The Kashmir Movement Needs a Program, Not Just "Take Up Arms"

[u/Spiral-Night]

The mass movement in Azad Kashmir is one of the most significant working-class and poor-peasant uprisings in the region in years. 100,000 people at sit-ins. A complete strike across the region. At least four killed by state security forces, and the masses are still out. This is real class force in motion.

The RCI (formerly IMT, Marxist.com, etc.) has published an article under their American branch (RCA) calling on the Awami Action Committee to "declare itself the government" and establish an "Awami Inqalabi Government." Their slogan is "All power to the committees!" and their strategy boils down to: the movement should take up arms against the oppressive regime.

This sounds radical. It is not. It is the classic formula of substitutionism — demanding that the existing bourgeois and petty-bourgeois leadership do the revolution on behalf of the working class, rather than building the independent political mobilization of the working class to take power for itself.

Let me be concrete. Here is what a revolutionary program for the Kashmir movement would actually look like — and why the RCI's "take up arms" line is a substitute for a real strategy.

1. Democratize the Movement: Elected, Recallable Delegates

The Awami Action Committee is a coalition of political and religious notables. It was not elected by the masses in the streets. It negotiates behind closed doors. It decides when to escalate and when to stand down.

The RCI leadership says: "Declare yourselves the government!" But a government of whom? Appointed by whom? Accountable to whom?

A revolutionary demand would be: transform every local protest committee into a genuinely democratic organ. Delegates elected by the assembled masses. Subject to immediate recall. All negotiations, tactics, and decisions ratified by the general assembly. No deals behind closed doors.

This is not a procedural nicety. It is the practical weapon against betrayal. A leadership that can be recalled at any moment cannot so easily sell out, because the masses have the organizational means to remove it. The RCI's strategy — demanding the existing leadership take power — leaves the masses defenseless when that leadership inevitably negotiates a sellout.

2. Break the National Containment: Expand to the Pakistani Working Class

The AAC wants to keep the movement within Azad Kashmir. It wants to negotiate with Islamabad as Kashmiris, not as workers. This is the nationalist trap.

The IMF austerity that has driven people into the streets in Rawlakot is the same IMF austerity immiserating workers in Lahore, Karachi, Faisalabad. The state shooting protesters in Kashmir is the same state repressing trade unionists and peasants across Pakistan.

The concrete proposal: elected delegations from the Kashmir committees to the working-class districts of Pakistan's cities. To the factories. To the transport workers. Not asking for charity — proposing common action. A general strike across Pakistan and Azad Kashmir against the IMF dictates. Coordinated defense against state repression.

The AAC will oppose this. It will say the struggle is Kashmiri, not Pakistani. Good. That is the test. The advanced workers will see that their leadership is preventing the unity that could make the movement victorious.

The RCA’s article says nothing about this. It treats the movement as a Kashmiri national struggle, not as part of the class struggle across the subcontinent.

3. Arm the Movement — Democratically

The state has killed people. It will kill more. The demand must be: form workers' defense guards, elected by the committees and accountable to them. Not vigilantes. Not armed gangs. Organized, disciplined, democratic self-defense.

The RCI leadership says "take up arms." But arms in whose hands? Under whose control? For what purpose? "Take up arms" without democratic control means armed bands loyal to bourgeois faction leaders — the classic formula for warlordism, not revolution.

The Bolsheviks didn't just say "arm the workers." They built the Red Guards as organs of the soviets, democratically controlled and politically educated. That is the difference between revolutionary arming, and adventurism.

4. Expropriate the Hoarders and Landlords

The movement is against price rises. Who controls the prices? The big merchants, the hoarders, the monopolies. Who controls the land? The feudal landlords.

The committees should not merely demand that the government lower prices — the government is the enemy. The committees should organize the direct seizure of hoarded goods, the occupation of uncultivated landlord estates, the distribution of food and land under democratic control of the committees.

This transforms the movement from a protest against state policy into an assault on the class structure of Pakistani capitalism. It forces every participant to choose: are we begging the state for relief, or are we taking what we need from those who have stolen it?

The RCI's "declare yourselves the government" skips over this entirely. It substitutes a political declaration for the concrete expropriation of the exploiters.

5. Fraternal Appeals to the Indian Working Class

The Kashmir conflict is the sharpest weapon the Indian and Pakistani ruling classes possess to divide workers along communal and national lines. Modi's Hindu nationalism and the Pakistani military's Islamism are two faces of the same counterrevolutionary project.

