bolshevik1917
7th November 2002, 17:04
comrades, after some debate with the menshevik Socialist Party of Great Britain they have put forward yet another attack on bolshevism. I beleive as bolsheviks it is upto us to defend the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky against these ultra marxist/kautskyist characters. And so I put forward this argument against us, and look forward to getting some debate and providing a good, hard hitting reply.
" The specific political ideology of Trotzkyism first emerged as a separate ideology after he was expelled from the Communist Party Of The Soviet Union in the 1920's. Between the time of the October Revolution and his expulsion, Trotzkyism was little more than a slight disagreement with Stalinism. Trotzky only became a Bolshevik in 1917, after the March Revolution. Before this time he was a Menshevik and him and Lenin often had fierce polemics with each other.
Trotzky was expelled from the CPSU because of his opposition to Stalin and the "bureaucracy" as he called it. Trotzkyism is a similar, yet different ideology from Leninism. The writings of Lenin show us that Stalin's political theory was closer to Lenin's than Trotzky's was. Trotzky, however derives much of the fundamental theories from Lenin's.
Trotzky claimed that he and his little band of followers in the 'Fourth International', were Marxists. We cannot accept this claim - if Trotzky was a Marxist, we are certainly not Marxist. They have not once been able to prove that they are Marxists, and this has shown in debate. We disagree with Trotzky and Trotzkyite groups on many fundamental issues and one hopes to discuss these in the little time we have.
DEGENERATE WORKERS STATE
Trotzkyites hold that in Russia in 1917, capitalism was overthrown and a 'degenerated worker's state' was established. Trotzky's theory of the 'degenerated worker's state' is that the working class captured political power, but lost it afterwards. Instead of the working class being in political control, a Stalinist bureaucracy was. According to Trotzkyites, capitalism was overthrown and a socialist economy was introduced. It remains to be seen how this alleged 'socialist economy' was any different from a capitalist one. What is clear is that the Trotzkyites believe that if the Trotzkyites had held political power in Russia instead of the bureaucracy, and that if the revolution had spread to the West, there would have been socialism in Russia.
There is a very interesting twist in the tail regarding the bureaucracy. According to Mr Anthony Clark of the National Committee For Marxist-Leninist Unity Trotzky was:
"unconcerned about the problems of the bureaucracy until he found himself in a minority, after which he attempted to mobilise opposition support against the party leadership, on the basis of an anti-bureaucracy platform."
(Why We Oppose Trotskyism, Mr A.Clark, National Committee For Marxist Leninist Unity).
We say that the Trotzkyites believe that if they themselves held political power, and that the revolution had spread, socialism would have existed. According to the Spartacist League, in the Worker's Hammer Supplement of 14 November 2001 Russia established a socialist economy:
"Our perspective is based on the programme of the Bolshevik Party which led the workers to victory in the October Revolution of 1917, which triumphed amid the slaughter of World War I, creating the world's first workers state, expropriating the bourgeoisie as a class and establishing a planned socialist economy".
The Trotzkyite definition of socialism and the Marxian definition are completely different. Trotzkyites hold that socialism is the first stage of communist society, whilst Marxists hold that socialism and communism are synonoyms.
Lenin admitted this in his State And Revolution, when he wrote that the period of transition between capitalism and communism was:
"generally called Socialism, but termed by Marx the first stage of Communism"
(State and Revolution, Lenin 1917, International Publishers 1998, p76)
Mr Robert Black, of the Socialist Labour League, now Worker's Revolutionary Party, which is the British section of the Fourth International argues in his book Stalinism In Britain: A Trotskyist Analysis that: "Stalin's Russia stood on nationalised, not capitalist property relations".
(New Park 1970, p95).
This is the first distortion of Marxism we shall deal with. Engels, observed that nationalised property relations were capitalist property relations and in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, he wrote:
"The modern State, no matter what it's form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of produce forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers - proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with"(Allen & Unwin Edition 1892, p71-2).
We find it is a pertinent observation that if the Trotzkyites do claim to be Marxist, then they should not claim that nationalised property relations differ from private capitalist ones.
Our Trotzkyite opponents will observe that Engels wrote that "the proletariat seizes political power and transforms the means of production into State property". They would be correct. But directly after this, Engels proceeds to write that "But in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and class antagonisms, abolishes also the State as State".
(Socialism: Utopian And Scientific).
Marx and Engels only supported the bringing of the means of production under State control as a means of encroaching upon the employers after the working class had captured political power. State control of the means of production was not a feature of the society they wished to create.
The TUC, in the Daily Herald of 12 April 1924, asserted that:
"We do not believe that there is any fundamental difference so long as the wages system exists between the relationship of a private employer to his worekrs, and the relationship of a municipality or State to it's workers. In each case, the latter sell their labour-power and their capacity to sell it at a fair price depends on their capacity through their Trade Unions to refuse to work".
Mr Herbert Morrison pointed out in The Times of 12 February 1944 that if nationalisation was socialism:
"more Socialism was done by the Conservative Party, which opposed it, than by the Labour Party, which was in favour of it".
The Socialist Party Of Great Britain pointed out in Nationalisation or Socialism? that:
"Practically all of the schemes of nationalisation have been carried out by avowedly capitalist Governments, Liberal or Tory"(SPGB 1945, p33).
Willhelm Reich, a psychologist, in the Introduction to his The Mass Psychology Of Fascism wrote that:
"According to Marx, the social condition 'capitalism', does not consist in the existence of individual capitalists, but in the existence of the specific 'capitalistic mode of production' that is in the production of exchange values instead of use values, in the wage work of the masses and in the production of surplus value, which is appropriated by the state or private owners, and not by the society of working people. In this strictly Marxist sense, the capitalist system continues to exist in Russia"
(Willhelm Reich, 3rd English Introduction, 1945, The Mass Psychology Of Fascism).
It is clear that the Soviet Union was capitalist. In fact, Lenin admitted that the intention of his party was to develop State Capitalism in Russia (The Chief Task Of Our Times, p11). But what we are left with is the silly claim that the working class held political power. This is quite easily disposed of.
Lenin, in his Proletarian Revolution And The Renegade Kautsky, writes that:
"It is enough to glance at these figures to understand why the defence of the Constituent Assembly and talk (like Kautsky's) about the Bolsheviks not having a majority of the population behind them is ridiculed in Russia"
(Lenin,The Proletarian Revolution And The Renegade Kautsky, Lawrence & Wishart, 1942, p52).
