Stalinism (http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#stalinism):
In contemporary parlance, the word “Stalinism” has come to embody a range of ideologies, specific political positions, forms of societal organization, and political tendencies. That makes getting at the core definition of “Stalinism” difficult, but not impossible.
First and foremost, Stalinism must be understood as the politics of a political stratum. Specifically, Stalinism is the politics of the bureaucracy that hovers over a workers' state. Its first manifestation was in the Soviet Union, where Stalinism arose when sections of the bureaucracy began to express their own interests against those of the working class, which had created the workers' state through revolution to serve its class interests.
Soviet Russia was an isolated workers' state, and its developmental problems were profound. The socialist movement–including the Bolshevik leaders in Russia–had never confronted such problems. Chief among these was that Russia was a backward, peasant-dominated country, the “weakest link in the capitalist chain,” and had to fight for its survival within an imperialist world. This challenge was compounded by the defeat of the revolution in Europe, particularly in Germany, and the isolation of the Soviet workers' state from the material aid that could have been provided by a stronger workers' state. But the pressures of imperialism were too great.
From a social point of view, then, Stalinism is the expression of these pressures of imperialism within the workers' state. The politics of Stalinism flow from these pressures.
The political tenets of Stalinism revolve around the theory of socialism in one country–developed by Stalin to counter the Bolshevik theory that the survival of the Russian Revolution depended on proletarian revolutions in Europe. In contradistinction, the Stalinist theory stipulates that a socialist society can be achieved within a single country.
In April 1924, in the first edition of his book Foundations of Leninism, Stalin had explicitly rejected the idea that socialism could be constructed in one country. He wrote: “Is it possible to attain the final victory of socialism in one country, without the combined efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries? No, it is not. The efforts of one country are enough for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. This is what the history of our revolution tells us. For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially a peasant country like ours, are not enough. For this we must have the efforts of the proletariat of several advanced countries. Such, on the whole, are the characteristic features of the Leninist theory of the proletarian revolution.”
In August 1924, as Stalin was consolidating his power in the Soviet Union, a second edition of the same book was published. The text just quoted had been replaced with, in part, the following: “Having consolidated its power, and taking the lead of the peasantry, the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society.” And by November 1926, Stalin had completely revised history, stating: “The party always took as its starting point the idea that the victory of socialism ... can be accomplished with the forces of a single country.”
Leon Trotsky, in The Third International After Lenin, called the Stalinist concept of “socialism one country” a “reactionary theory” and characterized its “basis” as one that“sums up to sophistic interpretations of several lines from Lenin on the one hand, and to a scholastic interpretation of the 'law of uneven development' on the other. By giving a correct interpretation of the historic law as well as of the quotations [from Lenin] in question,” Trotsky continued, “we arrive at a directly opposite conclusion, that is, the conclusion that was reached by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and all of us, including Stalin and Bukharin, up to 1925."
Stalinism had uprooted the very foundations of Marxism and Leninism.
From “socialism in one country” flow the two other main tenets of Stalinist politics. First is that the workers' movement–given the focus on building socialism in one country (i.e., the Soviet Union)–must adapt itself to whatever is in the best interests of that focus at any given moment. Hence we find the Stalinists engaged in “a series of contradictory zigzags” (Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed), from confrontation with imperialism to détente and from seeming support for the working-class struggle to outright betrayal of the workers. In other words, Russia's own economic development comes first, above an international policy of revolution–which was the Bolshevik perspective. The second is the idea of revolution in “stages” –that the “national-democratic revolution” must be completed before the socialist revolution takes place. This, too, runs contrary to Marxism. But because of this theory and as the expression of imperialism within the workers' state–and, by extension, within the world workers' movement–we find the Stalinists assigning to the national bourgeoisie a revolutionary role.
The case of Indonesia in 1965 affords an ideal illustration of the bankruptcy and treachery of the “two-stage theory.” As class tensions mounted among the workers and the peasantry, and the masses began to rise up against the shaky regime of President Sukarno, the Stalinist leadership in Beijing told the Indonesian masses and their mass organization the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) to tie their fate to the national bourgeoisie. In October, as many as 1 million workers and peasants were slaughtered in a CIA-organized coup led by General Suharto, which swept aside the Sukarno, crushed the rising mass movements, and installed a brutal military dictatorship.
The “two-stage theory” has also propelled the Stalinists into “popular fronts” with so-called“progressive”elements of the bourgeois class to “advance” the first revolutionary stage. Examples include Stalinist support (through the Communist Party, USA) to President Roosevelt 1930s. And, taking this orientation to its logical conclusion, the Communist Party in the United States consistently supports Democratic Party candidates for office, including the presidency.
