Trotskyism vs Left communism

[promethean]

What are the main similarities and differences between these two tendencies?

[Zanthorus]

The most obvious similarity would be that both Left-Communists and Trotskyists are 'Communists', not just in the broad sense of fighting for a classless society, but in the more narrow sense of adherence to the Bolshevik line on inter-Imperialist war, that Communists should not only not support the war, but that they should seek the defeat of their 'own' capitalist class, and generalise this defeatism into the defeat of the bourgeoisie everywhere. They should, to coin a phrase, seek the transformation of the world imperialist war into a revolutionary civil war. We are both Communist groups in the sense of supporting the 1917 Russian revolution as a step forward for the world working-class movement. And we are also both Communists in the sense of supporting the creation of seperate Communist parties outside and against the traditional social-democratic parties (As a point of fact, it was only thanks to the efforts of the Communist Left that the PCd'I was formed in 1921), and the unification of all these parties in the Communist International in 1919. Following from this, both groups adhere to the dictates of the CI's first congress such as Lenin's theses on bourgeois democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat. After this however, the paths of the two tendencies diverge in some signficant respects. It's not as clear as a straightfoward split, as both Left-Communism and Trotskyism are divergent tendencies with no clear homogenous line on certain issues, but in general there are four areas of disagreement which can be pinpointed.

Both Left-Communists and Trotskyists of course agree with the replacement of parliamentary democracy with the dictatorship of the proletariat. Trotskyists say we should participate in elections in order to spread our message to people. In practice, of course, a lot of the time they end up standing on a reformist political platform rather than an openly Communist one. One of the most infamous examples being the 'Militant Labour' group which advocated the creation of socialism through an 'enabling act' passed in parliament by the British Labour party. The 'Trade Union and Socialist Coalition' which ran in the elections this year is also another good example. Left-Communists oppose participation for various reasons such as the fact that it's contradictory to, on the one hand, participate in parliamentary elections and, on the other hand, denounce elections as a farce. Getting people to vote for you in elections could easily spread the illusion of social change through parliament. In the German revolution of 1918-19 the workers' freely gave up the power of the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils in favour of a bourgeois republic at the behest of the German Social-Democratic Party. Years of attempts to gain influence in society through elections to the Reichstag had clearly had an impact. Participation in parliament also tends to override other forms of Communist activity and it becomes an all-encompassing goal for the Party to win elections at the expense of other forms of activity. In the worst cases you can end up with a complete subordination to bourgeois legality and a rejection of illegal tactics in order to win acceptance within the state-apparatus.

On the question of the Social-Democratic parties our positions are completely at odds. The Trotskyists regard these parties as 'workers' parties' because they can count on the votes of large sections of the working-class. We (Or at least I) would say that this ignores the difference between the class in itself and the class for itself. Historically the labour movement provided a good deal of support for the liberal party in England. It was one of the root causes of the dissolution of the IWMA. This doesn't mean that the liberal party was or is a 'workers' party'. A 'workers' party' in the sense which Marx and Engels use this term in the Communist Manifesto is one which is for the programme of the class for itself - the DotP and the destruction of bourgeois ideological hegemony. The question of 'unity' with the Social-Democratic and 'Labour' Parties is a non-question for us since they are simply not part of the same movement and haven't been since the great betrayal of 1914. In terms of fighting fascism, the response of the Left in Italy was to advocate a 'united front from below', the unity of workers' of all stripes on the ground level to defend themselves against the fascist bands, as opposed to the UF 'from above' advocated by Trotsky, which involved a political alliance between the Social-Democratic and Communist parties.

In terms of the national question there is also divergence. Most Left-Communists say that support for one part of the bourgeoisie against another is qualitatively different from supporting the bourgeoisie in it's struggle against feudal absolutism, the context in which Marx and Engels supported national movements. We emphasis the character of Imperialism as a world-system as opposed to a policy undertaken by individual nation-states and the impossibility of defeating Imperialism within the boundaries of capitalism. We call for the fraternisation of workers' across borders and united action by the working-class to bring war to a halt. Trotsky by contrast was for the unconditional defence of colonised nations against the colonial powers, even when such defence would tie the interests of the workers' to a collapsing bourgeois state. This point is not an absolute one within what has historically been known as Left-Communism. Bordiga was for the defence of purely national struggles in colonial nations, and the International Communist Party was apparently at the head of the Palestine solidarity movement in France in the 80's. But I think most Left-Communists today would disagree with Bordiga.

The trade union question is another point of dispute. Trotskyists are for struggling within even the most reactionary of trade-unions to win them round to Communist positions. Bordiga and the Bordigists also agreed with Trotsky on this point. Most Left-Communists believe that this is a pipe dream since the trade-unions are tied in with the state apparatus, and historically when workers' struggles have radicalised the workers have been found outside and against the unions. Our positions on the response vary. The International Communist Current says that Communists should not work in unions at all. The Internationalist Communist Tendency says that it is feasible for Communists to work in the unions and argue their positions but not to become members of the union apparatus. The Internationalist Communist Party, the Italian section of the ICT, apparently has a policy of creating workplace committees of PCInt members and sympathisers in opposition to the unions. Historically the Communist Workers' Party of Germany (KAPD) also had a similar stance, although it was the workers themselves that organised outside the unions in the Arbeiter-Unionen movement, and whose organised expression, the AAUD, affiliated with the KAPD.

[Zanthorus]

Do left communists work with Trotskyists or the other way around?

In the mid/late-20's and early 30's there was some degree of collaboration between the two tendencies. In June 1923, taking advantage of his imprisonment by the Mussolini government in February, the Comintern leadership had Bordiga expelled from the Communist Party of Italy's Executive Committee. This corresponded roughly with the stroke that led to Lenin becoming completely immobilised, and the start of the struggle between the 'Troika' of Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev, and Trotsky and the Russian Left Opposition. Because of their common situation in having been forced out of leadership by essentially the same clique, a certain solidarity developed between the Trotskyists and the Italian Left. Bordiga wrote articles which contained at least an implied defence of Trotsky during this period, such as his 1924 piece, Communist Organisation and Discipline (http://www.sinistra.net/lib/upt/comlef/cotu/cotugdiboe.html). There was also some correspondence between the two men which is reproduced in this article (http://en.internationalism.org/ir/101_bordiga.htm) from the ICC's International Review. In his 1926 letter to Karl Korsch (http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1926/letter-korsch.htm) he also expresses agreement with the Left Opposition's critique of the Communist Party's policy, with Trotsky's analysis of the world situation, and a preference for Trotsky over Zinoviev (Who had become an oppositionist at that point). When the Italian Left went into exile in France (With Bordiga remaining behind under house arrest and constant police superveillance by the Fascist police), there was a degree of collaboration between them and the International Left Opposition. Their paper was the best selling opposition paper, and they were regarded as a more serious threat to Stalinism in France than the Trotskyist groups. They published an open letter to Trotsky in their journal Prometeo in 1929 asking to join the International Opposition, and Trotsky replied with a letter that the platform of the Left was "one of the best documents emanating from the International Opposition". But because of a problem of the Italian Left's directing organs in recieving the letter announcing the International Opposition's congress in 1930, the Left failed to attend. The Opposition also let in a group called the 'New Italian Opposition', consisting of elements which had opposed the Left and supported the Centrists in 1926 without consulting the Left. Trotsky then attempted to distance himself from the Italian Left, even going so far as to accuse them of nationalism. In November 1932 Trotsky called for a 'Preconference' of opposition groups in Paris which excluded the Italian Left, and affirmed the New Italian Opposition as the legitimate expression of the International Opposition in Italy.

