Question For Troskyists [Archive]

BobKKKindle$

1st February 2009, 11:43

But I'm also intrigued by Bob when he says that the SWP no longer regards itself as Trotskyist. I thought that it still did.

In party literature like Socialist Worker articles we generally describe ourselves as "standing in the tradition of Trotsky" or being "influenced by Trotsky" but we also derive many of our ideas and positions from other Marxist theorists such as Luxemburg and Cliff, and so we don't define ourselves as an exclusively Trotskyist party, although many of our members would describe themselves as Trotskyists, including Tony Cliff. In addition to state capitalism, Cliff also developed other ideas which might be seen to contradict Trotsky's theories, such as his reappraisal of permanent revolution and prospects for revolution in the developing world.

Consequently they welcomed the collapse of the USSR as a "sidestep" from state capitalism towards freemarket capitalism.

To say that we "welcomed" the end of state capitalism is unfair; the SWP fights against all reforms which have the potential to undermine the interests of working people and we acknowledge that state capitalism can be progressive comapred with capitalism based on private property and free competition, especially in developing countries where state capitalism can be used as a means to overcome dependency and achieve some level of industrial development. The only reason why the SWP may have "welcomed" the collapse of the USSR is that it allowed for the introduction of bourgeois democracy in eastern Europe, not because we celebrate privatization and mass unemployment.

Devrim, here's the source for the point I made in my previous post, make of it what you will:

"A tremendous shift took place in Trotsky’s position, if only in emphasis from the time the acceptance of the theory of the degenerated workers’ state was a condition for membership of the Left Opposition till the time that Trotsky did not propose the exclusion of the anti-defencists from the International, although he did not accept their position. It was no accident that in his polemics with Shachtman at the end of 1939 and in 1940 he could say that even though he might be in a minority against Shachtman and Burnham, he would oppose a split and would continue to fight for his position in the united party. This declaration was of immediate consequence as it was quite possible that Shachtman would have had a majority at the next SWP Convention"

6. Trotsky's Last Book, An examination of Trotsky’s definition of Russia as a degenerated workers’ state, The Nature of Stalinist Russia (http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1948/stalruss/ch01.htm#s6)

Devrim

1st February 2009, 12:16

we acknowledge that state capitalism can be progressive comapred with capitalism based on private property and free competition, especially in developing countries where state capitalism can be used as a means to overcome dependency and achieve some level of industrial development.

Cliff, as I remember, always completely rejected the idea that State capitalism was 'more progressive'.

The only reason why the SWP may have "welcomed" the collapse of the USSR is that it allowed for the introduction of bourgeois democracy in eastern Europe, not because we celebrate privatization and mass unemployment.

It seems that here you are arguing that it is 'less progressive' than bourgeois democracy.

Devrim

Devrim

1st February 2009, 12:26

I see Trotskyism as a current that developed itself right after the death of Trotsky. The starting point are the ideas and writings of Trotsky, yet with the possibility of having different interpretations. I don't see why Trotskyism should be a (stuborn) defence of every idea and principle once written down by Trotsky.

But is Trotskyism based on a common set of ideas, or is it based on the 'leader'. If it is based on ideas and not a personality cult, then what are those ideas? Which ones are defining?

I see Trotskyism as a current that developed itself right after the death of Trotsky.

Certainly, this is true. Though a think that 'Trotskyism' exists as a specific current rather than being just a part of the left opposition as early as 1934 with the 'French turn'.

I don't see why Trotskyism should be a (stuborn) defence of every idea and principle once written down by Trotsky.

But surely there must be certain positions that define it.

Devrim

Led Zeppelin

1st February 2009, 13:07

But is Trotskyism based on a common set of ideas, or is it based on the 'leader'. If it is based on ideas and not a personality cult, then what are those ideas? Which ones are defining?

MIA has a pretty good definition:

Trotskyism is a Marxist theory whose adherents aim to be in the vanguard (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/v/a.htm#vanguard) of the working class, particularly as opposed to Stalinism (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#stalinism) and Social Democracy (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/o.htm#social-democracy). When opposed to Stalinism, Trotskyists place emphasis in their objective of eliminating Stalinist bureaucratic rule; in opposition to Social Democracy, Trotskyists advance the cause of militant workers revolution.

Trotskyist theory in the 20th century had three unique components, which set it apart from other Marxist currents:

Permanent Revolution: This theory stipulates that colonial/feudalist nations must engage in socialist revolutions, as opposed to the stagist theory of first having a capitalist revolution.

Political Revolution: The idea that the Soviet Union could be restored to a worker's democracy with a political revolution (as opposed to a social and economic revolution, in the traditional Marxist sense of the word.)

Transitional Programme: The use of "Transitional Demands" which can be introduced into workers' struggles with the possibility of receiving widespread support even in non-revolutionary times, but which lead into conflict with capitalism (forming a United Front (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/u/n.htm#united-front), for example). Such demands are deemed to form a "bridge" between the "Maximum program" of revolution and the "Minimum program" of minor reforms under capitalism. (See the The Transitional Program (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/index.htm)).

In the 21st century, the theory of political revolution is no longer relevant, while the subject of permanent revolution has witnessed historical changes while retaining its relevance. The transitional programme remains valid for many Trotskyists, though to varying degrees.

The defining features of Trotskyism are, in my view, support of democratic socialism as opposed to authoritarian "socialism"/Stalinism. Permanent revolution as opposed to stageism, that is, support for international revolution as opposed to "socialism in one country". And the transitional program bridging the gap between the minium program and maximum program.

Besides that there are also a few tactics that it has used historically and are still used today such as entryism.

Devrim

1st February 2009, 13:50

This seems a reasonable definition, LZ.

Don't you think that the second point implies agreement with the concept of the 'workers' state though:

Political Revolution: The idea that the Soviet Union could be restored to a worker's democracy with a political revolution (as opposed to a social and economic revolution, in the traditional Marxist sense of the word.)

After all if one believed the USSR were capitalist, this wouldn't have made sense.

Devrim

Zurdito

1st February 2009, 14:48

From what I have read Tony Clifff was as "trotskyist" as he was "leninist". In reality I think the term "centrism", which Trotsky used to define groups caught in transition between reformism and revolution, is an adequate description of many which emerged from the trotskyist movement, and that we do not need to be absolutist in our classifications of certain groups, it being more useful to do this with reagards to specific positions.

If you are asking whether the "state capitalist" position is compatible with Trotskyism then I would say no, no more than "a party without a programme" is compatible with Leninism.

However to say that this means that Cliffism qualitatively broke all their links to the tradition it developed from as a result of these deviations, would be an ultra line IMO. I think that to do this it would need to explicitly become stageist, reformist or autonomist, etc., none of which it did, and therefore it remained within the trotskyist movement.

Lamanov

1st February 2009, 15:46

Actually I am an anarchist, but I can't resist participation in the democratic process.

:lol:

I somehow thought you don't have a sense of humor. I guess I was wrong. :p

Led Zeppelin

1st February 2009, 15:57

This seems a reasonable definition, LZ.

Don't you think that the second point implies agreement with the concept of the 'workers' state though:

After all if one believed the USSR were capitalist, this wouldn't have made sense.

Yes, but if they agree on the other points, I do not see why they should be excluded from the Trotskyist movement, especially since it is now mostly a historical issue.

But yes, I do agree with you that they are not as "orthodox" as others.

I voted for the erm, yes, but not very 'orthodox' ones option.

Random Precision

1st February 2009, 16:32

I'm not sure that I care particularly whether other groups consider us Trotskyists. Certainly state-capitalist theory has had a huge impact on the history of the Trotskyist movement, and this is something that goes far beyond Tony Cliff- there's Shachtman, there's Johnson/Forrest, and so on.

Where state capitalism is concerned, I don't really think that it's a matter of being Trotskyist so much as one of being Marxist. Trotsky unfortunately failed to apply his rigorous Marxist analysis to the nature of the Soviet Union, although he came close to it at some points. This was an error that led his successors in the 4th International after his death to come up with the "deformed workers states". So they may be able to claim the banner of "orthodox Trotskyism", but the orthodoxy of their Marxism is certainly questionable.

Bolshevik-Leninist

1st February 2009, 17:07

My organization, the League for the Revolutionary Party, believes the USSR was a degenerated workers state until 1939. We believe this on these grounds: that the law of value never ceased operating in the USSR, that the October Revolution made a workers' state precisely and only because it put the working class in state power, and that the purges carried out by the Stalinist leadership allowed them to consolidate power and destroy all the old organs of the proletarian state. This crushing of all proletarian remnants in state power left only the parasitic Stalinist caste to become the new capitalist class. The purges completed by 1939, though the process began sooner.

Similarly, we apply the same analysis to countries like Cuba, China, and Eastern Europe, where no workers revolutions took place. In Eastern Europe, the Stalinists carried out imperialist plunder in an attempt to compensate for their own economy incapacity to produce use-values. Nationalizations could happen own when the new Stalinist rulers crushed the workers to consolidate their power.

We are proud to call ourselves Trotskyists because we believe we stand in the tradition of Trotsky. We do not hold defense of the USSR as an unending principle, nor do we fetishize nationalized property (which we acknowledge is a proletarian property form, to be filled with the 'content' that is the class nature of the state).

Marion

1st February 2009, 21:24

In addition to state capitalism, Cliff also developed other ideas which might be seen to contradict Trotsky's theories, such as his reappraisal of permanent revolution and prospects for revolution in the developing world. Yeah. Cliff himself definitely saw these as contradicting Trotsky's theories (e.g. Trotsky saying that there would be revolution after the war, that the proletariat would need to lead national liberation struggles in order to see major reforms), but that they built upon a Trotskyist approach. As I remember, Cliff spent a fair bit of time slagging off the likes of Mandel for going along with everything Trotsky said and not daring to disagree with him.

Cliff, as I remember, always completely rejected the idea that State capitalism was 'more progressive'. Yeah, one of his examples for how the USSR was not in any way a workers state was that it did not increase production to the same extent as Western powers.

