Trotskyist Roots of 'State Capitalism'

[Kassad]

Using the United Kingdom and the United States as an example, the two largest socialist organizations (Socialist Workers Party and the International Socialist Organization, respectively), both described as Trotskyist organizations, uphold the theory that the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc and modern states claiming to be socialist (Cuba, China etc.) were/are 'state capitalist.' In The Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky described the Soviet Union as a 'degenerated workers state,' which other Trotskyist tendencies such as Committee for a Workers International and the International Marxist Tendency continue to uphold, along with varying beliefs of other states being 'degenerated/deformed workers states.' So basically, my question comes down to this. To Trotskyists who uphold the theory of 'state capitalism,' where does the Trotskyist origin of this theory and term originate? Did Trotsky himself ever use the term, or do defenders of the theory of state capitalism believe Trotsky's analysis on some subjects to be flawed?

[Dave B]

Well actually Trotsky did talk about state capitalist soviet Russia in 1924, a little bit more candidly than in his later days;




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.



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

I think Trotsky is twisting the truth a bit here, so from Lenin and his theory of state capitalism, although I had to sit and think about which one to use.

V. I. Lenin Eleventh Congress Of The R.C.P.(B.I)

March 27-April 2, 1922






But in those old books you will not find what we are discussing; they deal with the state capitalism that exists under capitalism. Not a single book has been written about state capitalism under communism. It did not occur even to Marx to write a word on this subject; and he died without leaving a single precise statement or definite instruction on it. That is why we must overcome the difficulty entirely by ourselves. And if we make a general mental survey of our press and see what has been written about state capitalism, as I tried to do when I was preparing this report, we shall be convinced that it is missing the target, that it is looking in an entirely wrong direction.


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

You could of course argue that it went from state capitalism under Lenin to a degenerate workers state under Stalin.

I am not sure what kind of sectarian reaction that hypothesis might produce.


I think the Trotskyists 1928+ state capitalism theory came from Cliff in his attempt to approach the truth and the bloody obvious.

I am definitely getting the groundhog day thing, I am sure I have done the Volume III co-operatives thing before as well.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

You might find these of some help in answering your question:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/hallas/works/1973/xx/fidecline.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/hallas/works/1976/09/sovietunion.htm

[redasheville]

Using the United Kingdom and the United States as an example, the two largest socialist organizations (Socialist Workers Party and the International Socialist Organization, respectively), both described as Trotskyist organizations, uphold the theory that the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc and modern states claiming to be socialist (Cuba, China etc.) were/are 'state capitalist.' In The Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky described the Soviet Union as a 'degenerated workers state,' which other Trotskyist tendencies such as Committee for a Workers International and the International Marxist Tendency continue to uphold, along with varying beliefs of other states being 'degenerated/deformed workers states.' So basically, my question comes down to this. To Trotskyists who uphold the theory of 'state capitalism,' where does the Trotskyist origin of this theory and term originate? Did Trotsky himself ever use the term, or do defenders of the theory of state capitalism believe Trotsky's analysis on some subjects to be flawed?

It stems from a belief that Trotsky's analysis was ultimately flawed, that by 1928 the Soviet Union had experienced a bureaucratic counter-revolution. It wasn't the only thing that Cliff et al rejected from Trotsky. The theory of "deflected permanent revolution" was an attempt to reconcile the theory of permanent revolution with the experience of Chine in 1949, Cuba in 1959, etc.

The links to the Duncan Hallas pieces will explain it in more depth. As will the book "Trotskyism After Trotsky" which is probably the best basic intro to what makes the IS tradition distinct from other Trotskyist tendencies (and not simply vis a vis Trotsky's particular writings).

Here is the link:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1999/trotism/index.htm

[Random Precision]

To Trotskyists who uphold the theory of 'state capitalism,' where does the Trotskyist origin of this theory and term originate? Did Trotsky himself ever use the term, or do defenders of the theory of state capitalism believe Trotsky's analysis on some subjects to be flawed?

