Centrism

  1. Tower of Bebel
    Tower of Bebel
    So while reading What next? Vital questions for the German proletariat (1932), I stumbled upon Trotsky's definition of centrism.
    Speaking formally and descriptively, centrism is composed of all those trends within the proletariat and on its periphery which are distributed between reformism and Marxism, and which most often represent various stages of evolution from reformism to Marxism – and vice versa. Both Marxism and reformism have a solid social support underlying them. Marxism expresses the historical interests of the proletariat. Reformism speaks for the privileged position of proletarian bureaucracy and aristocracy within the capitalist state. Centrism, as we have known it in the past, did not have and could not have an independent social foundation. Different layers of the proletariat develop in the revolutionary direction in different ways and at different times. In periods of prolonged industrial uplift or in the periods of political ebb tide, after defeats, different layers of the proletariat shift politically from left to right, clashing with other layers who are just beginning to evolve to the left. Different groups are delayed on separate stages of their evolution, they find their temporary leaders and they create their programs and organizations. Small wonder then that such a diversity of trends is embraced in the concept of “centrism”! Depending upon their origin, their social composition, and the direction of their evolution, different groupings may be engaged in the most savage warfare with one another, without losing thereby their character of being a variety of centrism.

    While centrism in general fulfills ordinarily the function of serving as a left cover for reformism, the question as to which of the basic camps, reformist or Marxist a given centrism may belong, cannot be solved once for all with a ready-made formula. Here, more than anywhere else, it is necessary to analyze each time the concrete composition of the process and the inner tendencies of its development. Thus, some of Rosa Luxemburg’s political mistakes may be with sufficient theoretical justification characterized as left centrist. One could go still further and say that the majority of divergences between Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin represented a stronger or weaker leaning toward centrism. But only the idiots and ignoramuses and charlatans of the Comintern bureaucracy are capable of placing Luxemburgism, as an historical tendency, in the category of centrism. It goes without saying that the present “leaders” of the Comintern, from Stalin down, politically, theoretically, and morally do not come up to the knees of the great woman and revolutionist.

    Critics who have not pondered the gist of the matter have recently accused me more than once of abusing the word “centrism” by including under this name too great a variety of tendencies and groups within the workers’ movement. In reality, the diversity of the types of centrism originates, as has been said already, in the essence of the phenomenon itself and not at all in an abuse of terminology. We need only recall how often the Marxists have been accused of assigning to the petty bourgeoisie the most diverse and contradictory phenomena. And actually, under the category “petty bourgeois,” one is obliged to include facts, ideas, and tendencies that at first glance appear entirely incompatible. The petty-bourgeois character pertains to the peasant movement and to the radical tendencies of urban reformism; both French Jacobins and Russian Narodniks are petty bourgeois; Proudhonists are petty bourgeois, but so are Blanquists; contemporary Social Democracy is petty bourgeois, but so is fascism; also petty bourgeois are: the French anarcho-syndicalists, the “Salvation Army,” Gandhi’s movement in India, etc., etc. If we turn to the sphere of philosophy and art a still more polychromatic picture obtains. Does this mean that Marxism indulges in playing with terminology? Not at all; this only means that the petty bourgeoisie is characterized by the extreme heterogeneity of its social nature. At the bottom it fuses with the proletariat and extends into the lumpenproletariat; on top it passes over into the capitalist bourgeoisie. It may lean upon old forms of production but it may rapidly develop on the basis of most modern industry (the new “middle class”). No wonder that ideologically it scintillates with all the colors of the rainbow.

    Centrism within the workers’ movement plays in a certain sense the same role as does petty-bourgeois ideology of all types in relation to bourgeois society as a whole. Centrism reflects the processes of the evolution of the proletariat its political growth as well as its revolutionary setbacks conjoint with the pressure of all other classes of society upon the proletariat. No wonder that the palette of centrism is distinguished by such iridescence! From this it follows, however, not that one must give up trying to comprehend centrism but simply that one must discover the true nature of a given variety of centrism by means of a concrete and historical analysis in every individual instance.

    [...]