Leo

2nd February 2009, 00:25

there's Shachtman, there's Johnson/Forrest, and so on.

Both did cease to be Trotskyists though.

rararoadrunner

2nd February 2009, 02:05

Hmmm, interesting, it seems that individuals and even parties share my dialectical appreciation of Trotsky, especially given the rapid evolution of his praxis...this is encouraging!

For my part, my assesment of the Soviet Union as socialist or not rests not upon some "law of value," but upon the question of the functioning (or not) of the Soviets as bases of workers' power vs. "transmission belts" of Stalin's power, or any other power than the power of the working class: unlike the Soviets of 1905, the Soviets of 1917 were compromised from the beginning by the delivery of power to them by the Bolshevik Military-Revolutionary Committees. Was power really handed over to the Soviets...or merely the appearance of power. True, one other party, the left SRs, fellow-travelled with the Bolsheviks in the Soviets for a time: but, when they decided upon armed struggle against the Bolsheviks, the Bolsheviks responded in kind, and hence the Bolsheviks ended up the only party in the Soviets...what choices were open to the Soviets then?

This lent an even more poweerful urgency to the triumph of socialism outside the former Russian Empire: German, Chinese, etc. SSR's could have immensely leavened the Soviets. Since no such expansion happened in a timely fashion, however, the stage was set for what was to follow...

...Or was it? Lenin tried mightily to reinvigourate Soviet democracy by the twin decentralisations of the founding of the USSR and launching of the NEP: however, these actually acted to reduce the role of the Soviets, rather than divesting power to them. A good argument can be made that Lenin and Trotsky were working on the problem when Lenin fell ill to strokes: Lenin, however, according to his Testament, was almost as mistrustful of Trotsky as he was of Stalin: moreover, he did see the office of General Secretary of the only party in the Soviets as potentially more threatening than any office Trotsky held, so he urged the Bolsheviks to keep an eye on Trotsky...but remove Stalin as General Secretary of the minty-renewed CPSU.

Why all my emphasis on this transitional period? Precisely in that it represented a transition, not to socialism, but away from socialism to something else...

What was this something else? Do we need the new concept "State Capitalism" to describe it...or was there another already existing term for it?

Recall that Benito Mousollini described the economics of fascism as "Corporatism:" that is, the merger of state and corporate power: isn't this precisely what overtook the Soviet Union?

Hence the bombshell I dropped upon the Stalinists, when I suggested that we drop the excess concept of State Capitalism in favour of...Fascism.

Is this why some Trotskyists are so reluctant to drop their insistance that the Soviet Union was somehow kinda sorta socialist, even under Stalin? Is it because, once they do concede that point, it's a small step to claiming that the Soviet Union became fascist...and therefore, that a socialist revolution could be reversed by fascism?

Notice that one need not opine that the Bolshevik Revolution wasn't socialist, nor that the Soviets weren't socialist, to concede this point: indeed, the critique becomes even more telling if we concede both these points.

Therefore, it becomes a socialist self-criticism, as we analyse how fascism overthrew socialism in the Soviet Union: how do we prevent that from happening again?

Back to you, comrades!

Zurdito

2nd February 2009, 06:05

Trotsky unfortunately failed to apply his rigorous Marxist analysis to the nature of the Soviet Union, although he came close to it at some points. This was an error that led his successors in the 4th International after his death to come up with the "deformed workers states". So they may be able to claim the banner of "orthodox Trotskyism", but the orthodoxy of their Marxism is certainly questionable.

This is a "slippery slope" argument. Why does the degenerated workers state argument necessarilly lead to the opportunistic stalinoid deformed workers state argument?

Also opposing the theory of state capitalism does not make someone an "ortho=trot", this is a definition for themselves by those who vindicate the post-war politics of the FI, which actually were a deviation from Trotsky's work and not the necessarry result of it.

Random Precision

2nd February 2009, 16:26

This is a "slippery slope" argument. Why does the degenerated workers state argument necessarilly lead to the opportunistic stalinoid deformed workers state argument?

On second thought, maybe you're correct. The original position of the FI on the glacis states was that they had remained capitalist; I believe the word "fascist" was actually involved. Then after the Congress had passed, came the infamous "Letter to Comrade Tito".

But since the structure of the states in Eastern Europe almost exactly matched those that were in place in the Soviet Union, certainly that brings up some hard questions about its nature? How could the Soviet Union remain a workers' state while the nearly identical states it established were capitalist?

Also opposing the theory of state capitalism does not make someone an "ortho=trot", this is a definition for themselves by those who vindicate the post-war politics of the FI, which actually were a deviation from Trotsky's work and not the necessarry result of it.

Fair enough.

EDIT: I do think the "degenerated workers' state" could imply the possibility of "deformed workers' states", since in neither is the working class in control of its own state. No doubt you are correct that the latter formulation also had a great deal of opportunism mixed in. In any case, anyone calling themselves a Trotskyist must look at the results of World War II and conclude that Trotsky was wrong in his predictions of its outcome, and also that the existence of the glacis states cast serious doubt on his definition of the USSR as a workers' state.

Josef Balin

4th February 2009, 21:38

On second thought, maybe you're correct. The original position of the FI on the glacis states was that they had remained capitalist; I believe the word "fascist" was actually involved. Then after the Congress had passed, came the infamous "Letter to Comrade Tito".

But since the structure of the states in Eastern Europe almost exactly matched those that were in place in the Soviet Union, certainly that brings up some hard questions about its nature? How could the Soviet Union remain a workers' state while the nearly identical states it established were capitalist?

Fair enough.

EDIT: I do think the "degenerated workers' state" could imply the possibility of "deformed workers' states", since in neither is the working class in control of its own state. No doubt you are correct that the latter formulation also had a great deal of opportunism mixed in. In any case, anyone calling themselves a Trotskyist must look at the results of World War II and conclude that Trotsky was wrong in his predictions of its outcome, and also that the existence of the glacis states cast serious doubt on his definition of the USSR as a workers' state.
The proletarian established a state based on property rights beneficial to the class. The state that was created via the October Revolution needed an outright counter-revolution to bring back class struggle, the bureaucratic caste that took part after Stalin came to power did not own the means of production, it could only control them.

Random Precision

4th February 2009, 22:16

The proletarian established a state based on property rights beneficial to the class.

Yes, but that state was smashed during the twenties and supplanted by the party apparatus.

The state that was created via the October Revolution needed an outright counter-revolution to bring back class struggle, the bureaucratic caste that took part after Stalin came to power did not own the means of production, it could only control them.

I don't see the difference between owning the MoP and controlling them. The one implies the other.

Dave B

4th February 2009, 23:33

I would like to ask a question of the Trotskyists.

Given the debate between the Trotskyist intellengtsia over whether or not Bolshevik Russia was State Capitalist or not eg between Cliff and Grant.

Why were the contents of V. I. Lenin’s;

"Left-Wing" Childishness, Written: April 1918

And his speech at the;

Eleventh Congress Of The R.C.P.(B.) March 27-April 2, 1922

Not raised and considered as part of that debate?

Dave B

5th February 2009, 19:02

OK then, no answers from the Trot intellectuals.

How about this then from the comedian and leg-puller Ted Grant of whom it was said on 12th September 2006 at the ‘Ted Grant Memorial Meeting’ by Alan Woods

`Ted'’s main contribution to Marxism………..was a reply to Tony
Cliff's flawed theory of state capitalism'

So an extract from;

Ted Grant, Against the Theory of State Capitalism

Reply to Comrade Cliff, Written: 1949

We have the absurdity of a new revolution - a proletarian revolution in 1917, organically changing the economy into ... state capitalism. We also have the no less absurd postulation of a revolution in Eastern Europe, where the entire capitalist class has been expropriated...to install what? Capitalism! A moment’s serious reflection would show that it is not possible for Cliff to maintain this position in relation to Eastern Europe without also transferring the same argument to Russia itself.

Cliff himself points to the fact that in the bourgeois revolution the masses did the fighting and the bourgeois got the fruits. The masses did not know what they were fighting for, but they fought in reality for the rule of the bourgeoisie. Take the French Revolution. It was prepared and had its ideology in the works of the philosophers of the enlightenment, Voltaire, Rousseau, etc. However, they really did believe in the idealisation of bourgeois society. They believed the codicils of liberty, equality and fraternity which they preached. As is well known, and as Cliff himself quotes Marx to prove, the French Revolution went beyond its social base. It resulted in the revolutionary dictatorship of the sans culottes which went beyond the bounds of bourgeois society.

As Marx explained, this had the salutory effect of completing in a few months what would otherwise have taken the bourgeois decades to do. The leaders of the revolutionary wing of the petty bourgeoisie which wielded this dictatorship - Robespierre, Danton, etc, sincerely believed in the doctrines of the philosophers and attempted to put them into practice. They could not do so because it was impossible to go beyond the economic base of the given society. They inevitably had to lose power and merely paved the way for bourgeois society.

If Cliff’s argument is correct, one could only conclude that the same thing happened with the Russian as with the French Revolution. Marx was the prophet of the new state capitalism. Lenin and Trotsky were the Robespierres and Carnots of the Russian Revolution. The fact that Lenin and Trotsky had good intentions is beside the point, as were the good intentions of the leaders of the bourgeois revolution. They merely paved the way for the rule of the new state capitalist class.

And to quote a quote from the memorial meeting;

"you know Ted sometimes said to me that he didn’t know why Lenin and Trotsky wrote so many books. Nobody reads them and if they do they don’t understand the ideas!"

What a joker!

Yehuda Stern

6th February 2009, 11:37

It's just a very stupid question. The question of ultra-leftism never came up.

Dave B

6th February 2009, 19:25

Well actually the question of ‘Ultra-leftism’ did come up, it was raised by Mandel who accused those who put forward the ‘state capitalist’ theory of being ‘Social Democrats’ or ‘ultra-leftist’.

Although it is not clear which category he would have put Lenin in as an advocate of the state capitalist theory himself.

