Trotskyist explanation of the Chinese Revolution?

[Blanquist]

Alan Woods writes this about the Chinese Revolution;

"For Marxists the Chinese Revolution was the second greatest event in human history, second only to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Millions of human beings, who had hitherto been the beasts of burden of imperialism, threw off the humiliating yoke of imperialism and capitalism, and entered the stage of world history."

"The Marxists wholeheartedly supported the revolution, but they also warned that because the working class did not play the leading role, what would emerge would be a bureaucratically deformed workers’ state."

This sounds like nonsense. Did Trotsky say anything about the possibility of capitalism being over-thrown without a workers revolution? A workers state, bureaucratically deformed but a workers state none the less being formed as the result of a non-working class revolution!?

The SEP in America writes "The new regime’s guiding perspective was not socialism but Mao’s “new democratic stage”, involving a coalition with capitalist parties and figures that had not fled with Chiang to Taiwan. Its limited reforms—the nationalisation of the land and land reform, basic welfare measures and the outlawing of social evils such as prostitution and opium abuse—were bourgeois measures. Likewise, the wave of nationalisations amid the economic crisis generated by the Korean War was not “socialist”, but paralleled the policies of national economic regulation in countries like India. The CCP simply carried through more consistently the program implemented by bourgeois leaders of the anti-colonial movement like India’s Nehru."

"While the middle class radicals of the 1960s and 1970s glorified the Cultural Revolution, the more conscious representatives of US imperialism recognised that the class character of “Red China” and the Soviet Union were not the same. The latter remained a workers state, albeit degenerated."

The 'Lutte Ouvrière' I don't know much about, they have big China articles on their site but they are in French and google translate is terrible.


What do the other Trotskyists say? What is the consensus? I'm a beginner so please don't attack me.

[daft punk]

Issue 11 of the Communist International (March 18, 1927) printed as an editorial an article on the Fifth Congress of the Chinese CP and the Kuomintang which is in every way an exceptional mockery of the basic elements of Marxist theory and Bolshevik politics. This article cannot be characterized otherwise than as the worst expression of right Menshevism on questions of revolution.
As its starting point the article takes the proposition that “the problem of problems of the Chinese revolution at the present moment is the position of the Kuomintang, the further development of the Kuomintang as a party at the head of the South China state” (p.4). Thus the problem of problems is not the awakening and the unification of millions of workers under the leadership of trade unions and the Communist Party, nor the drawing of poor peasants and artisans into the mainstream of the movement, nor the deepening of the struggle of the CP to win over the proletariat, nor the struggle of the proletariat for influence over the many-millioned masses of the disinherited – no, “the problem of problems” (!) is the position of the Kuomintang, i.e., a party organization which embraces, according to official figures, some 300,000 members – students, intellectuals, liberal merchants in general, and in part peasants and workers.

Trotsky 1927
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1927/04/china.htm

Trotsky's writings on China
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/china/index.htm

Yes, Woods should be ok to read on this subject. Trotsky was right.

Briefly, Stalin told Mao to unite with the capitalist KMT. The KMT drowned the revolution the blood of workers and communists. This was in 1927, 35,000 CCP members were killed. Stalin pretended nothing bad had happened. He continued supporting the KMT right up to 1948.

Mao retreated to the countryside and based himself on the peasants. Trotsky said it would lead to a deformed workers state. It did. Mao wasnt even aiming for a workers state, he aimed for capitalism, as did Stalin (with regards to countries outside the USSR.)

Trotsky, 1938
"But such is the bitter irony of history: the experience of the Russian Revolution not only did not help the Chinese proletariat but, on the contrary, it became in its reactionary, distorted form, one of the chief obstacles in its path."

[Blanquist]

Mao retreated to the countryside and based himself on the peasants. Trotsky said it would lead to a deformed workers state.

Where did he say that?

[Stalin Ate My Homework]

daft punk: what makes you think Stalin didn't want socialism to spread? I don't see what he could possibly gain from this. He may have had some policies that hampered the revolution but I very much doubt that he actively supported counter revolution.

