A question for Trotskyists.

[Yuppie Grinder]

I've noticed that there are many different Trotskyist organizations from around the world. I'd like to know why these parties don't merge, what are the differences between their political programs, and why you belong to the organization you belong to.
Here's the very long list of Trotskyist organizations for anyone who's curious: http://www.broadleft.org/trotskyi.htm.

[derg]

"lol"


edit: but really as i now see this is a forum called 'learning' and i should be less flippant, IMO it's because the historical experience of trotskyism is, shall we say, not one filled with successes. failure enhances internal disagreements which leads to all the splitting. some of the splits for example came about when one trotskyite position that capitalism would not be restored in the USSR without basically civil war proved to be completely incorrect. other splits have been over the economic nature of the USSR and a lot really just come down to personality politics.

also, most of the 'parties' in that list are incredibly small borderline ego-boosting projects. Trotskyism does presently not hold much sway outside of certain sections of the Western world where there is still a glimmer of trade union activity.

the parties wont merge because they all want to do it on their terms only, i.e. to absorb their rival organisations cadre but not its leadership. there are now way too many historical differences between various trotskyite groups for meaningful unity to be achieved in that way. additionally, 'trotskyism' is such a broad church after nearly a century of splits and different thinkers that there are really very few orthodox trotskyists left. just because all these groups claim to inherit Trotsky's legacy does not mean they agree with each other on much at all

[Crux]

Fucking fuck fuck. I wrotd a really long response to both of you and then my computer died just before I clicked submit. Fuck. Ok I gotta go now but I will be back later.

[bolshie]

Trotskyism does presently not hold much sway outside of certain sections of the Western world where there is still a glimmer of trade union activity.

i thought Trotskyism and Marxism-Leninism were the two main strands of communism?



the parties wont merge because they all want to do it on their terms only, i.e. to absorb their rival organisations cadre but not its leadership. there are now way too many historical differences between various trotskyite groups for meaningful unity to be achieved in that way. additionally, 'trotskyism' is such a broad church after nearly a century of splits and different thinkers that there are really very few orthodox trotskyists left. just because all these groups claim to inherit Trotsky's legacy does not mean they agree with each other on much at all

Its bewidering

[scarletghoul]

i thought Trotskyism and Marxism-Leninism were the two main strands of communism?
This is true only in a few countries like the UK. Its also true of the internet though, so i can see why you'd think that.

If i had to name 'two main strands' of communism today i would say the divide is between the ones who are or are willing to be physically engaged in challenging the bourgeois state (prime example imo is the maoists in india philippines turkey bangladesh bhutan peru afghanistan morocco etc as well as some non maoist groups in other countries) and the democratic-socialist types (chavez syriza cpindia(marxist) etc of course these all are different but only in their degree of bourgeoisification, that is its quantitative not qualitative ). nepal maoists are splitting along these lines also

the trot/stalin divide is only relevent in 3 places : history, the internet, and as reference point for some theoretical debates (but not many at this stage).

[el_chavista]

.. i would say the divide is between the ones who are or are willing to be physically engaged in challenging the bourgeois state (prime example imo is the maoists in india philippines turkey bangladesh bhutan peru afghanistan morocco etc as well as some non maoist groups in other countries) and the democratic-socialist types (chavez syriza cpindia(marxist)..
That looks like the divide between communists and social-democrats. I think communists's strategy to seize power varies according to the concrete socio-economic conditions of the country: they may engage in a parliamentary participation when there are democratic conditions or in a guerrilla when there is an ultra-rightist dictature.

[Geiseric]

Ok well the conflict between Trotskyists and MLs come down to them upholding the purges, and for being historically and in today's world notorious defensists and advocates of popular fronts with bourgeois forces. Anyways, the PT (workers party) of Brazil and Algeria both have large trotskyist sections which are part of the 4th international (la verte) or formerly 4th international (ICR) in the 90's. So far to my knowlege also in france the 4th international has a few thousand members... If we don't look at things like votes (recently the election in Algeria was rigged specifically to prevent a PT majority in parliament) i'd say progress is being made.

[Homo Songun]

...the conflict between Trotskyists and MLs come down to them upholding the purges, and for being historically and in today's world notorious defensists and advocates of popular fronts with bourgeois forces. Anyways, the PT (workers party) of Brazil and Algeria both have large trotskyist sections...

Fascinating

[JAM]

the conflict between Trotskyists and MLs come down to them upholding the purges, and for being historically and in today's world notorious defensists and advocates of popular fronts with bourgeois forces. Anyways, the PT (workers party) of Brazil and Algeria both have large trotskyist sections

Just for anybody who isn't familiar with, PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores in portuguese) is the centre-left party of Brazil, the equivalent of the Labor Party of UK. Just for everybody see the coherence of Brotsky accusation towards the Marxists-Leninists.

[jookyle]

Trotskyist group sectarianism basically has to do with minor disagreements. Honestly, it comes down to small disagreements in large groups, and instead adhering to the principals of democratic centralism they're supposed to be for, they break off and form a new group.

[Questionable]

Trotskyist group sectarianism basically has to do with minor disagreements. Honestly, it comes down to small disagreements in large groups, and instead adhering to the principals of democratic centralism they're supposed to be for, they break off and form a new group.

I feel that there must be material reasons for the sectarianism, though. It can't just be because Trotskyism attracts whiny people (Not implying you're saying that, but I know some who would). There must be some material condition, or flaw within the ideology itself, that makes it so prone to splits.

[Geiseric]

Irony, i'm being called sectarian because I idenfity with political groups who directly work with the working class parties as opposed to being a collective of "communist intellectuals." The leadership of PT in brazil is social democrat but according to some comrades there is a leadership struggle with revolutionary members. PT Algeria has a revolutionary leadership and would be a majority group in parliament if the election wasn't a fraud.

[Yuppie Grinder]

No need to bring up Maoism, that's not what this thread is about.

[bolshie]

the trot/stalin divide is only relevent in 3 places : history, the internet, and as reference point for some theoretical debates (but not many at this stage).

Well all communists should be capable of working together in theory, but Stalin had Trotsky murdered, so it didn't seem to happen in practice. Maybe nowadays it's possible though. However according to the opening post, even Trotskyists are very divided.

[Art Vandelay]

I feel that there must be material reasons for the sectarianism, though. It can't just be because Trotskyism attracts whiny people (Not implying you're saying that, but I know some who would). There must be some material condition, or flaw within the ideology itself, that makes it so prone to splits.

I think a lot of it has to do with democratic centralism being a terrible idea; all good until in practice it becomes a lot less democratic and a lot more centralized.

[Questionable]

I think a lot of it has to do with democratic centralism being a terrible idea; all good until in practice it becomes a lot less democratic and a lot more centralized.

I think it works, but when you have these little political groups that are totally detached from the actual workers and spend their time squabbling over historical matters that are almost entirely subjective, people are going to be a whole lot less patient with the concept.

[Geiseric]

The Marxist Leninist movement isn't alien to splits as well, I've seen a multitude of "ML," "MLM," parties that split from the Stalinist era communist parties because of the Khrushchev leadership, and who split from the ML movement from every other leader of the USSR. The same kinda goes for Trotskyism, but only in reverse, since Trotskyist splits (the biggest one being Max Schatman's split, at least in the U.S.) are always about "How bad the USSR has gotten."

The split from the CWI undertaken by the newly formed International Secretariat of the 4th International was about basically saying that the time to build a workers party was at hand, instead of trying to build up the party of communists disconnected from the mass movements. So sometimes, such as the split of the 4th international from the 3rd international after it prooved incapible to stop Fascism, are warranted. But the October revolution wouldn't of happened if the Bolsheviks at one point split from the Mensheviks and the 2nd international.

