at-rallies-in-2023-part-3/, https://www.thecommunists.net/rcit/rcit-interventions-at-rallies-in-2023-part-2/.
[3] See on this Austria: Pro-Israel Forces Lay Criminal Complaint against Michael Pröbsting, 29 January 2024, https://www.thecommunists.net/rcit/pro-israel-forces-lay-criminal-complaint-against-michael-proebsting/
[4] РЕВОЛЮЦИОННАЯ РАБОЧАЯ ПАРТИЯ: ВОЙНА В СЕКТОРЕ ГАЗА И ЛИЦЕМЕРИЕ БУРЖУАЗИИ, 19. Okt. 2023, https://m.vk.com/wall-49023139_169695. All quotes in this article are from this statement if not indicated otherwise. The translation is ours.
[5] Michael Pröbsting: The Poverty of Neo-Imperialist Economism. Imperialism and the national question – a critique of Ted Grant and his school (CWI, ISA, IMT), January 2023, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/grantism-imperialism-and-national-question/
[6] The RCIT has published numerous documents about capitalism in Russia and its rise to an imperialist power. The most important ones are several pamphlets by Michael Pröbsting: The Peculiar Features of Russian Imperialism. A Study of Russia’s Monopolies, Capital Export and Super-Exploitation in the Light of Marxist Theory, 10 August 2021, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/the-peculiar-features-of-russian-imperialism/; by the same author: Lenin’s Theory of Imperialism and the Rise of Russia as a Great Power. On the Understanding and Misunderstanding of Today’s Inter-Imperialist Rivalry in the Light of Lenin’s Theory of Imperialism. Another Reply to Our Critics Who Deny Russia’s Imperialist Character, August 2014, http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/imperialism-theory-and-russia/; Russia as a Great Imperialist Power. The formation of Russian Monopoly Capital and its Empire – A Reply to our Critics, 18 March 2014 (this pamphlet contains a document written in 2001 in which we established for the first time our characterisation of Russia as imperialist), http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/imperialist-russia/; see also these essays by the same author: Russia: An Imperialist Power or a “Non-Hegemonic Empire in Gestation”? A reply to the Argentinean economist Claudio Katz, in: New Politics, 11 August 2022, at https://newpol.org/russia-an-imperialist-power-or-a-non-hegemonic-empire-in-gestation-a-reply-to-the-argentinean-economist-claudio-katz-an-essay-with-8-tables/; Russian Imperialism and Its Monopolies, in: New Politics Vol. XVIII No. 4, Whole Number 72, Winter 2022, https://newpol.org/issue_post/russian-imperialism-and-its-monopolies/; Once Again on Russian Imperialism (Reply to Critics). A rebuttal of a theory which claims that Russia is not an imperialist state but would be rather “comparable to Brazil and Iran”, 30 March 2022, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/once-again-on-russian-imperialism-reply-to-critics/. See various other RCIT documents on this issue at a special sub-page on the RCIT’s website: https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/china-russia-as-imperialist-powers/.
[7] On the KPRF’s social-chauvinist policy see e.g. a pamphlet by Michael Pröbsting: Putin’s Poodles (Apologies to All Dogs). The pro-Russian Stalinist parties and their arguments in the current NATO-Russia Conflict, 9 February 2022, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/nato-russia-conflict-stalinism-as-putin-s-poodles/
[8] We refer readers to a special page on our website where numerous RCIT documents on the Ukraine War and the current NATO-Russia conflict are compiled: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/compilation-of-documents-on-nato-russia-conflict/.
[9] See on this e.g. Alexey Sedov, Denis Sokolov and Michael Pröbsting: Russia: Zyuganov’s KPRF and some “Trotskyists” on the Prigozhin Coup. A critique of the Stalinists’ support for Putin as well as of the wavering line of the RRP, 28 June 2023, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/russia-zyuganov-s-kprf-and-some-trotskyists-on-the-prigozhin-coup/
[10] The RCIT has published several polemics against the RRP. Our latest one has been written by Alexey Sedov, Denis Sokolov and Michael Pröbsting: Russia: Russia: Zyuganov’s “Disciplined Party Members”. A critique of the “Trotskyist” RRP’s unwavering support for the Stalinist, social-imperialist and Pro-Putin KPRF, 29 December 2023, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/russia-zyuganov-s-disciplined-party-members/.