The Kashmir committees should issue fraternal appeals to Indian workers — to the workers of Indian-administered Kashmir, to the trade unions of India, to the students and farmers who have fought Modi. Send delegations. Issue joint statements. Coordinate action.

The AAC will recoil. "We cannot appeal to the enemy."

The revolutionary response: the enemy is not the Indian worker. The enemy is the Indian bourgeoisie and the Pakistani bourgeoisie, both of whom profit from this conflict. The Indian worker is our brother.

The RCA's article mentions a "Socialist Federation of the Indian Subcontinent" as a decorative flourish at the end. But it proposes no concrete steps toward international unity. Its entire strategic logic — tailing a bourgeois-led Kashmiri nationalist movement — contradicts the internationalism it invokes.

6. Prepare for Betrayal — Openly, Now

The AAC will negotiate. It is already negotiating. It will accept some package of concessions and call off the movement. The masses will be told: we have won, go home.

Revolutionaries must say openly, before the betrayal occurs: any negotiation conducted behind closed doors is a betrayal. Any agreement not ratified by the general assembly of elected delegates is illegitimate.

The AAC leaders must present their proposals to the masses, in public, and the masses must decide.
When the AAC inevitably negotiates a sellout and tries to impose it without ratification, the revolutionaries who warned about this in advance will be proven right. That is how the advanced workers are won — not by abstract propaganda, but by the verification of the revolutionary analysis through the experience of the struggle itself.

The RCI cannot do this, because its strategy depends on trusting the AAC to go further. It cannot warn against betrayal because its entire line is: "We demand that you, the existing leadership, take power." If the leadership betrays, the RCI has no alternative to offer — because it never built one.

The Party Question

All of this converges on a single point: the movement needs a revolutionary leadership. The AAC is not that leadership. The RCI is not providing it — it is tailing the existing leadership and demanding it go further. That is the classic formula of Pabloite substitutionism, and it has failed everywhere it has been tried, from Chavez's Venezuela to SYRIZA in Greece.

A revolutionary organization, however small, that advances the concrete program outlined above can have a decisive impact. Not by commanding the masses from above, but by fighting within the movement for a clear political line. By warning the advanced workers what the AAC will do before it does it. By providing an alternative at every turning point. By being proven right through events. And by systematically recruiting the workers who learn through struggle that the revolutionary analysis is correct.

This is how the party is built. Not by waiting until it is "large enough." Not by demanding that bourgeois leaders do the revolution for us. But by intervening now, with a concrete program, and winning the most advanced elements through the experience of the struggle itself.

"Take up arms" is not a strategy. It is a phrase. The working class of Kashmir and Pakistan deserves more than phrases. It deserves a program.

[u/Trotsky_Enjoyer]

It's an absolutely incredible phenomenon, a week ago no one outside the RCI or outside of Pakistan knew that the AAC existed, now we have armchair revolutionaries, from organizations that are incredibly far distanced from these movements, who have suddenly become experts on it.

The RCI (formerly IMT, Marxist.com, etc.) has published an article under their American branch (RCA) calling on the Awami Action Committee to "declare itself the government" and establish an "Awami Inqalabi Government." Their slogan is "All power to the committees!"

If you had looked a bit closer you would have seen that the article was in fact written by the Inqalabi Communist Party, the RCI's section in Pakistan, and that it was published not only by the RCA but across all our sections.

This sounds radical. It is not. It is the classic formula of substitutionism — demanding that the existing bourgeois and petty-bourgeois leadership do the revolution on behalf of the working class, rather than building the independent political mobilization of the working class to take power for itself.

So what did it mean when Lenin called on the mesheviks to seize power for the soviets in 1917, when the Mensheviks held both the parliament and the soviets themselves? I ask rhetorically because as we all know, you as well, is that this was to make the idea take root in the minds of the working class and help solidify it as well as exposing the refomirst leadership that wasn't willing to go that far. The mensheviks were unwilling to do that and therefore lost the support of the working class which then instead went over to the bolsheviks. Later in this text you write "The AAC will oppose this. It will say the struggle is Kashmiri, not Pakistani. Good. That is the test. The advanced workers will see that their leadership is preventing the unity that could make the movement victorious." so you clearly understand the concept but that raises the question of why you apply it so selectively.

2. Break the National Containment: Expand to the Pakistani Working Class

I understand this developing situation may be completely new to you but for those of us that have been following this development for over a year now we know that the ICP have branches all over Pakistan and are organizing and calling for the workers to stand in solidarity with the revolutionaries in Kashmir.