Basically what caused Trotskyists to take a fresh look at the nature of the USSR was the situation at the end of World War II. Trotsky had made a series of now-infamous predictions about the state of the world after the war ended before he died. The key ones were that the Stalinist bureaucracy would not survive as it was, it would either go down to counterrevolution or to a fresh workers' revolution in Russia. This was part of what he predicted would be a fresh wave of revolutions, like the one that took place after the end of the last imperialist war.

Clearly none of these things happened. Not only had the Stalinist bureaucracy had survived intact, it had become a superpower, with its own client states in Eastern Europe. The Eastern European states were virtually identical to the shape of the Stalinist USSR, however there had not been any revolutions in those nations, in most the Red Army marched in and handed power over to the Communists. Trotsky had called the USSR a "degenerated workers state" because there was a proletarian revolution in Russia, which in his view still had the basic forms of a socialist economy although it was led by a counterrevolutionary bureaucratic clique rather than the working class. Trotskyists after WW2 had to deal with the problem that if you could get something like that without a revolution, that begs the question whether you can really call the satellites, and therefore the USSR itself, a workers' state.

So state capitalist Trotskyists are concerned with trying to find out what the USSR and other "socialist" states really were, rather than dogmatically clinging to an outdated analysis. I would argue that the "orthodox Trotskyist" conception of a deformed workers state is un-Marxist since there's a fundamental contradiction in seeing basic forms of workers' power without a revolution having taken place.

The Cliff conception of state capitalism, which is upheld by the SWP and ISO is not the only Trotskyist take on the USSR as capitalist. There was another model by CLR James and Raya Dunayevskaya, known as the Johnson/Forrest theory, and also the League for the Revolutionary Party in the US has its own take on it.

[redasheville]

The Cliff conception of state capitalism, which is upheld by the SWP and ISO is not the only Trotskyist take on the USSR as capitalist. There was another model by CLR James and Raya Dunayevskaya, known as the Johnson/Forrest theory, and also the League for the Revolutionary Party in the US has its own take on it.

The Johson-Forrest Tendency, it should be noted, eventually rejected Trotskyism in favor of a Marxist politics that emphasized the alienation that a worker experiences at the point of production.

[Niccolò Rossi]

The Cliff conception of state capitalism, which is upheld by the SWP and ISO is not the only Trotskyist take on the USSR as capitalist. There was another model by CLR James and Raya Dunayevskaya, known as the Johnson/Forrest theory, and also the League for the Revolutionary Party in the US has its own take on it.

It also should be noted that the analysis of statified capitalism in the so-called 'socialist states' made by the LRP is actually based primarily on the work of the Johnson/Forrest tendency. The LRP critique the IS anaylsis of state capitalism as being a 'third-system' theory. For more on the LRP's analysis, see 'The Life and Death of Stalinism' by Walter Daum (http://www.lrp-cofi.org/book/contents.html) (Chapter 1 and 2 of which are now avaliable from the LRP website in English, aswell as Chapter 1 to 5 for those that read Spanish).

It should also be remembered that it was the Communist Left, along with the 'impossiblists' and certain elements of anarchism which made the earliest analyses of state capitalism, over two decades before any of the Trotskyist movement, all of which happily gain their defense to Soviet imperialism in WWII.

[redasheville]

It should also be remembered that it was the Communist Left, along with the 'impossiblists' and certain elements of anarchism which made the earliest analyses of state capitalism, over two decades before any of the Trotskyist movement, all of which happily gain their defense to Soviet imperialism in WWII.

So did Social Democrats *shrugs*

Can you point me to any left communist/anarchist analysis of the SU that provide the basis for why they thought that it was state capitalist(similiar to Cliff's "State Capitalism in Russia" and James' "State Capitalism and World Revolution)? To my knowledge, there aren't really any.

[Revy]

Lenin goes into detail on the subject of the "state capitalism in the proletarian state" here (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/dec/30.htm) while writing on the New Economic Policy.

Excerpt:



In particular, a free market and capitalism, both subject to state control, are now being permitted and are developing; on the other hand, the socialised state enterprises are being put on what is called a profit basis, i. e., they are being reorganised on commercial lines, which, in view of the general cultural backwardness and exhaustion of the country, will, to a greater or lesser degree, inevitably give rise to the impression among the masses that there is an antagonism of interest between the management of the different enterprises and the workers employed in them.