I am not aware of any collaboration between Trotskyists and Left-Communists after these events.

[devoration1]

There are groups or individuals who move from Trotskyism to left communism- an example of this kind of transition can be seen in 'The Commune' and 'Permanent Revolution' publications/groups in the UK.

Left communism predates Trotskyism. Opposition to the growing statification of the communist party and decreasing power and influence of the worker's councils, opposition to the growing bureaucracy, etc were all left communist positions prior to Lenin's death and Trotsky's 'Left Opposition'. It should be noted that some, not all, left communists consider the original 'Left Opposition' to have begun as a militant working class reaction to the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and the birth of Stalinism, but that over time Trotsky made several terrible predictions and theoretical moves- leaving behind 'Trotskyism', a leftist bourgeois movement on the other side of the demarcating line between the revolutionary internationalist camp and the bourgeois camp.

A lengthy description of why left communists oppose Trotskyism, historically and currently, can be found here:

What Distinguishes Revolutionaries From Trotskyism?

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/139/trotsykism

CWO Pamphlet: 'Trotskyism Was A Proletarian Current Destroyed By Opportunism'

http://en.internationalism.org/wr/265_cwo_trotsky.htm

[Alf]

The article from IR that devoration refers to is from the French left communists just after the war. They argue very firmly that mainstream Trotskyism did not defend a revolutionary position during the second world war and had in fact lined up with the Allied imperialist camp in the name of anti-fascism and defence of the USSR. This was the most important historical (and class) dividing line between left communism and Trotskyism. From that point on most left communists would see Trotskyism as part of the political apparatus of capital. Of course individuals and even groups have broken away from Trotskyism towards revolutionary positions since then, but the break and not the continuity is the most crucial thing.

[Zanthorus]

Um, I hate to be the one to point this out, but the Second World War ended sixty five years ago. It's not exactly the most relevant of dividing lines, much less a 'class line' (And I don't know if 'class line' means the same in ICC-speak as 'class position', but if it does then there are a lot more lines which Trotskyism has crossed than the WWII one).

[Struggle]

Like any Leftist that upholds the 'Vanguard theory', a particular difference for many 'Left Communists' would be the Trotskyists political inclinations of authoritarianism.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

On the question of the Social-Democratic parties our positions are completely at odds. The Trotskyists regard these parties as 'workers' parties' because they can count on the votes of large sections of the working-class. We (Or at least I) would say that this ignores the difference between the class in itself and the class for itself. Historically the labour movement provided a good deal of support for the liberal party in England. It was one of the root causes of the dissolution of the IWMA. This doesn't mean that the liberal party was or is a 'workers' party'. A 'workers' party' in the sense which Marx and Engels use this term in the Communist Manifesto is one which is for the programme of the class for itself - the DotP and the destruction of bourgeois ideological hegemony.

Trotskyist entryism has largely stopped since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Entryism does not mean supporting the entire party in itself, but operating as a tendency within the party to alter it and make it fight for what it is ostensibly supposed to fight for and because that is where workers' consciousness was at at that time. Following the USSR's collapse, western Europes social democratic and so-called "socialist" parties are exposing themselves more as neoliberal tools of the capitalist ruling class. In Greece and Portugal, the ruling class parties call themselves socialist but we do not consider them "workers parties." Today Trotskyists operate outside of all these parties.

[Zanthorus]

Trotskyist entryism has largely stopped since the collapse of the Soviet Union... Today Trotskyists operate outside of all these parties.

By 'Trotskyists', you of course mean the CWI. The CWI does not constitute the entirety of what has historically been known as 'Trotskyism', however.


Entryism does not mean supporting the entire party in itself, but operating as a tendency within the party to alter it and make it fight for what it is ostensibly supposed to fight for

The problem to begin with is that what the parties which all the Trotskyists were tring trying to enter were ostensibly fighting for were weak demands for the nationalisation of various industries, better union rights and so on. These are economistic demands which have very little bearing on what we should actually be fighting for: working-class political rule over society, internationalism and so on. And I'm not too familiar on the state of the socdem parties in other European countries, but the Labour party explicitly banned Communist organisations from affiliating with it and has a highly bureaucratic internal regime. What you (were) doing by practicing 'entryism' into such a party is affirming the dictatorship of the trade-union bureaucracy over the workers movement.


In Greece and Portugal, the ruling class parties call themselves socialist but we do not consider them "workers parties."

Yes, that's why the British section of the CWI is campaigning for a Labour party mark II. One of their members even stated explicitly that they were for the formation of a new "bourgeois workers' party".

[devoration1]

The question was what seperates Trotskyism and Left Communism- which an historical question. The split did not take place recently. The GCF article from after WWII reproduced in International Review was current at the time of the main split between the two tendencies (not to say that the earlier problems between the left opposition and the Italian left fractions were irrelevant, or that earlier disputes between the Russian left vs Trotsky were either).

If internationalism is the highest principle of working class politics, Trotskyism broke this principle by siding with one side of an imperialist slaughter over another. A trend that continued for decades up to the present day (siding with one national liberation movement over a state, siding with one smaller country fighting a larger one, to the current groups that side with the leftist regimes in Latin America over the US, or the Palestinian islamist/nationalist groups against Israel, etc).

Entrism, starting with Trotsky's "French Turn", did not stop or taper off after the disintegration of the Eastern Bloc & USSR, as noted above with the CWI (and there could be dozens if not hundreds more groups and groupuscules that have tried to or advocated going into a social-democratic, labor, socialist, etc party or group). A notable example being entire locals of the Labor Party in the US (founded in 1996 by AFL-CIO and other unions and leftists) which were made up of Trots who entered as individuals and tried to reorient the party being expelled.

[Zanthorus]

If internationalism is the highest principle of working class politics, Trotskyism broke this principle by siding with one side of an imperialist slaughter over another.

Yeah, decades ago. In case you haven't noticed, wether or not to support revolutionary defeatism in the case of WWII isn't exactly the most pressing issue in Communist politics right now.


A trend that continued for decades up to the present day (siding with one national liberation movement over a state, siding with one smaller country fighting a larger one, to the current groups that side with the leftist regimes in Latin America over the US, or the Palestinian islamist/nationalist groups against Israel, etc).

In case you haven't noticed, those politics were already present in Trotskyism during the time they were supposedly a 'proletarian current'. If support for natlib movements is a dividing line between 'proletarian currents' and whatever you call something which isn't a 'proletarian current', then Bolshevism was never proletarian, neither was Trotskyism, neither was the Italian Left until the 30's. Unless there's some new phase of capitalism which the ICC has thought up which came after WWII which means that support for natlib struggles became a dividing line between 'proletarian currents', in which case I willingly cede to your superior abilities to draw arbitrary lines in the sand.

[S.Artesian]

If internationalism is the highest principle of working class politics, Trotskyism broke this principle by siding with one side of an imperialist slaughter over another. A trend that continued for decades up to the present day (siding with one national liberation movement over a state, siding with one smaller country fighting a larger one, to the current groups that side with the leftist regimes in Latin America over the US, or the Palestinian islamist/nationalist groups against Israel, etc).



