The liberal argument for the freeing Tibet from Chinese governance is based largely on the principals of self-determination and freedom of religion.
Freedom of religion is fine, accept when it is tied up with the materialist world of class structures and mass exploitation in feudalist and capitalist societies. In this case class war must be waged against religious elites until they relinquish their hold on the means of production. After this is accomplished, there is nothing wrong with congregations democratically choosing to donate money to their local church, priests, monks, etc, allowing the less harmful aspects of religion to continue on as they were.
Self-determination takes precedence in many cases, but not always. In Iraq and Afghanistan, we fully back the local resistance against US imperialism, even given the quantitative differences (it's all capitalism) between the dictatorial Hussein regime and the theocratic US puppet regime, between the theocratic Taliban and the current warlord puppets. The blows dealt by these local resistances to the international ruling class and the power of the current hegemony are always desirable. More importantly, the type of social change that needs to happen in these places can only come from working class power (either domestic or international) and cannot possibly come from some imperialist power clearly just bent on oil profits and military bases on new frontiers. Imperialist success only strengthens the power of core capitalists, so class war demands that we fight them on all fronts.
Freedom of religion is fine, accept when it is tied up with the materialist world of class structures and mass exploitation in feudalist and capitalist societies. In this case class war must be waged against religious elites until they relinquish their hold on the means of production. After this is accomplished, there is nothing wrong with congregations democratically choosing to donate money to their local church, priests, monks, etc, allowing the less harmful aspects of religion to continue on as they were.
Self-determination takes precedence in many cases, but not always. In Iraq and Afghanistan, we fully back the local resistance against US imperialism, even given the quantitative differences (it's all capitalism) between the dictatorial Hussein regime and the theocratic US puppet regime, between the theocratic Taliban and the current warlord puppets. The blows dealt by these local resistances to the international ruling class and the power of the current hegemony are always desirable. More importantly, the type of social change that needs to happen in these places can only come from working class power (either domestic or international) and cannot possibly come from some imperialist power clearly just bent on oil profits and military bases on new frontiers. Imperialist success only strengthens the power of core capitalists, so class war demands that we fight them on all fronts.
However, the right of self-determination is overridden in certain situations, even according to liberal logic. Liberals argue for "humanitarian" intervention (by imperialist powers) in situations of genocide, such as Rwanda, Sudan, and Serbia, thinking (incorrectly) that core-type ("first world") democratic political systems will replace abusive, dictatorial domestic governments.
While we disagree with liberals on the legitimacy or desirability of imperialist intervention (violation of self-determination) for "humanitarian" purposes, we see communist intervention (same violation) in non-communist territory as an essential aspect of international revolutionary activity. The international working class should do everything it can, in any of its organizational forms, to support domestic working classes. For example, the Soviet regime in Afghanistan was by far the most progressive in Afghanistan's sordid history (especially for women). The imperialist intervention on behalf of the "right of domestic self-determination" resulted in weakening the Soviet Union, a civil war and rule of theocratic warlords in Afghanistan, and the material basis for the current power of "al-Qaeda" terrorist organizations. So in this case, Afghanistan's right of self-determination is overridden by the need for internationalist working-class revolution.
Before China invaded Tibet, the region had a feudalist society. Almost all the land was owned by a small ruling class of secular landlords and elite monks (with the Dalai Lama at the top) who used a police-army to maintain their position of power. Everyone else was a serf, barely a step away from slaves, who were bonded to the land (imprisoned, beaten, mutilated or killed if they tried to escape). They could only keep enough of the food they produced to survive, and sometimes not even that. Peasants were taxed for nearly everything they did, keeping them in a constant state of poverty.
There were thousands of beggars. There were slaves - whose children were the same - who were kept as domestic laborers. Peasants had neither schools nor medical services. Female peasants were taken by both secular and Buddhist elites and forced into sexual slavery. Life expectancy in the 1950's was 35.5 year (in 2001 up to 67) and infant mortality was 430 per 1000 births (now down to 6.61). Elite monks maintained an underclass of lower monks, who ran the monasteries and served the elites. Young boys were forcefully taken from their peasant families to join this part of the underclass. Torture was standard practice, used by elites against insubordinate or runaway peasants. The ruling class used all the coercive powers of state terrorism to maintain the class structure.
That class structure still exists today in capitalist regions. During our travels in Thailand and Laos we saw hundreds of wats (temples), which were ornately designed, covered in gold leaf and full of statues and offerings. They were the largest buildings in small towns, and were clearly the end result of the systematic appropriation of the vast majority of the wealth of the people. We saw monks everywhere, a class of people who do not work - fail to contribute materially at all to society - but still eat and live comfortably in their compounds. Even on the subway in Bangkok we saw a sign that told passengers to give up their seats to monks.