The figures that Lenin refers to are the figures for the proportion of seats held by the Bolshevik Party in the Soviets. This however does not help us at all. If you look at Chapter 7 of The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat by Karl Kautsky you will see that he alleges that the Bolshevik Party suppressed it's opponents in order to maintain Bolshevik majorities in the All Russian Congress Of Soviets. Lenin, however, omits any reference to this claim that could be considered as a refutation of this claim.
Lenin even sent a note to Kursky, which is reprinted in the International Review 1938 Edition of
J.Martov's The State And The Socialist Revolution that says:
"In my opinion it is necessary to extend the application of execution by shooting to all phases covering the activities of Mensh, SR and the like: a formula must be found that would place these activities in connection with the international bourgeoisie and it's struggle against us"
(The State And The Socialist Revolution, Martov 1919, International Review 1938, p10).
The terms Mensh and SR and abbreviations for Menshevik and Social-Revolutionary respectively. It is to be remembered that the Social Revolutionary party won the elections to the Constituent Assembly which Lenin violently shut down.
Lenin attacks Kautsky for claiming that the Bolsheviks did not have a majority of support in Russia. But M.Litvinoff, whom Kautsky identifies as the Bolshevik-appointed Ambassador to Britain, was reported by the SPGB in Socialist Standard of March 1918 as writing:
"In seizing the reins of power the Bolsheviks were obviously playing a game with high stakes. Petrograd had shown itself entirely on their side. To what extent would the masses of the proletariat and the peasant army in the rest of the country support them?"(p37).
So a leader of the Bolshevik Party admitted that when they seized power they did not know if they would have a majority of support. The SPGB also quotes Mr Litvinoff as saying that the delegates to the All Russian Congress Of Soviets were:
"were elected on a most democratic basis".
If so, how could it be that the Bolsheviks did not know if the majority of the population supported them when they had a majority in the Soviets?
Kautsky quotes Litvinoff in an interview with a Mr Longuet. In this interview, published in Populaire, July 6 1918 Mr Longuet enquires:
"Do you not think that in order to meet the attacks that are made on you, you ought at any rate to hold new elections?"
Mr Litvinoff replies:
"This is not possible at the moment...Democracy expressed in the form of the Soviets - a more precise expression of the will of the masses - is the sole form of representation suitable to Russia at the present time" He then said that the Bolsheviks "would have a majority" in any elections.(quoted in The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat, Chapter VII, Karl Kautsky).
So if the Soviets are a more precise expression of the will of the masses, and the Bolsheviks held a majority in these Soviets, how is it that Mr Litvinoff did not know if the population would support the Bolsheviks?
Kautsky asks:
"If Comrade Litvinoff and his friends are so sure of this, why do they not take steps to hold such elections. If these elections were held in the fullest freedom, and gave a Bolshevist majority, the existing Government would gain a far stronger moral basis at home and abroad than ever it can win as a Soviet Government on the present methods of election and adminstration...Why renounce this enermous advantage if one is so sure of a majority? Because general suffrage is not suitable to Russia at this time...One thing can certainly be granted. The present situation is not favourable to the suggestion of elections to a Constituent Assembly."(Dictatorship Of The Proletariat, Chapter VII, Karl Kautsky 1918).
Lenin later admitted that the peasantry, who composed about 80% of the population, was OPPOSED to the Bolshevik Party, in an interview with Bertrand Russell in Nation of July 10 and 17 1920.
Engels, whom Lenin claims to adhere to theoretically, argued in his 1891 Introduction to The Civil War In France, that if a revolution occured and the majority of the population did not understand socialism and want it, this would lead to the establishment, not of the working class, but of the minority that did understand it as the new ruling class.
(The Civil War In France, Karl Marx, Charles H Kerr 1934).
Lenin also said in 1917 that if socialism was permitted by the intellectual development of the working class, socialism would not exist for another 500 years
(Ten Days That Shook The World, J.Reed).
This was recorded in John Reed's Ten Days That Shook The World, and it has an introduction by Lenin himself praising the book.
In Russia the minority of the population that were in the "proletarian vanguard" established themselves as a new ruling class over the working class and the peasantry.
The state administered production - generally speaking - there was still private capitalism in small factories and the like but in most factories the state was the employer. Even under War Communism, there was still industry in private hands. The state machine was the "national capitalist" as put by Engels. Because the state was the main employer does not mean that the leadership of the CPSU was the capitalist class, or 'state capitalist class' as the revisionists in the Socialist Party Of Clapham argue, as well as the Socialist Worker's Party. Trotzky for a change, said something 'Marxist' that refutes this anti-Marxist theory:
"insofar as the bureaucracy robs the people (and this is done various ways by every bureaucracy), we have to deal not with class exploitation in the scientific sense of the word, but with social parasitism, although on a very large scale"
(The Class Nature Of The Soviet State, Worker's Revolutionary Party 1990, p18).
Unfortunately, Trotzky was trying to defend the theory that therewas no capitalist class in Russia. Private capitalism still existed in Russia as Trotzky surely should know quite well. This was limited to small workplaces under War Communism, but under the New Economic Policy it included larger workplaces. The fact that the state is the executive committee of the entire capitalist class did not even occur to him. So we did have 'to deal with' class exploitation in the scientific sense of the word.
The Socialist Worker's Party argue along similar lines as the Clapham Party. However they argue that it was only after 1928 that Russia had became capitalist. This gave Mr Ted Grant, the opportunity to easily dispose of Mr Tony Cliff theory, published in a book called State Capitalism In Russia. Mr Grant wrote:
"If Comrade Cliff's thesis is correct, that state capitalism exists in Russia today, then he cannot avoid the conclusion that state capitalism has been in existence since the Russian Revolution and the function of the revolution itself was to introduce this state capitalist system of society. For despite his tortuous efforts to draw a line between the economic basis of Russia before the year 1928 and after, the economic base of Russian society has remained unchanged".
(The Unbroken Thread, Mr T.Grant, Fortress Books 1989, p199-200 quoted in The Socialist Party Of Great Britain, Mr D.Perrin, Bridge Books 2000, p77).
Amongst the features of Russia Mr Grant lists the working class. Thus he politically commits suicide. Because in Wage Labour And Capital, Marx made quite clear, and this he did in upper case, that Wage Labour presupposes Capital and vice versa. If there is a working class, it is presupposed that there is a capitalist class, and thus there is capitalism.