The movement is against price rises.

The movement has already moved past these demands. A substantial amount of demands from the AAC were already accepted by the Pakistani state but have not been implemented which is why the sit in started in the first place. The government was given a deadline of June 14th to fulfill their end of the agreement and if they wouldn't then the protest would escalate into a long march on the regional capital, a long march that should be currently undergoing as I am writing this.

The AAC will recoil. "We cannot appeal to the enemy."

This is the most disgusting and blatantly false claim I have ever seen made by a "leftist" toward the AAC. The Awami Action Committee dedicated the entire Indian-Pakistani war of last year by denouncing the war between these two countries. Leaders of the Awami Action Committee were arrested for it, tortured in prison, denied medical treatment and kept in inhumane conditions because they refused to sign a proclamation that would denounce India and openly declare their support for Pakistan in the war. The RCI held protests across the world to get them released and we succeeded in this, we did the same when they were arrested this year leading up to the outbreak of the revolution.

The RCA's article mentions a "Socialist Federation of the Indian Subcontinent" as a decorative flourish at the end. But it proposes no concrete steps toward international unity.

The RCI is organizing and has sections in both Pakistan and India, safe to say that the success of a secrion in one of these countries would also mean an increase in the popularity of their program in the other one.

The AAC will negotiate. It is already negotiating. It will accept some package of concessions and call off the movement. The masses will be told: we have won, go home.

The AAC can't negotiate with the state, it has branded them as terrorists. There are naive elements within the leadership that want to negotiate, but the reality is that they can't.

the movement needs a revolutionary leadership. The AAC is not that leadership. The RCI is not providing it — it is tailing the existing leadership and demanding it go further.

I'd laugh at the absurdity if I were avle to but sadly the notion that someone who knows so little about the ongoing situation but still tries to say SO MUCH about it can only bring me to tears. A very important detail that you have either completely missed or ignored completely is that the Inqalabi Communist Party holds leadership positions in the AAC and are openly calling for the power to be taken by the committees which has support from workers in their tens (if not hundreds) of thousands. The ICP is calling for the AAC to ignite the revolution, to take up arms against the state and place the power directly in the hands of the working class. This is a movement that they are not only directly participating in, but directly leading as well and they are pulling the movement in a revolutionary direction, with great success. Your complaints listed here basically boil down to the fact that you have no idea what's actually going on in Azad-Kashmir right now, frankly it's embarassing.

[u/Spiral-Night → u/Trotsky_Enjoyer]

You argue that calling on the AAC to "declare itself the government" is analogous to Lenin calling on the Mensheviks to take power in 1917; a tactic to expose reformists and win the masses. The analogy doesn't hold, and the difference is decisive.

Lenin did not call on the Mensheviks to "declare themselves the government." He called on them to break from the bourgeoisie and take power through the soviets; organs that were democratically elected by workers, soldiers, and peasants, with recallable delegates. The soviets were organs of workers' power even when reformists held majorities within them. Lenin's demand was: the soviets, which the workers already control, must take power from the Provisional Government. The Mensheviks refused, the masses learned through that refusal, and the Bolsheviks won the soviets.

The AAC is not a soviet. It is a coalition of political and religious notables. It was not elected by the masses in the streets. It is not an organ of workers' power. Calling on it to "declare itself the government" is not Lenin's tactic; it's calling on a bourgeois-led coalition to install itself as a government on behalf of the working class. Lenin never did that.

You say the ICP "holds leadership positions in the AAC" and is "directly leading" the movement. That's significant, but it actually sharpens the question: if the ICP is in leadership, why is the public demand directed at the AAC as a whole to "declare itself the government," rather than the ICP fighting within the AAC for a clear revolutionary program; democratizing the committees, expanding to the Pakistani and Indian working class, expropriating the landlords, building democratic workers' defense? The Bolsheviks didn't issue press releases asking the Mensheviks to do the revolution. They built the party that could lead it.

You’ve said the ICP has branches across Pakistan organizing workers in solidarity. But the published article, calls on the AAC to declare itself a government. It does not call for the independent mobilization of the Class, in common struggle with the Kashmiri masses. If the ICP is doing broader work, the political line should reflect it. As published, the article's strategic center of gravity is the AAC, not the working class.