The Buddhist idea of karma and multiple lives is used to justify all of this - if you are suffering in this life, it's because you did something to deserve it in a former life. And by suffering in this life, in the next you will be born into a more privileged position.
The Chinese Maoists invaded in 1951 but they didn't make serious changes right away. Horrified by the threat of communism, the Tibetan ruling class tried to instigate an insurrection against the Chinese, from 1956-57. This revolt was coordinated and funded by the CIA, which provided military training, support camps in Nepal, and regular airlifts. The revolt was extremely unpopular and the elites trying to push it were crushed by both the Chinese and their own peasants.
After the failed revolt the Chinese abolished slavery, the system of unpaid serfdom, and the oppressive taxes. They built secular schools and power grids and running water systems. By 1961 the Chinese had expropriated much of the land, giving it to peasants and forming communes to control production. Improvements were made across the board, in livestock, irrigation and agriculture.
Since then the Tibetan peasantry, alongside the rest of the toiling masses of China, has been the victim of the array of problems of Stalinism. Forced collectivization, mistakes in planned economy leading to starvation, the 1966-67 Cultural Revolution suppressing religious freedom and the recent colonization by Han Chinese. In the 1970's and 80's China admitted many mistakes and passed reforms to try to correct them, but there is clearly a great deal of political repression and lack of economic power in the worker and peasant classes.
Because the Dalai Lama has been forced from power, he has had to grant concessions and pander to many groups in his efforts to gain support for a counterrevolution in Tibet. He called himself half Buddhist, half Marxist in an effort to co-opt the socialist-leaning sections of the Tibetan masses. He lobbies liberals all over the world with appeals to human rights and religious freedom (China's Stalinism has given him plenty of fodder). He claims that the Chinese occupation has killed about 1.2 million Tibetans, but there is no evidence for this. His assertion that monasteries have been reduced in both numbers and population is also baseless. He admitted that there problems with the old system, and has proposed reforms, hoping to convince those who know Tibet's true history. However, he still keeps the same old circle of Tibetan feudalists around him as advisers and political allies, and these peoples' interests will certainly have a predictable impact. The Dalai Lama has cleverly and effectively used lies, omissions and distortions to manipulate liberals - as well as conservative class warriors fighting communism - into his campaign to free Tibet from Chinese control.
The international ruling class solidarity with the Dalai Lama is transparent. The exiled Tibetan ruling class received $1.7 million a year throughout the 1960's, and now the US Congress currently gives them $2 million a year for "democracy activities". The Dalai Lama also receives money from capitalists like George Soros.
As Trotskyists we advocate political revolutions in Stalinist deformed workers states like China - rebuilding workers councils and using their power to replace bureaucrats with democratically elected leaders. This necessitates a large, strong, educated, organized urban working class, which can only be created by the development of economic infrastructure - factories and service industries. Chinese central leadership, as corrupt and abusive as it is, has moved Tibet in this direction. The old Tibetan ruling class, with the Dalai Lama at its head, would pull Tibet back two huge steps - from deformed communism, past capitalism, to feudalism. It would be a long and tortuous road from there back to a stage where a working class is growing and empowering itself. Therefore, we support the Chinese occupation of Tibet, and its suppression of the feudalist movement, which is merely cloaked in the garb of Buddhism.
If Tibet's independence movement was like that of Hungary in 1956, where a domestic political revolution moved the nation from Stalinism toward a more libertarian, free, democratic socialism, we would fully back a Free Tibet campaign. However, because the Free Tibet campaign is led by feudalists, it is far more similar to Afghanistan in the 1980's. "Freeing" Tibet would really just free the old ruling class to retake it, which would let loose hell on the toiling masses.
This is a materialist argument, as as such cannot address spiritual concerns. A spiritualist could argue that all horrors of feudalism are acceptable because it allows a small group of monks to pursue enlightenment, an endeavor which cannot have a material value assigned to it. There is no logical rebuttal to this, except that in socialism, all people would have equal access to such spiritual quests. Spirituality would not be based on a ruling class's ability to exploit and enslave the vast majority of the population.
If you have any doubts or questions or would like to learn more we strongly encourage you to read these articles - one independent, one from a bourgeois university, and one Trotskyist.
http://www.michaelparenti.org
http://www.icl-fi.org/english
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