This is interesting since I don't consider myself a Leninist or a Trotskyist, and generally discount the importance of a "vanguard party..." But... here's an interesting what if:

1961, the US finances, supports, launches, a military invasion of Cuba, utilizing the remnants of Batista's secret police and torturers from all over Latin America.

The government of Cuba, under the leadership of those who overthrew Batista, has quite recently, expropriated the bourgeoisie, and are adopting a Soviet model for their economy.

The government of Cuba mobilizes its military, and more than its military, its entire population to fight the US financed invasion.

Who do YOU want to win? Whose side do you take? I take Cuba's. I want Fidel and Camilio to win. You know why? Because we've all seen what happens when the other side wins, and we know that it represents a fundamental, long lasting, permanent reversal of even the most modest gains of a revolution-- like literacy, like safe drinking water.

And there is another big fat difference; one side expropriates the bourgeoisie, the other restores them, and restores them by grinding the workers and poor into blood-soaked mud.

[Alf]

Zanthorus: there is a question of method here. The left communist view of social democracy is that they 'joined the bourgeois camp' once and for all in the period 1914-21, siding directly with the ruling class and its state in a global imperialist war. Once you do that, your nature as an organisation changes and it can't change back. The Communist International as a whole initially took the same view, but went back on it with the policy of the United Front. The first world war and the revolutionary wave are even further back in history than the second world war, obviously, but they remain a decisive point as far as the betrayal of social democracy is concerned. We can see a similar evolution with regard to the Communist parties, and, later on, the Trotskyists. Yes, the actual 'moment' of passing to the other side was a long time ago but the bourgeois nature of these parties has been demonstrated again and again: in the case of Stalinism, through becoming a direct organ for the management of state capitalism; in the case of Trotskyism through becoming a critical appendage of Stalinism and social democracy.
In this new situation, what could have been seen as errors due a lack of definitive experience - such as support for national liberation struggles- becomes part of a bourgeois programme pure and simple. Furthermore, the Trotskyists' cheerleading for Stalinist/nationalist movements has almost nothing in common with the original positions of the Third International, which did advocate an independent proletarian organisation even when taking part in anti-colonial struggles in temporary alliance with the bourgeoisie.

[S.Artesian]

Alf, could you answer the question I posed about Cuba 1961. Who do you want to win? The victory of which side amounts to a crushing defeat for the prospects of proletarian revolution? Either side?

[devoration1]

Who do YOU want to win?

I'm not interested in hashing out another 'I'd be on that side of the barricade' nonsense argument. If you believe certain sections of the bourgeoisie are more progressive than others, then so be it. But I'm not interested in this dynamic of the lesser evil.


Yeah, decades ago. In case you haven't noticed, wether or not to support revolutionary defeatism in the case of WWII isn't exactly the most pressing issue in Communist politics right now.

And yet you joined in this discussion early on. So is it important enough to discuss, but not debate, or important enough to think about, but not talk about? You say it isn't a pressing issue- I beg to differ. The ideological differences are quite important, if we're talking about applying support for 'the lesser evil' or national liberation- conflicts on the ground around the world going on right now from Afghanistan and Iraq to Turkey Nepal Tibet Israel etc. A means of answering questions on how we should orient ourselves and our organizations now is often found in the practices and thought of former generations of thinkers and militants and long dead groups and tendencies. Opportunism (support for NL/the lesser evil, support for entrism, support for trade union work, support for transitional programmes, etc) is a constant danger in the interest of working class militants and organization today. If you don't think this topic warrants the attention of communists today, as one of the myriad of topics dealt with by the communist left, I just don't agree.


In case you haven't noticed, those politics were already present in Trotskyism during the time they were supposedly a 'proletarian current'. If support for natlib movements is a dividing line between 'proletarian currents' and whatever you call something which isn't a 'proletarian current', then Bolshevism was never proletarian, neither was Trotskyism, neither was the Italian Left until the 30's. Unless there's some new phase of capitalism which the ICC has thought up which came after WWII which means that support for natlib struggles became a dividing line between 'proletarian currents', in which case I willingly cede to your superior abilities to draw arbitrary lines in the sand.

Thanks for your condenscending garbage for positions I haven't subscribed to and things I haven't said. Sarcasm is obviously a sign of incredible reason. I'd say theres a big difference between the Third International making tactical mistakes and supporting 'the rights of nations to self determination' and national liberation during the receding revolutionary wave (among other large mistakes like support for entrism in labor unions, 'revolutionary parliamentarism', etc) and rallying workers to support the war effort during an international imperialist war (up to and including joining partisan groups operating alongside the state military if not joining the military directly). Perfection is not a requirement of militancy last I checked. And this assumes that the position a person or group holds at any given moment of their political trajectory can be ascribed to them as if they were always that way. If this were the case anyone who had been a unionist or social-democrat couldn't become a revolutionary communist, or any group that had been in the Trotskyist tradition couldn't move toward communist positions over time. Again, this assumption that a set of principles is absolute to the point of excluding anyone or anything that ever wavered from them before moving to this principles (or moving away from them then back to them) is not part of the working class movement.

[S.Artesian]

Talk about condescending bullshit-- your no slouch in dishing it out yourself. This has nothing to do with lesser evil, or barricades, and everything to do with class analysis.

If the Cuban revolution succeeded only in putting another, different, sector of the bourgeoisie in power then we really need to revisit all of Marxism, because then Marxism just doesn't fit:

1) this new bourgeoisie must have had an economic existence as a class with its own distinct form of property prior to coming to power. So where do we find this economic organization of the class, its specific relation to the organization of production prior to the revolution?

2) once in power, what and how does this class reproduce itself as a class on the basis of its own opposite, that is to say the organization of labor? How does the labor power of the workers get bought and sold by the members of this class so that this class accumulates as its own property, its own alienable, transferable, exchangeable property. the product of that labor-power? Mere technicality, I'm sure, but it is the core, the absolute core, to Marx's analysis of capital, wage-labor, capitalist, proletarian.

3) I haven't read a single theory of state capitalism yet, nor a single "They're all bourgeoisie" theory that has been able to answer either of those questions.

Now I'm sure that arguing about the "French Turn" in the 1930s is so much more exciting for some, so believe me, I'll understand if you have no answers. But I'm just a bit hung up on those Marxist categories. I still think they're critical to identifying something as capitalist.

[Kléber]

They argue very firmly that mainstream Trotskyism did not defend a revolutionary position during the second world war and had in fact lined up with the Allied imperialist camp in the name of anti-fascism and defence of the USSR.
False. Trotskyists in occupied Europe and China fought as partisans against the Axis imperialists, but they always kept their political independence from Allied imperialism. Trotskyists in Vietnam and Sri Lanka also fought against the Allied imperialists. The Fourth International correctly opposed imperialism by defending China and the USSR. The real betrayal was to stand idle and say that anti-fascism was as bad as fascism.

[devoration1]

If the Cuban revolution succeeded only in putting another, different, sector of the bourgeoisie in power then we really need to revisit all of Marxism, because then Marxism just doesn't fit:


1) Your analysis is based on class composition- the people who created the new Cuban ruling class were not owners of the means of production, or buyers of wage-labor, etc. so they cannot be bourgeois- that's what you're saying essentially right?