Mr Cliff and his party rejected Grant's conclusion. But he has not been able to refute it. We hold that Mr Grant's observation is correct and that capitalism did exist from before 1928. Furthermore, we hold that it was the intention of the Revolution to introduce state capitalism. Lenin himself admitted it. Mr Cliff was a Trotzkyite, but most Trotzkyites do not adhere to his views and argue the view of the 'degenerated worker's state', which we have just disposed of.
THE STATE AND REVOLUTION
The reason that Lenin gave for the destruction of the Constituent Assembly was that it was a form of "bourgeois democracy" and that "proletarian democracy is a million times better than the best form of bourgeois democracy"(The Proletarian Revolution And The Renegade Kautsky).
They argue that:
"It is possible only to speak of using bourgeois state institutions for the purpose of destroying them" and that "the proletariat cannot possibly take over the bourgeois state"
(Second Congress Of The Communist International, in Workers Hammer, Spring 2001).
Lenin wrote in his State And Revolution that:
"Marx's idea is that the working class must breakup, smash. the 'ready-made state machinery' and not confine itself to laying hold of it".
Trotzky himself, in an endeavour to apply the Communist Manifesto to today's circumstances, came to a similar conclusion:
The proletariat cannot conquer power within the legal framework established by the bourgeoisie...Reformism sought to explain this postulate of the Manifesto on the grounds of the immaturity of the movement at that time, and the inadequate development of democracy. The fate of Italian, German, and a great number of other 'democracies' proves that 'immaturity' is the distinguishing trait of the ideas of the reformists themselves"
(Manifesto Of The Communist Party, Worker's Revolutionary Party 1991, p8).
The statement of Trotzky's can be justified. When Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto, there was no universal suffrage. Later in their lives, in the 1870's and after, there was universal suffrage in certain countries. The former statement - that of Lenin is nothing but a lie.
Marx wrote to Kugelmann in 1871:
"If you look at the last chapter of my Eighteenth Brumaire, you will see that I declare the next attempt of the French Revolution to be not merely to hand over, from one set to another, the bureaucratic and military machine, as was the case up to now, but to shatter it"
(Letter to Kugelmann, 12 April 1871).
We suspect that Lenin has made his error in trying to grasp why Marx pointed out in The Civil War In France that the working class must destroy the old state machinery. Engels, however in his 1891 Introduction to this, elaborates on Marx's position and wrote that the state is:
"an evil inherited by the proletariat whose worse sides the proletariat...will have at the earliest possible moment to lop off"(1891 Preface, Civil War In France).
Engels listed the standing army and the civil bureaucracy as being these 'worst sides'. Engels also wrote in the introduction, that the working class would have to destroy all machinery used previously used against it. But this was after the working class had seized political power, because he made it quite clear that the destruction of these oppressive machinery used against the working class was indispensible if the proletariat was not to lose the political powerr it had just captured.
Indeed Marx did not argue that a violent non-parliamentary revolution was essential. In his Speech to the Hague Congress he wrote:
"heed must be paid to the institutions, customs and traditions of the various countries and we do not deny that there are countries, such as America and England, and if I was familiar with its institutions, I might include Holland, where the workers may attain their goal by peaceful means"
(The First International And After, Pelican Marx Library 1974, p324).
Marx looked at Britain in particular and wrote that:
"In England...the way to show political power lies open to the working class. Insurrection would be madness where peaceful agitation would more swiftly and surely do the work".
(ibid, p395).
Marx in 1878, conveyed this message more clearly:
"If in England or in the United States the working class wins the majority in Parliament or Congress, it could then use legal means to abolish the laws and institutions obstructing it's development"
(MEW 34:448, quoted in Marx Without Myth, Messrs Rubel & Manale, p311).
Why did Marx admit that the working class could capture political power through Parliament? Martov, leader of the Menshevik Party, makes it clear that this was because it:
"rested precisely on the democratic character, capable of being perfected, which the British State presented"
(The State And The Socialist Revolution, Martov 1919, International Review 1938, p39).
Martov continues and writes that:
"There is nothing in Marx's reasoning that even suggests the destruction of the State organisation as such and the replacement of the State during the revolutionary period, that is during the dictatorship of the proletariat, with a social bond formed on a principle opposed to that of the State"(ibid, p39).
Lenin tried to defend his view later in The State And Revolution and writes that:
"This could be conceived in 1871 when England was still the pattern of a purely capitalist country, without a military machine and, in a large measure, without a bureaucracy. This is why Marx excluded England, where a revolution, even a people's revolution could be imagined, and was then possible without the preliminary condition of the destruction of the State machine since the latter was available, all ready, for it"(quoted in ibid, p38).
He does not explain how this actually justifies his assertion that Marx's view was synonomous with his own. He does not actually advise us for what particular reasons we cannot take control of political power through Parliament. The fact that the state had a democratic character, which the working class could use to win a majority in the House Of Commons meant that there was no reason that the working class could not capture political power through Parliament.
Martov illustrates the Marxian view when he writes:
"The existence, within the framework of capitalism and in spite of the latter (the bureaucratic and military machine), of a democratic apparatus of self-administration, which the military and bureaucratic machine had not succeeded in crushing, was evidently exceptional. In that case, according to Marx, the people's revolution should simply take possession of that apparatus and perfect it, thus realizing the State form that the revolution best use for it's creative purposes"
(ibid, p38).
We have disposed of their claim to be Marxian in relation to their attitude towards the State. But even so, it is necessary to dispose of their examples of the futility of parliamentary action, and other reasons they give.
They point to the Labour Party in Britain, and they argue that the Labour Party was 'socialist'. This simply shows that these groups have no idea what socialism is. The Socialist Worker's Party in particular argue this. But they write in their pamphlet, written by Mr D.Blackie, entitled Socialism And The Labour Party: A Dream Betrayed that it was never a socialist party.
(SWP 1991, p10&11). They automatically dispose of their own theories.
In Socialist Worker in 1973, they denounced the "parliamentary road to socialism" because apparantly the working class would be outvoted by the "middle class and the ruling class"
(Socialist Worker, 27 July 1973).
This simply shows how absurd and pathetic these specimins actually are. This shows that they have no idea what the working class is, and they have not grasped the idea that the middle class is a myth. The division of people into classes is a social relationship between the individual and the means of production. The SWP and the rest of the capitalist/social-fascist left argue that social class can be determined at the point of consumption. But the term social makes it a social concept and if you divide people into social classes at the point of consumption it becomes an economic concept. If you divided Britain into classes at the point of production, you would realise that there are only two classes: employees and employers, or proletarians and capitalists. The only way to divide people into classes, and this class would be a social relationship, is to do this at the point of production.