E. Germain, The Theory of "State Capitalism"

(June 1951)

The prevailing ideas of what exists in Russia today are those of "state capitalism" and "Soviet imperialism." These are the conceptions of the ruling bourgeois class which tries to attribute to the Soviet bureaucracy all of its own sins – without the saving grace of "democracy." At the same time, they provide the principal pretext for petty bourgeois intellectuals not to "take sides" in the gigantic class struggle developing on a world scale – when and if these ideas don’t serve the purpose of going over bag and baggage into the bourgeois camp.

The theory of state capitalism is defended not only by the Social Democracy, whose theoreticians no one takes seriously, and by insignificant ultra-leftist groups, but also by the representatives of a new and victorious proletarian revolution – by the leaders of the Yugoslav Communist Party, Milovan Djilas and Edward Kardelj.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1951/06/statecap.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1951/06/statecap.htm)

The issue over whether or not a ‘working class’ party should administer capitalism as part of the government or, as became the case, become the government itself albeit of state capitalism after the collapse of Tsarist Russia was raised in the dispute between the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks in 1905.

http://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/lenin/works//1905/3rdcong/13.htm#bkV (http://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/lenin/works//1905/3rdcong/13.htm)

The Mensheviks took the Marxist viewpoint as in;

Engels to Filippo Turati, In Milan, 1894

But if it comes to this, we must be conscious of the fact, and openly proclaim it, that we are only taking part as an "independent Party," which is allied for the moment with Radicals and Republicans but is inwardly essentially different from them: that we indulge in absolutely no illusions as to the result of the struggle in case of victory; that this result not only cannot satisfy us but will only be a newly attained stage to us, a new basis of operations for further conquests; that from the very moment of victory our paths will separate; that from that same day onwards we shall form a new opposition to the new government, not a reactionary but a progressive opposition, an opposition of the most extreme Left, which will press on to new conquests beyond the ground already won.

After the common victory we might perhaps be offered some seats in the new Government--but always in a minority. Here lies the greatest danger. After the February Revolution in 1848 the French socialistic Democrats (the Reforme people, Ledru Rollin, Louis Blanc, Flocon, etc.) were incautious enough to accept such positions. As a minority in the Government they involuntarily bore the responsibility for all the infamy and treachery which the majority, composed of pure Republicans, committed against the working class, while at the same time their participation in the government completely paralysed the revolutionary action of the working class they were supposed to represent.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/letters/94_01_26.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/letters/94_01_26.htm)

Whether or not the Bolsheviks by becoming the Government of (state) capitalism; the result was ‘ infamy and treachery committed against the working class’, which ‘completely paralysed the revolutionary action of the working class they were supposed to represent’..

As is whether or not;

‘Lenin and Trotsky were the Robespierres and Carnots of the Russian Revolution.’

http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/1949/cliff.htm (http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/1949/cliff.htm)

Is a matter of debate I suppose

Although Leon Trotsky’s own prediction, made when he was a Menshevik, that Lenin would become a Maximilien Robespierre or Maximilien Lenin in his;

Our Political Tasks, PART IV: JACOBINISM AND SOCIAL DEMOCRACY

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1904/tasks/ch05.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1904/tasks/ch05.htm)

Might be worth considering, as maybe Fred’s prediction of a Blanquist organisation playing a part in the impending Russian revolution and the appearance of a Robespierre type character.

In; Engels to Vera Zasulich, In Geneva, 1885

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885/letters/85_04_23.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885/letters/85_04_23.htm)

Now all this is all very good but the question remains.

Why weren’t the ordinary Trot foot soldiers allowed to consider Lenin’s deliberations on his theory of State Capitalist Bolshevik Russia, so they could make their own minds up rather be bamboozled by intellectual bullshit by from the Trot intelligentsia as well as from Trotsky himself.

The Lenin and his Bolsheviks in 1905 actually took a more orthodox view of the capitalism that was coming to Russia, even if it was a somewhat unorthodox over enthusiastic one for a ‘Marxist’ party.

This absurd idea boils down either to the hoary Narodnik theory that a bourgeois revolution runs counter to the interests of the proletariat, and that therefore we do not need bourgeois political liberty; or to anarchism, which rejects all participation of the proletariat in bourgeois politics, in a bourgeois revolution and in bourgeois parliamentarism. From the standpoint of theory, this idea disregards the elementary propositions of Marxism concerning the inevitability of capitalist development where commodity production exists. Marxism teaches that a society which is based on commodity production, and which has commercial intercourse with civilised capitalist nations, at a certain stage of its development, itself, inevitably takes the road of capitalism.

Marxism has irrevocably broken with the ravings of the Narodniks and the anarchists to the effect that Russia, for instance, can avoid capitalist development, jump out of capitalism, or skip over it and proceed along some path other than the path of the class struggle on the basis and within the framework of this same capitalism.
All these principles of Marxism have been proved and explained over and over again in minute detail in general and with regard to Russia in particular. And from these principles it follows that the idea of seeking salvation for the working class in anything save the further development of capitalism is reactionary. In countries like Russia, the working class suffers not so much from capitalism as from the insufficient development of capitalism. The working class suffers not so much from capitalism as from the insufficient development of capitalism.

The working class is therefore decidedly interested in the broadest, freest and most rapid development of capitalism. The removal of all the remnants of the old order which are hampering the broad, free and rapid development of capitalism is of decided advantage to the working class. The bourgeois revolution is precisely a revolution that most resolutely sweeps away the survivals of the past, the remnants of serfdom (which include not only autocracy but monarchy as well) and most fully guarantees the broadest, freest and most rapid development of capitalism.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/tactics/ch06.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/tactics/ch06.htm)

Yehuda Stern

7th February 2009, 00:55

Seeing as no one who posted in this thread discussed Mandel, supports Mandel, or sees Mandel's theories as important or interesting, as far as I know, I fail to see how Mandel's claim at some point that state capitalism is an ultra-left theory is at all relevant.

Dave B

7th February 2009, 10:38

So given the debate between the Trotskyist intelligentsia over whether or not Bolshevik Russia was State Capitalist or not.

Why were the contents of

………….And this is the crux of the question." (Left wing childishness and the petty-bourgeois mentality, Collected Works, Volume 27, page 335) [source] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm)

Re state capitalism, not discussed.

Eg why did Grant not mention it in his;

Against the Theory of State Capitalism

Reply to Comrade Cliff

http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/1949/cliff.htm (http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/1949/cliff.htm)

"In the time of universal deceit," wrote George Orwell, "telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

7th February 2009, 19:21

Dave, stop being so childish. You're obviously more interested in attacking the "comedian/leg-puller" Grantists as an opponent than having a respectful and productive debate on the subject. You obviously don't consider Grantists to be comrades with which you disagree, but rather see them as enemies. Your sectarianism is incredibly divisive and has done nothing but damage the movement by fragmenting it into numerous sects. You're doing more damage than good.

Be more respectful and learn that those you are attacking are on the same side as you. Until you do that, don't expect anyone to take you seriously.

Yehuda Stern

7th February 2009, 21:50

That's not the problem; in fact, I don't take seriously anyone who believes that all left groups are on the same side. The problem is that the topic never came up, and as such criticizing people for not bringing it up despite a complete lack of relevance is pretty stupid.

Dave B

7th February 2009, 23:03

Au contraire KC

When it comes to being ‘respectful and learning’ from Ted Grant.

I thought his analogy or the implicit analogy of the French revolution to the Russian revolution, if the state capitalist theory was accepted, was brilliant.

So as Grant explains;

As Marx explained, this had the salutory effect of completing in a few months what would otherwise have taken the bourgeois decades to do. The leaders of the revolutionary wing of the petty bourgeoisie (or bourgeois intelligentsia) which wielded this dictatorship - Robespierre, Danton, etc, sincerely believed in the doctrines of the philosophers and attempted to put them into practice.

They could not do so because it was impossible to go beyond the economic base of the given society. They inevitably had to lose power and merely paved the way for bourgeois society. If Cliff’s argument is correct, one could only conclude that the same thing happened with the Russian as with the French Revolution. Marx was the prophet of the new state capitalism. Lenin and Trotsky were the Robespierres and Carnots of the Russian Revolution. The fact that Lenin and Trotsky had good intentions is beside the point, as were the good intentions of the leaders of the bourgeois revolution. They merely paved the way for the rule of the new state capitalist class.

http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/1949/cliff.htm (http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/1949/cliff.htm)

I wonder were he got those kind of ideas from? A magic circle of North American Trot intellectuals perhaps?

And given the statement at the Ted Grant Memorial meeting at;

http://www.marxist.com/revolutionary-ted-grant-memorial-meeting.htm (http://www.marxist.com/revolutionary-ted-grant-memorial-meeting.htm)

That;

"You know, Ted sometimes said to me that he didn’t know why Lenin and Trotsky wrote so many books. Nobody reads them and if they do the don’t understand the ideas."

It goes some way to explain why Grant had the balls to quote, somewhat off topic, from Lenin’s ‘Left wing childishness and the petty-bourgeois mentality’ (Lenin’s Bolshevik Russia is State capitalist pamphlet) in Grants own;

Against the Theory of State Capitalism,

in

Reply to Comrade Cliff’s;

Bolshevik Russia became state capitalist in 1928, or whenever, thesis

Safe in the knowledge, presumably, that ordinary Trot foot soldiers would never read the rest of it.