[Questionable]

The Marxist Leninist movement isn't alien to splits as well, I've seen a multitude of "ML," "MLM," parties that split from the Stalinist era communist parties because of the Khrushchev leadership, and who split from the ML movement from every other leader of the USSR. The same kinda goes for Trotskyism, but only in reverse, since Trotskyist splits (the biggest one being Max Schatman's split, at least in the U.S.) are always about "How bad the USSR has gotten."

The split from the CWI undertaken by the newly formed International Secretariat of the 4th International was about basically saying that the time to build a workers party was at hand, instead of trying to build up the party of communists disconnected from the mass movements. So sometimes, such as the split of the 4th international from the 3rd international after it prooved incapible to stop Fascism, are warranted. But the October revolution wouldn't of happened if the Bolsheviks at one point split from the Mensheviks and the 2nd international.

I wasn't implying that Marxist-Leninists were immune to splits. Sectarianism is definitely affecting every leftist tendency at the moment.

[Geiseric]

Right, however it's not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion. The only other choice from "sectarianism," for the bolsheviks would of been existing as a minority in the body that got the working class to support The Great War. We just have to look at things in perspective. wings and seperate groupings in a workers party are obviously acceptable as long as the majority decision of the delegates of the workers is accepted as the course of action for the party as a whole. kamanev and zinoviev publishing inner party conflicts nearly killed the bolsheviks momentum in the months before october. The way I see it, you aren't forced to do anything but you can't act against by the majority rule.

[Homo Songun]

wings and seperate groupings in a workers party are obviously acceptable as long as the majority decision of the delegates of the workers is accepted as the course of action for the party as a whole. kamanev and zinoviev publishing inner party conflicts nearly killed the bolsheviks momentum in the months before october. The way I see it, you aren't forced to do anything but you can't act against by the majority rule.

Unless majority is bureaucratic and insists on voting overwhelmingly against you, of course. Then you should start a faction with it's own printing press and separate meetings, amirite?

[Geiseric]

No, not until purges that kill off most of the Communist leadership, and a history of opportunism that allowed for fascism to rise at least. Untill 1933, Trotsky actually said to support the Communist Parties, but not their leadership who, as we saw with Thaelman and the KPD in Germany were obviously inempt. By the point where the Left Opposition formed and moved for inner party democracy though, Stalin let the doors open to the Communist Party and let a bunch of rich peasants, czarist bureaucrats, and non proletarians in though which kinda ruined the idea of it being an effective "Vanguard," of the proletariat.

[Homo Songun]

No, not until purges that kill off most of the Communist leadership, and a history of opportunism that allowed for fascism to rise at least.

Only problem is that Trotsky created his counter-party apparatus in 1925-1927, while his political line was being rejected by enormous margins, e.g., 724,000 to 4000. Mere details, I know.


Untill 1933, Trotsky actually said to support the Communist Parties, but not their leadership who, as we saw with Thaelman and the KPD in Germany were obviously inempt. By the point where the Left Opposition formed and moved for inner party democracy though, Stalin let the doors open to the Communist Party and let a bunch of rich peasants, czarist bureaucrats, and non proletarians in though which kinda ruined the idea of it being an effective "Vanguard," of the proletariat.

It is a fact that undesirables entered the Party, especially after the Revolution. Thats why Lenin was in favor of regular purges:


All members of the R.C.P. who are in any way dubious, unreliable, or who have failed to prove their stability, should be removed from the Party, with the right of re-admission upon further verification and test.


If we really succeed in purging our Party from top to bottom in this way, without exceptions, it will indeed be an enormous achievement for the revolution.

However Stalin was not identical to the Party and he did not always get his way, particularly in 1920s. An inconvenience that Trotsky liked to gloss over:


By depicting our Party as a voting herd, Trotsky expresses contempt for the mass of the C.P.S.U.(B.) membership. Is it surprising that the Party reciprocates this contempt and expresses utter distrust of Trotsky?


In fact it was the 10th congress of the Russian Communist Party in 1921, which happened during Lenin's lifetime and well before the rise of Stalin that banned the factionalism for which Trotsky was later demoted and then expelled.

[Geiseric]

Only problem is that Trotsky created his counter-party apparatus in 1925-1927, while his political line was being rejected by enormous margins, e.g., 724,000 to 4000. Mere details, I know.

Originally Posted by Stalin
"By depicting our Party as a voting herd, Trotsky expresses contempt for the mass of the C.P.S.U.(B.) membership. Is it surprising that the Party reciprocates this contempt and expresses utter distrust of Trotsky? "

724,000 to 4,000 doesn't sound like a voting herd? I've never seen a more uniform party in the history of politics. You kinda contradicted yourself with that quote. Anyways there was no democracy in the bolshevik party, and if you see Comintern's slavish devotion to Moscow's foreign policy (Which Stalin explicitely claimed it was only to be used for) it's obvious that there was a lack of free thought and critical thinking. All of this is meaningless though since Stalinism failed miserably by allowing the Nazis to rise, and even trading huge amounts of raw material with untill Barbarosa struck. Unless "Popular Frontism," extends to Nazis, I don't know what was going through his head.



In fact it was the 10th congress of the Russian Communist Party in 1921, which happened during Lenin's lifetime and well before the rise of Stalin that banned the factionalism for which Trotsky was later demoted and then expelled.

You're ignoring that 1921 was when the civil war was going on and when there was massive starvation and famine on an unprecidented scale, possibly the worst in human history. 1925/26 was an entirely different story, the country wasn't in desperation to the extent of cannibalism, and things were somewhat in control, so the ban on factions would of by then made sense to get rid of. None of this matters though since the politics and economic plans set fourth by Stalin's clique were disasterous in every aspect, and the only thing that saved the U.S.S.R. was adopting the Left Opposition's industrialisation platform, which stalin thought was "adventurism," and "utopian," to do within the next unforeseeable 40 years, at the point of 1925.

Also the purges that Lenin did would of been of the people that Stalin allowed into the party, so he obviously knew that Lenin wouldn't of allowed them in after he witnessed Lenin kicking a bunch of them out during the civil war and the early 1920s... Lenin never killed a single bolshevik anyways, and at this point i'm not sure if he even kicked any out of the Communist Party, let along assassinating presidents of soviets, comintern delegates, red army marshals, most of the still living founders of the bolshevik party, kicking out the founders of many communist parties in other countries, the list goes on...

[Homo Songun]

724,000 to 4,000 doesn't sound like a voting herd? I've never seen a more uniform party in the history of politics. You kinda contradicted yourself with that quote. Anyways there was no democracy in the bolshevik party, and if you see Comintern's slavish devotion to Moscow's foreign policy (Which Stalin explicitely claimed it was only to be used for) it's obvious that there was a lack of free thought and critical thinking.

"Trotsky does not understand our Party. He has a wrong conception of our Party. He regards our Party in the same way as an aristocrat regards the "rabble," or a bureaucrat his subordinates. If that were not so, he would not assert that it is possible in a party a million strong, in the C.P.S.U.(B.), for individuals, for in dividual leaders, to "seize," to "usurp" power. To talk about "seizing" power in a party a million strong, a party that has made three revolutions and is now shaking the foundations of world imperialism -- such is the depth of stupidity to which Trotsky has sunk!

Is it at all possible to "seize" power in a party a million strong, a party rich in revolutionary traditions? If it is, why has Trotsky failed to "seize" power in the Party, to force his way to leadership of the Party? How is that to be explained? Does Trotsky lack the will and the desire to lead? Is it not a fact that for more than two decades already Trotsky has been fighting the Bolsheviks for leadership in the Party? Why has he failed to "seize" power in the Party? Is he a less powerful orator than the present leaders of our Party? Would it not be truer to say that as an orator Trotsky is superior to many of the present leaders of our Party? How, then, are we to explain the fact that notwithstanding his oratorical skill, notwithstanding his will to lead, notwithstanding his abilities, Trotsky was thrown out of the leadership of the great party which is called the C.P.S.U.(B.)? The explanation that Trotsky is inclined to offer is that our Party, in his opinion, is a voting herd, which blindly follows the Central Committee of the Party. But only people who despise the Party and regard it as rabble can speak of it in that way. Only a down-at-heel party aristocrat can regard the Party as a voting herd." Stalin.