    Whereas in capitalist countries, the centrist groupings are most often temporary or transitional in character, reflecting the evolution of certain workers’ strata to the right or to the left, under the conditions of the Soviet republic centrism is equipped with a much more solid and organized base in the shape of a multimillioned bureaucracy. Representing in itself a natural environment for opportunist and nationalist tendencies, it is compelled, however, to maintain the foundations of its hegemony in the struggle with the kulak [rich peasant] and also to bother about its “Bolshevik” prestige in the worldwide movement. Following its attempted chase after the Kuomintang and the Amsterdam bureaucracy, which in many ways is close to it spiritually, the Soviet bureaucracy each time entered into sharp conflict with the Social Democracy, which reflects the enmity of the world bourgeoisie to the Soviet state. Such are the sources of the present left zigzags.

    [...]
    What do you think of it? Is this definition applicable to the "center" of the pre-war SPD? What about the USPD? The part about Luxemburg concerns me most, not because of her, but because the following question comes to mind: can her example be compared to the attitudes of other leaders of the SPD?
  2. Die Neue Zeit
    Die Neue Zeit
    Of course not! Trotsky's mistake was to equate what became "centrism" to such earlier tendency, the Marxist Center.

    I have stated before and again my historical support for the USPD, an "outstanding role model for left politics today" (Dietmar Bartsch), even at the expense of the ultra-left KPD.
  3. Tower of Bebel
    Tower of Bebel
    "What became centrism". Are you impying that centrism only occured after 1913/4-1917/8? Maybe centrism is already an old fenomenon. It's possible that, among the party's leaders, the "Marxist Center" had to deal with a centrism that acted as the preliminary stage of the later struggle (post War) between the minority marxistis and the majority who were the reformists. This coexistance of centrism with the Marxist Center could explain why (1) Trotsky conflates both and (2) why some practices of the Marxist Center were dubious in character.
  4. Die Neue Zeit
    Die Neue Zeit
    There's the Marxist center, and then there's vulgar "centrism," which surfaced just before WWI. I also use the term revolutionary centrism as a two-front polemic against frontisms and ultra-left stuff.
  5. Q
    Q
    The quote sums up the contemporary meaning of "centrism" for the Trotskyist left, something that I never fully internalised as, in my view, Trotsky uses a lot of words to say nothing of significance. If every current but your own is "petty-bourgeois" then the word loses any meaning. Likewise, if only your current embalms "Marxism" and everyone else is some form of "centrism", then it loses any significance. It's a definition that was designed to make the tiny Left Opposition seem much more relevant than it really was and one that emboldened the sectarian left to keep on going on their current road of "Marxism".
  6. Tower of Bebel
    Tower of Bebel
    DNZ, how would you define modern, vulgar centrism and could you give me an example? Does Trotsky's definition fit yours?
    if only your current embalms "Marxism" and everyone else is some form of "centrism", then it loses any significance. It's a definition that was designed to make the tiny Left Opposition seem much more relevant than it really was and one that emboldened the sectarian left to keep on going on their current road of "Marxism".
    A historical, scematic sidenote here. Both Leon Trotsky, expelled from the USSR in 1927, and August Thalheimer, expelled from the KPD in 1928, reproached eachother with centrism. Both men stood for the centrality of transitional demands within the communist programme. One went to found the Communist Party Oppostion (KPO), the other the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Both had to deal with the same opposition groups against social democratic and Stalinist bureaucratism in for instance France and Spain.
  7. Tower of Bebel
    Tower of Bebel
    From Bukharins the ABC of communism:
    Another group of parties composed of those who were once socialists constitutes the so-called 'Centre'. Persons of this trend are said to form the 'Centre' because they waver between the communists on one side and the jingo socialists on the other. Of this complexion are: in Russia, the left mensheviks under the leadership of Martov ; in Germany, the ' independents' (the Independent Social Democratic Party), under the leadership of Kautsky and Haase; in France, the group led by Jean Longuet; in the USA, the Socialist Party of America, under the leadership of Hilquit; in Great Britain, part of the British Socialist Party, the Independent Labour Party; and so on.