Thus;

Here too, an all-sided view is necessary. One can only understand social relationships in the Soviet Union by taking the totality of the relationships. From the very beginning of the revolution various sectarian schools have produced the most untenable ideas as a result of their failure to make such an analysis. Lenin summed up the problem thus:

"But what does the word ‘transition’ mean? Does it mean, as applied to economics, that the present order contains elements, particles, pieces of both capitalism and socialism? Everyone will admit that it does. But not all who admit this take the trouble to consider the precise nature of the elements that constitute the various social-economic forms which exist in Russia at the present time. And this is the crux of the question." (Left wing childishness and the petty-bourgeois mentality, Collected Works, Volume 27, page 335) [source] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm)

To abstract one side must lead to error. What is puzzling about the Russian phenomenon is precisely the contradictory character of the economy.

http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/1949/cliff.htm (http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/1949/cliff.htm)

And in connection to this we also have from 1969;

Alan Woods and Ted Grant, Lenin and Trotsky—what they really stood for

At the Eleventh Congress of the Russian Communist Party - the last
which Lenin attended - he emphasised repeatedly the dangers to the
State and Party arising out of the pressures of backwardness and
bureaucracy. Commenting on the direction of the State, Lenin warned:

"Well, we have lived through a year, the state is in our hands, but
has it operated the New Economic Policy in the way we wanted in the
past year? No. But we refuse to admit that it did not operate in the
way we wanted. How did it operate? The machine refused to obey the
hand that guided it. It was like a car that was going not in the
direction the driver desired but in the direction someone else
desired; as if it were being driven by some mysterious, lawless
hand, God knows whose, perhaps of a profiteer, or of a private
capitalist, or of both. Be that as it may, the car is not going
quite in the direction the man at the wheel imagines, and often it
goes in an altogether different direction." (Works, vol. 33, page
179, our emphasis)

http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/1969/lat/7.htm (http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/1969/lat/7.htm)

The Lenin quote that is given is interesting

As two paragraphs before in the quote from Lenin that Grant and
Woods give, we have from Lenin.

"we must remember the fundamental thing that state capitalism in the
form we have here is not dealt with in any theory, or in any books,
for the simple reason that all the usual concepts connected with
this term are associated with bourgeois rule in capitalist society.

Our society is one which has left the rails of capitalism, but has
not yet got on to new rails. The state in this society is not ruled
by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat. We refuse to understand
that when we say "state" we mean ourselves, the proletariat, the
vanguard of the working class. State capitalism is capitalism which
we shall be able to restrain, and the limits of which we shall be
able to fix. This state capitalism is connected with the state, and
the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the
vanguard. We are the state."

And to select from several other state capitalism quotes available
from this same speech;

"And that is that the state capitalism that we have now is not the
state capitalism that the Germans wrote about. It is capitalism that
we ourselves have permitted. Is that true or not? Everybody knows
that it is true!"

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/27.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/27.htm)

Are we to suppose that neither Grant nor Cliff read their Lenin either? and/ or ‘didn’t understand the ideas’, but just plucked Lenin quotes out of other peoples books?

It is not the likes of myself that are obsessed with the traditions of the Dead Russians Society of the Bolshevik revolution and borrowing from them their failed battle cries and costumes.

The question is, if it is a farce the second time what do call it on the third?

So from;

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Karl Marx 1852, I

Hegel remarks somewherethat all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Caussidiere for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the Montagne of 1848 to 1851 for the Montagne of 1793 to 1795, the nephew for the uncle. And the same caricature occurs in the circumstances of the second edition of the Eighteenth Brumaire.

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.

The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch01.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch01.htm)

It’s a bit rich for a Trot to be making a ‘Hue and Cry’ about sectarianism just because they feel their back is ‘up against the wall’

And as to;

"learn that those you are attacking are on the same side as you."

What and end up like the Mensheviks, SR’s and the Anarchists?

iraqnevercalledmenigger

8th February 2009, 03:34

^^^What is this guy going on about?^^^

Dave B

8th February 2009, 18:04

Hi Iraqneverclledme

I appreciate that I am probably engaging in a bit of intellectualism myself, but only to combat it or ‘keep it in check’ that of others. You do not need to know all this kind of crap in my opinion unless you feel compelled to debunk what you feel intuitively is bullshit.

Engels to Otto Von Boenigk, In Breslau, August 21, 1890

The patronizing and errant lecturing of our so-called intellectuals seems to me a far greater impediment. We are still in need of technicians, agronomists, engineers, chemists, architects, etc., it is true, ……………….But apart from the specialists, among whom I also include schoolteachers, we can get along perfectly well without the other "intellectuals". The present influx of literati and students into the party, for example, may be quite damaging if these gentlemen are not properly kept in check.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_08_21.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_08_21.htm)

As to Grant’s;

The leaders of the revolutionary wing of the petty bourgeoisie which wielded this dictatorship - Robespierre, Danton, etc, sincerely believed in the doctrines of the philosophers and attempted to put them into practice. They could not do so because it was impossible to go beyond the economic base of the given society. They inevitably had to lose power and merely paved the way for bourgeois society.

If Cliff’s argument is correct, one could only conclude that the same thing happened with the Russian as with the French Revolution. Marx was the prophet of the new state capitalism. Lenin and Trotsky were the Robespierres and Carnots of the Russian Revolution. The fact that Lenin and Trotsky had good intentions is beside the point, as were the good intentions of the leaders of the bourgeois revolution. They merely paved the way for the rule of the new state capitalist class.

http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/1949/cliff.htm (http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/1949/cliff.htm)

This requires a basic understanding of Marxist theory, however;

What Grant is basically saying is; that if we accept that Bolshevik Russia was State Capitalist, as Lenin said it was, then the Russian Revolution could only be seen as following the same path and pattern, according to a Marxist analysis or ‘prophesy’ , as the French Revolution, which was a bourgeois or capitalist revolution. The characters and their actions were the same, it was just that the names were different.

That would make a mockery, in Marxist terms, of the whole Bolshevik and Leninist project and imply that they didn’t know what they were doing etc.

Something that Engels predicted perhaps, particularly if you think Bolshevism resembled Blanquism and Jacobinism as many did, even before the Bolsheviks seized power.

People who boasted that they had made a revolution have always seen the next day that they had no idea what they were doing, that the revolution made did not in the least resemble the one they would have liked to make That is what Hegel calls the irony of history, an irony which few historic personalities escape.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885/letters/85_04_23.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885/letters/85_04_23.htm)

The ‘Hue and Cry’ thing was a sarcastic reference to Trotsky’s unapologetic response to the criticism of the part he played in the repression of the Kronstadt rebellion.

Where he took his sectarianism to its ultimate conclusion.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/01/kronstadt.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/01/kronstadt.htm)

There is an alternative viewpoint on the Kronstadt rebellion in a much more clear and easy to read style at;

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/goldman/trotskyprotests.html (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/goldman/trotskyprotests.html)

As did Lenin with his sectarianism were he talked of putting his Marxist political opponents ‘up against the wall’;

We shall have to change our line of conduct very often, and this may appear strange and incomprehensible to the casual observer. "How is that?" he will say. "Yesterday you were making promises to the petty bourgeoisie, while today Dzerzhinsky announces that the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks will be stood against the wall.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/rcp8th/02.htm (http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/EC19.html)

And in the ‘show or model trials of political opponents’, secret letter, which so happens to include some more state capitalism quotes;

http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1922/feb/20c.htm (http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1922/feb/20c.htm)

As to the question about whether or not Lenin’s Russia was State Capitalist, presumably something that is denied by all Trotskyists including Cliff and Grant we have several possible options.

A) Grant and Cliff were lying.

B) Grant and Cliff were stupid and didn’t know what they were talking about.

C) Lenin didn’t know what he was talking about and didn’t know what state capitalism was. A defender of the Russian revolution actually put that to me on an ICC forum.

D) Lenin never really said that Russia was State Capitalist but only that it was "state capitalism", don’t ask me to explain that one.

iraqnevercalledmenigger

8th February 2009, 18:45

I'm only going to respond to your A-D possibilties since I cannot even fathom what you are getting at with the rest of your post. Can you stop quoting people for a bit and just explain your point in your own words?

As to Lenin's Russia being state capitalist, your answer depends on what you see decisive in changing the class nature of the state. I believe an authentic Marxist analysis shows that the DoP still exists under the capitalist mode of production and given the centralization of the means of production in the hands of the state "state capitalism" could be used in one sense to describe the economy of the DoP.

However, I do not think this is the same thing as saying the USSR was "state-capitalist" in a negative or pejorative sense. For me what is decisive is which class was the ruling class.

Dave B

8th February 2009, 19:39

grok

8th February 2009, 20:20

The problem I have with "Trotskyism" is: which Trotsky do you endorse? Trotsky the Menshevik? Trotsky the spirit of Menshevik-Bolshevik reconciliation via the "Mezhdurayontsy?" Trotsky the partner of Lenin? Trotsky the antagonist of Stalin?

IMO the komrad implies a thesis here: that even if one is a sterling trotskyist, based on adherence to all that Trotsky & Co. correctly expounded 70 or 80 years ago, the World has most definitely moved on since then; and so one's even being 100% correct in following the Party line of 70 years ago still begs the cogent question of today: where do we all go from here..? Right now? (And where is "here" for that matter..? Etc.)
:confused:

iraqnevercalledmenigger

8th February 2009, 20:34

If you had a ‘state capitalist’ country that was run along full democratic lines with at least a partially ‘class conscious’ majority of workers, possibly as part of a transition stage, that would be an interesting situation.

Perhaps in this situation the working class would still be impaired by the cultural hangover from capitalism and its ‘bourgeois limitations’ etc.

That might look like some kind of Deleonism, an idea that I am not in favour of but which I do have some respect for.

However the workers were not in control in Bolshevik Russia from lets say, for the sake of argument, the middle of 1918 onwards. Lenin made that quite clear himself in his own words with his ‘transmission belt’ thing as he did elsewhere.

Lenin started to undermine the potentially democratic nature of the soviets by the middle of 1918 when the Bolsheviks began to loose support.

As described in more detail at;

http://www.angelfire.com/nb/revhist17/brovkin1.pdf (http://www.angelfire.com/nb/revhist17/brovkin1.pdf)

Which formed part of Brovkin’s book, The Mensheviks After October.

On quotations, I think if you want to be taken seriously you have to make your point then back it up or support it with a ‘fact’ which often requires a quotation.

Equally other people can have put your own argument well enough elsewhere, so why not instead of rehashing it, save yourself the bother by just cut and pasting it and using as part of your own argument.