This is, I think, a very narrow interpretation of Marxist economics. State capitalism, that is the direct heavy intervention of the state into the market (ranging from the totally statified regimes to the neoliberal regimes) is a global tendency. The class background and composition of the managers of capital via state capitalism is irrelevant, as their background as petit-bourgeois, intelligensia or working class does not contradict their ability to manage capital and labor, buy and sell labor power in the form of wages, accumulate and utilize surplus value, etc via their position in the state apparatus.

The same answer goes to your second question. The capitalist social relations are unchanged. By virtue of their privileged position, the state capitalist managers of the USSR started spawning millionaires. Marx did not live to see much of what we now know as capitalism. He did not get to see the standardization of fiat money in place of the gold standard, he didn't get to see the statification of labor unionism, he didn't get to see state capitalism in any form (it didn't become an international tendency until after WWI- the archetype being the German war economy of the first world war).


False. Trotskyists in occupied Europe and China fought as partisans against the Axis imperialists, but they always kept their political independence from Allied imperialism. Trotskyists in Vietnam and Sri Lanka also fought against the Allied imperialists. The Fourth International correctly opposed imperialism by defending China and the USSR.

How can you oppose imperialism by defending nation-states engaged in imperialism?

Fighting as partisans (I should say acting as recruiting seargents for the partisans) puts them as active contributors to the imperialist slaughter.


The real betrayal was to stand idle and say that anti-fascism was as bad as fascism.

None of the groups discussed that existed at that time stood idle. The Italian left in exile opposed both fascism and anti-fascism actively- among troops of both axis and allied camps and workers, holding to the principle that workers have no country, no side is progressive in an imperialist war, the working class has nothing to gain in imperialist wars.

[penguinfoot]

As a Trotskyist, the most fundamental problem with Left Communism as far as I can tell is that they have a theoretically impoverished understanding of how struggles develop and how material contradictions express themselves, in the sense that they do not grasp how struggles and contradictions can take a diverse range of forms and that they are is no automatic or straightforward transition from complete disengagement to a fully-rounded internationalist perspective. If we focus on the issue of nationalism, in all its forms, including the ethnic and racial nationalisms that emerged and drew mass support as part of the New Communist Movement, encompassing the BPP, the Chicano struggles, the Asian-American movements, and so on, the Left Communist analysis seems to amount to the view that nationalism is automatically and necessarily a form of bourgeois ideology, and that, to the extent that workers are nationalist, it is because they have been brainwashed by some section of the bourgeoisie, so that their real interests are obscured, and they are under the control of alien class interests. An analysis of this kind relies on the view that ideology (in the negative sense of the word, which is the sense that Marx employs) is synonymous with falsity and illusion, and that it can never amount to anything more than bourgeois class domination.

The problem with this line of analysis is that it is utterly simplistic, because it does not recognize that ideologies, especially nationalisms, are never only illusion or bourgeois in origin, but are subject to constant processes of manipulation and contestation, and are themselves sites of class conflict, in that they are also frequently the initial ways in which the oppressed express their experiences of oppression and organize themselves against the ruling class, even whilst the ruling class (or sections of it) may also make use of nationalism. In this way, nationalisms can, I would argue, serve as mobilizing and discursive tools in the interests of oppressed populations, and struggles that are rooted in profound material contradictions can often be expressed by their participants in nationalist (or other) terms - and it is because nationalism has these characteristics and complexities that we need to adopt a more nuanced analysis than simply saying that nationalism is reactionary in every instance, and engage with struggles in which issues like ethnicity and nation present themselves as defining moments. We need to recognize, in other words, that struggles and the material conditions from which they emerge are messy affairs, and that, rather than seeking to determine the ways that struggle is conducted, it is the role of Communists to intervene in all struggles where the interests of the oppressed are being fought for, and to locate their particular moments in a broader account of the mechanics of class society, even whilst we might not always agree with the modes of ideological expression that have been adopted. This is something that Left Communists cannot do, because their understanding of ideology is utterly simplistic - and it has, as its practical conclusions, not only a reject of any and all struggles for national liberation, which amounts to shrugging our shoulders when a country like Cuba is being attacked by the world's leading imperialist state, but also a chauvinist attitude towards some of the most oppressed groups of capitalist society, in that their struggles and ideas are rejected as evidence of bourgeois deception, and a refusal to allow groups like women and peoples of colour to organize independently within revolutionary organizations, on the grounds that to do so would be to make concessions to bourgeois ideological forces.

These theoretical points aside, I'm instantly skeptical of any current who think that there have never been more than 100,000 (or less!) Communists in the world, anywhere, ever - which is what you are forced to accept if you think that only yourself and your comrades are really Communists and every other current on the left are actually part of the left wing of capital, or whatever the term is.

[S.Artesian]

1) Your analysis is based on class composition- the people who created the new Cuban ruling class were not owners of the means of production, or buyers of wage-labor, etc. so they cannot be bourgeois- that's what you're saying essentially right?

My analysis is based on relations to means of production; that is called "class" in Marxist lexicography.


This is, I think, a very narrow interpretation of Marxist economics. State capitalism, that is the direct heavy intervention of the state into the market (ranging from the totally statified regimes to the neoliberal regimes) is a global tendency. The class background and composition of the managers of capital via state capitalism is irrelevant, as their background as petit-bourgeois, intelligensia or working class does not contradict their ability to manage capital and labor, buy and sell labor power in the form of wages, accumulate and utilize surplus value, etc via their position in the state apparatus.

Yours is a thoroughly superficial analysis that concentrates on a similarity in forms, and from that similarity in form concludes-- "the content must be identical."

The similarity in form derives in both developed and underdeveloped areas of capitalism overproduction-- that the means of production have so outgrown the constraints of private property that profitability cannot be sustained; that capital has absorbed and embedded itself in pre-existing relations of landed labor that limit its own expansion.

The content is quite different. In the capitalist treatment of this conflict, the bourgeoisie are preserved, and more than preserved, they are reinforced.

No such preservation or reinforcement occurs in the revolutionary treatment of this conflict. The bourgeoisie are not preserved. They are expropriated. Now if you think another bourgeois class is doing that expropriation, or that a different section of the same bourgeois class is doing that expropriation, you need to show, not the class background, origins of those players, but the current mechanisms for the reproduction of that class as a class-- as a class dependent on the exploitation of labor power.

We're not talking about managers or bureaucrats; we're talking about class, about ownership. Clearly there is no state capitalist class as none of its supposed members can act privately, individually, as capitalists regarding the state property. I hate to sound like a stickler for detail, but there is no such thing as state capitalism without there being a bourgeoisie controlling the social organization of labor for the purposes of private accumulation.

As an example-- after 1991, and more precisely after the destruction of the Soviet economy, and the raffling off of some of its industry [and destruction of much more] we have a state capitalism, and a state of capitalism in the fSU. The bureaucracy can, in its infinite capacity for throttling the workers attempts to organize themselves, certainly enable, facilitate, assist in that transformation. The bureaucracy is not however that class of capitalists until it can dispose of production and labor in the markets for purposes of private accumulation.

If the "trend" toward state capitalism is, or was, so universal, can you point to any state capitalism other than your identification of the fSU or Cuba etc as state capitalist, that does not have a bourgeoisie acting precisely for that purpose of private accumulation?