Also the purges that Lenin did would of been of the people that Stalin allowed into the party, so he obviously knew that Lenin wouldn't of allowed them in after he witnessed Lenin kicking a bunch of them out during the civil war and the early 1920s...

Setting aside the question of exactly how "obvious" it is that Lenin wouldn't do what Stalin did, I simply don't think that the Party was a bunch of mooing dolts and the entirety of inner party life was a titanic struggle between Stalin and and Trotsky.

[ckaihatsu]

Trotskyist group sectarianism basically has to do with minor disagreements. Honestly, it comes down to small disagreements in large groups, and instead adhering to the principals of democratic centralism they're supposed to be for, they break off and form a new group.





I feel that there must be material reasons for the sectarianism, though. It can't just be because Trotskyism attracts whiny people (Not implying you're saying that, but I know some who would). There must be some material condition, or flaw within the ideology itself, that makes it so prone to splits.


My take on it is that it's 'the pressure and friction at the tip of the nose cone', if you get my meaning....

[black magick hustla]

It is a fact that undesirables entered the Party, especially after the Revolution. Thats why Lenin was in favor of regular purges:

i don't think to lenin "purge" meant "murder" btw.

[black magick hustla]

anyone who defends stalin in this day and age is a fucking kook/belongs to a fantasy roleplaying game. (unless you are a third world maoist but even then its just cuz' its fashionable to say stalin was 50% right just cuz mao said so)

[Homo Songun]

anyone who defends stalin in this day and age is a fucking kook/belongs to a fantasy roleplaying game. (unless you are a third world maoist but even then its just cuz' its fashionable to say stalin was 50% right just cuz mao said so)
And anyone who uses the thought-terminating cliché of Stalin's evil to avoid the argument at hand is not seeking truth from facts. We all 'know' Stalin kicked 50 billion puppies. The thing is, I am criticizing Trotskyism, not defending Stalin. Two different things.


i don't think to lenin "purge" meant "murder" btw.
There is the minor problem of timing. Trotsky was splitting and wrecking in the 1920s, the Great Purge was in the 1930s. Trotsky's murder was in 1940.

The question raised by OP was why do Trots split so much. Apparently, Trots hold that while "wings and seperate groupings in a workers party are obviously acceptable" one mustn't "act against by the majority rule" ... unless, of course, the majority is voting against you. Which is a bit like a man having sex with men but thinking he's straight so long as he's on top.

[Geiseric]

Not even when the party votes against you should you not abide by majority rule. that's how all democracy works, and if I remember correctly Trotsky was KICKED OUT OF not SPLIT from the communist party. So I don't know where you're getting your facts from. He said to unconditionally protect the U.S.S.R. in a war effort, to support Communist Parties worldwide, but not to protect the Stalinist hacks who were left in power from the purges, because the counter revolutionary Stalin allowed the Communist Movements to become subordinate to at first Minimalists Defensists or Nationalists in the early 1920s, and in the 1930s, the fight against fascism was to be fought with the Liberal Bourgeoisie in Popular Fronts, not workers parties! What kind of shit was that? And then for the next 9 years, U.S.S.R. supplies are going directly to Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, supportive of their Imperialist war efforts in Ethiopia and Eastern Europe!

He was supportive of the Communism that won the Russian Revolution, not the kind of Defensism and centrism that rendered the Social Democracy useless. And even after WW2, Stalin carved up Europe with Winston Churchill, the patriarch of British Imperialism, as though he was the king of it.

The question of Trot splits is the same as the question of any split, including the NUMEROUS splits from the Mainstram ML movement. Every time an ML calls a Stalinist "Revisionist," is a time a split or disagreement happened from the Stalinist movement. That's how many times, so it isn't particular to Trotskyism. However Trotskyism has been under more stress and attack from all directions than Stalinism (which was the supportive of and even took parts in the attacks on Trotskyists). The Palmer Raids you hear about in American History class if you live in the U.S. were focused on the SWP, the Trotskyist party. In the smith trials, the Stalinists testified against the Trotskyists and gave evidence to the F.B.I. about what they were doing.

[Homo Songun]

Not even when the party votes against you should you not abide by majority rule. that's how all democracy works, and if I remember correctly Trotsky was KICKED OUT OF not SPLIT from the communist party. So I don't know where you're getting your facts from.

I'm getting it from the historical reality that Trotsky set up a counter-party while still a nominal member of the Bolsheviks. Do you deny this (http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/harry-haywood-trotskys-day-in-court/)?


The question of Trot splits is the same as the question of any split, including the NUMEROUS splits from the Mainstram ML movement. Every time an ML calls a Stalinist "Revisionist," is a time a split or disagreement happened from the Stalinist movement. That's how many times, so it isn't particular to Trotskyism.

I think this is false, for 2 reasons. First, it must be admitted that Trotskyism's split from Leninism (or Marxism-Leninism, 'Stalinism' if you insist) is "the" split informing all the rest since then. Secondly, last I checked there weren't 38+ competing versions of the 'Stalinist' equivalent to the 4th international (http://www.broadleft.org/trotskyi.htm) -- of course, we both know the Lambs are the true heirs of Trotsky, but set that aside for now. All this, with a movement that to this day remains orders of magnitude smaller than the Stalinists.



the counter revolutionary Stalin allowed the Communist Movements to become subordinate to at first Minimalists Defensists or Nationalists in the early 1920s, and in the 1930s, the fight against fascism was to be fought with the Liberal Bourgeoisie in Popular Fronts, not workers parties! What kind of shit was that? And then for the next 9 years, U.S.S.R. supplies are going directly to Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, supportive of their Imperialist war efforts in Ethiopia and Eastern Europe!

He was supportive of the Communism that won the Russian Revolution, not the kind of Defensism and centrism that rendered the Social Democracy useless. And even after WW2, Stalin carved up Europe with Winston Churchill, the patriarch of British Imperialism, as though he was the king of it.


The Palmer Raids you hear about in American History class if you live in the U.S. were focused on the SWP, the Trotskyist party. In the smith trials, the Stalinists testified against the Trotskyists and gave evidence to the F.B.I. about what they were doing.

I acknowledge your appreciation for historical context, even though your grasp of it is quite bad (The Palmer Raids happened almost two decades before the SWP was even founded), however even if I grant your points for the sake of argument, it says nothing about OP's original question.

Why are there so many Trotskyist splits and factions? And how does this relate the ideology of Trotsky the political individual? I think this can be investigated without belaboring too much over the many real or purported 'crimes' of Stalinism.

My starting point is, Trotsky was factionalizing in contradiction to the rules set down in 1921 before the Trotskyists were expelled and/or killed but after (or during) his political line was resoundingly defeated in a lengthy inner-Party debate, 5 years long according to Haywood. What do we make of this? What does this have to do with the many, many factions today?

[Geiseric]

The factions in the bolshevik party as to whether or not to industrialise were totally justified in being created. These debates wouldn't of led to a crash as the factionalism in 1921 during the civil war would have. Trotsky was trying to stay inside of the party as an opposition as it would have worked as any other time in bolshevik history, however as we know he was expelled after suggesting correctly that a failure to expropiate the Kulak class in 1925 would lead to a disaster as soon as the industrialisation and collectivisation started. anyways, the assaults from police forces, stalinists, fascists, liberals, and social democrats has stressed the trotskyist movement to a large extent. That is the reason for the splits, alongside with political opportunists like Tony Cliff and Sam Marcy.