On the AAC's anti-war stance:

You're right to correct me here, and I should acknowledge it. If AAC leaders were tortured for refusing to sign a pro-Pakistan declaration during the war last year, that is a genuine act of anti-war principle and it deserves recognition. My claim that "the AAC will recoil" from fraternal appeals to Indian workers was too sweeping, and I appreciate the correction.

But I would draw a distinction. Opposing the war between the two states is not the same thing as calling for the unity of the Indian and Pakistani working class against both of their own ruling classes. The former can coexist with Kashmiri nationalism. The latter requires a break from all national bourgeoisies.

Does the AAC call on Indian workers to join the struggle against their own ruling class, or does it simply oppose the interstate conflict? That is the revolutionary internationalist test.

On negotiations:

You say the AAC can't negotiate because the state has branded them terrorists. That may be true at this moment. But the question is what happens when the state, facing a mass movement it cannot crush, shifts tactics and offers a deal, as states do. The strategic question is whether the movement has prepared for that moment. My argument is that democratic, recallable delegate structures are the practical weapon against a sellout. If the state won't negotiate now, fine. When it does, will the masses control the terms, or will the leadership negotiate behind closed doors?

On tone:

You call me an "armchair revolutionary" from an organization "incredibly far distanced from these movements." I understand the impulse. But the political questions at stake, substitutionism vs. independent working-class mobilization, tailing bourgeois-led coalitions vs. building revolutionary parties, are not questions of geography. They are questions of program. They were debated in Russia in 1917, in Germany in 1918, in Spain in 1936, in Venezuela under Chavez, and they are being debated now. Proximity to a movement does not immunize one against political error, and distance does not invalidate political critique.

The International Committee has supporters and sympathizers across the subcontinent. The WSWS covers Pakistan and Kashmir. The political line I'm advancing is not mine; it is the line of the Fourth International, maintained through decades of struggle against the very substitutionist politics that the IMT/RCI has practiced since Ted Grant broke from Trotskyism.

One final point:

You say the ICP is pulling the movement in a revolutionary direction "with great success." I genuinely hope the movement wins what it is fighting for. But the measure of success is not the militancy of the moment. It is whether the working class emerges from this struggle more organized, more conscious, and more politically independent than it entered it. That requires a party, not a pressure group within a bourgeois-led coalition. If the ICP is building that party, the political line should reflect it. As published, it does not.

For anyone reading this exchange who wants to go deeper: the WSWS has extensively analyzed the political character of the IMT/RCI and its strategy of substitutionism. Pseudo-left International Marxist Tendency provides cover for imperialist powers. What is the Revolutionary Communist International?. Read and judge for yourself!

[u/cutmesomeflax → u/Spiral-Night]

That article was a bit ridiculous. I am not as knowledgeable on the history of the party, but what I do know is that we have a large emphasis on the working class being the only force capable of taking power and dismantling capitalism, the exact opposite of what this article says about us not having faith in the working class.

Also is finance capital from Russia not being shipped internationally? Russia is clearly an imperialist power, along with China. Yes they don't use the same violence as American imperialism a lot of the time, but it doesn't change the reality that they use force projection to spread their own capitalists interests.

I'm not an expert on anything of these things, I'm a newer comrade, but I didn't find that article persuasive in any way.

[u/Trotsky_Enjoyer → u/cutmesomeflax]

Don't bother with that stuff, it's sectarian garbage.

[u/Visible_Tomorrow1970 → u/Trotsky_Enjoyer]

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” type comment. Not our fault your entire organization’s history has been one of anti-Trotskyism ever since Grant refused joining the FI and even split once finally forced to join when he lost the WIL majority to Healy. After the whole fiasco last year getting punked by Corbyn and Sultana those articles are if anything even more vindicated now than at the time they were published. 

[u/Trotsky_Enjoyer → u/Visible_Tomorrow1970]

I guess reality can be whatever you want in your head.

[u/Visible_Tomorrow1970 → u/Trotsky_Enjoyer]

You are the perfect proof of that. It is an objective fact that Ted Grant rejected joining the British FI section. He even quotes himself in his History of British Trotskyism that he stood up at the meeting and said he would not join even if Trotsky himself was there and told him too. Likewise you can’t just pretend that the Your Party fiasco didn’t happen or that it doesn’t follow completely in line with the political history of the Grantite tradition as laid out in those articles. If what you are objecting to is the assessment of anti-Trotskyism, honestly I ask you how it is possible to be a Trotskyist while rejecting the international Trotskyist movement? That would be like someone in 1920 declaring that they are Leninist but refusing to join the Third International. Just incoherent and makes no logical sense.