There is no such thing as the middle class. Thus we are left with the absurd theory that the ruling class could outvote the working class. Even the SWP can't be that silly. These academics are just trying to find excuses for their followers to run around on the streets with their catapults. The working class compose the vast majority of the population: over 90% of the population of the UK. Unless there has been extreme changes in the enfranchisement laws that we have not been advised of, it is obvious to the most superficial observer that the ruling class could not outvote the working class. No wonder the leadership of the SWP is full of academics. They have very little grasp of reality.
We must concede that there are certain groups that profess to be Trotzkyite that accept that Socialism can come through Parliament. But this is a small number of groups, the largest one being Militant Labour, now in the process of stealing the name of the Clapham Party. In general, Trotzkyites adhere to the theory we have endeavoured to demolish.
REVOLUTIONARY LEADERSHIP AND THE WORKING CLASS
So far we have dealt with two of the major Trotzkyite theories: the theory of the degenerated worker's state in the USSR and the theory of the State And Revolution.
In order to explain why we oppose Trotzkyism, we have to look to it's basic ideology, which comes from Lenin.
Lenin argued that:
"The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by it's own efforts, is able to develop only trade-union consciousness, i.e the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation etc. The theory of socialism however, grew out of the philosophical , historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals"(What Is To Be Done?, Lenin 1902, Progress 1983, p31-2).
This is not a Marxist theory. Mr Richard Pipes, a famous historian, writes that:
"The theoretical basis of the Bolshevik Party was Lenin's belief - also quite un-Marxist - the working class in and of itself is not revolutionary...In observing the behaviour of Russian as well as West European workers, he concluded that, left to their own devices, workers were incapable of progressing beyond trade unionism, that is, organisations dedicated to extracting the maximal economic concessions from the capitalist class while leaving the capitalist system intact"
(Three Whys Of The Russian Revolution, R.Pipes, Pimlico 1998, p35).
Mr Pipes asserts quite clearly that Lenin's basic ideology regarding the working class:
"subverted the very essence of Marxism"(ibid, p36).
We cannot disagree. Marx and Engels jointly specifically condemned this attitude in a letter to the leaders of the German Social-Democrat Party in September 1879:
"When the International was formed, we expressly formulated the battle cry: the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself. We cannot ally ourselves, therefore, with people who openly declare that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must first be liberated from above by philanthropic big and petty bourgeois"
(The First International And After, Penguin Edition, 1974, p375).
Karl Kautsky, for once was correct when he wrote in 1934 that:
"Quite early in his career Marx realised, and in this he proved superior to the other Socialists of his day, that the liberation of the working class could be acheived only by the working class itself, that no paternalistic friend from the bourgeoisie, nor a select proletarian vanguard could accomplish this task for the masses"
(Marxism And Bolshevism - Democracy And Dictatorship, Karl Kautsky 1934, Chapter II).
Now we have dealt with where Lenin's theory did not come from - Marxism - we must ask: where was Lenin's theory derived from?
It is quite interesting, because it transpires that this was actually a Narodnik principle. Tkachev had written that:
"Neither now nor in the future is the people, left to itself, capable of acheiving the social revolution. Only we, the revolutionary minority can"
(quoted in Socialist Standard, March 1983).
Marx's most basic ideology was based upon the theory that the working class could emancipate itself. Lenin and Trotzky, the latter adheres to Lenin's theory, both specifically reject Marxism even at it's most basic level. So we must now be wary of how Marxist they are at a more developed level.
Trotzkyites have a programme of transitional demands, which are simply demands which cannot be acheived under capitalism, which are intended to manipulate the working class into supporting their party.
They argue that the "historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership"(Transitional Programme, Worker's Revolutionary Party 1988, p2).
So the crisis of humanity isn't that the working class supports capitalism, but simply that there is no leadership there to lead the working class.
The Trotzkyites, unlike ourselves, do not call for the working class to consciously choose between capitalism and socialism, but instead argue that:
"What workers need is leadership"(News Line, 15 April 2002) and "We urge all workers to join the Worker's Revolutionary Party to build a new leadership"(News Line, 21 October 2002). These are from News Line of 15 April and 21 October respectively. Those whom are not aware are advised that News Line is the daily periodical of the Worker's Revolutionary Party, which is the British section of the International Committee Of The Fourth International.
Consequently what they are proposing is that a minority of the population are conscious of the aims of the revolution, whilst the majority have been manipulated by transitional demands - like the Russian Revolution. They will deny this and claim they are for raising 'consciousness', but what this means is shown when you look at their theoretical writings. Apparantly, an increase in class-consciousness is:
"The workers and soldiers came to the 'official' demonstration carrying placards with the slogans of the Bolsheviks"(The Meaning Of October, Mr Alan Woods, 'Growth Of Consciousness').
This is a quote from The Meaning Of October, by Mr A.Woods of Socialist Appeal, which was formerly the Militant Tendency. This section was headed by the words 'Growth Of Consciousness'.
This is rather silly. Does this mean that everyone on a demonstration carrying an SWP placard is a Trotzkyite? Of course not! That is absurd. All that one million people carring Bolshevik placards says is that one million people agree with the transitional demand. They agree with the "Smash All Tuition Fees" and all that nonsense. It does not mean that they agree with the Party's politics. The fact is that workers are drawn to Bolshevism by the transitional demands, they are not educated about revolution. The Bolsheviks got most of their support on the demands of "Peace, Land, Bread".
So what the Trotzkyites are for is a leadership of the working class to lead workers to socialism. But Marx and Engels made it clear that they did not agree with such a theory. Engels wrote:
"The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions, carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for with body and soul"
(Engels 1895, intro to The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850, Progress 1972, p22).
Engels also wrote in his 1891 Introduction to The Civil War In France, that a revolution carried out by a small conscious minority at the head of an unconscious mass was successful, it would lead not to a dictatorship of the working class, but to a dictatorship of the minority who were conscious of what was required. So by wanting to build a leadership of the working class, they aspire to establish themselves as a new ruling class. This is quite simply because
class-consciousness excludes the role of leadership. There is little need for leaders when the people know what they want and how it is to be acheived.
