On the War in Ukraine and China 1937.

By Richard Brenner
Socialist Labor Network UK

 

One amusing by-product of the war in Ukraine and the collapse of some of the nominally Trotskyist left into support for NATO‘s Ukrainian ally has been a sudden flurry of “historical analogies“ that they try to deploy to protect their tarnished reputations and to create some sort of illusion of continuity between the revolutionary internationalism of their Trotskyist past and the social patriotism of their sorry present. One of these examples relates to China and in particular Trotsky’s support for China in its war with Japan from its beginning in 1937 until his death in 1940.

The argument, you see, is that Trotsky supported China because it was not an imperialist country (correct), was subject to an imperialist war of conquest by Japan, and that the working class should therefore support national defence and seek to come to the head of the nation by pursuing a revolutionary war of defence. Of course, that is absolutely what the Chinese communists should have done during the period Trotsky was writing on and it all makes perfect sense.

However, what our current social patriots would have us believe is that Trotsky was advocating support for China despite the “fact“ that China was backed by Western imperialism.

You can see where this is going: they think that this entitles them to support Ukraine today, despite the fact that whilst Ukraine is plainly the victim of a completely indefensible active imperialist aggression on the part of Russia, Ukraine is also clearly an integral part of the Western military and geostrategic bloc under the leadership of America.

But why should that matter, they ask. After all, if China was supported by imperialism and Trotsky supported them, why can’t we support Ukraine even though it’s supported by US, UK and EU imperialism?

The answer, for those who are still interested in this rather arcane line of argument, is that China was emphatically *not* supported by the US and the UK from 1937 right through to the big change in the world war in 1941. The main backer of China prior to the Japanese invasion had been Hitler’s Germany. When they withdrew support, Britain and America decided not to give wholehearted or large-scale backing to China and entered into a form of non-intervention arrangement. They continued to send vast supplies including military supplies to Japan all through this period. Business was business, and China was not part of either imperialist bloc.

When did the situation change? Well, as everybody knows Japan and the US went to war in 1941. The critical moment at which China became part of the bigger war was not Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour however, but the events leading up to it and in particular the decision of the US and Britain in July 1941 to impose an oil embargo on Japan. This was London and Washington's response to Tokyo's decision to go beyond its attack on China (which was not part of any imperialist bloc) and attack French Indochina (which certainly was).

The oil embargo prevented Tokyo from supplying its vast mechanised army deployed on operations in China with fuel. Escalation was inevitable. The decision led inexorably to Hirohito's attack on Pearl Harbour and formal war between the US and Japan.

So when was KMT China part of an inter imperialist bloc? Well from July 1941 when the oil sanctions were imposed of course, because sanctions are a weapon of inter-imperialist conflict par excellence - as we saw then, and as we see very well with our own eyes today, if we choose to use them.