[Blanquist]

daft punk: what makes you think Stalin didn't want socialism to spread? I don't see what he could possibly gain from this. He may have had some policies that hampered the revolution but I very much doubt that he actively supported counter revolution.


Howard : Does this, your statement, mean that the Soviet Union has to any degree abandoned its plans and intentions for bringing about world revolution?

Stalin : We never had such plans and intentions.

Howard : You appreciate, no doubt, Mr. Stalin, that much of the world has long entertained a different impression.

Stalin : This is the product of a misunderstanding.

Howard : A tragic misunderstanding?

Stalin : No, a comical one. Or, perhaps, tragicomic.

I can't post link to the source (post count low) but it's well known.

[Yehuda Stern]

Here (http://lrp-cofi.org/PR/Trotsky.html) is a very good and relatively short article on the matter. To be concise, the answer to your questions:


Did Trotsky say anything about the possibility of capitalism being over-thrown without a workers revolution? A workers state, bureaucratically deformed but a workers state none the less being formed as the result of a non-working class revolution!?

Is a definite no.

[daft punk]

daft punk: what makes you think Stalin didn't want socialism to spread? I don't see what he could possibly gain from this. He may have had some policies that hampered the revolution but I very much doubt that he actively supported counter revolution.

This is a big subject I have written about quite a bit on here. A few pointers:

1. Stalin opposed the German 1923 revolution
2. 1924-8 Stalin adopted right wing economic policies.
3. 1925-7 Stalin screwed up the Chinese revolution.
4. 1929 Stalin was forced to collectivise.
5. 1928-34, the Third Period.
6. 1934 onwards, back to class collaboration, Two Stage Theory, sabotage of socialism.
7. 1936-7, Stalin crushes revolution in Spain
8. Stalin backs KMT against CCP from 1925-1948.
9. 1936 French CP calls off general strike
10. 1935-8 purges of communists in Russia. The Moscow Trials. All charges bogus.
11. After WW2 Stalin wants communists to collaborate in establishing capitalist countries.
12. French parliament thanks French CP leaders for helping maintain revolution in Vietnam.
13. workers uprisings for democratic socialism crushed in East Germany and Hungary in the 1950s.

Mao was basically a Stalinist, but he didnt trust Stalin, especially Stalin's idea for the CCP to merge with the KMT. The KMT had massacred communists many times.

But Mao's On Coalition Government from 1945 is a good example of Stalinist thinking:

"What then do we propose? We propose the establishment, after the thorough defeat of the Japanese aggressors, of a state system which we call New Democracy, namely, a united-front democratic alliance based on the overwhelming majority of the people, under the leadership of the working class. It is this kind of state system that truly meets the demands of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese population, because it can win and indeed has been winning the approval, first, of millions of industrial workers and tens of millions of handicraftsmen and farm labourers, second, of the peasantry, which constitutes 80 per cent of China's population, i.e., 360 million out of a population of 450 million, and third, of the large numbers of the urban petty bourgeoisie as well as the national bourgeoisie, the enlightened gentry and other patriots."


"Some people suspect that the Chinese Communists are opposed to the development of individual initiative, the growth of private capital and the protection of private property, but they are mistaken"


"If any Communist or Communist sympathizer talks about socialism and communism but fails to fight for this objective, if he belittles this bourgeois-democratic revolution, relaxes or slows down ever so slightly and shows the least disloyalty and coolness or is reluctant to shed his blood or give his life for it, then wittingly or unwittingly, such a person is betraying socialism and communism to a greater or lesser extent and is certainly not a politically conscious and staunch fighter for communism. It is a law of Marxism that socialism can be attained only via the stage of democracy. And in China the fight for democracy is a protracted one. It would be a sheer illusion to try to build a socialist society on the ruins of the colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal order without a united new-democtatic state, without the development of the state sector of the new-democratic economy, of the private capitalist and the co-operative sectors, and of a national, scientific and mass culture, i.e., a new-democratic culture, and without the liberation and the development of the individuality of hundreds of millions of people--in short, without a thoroughgoing bourgeois-democratic revolution of a new type led by the Communist Party."