It is with this in mind that we conclude that Leninism & Trotzkyism are anti-working class political ideologies that not only lead to the establishment of a new ruling class, as Anton Pannekoek wrote in Lenin As Philosopher, but actively wishes to establish themselves as a new ruling class and this is why we are at political war with such movements."
" The specific political ideology of Trotzkyism first emerged as a separate ideology after he was expelled from the Communist Party Of The Soviet Union in the 1920's. Between the time of the October Revolution and his expulsion, Trotzkyism was little more than a slight disagreement with Stalinism. Trotzky only became a Bolshevik in 1917, after the March Revolution. Before this time he was a Menshevik and him and Lenin often had fierce polemics with each other.
Trotzky was expelled from the CPSU because of his opposition to Stalin and the "bureaucracy" as he called it. Trotzkyism is a similar, yet different ideology from Leninism. The writings of Lenin show us that Stalin's political theory was closer to Lenin's than Trotzky's was. Trotzky, however derives much of the fundamental theories from Lenin's.
Trotzky claimed that he and his little band of followers in the 'Fourth International', were Marxists. We cannot accept this claim - if Trotzky was a Marxist, we are certainly not Marxist. They have not once been able to prove that they are Marxists, and this has shown in debate. We disagree with Trotzky and Trotzkyite groups on many fundamental issues and one hopes to discuss these in the little time we have.
DEGENERATE WORKERS STATE
Trotzkyites hold that in Russia in 1917, capitalism was overthrown and a 'degenerated worker's state' was established. Trotzky's theory of the 'degenerated worker's state' is that the working class captured political power, but lost it afterwards. Instead of the working class being in political control, a Stalinist bureaucracy was. According to Trotzkyites, capitalism was overthrown and a socialist economy was introduced. It remains to be seen how this alleged 'socialist economy' was any different from a capitalist one. What is clear is that the Trotzkyites believe that if the Trotzkyites had held political power in Russia instead of the bureaucracy, and that if the revolution had spread to the West, there would have been socialism in Russia.
There is a very interesting twist in the tail regarding the bureaucracy. According to Mr Anthony Clark of the National Committee For Marxist-Leninist Unity Trotzky was:
"unconcerned about the problems of the bureaucracy until he found himself in a minority, after which he attempted to mobilise opposition support against the party leadership, on the basis of an anti-bureaucracy platform."
(Why We Oppose Trotskyism, Mr A.Clark, National Committee For Marxist Leninist Unity).
We say that the Trotzkyites believe that if they themselves held political power, and that the revolution had spread, socialism would have existed. According to the Spartacist League, in the Worker's Hammer Supplement of 14 November 2001 Russia established a socialist economy:
"Our perspective is based on the programme of the Bolshevik Party which led the workers to victory in the October Revolution of 1917, which triumphed amid the slaughter of World War I, creating the world's first workers state, expropriating the bourgeoisie as a class and establishing a planned socialist economy".
The Trotzkyite definition of socialism and the Marxian definition are completely different. Trotzkyites hold that socialism is the first stage of communist society, whilst Marxists hold that socialism and communism are synonoyms.
Lenin admitted this in his State And Revolution, when he wrote that the period of transition between capitalism and communism was:
"generally called Socialism, but termed by Marx the first stage of Communism"
(State and Revolution, Lenin 1917, International Publishers 1998, p76)
Mr Robert Black, of the Socialist Labour League, now Worker's Revolutionary Party, which is the British section of the Fourth International argues in his book Stalinism In Britain: A Trotskyist Analysis that: "Stalin's Russia stood on nationalised, not capitalist property relations".
(New Park 1970, p95).
This is the first distortion of Marxism we shall deal with. Engels, observed that nationalised property relations were capitalist property relations and in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, he wrote:
"The modern State, no matter what it's form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of produce forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers - proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with"(Allen & Unwin Edition 1892, p71-2).
We find it is a pertinent observation that if the Trotzkyites do claim to be Marxist, then they should not claim that nationalised property relations differ from private capitalist ones.
Our Trotzkyite opponents will observe that Engels wrote that "the proletariat seizes political power and transforms the means of production into State property". They would be correct. But directly after this, Engels proceeds to write that "But in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and class antagonisms, abolishes also the State as State".
(Socialism: Utopian And Scientific).
Marx and Engels only supported the bringing of the means of production under State control as a means of encroaching upon the employers after the working class had captured political power. State control of the means of production was not a feature of the society they wished to create.
The TUC, in the Daily Herald of 12 April 1924, asserted that:
"We do not believe that there is any fundamental difference so long as the wages system exists between the relationship of a private employer to his worekrs, and the relationship of a municipality or State to it's workers. In each case, the latter sell their labour-power and their capacity to sell it at a fair price depends on their capacity through their Trade Unions to refuse to work".
Mr Herbert Morrison pointed out in The Times of 12 February 1944 that if nationalisation was socialism:
"more Socialism was done by the Conservative Party, which opposed it, than by the Labour Party, which was in favour of it".
The Socialist Party Of Great Britain pointed out in Nationalisation or Socialism? that:
"Practically all of the schemes of nationalisation have been carried out by avowedly capitalist Governments, Liberal or Tory"(SPGB 1945, p33).
Willhelm Reich, a psychologist, in the Introduction to his The Mass Psychology Of Fascism wrote that:
"According to Marx, the social condition 'capitalism', does not consist in the existence of individual capitalists, but in the existence of the specific 'capitalistic mode of production' that is in the production of exchange values instead of use values, in the wage work of the masses and in the production of surplus value, which is appropriated by the state or private owners, and not by the society of working people. In this strictly Marxist sense, the capitalist system continues to exist in Russia"
(Willhelm Reich, 3rd English Introduction, 1945, The Mass Psychology Of Fascism).
It is clear that the Soviet Union was capitalist. In fact, Lenin admitted that the intention of his party was to develop State Capitalism in Russia (The Chief Task Of Our Times, p11). But what we are left with is the silly claim that the working class held political power. This is quite easily disposed of.
Lenin, in his Proletarian Revolution And The Renegade Kautsky, writes that:
"It is enough to glance at these figures to understand why the defence of the Constituent Assembly and talk (like Kautsky's) about the Bolsheviks not having a majority of the population behind them is ridiculed in Russia"
(Lenin,The Proletarian Revolution And The Renegade Kautsky, Lawrence & Wishart, 1942, p52).
