This is related to minimum demands, transitional demands, and maximum demands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_Program
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_demand
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Trotskyism
What is it that defines Trotskyism as a tendency? There are plenty of Trotsky parties here in the UK and they all seem to focus on nationalisation and high progressive taxation. There's no mention of eradicating money and markets.
The only real thing I know about Trotskyism is "no socialism in one country" and yet none of these same parties mention a simultaneous world revolution.
This is related to minimum demands, transitional demands, and maximum demands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_Program
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_demand
pew pew pew
It's actually a few things which defines 'orthodox' Trotskyism:
- The already mentioned 'transitional method', although I'm unsure how much of 'Marxism-Leninism' distanciates itself from it, as the terminology was actually developed not by Trotsky, but in the early Comintern.
- Opposition to Stalinism, yet seeing the USSR as a genuine (if 'degenerated') workers state.
- 'Permanent Revolution', which developed as from a specific Russian take on an internationalist stance that was considered orthodoxy to a stance against 'socialism in one country'.
I think, thus I disagree. | Chairperson of a Socialist Party branchMarxist Internet Archive | Communistisch Platform
Working class independence - Internationalism - Democracy
Educate - Agitate - Organise
In other words, Trots are about advocating unrealistic reformist demands in the vain hope that this will somehow act as a bridge to workers embracing the maximum programme
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Stunning insight robbo, such a compelling contribution to the discussion. Yeah its the Trots that are vain and unrealistic, not the folks of the WSM who keep plugging away in their attempts to utilize the bourgeois parliament as a vehicle for the revolutionary transformation of society.
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As pointed out by Q, there are a few elements of Trotskyism which differentiate it from other Marxist tendencies.
(1) Permanent Revolution.
In opposition to the traditional and more popular stagist positions of the time, Trotsky advocated the theory of permanent revolution; the premise of which, is that in late developing capitalist countries, the bourgeoisie is too weak to accomplish all of the tasks associated with the bourgeois-democratic revolution. In other words, they prove to be incapable of developing the productive forces to the point where a fully developed industrial proletariat emerges. Trotsky argued that these unfinished tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, would have to be accomplished by the proletariat, in conjunction with their own communistic revolution. It is in this sense, that the revolution is permanent.
(2) The Transitional Method.
In opposition to the traditional minimum-maximum program associated with the 2nd international and classic social democracy, Trotsky advocated what is known as the transitional method/program. The issue with the min-max program, is that the call for socialist revolution remained as an abstract demand which was always pushed off to a later date; all it amounted to was a lifeless and cosmetic facade used to pretty up reforms. Trotsky argued, insted, for communists to deploy a series of transitional demands, stemming from the conditions currently in existence and which unalterably lead to 'one final conclusion: the conquest of power by the proletariat.' Through this process, communists succeed in peeling workers away from bourgeois hegemony and to the program of socialist revolution; an example of a transitional demand, employed by the Bolsheviks, would be the call for 'peace, bread, and land.'
(3) Critique of post-'24 leadership of the USSR.
Trotskyists argue that the post 1924 leadership of the USSR, which was the ruling strata consolidated around Stalin, represented a bureaucratic caste. Trotsky characterized it as a caste, and not a new ruling class, due to the fact that their political control did not extend to economic ownership of the means of production; the bourgeoisie had been desposed by the proletariat and the means of production socialized, as a result of the October revolution. Trotsky argued that the DWS did not represent a new form of society, but rather was a transitional state of affairs between capitalism and socialism, which eventually would collapse into one or the other. As a result of this, post-1933, Trotskyists call for political revolution within the USSR. It should be noted, though, that not all Trotskyists uphold the USSR as a DWS throughout the entirety of its existence.
Interesting stuff, especially (3). Most, if not all, Trotskyist groups I can think of characterise the USSR as "state capitalist" but it sounds like that was never something Trotsky himself believed. Is that right?
Indeed it is and one whose implications you deftly attempt to sidestep. The constant postponement of the maximum programme on the spurious pretext that there is an urgent need to push for a bunch of reforms differentiated from other reforms only by being less capable of realisation within capitalism is a load of utter tosh.