[Revy]

Here (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/jan/06.htm) Lenin says a number of interesting things (which I bolded.) Take from it what you will.



Whenever I wrote about the New Economic Policy I always quoted the article on state capitalism which I wrote in 1918 ["Left-Wing” Childishness (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm) and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality; part III]. This has more than once aroused doubts in the minds of certain young comrades but their doubts were mainly on abstract political points.

It seemed to them that the term “state capitalism” could not be applied to a system under which the means of production were owned by the working-class, a working-class that held political power. They did not notice, however, that I use the term “state capitalism", firstly, to connect historically our present position with the position adopted in my controversy with the so-called Left Communists; also, I argued at the time that state capitalism would be superior to our existing economy. It was important for me to show the continuity between ordinary state capitalism and the unusual, even very unusual, state capitalism to which I referred in introducing the reader to the New Economic Policy. Secondly, the practical purpose was always important to me. And the practical purpose of our New Economic Policy was to lease out concessions. In the prevailing circumstances, concessions in our country would unquestionably have been a pure type of state capitalism. That is how I argued about state capitalism.

But there is another aspect of the matter for which we may need state capitalism, or at least a comparison with it. It is a question of cooperatives.
In the capitalist state, cooperatives are no doubt collective capitalist institutions. Nor is there any doubt that under our present economic conditions, when we combine private capitalist enterprises—but in no other way than nationalized land and in no other way than under the control of the working-class state—with enterprises of the consistently socialist type (the means of production, the land on which the enterprises are situated, and the enterprises as a whole belonging to the state), the question arises about a third type of enterprise, the cooperatives, which were not formally regarded as an independent type differing fundamentally from the others. Under private capitalism, cooperative enterprises differ from capitalist enterprises as collective enterprises differ from private enterprises. Under state capitalism, cooperative enterprises differ from state capitalist enterprises, firstly, because they are private enterprises, and, secondly, because they are collective enterprises. Under our present system, cooperative enterprises differ from private capitalist enterprises because they are collective enterprises, but do not differ from socialist enterprises if the land on which they are situated and means of production belong to the state, i.e., the working-class.
This circumstance is not considered sufficiently when cooperatives are discussed. It is forgotten that owing to the special features of our political system, our cooperatives acquire an altogether exceptional significance. If we exclude concessions, which, incidentally, have not developed on any considerable scale, cooperation under our conditions nearly always coincides fully with socialism.

Let me explain what I mean. Why were the plans of the old cooperators, from Robert Owen onwards, fantastic? Because they dreamed of peacefully remodeling contemporary society into socialism without taking account of such fundamental questions as the class struggle, the capture of political power by the working-class, the overthrow of the rule of the exploiting class. That is why we are right in regarding as entirely fantastic this “cooperative” socialism, and as romantic, and even banal, the dream of transforming class enemies into class collaborators and class war into class peace (so-called class truce) by merely organizing the population in cooperative societies.

Undoubtedly we were right from the point of view of the fundamental task of the present day, for socialism cannot be established without a class struggle for the political power and a state.

But see how things have changed now that the political power is in the hands of the working-class, now that the political power of the exploiters is overthrown and all the means of production (except those which the workers' state voluntarily abandons on specified terms and for a certain time to the exploiters in the form of concessions) are owned by the working-class.

Now we are entitled to say that for us the mere growth of cooperation (with the “slight” exception mentioned above) is identical with the growth of socialism, and at the same time we have to admit that there has been a radical modification in our whole outlook on socialism. The radical modification is this; formerly we placed, and had to place, the main emphasis on the political struggle, on revolution, on winning political power, etc. Now the emphasis is changing and shifting to peaceful, organizational, “cultural” work. I should say that emphasis is shifting to educational work, were it not for our international relations, were it not for the fact that we have to fight for our position on a worldscale. If we leave that aside, however, and confine ourselves to internal economic relations, the emphasis in our work is certainly shifting to education.