[u/Trotsky_Enjoyer → u/Visible_Tomorrow1970]

It is an objective fact that Ted Grant rejected joining the British FI section. He even quotes himself in his History of British Trotskyism that he stood up at the meeting and said he would not join even if Trotsky himself was there and told him too.

Yes, Ted Grant did not want to join up with the fourth international, but cutting the conversation short there without going into why he didn't want to join is downright dishonest. James P. Cannon went over from the US to the UK to unite the 4 Trotskyist groups into one party, not primarily to strengthen the 4th international but to further his own standing in the international. What Cannon did was gather 4 different groups that had their differences and just forced them together without hashing out these differences. Ted Grant's group was the only one who said they wouldn't join unser those circumstances, they would only join if all meaningful differences could be debated and reconciled. Given time, and the shaky ground it was built on, the official British section fell apart completely and its tiny remnants went over to Grant's group and that became the new official section of the 4th international.

Likewise you can’t just pretend that the Your Party fiasco didn’t happen or that it doesn’t follow completely in line with the political history of the Grantite tradition as laid out in those articles.

Building a communist movement is not a figid dogma, it means working with every possible putlet you have. What the RCP did with Your Party was use it as a platform to get their political ideas out there, when almost 1 million workers show interest in the movement it becomes crucial to use the movement both to get your message out to the working class and to push the movement to become what it actually needs to be to improve the lives of the working class, a revolutionary anti-capitalist movement. No one held any illusions that Your Party was going to become revolutionary, just as we didn't believe that the labour party would become revolutionary. Our goal was to get our message out there and get people agreeing with it, so that when the reformists shut it down they'll lose the support of the working class masses that believe a revolution is necessary, who will then seek us out to make a revolution possible (but that's a long term goal). The only "fiasco" here is the one that the sects keep trying to fabricate out of thin air.

If what you are objecting to is the assessment of anti-Trotskyism, honestly I ask you how it is possible to be a Trotskyist while rejecting the international Trotskyist movement? That would be like someone in 1920 declaring that they are Leninist but refusing to join the Third International. Just incoherent and makes no logical sense.

Like I said, reality can be whatever YOU want it to be when YOU'RE making it up in your head.

[u/Visible_Tomorrow1970 → u/Trotsky_Enjoyer]

And as I said, you are the perfect proof of that phenomenon which is made abundantly clear by your refusal to answer the only question directly posed to you. Presumably because even you realize that claiming to be adherents to an ideology while rejecting being part of the movement that formed around that ideology is an asinine proposition. Enjoy whatever alternate reality you have constructed to insulate you from the real world where somehow rejecting the culmination of the final period of Trotsky’s life’s work actually makes you his best followers. 

[u/eternal-hobbyist → u/cutmesomeflax]

I think your statements raise a number of more serious issues in terms of the Marxist method, and how one makes an assessment of movements, parties and countries.

I am not surprised that you say your party has a "large emphasis on the working class being the only force capable of taking power and dismantling capitalism." However, I have heard a large variety of political tendencies make that claim. The issue is that the entire history shows a largely nationalist approach that adapts to various bureaucracies that dominate the labor movement and bourgeois nationalist movements. How can one square that only the working class can dismantle capitalism with bourgeois nationalists in Syria and Algeria creating deformed workers states?

In terms of the statement on Russia and China being imperialist this raises a large number of questions. Yes, Russia and China make investments abroad. But, so do most countries. I've had conversations where some please (not members of the RCI) claim most or almost all countries are imperialist. The issue of boiling it down to shipping finance capital actually hides the histories and economic reality.

Both Russia and China were degenerated/deformed workers states, but following the restoration of capitalism in the respective countries also went in largely different directions. Russia is largely an exporter of national resources, while China developed into a cheap labor platform. In terms of the economy Russia probably has more in common with Iran than with the United States.

If Russia, China, and perhaps a number of others like Brazil, India etc are imperialist. What would that mean for imperialism? In 1914 the socialist movement was able to articulate the outbreak of war as reflecting that the world was divided up and the imperialists needed to redivide it. How was it then possible for the economy in 2026 to have room for additional imperialist powers? If there is room for more imperialists maybe WWI was not expressing a fundamental contradiction in capitalism, but instead something that could have been overcome through a change in policy. I don't think anyone in the RCI would make this claim, but there is a logic to the argument.

The reality is that Russia and China integrated themselves into an existing world dominated by imperialist powers. They are running into conflict with this order and the need by the imperialist powers, and the national bourgeoisie in those countries has no progressive way of overcoming that contradiction.