The same answer goes to your second question. The capitalist social relations are unchanged. By virtue of their privileged position, the state capitalist managers of the USSR started spawning millionaires. Marx did not live to see much of what we now know as capitalism. He did not get to see the standardization of fiat money in place of the gold standard, he didn't get to see the statification of labor unionism, he didn't get to see state capitalism in any form (it didn't become an international tendency until after WWI- the archetype being the German war economy of the first world war).

So it is your contention that the social relations of production were never changed in Russia, Cuba, Vietnam, China? That somehow an entire class could be expropriated, a complete transformation in the organization of ownership be imposed, but that the capitalist social relations remained unchanged? That's not Marxist analysis you are offering-- that's flat out disavowal of reality. Is it not socialist? Definitely not. But to argue that the determining social relations were not changed requires proof and demonstration, not superficial references to Marx not seeing "fiat money" "statification of labor union" etc etc etc. Those things did not involve civil wars, expropriation of the very mechanisms by which previous expropriation had been executed.

You've got precisely zero historical, material, social analysis backing up your ideological claims.

[Zanthorus]

The left communist view of social democracy is that they 'joined the bourgeois camp' once and for all in the period 1914-21, siding directly with the ruling class and its state in a global imperialist war.

Actually, the Italian Socialist Party didn't side with their own bourgeoisie. That's why the Abstentionists found it so difficult to break with them and form a properly Communist party (The PSI was even considering affiliating to the Comintern before Bordiga managed to get points 20 and 21 added to the 21 conditions for affiliation). It was not just the Social-Democrats siding with their own bourgeoisie that forged a split between Social-Democracy and Communism, it was their complete abandonment of the socialist programme. As a point of historical accuracy in fact, it was Engels' who had first laid the theoretical groundwork for the policy of defencism, so according to the ICC, the Social-Democrats were already latently part of the 'bourgeois camp' during their formation, and Engels himself would've revealed himself as part of the 'bourgeois camp' had he lived another twenty years.


The first world war and the revolutionary wave are even further back in history than the second world war, obviously, but they remain a decisive point as far as the betrayal of social democracy is concerned.

Yes, but I think there is a significant difference between what happened to the Social-Democratic parties and what happened to the Trotskyist parties. The Social-Democrats completely abandoned the outlook of revolutionary Marxism, they changed their tactics. On the other hand, nothing really changed in the fundamental outlook of the Trotskyist movement from the pre-War to the post-War period. So it makes little to no sense to say that something fundamental occured in WWII which moved the Trotskyists from the 'proletarian camp' to the 'bourgeois camp'.


In this new situation, what could have been seen as errors due a lack of definitive experience - such as support for national liberation struggles- becomes part of a bourgeois programme pure and simple.

But what can we say constitutes 'definitive experience', and why would acquisition of it be important in placing a group in the 'proletarian camp' or the 'bourgeois camp'? Have you ever considered that sometimes other organisations simply do make mistakes or fail to fully comprehend a given situation? Or maybe that you yourself don't necessarily have the correct analysis of any given situation?

[Die Neue Zeit]

As a point of historical accuracy in fact, it was Engels who had first laid the theoretical groundwork for the policy of defencism, so according to the ICC, the Social-Democrats were already latently part of the 'bourgeois camp' during their formation, and Engels himself would've revealed himself as part of the 'bourgeois camp' had he lived another twenty years.

Comrade, Engels laid down the theoretical groundwork for class struggle defencism and revolutionary defencism. He didn't lay down the theoretical groundwork for reactionary "defencism" (which can mask support for imperialist "offencism"). The Bolshevik agitation against Kornilov counts as a superb example of both class struggle defencism and revolutionary defencism.

Not even in Russia during this revolutionary period did we see disgruntled soldiers marching en masse towards their home capitals and abandoning their posts.

[S.Artesian]

Comrade, Engels laid down the theoretical groundwork for class struggle defencism and revolutionary defencism. He didn't lay down the theoretical groundwork for reactionary "defencism" (which can mask support for imperialist "offencism"). The Bolshevik agitation against Kornilov counts as a superb example of both class struggle defencism and revolutionary defencism.

Not even in Russia during this revolutionary period did we see disgruntled soldiers marching en masse towards their home capitals and abandoning their posts.

Maybe not en masse, but certainly in significantly higher numbers... not for nothing did the Kerensky govt restore the death penalty in the military.

[Alf]

Zanthorus: I was careful not to say that social democracy 'passed over' en bloc in 1914 because not all the parties and certainly not all of its fractions betrayed in 1914. But the basic point remains - unless you think that some of the socialist parties never betrayed and could still be part of the workers' movement? The Ukrainian socialist party, for example, still has the dictatorship of the proletariat and the abolition of wage labour in its programme (I met them at a conference in Kiev and they are part of the Socialist International)
It's true that the Trotskyists didn't radically change their programme in quite the same dramatic way as the social democratic parties. But the Italian left certainly predicted that the Left Opposition's positions on anti-fascism and defence of the USSR would suffice to lead them into the enemy camp once the war arrived, so in that sense such a change was not necessary to ensure their integration into the imperialist war.
But perhaps we should discuss the practical implications of your position: if the Trotskyist parties are really confused proletarian groups, we should be trying to work with them, organise conferences with them, and so on. What is your view of this?

[Kléber]

How can you oppose imperialism by defending nation-states engaged in imperialism?
China and the USSR weren't engaged in any imperialism. Their people were fighting back against enslavement and extermination.


Fighting as partisans (I should say acting as recruiting seargents for the partisans) puts them as active contributors to the imperialist slaughter.Trotskyists were not "recruiting agents" for anybody, they kept their political independence during WWII like the Bolsheviks kept theirs from Kerensky in the fight against Kornilov. You seem to be confusing Trotskyist parties with the Stalinists in the imperialist countries, who completely submitted to the bourgeoisie, murdered real revolutionary partisans who opposed their treacherous line, and allowed themselves to be disarmed at the end of the war when they had a good chance of seizing power in France and Italy. The Fourth International had its own partisan detachments in Greece, China, Vietnam, and smaller independent groups of revolutionary fighters in many other countries. They weren't part of any imperialist slaughter, they fought against class enemies everywhere.

Let me ask you, were Mesoamerican farmers who resisted the Spanish conquistadors in the early 16th Century, "active contributors" to the colonial slaughter, simply because they fought on the same side as reactionary Aztec slaveowners like Moctezuma?


None of the groups discussed that existed at that time stood idle. The Italian left in exile opposed both fascism and anti-fascism actively- among troops of both axis and allied camps and workers, holding to the principle that workers have no country, no side is progressive in an imperialist war, the working class has nothing to gain in imperialist wars.Well Trotskyist propaganda helped spark the Cocos Islands Mutiny of 1943, the only mutiny of colonial forces in the British army during WWII, and Trotskyist guerrillas fought against the French army in Cochinchina in 1945, so this whole "Trotskyists signed up with Allied imperialism" thing is crap.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Maybe not en masse, but certainly in significantly higher numbers... not for nothing did the Kerensky govt restore the death penalty in the military.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/revolutionary-defeatism-revolutionary-t108090/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/republican-socialism-imperialism-t113465/index.html

Hopefully the math is easy in the second link.

Kleber will probably shriek out "Social Chauvinism" the loudest in reaction to the general material in the second link.

[Zanthorus]

if the Trotskyist parties are really confused proletarian groups, we should be trying to work with them, organise conferences with them, and so on. What is your view of this?