Two main tasks confront us, which constitute the epoch—to reorganize our machinery of state, which is utterly useless, in which we took over in its entirety from the preceding epoch; during the past five years of struggle we did not, and could not, drastically reorganize it. Our second task is educational work among the peasants. And the economic object of this educational work among the peasants is to organize the latter in cooperative societies. If the whole of the peasantry had been organized in cooperatives, we would by now have been standing with both feet on the soil of socialism. But the organization of the entire peasantry in cooperative societies presupposes a standard of culture, and the peasants (precisely among the peasants as the overwhelming mass) that cannot, in fact, be achieved without a cultural revolution.

Our opponents told us repeatedly that we were rash in undertaking to implant
socialism in an insufficiently cultured country. But they were misled by our having started from the opposite end to that prescribed by theory (the theory of pedants of all kinds), because in our country the political and social revolution preceded the cultural revolution, that very cultural revolution which nevertheless now confronts us.

This cultural revolution would now suffice to make our country a completely socialist country; but it presents immense difficulties of a purely cultural (for we are illiterate) and material character (for to be cultured we must achieve a certain development of the material means of production, we must have a certain material base).
January 6, 1923

[Devrim]

To Trotskyists who uphold the theory of 'state capitalism,' where does the Trotskyist origin of this theory and term originate?

The way I remember Tony Cliff telling it was that he was lying in bed one morning and suddenly realised 'like he was struck between both eyes with a diamond' and shouted out to Chanie something like 'I've got it'.

Of course the term had been used before, in the debates in the Bolshevik party as early as 1918:


We stand for the construction of the proletarian society by the class creativity of the workers themselves, not by the ukases of the captains of industry. . . if the proletariat itself does not know how to create the necessary prerequisites for the socialist organisation of labour no one can do this for it and no one can compel it to do this. The stick, if raised against the workers, will find itself in the hands of a social force which is either under the influence of another social class or is in the hands of the soviet power; but the soviet power will then be forced to seek support against the proletariat from another class (e.g. the peasantry) and by this it will destroy itself as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Socialism and socialist organisation will be set up by the proletariat itself, or they will not be set up at all - something else will be set up - state capitalism.


So did Social Democrats *shrugs*

I don't think they did.


Basically what caused Trotskyists to take a fresh look at the nature of the USSR was the situation at the end of World War II. Trotsky had made a series of now-infamous predictions about the state of the world after the war ended before he died. The key ones were that the Stalinist bureaucracy would not survive as it was, it would either go down to counterrevolution or to a fresh workers' revolution in Russia. This was part of what he predicted would be a fresh wave of revolutions, like the one that took place after the end of the last imperialist war.

Yes, I think this, along with the IV International siding with the allied imperialists in the war, was what caused the crisis in Trotskyism in the late 40s, which as well as producing the IS and the Johnston/Forrest tendency in the English speaking world, also caused various other tendencies to break with Trotskyism, for example the groups around Cardan/Castoriadas in France, Munis and Trotsky's wife in Mexico, and him later in Spain, Sneevliet in Germany and Stirinas in Greece.


Can you point me to any left communist/anarchist analysis of the SU that provide the basis for why they thought that it was state capitalist(similiar to Cliff's "State Capitalism in Russia" and James' "State Capitalism and World Revolution)? To my knowledge, there aren't really any.

Referring to left communists, it is not really the way we work. The documents can be found in numerous articles from our press, resolutions of organisations, and polemics stretching back to the twenties. The idea of the big book by the 'leader' isn't the way we do it though.

Also, we don't see State Capitalism as something that existed only in the old Soviet Union and its satillities, but as a global tendency, of which these were the countries where it was most advanced.

An article which I usually recomend on this subject is the one from the English journal 'Aufheben', which explains various theories about the Soviet Union:

http://libcom.org/library/WhatwastheUSSRAufheben1 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://libcom.org/library/WhatwastheUSSRAufheben1)
http://libcom.org/library/WhatwastheUSSRAufheben2 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://libcom.org/library/WhatwastheUSSRAufheben2)
http://libcom.org/library/WhatwastheUSSRAufheben3 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://libcom.org/library/WhatwastheUSSRAufheben3)
http://libcom.org/library/WhatwastheUSSRAufheben4 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://libcom.org/library/WhatwastheUSSRAufheben4)

Devrim

[Niccolò Rossi]

So did Social Democrats *shrugs*

I second Devrim here. Could you elaborate on this claim?