Or when it is the other way round, why bother paraphrasing an opponents argument, like Trotsky or Lenin, when you can let them speak for and hang themselves.

I don’t know what DoP is supposed to stand for.

Incidentally I think Milovan Djilas circa 1950 was making the argument that there was workers control of the workplace etc in Yugoslavia and therefore as democratic ‘state capitalism’ it was not really state capitalism.

There was a bit of enthusiasm for this kind of thing around the time from some sections of the left, again I think.

We have some Deleonists on this list so I am sure they can speak for themselves, Lenin said some positive things about Deleon in his infantile disorder pamphlet of April 1920, I think.

I expect they won’t thank me for mentioning that.

DoP = Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

I'm not going to argue that the USSR became less and less democratic. The wars with the imperialists etc. made sure of that.

I am going to take issue with the assumption of your argument that it was the undermining of Soviet democracy that was the turning point in the class nature of the state.

Democracy or lack of democracy does not change the class nature of a state, capitalist or proletariat. If America had to do away with its bourgeois democracy in a fight against an increasingly combative proletariat, that would not change the class nature of the state. If anything what is changed is the form. As happened in Germany with the fascist state.

I would say an analogous process took place in the USSR with the undermining of Soviet Democracy and the triumph of the Stalinist bureaucracy. The working class rule/dictatorship over the state became distorted, but the nature of class rule was not broken immediately. I'm in agreement with Trotsky that what needed to change to see a new ruling class in the USSR was the "voluntary internal cohesion of the proletarian vanguard" (Trotsky would late emphasize "proletarian property forms" as a more decisive criterion). I only see this happening in the late 30's with the purges.

There is a lot to be discussed as to what percentage of our class will actually achieve Marxist class consciousness based on the divisions of our class under capitalism etc. But I'll leave it here for now.

grok

8th February 2009, 20:43

True, one other party, the left SRs, fellow-travelled with the Bolsheviks in the Soviets for a time: but, when they decided upon armed struggle against the Bolsheviks, the Bolsheviks responded in kind, and hence the Bolsheviks ended up the only party in the Soviets...what choices were open to the Soviets then?

You know, kompa: one of the most shocking truths about today's revolutionary Left (let alone the awful fact of the near complete dissolution of any class-consciousness within the Western working-classes these past decades) is this Left's apparent and general complete lack of understanding of just what a soviet/council is; that in fact a soviet is a people's parliament, in which various parties and factions and tendencies must have free and democratic reign to expound and argue their beliefs and plans, and to make alliances and seek support and votes from the majority, as circumstances allow and develop.

Instead we've often witnessed witless, even obscene, attempts to theorize, or even agitate-for, some totalitarian one-party monstrosity of a 'soviet' -- obviously with only past stalinist praxis for its one-dimensional, anti-democratic example. No wonder the bourgeoisie have been able to alienate the working-masses from most of the Left with such ease for so long...
:mad:

In any case: it is time for us to form 'New Model' soviets (whatever they be) at every level of society we can accomplish this at. And I mean TODAY. NOW. Because the time has come for socialist revolution.
It's been a long, long winter, komrads. Spring is here, finally.

Vanguard1917

8th February 2009, 21:23

Random Precision is right when he says that Trotsky did not manage to apply his otherwise excellent Marxist analysis to his evalution of Stalinist society. The idea that Stalinist society was any kind of workers' state is fundamentally flawed and un-Marxist, as we discussed fairly recently here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/kim-ill-sung-t95582/index.html?highlight=USSR) and here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/revolution-china-against-t94896/index.html?t=94896&highlight=USSR). Stalinist society was a new kind of system -- neither capitalist nor socialistic -- a product of unique historical circumstances. In his attempts to defend the Stalinist system, Trotsky contradicted his own previous views of what constitutes workers' rule.

But I'm sure Trotsky himself would have rejected any attempts to form a set-in-stone 'orthodoxy' around his beliefs. We need to decide what is positive and correct through critical evaluation. I don't think that criticism of and opposition to the deformed workers' state thesis means that we have to reject the overall importance of Trotsky and his ideas.

rararoadrunner

10th February 2009, 04:36

Some excellent postings following mine, hard to keep up, but let me go ahead and apply Occam's Razor to this one:

State-Capitalism: if we look at the economic theses of fascism, as enumerated by its Italian godfathers, Benito Moussolini and Giovanni Gentile, do we not see them expounding precisely the fusion of corporate and state power?

When we draw back from this economic core to look afresh at fascism as an overall social formation, and then compare notes with what became of the USSR under Stalin, do we not see Soviet socialism overthrown by fascism?

If we accept, therefore, both that the Bolshevik Revolution was socialist in character, and that Soviet socialism was overthrown by Stalinist fascism, what that directly implies is that socialism can indeed be overthrown from within by a determined fascist claque, provided the conditions permit such an overthrow.

...And what was the principal condition which enabled this to occur in the Soviet Union?

Precisely that the Soviet Union was contained within the boundaries of the Russian Empire: had either the German SSR or the Chinese SSR, (or even better, both) become part of the USSR, there would have been powerful, independent counterweights to Stalin's fascist claque within the Soviet Union, which would also have helped tip the balance in favour of the Soviet Socialist Revolution worldwide.

(After the Second World War, of course, we saw the simultaneous "triumph of socialism" in the German Democratic Republic and People'e Republic of China in October, 1949: by then, however, so much blood was under the bridge of Stalinist "socialist" praxis, and so little room was left for workers' independent political initiative, that both the GDR and PRC were fatally compromised as living, breathing socialist democracies).

This historical analysis is no mere academic exercise for us: we see the same questions being played out in Venezuela, where an ostensibly socialist government has yet to overthrow capitalism, yet is already witnessing the emergence of fascist/Stalinist forces within the PSUV (you don't have to take my word for it, comrades: go over to the aporrealos.com forum and read it happening...or better still, join that forum and fight the good fight, if you can).

While we see in the Venezuelan Consejos, Comunas, etc. reborn, embryonic socialist democracy, they are faced by fully empowered capitalist opposition...and flanked by Stalinists from among their ranks.

Ultimately, in my view, the socialist unity and expansion of ALBA has within it the very real possibility of converting 21st Century socialism from a Venezuelan initiative to an ALBA-wide project: that is a good start. Better still, of course, is for other such initiatives to begin elsewhere: already, we see openings in such diverse places as Nepal, Greece...where next?

One thing's for sure, comrades: we need spaces such as this within which to advance the praxis of scientific socialism, without which we are all at sea without a compass.

So: back to you, comrades!

couch13

11th February 2009, 05:11

Yes, I do believe so. I think the simplist way to put this is that disagreements of analysis do not preclude following the major theories. While we do not believe that the Soviet Union was a degenerated worker's state, we follow Trotsky's more important theories. We use united fronts, believe in the theory of permenant revolution for those nations that are not quite capitalist.

In addition, Trotsky disagreed with Lenin on trade unions, does this make him any less a Leninist? In this light, we, while disagreeing with one analysis, are Trotskyists due to believeing in his most important arguments.

Black Dagger

12th February 2009, 02:22

Political Revolution: The idea that the Soviet Union could be restored to a worker's democracy with a political revolution (as opposed to a social and economic revolution, in the traditional Marxist sense of the word.)

What does a political revolution mean in this context? A new CC? Who would lead the 'political revolution' in the USSR?

Also, whilst you have said this issue is mostly of historical rather than contemporary significance - wouldn't this position still have implications for contemporary politics? I.E. Support for 'political revolution' over social revolution, as a tactic?

Led Zeppelin

12th February 2009, 10:23

What does a political revolution mean in this context? A new CC? Who would lead the 'political revolution' in the USSR?

No, not a new CC, because the Bolshevik party was pronounced dead of any significant revolutionary elements with the creation of the Fourth International.

The proletariat was the class who was supposed to lead the political revolution, and not out of nowhere. Trotsky was not an idealist; political revolutions don't just happen. With a change in the material conditions, and I use that term as a totality here so I am referring to a change in international conditions as well as national, the revolutionary proletariat would be in a stronger position to overthrow the bureaucracy and replace it with a genuine workers' democracy and workers' state.

An example of that change in material conditions was a successful workers' revolution in an advanced capitalist nation like Germany. This would provide an impetus to the socialist movement in USSR and could result in a political revolution there, which wouldn't require a complete overhaul of the property relations (since they were rooted in socialist property relations).

That's why it was referred to as a political revolution. To provide a historical example; the Jacobins were "overthrown", but it was not a social revolution which caused it, it was a political one.

Finally, I'll quote a piece from Trotsky explaining it if I didn't do it justice:

The revolution which the bureaucracy is preparing against itself will not be social, like the October revolution of 1917. It is not a question this time of changing the economic foundations of society, of replacing certain forms of property with other forms. History has known elsewhere not only social revolutions which substituted the bourgeois for the feudal regime, but also political revolutions which, without destroying the economic foundations of society, swept out an old ruling upper crust (1830 and 1848 in France, February 1917 in Russia, etc.). The overthrow of the Bonapartist caste will, of course, have deep social consequences, but in itself it will be confined within the limits of political revolution.

This is the first time in history that a state resulting from a workers’ revolution has existed. The stages through which it must go are nowhere written down. It is true that the theoreticians and creators of the Soviet Union hoped that the completely transparent and flexible Soviet system would permit the state peacefully to transform itself, dissolve, and die away, in correspondence with the stages of the economic and cultural evolution of society. Here again, however, life proved more complicated than theory anticipated. The proletariat of a backward country was fated to accomplish the first socialist revolution. For this historic privilege, it must, according to all evidences, pay with a second supplementary revolution – against bureaucratic absolutism. The program of the new revolution depends to a great extent upon the moment when it breaks out, upon the level which the country has then attained, and to a great degree upon the international situation. The fundamental elements of the program are already clear, and have been given throughout the course of this book as an objective inference from an analysis of the contradictions of the Soviet regime.