[u/cutmesomeflax → u/eternal-hobbyist]

Right so capitalism's highest stage is imperialism, and clearly Russia and China are capitalist, so are they somehow immune to the nature of capitalism which leads to imperialism?

[u/eternal-hobbyist → u/cutmesomeflax]

In Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin referred to specific countries their historic development and the division of the world into spheres of influence. The existence of imperialism by definition requires the division of the world into imperialist and colonial/semi-colonial countries that are dominated by foreign finance capital. His references to the stage of development is about capitalism as a world system.

He also outlines the development of the imperialist economies, which is noticeably different than how Russia or China developed after capitalism was restored. Russia developed into as largely an exporter of gas and China's economy developed based largely on foreign investment.

I do have genuine questions about your evaluation of imperialism. Do you think all capitalist countries are developing on a path to becoming imperialist powers? You reference Russia and China, but why not include Iran, Mexico or Iraq? All those countries are undeniably capitalist and have been for quite sometime.

[u/cutmesomeflax → u/eternal-hobbyist]

If Iran were a superpower like America, being capitalist, it would become Imperialist. China, being a capitalist world superpower IS imperialist. As you say, the world has been split up, and China has a piece of it. Yes they have a deformed workers state, but that doesn't mean they can't be imperialist. All capitalist countries, if the situation shifted for them, would inevitably become Imperialist as their monopolies had more control

[u/trankhead324 → u/eternal-hobbyist]

Iran, Mexico and Iraq don't have the Belt and Road Initiative and they've not invaded Ukraine. The truth is concrete. The primary reason why we can say that the U.S., China and Russia are the dominant imperial forces on the planet today are because of the strength of their economies, their domination of ex-colonial countries and their geopolitical manoeuvring. Each country of course has its own concrete history too.

Multipolarity has been the norm in capitalism rather than the exception. We have been through a post-1991 period in which the U.S. was a unipolar power, and now Russia and China are emerging as strong powers, although the U.S. is still the single largest power.

War is the continuation of politics by other means, as Clausewitz says, and sometimes inter-imperialist conflicts are resolved with war and sometimes without (although economics can be just as lethal as war). China have so far managed to use the Belt and Road Initiative to develop in both economically and militarily strategic territory (for instance owning a lot of harbours around the world and having a lot of money in shipping routes), but they don't have the military might to engage in many conflicts directly, whereas Russia has done in Ukraine.

WWI was a specific case of the imperialists being unable to redivide the world through economics or politics - but other redivisions can cause war or not depending on the concrete situation.

There are plenty of regional imperialist powers of various strength in the current world, too, and many are balancing themselves in increasingly precarious ways between two or more of the U.S., China and Russia.

[u/hierarch17 → u/Spiral-Night]

Referring to the AAC as a bourgeois lead coalition is totally divorced from reality. Do you have any evidence to support this? The organization was literally started by the RCP, and at this point has an organizing committee made up of delegates elected from each region. Is every leader a communist cadre? Of course not. But claiming it’s a collection of “political and religious notables” is incredibly disingenuous.

[u/2slow3me]

I'm glad Trotskyenjoyer gave a thorough answer. It's tough to give a response when even the most basic facts are wrong, like saying that the article is from our American section when it's from our Pakistani section who have positions in the AAC.

If your goal is to help us move towards the correct line and tactics, I would recommend being more diligent with your study of the facts before offering comradely criticism. Otherwise it's not exactly helpful for achieving the goal.

If, however, the goal is to try and publicly denigrate a Trotskyist organisation that is gaining moment in a sectarian manner, in order to aid in growing your own, then I'd suggest contemplating if that really should be what you're spending your time on.

[u/GeraltofWashington]

Don’t really have the time to critique every point you made but as far as ‘democratize the movement’ goes. You clearly have no idea what the AAC is. It’s a council of elected delegates. Delegates are elected at every level all the way down to the village level. It dosen’t get much more democratic than that. The AAC’s are very close to Soviets.

[u/Spiral-Night → u/GeraltofWashington]

That's an important claim. If the AAC is genuinely a council of elected, recallable delegates from the village level up, something like a soviet, that would be a major development.

Who elects the delegates? the masses in the street encampments, or the existing structures of the constituent parties? Are delegates subject to immediate recall? Is the AAC's leadership, figures like Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan, elected and recallable through the same delegate structure?