Can you point me to any left communist/anarchist analysis of the SU that provide the basis for why they thought that it was state capitalist(similiar to Cliff's "State Capitalism in Russia" and James' "State Capitalism and World Revolution)? To my knowledge, there aren't really any.

As you and Devrim point out, the communist left has not made contributions on the question at such great length in any single volume as the likes of Cliff, James or Dunayevskaya.

From the perspective of the ICC, the most comprehensive text on the subject would be The evolution of capitalism and the new perspective (http://en.internationalism.org/ir/21/internationalisme-1952) written by the GCF (one of the immediate predecessors to the ICC) and published in Internationalisme n°46, Summer 1952.

A good text on the Italian Left (aswell as other elements of the communist left) and it's grappling with the Russian question is The Russian Revolution and the Italian Left 1933-46 (http://en.internationalism.org/ir/106_enigma.html), International Review n°106.

Regarding the series of articles by Aufheben; Part 2 was a waste of time in my opinion. Part 1 is a good read though. Also, I don't agree with all the conclusions made in Part 4. But, yeah, overall worth reading.

[Devrim]

As you and Devrim point out, the communist left has not made contributions on the question at such great length in any single volume as the likes of Cliff, James or Dunayevskaya.

Actually Bordiga wrote about it at great length. He never put his name on any of the articles though.


Regarding the series of articles by Aufheben; Part 2 was a waste of time in my opinion. Part 1 is a good read though. Also, I don't agree with all the conclusions made in Part 4. But, yeah, overall worth reading.

No, I don't agree with its conclusions. I think though that it is a good survey of the basic approaches. I know what you mean about part 2. Incidentally Ticktin is now knocking about with the CPGB.

Devrim

[Niccolò Rossi]

Actually Bordiga wrote about it at great length. He never put his name on any of the articles though.

Ah, shit, you are correct. It's not translated into English though, I think. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.

Regarding Bordiga's work however, doesn't it posit that the Russian economy was capitalist or on the road to the establishment of capitalism as opposed to being an expression of state capitalism as such?

[blake 3:17]

It should also be remembered that it was the Communist Left, along with the 'impossiblists' and certain elements of anarchism which made the earliest analyses of state capitalism, over two decades before any of the Trotskyist movement, all of which happily gain their defense to Soviet imperialism in WWII.

So real revolutionaries would have fought the Red Army? Fascism = Capitalism = Stalinism? If we want take these 'impossibilists' as being even more clairvoyant, then you could abstain from the Spanish Civil War.


along with the IV International siding with the allied imperialists in the war

So why were the leaders of the American SWP thrown in jail?

[Dave B]

On the;


Can you point me to any left communist/anarchist analysis of the SU that provide the basis for why they thought that it was state capitalist(similiar to Cliff's "State Capitalism in Russia" and James' "State Capitalism and World Revolution)? To my knowledge, there aren't really any.

Well the case for some, who were well informed and more honest, was that there wasn’t that much to say really as the truth of the matter was blindingly obvious.

Leninist intellectuals, both Stalinist and Trotskyists had been both engaged in an exercise of self delusion and deception.


Even when it was discussed in ‘public’ by Trotskyists, as Cliff eventually did, the awful truths that were in the likes of leftwing childishness and the eleventh congress thing were left out as too terrible and corrupting for the Leninist foot soldiers to comprehend.

That it was discussed in by some ‘public’ is on the record eg from, and as Luxemburg on Lenin was a recent subject of debate ;

Paul Mattick 1935, Luxemburg versus Lenin




What exists in Russia, however, is not socialism but state capitalism. Even though it may be called socialism, it still remains state capitalism exploiting wage-labour, and hence the Luxemburg fear, however much modified, has after all been confirmed.