Good question. I'm not sure at the moment, I don't think we should just have common action for the sake of common action and a weak unity mongering. There has to be a real basis for common action. I was going to say the dictatorship of the proletariat, but I just remembered that the ICC rejects the conception of most Marxists inc all the Trotskyists that the DotP is a form of state and says that the DotP can actually be pursued independently of the state, so I'm genuinely stumped...

[Alf]

I don't think that's a decisive criterion. There have always been comrades in the ICC who have disagreed with the majority position on the state, and other groups that we would include as proletarian, like the ICT, certainly don't agree with us on this. More to the point would be whether you agree that the workers' councils are the supreme power in the transition period, and not the party- but the Bordigists, who we also see as proletarian, are also unclear about this. Internationalism, however, and lining up with existing bourgeois states - that is a decisive question, and I don't know of any Trotskyist tendency which has not failed this particular test.

[Devrim]

I think this is quite an interesting thread with a lot of interesting issue. I don't really have the time, but I would like to touch on some of them:


There are groups or individuals who move from Trotskyism to left communism- an example of this kind of transition can be seen in 'The Commune' and 'Permanent Revolution' publications/groups in the UK.


I am not really sure about this. I think that these groups have re-examined the Russian revolution, but there practical politics today have hardly changed.


Alf, could you answer the question I posed about Cuba 1961. Who do you want to win? The victory of which side amounts to a crushing defeat for the prospects of proletarian revolution? Either side?

This is an important question. I will try to get round to addressing it within the next week.


False. Trotskyists in occupied Europe and China fought as partisans against the Axis imperialists, but they always kept their political independence from Allied imperialism.

I don't really buy into this whole idea of 'political independence'.


The Fourth International correctly opposed imperialism by defending China and the USSR.

China and the USSR weren't engaged in any imperialism. Their people were fighting back against enslavement and extermination.

If you see the USSR as a 'workers state' however degenerated or deformed this argument works. If you see it as a capitalist state, then your argument is just defencism. The fundamental difference is here.


As a Trotskyist, the most fundamental problem with Left Communism as far as I can tell is that they have a theoretically impoverished understanding of how struggles develop and how material contradictions express themselves, in the sense that they do not grasp how struggles and contradictions can take a diverse range of forms and that they are is no automatic or straightforward transition from complete disengagement to a fully-rounded internationalist perspective. If we focus on the issue of nationalism, in all its forms, including the ethnic and racial nationalisms that emerged and drew mass support as part of the New Communist Movement, encompassing the BPP, the Chicano struggles, the Asian-American movements, and so on, the Left Communist analysis seems to amount to the view that nationalism is automatically and necessarily a form of bourgeois ideology, and that, to the extent that workers are nationalist, it is because they have been brainwashed by some section of the bourgeoisie, so that their real interests are obscured, and they are under the control of alien class interests. An analysis of this kind relies on the view that ideology (in the negative sense of the word, which is the sense that Marx employs) is synonymous with falsity and illusion, and that it can never amount to anything more than bourgeois class domination.

It isn't really how we look at it at all.


These theoretical points aside, I'm instantly skeptical of any current who think that there have never been more than 100,000 (or less!) Communists in the world, anywhere, ever - which is what you are forced to accept if you think that only yourself and your comrades are really Communists and every other current on the left are actually part of the left wing of capital, or whatever the term is.

That isn't what we think either.

Devrim

[penguinfoot]

It isn't really how we look at it at all.

It's the impression you give, so if you do actually have a serious analysis of nationalism and ideology, you don't express it very well. Let me put it to you this way: why do you think that so many workers hold what you would consider reactionary ideas, or ideas which reflect the class domination of the bourgeoisie, such as nationalism, religion, and so on?


That isn't what we think either.

Oh, so would Left Communists accept Stalinists, Trotskyists, anarchists who have taken sides in imperialist conflicts, and so on, as Communists? I thought these groups were part of the "left wing of capital".

[bricolage]

PR are still very much Trotskyist, all the people I've met from the Commune lately have been more syndicalist than anything else.

[Devrim]

It's the impression you give,

It is the impression that you have decided to take, which is a bit of a different thing.


Let me put it to you this way: why do you think that so many workers hold what you would consider reactionary ideas, or ideas which reflect the class domination of the bourgeoisie, such as nationalism, religion, and so on?

I think the question of consciousness is a bit of a big one, and not really the topic of this thread.


Oh, so would Left Communists accept Stalinists, Trotskyists, anarchists who have taken sides in imperialist conflicts, and so on, as Communists? I thought these groups were part of the "left wing of capital".

Yes, but that doesn't mean that we think that "there have never been more than 100,000 (or less!) Communists in the world, anywhere, ever". The Third international in its early years grouped millions of workers. Even if we talk about specific left communist organisations though the KAPD's factory organisations had about 250,000 members at their peak, which is in one country at one specific point. I don't really know where you arrive at this figure of "100,000 (or less!) Communists in the world, anywhere, ever" from.

Devrim

[penguinfoot]

I think the question of consciousness is a bit of a big one, and not really the topic of this thread.

The nature and origins of different kinds of consciousness is, in many respects, one of the key underlying theoretical differences between Trotskyists and Left Communists, so it's very much part of the topic of this thread. If nothing else, it's an important issue to discuss.


Yes, but that doesn't mean that we think that "there have never been more than 100,000 (or less!) Communists in the world, anywhere, ever"

My point, as you are probably aware, is that Left Communists have standards for who is and who is not a Communist, and that the content of these standards - an absolute refusal to take sides in imperialist wars, rejection of united fronts, participation in trade unions, and so on - means that only a small part of what has historically been seen as the international communist movement or the radical left can actually be considered Communist, if you consistently apply Left Communist standards. We know from statements you've made on this forum, especially concerning the relationship between Islam and the left, that religious Communists are instantly ruled out, for example. The reason for this is that the vast majority of self-described Communists, during the period 1916-1927 and across the history of Communism, including most of the members and supporters of Third International organizations, and even large sections of the KAPD, have taken sides in imperialist wars, have supported some forms of cooperation with and participation in bodies like bourgeois parties and trade unions - in other words, have taken what Left Communists would consider the "wrong" positions on issues of major importance, thereby disqualifying themselves from being Communists, whatever their own views on the matter.

The number 100,000 was obviously just picked out of the air, I didn't intend it to be taken seriously. What I object to is the view that only a select few are "real" Communists, and that most people who view themselves as Communists are just phonies or worse.

[Devrim]

We know from statements you've made on this forum, especially concerning the relationship between Islam and the left, that religious Communists are instantly ruled out, for example.

I believe that a materialist view of history is diametrically opposed to a religious view of history, and that a materialist view of history is an essential part of the communist outlook.

Do you disagree with this?

It doesn't mean that people who believe in God can not be committed fighters for their class, but they are not communists.


The reason for this is that the vast majority of self-described Communists, during the period 1916-1927 and across the history of Communism, including most of the members and supporters of Third International organizations, and even large sections of the KAPD, have taken sides in imperialist wars, have supported some forms of cooperation with and participation in bodies like bourgeois parties and trade unions

Certainly the positions adopted by the international were for trade union work and parlimentarianism. The communist left at the time argued that these positions were wrong. Those who held them though were still communists. For us, the dividing line historically between the left communists and the Trotskyists was support for the Second World War.


and even large sections of the KAPD, have taken sides in imperialist wars, have supported some forms of cooperation with and participation in bodies like bourgeois parties and trade unions

I think that you are making things up again, much like your earlier number.