"Some people fail to understand why, so far from fearing capitalism, Communists should advocate its development in certain given conditions. Our answer is simple. The substitution of a certain degree of capitalist development for the oppression of foreign imperialism and domestic feudalism is not only an advance but an unavoidable process. It benefits the proletariat as well as the bourgeoisie, and the former perhaps more. It is not domestic capitalism but foreign imperialism and domestic feudalism which are superfluous in China today; indeed, we have too little of capitalism."


"From our knowledge of the Marxist laws of social development, we Communists clearly understand that under the state system of New Democracy in China it will be necessary in the interests of social progress to facilitate the development of the private capitalist sector of the economy (provided it does not dominate the livelihood of the people) besides the development of the state sector and of the individual and co-operative sectors run by the labouring people. We Communists will not let empty talk or deceitful tricks befuddle us."


and so on. He wanted several decades of capitalism before thinking about socialism. This is Stalinist Two Stage Theory, a distortion of Marxism. From Stalin's point of view it was a good excuse to stop socialism happening anywhere.


If genuine democratic socialism stared in other countries, people would want it in Russia, and he would get thrown out of his cushy number as a dictator.

[Crux]

From Chinaworker.info

60 years since China’s revolution (http://chinaworker.info/en/content/news/849/)

Wednesday, 30 September 2009. (http://chinaworker.info/en/content/news/849/)

[Paul Cockshott]

the cpc policy on private industry and agriculture in 50s was basically that of Lenin during NEP

[A Marxist Historian]

Alan Woods writes this about the Chinese Revolution;

"For Marxists the Chinese Revolution was the second greatest event in human history, second only to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Millions of human beings, who had hitherto been the beasts of burden of imperialism, threw off the humiliating yoke of imperialism and capitalism, and entered the stage of world history."

"The Marxists wholeheartedly supported the revolution, but they also warned that because the working class did not play the leading role, what would emerge would be a bureaucratically deformed workers’ state."

This sounds like nonsense. Did Trotsky say anything about the possibility of capitalism being over-thrown without a workers revolution? A workers state, bureaucratically deformed but a workers state none the less being formed as the result of a non-working class revolution!?

The SEP in America writes "The new regime’s guiding perspective was not socialism but Mao’s “new democratic stage”, involving a coalition with capitalist parties and figures that had not fled with Chiang to Taiwan. Its limited reforms—the nationalisation of the land and land reform, basic welfare measures and the outlawing of social evils such as prostitution and opium abuse—were bourgeois measures. Likewise, the wave of nationalisations amid the economic crisis generated by the Korean War was not “socialist”, but paralleled the policies of national economic regulation in countries like India. The CCP simply carried through more consistently the program implemented by bourgeois leaders of the anti-colonial movement like India’s Nehru."

"While the middle class radicals of the 1960s and 1970s glorified the Cultural Revolution, the more conscious representatives of US imperialism recognised that the class character of “Red China” and the Soviet Union were not the same. The latter remained a workers state, albeit degenerated."

The 'Lutte Ouvrière' I don't know much about, they have big China articles on their site but they are in French and google translate is terrible.


What do the other Trotskyists say? What is the consensus? I'm a beginner so please don't attack me.

The question of China is ultimately the same as the question of Cuba, where the working class didn't play any role in the revolution either.

A very old question of controversy among Trotskyists. The Spartacist argument that you indeed had a non-working class revolution in Cuba that led to the creation of a bureaucratically-deformed workers state was, over time, quietly accepted by most folk who call themselves Trotskyists (except for the state caps like the ISO or the British SWP, who disagree with Trotsky on Stalinism) for lack of a better explanation.

One exception was the ancestors of the SEP, the Healyites, who maintained that Castro's Cuba was capitalist, and have kept maintaining that ever since, for the last half century, in total defiance of reality.

It is true that Trotsky did not foresee such a thing, but then he was not a prophet and could not foresee the victory of the Soviet Union over Hitler, which stabilized the USSR and provided a bureaucratically deformed working class model for radical petty bourgeois nationalists in the Third World to imitate, whether Stalinist as with Mao or otherwise. In which they of course would get to be the bureaucrats.