So pushing for a minimum wage of £8 ph is an ordinary reform; pushing for £15.75 ph is a ...ahem...transitional demand. Of course it would be nicer to have £15.75 than £8 ph but most workers when presented with this choice, have enough savvy to realise that £15.75 is totally unrealisable and unaffordable under capitalism and that it would be a complete waste of time even trying to push it. This is especially true under conditions of capitalist recession when hanging on to your job becomes a more important priority than getting higher wages. Far better to go on strike for something that you stand a realistic chance of getting than pursuing some will o'the wisp
The net result is that protagonists of so called transitional demands appear to the overwhelming majority of workers as mere dreamers making hopelessly unrealistic demands on employers and quite possibly even jeopardising what little gains they have been made. That is the unpalatable fact of the matter which our blinkered Trots refuse to accept.
Far from acting as a so called "bridge" to the maximum revolutionary programme the reformism of the transitional demand actually contributes to the process of undermining and tainting the latter by associating it with something that is unrealisable and utopian - that is insofar as Trots even talk about a genuine socialist society in between busily advocating this or that pressing reform. Most don't and a good many describe socialism in terms of a so called "socialist government" nationalising the "commanding heights of industry". In other words state capitalism. Further evidence of the reactionary fundamentally pro-capitalist character of most Trot groups.
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And the sort of sub-reformism exemplified in the above post (here mixed with the stunningly stupid literary maximalism of the SPGB) is precisely what the transitional programme was supposed to fight. To quote the old man himself:
Now, of course, certain ostensibly Trotskyist political groups have taken this as a plan for tricking the workers into class consciousness - Trotsky meant nothing of the sort. We openly say to the workers who have not yet been won over to socialism: your demands go against the basis of capitalist society. A sliding scale of wages for example - that endangers capitalism itself, not just the profit of one or more groups that exist in the bourgeoisie. So even if you're granted this reform because you put sufficient pressure on the bourgeois state, it will be rescinded as soon as possible. But we will not abandon the struggle for such demands, we will fight alongside you and show you practically the futility of reformism, the need for a socialist revolution.
In other words, the strategy of so called "transitional demands" is akin to inviting workers to bash their heads against a brick wall in the expectation that it might "raise their consciousness". Actually there is only one outcome that flows from such a course of action - a severe case of concussion!
Last edited by robbo203; 12th October 2014 at 10:23.
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The only Trotskyist groups that have a state-capitalist analysis of the USSR that I know of are those associated with the Cliffites (SWP in Britain). The majority of Trotskyist groups have a 'degenerated workers' state' analysis.
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
There are (at least) three broad groupings of Trotskyist groups that have a (state-)capitalist analysis of the former Soviet Union.
First, of course, are the Cliffists, the International Socialist Tendency and ISO (and some minor groups not affiliated with the IST, I think).
Second, the groups inspired by C. L. R. James. I think these are mostly defunct, though.
Third, a group breaking from Third-Campism to the left, the LRP and similar organisations (the ISL in Palestine).
Then, of course, there are people who think the Soviet Union wasn't capitalist but the glacis states were. This is the case for Lutte Ouvriere, if I'm not mistaken, many mutations of Healyism, and so on.
i just want to write something to this, no one in their right mind argues for a "simultaneous world revolution" since something like that is absoloutly impossible. the point is that if socialism/commuism is to be achived the revolution must spread and cant stagnate and isolated in one country or region. if the latter happens the revolution is dead.
All i want is a Marxist Hunk.
It is true that labor produces for the rich wonderful things – but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces – but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty – but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labor by machines, but it throws one section of the workers back into barbarous types of labor and it turns the other section into a machine. It produces intelligence – but for the worker, stupidity, cretinism.
Wer hat uns verraten? Sozialdemokraten!