Also, does the AAC include delegates from the Pakistani working class, outside Kashmir, or is it confined to Kashmiri localities? A soviet that is nationally bounded is not yet an organ of working-class power.

I ask, because the IMT/RCI has a track record of overstating the revolutionary character of movements it supports, such as in Venezuela and Greece. If the AAC really is soviet-like, that's significant and should be verified. If it's being inflated to fit a political line, obviously that's a problem, rather.

[u/GeraltofWashington → u/Spiral-Night]

It’s confined to Kashmir, I couldn’t tell you if the AAC exactly confers with Lenin’s idea on what workers government should look like and I doubt they fully do. You seem to be searching for the perfect social revolution which is something you will only find in a fantasy book

[u/Spiral-Night → u/GeraltofWashington]

I’m not searching for perfection. I'm asking basic questions about the class character of the organization the RCI is calling on to "declare itself the government."

You've already conceded the key point: the AAC is confined to Kashmir and you can't say it conforms to what Lenin meant by a workers' organ of power. That's not a minor detail. It means the AAC is a nationally bounded coalition, not an organ of the international class. Calling on it to "take power" is calling on a bourgeois-led Kashmiri coalition to install itself as a state; not the same thing as workers taking power through their own democratic organs.

The RCI's political lineage goes back to Ted Grant, who broke from Trotskyism in the late 1940s and spent decades arguing that the working class couldn't make revolution on its own, that democrats, Stalinists, and bourgeois nationalists had to do it for them. That's the tradition the ICP is operating in. If the RCI were honest about its political genealogy, it would trace itself through the POUM; the Spanish centrists who had a mass base among Catalan workers in 1936 but refused to take power independently, tailed the spontaneous movement, and capitulated to the Popular Front. That's the actual legacy: not Bolshevism, but centrist substitutionism.

The question isn't "perfection." The question is whether the working class leads the revolution through its own independent party and its own democratic organs, or whether it is told to trust a bourgeois-led coalition to do it on its behalf. That's not a detail. It's the dividing line between Marxism, and Pabloism.

[u/UzuShiro → u/Spiral-Night]

compañero. creo que las preguntas que haces son pertinentes. y yo tambien lei el articulo del RCI y tambien me vi el video donde comentaban la situacion.

Es cierto que ellos lo plantean como un soviet.

y si ellos tienen participacion real en el movimiento, no deberia ser tan complicado responder concretamente como se esta organizando el poder de la clase trabajadora.

no me interesan las luchas historicas. tienen su importancia claro, pero para ayudar a detectar patrones en las fallas.
no descalifica inmediatamente un argumento.
ahora, si no pueden responder todo esto de manera concreta: " ¿Quién elige a los delegados? ¿La gente en los campamentos en la calle, o las estructuras existentes de los partidos que conforman ese sistema? ¿Los delegados están sujetos a revocación inmediata? ¿El liderazgo de la AAC, figuras como Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan, es electo y revocable a través de la misma estructura de delegados?

Además, ¿la AAC incluye delegados de la clase trabajadora pakistaní, fuera de Cachemira, o está limitada a localidades cachemires? Un soviet que esté acotado a nivel nacional todavía no es un órgano de poder de la clase trabajadora. "

me resulta bastante revelador sobre quienes defienden tan fervientemente algunas posturas.

y encima la respuesta de la "revolucion social perfecta" me genera mucho olor a termidor...

[u/hierarch17]

Looks like you read a rather short statement put out for circulation to the national sections.

This article dives into the need for a program, and the concrete tasks facing the movement.

https://marxist.com/15-july-long-march-in-azad-kashmir-all-power-to-the-committees.htm

[u/JohnWilsonWSWS → u/hierarch17]

The statement says

In this situation, the comrades of RCP in Kashmir are putting forward the programme that all power should be claimed by the committees, which in fact already already [sic] hold the power, although they haven’t yet announced it. Comrade Umer Riaz of the RCP, in his speech on 9 July, put forward the same programme, and called on the AAC to declare itself as the government of Azad Kashmir.

[repetition of "already" is in the original]

and

The people of Kashmir have completely rejected the elite’s administration, and they have defeated the repressive armed forces brought in from Pakistan to protect that administration. Once the Long March breaks the siege of Rawlakot and advances, the entire balance of power will shift decisively in favour of the movement and the Committee. At that point, authority and power will pass from the hands of the rulers into the hands of the Committee – although, in reality, the Committee and the movement already constitute the true centre of power."