Trotsky does characterize the Stalinist bureaucracy in Revolution Betrayed as petty bourgeois, so the Spartacist concept, though innovative, is compatible with his analysis.

As for China, the Chinese Trotskyists themselves concluded that indeed Mao's China was a workers state, despite the fact that workers played no role in the Chinese Revolution. And this conclusion was accepted by the Fourth International just before it fell apart in 1953. So that is "Trotskyist orthodoxy" more or less.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

Where did he say that?

He didn't. In fact he wrote one article in 1937 explicitly rejecting the idea.

But in 1937 he was right, Mao's guerillas could not have created a workers state, deformed or otherwise, if they somehow had overthrown Chiang Kai-Shek.

By 1949, things were different. The whole world was different in fact.

And now it's different again. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, petty bourgeois guerilla movements like the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the FMLN in El Salvador promptly dropped all ideas of creating more Cubas.

Not least because Fidel had been telling them what a bad idea that would be, in the current world situation.

So you have the Nepalese Maoist guerillas, who actually have seized power more or less, and have been busily making clear to everyone that they have no intention whatsoever of breaking with capitalism.

-M.H.-

[Blanquist]

The question of China is ultimately the same as the question of Cuba, where the working class didn't play any role in the revolution either.

A very old question of controversy among Trotskyists. The Spartacist argument that you indeed had a non-working class revolution in Cuba that led to the creation of a bureaucratically-deformed workers state was, over time, quietly accepted by most folk who call themselves Trotskyists (except for the state caps like the ISO or the British SWP, who disagree with Trotsky on Stalinism) for lack of a better explanation.

One exception was the ancestors of the SEP, the Healyites, who maintained that Castro's Cuba was capitalist, and have kept maintaining that ever since, for the last half century, in total defiance of reality.

It is true that Trotsky did not foresee such a thing, but then he was not a prophet and could not foresee the victory of the Soviet Union over Hitler, which stabilized the USSR and provided a bureaucratically deformed working class model for radical petty bourgeois nationalists in the Third World to imitate, whether Stalinist as with Mao or otherwise. In which they of course would get to be the bureaucrats.

Trotsky does characterize the Stalinist bureaucracy in Revolution Betrayed as petty bourgeois, so the Spartacist concept, though innovative, is compatible with his analysis.

As for China, the Chinese Trotskyists themselves concluded that indeed Mao's China was a workers state, despite the fact that workers played no role in the Chinese Revolution. And this conclusion was accepted by the Fourth International just before it fell apart in 1953. So that is "Trotskyist orthodoxy" more or less.

-M.H.-

When did Mao's China become a workers state?

In a history book I have in my hand (non-Marxist) it says;

"From 1949 to 1955 the party preached harmony... In the cities private enterprise and ownership were allowed to persist in a mixed economy, while in the vast rural areas socialist schemes were brought in gradually and always voluntary. The peasant owned his land... The professionals, the engineers, the businessmen and the owners of factories... were provided with the class label of 'national bourgeoisie'"

- J.A.S Grenville, "A history of the world, in the twentieth century"

I don't think a 'workers state' and a 'national bourgeoisie' are compatible.

[Stalin Ate My Homework]

How long did Mao actually allow the national bourgeoisie to exist though? I was under the impression that he tolerated them only initially.

[daft punk]

"Originally Posted by daft punk http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2359904#post2359904)
Mao retreated to the countryside and based himself on the peasants. Trotsky said it would lead to a deformed workers state. "

Where did he say that?