The figures that Lenin refers to are the figures for the proportion of seats held by the Bolshevik Party in the Soviets. This however does not help us at all. If you look at Chapter 7 of The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat by Karl Kautsky you will see that he alleges that the Bolshevik Party suppressed it's opponents in order to maintain Bolshevik majorities in the All Russian Congress Of Soviets. Lenin, however, omits any reference to this claim that could be considered as a refutation of this claim.
Lenin even sent a note to Kursky, which is reprinted in the International Review 1938 Edition of
J.Martov's The State And The Socialist Revolution that says:
"In my opinion it is necessary to extend the application of execution by shooting to all phases covering the activities of Mensh, SR and the like: a formula must be found that would place these activities in connection with the international bourgeoisie and it's struggle against us"
(The State And The Socialist Revolution, Martov 1919, International Review 1938, p10).
The terms Mensh and SR and abbreviations for Menshevik and Social-Revolutionary respectively. It is to be remembered that the Social Revolutionary party won the elections to the Constituent Assembly which Lenin violently shut down.
Lenin attacks Kautsky for claiming that the Bolsheviks did not have a majority of support in Russia. But M.Litvinoff, whom Kautsky identifies as the Bolshevik-appointed Ambassador to Britain, was reported by the SPGB in Socialist Standard of March 1918 as writing:
"In seizing the reins of power the Bolsheviks were obviously playing a game with high stakes. Petrograd had shown itself entirely on their side. To what extent would the masses of the proletariat and the peasant army in the rest of the country support them?"(p37).
So a leader of the Bolshevik Party admitted that when they seized power they did not know if they would have a majority of support. The SPGB also quotes Mr Litvinoff as saying that the delegates to the All Russian Congress Of Soviets were:
"were elected on a most democratic basis".
If so, how could it be that the Bolsheviks did not know if the majority of the population supported them when they had a majority in the Soviets?
Kautsky quotes Litvinoff in an interview with a Mr Longuet. In this interview, published in Populaire, July 6 1918 Mr Longuet enquires:
"Do you not think that in order to meet the attacks that are made on you, you ought at any rate to hold new elections?"
Mr Litvinoff replies:
"This is not possible at the moment...Democracy expressed in the form of the Soviets - a more precise expression of the will of the masses - is the sole form of representation suitable to Russia at the present time" He then said that the Bolsheviks "would have a majority" in any elections.(quoted in The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat, Chapter VII, Karl Kautsky).
So if the Soviets are a more precise expression of the will of the masses, and the Bolsheviks held a majority in these Soviets, how is it that Mr Litvinoff did not know if the population would support the Bolsheviks?
Kautsky asks:
"If Comrade Litvinoff and his friends are so sure of this, why do they not take steps to hold such elections. If these elections were held in the fullest freedom, and gave a Bolshevist majority, the existing Government would gain a far stronger moral basis at home and abroad than ever it can win as a Soviet Government on the present methods of election and adminstration...Why renounce this enermous advantage if one is so sure of a majority? Because general suffrage is not suitable to Russia at this time...One thing can certainly be granted. The present situation is not favourable to the suggestion of elections to a Constituent Assembly."(Dictatorship Of The Proletariat, Chapter VII, Karl Kautsky 1918).
Lenin later admitted that the peasantry, who composed about 80% of the population, was OPPOSED to the Bolshevik Party, in an interview with Bertrand Russell in Nation of July 10 and 17 1920.
Engels, whom Lenin claims to adhere to theoretically, argued in his 1891 Introduction to The Civil War In France, that if a revolution occured and the majority of the population did not understand socialism and want it, this would lead to the establishment, not of the working class, but of the minority that did understand it as the new ruling class.
(The Civil War In France, Karl Marx, Charles H Kerr 1934).
Lenin also said in 1917 that if socialism was permitted by the intellectual development of the working class, socialism would not exist for another 500 years
(Ten Days That Shook The World, J.Reed).
This was recorded in John Reed's Ten Days That Shook The World, and it has an introduction by Lenin himself praising the book.
In Russia the minority of the population that were in the "proletarian vanguard" established themselves as a new ruling class over the working class and the peasantry.
The state administered production - generally speaking - there was still private capitalism in small factories and the like but in most factories the state was the employer. Even under War Communism, there was still industry in private hands. The state machine was the "national capitalist" as put by Engels. Because the state was the main employer does not mean that the leadership of the CPSU was the capitalist class, or 'state capitalist class' as the revisionists in the Socialist Party Of Clapham argue, as well as the Socialist Worker's Party. Trotzky for a change, said something 'Marxist' that refutes this anti-Marxist theory:
"insofar as the bureaucracy robs the people (and this is done various ways by every bureaucracy), we have to deal not with class exploitation in the scientific sense of the word, but with social parasitism, although on a very large scale"
(The Class Nature Of The Soviet State, Worker's Revolutionary Party 1990, p18).
Unfortunately, Trotzky was trying to defend the theory that therewas no capitalist class in Russia. Private capitalism still existed in Russia as Trotzky surely should know quite well. This was limited to small workplaces under War Communism, but under the New Economic Policy it included larger workplaces. The fact that the state is the executive committee of the entire capitalist class did not even occur to him. So we did have 'to deal with' class exploitation in the scientific sense of the word.
The Socialist Worker's Party argue along similar lines as the Clapham Party. However they argue that it was only after 1928 that Russia had became capitalist. This gave Mr Ted Grant, the opportunity to easily dispose of Mr Tony Cliff theory, published in a book called State Capitalism In Russia. Mr Grant wrote:
"If Comrade Cliff's thesis is correct, that state capitalism exists in Russia today, then he cannot avoid the conclusion that state capitalism has been in existence since the Russian Revolution and the function of the revolution itself was to introduce this state capitalist system of society. For despite his tortuous efforts to draw a line between the economic basis of Russia before the year 1928 and after, the economic base of Russian society has remained unchanged".
(The Unbroken Thread, Mr T.Grant, Fortress Books 1989, p199-200 quoted in The Socialist Party Of Great Britain, Mr D.Perrin, Bridge Books 2000, p77).
Amongst the features of Russia Mr Grant lists the working class. Thus he politically commits suicide. Because in Wage Labour And Capital, Marx made quite clear, and this he did in upper case, that Wage Labour presupposes Capital and vice versa. If there is a working class, it is presupposed that there is a capitalist class, and thus there is capitalism.