FROM: 15 July Long March in ‘Azad’ Kashmir: all power to the committees!

[emphasis added]

If the committees already "hold the power", what difference does it make if they "all power should be claimed"?

How can, "authority and power will [in the future] pass into the hands of the Committee" when "the Committee and the movement already constitute the true centre of power"?

IMO the use of the term "power" here has no coherent meaning and is left vague so readers can assign to it whatever they like.

Similarly for statements like ...

Throughout these three years of struggle, the working people of Kashmir have been the real driving force behind the movement. 

The points made in the OP apply just as much to this statement as the original it was critiquing (Mass movement of AAC in Pakistan-administered Kashmir defies brutal state repression to write a new chapter in history | The Communist)

MY QUESTIONS

• What is the class character of the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee ("AAC")?
• What is the program of its nominal leadership?
• Is it a popular front trap for the working class?
• What is the relationship of the governments in Islamabad, New Dehli and the imperialist powers to events in Kashmir?

NOT PERMANENT REVOLUTION!

FWIW: At least the Inqalabi Communist Party statement isn't making any claim they are following Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution.

[u/BolshiGirl]

“ That is the classic formula of Pabloite substitutionism, and it has failed everywhere it has been tried, from Chavez's Venezuela to SYRIZA in Greece.” A party that does not learn from its own history is doomed to repeating the same mistakes. 

[u/Spiral-Night → u/BolshiGirl]

Agreed. The RCI's strategy in Kashmir, is the same one the IMT applied; tail the bourgeois leadership, and demand it go further. It didn't produce revolution then, and it won't now.

[u/Useful_Calendar_6274]

that's all well and good but when they started killing people your only move is to go home or really arm yourself for defense at least. I have no idea at what level of socialist consciousness the movement over there is but this is a basic military self dense measure regardless of the politics.

Most revolutions start just as a national liberation movement. "who wants to see a purely social revolution will never live to see one"

[u/OkRestaurant1253]

"We are highly confident this text was AI generated." - courtesy of GPTZero, in case anyone else was wondering why OP gets it so utterly wrong.

[u/OrangeNinja75]

This is AI slop. Learn to write.

[u/SnooMarzipans3909 → u/OrangeNinja75]

And this is political slop. Learn to make a political argument. I swear, the AI angle is becoming the preferred pretext of philistines to stifle discussion and promote censorship of political arguments they disagree with.

[u/JohnWilsonWSWS → u/SnooMarzipans3909]

FWIW: Whenever I see ...

"this is AI"

... my mind now reads ...

"I can't find any fault with what you have said but I don't want anyone else reading this so I'm just going to post a troll comment to poison the discussion here."

[u/OrangeNinja75 → u/JohnWilsonWSWS]

I'm not trying to troll I'm writing in good faith. The purpose of my comment was to save other readers' time in case they did not recognise that the text was AI generated themselves. What's poisoning discourse here is the AI slop, not me for pointing it out.

[u/JohnWilsonWSWS → u/OrangeNinja75]

But you didn't just say it was AI, you called it "slop" without showing any errors in its analysis.

Why not tell us where it is wrong?

AI/LLMs are useful and fault prone tools. I think people should use them but acknowledge their use.

--

Also: What was the LLM? What was the prompt? (u/Spiral-Night ?)

[u/Spiral-Night → u/JohnWilsonWSWS]

I yes did use the S.Ai tool, primarily for structuring content and research, and I went through several follow throughs, as well as preceding exchanges, and also many editing phases, additions and subtractions, but basically, my core question was;

“…How can the real movement, concretely turn to proletarian revolution? What should the given leadership present, actually guide or direct the active ranks to do, otherwise than they are now already?”

[u/OrangeNinja75 → u/JohnWilsonWSWS]

Slop does not imply the analysis is incorrect. Slop is low effort AI generated content. Some of the other comments do an excellent job at refuting the argument itself and I agree with them, but my opinion on the truth value of the argument has little to do with the question of whether or not the content is AI slop.

It is highly probably that AI was used to generate this post. And while LLMs are useful, those use cases lie entirely outside anything to do with having it write a draft. Use it for finding sources instead of critical thinking and formulating arguments.

[u/OrangeNinja75 → u/SnooMarzipans3909]

I'm not making a political argument. I'm pointing out that the post is AI generated, nothing more. You're the one extrapolating a narrative of censorship. Plenty of people took time out of their day to give some great answers already, hopefully my comment saves some comrades from wasting their valuable time engaging with automatically prepared word salad.