The Russian Narodniks used to accuse the Russian Marxists of “ignoring” the peasantry, of not carrying on work in the villages, etc. To this the Marxists replied: “We will arouse and organize the advanced workers and through the workers we shall arouse the peasants.” Such in general is the only conceivable road for the proletarian party.
The Chinese Stalinists have acted otherwise. During the revolution of 1925-27 they subordinated directly and immediately the interests of the workers and the peasants to the interests of the national bourgeoisie. In the years of the counter-revolution they passed over from the proletariat to the peasantry, i.e., they undertook that role which was fulfilled in our country by the SRs when they were still a revolutionary party. Had the Chinese Communist Party concentrated its efforts for the last few years in the cities, in industry, on the railroads; had it sustained the trade unions, the educational clubs and circles; had it, without breaking off from the workers, taught them to understand what was occurring in the villages—the share of the proletariat in the general correlation of forces would have been incomparably more favourable today.
The party actually tore itself away from its class. Thereby in the last analysis it can cause injury to the peasantry as well. For should the proletariat continue to remain on the sidelines, without organization, without leadership, then the peasant war even if fully victorious will inevitably arrive in a blind alley.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/09/china.htm

[daft punk]

daft punk: what makes you think Stalin didn't want socialism to spread? I don't see what he could possibly gain from this. He may have had some policies that hampered the revolution but I very much doubt that he actively supported counter revolution.

1. Two Stage Theory
2. Popular Fronts
3. Socialism in One Country
4. The purges of communists
5. The sabotage of all revolutions

Try starting here

http://www.marxists.org/subject/stalinism/origins-future/ch2-1.htm
http://www.socialistworld.net/print/5201
http://www.socialismtoday.org/132/china60.html


random piece of the jigsaw:

“French conservative politicians rose in the National Assembly during a crucial appropriations debate from March 14-18, 1947, to thank their own Communist colleagues and the Soviet Union for leaving France to fight its war in Indochina without outside disturbance.”

Bernard Fall, The Two Vietnams, p308

The French CP leaders, with ministerial positions in de Gaulle's capitalist government, were thanked for helping maintain French rule over Vietnam.

more detail here
http://www.socialistworld.net/pubs/vietnam/c1.html


The question of China is ultimately the same as the question of Cuba, where the working class didn't play any role in the revolution either.

It's a bit different in that in China the USSR opposed the communists, whereas with Cuba, Castro was not a communist and the Russians didnt even know who he was.




A very old question of controversy among Trotskyists. The Spartacist argument that you indeed had a non-working class revolution in Cuba that led to the creation of a bureaucratically-deformed workers state was, over time, quietly accepted by most folk who call themselves Trotskyists (except for the state caps like the ISO or the British SWP, who disagree with Trotsky on Stalinism) for lack of a better explanation.

One exception was the ancestors of the SEP, the Healyites, who maintained that Castro's Cuba was capitalist, and have kept maintaining that ever since, for the last half century, in total defiance of reality.

It is true that Trotsky did not foresee such a thing, but then he was not a prophet and could not foresee the victory of the Soviet Union over Hitler,
I dont think either is true. What did Trotsky not forsee regarding Cuba? A guerilla army came to power based on the peasantry, he never said that was impossible.

And I dont think he said the USSR couldnt beat the Nazis either, he said the couldnt without allying with the capitalist countries, which is what happened.






which stabilized the USSR and provided a bureaucratically deformed working class model for radical petty bourgeois nationalists in the Third World to imitate, whether Stalinist as with Mao or otherwise. In which they of course would get to be the bureaucrats.


hmm.. sort of, in the end, but as I say initially Mao was aiming for capitalism and so were the Stalinist leaders in other countries, and so was castro who wasnt Stalinist or socialist.



Trotsky does characterize the Stalinist bureaucracy in Revolution Betrayed as petty bourgeois, so the Spartacist concept, though innovative, is compatible with his analysis.

As for China, the Chinese Trotskyists themselves concluded that indeed Mao's China was a workers state, despite the fact that workers played no role in the Chinese Revolution. And this conclusion was accepted by the Fourth International just before it fell apart in 1953. So that is "Trotskyist orthodoxy" more or less.

-M.H.-

Yes, it is a workers state, or was, because most stuff ended up nationalised. A deformed workers state which was intended to be capitalist.

[Stalin Ate My Homework]

Daft punk: Thanks for the links.

1. Regarding the two stage theory I find it very ironic that Trotsky was called a Menshevik, when Stalin backed the Two Stage Theory. Anyone who has a grasp of historical materialism would see that if a revolutionary situation develops, even in a backward country, then capitalism must already be sufficiently developed.