[Homo Songun]

Do you realize that you are saying the functional equivalent of 'Factionalism is wrong unless Trotsky says its right. This was proved by Trotsky.'

Can you understand why this answer might be unsatisfying to some people? How we are no closer to understanding anything about Trotskyism?

[A Marxist Historian]

I'm getting it from the historical reality that Trotsky set up a counter-party while still a nominal member of the Bolsheviks. Do you deny this (http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/harry-haywood-trotskys-day-in-court/)?


That is simply, demonstrably, false. He didn't. He and the Left Opposition refused to set up a counterparty, regarding themselves as an expelled opposition faction that was trying to return. Left Oppositionists who wished to set up a separate party were expelled from the Left Opposition.

In 1933, when the Comintern and the CPUSSR had demonstrated to the world that they were no longer reformable, by carrying out a policy that enabled Hitler to come to power without even any noticeable internal opposition to this, Trotsky decided it was time to create independent parties.



I think this is false, for 2 reasons. First, it must be admitted that Trotskyism's split from Leninism (or Marxism-Leninism, 'Stalinism' if you insist) is "the" split informing all the rest since then. Secondly, last I checked there weren't 38+ competing versions of the 'Stalinist' equivalent to the 4th international (http://www.broadleft.org/trotskyi.htm) -- of course, we both know the Lambs are the true heirs of Trotsky, but set that aside for now. All this, with a movement that to this day remains orders of magnitude smaller than the Stalinists.

Up until the early '90s, Stalin and Stalinism, in its many variants, had the weight of historical credibility due to the fact that about half the population of the human race were under regimes following the Stalin model in one way or another, all, including in the USSR, lyingly calling themselves "Marxist Leninists."

Now history has demonstrated to the entire human race, with the exception of diehards here and there, that the Stalin model was a failure.

Why do you not have big Trotskyist parties now? Well, partially due to the manifold problems with most of the allegedly "Trotskyist" parties out there, very few of which would be considered "Trotskyist" by Trotsky himself, but primarily because most people have thrown the baby out with the bath water, and think not just that Stalinism has failed, but that communism itself is a bad idea.

So the world as a whole is far to the right politically of where it was for most of the twentieth century.

This is the heritage of Stalin and Stalinism, and the worst crime of Stalinism of all in my book.




I acknowledge your appreciation for historical context, even though your grasp of it is quite bad (The Palmer Raids happened almost two decades before the SWP was even founded), however even if I grant your points for the sake of argument, it says nothing about OP's original question.

Why are there so many Trotskyist splits and factions? And how does this relate the ideology of Trotsky the political individual? I think this can be investigated without belaboring too much over the many real or purported 'crimes' of Stalinism.

My starting point is, Trotsky was factionalizing in contradiction to the rules set down in 1921 before the Trotskyists were expelled and/or killed but after (or during) his political line was resoundingly defeated in a lengthy inner-Party debate, 5 years long according to Haywood. What do we make of this? What does this have to do with the many, many factions today?

That Stalin won the debate was because the working class was demoralized and the revolution was degenerating. Why? Because you can't build socialism in one country. So working class demoralization in a country like the USSR, which went through so much agony and suffering during the Civil War, was inevitable unless the Revolution spread, as Lenin and Trotsky originally planned.

But his victory was totally insecure, which is why Stalin had to first jail and then murder all opposition. Had there been any workers democracy in the Soviet Union and the CPUSSR, Stalin would have been out on his ass pretty quickly.

What does all this have to do with the splintering of the Trotskyists into so many factions, almost all of which are really left social democrats not Trotskyists these days?

This is because of their isolation worldwide, due to the victory of Stalinism in the USSR, and of course the victory of the USSR over Hitler fascism during WWII, which was of course a very good thing, throwing Hitlerism into the dustbin of history, but also seemed at first to demonstrate to revolutionaries around the world that Stalin was right and Trotsky was wrong.

Lord Acton was wrong. With left wing organizations, it is lack of power that corrupts, and absolute lack of power that corrupts absolutely. (Stalin was corrupt before he took the power).

It is taking the working class of the world and the revolutionary movements a very long time to recover from the damage inflicted by Stalin and Stalinism.

It is exactly Stalin and Stalinism that bear the prime responsibility for the extreme weakness of revolutionary movements in the world today. Nowadays the left is weaker than it has ever been since--well, really, since the founding of the First International in the 1860s.

-M.H.-

[Homo Songun]

I'm getting it from the historical reality that Trotsky set up a counter-party while still a nominal member of the Bolsheviks. Do you deny this (http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/harry-haywood-trotskys-day-in-court/)?That is simply, demonstrably, false. He didn't. He and the Left Opposition refused to set up a counterparty, regarding themselves as an expelled opposition faction that was trying to return.
Simply demonstrate it then. I gave a sourced eyewitness account of the events leading to his expulsion. It is quite interesting, people should read it.



Why do you not have big Trotskyist parties now? Well, partially due to the manifold problems with most of the allegedly "Trotskyist" parties out there, very few of which would be considered "Trotskyist" by Trotsky himself,I'm well aware of the Spartacist line about "OTOs" (Ostensibly Trotskyist Organizations), but that doesn't stop this from being a variation of the No True Scotsman (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/No_True_Scotsman) fallacy so long as an OTO's self-designation is Trotskyist. Whats more, these alleged Trotskyists are exactly the phenomena OP was asking about in the first place.


That Stalin won the debate was because the working class was demoralized and the revolution was degenerating. Why? Because you can't build socialism in one country. So working class demoralization in a country like the USSR, which went through so much agony and suffering during the Civil War, was inevitable unless the Revolution spread, as Lenin and Trotsky originally planned.Well the 20s-30s were certainly dog days for Trots. But Trots are not the same as the workers movement. While I suppose you can be forgiven for this conflation given your obvious ideological loyalties, using the word "demoralized" to describe the working class in this period is puzzling. Basically, wrong.

Despite sharp setbacks in a few European countries, the workers movement in the world was getting more powerful. There were large chunks of China run by communists. Anticolonial struggles were exploding across the Third World. In countries like the US, the Party had hundreds of thousands of members, and was organizing militant industrial unions. Black and white workers were uniting to challenge the Jim Crow system in the South.

What is more, in the SU in the 20s-30s, for the first time in history, the average person was allowed education, healthcare, cultural activities, and a decent living in a way that simply not possible in the "revolutionary" civil war period, let alone Tsarism. They were participating in making history, by rebuilding their country from a medieval hellhole into a modern, scientific industrial powerhouse. These accomplishments did make the SU into a leading light for progressives and workers around the world, something that must be admitted even with whatever "degenerated" features accompanied that -- especially if you are a Spart, no?

Stalin won the debate because more Party members agreed with him. Leave it at that. We can agree to disagree on why for now.


What does all this have to do with the splintering of the Trotskyists into so many factions, almost all of which are really left social democrats not Trotskyists these days?

This is because of their isolation worldwide, due to the victory of Stalinism in the USSR, and of course the victory of the USSR over Hitler fascism during WWII, which was of course a very good thing, throwing Hitlerism into the dustbin of history, but also seemed at first to demonstrate to revolutionaries around the world that Stalin was right and Trotsky was wrong.

Lord Acton was wrong. With left wing organizations, it is lack of power that corrupts, and absolute lack of power that corrupts absolutely.
This isn't confirmed by practice. While the Trots are usually confined to tiny bands of co-thinkers, it is not always the case. Sometimes they have gotten big (or at least, not irrelevant). Unfortunately, their propensity for random explosions and insane sectarianism seems to remain constant. One need only look at the examples of the Scottish Socialist Party, the LSSP in Sri Lanka, and perhaps Bolivia for examples of Trots inexplicably snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. All cases where Stalinists were inconveniently not really around to be blamed for their failure, I might add.

So again we must ask is there something congenital to Trotskyism it to continually fracture into smaller and smaller groupings?