Mr Cliff and his party rejected Grant's conclusion. But he has not been able to refute it. We hold that Mr Grant's observation is correct and that capitalism did exist from before 1928. Furthermore, we hold that it was the intention of the Revolution to introduce state capitalism. Lenin himself admitted it. Mr Cliff was a Trotzkyite, but most Trotzkyites do not adhere to his views and argue the view of the 'degenerated worker's state', which we have just disposed of.
THE STATE AND REVOLUTION
The reason that Lenin gave for the destruction of the Constituent Assembly was that it was a form of "bourgeois democracy" and that "proletarian democracy is a million times better than the best form of bourgeois democracy"(The Proletarian Revolution And The Renegade Kautsky).
They argue that:
"It is possible only to speak of using bourgeois state institutions for the purpose of destroying them" and that "the proletariat cannot possibly take over the bourgeois state"
(Second Congress Of The Communist International, in Workers Hammer, Spring 2001).
Lenin wrote in his State And Revolution that:
"Marx's idea is that the working class must breakup, smash. the 'ready-made state machinery' and not confine itself to laying hold of it".
Trotzky himself, in an endeavour to apply the Communist Manifesto to today's circumstances, came to a similar conclusion:
The proletariat cannot conquer power within the legal framework established by the bourgeoisie...Reformism sought to explain this postulate of the Manifesto on the grounds of the immaturity of the movement at that time, and the inadequate development of democracy. The fate of Italian, German, and a great number of other 'democracies' proves that 'immaturity' is the distinguishing trait of the ideas of the reformists themselves"
(Manifesto Of The Communist Party, Worker's Revolutionary Party 1991, p8).
The statement of Trotzky's can be justified. When Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto, there was no universal suffrage. Later in their lives, in the 1870's and after, there was universal suffrage in certain countries. The former statement - that of Lenin is nothing but a lie.
Marx wrote to Kugelmann in 1871:
"If you look at the last chapter of my Eighteenth Brumaire, you will see that I declare the next attempt of the French Revolution to be not merely to hand over, from one set to another, the bureaucratic and military machine, as was the case up to now, but to shatter it"
(Letter to Kugelmann, 12 April 1871).
We suspect that Lenin has made his error in trying to grasp why Marx pointed out in The Civil War In France that the working class must destroy the old state machinery. Engels, however in his 1891 Introduction to this, elaborates on Marx's position and wrote that the state is:
"an evil inherited by the proletariat whose worse sides the proletariat...will have at the earliest possible moment to lop off"(1891 Preface, Civil War In France).
Engels listed the standing army and the civil bureaucracy as being these 'worst sides'. Engels also wrote in the introduction, that the working class would have to destroy all machinery used previously used against it. But this was after the working class had seized political power, because he made it quite clear that the destruction of these oppressive machinery used against the working class was indispensible if the proletariat was not to lose the political powerr it had just captured.
Indeed Marx did not argue that a violent non-parliamentary revolution was essential. In his Speech to the Hague Congress he wrote:
"heed must be paid to the institutions, customs and traditions of the various countries and we do not deny that there are countries, such as America and England, and if I was familiar with its institutions, I might include Holland, where the workers may attain their goal by peaceful means"
(The First International And After, Pelican Marx Library 1974, p324).
Marx looked at Britain in particular and wrote that:
"In England...the way to show political power lies open to the working class. Insurrection would be madness where peaceful agitation would more swiftly and surely do the work".
(ibid, p395).
Marx in 1878, conveyed this message more clearly:
"If in England or in the United States the working class wins the majority in Parliament or Congress, it could then use legal means to abolish the laws and institutions obstructing it's development"
(MEW 34:448, quoted in Marx Without Myth, Messrs Rubel & Manale, p311).
Why did Marx admit that the working class could capture political power through Parliament? Martov, leader of the Menshevik Party, makes it clear that this was because it:
"rested precisely on the democratic character, capable of being perfected, which the British State presented"
(The State And The Socialist Revolution, Martov 1919, International Review 1938, p39).
Martov continues and writes that:
"There is nothing in Marx's reasoning that even suggests the destruction of the State organisation as such and the replacement of the State during the revolutionary period, that is during the dictatorship of the proletariat, with a social bond formed on a principle opposed to that of the State"(ibid, p39).
Lenin tried to defend his view later in The State And Revolution and writes that:
"This could be conceived in 1871 when England was still the pattern of a purely capitalist country, without a military machine and, in a large measure, without a bureaucracy. This is why Marx excluded England, where a revolution, even a people's revolution could be imagined, and was then possible without the preliminary condition of the destruction of the State machine since the latter was available, all ready, for it"(quoted in ibid, p38).
He does not explain how this actually justifies his assertion that Marx's view was synonomous with his own. He does not actually advise us for what particular reasons we cannot take control of political power through Parliament. The fact that the state had a democratic character, which the working class could use to win a majority in the House Of Commons meant that there was no reason that the working class could not capture political power through Parliament.
Martov illustrates the Marxian view when he writes:
"The existence, within the framework of capitalism and in spite of the latter (the bureaucratic and military machine), of a democratic apparatus of self-administration, which the military and bureaucratic machine had not succeeded in crushing, was evidently exceptional. In that case, according to Marx, the people's revolution should simply take possession of that apparatus and perfect it, thus realizing the State form that the revolution best use for it's creative purposes"
(ibid, p38).
We have disposed of their claim to be Marxian in relation to their attitude towards the State. But even so, it is necessary to dispose of their examples of the futility of parliamentary action, and other reasons they give.
They point to the Labour Party in Britain, and they argue that the Labour Party was 'socialist'. This simply shows that these groups have no idea what socialism is. The Socialist Worker's Party in particular argue this. But they write in their pamphlet, written by Mr D.Blackie, entitled Socialism And The Labour Party: A Dream Betrayed that it was never a socialist party.
(SWP 1991, p10&11). They automatically dispose of their own theories.
In Socialist Worker in 1973, they denounced the "parliamentary road to socialism" because apparantly the working class would be outvoted by the "middle class and the ruling class"
(Socialist Worker, 27 July 1973).
This simply shows how absurd and pathetic these specimins actually are. This shows that they have no idea what the working class is, and they have not grasped the idea that the middle class is a myth. The division of people into classes is a social relationship between the individual and the means of production. The SWP and the rest of the capitalist/social-fascist left argue that social class can be determined at the point of consumption. But the term social makes it a social concept and if you divide people into social classes at the point of consumption it becomes an economic concept. If you divided Britain into classes at the point of production, you would realise that there are only two classes: employees and employers, or proletarians and capitalists. The only way to divide people into classes, and this class would be a social relationship, is to do this at the point of production.