2. In Stalin's defence, it could be argued that the popular front was shown to be a necessity in certain circumstances after the third period of the Comintern facilitated the rise of the Nazi's.

3. Could it not be argued that after WW2 that the revolution spread to Eastern Europe anyway? I know you'd probably argue that the Eastern bloc were
deformed workers states but I don't think that it was because of the socialism in one country policy.

4. I can accept that.

5. Regarding the sabotage of revolutions, I think the blame for the failure of Germany 1923 rests not only upon Stalin, but also Zinoviev and the Comintern and Brandler and the center faction of the KPD. I think Trotsky held the right line in stressing that the party needed to be proactive rather than reactive. Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev didn't understand this in 191 either. Regarding Spain see the second point I made. I don't really know much about China but Stalin's support for the KMT up until 1948 seems pretty indefensible.


The articles you provided were very enlightening, thank you! The first one in particular refutes the idea that the USSR forced socialism onto Eastern Europe, in fact it was quite the opposite, they done everything they could to strangle the class struggle. Stalin's policies were an abandonment of internationalim but I don't think Marxism-Leninism as a whole is an abandonment of internationalism because SIOC was a temporary policy of Stalin's brought about by the isolation of USSR, that, however, is no excuse for the gross incompetance and often cynical pragmatism of Stalinist foreign policy.

[Stalin Ate My Homework]

Regarding the third point I made, I now refute that to a certain extent due to the articles you provided

[daft punk]

Daft punk: Thanks for the links.

No problem, let me know what you think when you have read them. Do read them, you will find them invaluable.



1. Regarding the two stage theory I find it very ironic that Trotsky was called a Menshevik, when Stalin backed the Two Stage Theory. Anyone who has a grasp of historical materialism would see that if a revolutionary situation develops, even in a backward country, then capitalism must already be sufficiently developed.

Read this as well
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/11/oct.htm
this is a speech by Trotsky to students explaining the reasons why the Russian revolution happened. He was banned from mentioning the Stalinist regime.
He was not a Menshevik, well, just for a few months when the split took place.

I disagree that capitalism is sufficiently developed. A backward country would need help from advanced countries. If that didnt happen, like in Russia, they would have to do their best to hang on and try to take baby steps in the right direction. For Lenin this was tax the rich, build state industry, educate the youth, and subsidise cooperatives for the poor peasants.



2. In Stalin's defence, it could be argued that the popular front was shown to be a necessity in certain circumstances after the third period of the Comintern facilitated the rise of the Nazi's.

It was just an excuse to sabotage revolution, to keep the west happy, and to prevent revolution spreading to Russia. Look at the result - fascists in power in Spain. In China a million communists killed by the KMT.



3. Could it not be argued that after WW2 that the revolution spread to Eastern Europe anyway? I know you'd probably argue that the Eastern bloc were
deformed workers states but I don't think that it was because of the socialism in one country policy.

see the article on the aftermath of the second world war.



5. Regarding the sabotage of revolutions, I think the blame for the failure of Germany 1923 rests not only upon Stalin, but also Zinoviev and the Comintern and Brandler and the center faction of the KPD. I think Trotsky held the right line in stressing that the party needed to be proactive rather than reactive.
spot on





Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev didn't understand this in 191 either. Regarding Spain see the second point I made. I don't really know much about China but Stalin's support for the KMT up until 1948 seems pretty indefensible.

Have you read the article on China yet?





The articles you provided were very enlightening, thank you! The first one in particular refutes the idea that the USSR forced socialism onto Eastern Europe, in fact it was quite the opposite, they done everything they could to strangle the class struggle. Stalin's policies were an abandonment of internationalim but I don't think Marxism-Leninism as a whole is an abandonment of internationalism because SIOC was a temporary policy of Stalin's brought about by the isolation of USSR, that, however, is no excuse for the gross incompetance and often cynical pragmatism of Stalinist foreign policy.

The key thing here is that by the mid 1930s, Stalin's biggest fear was revolution from below for genuine socialism. To prevent that he had to prevent socialism anywhere else. And in doing so he kept the west happy.