Devrim

[penguinfoot]

Do you disagree with this?

I think your statement is highly problematic, mainly because I don't agree that there is any single or straightforward materialist theory of history to be found in Marx's works - there are a range of incredible insights and theoretical propositions but at no point did Marx ever establish a theory of history in a systematic and rigorous way, which is one reason why there have been almost continuous controversies and debates within the radical left over the meaning of concepts like modes of production and the productive forces, how these individual concepts are supposed to relate to one another, how the concepts should be applied to particular societies in order to understand them, and so on. There is nothing wrong with there being these ongoing controversies about what it means to adopt a materialist theory of history, because they serve as a source of theoretical innovation and clarification, but given that there is no single theory of this kind it is problematic to say that holding "it" is essential for being a Communist. I doubt very much that all Left Communists would agree on issues like what the superstructure is supposed to include, for example, even though the superstructure is, by any interpretation, one of the key categories in Marx's texts.


Those who held them though were still communists.

If the members and supporters of the Third International were still Communists then, despite positions like support for national liberation struggles, then on what grounds are contemporary Trotskyists and other leftists not Communists and part of the left wing of capital, given that the period of decadence is supposed to have begun before the creation of the Third International?


For us, the dividing line historically between the left communists and the Trotskyists was support for the Second World War.

Presumably Left Communists did not see Trotskyists as Communists before WW2, however, given that the positions taken by most Trotskyists taken during WW2 were pretty much a consistent extension of their view that the Soviet Union was a workers state and deserving of unconditional defense.


I think that you are making things up again, much like your earlier number.

On the contrary, I think you would be incredibly naive to think that all members of the KAPD consistently opposed national liberation struggles (or were not patriots), and all the other Left Communist positions that are taken as definitive.

[Devrim]

I think your statement is highly problematic, mainly because I don't agree that there is any single or straightforward materialist theory of history to be found in Marx's works -

To put this very simply do you think the idea that a supernatural force directly intervenes in human history is consistent with a communist theory of history.


I doubt very much that all Left Communists would agree on issues like what the superstructure is supposed to include, for example, even though the superstructure is, by any interpretation, one of the key categories in Marx's texts.

This isn't the point. I think that all left communists would agree with the idea that to cross a sea you need a boat not a man, Musa, to bang his staff and make it open.


If the members and supporters of the Third International were still Communists then, despite positions like support for national liberation struggles, then on what grounds are contemporary Trotskyists and other leftists not Communists and part of the left wing of capital, given that the period of decadence is supposed to have begun before the creation of the Third International?

In that they supported imperialist wars, which for us on the historic level is the vital question.


Presumably Left Communists did not see Trotskyists as Communists before WW2, however, given that the positions taken by most Trotskyists taken during WW2 were pretty much a consistent extension of their view that the Soviet Union was a workers state and deserving of unconditional defense.

Yes they did. They saw them as being opportunist, but there is a difference between this and them not being communists.


On the contrary, I think you would be incredibly naive to think that all members of the KAPD consistently opposed national liberation struggles (or were not patriots), and all the other Left Communist positions that are taken as definitive.

Please give an example of "large sections of the KAPD, [taking] sides in imperialist wars, [or supporting] some forms of cooperation with and participation in bodies like bourgeois parties and trade unions.

Devrim

[Zanthorus]

the Bordigists, who we also see as proletarian... Internationalism, however, and lining up with existing bourgeois states - that is a decisive question, and I don't know of any Trotskyist tendency which has not failed this particular test.

I think there is a contradiction between these two statements. The Bordigists from what I've seen have the same position as the Trotskyists on natlib struggles. I e-mailed the International Communist Party (Partito Comunista) myself and asked them what their position on national struggles and war was, and they replied that they still held to the positions outlined by Lenin.

[Amphictyonis]

Orthodox libertarian Marxist tendency war against all. :sneaky:

[Marion]

I'm not sure that what you're saying is a cogent argument at all...


The problem with this line of analysis is that it is utterly simplistic, because it does not recognize that ideologies, especially nationalisms, are never only illusion or bourgeois in origin, but are subject to constant processes of manipulation and contestation, and are themselves sites of class conflict, in that they are also frequently the initial ways in which the oppressed express their experiences of oppression and organize themselves against the ruling class, even whilst the ruling class (or sections of it) may also make use of nationalism.

In this way, nationalisms can, I would argue, serve as mobilizing and discursive tools in the interests of oppressed populations, and struggles that are rooted in profound material contradictions can often be expressed by their participants in nationalist (or other) terms - and it is because nationalism has these characteristics and complexities that we need to adopt a more nuanced analysis than simply saying that nationalism is reactionary in every instance, and engage with struggles in which issues like ethnicity and nation present themselves as defining moments. We need to recognize, in other words, that struggles and the material conditions from which they emerge are messy affairs, and that, rather than seeking to determine the ways that struggle is conducted, it is the role of Communists to intervene in all struggles where the interests of the oppressed are being fought for, and to locate their particular moments in a broader account of the mechanics of class society, even whilst we might not always agree with the modes of ideological expression that have been adopted. This is something that Left Communists cannot do, because their understanding of ideology is utterly simplistic - and it has, as its practical conclusions, not only a reject of any and all struggles for national liberation, which amounts to shrugging our shoulders when a country like Cuba is being attacked by the world's leading imperialist state, but also a chauvinist attitude towards some of the most oppressed groups of capitalist society, in that their struggles and ideas are rejected as evidence of bourgeois deception, and a refusal to allow groups like women and peoples of colour to organize independently within revolutionary organizations, on the grounds that to do so would be to make concessions to bourgeois ideological forces.

I really struggle with all this. I mean, its phrased really nicely and kinda has a nice flow to it all, but really doesn't say much. As far as I can piece together its the simple statement that lots of people (note use of "oppressed" rather than class) express their issues through nationalism (true) and that struggles are "messy affairs" (true) followed by the huge leap that these "moments" should be engaged with even though "we might not always agree with the modes of ideological expression that have been adopted".

Nationalism is, at least in part for you, a good thing, because it is a "mobilizing and discursive tool in the interest of oppressed populations". For me, however, the issue is not whether nationalism "mobilises" or is "discursive" for the "oppressed populations" - heaps of things are "mobilising" or are "discursive" for the "oppressed" (football, X Factor, improved working conditions, fashion, their bosses etc) - the key question is whether it is in the interests of the working class. Of course, there is absolutely nothing in your argument to say that nationalism is in the interests of anyone beyond the simplistic view that there's something positive about nationalism because lots of oppressed people believe there is.

Moreover, the argument states that nationalism is a mere "mode of expression" of that struggle that we can go along with. This avoids the fact that the content and forms of struggle are vitally important to any struggle. We should not avoid challenging issues that we feel are dangerous because they are simply "modes of expression".

I notice you're saying you're a Trotskyist. Out of interest, do you feel that the argument you've expressed in any way follows the arguments Trotsky made in favour of national liberation struggles because I'm really struggling to see anything in common. I disagree with Trotsky's views but really don't see how you can put that argument forward and call yourself a Trotskyist.