The theory of “socialism in one country” and the policies that flowed from it propelled a transformation of Soviet foreign policy under Stalin. The Bolshevik revolutionary strategy, based on support for the working classes of all countries and an effort through the Communist International to construct Communist Parties as revolutionary leaderships throughout the world, gave way to deal-making and maneuvers with bourgeois governments, colonial “democrats” like Chiang Kai-shek in China, and the trade union bureaucracies.
In his 1937 essay “Stalinism and Bolshevism,” Trotsky wrote: “The experience of Stalinism does not refute the teaching of Marxism but confirms it by inversion. The revolutionary doctrine which teaches the proletariat to orient itself correctly in situations and to profit actively by them, contains of course no automatic guarantee of victory. But victory is possible only through the application of this doctrine.” At best, one can say that the Stalinist orientation has not been one of orienting “correctly."
In terms of the organization of a state, Stalinist policies are quite clear: democratic rights threaten the position of the bureaucracy, and hence democracy is incompatible with Stalinism. In basic terms on a world scale, the forces of Stalinism have done everything in their power to prevent socialist revolution.
Trotskyism (http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/t/r.htm#trotskyism):
Trotskyism is a Marxist theory whose adherents aim to be in the vanguard (http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/v/a.htm#vanguard) of the working class, particularly as opposed to Stalinism (http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#stalinism) and Social Democracy (http://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://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://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.
Historical Development: Named after Leon Trotsky (http://marxists.org/glossary/people/t/r.htm#trotsky-leon), the leader of the Left Opposition (http://marxists.org/glossary/orgs/l/e.htm#left-opposition) within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (http://marxists.org/glossary/orgs/s/o.htm#soviet-government), Trotskyism is the current of Marxism which originated in the International Left Opposition - those members of the Communist International who solidarised with Trotsky's positions in the late 1920s as opposed to Stalin's politics. After the victory of Hitler in Germany in the early 1930s (See Trotsky's writings on the subject (http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/index.htm)), the Trotskyists went on to found a new, Fourth International in opposition to the Third (Communist) International. Though the Trotskyists remained very isolated for many years, in the 1960s many Trotskyist groups were able to build viable organisations at a time when Communist parties were in decline.
The Communist International (http://marxists.org/glossary/orgs/c/o.htm#communist-international) was always an instrument of foreign policy of the Soviet Union, but in the earliest days this meant the building of communist parties whose aim was to emulate the Bolsheviks and make socialist revolution in their own country. Later, the Comintern became an instrument for bargaining and diplomacy rather than the fostering of revolution. The leaderships of national Communist parties were bureaucratically replaced by orders from Moscow and the serious disputes taking place within the Soviet party misrepresented to the young parties of the Comintern.
The first Trotskyists were people like James Cannon who had visited the Soviet Union as loyal delegates of their Communist Party, but then, having witnessed the struggle taking place within the Soviet party, returned to their home country and set up International Left Opposition groupings.
The issues at this time concerned the reasons for the failure of the German Revolution in 1923 (http://marxists.org/subject/germany-1918-23/index.htm), the conduct of the target="_top"1926 General Strike in Britain (http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/britain/index.htm), and whether the situation in Europe was ripe for revolution (http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1928/3rd/index.htm), and the tactics of the Chinese Revolution in 1926 (http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/china/index.htm) and relations between the communists and nationalists.
Until the mid-1930s, these international supporters of Trotsky continued to argue within the Communist Parties of the different countries, even though they were all expelled from membership, vilified and often physically attacked if not murdered. The aim of the Trotskyists until the mid-1930s was to change the leadership and policies of the Soviet Union and the Communist International, and return it to a Marxist orientation, rather than to set up a rival organisation.
The failure of the Comintern to bring about a United Front (http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/u/n.htm#united-front) between Communists and Social Democrats in Germany in the 1930s, opening the door to Hitler, was a turning point. Trotsky remarked, however, that it was not so much that this grave error had been made, but rather that within the ranks of both the leadership and the rank-and-file of the Communist International there was neither recognition of this mistake, nor any attempt to correct it. This, according to Trotsky, meant that the Comintern was "dead for the purposes of Revolution (http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1935/xx/fi.htm)".
Accordingly, the Fourth International was founded in 1938 (http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/index.htm). The aim of the Fourth International was to defend the Soviet Union as a workers' state, independent of the capitalist powers with nationalised means of production controlled by the working class, while at the same time, struggling to overthrow the Stalinist government of the Soviet Union.
The Fourth International suffered badly during World War Two. Not only was its leader, Leon Trotsky, assassinated by a Stalinist agent in August 1940, but many of its members were either murdered, died fighting fascism, or were betrayed to the Nazis by their Communist Party rivals.
After the War, the Red Army soon found itself in control of half of Europe. Despite Stalin's aim to restore capitalist governments in Eastern Europe as a buffer between the Soviet Union and the West, capitalism was soon overthrown in these countries and pro-Soviet, already-bureaucratised, "communist" governments installed.