Lenin believed that there was no single defining characteristic of Trotsky's ideology (and thus by extension Trotskyism):
Partisans of Stalin like to remind us that Lenin had pretty harsh words for Trotsky as a person. Lenin called Trotsky a "bell" (ie., noisy and empty), a "pig", a "political prostitute", and so on. Frankly, my personal belief was this could be chalked up more to Lenin's vituperative polemical style more than some kind of objective assessment. That said, the Stalin camp seems to have disagreed with Lenin on whether there are truly core tenets of Trotskyism:Originally Posted by Lenin
and so on and so forth: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/11_19.htmOriginally Posted by Stalin
well trotskyism is leninism as interpretet by trotsky, so ja.
wich had lenin also for stalin, wich in the end tells us nothing.
All i want is a Marxist Hunk.
It is true that labor produces for the rich wonderful things – but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces – but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty – but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labor by machines, but it throws one section of the workers back into barbarous types of labor and it turns the other section into a machine. It produces intelligence – but for the worker, stupidity, cretinism.
Wer hat uns verraten? Sozialdemokraten!
Nah, that's just mythologizing, albeit understandably so. Trotsky joined the Russian Social Democrats in 1898, and met Lenin in 1902. In 1903 the Leninists split from the Mensheviks. He joined Lenin in 1917. That means that if we are as generous as possible to Trotsky, that still means that for 2/3's of the time that both (1) the Bolsheviks existed and (2) Trotsky was a relevant player in Russian politics, he and Lenin were bitter rivals.
The hatred certainly went both ways. Here's Trotsky on Lenin in 1913:
Inb4 trot rebuttalsOriginally Posted by Trotsky
Yeah, and even though he died in 1924, he totally knew what was going to happen 10, 20, even 30 or more years after his death, being like some mystic egg-head seer who could totally see the future.
He was right about Stalin being a total cock, for instance.
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
in fact, a lot of former Trots broke with their groups over the intransigence of Trotskyists using a "degenerated workers' state" analysis rather than developing an analysis of USSR as state-capitalism.
Lenin's criticism of Trotsky there is kinda like Dauve's criticism lol. Trotsky is an opportunist bureaucrat who represents anything to get in the know. Thing was, he got dedicated to these random political flings.
Trotsky had his problems, and was kind of a goof, but so were Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Kautsky, Bordiga, Damen, the list goes on. Trotsky may have been an oscillating political opportunist symbol of bureaucraticism, during his Bolshevik years, the force he represented was actual Bolshevism (maybe flawed, but still, principled Communism). In this regard, I think the Italians were right to defend Trotsky, especially over Stalin. Later, however, whilst Trotskyism had some okay theory, it was largely the "stalinist leadership in exile," and the Italians were right to split with them, and Camatte's criticism in Origins and Function is a pretty good criticism of Trotskyism, albeit extremely short (a couple sentences or so).
That being said, my favorite type of leftist is the tankie-trot who's not afraid to hail the red army in afghanistan.
"We must flee from Time, we must create a life that is feminine and human - it is these imperative objectives that must guide us in this world heavy with catastrophes."
Jacques Camatte, Echos from the Past
"For example, to say that the relation between industrial capital and the class of the wage workers is expressed in precisely the same way in Belgium and Thailand, and that the praxis of their respective struggles should be established without taking into account in either of the two cases the factors of race or nationality, does not mean you are an extremist, but it means in effect that you have understood nothing of Marxism."
Amadeo Bordiga, Factors of Race and Nation in the Marxist Analysis
The only thing being "mythologized" is your ethos in talking about soviet history. Especially when they both made political issues into personal ones. Let me know when you read about Stalin's glorious role in the october revolution (spoiler alert: he was against it happening).
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"[I]t’s hard to keep potent historical truths bottled up forever. New data repositories are uncovered. New, less ideological, generations of historians grow up. In the late 1980s and before, Ann Druyan and I would routinely smuggle copies of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution into the USSR—so our colleagues could know a little about their own political beginnings.”
--Carl Sagan
How were they the "stalinist leadership in exile" when they advocated completely different politics?
For student organizing in california, join this group!
http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=1036
http://socialistorganizer.org/
"[I]t’s hard to keep potent historical truths bottled up forever. New data repositories are uncovered. New, less ideological, generations of historians grow up. In the late 1980s and before, Ann Druyan and I would routinely smuggle copies of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution into the USSR—so our colleagues could know a little about their own political beginnings.”
--Carl Sagan