The possession of political power, the control over the complete monopoly, were in both conceptions a sufficient solution of the problem of socialist economy: For this reason also Lenin is not alarmed at the prospect of state capitalism, against the opponents of which he says at the Eleventh Party Congress of the Bolsheviks: "State capitalism is that form of capitalism which we shall be in a position to restrict, to establish its limits; this capitalism is bound up with the State, and the State – that is the workers, the most advanced part of the workers, the vanguard, is us. And it is we on whom the nature of this state capitalism will depend."

But with this position of Lenin’s on state capitalism, which for him is determined in accordance with will and not by economic laws, in spite of the fact that the laws of state capitalism are no other than those of monopoly capitalism, Lenin had only remained true to himself, for to him in the last analysis the revolution also depended on the quality of the party and of its leadership.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1935/luxemburg-lenin.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1935/luxemburg-lenin.htm)

And;

Paul Mattick 1947 Bolshevism and Stalinism




Too ‘backward’ for socialism but also too ‘advanced’ for liberal capitalism, the Revolution could end only in that consistent form of capitalism which the Bolsheviks considered a pre-condition of socialism, namely, State-capitalism.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1947/bolshevism-stalinism.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1947/bolshevism-stalinism.htm)

There several other state-capitalism quotes in that as well that I can’t be bothered picking out.


The Trotskyist intellectual magic circle, like Burnham, were of course well aware of the leftwing childishness kind of stuff. In fact Trotsky himself did them a favour by mentioning it in a seminal article on the Stalinist socialism in one country debate.

Leon Trotsky, The Third International, After Lenin, I. The Program of the International, Revolution or a Program of Socialism in One Country? (Part 2) 5. The Theoretical Tradition of The Party.




At the beginning of the same year, i.e., 1918, Lenin, in his article entitled "On Left Wing Childishness and Petty Bourgeois Tendencies," directed against Bukharin, wrote the following:

" If, let us say, state capitalism could be established in our country within six months, that would be a tremendous achievement and the surest guarantee that within a year socialism will be definitely established and will have become invincible."


How could Lenin have set so short a period for the "definite establishment of socialism"? What material-productive and social content did he put into these words?

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1928/3rd/ti02.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1928/3rd/ti02.htm)

Which of course they had read.


In addition ‘Trotskyists’, to their credit I suppose, were obviously getting pissed off and embarrassed by Trotsky’s support for the Soviet Workers state albeit a ‘degenerate’ one. Including the murder of good old Bolsheviks, the nazi soviet pact and the invasion of Finland etc.

The state capitalism thing was in my opinion something that evolved out of Trotsky’s own stuff with his bureaucratic caste stuff.

Bruno Rizzi in 1939 took this only a small step further, and perhaps over simplifying things a bit, suggested that the ‘bureaucratic caste’ was not just some kind of political/sociological distortion but an economic class in its own right.

In fact a de facto collective ‘national’ capitalist class.

When Trotsky got hold of it he ‘screamed like a banshee and swung it around his head like a dead cat’ according to one commentator.

Trying to get across the idea that the fool was only drawing attention to something minor in Trot circles that could have otherwise been buried.

It is online now, so;

Bruno Rizzi 1939, The Bureaucratisation of the World




The exploitation of man, under the pressure of inevitable economic development, has taken a new form. Private property has become collective, but of a class. We know of no other way of defining this "national" property which does not belong to everybody, which is neither bourgeois nor proletarian, is not private nor socialist either.

Trotsky is unable to see the new exploiting class in Russia,


http://www.marxists.org/archive/rizzi/bureaucratisation/index.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/rizzi/bureaucratisation/index.htm)



Burnham apparently either got hold of it or knew the substance of it, it was a difficult thing to get as the ‘Germans’ were spreading all over Europe and I think it was a pretty obscure thing to start off with.

Burnham, who was a clever bod for a Leninist, I have to admit, and had been making a fool of Trotsky with his ‘dialectical laws’ in dialogue made the break and published a book with the un-inspiring title ‘The Managerial Revolution’, which incidentally inspired Orwell’s 1984;
Which included the likes of.



"Both communism (Leninism) and fascism claim, as do all the great social ideologies to speak for the people as a whole for the future of mankind. However it is interesting to notice that both provide even in their public words for an elite or vanguard. The elite is of course the managers and their political associates the rulers of the new society.