It is taking the working class of the world and the revolutionary movements a very long time to recover from the damage inflicted by Stalin and Stalinism.

It is exactly Stalin and Stalinism that bear the prime responsibility for the extreme weakness of revolutionary movements in the world today. Nowadays the left is weaker than it has ever been since--well, really, since the founding of the First International in the 1860s.This is framed in a typically sectarian way, but it reminds me of one thing that is to the Sparts credit. They didn't ever fall for the stupidity that many other Trot groups like "Solidarity" (named after the Polish CIA outfit) did: namely, thinking they were "next in line", instead of realizing that the fall of the Soviet Union would be a disaster for the left as whole. This is the source of probably the most epic Spart headline of all time, "Hail Red Army in Afghanistan!", and of course the retrospective sequel, "Charlie Wilson's War Was the ISO's War!"

Unfortunately for the Sparts, in this sense, they were the "deviants" and Solidarity and company were the "orthodox" ones, because Trotsky went to his grave convinced that the revolutionary upheaval that would be swept in by the coming world war would naturally settle Stalinism's hash once and for all, allowing Trotskyists to step in and lead revolutions in countries around the world. LOL.

[Luís Henrique]

anyone who defends stalin in this day and age is a fucking kook/belongs to a fantasy roleplaying game. (unless you are a third world maoist but even then its just cuz' its fashionable to say stalin was 50% right just cuz mao said so)

Third world Maoists do not belong into fantasy roleplaying games?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Lord Acton was wrong. With left wing organizations, it is lack of power that corrupts, and absolute lack of power that corrupts absolutely. (Stalin was corrupt before he took the power).

To put it precisely, it is the lack of power that comes from lack of connection to the real-world working class. And such corruption most often than not takes the form of an outright refusal to reconnect with the working class, be it by an outright rejection of the revolutionary potential of the class, or by the invention of a fictional (roleplaying fantasy, to use black magic hustla's terms) proletariat that shares none of the actual, living and breathing working class' problems. That's why factionalism begets more factionalism: the more we are divided, the less we are connected to the proletariat, and the more we are disconnected from actual class struggle, the more reasons we find to further divide ourselves.

Luís Henrique

[Hit The North]

Simply demonstrate it then. I gave a sourced eyewitness account of the events leading to his expulsion. It is quite interesting, people should read it.


Just read it and that's ten minutes of my life I'll never get back. Now please point out to me exactly in the text where there is an eye-witness account of Trotsky organising a counter-party?

[Peoples' War]

From what I can tell, there used to be bigger organizations, and from there we see splits resulting in differences of opinion of certain issue of relevance, and irrelevance.

Splits based on organization, opinion on the nature of the USSR, etc.

In my opinion, all parties should merge, Marxist-Leninist, Trotskyist, Left Communists, whatever. Merge in every country, and decide on things through democratic methods. Historical opinions, and other opinions can be kept to yourselves or you can deal with being in the minority of that opinion. Tough tit. If people can take the time to debate and discuss questions of organization, tactics, etc. and then vote on them, rather than "Oh, let's make our own party", we'd make some progress on organizing and educating the working class.

Fucking too many parties.

[Geiseric]

well what your asking would be like asking SYRIZA and KKE into one party, which I wouldn't see necessary, practical, or useful. In terms of most people close to my ideology, I can defintately see forming a party on the basis of democratic centralism. But uniting large groups of intellectuals is useless unless the program is uniform, which I would see impossible to do with most people if they're too ideologically different.

[Peoples' War]

well what your asking would be like asking SYRIZA and KKE into one party, which I wouldn't see necessary, practical, or useful. In terms of most people close to my ideology, I can defintately see forming a party on the basis of democratic centralism. But uniting large groups of intellectuals is useless unless the program is uniform, which I would see impossible to do with most people if they're too ideologically different.
If both are Marxist party's, why should they fear coming together to discuss, debate and vote.

They represent the working class, are made up of the working class, and it is therefore the will of the working class which will win.

[Tim Finnegan]

If both are Marxist party's, why should they fear coming together to discuss, debate and vote.

They represent the working class, are made up of the working class, and it is therefore the will of the working class which will win.
lol jacobinism

[black magick hustla]

Third world Maoists do not belong into fantasy roleplaying games?

Luís Henrique

unfortunately, some of them have enough of a base to be a real political force, as opposed to a club of sad boys and their esoteric rituals

[Questionable]

unfortunately, some of them have enough of a base to be a real political force, as opposed to a club of sad boys and their esoteric rituals

It's good that you've decided to express your open contempt and chauvinism for third-world Maoist movements. If only we could get those silly little foreigners to recognize true Marxism.

[Peoples' War]

lol jacobinism
??

[Tim Finnegan]

??
If both are patriotic parties, why should they fear coming together to discuss, debate and vote.

They represent the nation, are made up of the nation, and it is therefore the will of the nation which will win.

[Peoples' War]

If both are patriotic parties, why should they fear coming together to discuss, debate and vote.

They represent the nation, are made up of the nation, and it is therefore the will of the nation which will win.
Your point?

[Luís Henrique]

In my opinion, all parties should merge, Marxist-Leninist, Trotskyist, Left Communists, whatever. Merge in every country, and decide on things through democratic methods. Historical opinions, and other opinions can be kept to yourselves or you can deal with being in the minority of that opinion. Tough tit. If people can take the time to debate and discuss questions of organization, tactics, etc. and then vote on them, rather than "Oh, let's make our own party", we'd make some progress on organizing and educating the working class.

If the working class becomes an actual factor, then something similar will happen (no, not everybody will unite into one party, some will just be turned irrelevant). But the other way round is not possible; a formal, bureaucratic unification of the left won't lead to the working class standing up as an actual factor in politics. Instead, it will only be the cause of further splitting and mutual accusations of treason, opportunism, etc.

Luís Henrique

[black magick hustla]

It's good that you've decided to express your open contempt and chauvinism for third-world Maoist movements. If only we could get those silly little foreigners to recognize true Marxism.

its cute when shitheads in the internet throw slurs like "chauvinism" and erect cute strawmen. are you going to hack me into little pieces with machetes like the maoist murder gangs in peru did with peasants?

[Tim Finnegan]

Your point?
All this "we speak with the voice of the working class" stuff is just poorly-rehabilitated Jacobinism with the nationalism switched out for workerism.

[Thirsty Crow]

.
In my opinion, all parties should merge, Marxist-Leninist, Trotskyist, Left Communists, whatever. Merge in every country, and decide on things through democratic methods. Historical opinions, and other opinions can be kept to yourselves or you can deal with being in the minority of that opinion.
As if sterile quibbling on historical matters is the only difference between so called tendencies. I'm afraid that the conflict runs much deeper than this, and an example can be found in the very real differences with regard to the conception of socialism/communism and the political structure of proletarian dictatorship. In my opinion, the theory of socialism in one country is an unsurmountable obstacle for any internationalist political group.
There's also the problem of tactics such as entryism, which implies a very serious problem of misrecognition of existing socialdemocratic and labour parties. Not to mention the idea of class collaboration as somehow leading to proletarian rule as manifest in Maoism (unless contemporary Maoism ditched the bloc of four classes as a model when I wasn't looking).

[Questionable]

its cute when shitheads in the internet throw slurs like "chauvinism" and erect cute strawmen. are you going to hack me into little pieces with machetes like the maoist murder gangs in peru did with peasants?

Funny how you call me the shithead when you're the one spitting in the faces of third-world movements and throwing cute little slurs like "sad club of fanboys." You have literally offered nothing to the discussion to this discussion except irrelevant insults hurled towards tendencies you dislike with no legitimate backings. You're the cancer of Revleft.