Finally, to caricature the Left Communist position as chauvinist really embarasses you...

[Alf]

Zanthorus wrote: I think there is a contradiction between these two statements. The Bordigists from what I've seen have the same position as the Trotskyists on natlib struggles. I e-mailed the International Communist Party (Partito Comunista) myself and asked them what their position on national struggles and war was, and they replied that they still held to the positions outlined by Lenin.

Actually, when a section of the Bordigist ICP really did take up the same position as the Trotskyists - by supporting Syria in a war against Israel - it led to the biggest crisis in the organisation's history (in 1982). Trying to apply Lenin's position from 1920 is not the same as directly lining up with capitalist states, which is precisely what the Trotskyists do over and over again (regardless of whether or not they have a state capitalist analysis, like the IS/SWP): Russia, China, North Korea, North Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Serbia, etc etc.......

[Android]

This is an interesting question and something I've been thinking about recently - the whole category 'leftism', 'left-wing of capital' etc.

I am unsure on my attitude to this conception, even if I defend an internationalist position (on national liberations struggles and imperialists wars) and a class struggle position (on trade unions).


I was careful not to say that social democracy 'passed over' en bloc in 1914 because not all the parties and certainly not all of its fractions betrayed in 1914. But the basic point remains - unless you think that some of the socialist parties never betrayed and could still be part of the workers' movement? The Ukrainian socialist party, for example, still has the dictatorship of the proletariat and the abolition of wage labour in its programme (I met them at a conference in Kiev and they are part of the Socialist International)

It's true that the Trotskyists didn't radically change their programme in quite the same dramatic way as the social democratic parties. But the Italian left certainly predicted that the Left Opposition's positions on anti-fascism and defence of the USSR would suffice to lead them into the enemy camp once the war arrived, so in that sense such a change was not necessary to ensure their integration into the imperialist war.


Actually, when a section of the Bordigist ICP really did take up the same position as the Trotskyists - by supporting Syria in a war against Israel - it led to the biggest crisis in the organisation's history (in 1982). Trying to apply Lenin's position from 1920 is not the same as directly lining up with capitalist states, which is precisely what the Trotskyists do over and over again (regardless of whether or not they have a state capitalist analysis, like the IS/SWP): Russia, China, North Korea, North Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Serbia, etc etc.......

As you say, Trotskyists didn't have to radically change their programme to take the position on WW2 they did, but was in fact consistent with their politics up to that point (i.e. Soviet Defencism). I fail to see how WW2 fundamentally changes the character of Trotskyism because they supported wars for national liberation before in other words proxy imperialist wars. Which left-communists argue is a class line, then I think there is a further question if it is a closed question ('class line') then don't you have to place the 3rd International outside the workers movement?

Anyway, look forward to reading your responses.

[Thirsty Crow]

I believe that a materialist view of history is diametrically opposed to a religious view of history, and that a materialist view of history is an essential part of the communist outlook.

I would say that a religious view of history is not something every religious person, identifying as communist and working class, necessarily possesses. Especially so in social environments in which there is a significant impact of the history of working class militancy and in social environments in which the impact of religions as one of the pillars of social life is significantly lessened by economic changes.
I don't think that this subset we call "religious view of history" plays a significant role nowadays outside the circles which we could call fundamentalist.

[Devrim]

I would say that a religious view of history is not something every religious person, identifying as communist and working class, necessarily possesses. Especially so in social environments in which there is a significant impact of the history of working class militancy and in social environments in which the impact of religions as one of the pillars of social life is significantly lessened by economic changes.


Don't you think that if a person who believes in God wanted to join a communist organisation these are the sorts of topics that would come up?

Surely if you believe in one of the Abrahamic religions (the example originally raised was Islam), you believe in an interventionist God who is directly concerned with the day to day doings of man. If you don't then possibly the discussion that you have with a communist organisation can help to clarify this.


I don't think that this subset we call "religious view of history" plays a significant role nowadays outside the circles which we could call fundamentalist.

I know many people who I wouldn't in any way consider to be fundamentalists, and who would consider themselves to be secular, who believe these things, the sort of Muslims who drink and only go to the mosque 'from festival to festival'.

There is a difference between Christianity and Islam in that for Christians the Bible can be dismissed as a book of allegorical stories whereas for Muslims the Koran can not. It is the literal word of God. That means that if you consider yourself to be a Muslim, you do believe these things, and do have a religious view of history to some extent.

Of course, there are contradictions in the ideas that people hold, but surely the role of a communist organisation is to help clarify them.

I suppose if you have a view that you let anybody who wants to join in like some of the leftists today, it would be natural to admit religious people. If you have the view that people must agree with the politics of an organisation in order to join it, I think it is a little different.

Devrim

[S.Artesian]

Christ on a crutch, enough with the ridiculous argument about personal religious beliefs. Lets have Devrim's answer to the "very important question" I asked: Bay of Pigs 1961, do you advocate defeat on both sides? Do you think it is immaterial to the prospects of revolution whether the invasion is defeated or not?

[Alf]

Ronan: the crucial 'moment' is when a group defends an actually existing bourgeois and thus imperialist state. 'Support for national liberation' can mean all kind of vague statements about supporting the oppressed people, and indeed the theses of the Third International are extremely ambiguous about what this means; but it's when advocacy of the 'national struggle' becomes a consistent activity on behalf of a real bourgeois power that a definitive line has been crossed. A world war (or any war in which 'your own' state is involved) becomes a moment where there is no longer any room for ambiguity.

[Kléber]

I don't really buy into this whole idea of 'political independence'.
So would you say that the Bolsheviks' political independence during the defense of Petrograd against Kornilov was a sham, and the Red Guards were really acting as dupes of Kerensky?


If you see the USSR as a 'workers state' however degenerated or deformed this argument works. If you see it as a capitalist state, then your argument is just defencism. The fundamental difference is here.Okay, so forget about the USSR. Trotsky had the same position on China - which was certainly not a workers' state. By supporting anti-imperialist resistance, the Trotskyists won over cadre who were sickened by the crimes of Japanese imperialism and would otherwise have joined the Nationalists or Stalinists, and an independent partisan militia in Shandong as well as many soldiers in the Stalinist Chinese Red Army tried to affiliate to the Fourth International. The handful of Trotskyists who split away and called for China's defeat accomplished nothing of note except to shrink and dissolve.

Precisely in order to win the political struggle against the impotent bourgeois nationalist and Stalinist groupings in the oppressed countries, we must proudly be "defencists" of any colonized peoples under attack by imperialism, and "defeatists" of any and all imperialisms. The workers can not abrogate the task of smashing imperialism to religious fundies and secular pop fronts. I want the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq to win, for the workers of those countries to throw off the petty-bourgeois nationalists and religious sectarians, and the coalition troops to come home and join their fellow workers in smashing the imperialist states that started these wars and occupations.


the crucial 'moment' is when a group defends an actually existing bourgeois and thus imperialist state.
Ah, so the Bolsheviks had become a bourgeois party during the Kornilov putsch, before they even took power at the head of workers' councils!

[synthesis]

Dumb question, but:


In that they supported imperialist wars, which for us on the historic level is the vital question.

In the left-communist analysis, aren't all wars imperialist? Isn't the phrase "imperialist war" redundant?

[Alf]

All wars in the imperialist phase of capitalism, yes - except for the class war.