Naturally the ideologies do not put it this way. As they say it the elite represents, stands for, the people as a whole and their interests. Fascism is more blunt about the need for the elite, for `leadership'. Leninism worked out a more elaborate rationalisation. The masses according to Leninism are unable to become sufficiently educated and trained under capitalism to carry in their own immediate persons the burdens of socialism


The mases are unable to understand in full what their interests are. Consequently, the transition to socialism will have to be supervised by an enlightened vanguard which `understands the historic process as a whole' and can ably and correctly act for the interests of the masses as a whole; like as Lenin puts it, the general staff of an army.

Through this notion of an elite or vanguard, these ideologies thus serve at once the two fold need of justifying the existence of a ruling class and at the same time providing the masses with an attitude making easy the acceptance of its rule.

This device is similar to that used by the capitalist ideologies when they argued that capitalist were necessary in order to carry on business and that profits for capitalists were identical with prosperity for the people as a whole…………….The communist and fascist doctrine is a device, and an effective one, for enlisting the support of the masses for the interests of the new elite through an apparent identification of those interests with he interests of the masses themselves."


Managerial Revolution,Chapter 13.

I think Cliffs response was disaster management.

..

[Niccolò Rossi]

So real revolutionaries would have fought the Red Army? Fascism = Capitalism = Stalinism? If we want take these 'impossibilists' as being even more clairvoyant, then you could abstain from the Spanish Civil War.

I'm not sure what your point is with this all.

What is meant by 'The Red Army'? What the red army was at different points in the Russian revolution and counter-revolution, changed. At Kronsdadt in 1921, yes, this would have meant fighting the Red Army, however in 1917 the Russian Left Communists were Bolsheviks.

Yes, Fascism and Stalinism were both expressions of state capitalism. Saying 'Fascism = Capitalism = Stalinism' is pretty childish and meaningless however.

Finally, the left communists refused to participate or give their support to any of the warring factions in Spain. Again, what's your point?


So why were the leaders of the American SWP thrown in jail?

I don't know more about this than I quickly scanned from wikipedia. Could you recommend some further reading on the matter?

[Kléber]

At Kronsdadt in 1921, yes, this would have meant fighting the Red Army, however in 1917 the Russian Left Communists were Bolsheviks.
Well, Victor Serge and many other ex-Left Communists agreed with the suppression of the mutiny.


I don't know more about this than I quickly scanned from wikipedia. Could you recommend some further reading on the matter? The Trotskyists did not support the Allied war effort. Trotskyists organized strikes in the Allied countries during the war which led to repression against them. Earl Browder and William Z. Foster appeared before HUAC to denounce the Trotskyists as fascist spies :rolleyes:. There was also a Trotskyist-led mutiny by Sri Lankan soldiers, and the Vietnamese Trotskyists fought against the Franco-British occupation in 1945 (however they were betrayed by their former allies the Indochinese Communist Party).

[Devrim]

Well, Victor Serge and many other ex-Left Communists agreed with the suppression of the mutiny.

Serge was never a left communist though. He was a former anarchist who later became a member of the left opposition, i.e. Trotskyist.


The Trotskyists did not support the Allied war effort.

But they did. Read virtually anything they wrote about it:


Trotskyists organized strikes in the Allied countries during the war

I'd like to see some evidence for this claim.Certainly they may not have gone as far as the Stalinist Parties, for example the CPGB, who during a miners strike in England refeered to scab winders as 'replacement' winders, and denounced strikes.


Earl Browder and William Z. Foster appeared before HUAC to denounce the Trotskyists as fascist spies :rolleyes:.

Two Stalinist hacks denounce Trotskyists as fascists. That is hardly a surprise, is it? Personally I would call it scabbing.

Devrim

[Devrim]

Ah, shit, you are correct. It's not translated into English though, I think. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.

Yes, I think a lot of it is also in French though.


Regarding Bordiga's work however, doesn't it posit that the Russian economy was capitalist or on the road to the establishment of capitalism as opposed to being an expression of state capitalism as such?

Yes, but then if you see state capitalism as a general trend that fits in.

Devrim