[black magick hustla]

Funny how you call me the shithead when you're the one spitting in the faces of third-world movements and throwing cute little slurs like "sad club of fanboys." You have literally offered nothing to the discussion to this discussion except irrelevant insults hurled towards tendencies you dislike with no legitimate backings. You're the cancer of Revleft.

i think a lot of people here can vouch that i made quite the list of lengthy insightful posts. i don't spit in the face of "third world movements" just maoist murder gangs. maoism is counterrevolutionary

[Omsk]

maoism is counterrevolutionary

That's just rhetorics, the point is not wether Maoism is 'revolutionary' or 'counterrevolutionary' in the eyes of various ideological organizations of the world, or in your eyes, my eyes (Plus you can't say that something is counterrevolutionary, because there are many kinds of revolutions.) - the problem with Maoism is that it rejects socialist principles and replaces them with something Mao came up while he was all xenophobic toward Comintern delegations who tried to help him and who basically warned him about all of his future mistakes.

[Peoples' War]

All this "we speak with the voice of the working class" stuff is just poorly-rehabilitated Jacobinism with the nationalism switched out for workerism.
Do you have an argument against my point, or is calling it "Jacobinism with the nationalism switched out for wokerism" the best you have?

[Peoples' War]

As if sterile quibbling on historical matters is the only difference between so called tendencies. I'm afraid that the conflict runs much deeper than this, and an example can be found in the very real differences with regard to the conception of socialism/communism and the political structure of proletarian dictatorship.This can be decided upon by the workers after listening to discussion and debate.


In my opinion, the theory of socialism in one country is an unsurmountable obstacle for any internationalist political group. Why not hold debates and discussion and votes on it. Why Form a separate party, instead of trying to educate and convince people otherwise from within the singular party structure?


There's also the problem of tactics such as entryism, which implies a very serious problem of misrecognition of existing socialdemocratic and labour parties. Not to mention the idea of class collaboration as somehow leading to proletarian rule as manifest in Maoism (unless contemporary Maoism ditched the bloc of four classes as a model when I wasn't looking).Once again, it can be a decision of the party as a whole to discuss, debate and vote.

If you can't convince these people that they are wrong, then why are you going to split, and maintain that position as a minority, still with the inability to change minds?

[Tim Finnegan]

Do you have an argument against my point, or is calling it "Jacobinism with the nationalism switched out for wokerism" the best you have?
The working class is not an essence, something which actually exists apart from workers-as-people, and so it isn't something that can be channelled by any given cabal claiming to "represent" it. It's a question of class composition, of the development of the working class as a political subject, something which can only come about through struggle. Bringing together any number of parties, sectlets and Red October cosplay clubs in the absence of a revolutionary subject will do fuck all good to anyone, and if such a revolutionary subject does exist then a self-appointed "leadership" of intellectuals and their attendants could only get in the way.

[Lucretia]

It's good that you've decided to express your open contempt and chauvinism for third-world Maoist movements. If only we could get those silly little foreigners to recognize true Marxism.

Yes, after all, if somebody in the Global South believes something, it must obviously be true. Talk about reverse Eurocentrism.

[A Marxist Historian]

Simply demonstrate it then. I gave a sourced eyewitness account of the events leading to his expulsion. It is quite interesting, people should read it.

I read it, it wasn't to the point which is why I didn't comment on it. Yes, the Left Opposition violated party discipline during the 1927 faction fight. They saw this as justified by the bureaucratic violations of party democracy committed by the Stalin/Bukharin faction in control.

Workers and officials brave enough to support the Left Opposition would be silenced by organized booing at party meetings, and then fired from their jobs. After the opposition was expelled in 1927, they were imprisoned. The shooting of Left Oppositionists started as early as 1928, with Blumkin.

Nothing Haywood has to say has any bearing on whether the Left Opposition wanted to form a new party in 1927 or not. They didn't. I could give you plenty of eyewitness stuff on that, say Victor Serge's autobiography for example. But it's really unnecessary, as Haywood's opinions are his opinions, but his factual statements, fairly accurate in all probability, don't contradict what I said.


I'm well aware of the Spartacist line about "OTOs" (Ostensibly Trotskyist Organizations), but that doesn't stop this from being a variation of the No True Scotsman (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/No_True_Scotsman) fallacy so long as an OTO's self-designation is Trotskyist. Whats more, these alleged Trotskyists are exactly the phenomena OP was asking about in the first place.

Well the 20s-30s were certainly dog days for Trots. But Trots are not the same as the workers movement. While I suppose you can be forgiven for this conflation given your obvious ideological loyalties, using the word "demoralized" to describe the working class in this period is puzzling. Basically, wrong.

Despite sharp setbacks in a few European countries, the workers movement in the world was getting more powerful. There were large chunks of China run by communists. Anticolonial struggles were exploding across the Third World. In countries like the US, the Party had hundreds of thousands of members, and was organizing militant industrial unions. Black and white workers were uniting to challenge the Jim Crow system in the South.


A remarkable description. From around about 1923 on, mass Communist Parties that had arisen in many European countries, France, Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia, Poland, and several others, were shriveling to isolated sects. The Communist Parties did not start growing again until the biggest party of all, the German Communist Party with its peak membership of 400,000 in 1921, which in the period leading up to Hitler's seizure of power briefly replaced the Social Democrats as the most influential working class party, was annihilated by the Nazis--because of Stalin's criminal misleadership.

How did they grow again during the "Popular Front" period? By moving rapidly to the right, often to the right of the Social Democratic parties, who after the German experience were not as interested in the 1930s in forming coalitions with bourgeois parties, as that had worked so badly in Germany for them. Sometimes, as in Spain, the CP argued them back into class collaboration.

China? There was a revolution in China, in 1927, which almost led to the Chinese working class and peasantry seizing power. Why didn't it? Again, Stalin's misleadership.

In fact, it was exactly to protest against Stalin's disastrous policy of subordinating the Chinese Communist Party to Chiang Kai-Shek and the KMT that motivated the Left Opposition to initiate a sharp factional struggle.

The leader of the CCP at the time, Chen Tu-Hsiu, was compelled to carry out this policy because of Comintern discipline imposed by Stalin. He finally had enough in 1928, and founded the Chinese Trotskyist movement.

Mao's guerilla bands in the hills were remnants of a defeated revolution. Workers were so tremendously demoralized in 1928 that the Chinese Revolution of 1949 was a peasant affair, in which the Chinese working class played little or no role.

As for the USA, yes, the CP played a big role in the CIO movement. And what did they do in it? Insisted that workers support FDR and the New Deal! And during WWII, the CP were strikebreakers, called for jailing CIO head John L. Lewis when he led the coal miners out on strike, and even opposed the "March on Washington Movement" demanding that blacks not be discriminated against in war production!

In short, the CP sold out. So, when the anti-communists purged the CP from the labor movement during the Cold War, American workers and black people remembering the CP's sellouts during WWII basically supported the ant-communist purge.

By the way, the CPUSA never had "hundreds of thousands" of members. At its peak, maybe a hundred thousand, but that was with Earl Browder as the leader, and his concept of who was a "party member" was loose to say the least. He even dissolved the CP altogether into a "Communist Political Association" in 1944, while exchanging friendly letters with FDR, which have been found in the archives.



What is more, in the SU in the 20s-30s, for the first time in history, the average person was allowed education, healthcare, cultural activities, and a decent living in a way that simply not possible in the "revolutionary" civil war period, let alone Tsarism. They were participating in making history, by rebuilding their country from a medieval hellhole into a modern, scientific industrial powerhouse. These accomplishments did make the SU into a leading light for progressives and workers around the world, something that must be admitted even with whatever "degenerated" features accompanied that -- especially if you are a Spart, no?

Stalin won the debate because more Party members agreed with him. Leave it at that. We can agree to disagree on why for now.