It is not a question of substituting one ruling clique for another, but of changing the very methods of administering the economy and guiding the culture of the country. Bureaucratic autocracy must give place to Soviet democracy. A restoration of the right of criticism, and a genuine freedom of elections, are necessary conditions for the further development of the country. This assumes a revival of freedom of Soviet parties, beginning with the party of Bolsheviks, and a resurrection of the trade unions. The bringing of democracy into industry means a radical revision of plans in the interests of the toilers. Free discussion of economic problems will decrease the overhead expense of bureaucratic mistakes and zigzags. Expensive playthings palaces of the Soviets, new theaters, show-off subways – will be crowded out in favor of workers’ dwellings. “Bourgeois norms of distribution” will be confined within the limits of strict necessity, and, in step with the growth of social wealth, will give way to socialist equality. Ranks will be immediately abolished. The tinsel of decorations will go into the melting pot. The youth will receive the opportunity to breathe freely, criticize, make mistakes, and grow up. Science and art will be freed of their chains. And, finally, foreign policy will return to the traditions of revolutionary internationalism.

More than ever the fate of the October revolution is bound up now with the fate of Europe and of the whole world. The problems of the Soviet Union are now being decided on the Spanish peninsula, in France, in Belgium. At the moment when this book appears the situation will be incomparably more clear than today, when civil war is in progress under the walls of Madrid. If the Soviet bureaucracy succeeds, with its treacherous policy of “people’s fronts”, in insuring the victory of reaction in Spain and France – and the Communist International is doing all it can in that direction – the Soviet Union will find itself on the edge of ruin. A bourgeois counterrevolution rather than an insurrection of the workers against the bureaucracy will be on the order of the day. If, in spite of the united sabotage of reformists and “Communist” leaders, the proletariat of western Europe finds the road to power, a new chapter will open in the history of the Soviet Union. The first victory of a revolution in Europe would pass like an electric shock through the Soviet masses, straighten them up, raise their spirit of independence, awaken the traditions of 1905 and 1917, undermine the position of the Bonapartist bureaucracy, and acquire for the Fourth International no less significance than the October revolution possessed for the Third. Only in that way can the first Workers’ State be saved for the socialist future.
Link (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch11.htm)

I apologize for the long quote, I have bolded the parts which answer your questions directly.

Also, whilst you have said this issue is mostly of historical rather than contemporary significance - wouldn't this position still have implications for contemporary politics? I.E. Support for 'political revolution' over social revolution, as a tactic?

Perhaps so in cases like Vietnam, Laos, China or North-Korea, which are still considered "degenerated/deformed workers' states" by some Trotskyists.

However, I personally don't consider it as important as it was during the peak of Stalinism. The Soviet Union is gone, and with it a lot of Stalinism has vanished. In my opinion the states which are a remnant of that past have either moved on to capitalism, or state-capitalism, or have isolated their society to such an extent that the only two options for them are restoration of capitalism or being saved by a foreign socialist revolution.

The latter could entail a political revolution, but is that really something so important that it should divide the Trotskyist movement? Instead of supporting a social revolution, some may support a political revolution; the purpose of both is the same.

Though, perhaps you were referring to supporting political revolution over social revolution in the context of capitalist states? No Trotskyist seriously supports this position, because it has no place in the history of Trotskyism.

Devrim

12th February 2009, 10:37

What does a political revolution mean in this context? A new CC? Who would lead the 'political revolution' in the USSR?

To continue from what LZ said, I think what was meant by political revolution depended on what sort of Trotskyist you were. From the least 'radical' for whom it did mean changing the CC, to 'more radical' ones who envisaged it as somewhat like others would see a social revolution.

What united them is that they saw state control of the means of production as a fundamental socialist relation, a the property relations in the USSR as being 'socialist'.

Devrim

Led Zeppelin

12th February 2009, 11:14

What united them is that they saw state control of the means of production as a fundamental socialist relation, a the property relations in the USSR as being 'socialist'.

This could confuse some people to believe that Trotsky considered the USSR to have been socialist, which is very far from the truth. He saw the USSR as a "struggle of tendencies" economically. There was the bourgeois tendency, which was an inevitable factor given the fact that "law can never be higher than the material conditions of society", and after a socialist revolution the material conditions of society are not advanced enough to institute a fully socialist economic system straight away, and then there was the socialist tendency.

The former was represented by the bureaucracy politically, while the latter was kept in place under the pressure of the proletariat. Under the latter was considered state ownership of the means of production, planned economy, many social benefits etc., while under the former was considered the institution of priviliges, ranks, etc.

Trotsky considered those two tendencies to be at a constant struggle with each other. However, fundamentally, he considered the state ownership of the means of production to be something socialistic. If the proletariat swept away the bureaucracy, would they also sweep away the state ownership of the means of production and the planned system of economy, that is, would they also get rid of the basis of socialist property relations? His answer to this was no.

This however certainly does not mean that he considered the USSR to have been socialist, not that you meant it that way but I'm just saying it in order to prevent any misunderstanding.

Devrim

12th February 2009, 16:29

The former was represented by the bureaucracy politically, while the latter was kept in place under the pressure of the proletariat. Under the latter was considered state ownership of the means of production, planned economy, many social benefits etc., while under the former was considered the institution of priviliges, ranks, etc.

Trotsky considered those two tendencies to be at a constant struggle with each other.

I think that this accurately sums up Trotsky's view, and also shows the weakness of his analysis.

The idea that the economic system of production is kept in place by the exploited class against the will of the exploiting class is turning the whole of Marxism on its head, and Trotsky couldn't get to that position without some rigorous intellectual gymnastics.

The exploiting class is not a class. It didn't extract surplus value from the working class. These and other absurdities were things that it was necessary to believe to go along with Trotsky's analysis.

Of course as time went by it appeared to more and more people to be more and more absurd.

What is probably most surprising about the crisis in Trotskyism after the Second World War was that it took so long to happen.

Devrim

Led Zeppelin

12th February 2009, 16:40

The idea that the economic system of production is kept in place by the exploited class against the will of the exploiting class is turning the whole of Marxism on its head, and Trotsky couldn't get to that position without some rigorous intellectual gymnastics.

Either that, or you're turning Marxism on its head by branding a ruling caste an "exploiting class" even though it had features never before seen in any other ruling class, and more similar ruling castes were referred to as "Bonapartist" by Marx in the past.

That position also requires rigorous intellectual gymnastics on your part.

The exploiting class is not a class.

You have built a conclusion based on a false premise. Trotsky did not consider the ruling caste to have been a "exploiting class", so to say "the exploiting class is not a class" is pointless.

Of course as time went by it appeared to more and more people to be more and more absurd.

What is probably most surprising about the crisis in Trotskyism after the Second World War was that it took so long to happen.

Yes, a lot of people were turned off by Trotskyism after World War 2, and the movement took quite a hit.

However, Left-Communism never came close to it in terms of working-class support or achievements given its sectarian and absurd purist positions on pretty much everything, which surprisingly further reduced that already tiny movement.

Devrim

12th February 2009, 17:10

However, Left-Communism never came close to it in terms of working-class support or achievements given its sectarian and absurd purist positions on pretty much everything, which surprisingly further reduced that already tiny movement.

I won't bother about the other comments as I feel they explain the gymnastics better than I could. I would just like to say something on this though.

The first is that it seems to be a very typical response when arguing with left communist posters to say "you are tiny and have no influence". Of course, it doesn't really pass as a political argument, but never mind.

The second is to then project this into the past despite it being completely at odds with the facts of history. As is well know, the left communist organisations in Germany had up to a quarter of a million members and accounted for up to 80% of the membership of the German KPD when they were expelled. The left also dominated in the Italian Party. It is quite telling that in the two countries in Europe which came closest to revolution the left dominated the communist parties. Even later in the 1940s the PCInt in Italy had nearly 50,000 members, hardly insignificant.

Today we only have tiny groups, but we do know that, are honest about it and don't go around exaggerating our membership figures like some organisations, we could mention. We believe that an increase in class struggle will bring a return to the politics of the left.

In contrast in the only place where Trotskyism ever took on the characteristics of a mass workers movement, Sri Lanka, the Trotskyist party promptly joined the government which then put down a peasant uprising at the cost of around 15,000 lives.

Now the fact that one Trotskyist party, the only Trotskyist party ever to develop a mass base, did that doesn't make LZ's arguments incorrect. It does make his pseudo-historical tirade against left communism a little irritating though.

Devrim

Led Zeppelin

12th February 2009, 17:28

I won't bother about the other comments as I feel they explain the gymnastics better than I could. I would just like to say something on this though.

Why? Did you take my comment against Left-Communism personally?

I'm sorry if that is the case, I did not mean it as a personal attack. You decided to post your opinion on the Trotskyist movement, so I replied by providing my opinion about the Left-Communist movement. That is all.

The first is that it seems to be a very typical response when arguing with left communist posters to say "you are tiny and have no influence". Of course, it doesn't really pass as a political argument, but never mind.

No, it doesn't pass as a political argument, but who said that was my intention? I simply replied to what you said; "Of course as time went by it appeared to more and more people to be more and more absurd. What is probably most surprising about the crisis in Trotskyism after the Second World War was that it took so long to happen."

Is it a political argument when you say that Trotsky's position on the USSR "appeared to be more and more absurd by more and more people"?

I do not think so. In fact, I think it is quite similar to me saying that Left-Communist purist positions were considered to be "more and more absurd by more and more people".

The second is to then project this into the past despite it being completely at odds with the facts of history.

Are you claiming that the Left-Communist movement has at any time been more influential than, say, the Trotsykist and Bolshevik movements?

As is well know, the left communist organisations in Germany had up to a quarter of a million members and accounted for up to 80% of the membership of the German KPD when they were expelled. The left also dominated in the Italian Party. It is quite telling that in the two countries in Europe which came closest to revolution the left dominated the communist parties. Even later in the 1940s the PCInt in Italy had nearly 50,000 members, hardly insignificant.

