Schactmanite VS Deformed Workers State theorists.

[Andy Bowden]

Where do forum members (of a Trotskyist persuasion) stand on the debate carried out in the SWP - USA between Max Scahctman and James Cannon on the class nature of the Soviet Union?


Was it a deformed workers state, worth defending? (The Cannon view)

Or was it a bueracratic collectivist state, with a new ruling class (Schactman view)



?

[Lamanov]

Who are Max Scahctman and James Cannon?

The first trotskyist who brought up the new view on the class structure of the USSR within the trots was Tony Cliff with his "bureaucratic state capitalism" theory. (taken from the left, of course ;) )

[Poum_1936]

Who are Max Scahctman and James Cannon?

Catch up on your American Trotskyism. Many good comrades come from the SWP despite some of them drifting off to the right. Among them Farrel Dobbs who played a significant role in the CIO.



Who are Max Scahctman

A tool who went reactionary.

The most lasting legacy of Shachtman may be the intellectual contribution that Shachtman's followers and colleagues made to neoconservatism. Their displeasure with Carter's "peacenik" agenda led many Shachtmanites to support Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. More generally, many of the founders of neoconservatism, such as Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, and Sidney Hook, developed their thinking in the anti-Stalinist milieu of the Trotskyist left of the 1930s and 1940s. Jeane Kirkpatrick was a member of the Shachtmanite-dominated Young People's Socialist League as a university student. In the 1970s Paul Wolfowitz was a speaker at Social Democrats, USA conferences. Both Joshua Muravchik and Penn Kemble, leaders in the Young People's Socialist League, are now right-wing think-tank insiders.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Shachtman


Who are... James Cannon?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cannon

http://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/index.htm

The Struggle For a Proletarian Party and Socialism on Trial are supposed to be good reads. Havent got around to them myself though.

[/QUOTE]Was it a deformed workers state, worth defending?[QUOTE]

Is Cuba worth defending? Is Venezuela worth defending?

Should we support these countries despite not being model socialist countries? Of course we should. They may not be perfect, but that by no means we should just ditch them. We have to support the gains made in the countries, most notably the planned economy which has helped the USSR and Cuba. Though the people maynot be "free" they still have made tremendous strides since the old regime. And it is our job to agitate as much as we can to expose the regime for what it is/was and support a political revolution within that country and give the power back to the masses.

I prefer Trotsky's standpoint of "Deformed workers state" myself. I support the gains of the October revolution whilst at the same time I stress the fact that the USSR needed a political revolution.

If you want, read for youself and decide.

Against the Theory of State Capitalism: A Reply to Comrade Cliff (http://www.tedgrant.org/works/4/9/reply_to_tony_cliff.html)
by Ted Grant

Russia: Revolution to Counterrevolution, Part4 The Nature of Stalinism (http://www.marxist.com/russiabook/part4.html)
by Ted Grant

The Nature of Stalinist Russia (http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1948/stalruss/index.htm)
by Tony Cliff

State Capitalism in Russia (http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1955/statecap/index.htm)
by Tony Cliff

The Class Nature of the Soviet State (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1933/sovstate.htm)
by Leon Trotsky

[urben]

James Cannon was clearly correct. I find Trotsky's "In Defense of Marxism," which was really a polemic against the Schachtmanites, fascinating in large part because it identifies the right-wing underpinnings of Schachtman's break. Look at the trajectory of Schachtman's group - they ended up as State Department "socialists" in a very literal sense. I've even heard that some of the neoconservative theorists come from Schachtmanite backgrounds (using the analytical power of Marxism for evil).

I think it's important to put these debates in their historical contexts. They were not simply debates about abstract definitions, but fundamentally represented an orientation towards the U.S. state (although the terms of the debate of course regarded the Soviet state). Why do I say that? Although the Cold War hadn't broken out in earnest, the tug of anticommunism was already affecting small, socialist groups in the United States. It was hard - and it just became harder - to defend the Soviet Union, and required not only sacrifice, but a deeper and more thoroughgoing explanation to the masses (beyond the simple Schachtmanite/ISO formula of "a plague on both your houses.")

In lieu of the intensifying anticommunism of the Cold War, I would go further than Cannon, and drop the "deformed" or "degenerate" from characterizations of the worker states. While those may be helpful terms for inner party discussions, for agitational and propaganda purposes they don't really achieve the proletarian party's must pressing need: the defense of the worker/socialist states. With anticommunism being shoved down workers' throats in such a suffocating manner, it actually was not "balanced" at all for a socialist party to maintain a strict 50/50 "balance" in their characterizations of the worker states. The period had changed qualitatively, and therefore it was fitting to emphasize the "worker" part more than the "deformed" part of the "deformed worker state." In "In Defense of Marxism," Trotsky himself shows a striking ability to emphasize defense of the USSR - even as the USSR was clearly out for his head.

Political definitions ultimately should serve political purposes, not theoretical ones.