This posed problems for the small remaining forces of Trotskyism. They had predicted that the War would be followed by revolutions, but they had not expected that the Red Army would be leading them. These new states were characterised as "deformed workers states" by analogy with the Soviet Union which they described as a "degenerated workers state."
The Fourth International grew only slowly for two decades after the War, while at the same time it had split into several competing factions. However, the Hungarian Uprising (http://marxists.org/glossary/events/h/u.htm#hungarian-uprising) in 1956 and the subsequent Soviet invasion of Hungary, created an opening in which a number of leading Communist Party intelligentsia in countries around the world switched to Trotskyism. Later, when the Red Army invaded Czechoslovakia to put down the "Prague Spring (http://marxists.org/glossary/events/p/r.htm)" the Trotskyists made more gains. The events of 1968 in fact triggered widespread, new social movements and working class struggles, and the Trotskyist parties were well placed to intervene in these events, and grew in strength.
Surprisingly perhaps, the crisis in the Communist Parties in the late-1980s and early 1990s, which culminated in the collapse of the Soviet Union itself, and accompanied by the dissolution of many Communist Parties around the world, also affected the Trotskyist parties. However, many have survived this change of terrain, and Trotskyist parties are to be found all over the world today, and in some countries are larger and more active than those remaining of the former parties of the Comintern.
See Also: Encyclopedia of Trotskyism Online (http://marxists.org/history/etol/index.htm)
Anarcho-syndicalism (http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/a/n.htm#anarcho-syndicalists):
synonyms: Revolutionary Unionism, syndicalism
“Anarcho-Syndicalists are of the opinion that political parties are not fitted . . . 1. To enforce the demands of the producers for the safeguarding and raising of their standard of living [or] 2. To acquaint the workers with the technical management of production and economic life in general and prepare them to take the socio-economic organism into their own hands and shape it according to socialist principles . . . According to their conceptions the trade union has to be the spearhead of the labour movement, toughened by daily combats and permeated by a socialist spirit. Only in the realm of economy are the workers able to display their full strength; for it is their activity as producers which holds together the whole social structure and guarantees the existence of society. Only as a producer and creator of social wealth does the worker become aware of her strength. In solidarity union with her follows she creates the great phalanx of militant labour, aflame with the spirit of freedom and animated by the ideal of social justice. For the Anarcho-Syndicalists the labour syndicates are the most fruitful germs of a future society, the elementary school of Socialism in general. Every new social structure creates organs for itself in the body of the old organism; without this prerequisite every social evolution is unthinkable.”
—Rudolf Rocker from Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism
Among the various strains of Anarchism (http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/a/n.htm#anarchism), the most successful in terms of number of adherents, impact on the class struggle and, perhaps, it’s legacy, is Anarcho-Syndicalism. Anarcho-Syndicalism differs from “simple” anarchism mostly in the methods to achieve an anarchist society. The Anarcho-syndicalist sees the working class specifically as the means to achieve the anarchist society, through the organization of the workers in to revolutionary unions. These unions would be both the instrument for the overthrow of the capitalist order and the administrative apparatus of a future society. This tie to the organized working class gives anarcho-syndicalists something in common with Marxists who also view the working class as the motive force for revolution.
Anarcho-Syndicalism’s history traces itself back to the originators of Anarchism of M. Bakunin’s (http://marxists.org/glossary/people/b/a.htm#michael-bakunin) day and the Paris Commune (http://marxists.org/glossary/orgs/p/a.htm#paris-commune) of 1871. The divergences with other strains of anarchism began to coalesce in Spain and France and by the end of the 19th century, mass based Anarcho-Syndicalist unions existed in both countries with a strong influence in United States, the Italy and Argentina. But is in the former three countries, not the latter two, where Anarcho-Syndicalism can really be defined through example.
France—The CGT
In France Anarcho-Syndicalism took on the term “syndicalism” or “revolutionary-syndicalism”. Syndicalism, as a term, has meaning in France in two ways: one, as simple “unionism” and the other, as the revolutionary program of Anarcho-Syndicalism. The revolutionary-syndicalists of France founded one of the oldest trade unions in the world today: the Confederation Generale du Travail or CGT. The CGT [today the union is lead by the French Communist Party] was convened at the 1906 CGT Congress at Amiens.
Based on what was quickly to be known as the Charter of Amiens, the CGT became the premier revolutionary union in the world with over a hundred thousand members. The Charter of Amiens, defines, in essence, what Anarcho-Syndicalism stood for:
“The Congress clarifies this theoretical affirmation by the following points: In its day-to-day demands, syndicalism seeks the coordination of workers efforts, the increase of workers well-being by the achievement of immediate improvements, such as the reduction of working hours, the increase of wages, etc.