The social measures in the USSR a light to the world working class? Well, to some degree, most certainly, despite all the horrors of Stalinism. But that's all gone now, gone with the wind, and what was left behind was the bad name Stalin gave to communism in the eyes of so many working people around the world.

The debate? OK, fine. I will note that Stalin won the debate in the Soviet Communist Party for much the same reason that the right wing Social Democrats won the debate in the Social Democratic Party vs. Rosa Luxemburg. Because both parties had become bureaucratized, and reflected a privileged social layer--the labor aristocracy and bureaucracy in Germany, the Soviet state and party bureaucracy in the USSR.

Presumably you disagree, we can agree to disagree I suppose.


This isn't confirmed by practice. While the Trots are usually confined to tiny bands of co-thinkers, it is not always the case. Sometimes they have gotten big (or at least, not irrelevant). Unfortunately, their propensity for random explosions and insane sectarianism seems to remain constant. One need only look at the examples of the Scottish Socialist Party, the LSSP in Sri Lanka, and perhaps Bolivia for examples of Trots inexplicably snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. All cases where Stalinists were inconveniently not really around to be blamed for their failure, I might add.

The story of the LSSP is a very sad story. Really, quite like that of the German Social Democracy, which Engels to his dying day saw as a great party and a wonderful model for the rest of the workers movement.

Its best leader, Edmund Sammarakkody, came quite close to joining the Spartacists. But then, at the time, he was a famous mass leader, and the Spartacists were a tiny group of a couple hundred people around the world, so it is sad but unsurprising that it just didn't quite work out.

Here's the story of the LSSP, and Sammarakkody:

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/esp/62/lssp.html

Bolivia is, according to my impression, a not dissimilar story. Plus the deindustrialization of Bolivia, which pretty much no longer has a working class, with all the tin mines closed.

As for the Scottish Socialist Party, well, the Bolivian and Sri Lankan Trotskyist parties once upon a time were the real thing, which went bad. The SSP was a rotten reformist grab bag coalition from the day it was founded, and ought not even to be mentioned in the same context. It was/is about as "Trotskyist" as the current regime in Eritrea is "Marxist Leninist," which I think they still are occasionally on paper.

In fact, I don't think the SSP ever even called itself "Trotskyist" in public, unlike the current dictator of Eritrea, who at least used to call himself a "Marxist Leninist," whether or not he still does.


So again we must ask is there something congenital to Trotskyism it to continually fracture into smaller and smaller groupings?

This is framed in a typically sectarian way, but it reminds me of one thing that is to the Sparts credit. They didn't ever fall for the stupidity that many other Trot groups like "Solidarity" (named after the Polish CIA outfit) did: namely, thinking they were "next in line", instead of realizing that the fall of the Soviet Union would be a disaster for the left as whole. This is the source of probably the most epic Spart headline of all time, "Hail Red Army in Afghanistan!", and of course the retrospective sequel, "Charlie Wilson's War Was the ISO's War!"

Unfortunately for the Sparts, in this sense, they were the "deviants" and Solidarity and company were the "orthodox" ones, because Trotsky went to his grave convinced that the revolutionary upheaval that would be swept in by the coming world war would naturally settle Stalinism's hash once and for all, allowing Trotskyists to step in and lead revolutions in countries around the world. LOL.

Not so sure he was convinced of this. This is certainly what he said in his public statements, for obvious reasons. His statements along those lines were much more marching orders for his followers than predictions.

He died in 1940. Operation Barbarossa in 1941 came very close to destroying the USSR. Something by the way Trotsky *did not* foresee, not at all. In fact he underestimated if anything just how badly Stalin had undermined the defense of the USSR.

But the incredibly hard won victory of the Soviet people in the Battle of Moscow, in the siege of Leningrad, and the battle of Stalingrad, for which generals like Zhukov, who Stalin ended up firing, can take credit, but for which Stalin deserves very little credit at all, changed everything. Hitlerism had been sent to the dustbin of history by the Red Army, originally created by Trotsky, but commanded during WWII by Stalin not Trotsky.

And that gave the USSR an extra half century lease on life. When the USSR collapsed in 1991, this was pretty much exactly in the way Trotsky predicted in his famous book, The Revolution Betrayed. But due to the half century interval and the total extirpation of Trotskyism in the USSR, the Trotskyist movement did not benefit.

Especially since just about every "Trotskyist" organization in the world except the Spartacists supported Yeltsin in 1991!

-M.H.-

[Homo Songun]

I read it, it wasn't to the point which is why I didn't comment on it. Yes, the Left Opposition violated party discipline during the 1927 faction fight. They saw this as justified by the bureaucratic violations of party democracy committed by the Stalin/Bukharin faction in control.

Thats what I meant by "counter-party", 'counter' being used in the sense of the word counter-culture, a group within and opposed to the larger one. In that sense, I feel that you accept my point that Trotsky had a faction. Or at least don't vehemently disagree. It is curious to me that this would cause much contention. And as a practical matter, if you talk about "faction fights" with the "Stalin/Bukharin faction", but then dismiss the notion that the small Trotsky clique itself was not a faction struggling for power, people will think you are just being dishonest, and be turned off by your programme. But then, its not my job to make Trotskyism seem attractive to potential recruits! I mean, the old man himself would write in passing, as if it were common knowledge, things like "The Russian Opposition created a platform in the fifth year of its struggle..." and so on.

At any rate, I probably shouldn't coin neologisms on the fly.


Nothing Haywood has to say has any bearing on whether the Left Opposition wanted to form a new party in 1927 or not. They didn't. I could give you plenty of eyewitness stuff on that, say Victor Serge's autobiography for example. But it's really unnecessary, as Haywood's opinions are his opinions, but his factual statements, fairly accurate in all probability, don't contradict what I said.I'm astonished you don't think Haywood's piece is not to the point, but I'll let that pass. Is there nothing a 'Stalinist' could say that could be to the point? I'm not asking you to agree with said Stalinist!

I'll note your long list of Stalinist crimes in various countries without responding in detail, as it's something I've read in many different Trotskyist publications and websites, and I don't really want to talk about Stalinists but Trotskyists. However I do want to ask, is it possible to talk about the Trotskyists as such without being required to launch into a big discussion of Stalinism? As we have seen, there are lots of examples of Trotskyists operating without the threat of Stalinist repression looming over their heads, or really effecting their practice in any significant way. The LSSP was the hegemonic left party in Sri Lanka for quite some time after they expelled the Stalinist minority! I believe the same applies to Bolivia. So what happened?

----


As for the USA, yes, the CP played a big role in the CIO movement. And what did they do in it? Insisted that workers support FDR and the New Deal! And during WWII, the CP were strikebreakers, called for jailing CIO head John L. Lewis when he led the coal miners out on strike, and even opposed the "March on Washington Movement" demanding that blacks not be discriminated against in war production!

In short, the CP sold out. So, when the anti-communists purged the CP from the labor movement during the Cold War, American workers and black people remembering the CP's sellouts during WWII basically supported the ant-communist purge.

By the way, the CPUSA never had "hundreds of thousands" of members. At its peak, maybe a hundred thousand, but that was with Earl Browder as the leader, and his concept of who was a "party member" was loose to say the least. He even dissolved the CP altogether into a "Communist Political Association" in 1944, while exchanging friendly letters with FDR, which have been found in the archives.These statements on the CPUSA have piqued my curiosity so I'll respond a bit (hopefully, as an aside!)

First of all, if the CPUSA acted as 'strikebreakers', and I'm sure this is an exaggeration, it would certainly be in the context of their deepening rightism in the 1940s onwards.

That said, I think the notion of the CPUSA opposing racial integration in principle is ludicrous, and if true would be a bizarre aberration in a long sequence of acting in a vanguard role for racial integration, from the Scottsboro boys, Sharecroppers Union, having the first Black person on a presidential ticket, and so on. In fact, I've heard they explicitly fought segregationist craft-unionism. What I do know is that A. Philip Randolph and the CP did not like each other very much, and there is probably much more to that particular story.