    At the outset of the war the centrists advocated the defence of the fatherland (making common cause in this matter with the traitors to socialism), and they opposed the idea of revolution. Kautsky wrote that the 'enemy invasion' was the most terrible thing in the world, and that the class struggle must be postponed until everything was over. In Kautsky's opinion, as long as the war lasted, there was nothing whatever for the International to do. After the conclusion of 'peace', Kautsky began to write that everything was now in a state of such great confusion that it was no use dreaming about socialism. The reasoning amounts to this. While the war was on, we must drop the class struggle, for it would be useless, and we must wait until after the war; when peace has come, there is no use thinking about the class war, for the imperialist war has entailed general exhaustion. It is plain that Kautsky's theory is an avowal of absolute impotence, that it is calculated to lead the proletariat utterly astray, and that it is closely akin to rank treason. Worse still, when we were in the very throes of revolution, Kautsky could find nothing better to do than to raise the hunt against the bolsheviks. Forgetting Marx's teaching, he persisted in a campaign against the proletarian dictatorship, the Terror, etc., ignoring the fact that in this way he was himself assisting the White Terror of the bourgeoisie. His own hopes would appear to be now those of the ordinary pacifist; he wants courts of arbitration, and things of that sort. Thus he has come to resemble any bourgeois pacifist you care to name.

    Although Kautsky's position is to the right of the Centre, we choose him as an example rather than another because his theory is typical of the centrist outlook.

    The chief characteristic of centrist policy is the way in which it wobbles between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The Centre is unsteady on its legs; wants to reconcile irreconcilables; and at the critical moment betrays the proletariat. During the Russian November Revolution, the Russian Centre (Martov & Co.) vociferated against the use of force by the bolsheviks; it endeavoured to 'reconcile' everybody, thus actually helping the White Guards, and reducing the energy of the proletariat in the hour of struggle. The mensheviks did not even exclude from their party those who had acted as spies and plotters for the military caste. In the crisis of the proletarian struggle, the Centre advocated a strike in the name of the Constituent Assembly against the dictatorship of the proletariat. During Kolchak's onslaught, some of these mensheviks, solidarizing themselves with the bourgeois plotters, raised the slogan, 'Stop the civil war' (the menshevik Pleskov). In Germany the 'independents' played a treacherous part at the time of the rising of the Berlin workers, for they practised their policy of 'concilation' while the fight was actually in progress, and thus contributed to the defeat. Among the independents there are many advocates of collaboration with the Seheidemannites. But the gravest charge against them is that they refrain from the advocacy of a mass rising against the bourgeoisie, and that they wish to drug the proletariat with pacifist hopes. In France and Britain, the Centre 'condemns' the counter-revolution; it 'protests' in words against the crushing of the revolution; but it displays utter incapacity for mass action.

    At the present time the centrist group does quite as much harm as do the jingo socialists. The centrists, sometimes spoken of as the Kautskyites, are attempting, like the jingo socialists, to reanimate the corpse of the Second International and to 'reconcile' it with the communists. Unquestionably, a victory over the counter- revolution is impossible without a definite breach, and without a decisive struggle against them.

    The attempts to revive the Second International took place under the benevolent patronage of the robber League of Nations. For, in fact, the jingo socialists are faithful supporters of the decaying capitalist order, and are its very last props. The imperialist war could never have continued to rage for five years but for the treachery of the socialist parties. Directly the period of revolution began, the bourgeoisie looked to the socialist traitors for help in crushing the proletarian movement. The sometime socialist parties were the chief obstacle in the way of the struggle of the working class for the overthrow of capitalism. Throughout the war, every one of the traitor socialist parties echoed all that the bourgeoisie said. After the peace of Versailles, when the League of Nations was founded, the remnants of the Second International (the Centre as well as the jingo socialists) began to re-echo all the slogans uttered by the League of Nations. The League accused the bolsheviks of terrorism, of violating democracy, of Red imperialism. The Second International repeated the accusations. Instead of engaging in a decisive struggle against the imperialists, it voiced the imperialist war-cries. Just as the various parties of socialist traitors had supported the respective bourgeois administrations, so did the Second International support the League of Nations.
  8. Die Neue Zeit
    Die Neue Zeit
    DNZ, how would you define modern, vulgar centrism and could you give me an example?
    Vulgar "centrism" is giving cover to frontist and coalitionist tendencies by using r-r-r-revolutionary rhetoric, by limiting the level of criticism to mere diplomatic levels, etc.

    Bukharin's work is more questionable because I'm not sure of any earlier commitment to the Marxist center on his part.

    BTW, why don't you put "centrism" in quotes when referring to a tendency we commonly oppose?
  9. Tower of Bebel
    Tower of Bebel
    That's because I only use the word centrism when it is (possibily) vulgar centrism. I don't refer to the ideas of the Marxist Center in terms of centrism. I call it Marxism.
  10. Die Neue Zeit
    Die Neue Zeit
    Fair enough.