Could you perhaps source those numbers, and please not from a link to a ICC page?

Also, while you post those numbers proudly, why don't you bother comparing it to the number of Bolsheviks/Trotskyists in other countries at the same time? Is it because in relation to those numbers yours pale in comparison?

Today we only have tiny groups, but we do know that, are honest about it and don't go around exaggerating our membership figures like some organisations, we could mention. We believe that an increase in class struggle will bring a return to the politics of the left.

So basically you believe in the future of your movement because it had a medium-sized number of members in two countries about 60 years ago.

That's cool.

In contrast in the only place where Trotskyism ever took on the characteristics of a mass workers movement, Sri Lanka, the Trotskyist party promptly joined the government which then put down a peasant uprising at the cost of around 15,000 lives.

Now that's not very honest. We both know that on the whole there are a lot more Trotskyists than there ever have been Left-Communists, not just now, but also ever since Trotskyism has existed as a tendency.

Now the fact that one Trotskyist party, the only Trotskyist party ever to develop a mass base, did that doesn't make LZ's arguments incorrect. It does make his pseudo-historical tirade against left communism a little irritating though.

I think it's cute that you believe the "Trotskyist movement = Sri Lanka versus Left-Communist movement = Italy + Germany in the 30's and 40's" comparison you made is actually valid.

Devrim

12th February 2009, 18:16

Also, while you post those numbers proudly, why don't you bother comparing it to the number of Bolsheviks/Trotskyists in other countries at the same time? Is it because in relation to those numbers yours pale in comparison?

But we are not talking about comparing it with Bolsheviks, we are talking about Trotskyists. At the time of the revolutionary wave Trotskyism as a current didn't exist, and the left communists were actually members of the RCP (B). Later both the left commuists and the Trotskyists split from the Bolshevik party. By 1946, the height of the PCInt I would imagine that its approximately 48,000 members would have made it bigger than any Trotskyist party in the world. I don't know how big the biggest Trotskyist party was. I am sure that you can compare that figure to the Trotskyist parties though.

Could you perhaps source those numbers, and please not from link to a ICC page?

the left communist organisations in Germany had up to a quarter of a million members

Your KPD embraces, according to its own figures, 500,000 members. But the KPD also admitted (at its last congress), and everyone knows quite well, that the majority are not communists. Let us assume, however, that half of them are communists. In that case, your tactics and those of the Third International have attracted, out of the nine million trade unionists in Germany, 250,000 communists to your party.

But how many communists are there in the Workers Union (AAU), which was founded on the basis of the principles of the KAPD? A ballpark figure: 250,000. Judged by the numbers, our tactics have therefore been just as successful as yours.

But it is not only in terms of numbers that our tactics reveal their superiority.

and accounted for up to 80% of the membership of the German KPD when they were expelled.

I can't find the 80% at the moment, but the fact that it was a majority is easy to find and even admitted by Trotskyist commentators:

This unhappy menage à deux was to last until the expulsion of the group (the majority group at that!) coming to be known as the left-wing communists (Linkskommunisten) at the Heidelberg Congress (October 1919).

In Germany the left wing was excluded from the Communist Party at the party’s second congress which was, held illegally, at Heidelberg in October 1919. The surviving Spartakus leaders, Levi, Meyer and others, had forced through resolutions making acceptance of trade union work and rejection of election “boycotts on principle” a condition of membership. It was done with scant regard for democratic procedures (some of the “left” delegates were allegedly not told the time and place of the meeting) and it cost the party half or more of its growing membership. But it was essential if the party was ever to become a real force and, in particular, it was a necessary condition for the fusion with the left wing of the Independent Social Democrats that was achieved a year later.

Even later in the 1940s the PCInt in Italy had nearly 50,000 members, hardly insignificant.

I couldn't find a source for this in my files, but it is there on Wiki:

The International Communist Party was a left communist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_communism) international which was also described as a Bordigist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadeo_Bordiga) party. The strongest base of the party was Italy, in which, at one point, they had more than 50,000 members.

Please continue LZ. Unfortunately, I don't have much of a taste for continuing one liners and insults with you though.

Devrim

Led Zeppelin

12th February 2009, 18:22

Where have I insulted you? Why is it that you consider attacks on Left-Communism to be attacks against you personally?

Anyway, all you have presented me is a quote where it says that the KPD had as many Left-Communists as supporters of the Bolsheviks, and other quotes saying that it was "half or more". Then a quote from Wiki which I can edit right now if I cared enough.

Those are not the sources I was looking for, but even if you did post solid sources proving that Left-Communists had more members in two countries over 60 years ago, will it change the fact that it did not have more members or more of an influence anywhere else ever since its existence?

No, that won't change.

Dave B

12th February 2009, 19:38

As to from Trotsky;

Bureaucratic autocracy must give place to Soviet democracy. A restoration of the right of criticism, and a genuine freedom of elections, are necessary conditions for the further development of the country. This assumes a revival of freedom of Soviet parties, beginning with the party of Bolsheviks, and a resurrection of the trade unions.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch11.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch11.htm)

Oh come on, given Leon’s record in power eg ‘Trotsky Protests Too Much’ , this has all the sincerity of George Bush going on about Freedom and democracy in Iraq.

On ‘Trade Unions’ there was a dispute between Trotsky and Lenin; in my opinion Trotsky was just trying to carve himself out an alternative power base in the ‘bureaucratically controlled official trade unions’.

Lenin responded;

Why have a Party( bureaucratic caste- state capitalist class) , if industrial management is to be appointed ("mandatory nomination") by the trade unions nine-tenths of whose members are non-Party workers? Bukharin has talked himself into a logical, theoretical and practical implication of a split in the Party, or, rather, a breakaway of the syndicalists from the Party.

Trotsky, who had been "chief" in the struggle, has now been "outstripped" and entirely "eclipsed "by Bukharin, who has thrown the struggle into an altogether new balance by talking himself into a mistake that is much more serious than all of Trotsky’s put together.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/jan/19.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/jan/19.htm)

So, nine-tenths of the membership of even the ‘official trade unions’ aren’t part of the Bolshevik ‘caste’ and should have no say in the ‘industrial management’?

Lenin did in fact write a detailed article on the relationship between the ‘party’ and the trade union or economic demands of the working class under state capitalism as he attempted to square the circle of the Bolsheviks running state capitalism.

Crux

13th February 2009, 16:16

But we are not talking about comparing it with Bolsheviks, we are talking about Trotskyists. At the time of the revolutionary wave Trotskyism as a current didn't exist, and the left communists were actually members of the RCP (B). Later both the left commuists and the Trotskyists split from the Bolshevik party. By 1946, the height of the PCInt I would imagine that its approximately 48,000 members would have made it bigger than any Trotskyist party in the world. I don't know how big the biggest Trotskyist party was. I am sure that you can compare that figure to the Trotskyist parties though.
There are several problems with this assertion. Trotskyism, as in a political group around Trotsky agreeing with his ideas did exist at least from 1902. Also the fact that his influence was considered widespread long before 1917 might tell you something.
Also the Russian leftcommunist current, around the Worker's opposition, the bordigists in italy and the KAPD-group in germany never had any formal relations to each other. The Italian group did have relations to the fourth international but due to the sectarianism of Bordigas group this collaboration broke down.

Devrim

13th February 2009, 18:59

There are several problems with this assertion. Trotskyism, as in a political group around Trotsky agreeing with his ideas did exist at least from 1902. Also the fact that his influence was considered widespread long before 1917 might tell you something.

Well yes, but I don't think that you can really say a Trotskyist current existed at that time.

My point wasn't about whether the Trotskyist current was bigger though. It was about the fact that certain people when they can't address the political points in question tend to end ranting about left communism never having been a relevant force.

I think that I demonstrated that at times when the class has been strong it has been.

Also the Russian leftcommunist current, around the Worker's opposition, the bordigists in italy and the KAPD-group in germany never had any formal relations to each other. The Italian group did have relations to the fourth international but due to the sectarianism of Bordigas group this collaboration broke down.

The thing about the Bordigist and the KAPist currents not having anything to do with each other is basically right. The Kapists thought that the Bordigists were ultra Leninists and the Bordigists thought the KAPists were an anarchosyndicalist deviation.

As for the Bordigists having relations with the Fourth International, this isn't exactly true. The Bordigist current had relations with the International Left Opposition, of which they were a part, until the summer of 1933. They see the reasons for the breakdown of relations very differently than the Trotskyists do. The Fourth International was formed in 1938.

The Kapists did have contact with the Russian communist left, and their doccuments were reprinted in KAPist publications (Workers' Dreadnought in Britain for example). However, they were closer to groups to the left of the Workers' Opposition, and there was some condemnation of the Workers' Opposition as a bureaucratic opposition. The Workers Group of the RCP(B) and other opposition groups in Russia were actually organisationally linked to the KAPists.

Devrim

Dave B

13th February 2009, 19:04

As I have being having a go at the Trotskyist over the state capitalism. I think it is only fair to let Leon ‘the windbag’ Trotsky speak in defence of Soviet Russia is not State Capitalist but only "state Capitalist".

As the Trot readers haven’t been able to put it up for themsevles.

So From the SPGB and World Socialist Movement, longstanding proponents of the state capitalist theory we offer you;

The First Five Years of the Communist International

Volume 2

The New Economic Policy of Soviet Russia and
the Perspectives of the World Revolution

Delivered at the November 14, 1922 Session of
the Fourth World Congress of the Comintern

(Part I)

The Course of the Civil War

The Forces and Resources of the Two Camps

(towards the end)

The alleged "capitulation" of the Soviet power to capitalism is deduced by the Social Democrats not from an analysis of facts and figures, but from vague generalities, as often as not from the term "state capitalism" which we employ in referring to our state economy. In my own opinion this term is neither exact nor happy. Comrade Lenin has already underscored in his report the need of enclosing this term in quotation marks, that is, of using it with the greatest caution.

This is a very important injunction because not everybody is cautious enough.