As far as being 'strike breakers' during the war in general. I'm ambivalent about this. I'm not a metaphysician or a Deleonite in that I consider strikes to be a tactic or form of class struggle, not the class struggle itself. (Note to frenemies: write it down, and be sure to use it in every single argument with me from now on! Proof of my state-capitalist Stalinistic class-collaborationism! straight from the horses mouth! :lol:)

Quite aside from whether the CP was right in this or not, I'm grateful that I got a chance to exist. Are you? Had the liberation not come when it did, there is certainly a chance I wouldn't. Would you care to quantify camp survivors per a given unit of American war material output? Frankly I wouldn't, but I'm not sure its strictly an abstract philosophical exercise to consider the relationship between the variables had the latter variable been lesser than it was.

Finally, as far as the relationship between the New Deal and the CP, I bow to your greater knowledge of all the nitty-gritty historical details, but I'll say in passing the notion of the New Deal, During the Great Depression, as being a one-way street bearing gifts from the capitalists to the inert working class is improbably mechanical and un-dialectical given the nature of the class struggle.

[A Marxist Historian]

Thats what I meant by "counter-party", 'counter' being used in the sense of the word counter-culture, a group within and opposed to the larger one. In that sense, I feel that you accept my point that Trotsky had a faction. Or at least don't vehemently disagree. It is curious to me that this would cause much contention. And as a practical matter, if you talk about "faction fights" with the "Stalin/Bukharin faction", but then dismiss the notion that the small Trotsky clique itself was not a faction struggling for power, people will think you are just being dishonest, and be turned off by your programme. But then, its not my job to make Trotskyism seem attractive to potential recruits! I mean, the old man himself would write in passing, as if it were common knowledge, things like "The Russian Opposition created a platform in the fifth year of its struggle..." and so on.

At any rate, I probably shouldn't coin neologisms on the fly.

Indeed you shouldn't, especially if you are confusing "party" with "faction." Yes, absolutely, the Left Opposition was an opposition faction within the CPUSSR. Which is very different from being a political party *other than* the CPUSSR.

Why would I dismiss the idea that the Left was a faction struggling for power? Of course they were, the only problem with that being that they lost.

The Stalin/Bukharin faction was also a faction, but one which had power and therefore did not need to struggle for it. And of course divided into two pieces. Stalin's personal circle, which started during the Civil War, and were the only survivors of the Red Terror (and not all of them either) was originally an anti-Trotsky clique in the Red Army, centered in the Donbass.


I'm astonished you don't think Haywood's piece is not to the point, but I'll let that pass. Is there nothing a 'Stalinist' could say that could be to the point? I'm not asking you to agree with said Stalinist!

Oh, it's evidence that indeed the Trotskyists were an opposition faction. But, since nobody disputes that, it's not to the point. Does make fairly interesting reading, but then so do a lot of things.

I did like him holding up Togliatti as a model Marxist.


I'll note your long list of Stalinist crimes in various countries without responding in detail, as it's something I've read in many different Trotskyist publications and websites, and I don't really want to talk about Stalinists but Trotskyists. However I do want to ask, is it possible to talk about the Trotskyists as such without being required to launch into a big discussion of Stalinism? As we have seen, there are lots of examples of Trotskyists operating without the threat of Stalinist repression looming over their heads, or really effecting their practice in any significant way. The LSSP was the hegemonic left party in Sri Lanka for quite some time after they expelled the Stalinist minority! I believe the same applies to Bolivia. So what happened?

I take it you didn't bother to read the link I gave you, with a marvelous description of exactly what happened in Sri Lanka. There's been some good stuff written about what went down in Bolivia too, but no good internet links I can think of off the top of my head.

Come to think of it, that Sri Lanka link is exactly the sort of thing appropriate for this particular thread.



These statements on the CPUSA have piqued my curiosity so I'll respond a bit (hopefully, as an aside!)

First of all, if the CPUSA acted as 'strikebreakers', and I'm sure this is an exaggeration, it would certainly be in the context of their deepening rightism in the 1940s onwards.

That said, I think the notion of the CPUSA opposing racial integration in principle is ludicrous, and if true would be a bizarre aberration in a long sequence of acting in a vanguard role for racial integration, from the Scottsboro boys, Sharecroppers Union, having the first Black person on a presidential ticket, and so on. In fact, I've heard they explicitly fought segregationist craft-unionism. What I do know is that A. Philip Randolph and the CP did not like each other very much, and there is probably much more to that particular story.

As far as being 'strike breakers' during the war in general. I'm ambivalent about this. I'm not a metaphysician or a Deleonite in that I consider strikes to be a tactic or form of class struggle, not the class struggle itself. (Note to frenemies: write it down, and be sure to use it in every single argument with me from now on! Proof of my state-capitalist Stalinistic class-collaborationism! straight from the horses mouth! :lol:)

Of course they didn't oppose racial integration. What they opposed was black people doing anything about it during WWII, as that would divide the anti-fascist front, break down national unity vs. Hitler, etc. etc. Same thing with strikes. There was an official ban on all strikes during WWII, and the CP supported it 100%. Most famously with the coal miners strike, with the CP, which just a few years previously had been urging CIO head John L. Lewis to run for President, during the Hitler-Stalin pact, now calling on FDR to lock him in jail and throw away the key as a Hitler agent (and probably a Trotskyite too).

Be it noted that all of the CP "mass work" during the CIO of the period was made possible by Lewis, a smart man, appointing lots of CP'ers as officials in lots of CIO unions. "United front from above," as they say.

The US Trotskyists had a song about the CPUSA during the '30s (before WWII!), the song accompaniment to which you will recognize.

"Relax, ye renovated masses,
Relax, ye once unhappy throng,
Salvation's in the middle classes,
The President can do no wrong.

No more shall Marx and Engels bind us,
They once were all, they now are nought
In the ranks of the bourgeoisie you'll find us,
We can be had, we can be bought!

Let the Trotskyites heckle,
Their disruption is not felt,
They can keep their revolution,
For we have Roosevelt!"

And then of course there's a more traditional American ditty you may have heard before, with the chorus,

"I knows it Browder,
Our line's been changed again..."

You can blame that all on Browder if you want, but the policy was followed from the day the USSR was invaded by Hitler to the day of surrender, and similar policies were carried out by all the other CPs all around the world too.


Quite aside from whether the CP was right in this or not, I'm grateful that I got a chance to exist. Are you? Had the liberation not come when it did, there is certainly a chance I wouldn't. Would you care to quantify camp survivors per a given unit of American war material output? Frankly I wouldn't, but I'm not sure its strictly an abstract philosophical exercise to consider the relationship between the variables had the latter variable been lesser than it was.

I might make the same point meself to all the Shachtmanoids and state caps and anarchists here on Revleft. Yes, I'm very glad the USSR, not Nazi Germany, won WWII. Stalin or no Stalin.

But, without Stalin and his insane and suicidal Hitler-Stalin pact, Hitler would never have come nearly as close to winning as he did.

Which IMHO was the real reason for the Great Terror of 1937-38. Even the most ultra-loyal Stalinist who wasn't a member of Stalin's narrow personal clique would have had great trouble swallowing the Hitler-Stalin pact, if not thoroughly intimidated or just plain sent to a camp and shot in the immediate period before the signing of the pact.

After all, a lot of them took the "anti-fascist popular front" vs. Hitler very seriously. Which was originally Bukharin's idea, by the way.

-M.H.-


Finally, as far as the relationship between the New Deal and the CP, I bow to your greater knowledge of all the nitty-gritty historical details, but I'll say in passing the notion of the New Deal, During the Great Depression, as being a one-way street bearing gifts from the capitalists to the inert working class is improbably mechanical and un-dialectical given the nature of the class struggle.