There is no such thing as the middle class. Thus we are left with the absurd theory that the ruling class could outvote the working class. Even the SWP can't be that silly. These academics are just trying to find excuses for their followers to run around on the streets with their catapults. The working class compose the vast majority of the population: over 90% of the population of the UK. Unless there has been extreme changes in the enfranchisement laws that we have not been advised of, it is obvious to the most superficial observer that the ruling class could not outvote the working class. No wonder the leadership of the SWP is full of academics. They have very little grasp of reality.
We must concede that there are certain groups that profess to be Trotzkyite that accept that Socialism can come through Parliament. But this is a small number of groups, the largest one being Militant Labour, now in the process of stealing the name of the Clapham Party. In general, Trotzkyites adhere to the theory we have endeavoured to demolish.
REVOLUTIONARY LEADERSHIP AND THE WORKING CLASS
So far we have dealt with two of the major Trotzkyite theories: the theory of the degenerated worker's state in the USSR and the theory of the State And Revolution.
In order to explain why we oppose Trotzkyism, we have to look to it's basic ideology, which comes from Lenin.
Lenin argued that:
"The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by it's own efforts, is able to develop only trade-union consciousness, i.e the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation etc. The theory of socialism however, grew out of the philosophical , historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals"(What Is To Be Done?, Lenin 1902, Progress 1983, p31-2).
This is not a Marxist theory. Mr Richard Pipes, a famous historian, writes that:
"The theoretical basis of the Bolshevik Party was Lenin's belief - also quite un-Marxist - the working class in and of itself is not revolutionary...In observing the behaviour of Russian as well as West European workers, he concluded that, left to their own devices, workers were incapable of progressing beyond trade unionism, that is, organisations dedicated to extracting the maximal economic concessions from the capitalist class while leaving the capitalist system intact"
(Three Whys Of The Russian Revolution, R.Pipes, Pimlico 1998, p35).
Mr Pipes asserts quite clearly that Lenin's basic ideology regarding the working class:
"subverted the very essence of Marxism"(ibid, p36).
We cannot disagree. Marx and Engels jointly specifically condemned this attitude in a letter to the leaders of the German Social-Democrat Party in September 1879:
"When the International was formed, we expressly formulated the battle cry: the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself. We cannot ally ourselves, therefore, with people who openly declare that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must first be liberated from above by philanthropic big and petty bourgeois"
(The First International And After, Penguin Edition, 1974, p375).
Karl Kautsky, for once was correct when he wrote in 1934 that:
"Quite early in his career Marx realised, and in this he proved superior to the other Socialists of his day, that the liberation of the working class could be acheived only by the working class itself, that no paternalistic friend from the bourgeoisie, nor a select proletarian vanguard could accomplish this task for the masses"
(Marxism And Bolshevism - Democracy And Dictatorship, Karl Kautsky 1934, Chapter II).
Now we have dealt with where Lenin's theory did not come from - Marxism - we must ask: where was Lenin's theory derived from?
It is quite interesting, because it transpires that this was actually a Narodnik principle. Tkachev had written that:
"Neither now nor in the future is the people, left to itself, capable of acheiving the social revolution. Only we, the revolutionary minority can"
(quoted in Socialist Standard, March 1983).
Marx's most basic ideology was based upon the theory that the working class could emancipate itself. Lenin and Trotzky, the latter adheres to Lenin's theory, both specifically reject Marxism even at it's most basic level. So we must now be wary of how Marxist they are at a more developed level.
Trotzkyites have a programme of transitional demands, which are simply demands which cannot be acheived under capitalism, which are intended to manipulate the working class into supporting their party.
They argue that the "historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership"(Transitional Programme, Worker's Revolutionary Party 1988, p2).
So the crisis of humanity isn't that the working class supports capitalism, but simply that there is no leadership there to lead the working class.
The Trotzkyites, unlike ourselves, do not call for the working class to consciously choose between capitalism and socialism, but instead argue that:
"What workers need is leadership"(News Line, 15 April 2002) and "We urge all workers to join the Worker's Revolutionary Party to build a new leadership"(News Line, 21 October 2002). These are from News Line of 15 April and 21 October respectively. Those whom are not aware are advised that News Line is the daily periodical of the Worker's Revolutionary Party, which is the British section of the International Committee Of The Fourth International.
Consequently what they are proposing is that a minority of the population are conscious of the aims of the revolution, whilst the majority have been manipulated by transitional demands - like the Russian Revolution. They will deny this and claim they are for raising 'consciousness', but what this means is shown when you look at their theoretical writings. Apparantly, an increase in class-consciousness is:
"The workers and soldiers came to the 'official' demonstration carrying placards with the slogans of the Bolsheviks"(The Meaning Of October, Mr Alan Woods, 'Growth Of Consciousness').
This is a quote from The Meaning Of October, by Mr A.Woods of Socialist Appeal, which was formerly the Militant Tendency. This section was headed by the words 'Growth Of Consciousness'.
This is rather silly. Does this mean that everyone on a demonstration carrying an SWP placard is a Trotzkyite? Of course not! That is absurd. All that one million people carring Bolshevik placards says is that one million people agree with the transitional demand. They agree with the "Smash All Tuition Fees" and all that nonsense. It does not mean that they agree with the Party's politics. The fact is that workers are drawn to Bolshevism by the transitional demands, they are not educated about revolution. The Bolsheviks got most of their support on the demands of "Peace, Land, Bread".
So what the Trotzkyites are for is a leadership of the working class to lead workers to socialism. But Marx and Engels made it clear that they did not agree with such a theory. Engels wrote:
"The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions, carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for with body and soul"
(Engels 1895, intro to The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850, Progress 1972, p22).
Engels also wrote in his 1891 Introduction to The Civil War In France, that a revolution carried out by a small conscious minority at the head of an unconscious mass was successful, it would lead not to a dictatorship of the working class, but to a dictatorship of the minority who were conscious of what was required. So by wanting to build a leadership of the working class, they aspire to establish themselves as a new ruling class. This is quite simply because
class-consciousness excludes the role of leadership. There is little need for leaders when the people know what they want and how it is to be acheived.
It is with this in mind that we conclude that Leninism & Trotzkyism are anti-working class political ideologies that not only lead to the establishment of a new ruling class, as Anton Pannekoek wrote in Lenin As Philosopher, but actively wishes to establish themselves as a new ruling class and this is why we are at political war with such movements."