In Europe this term was interpreted quite erroneously even by Communists.

There are many who imagine that our state industry represents genuine state capitalism, in the strict sense of this term as universally accepted among Marxists. That is not at all the case, If one does speak of state capitalism, then this is done in very big quotation marks, so big that they overshadow the term itself. Why? For a very obvious reason. In using this term it is impermissible to ignore the class character of the state.
It is not unhelpful to bear in mind that the term itself is socialist in its origin. Jaurès and the French reformists in general who emulated him used to talk of the "consistent socialization of the democratic republic".

To this we Marxists replied that so long as political power remained in the hands of the bourgeoisie this socialization was not socialization at all and that it would not lead to socialism but only to state capitalism. To put it differently, the ownership of various factories, railways and so on by diverse capitalists would be superseded by an ownership of the totality of enterprises, railways and so on by the very same bourgeois firm, called the state.

In the same measure as the bourgeoisie retains political power, it will, as a whole, continue to exploit the proletariat through the medium of state capitalism, just as an individual bourgeois exploits, by means of private ownership, "his own" workers. The term "state capitalism" was thus put forward, or at all events, employed polemically by revolutionary Marxists against the reformists, for the purpose of explaining and proving that genuine socialization begins only after the conquest of power by the working class.

The reformists, as you know, built their entire program around reforms. We Marxists never denied socialist reforms. But we said that the epoch of socialist reforms would be inaugurated only after the conquest of power by the proletariat. There was a controversy over this. Today in Russia the power is in the hands of the working class. The most important industries are in the hands of the workers’ state.

No class exploitation exists here, and consequently, neither does capitalism exist although its forms still persist. The industry of the workers’ state is a socialist industry in its tendencies of development, but in order to develop, it utilizes methods which were invented by capitalist economy and which we have far from outlived as yet.

Under a genuine state capitalism, that is, under bourgeois rule, the growth of state capitalism signifies the enrichment of the bourgeois state, its growing power over the working class. In our country, the growth of soviet state industry signifies the growth of socialism itself, a direct strengthening of the power of the proletariat.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/ffyci-2/20.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/ffyci-2/20.htm)

Led Zeppelin

13th February 2009, 19:05

My point wasn't about whether the Trotskyist current was bigger though. It was about the fact that certain people when they can't address the political points in question tend to end ranting about left communism never having been a relevant force.

Yes, certain people do seem to have the tendency to rant and make things up to substitute for political points, and then whine like a child when they get something similar in return, that is;

"Yes, a lot of people were turned off by Trotskyism after World War 2, and the movement took quite a hit. However, Left-Communism never came close to it in terms of working-class support or achievements given its sectarian and absurd purist positions on pretty much everything, which surprisingly further reduced that already tiny movement."

For:

"Of course as time went by it appeared to more and more people to be more and more absurd. What is probably most surprising about the crisis in Trotskyism after the Second World War was that it took so long to happen."

If you don't like other people posting their opinions about your ideological current, then don't post yours about others.

Matina

1st April 2009, 04:06

the SWP could still be considered a Trotskyist party, although we do not refer to ourselves as such.

Even they don't consider themselves to be Trotskyists. Why should we do it?
Anyways in my opinion, if you don't accept the transitional program, the permanent revolution, the analysis on the Soviet Union and the Trotskyist method, then you are not a Trotskyist.

Unfortunately/fortunately the SWP does not accept nothing of the above. Therefore they are not Trotskyists, it is pretty clear to the rest of us. Their attitude towards Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran along with their methods are far from marxism. They are opportunist and centrist.

Random Precision

1st April 2009, 05:07

Even they don't consider themselves to be Trotskyists. Why should we do it?
Anyways in my opinion, if you don't accept the transitional program, the permanent revolution,

I don't think the SWP rejects the permanent revolution.

the analysis on the Soviet Union and the Trotskyist method, then you are not a Trotskyist.

What's the "Trotskyist method"?

Matina

1st April 2009, 17:18

I don't think the SWP rejects the permanent revolution.

They talk about a deflected theory of permanent revolution or some shit.

What's the "Trotskyist method"?

I should have said the marxist method, of not fetishizing 'independent parties'. In many countries they form sectarian groupings which are totaly irrelevant.

BobKKKindle$

1st April 2009, 18:17

They talk about a deflected theory of permanent revolution or some shit.Have you actually read Cliff's essay on the permanent revolution? The SWP doesn't reject the theory, but Cliff developed it by explaining the various ways in which the ability of the working class to carry out democratic demands, followed by socialist revolution, might be limited - the dominance of Stalinist parties, the conciliatory and economist tendencies of trade union leaders, in addition to other factors. The weakness of the working class, combined with the weakness of the bourgeoisie - the main component of Trotsky's original theory - means that democratic tasks, including political independence from the imperialist powers, the development of an industrial base, and the abolition of feudalism through land reform, often fall to a section of the intelligentsia, or the armed forces, because members of both these social strata see themselves as capable of transcending class divisions and fighting for the interests of the national community, as reflected in their slogans. There are numerous examples of deflected permanent revolution taking place - Castro's Cuba, Mao's China, Nasser's Egypt, to name but a few. In all of these cases, a limited number of democratic tasks were carried out, not by the bourgeoisie, or the proletariat, but by individual leaders who belonged to either of the two strata mentioned above. Cliff's development of Trotsky's theory is not meant to imply support for the "stageism" of the Mensheviks - it was a response to empirical evidence.

Louise Michel

1st April 2009, 20:27

But the Cuban revolution was a result not of the weakness of the working class but of the options the existence of the Soviet Union gave to the nationalist July 26th movement. Without the SU the United States could have strangled the Cuban revolution within a year or two. The SU changed the world temporarily - giving the chinese, vietnamese and other nationalist revolutions a possibility that previously didn't exist - ie to ally economically with a non-capitalist super power and expel their own nationalist bourgeoisies. This really isn't related to Trotsky's permanent revolution which is a theory that specifies the need for proletarian revolution in imperialised countries.

CHEtheLIBERATOR

1st April 2009, 23:46

Not at all.I'm aTrotskyist and I'm anti state capitalist.Trotsky and the left opposition were one of the few to fight state capitalism.If anything Stalinist's are state capitalist's

Cumannach

2nd April 2009, 00:04

Trotsky were a fiend truth be known

LOLseph Stalin

2nd April 2009, 00:26

Trotsky were a fiend truth be known

That seems slightly narrow-minded. Any Trot could say the same about Stalin, but I won't because I see good in a few of the things he did although i'm still critical of the man.

Matina

2nd April 2009, 15:45

Have you actually read Cliff's essay on the permanent revolution? The SWP doesn't reject the theory, but Cliff developed it by explaining the various ways in which the ability of the working class to carry out democratic demands, followed by socialist revolution, might be limited - the dominance of Stalinist parties, the conciliatory and economist tendencies of trade union leaders, in addition to other factors. The weakness of the working class, combined with the weakness of the bourgeoisie - the main component of Trotsky's original theory - means that democratic tasks, including political independence from the imperialist powers, the development of an industrial base, and the abolition of feudalism through land reform, often fall to a section of the intelligentsia, or the armed forces, because members of both these social strata see themselves as capable of transcending class divisions and fighting for the interests of the national community, as reflected in their slogans. There are numerous examples of deflected permanent revolution taking place - Castro's Cuba, Mao's China, Nasser's Egypt, to name but a few. In all of these cases, a limited number of democratic tasks were carried out, not by the bourgeoisie, or the proletariat, but by individual leaders who belonged to either of the two strata mentioned above. Cliff's development of Trotsky's theory is not meant to imply support for the "stageism" of the Mensheviks - it was a response to empirical evidence.

Thanks for this. I thought that the SWP had rejected the theory of the permanent revolution. Anyways I still don't agree with this as I think that these revolutions which created deformed workers states as opposed to state capitalist states , were based on the proletariat in alliance with the peasantry but because the USSR existed, the bureaucracy of the USSR managed to make those states according to its own image. I still think that we can understand those revolutions without needing Cliffs theory.
Anyways I am kind of harsh towards the SWP because I dislike their analysis on many issues, including state capitalism, Hamas and Hezbollah and their attitude towards mass organizations, not just in Britain but in many countries.

They are ultra left on various countries, while on other countries they are opportunist, where they assume bureaucratic positions in social-democratic parties and they try to hide their marxism. the fact that they have abandoned Trotskyism is also a factor.

BobKKKindle$

2nd April 2009, 16:20

were based on the proletariat in alliance with the peasantry but because the USSR existed, the bureaucracy of the USSR managed to make those states according to its own image.This may be what you believe, but this isn't the orthodox Trotskyist account of how deformed workers states came into existence. Trotskyists who agreed with Trotsky's analysis on the class character of the USSR as well as the additions made to the theory by other Trotskyists (or those who saw themselves as Trotskyists - Mandel, Pablo, etc.) after WW2 recognized that the proletariats of eastern Europe (and other parts of the world) had almost no role whatsoever in the changes that took place once the Stalinists had established themselves as the dominant political force in each country by eliminating opposition with the aid of the USSR. They were correct in recognizing this - in China, for example, the CCP was comprised almost entirely of peasants and intellectuals when it took power, and the victory of Mao and his comrades did not involve any of the transformations one would normally expect to find as part of a genuine socialist revolution - the workers did not seize control of the means of production, workers councils were not created, and when they entered the cities the CCP even asked the police who had been employed by the KMT to remain at their posts and keep order. The orthodox Trotskyists argued that private property was abolished from above by the Red Army, thereby abolishing capitalism. This is what makes a deformed workers state different from a degenerated workers state - in the case of the latter, the proletariat was in power at some point in time, but was then removed by the rising bureaucracy. This argument is problematic because it means that capitalism can be overthrown without the proletariat being conscious of its historical mission, and suggests that it would be progressive and advantageous for the proletariat if the USSR militarily annexed other countries and imposed its own system of government, even if doing so invoked anti-imperialist resistance - as occurred in Afghanistan during the 1980s.