But this task is only one aspect of the work of syndicalism: it prepares for complete emancipation, which can be realised only by expropriating the capitalist class: it sanctions the general strike as its means of action and it maintains that the trade union, today an organisation of resistance, will in the future be the organisation of production and distribution, the basis of social reorganisation. The Congress declares that this double task, the day-to-day and the future task, dervies from the position of wage-earners, which weighs upon the working class and which charges all workers, whatever their political and philosophical opinions and inclinations, with the duty to belong to the essential organisation, the trade union.”
—Charter of Amiens, 1906
Thus this Charter defines anarcho-syndicalism in clearly anarchist terms: destroying the power of the capitalist political-economy and the ending of exploitation and in syndicalist terms by seeing the organized working class in it’s trade unions as the instrument of this change and as the means to organize this new society. It is also notably anarchist in it’s complete lack of a political orientation: no advocacy of a workers or communist party, of replacing the capitalist state with that of a workers state, or of a dictatorship of the proletariat that the Marxists advocate. Anarcho-syndicalists remained in control of the CGT until an alliance with the newly-created French Communist Party ended in 1920, and the anarcho-syndicalists departed from the CGT.
Spain—The CNT
“Long before syndicalism became a popular term in the French labour movement of the late 1890s, it already existed in the early Spanish labour movement. The anarchist influenced Spanish Federation of the old International Working Mens Association, in my opinion, was distinctly syndicalist. At the founding congress of the Spanish Federation at Barcelona in June 1870, the “commission on the theme of the social organization of the workers” proposed a structure that would form a model for all later anarcho-syndicalist labour unions in Spain, including the CNT. The commission suggested a typical syndicalist dual structure: organization by trade and organization by locality. Local trade organisations (Secciones deoficio) grouped together all workers from a common enterprise and vocation into large occupational federations (Uniones de oficio) whose primary function was to struggle around economic grievances and working conditions. A local organization of a miscellaneous trades gathered up all those workers from different vocations whose numbers were too small to constitute effective organisations along vocational lines. Paralleling these vocational organisations, in every community and region where the International Working Mens Association was represented, the different local Secciones were grouped together, irrespective of trade, into local geographic bodies (Federaciones locales) whose function was avowedly revolutionary—the administration of social and economic life on a decentralised libertarian basis.”
—Murry Boochin’s “An Overview of Spanish Anarchism”.
Because it was anarchism, or rather Anarcho-syndicalism and not Marxist socialism that determined the metabolism of the Spanish labor movement—the great general strikes that swept repeatedly over Spain before and after WWI, the recurring insurrections in Barcelona and in the towns and villages of Andalusia, and the gun battles between labor militants and employer-hired thugs in the Mediterranean coastal cities, the organized anarcho-syndicalists eventually formed the Central National de Trabajo (CNT) in 1911.
The CNT became the dominant part of the life of most Spanish workers and a large number of the landless peasantry. It became a way of life to a proletariat committed to the libertarian values of Anarchism.
In July of 1936, at the time of the Civil War, the CNT had well over a million members, dwarfing it’s Socialist Party rival union, the UGT, 2 to 1. Dominating life in and around Barcelona and the provinces of Aragon and Catalunya, the Catalan working class was almost synonymous with the CNT. When the shooting started by the uprising of Francisco Franco’s Falange, Civil guard and army, the working class of Barcelona rose up and in a matter of a day, completely smashed the fascist forces in that city and surrounding province. Seizing factories by the hundreds and implementing syndicalist organsization, Catalunya become a libertarian experiment involving millions of workers and their families. Factories were run by democratically elected workers councils and people worked according their ability and consumed according to their needs. Productivity actually went up in both agricultural sectors and industrial production. All this was ended by Franco’s triumph in 1939.
United States—The IWW
The Industrial Workers of the World was a US based anarcho-syndicalist organization formed in 1905 by anarchists, syndicalists, socialists and others. Reaching perhaps 100,000 members in 1914, it represented Anarcho-syndicalism as applied to the US working class, itself a very diverse and heterogeneous working class. While not explicitly calling itself “syndicalist” or “anarcho-syndicalist” it was viewed by most in and out of the workers movement as such. From the preamble of the IWW:
"We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.
These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.
Instead of the conservative motto, “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, “Abolition of the wage system.”
It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old."
Anarcho-syndicalism remains a dominant trend among the more general milieu of Anarchism. In Sweden and Spain they maintain a hold over various sectors of the working class of those countries, especially in the maritime industry, a traditional stronghold for Anarcho-syndicalism around the world.
See Anarchism Subject Archive (http://marxists.org/subject/anarchism/index.htm).
For more information on Anarcho-syndicalism, see the Anarchosyndicalism101 web site (http://flag.blackened.net/huelga/) or the IWW (http://www.iww.org/) web site.
More definitions (http://marxists.org/glossary/index.htm).
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