-----Original Message-----
From: Jim
To: leninlist@cag1.demon.co.uk
Date: Wednesday, April 22, 1998 2:51 PM
Subject: LL9804408 Louis Paulsen re Discussion of "Trotskyism"
To Andrew, Klo, Paris, and other people who intend to discuss
"Trotskyism":
It is going to be very hard at best for you to have a constructive
discussion, and I think it will be impossible unless you bear the
following points in mind.
1. There is no point in discussing "Trotskyism" as a -historical-
phenomenon unless you link it up somehow with what people believe
or do in the present day. Present-day self-defined "Trotskyists"
organize around certain themes, issues, and principles, which they
believe to be the enduring and relevant contribution of Trotsky to
the present-day struggle for socialism.
2. With regard to the period before February of 1917, "Trotskyism"
represented two things: (a) a belief in conciliating the Mensheviks with
the Bolsheviks, and (b) a disagreement with Lenin on the formulation of
the nature and tasks of the proletariat in the making of the revolution,
centering around Lenin's slogan of the "Revolutionary-Democratic
Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry."
However, neither of these things are emphasized by present-day
Trotskyists. With regard to (a), Trotsky openly acknowledged that he had
been wrong and no present-day Trotskyist favors "conciliating with
Mensheviks". With regard to (b), all present-day Trotskyists favor the
line that Lenin actually adopted in 1917, and nobody puts forward a
"Trotskyist" theory of revolution in a largely-agrarian country as
distinct from a Leninist one.
3. With regard to the period from February of 1917 to the death of Lenin,
Trotskyists contend that there was no such thing as a "Trotskyist"
position distinct from a "Leninist" position, and that Trotsky functioned
as an equal member of the Bolshevik leadership, not differing from Lenin
on important questions any more frequently than any other leading
Bolshevik.
4. It is in the period following the death of Lenin that differences
between Trotsky and other Bolsheviks start to clearly emerge. Some of
them, however, relate to specific problems of the economy, of
industrialization, of agriculture, and so on. To decide who was right
about electrification, for example - when did it become practical, who
proposed it, who said what about it, and so on - would require more
historical and specialized economic knowledge than we are likely
to possess here. At any rate, nobody becomes a "Trotskyist" today because
of his position on rural electrification.
5. There are, however, some issues which came to the fore after the death
of Lenin; which clearly delineated Trotsky's positions as distinct from
Stalin's; and which self-defined "Trotskyists" believe to be important
in
the world today. These are the issues around which parties and groups
organize in the year 1998. These include:
- The prospects for development of socialism in a single country. Trotsky
believed that it would be impossible for the USSR to survive indefinitely
under conditions of encirclement without revolution in other advanced
countries, which made aid to such revolutions a matter of survival.
- The proper role for socialist countries to play with regard to
working-class and revolutionary movements in other countries. Trotsky
believed that socialist governments must clearly show their solidarity
with the workers and oppressed, and not lend legitimacy to imperialist
governments.
- The question of bureaucracy. Trotsky believed that in its conditions of
isolation, scarcity, and weakness with respect to the capitalist market, a
revisionist bureaucracy was developing, not merely in the economic and
state structure but in the party as well. The basis of this bureaucracy
was the privileges associated with managerial posts. He believed that this
bureaucracy weakened socialist society and that elements in it might
eventually stage a counterrevolution.
- Class independence. Trotsky believed that the policies recommended to
communists around the world by the CPSU under Stalin's leadership, such as
"workers and peasants" parties, the "popular front", and so forth,
weakened the working class and the socialist movement.
I recommend that the discussion focus on these issues, because these are
the issues which are on people's minds when they identify themselves as
"Trotskyists", because they believe these issues to be relevant today.
Nobody goes out and becomes a Trotskyist because he or she thinks that
Trotsky was right to make the August bloc of 1912, to take an extreme
example. They go out and become Trotskyists because they believe there
was a non-revolutionary and revisionist bureaucracy in the USSR before its
fall, and/or that there is one in the People's Republic of China today,
and they believe that Trotsky's critique will help them understand this
phenomenon.
I also believe that the discussion should look not only at what Stalin and
Trotsky said in the 1930's, but at what we say today about these issues.
Perhaps Trotsky was wrong in the 1930's about a privileged bureaucracy
growing up in the party, which might make counterrevolution. However it
is now manifestly true that a privileged revisionist bureaucracy DID
eventually grow up in the CPSU, of which Gorbachev was the
representative, and DID make counterrevolution. If Trotsky's analysis of
this phenomenon is the wrong one, what is the correct analysis?
Furthermore - this is probably a utopian suggestion, but I'll make it
anyway - I suggest that we all respect each other as people who are
seriously trying to build socialism, at least subjectively, and not treat
each other as if we were bourgeois agents, lunatics, and so on.
Furthermore, we would do well to try to look at our opponents' positions
and try to see their justifications. For all of these positions of
Trotsky or of Stalin, if treated one-sidedly and undialectically, can
become harmful to the struggle. People become Trotskyists because they
oppose class collaboration. But if this is taken one-sidedly, this
sentiment leads to sectarian isolation. People become Stalinists because
they are offended by petty-bourgeois sectarians. But if this is taken
one-sidedly, it leads to a contempt for revolutionary theory and to
tailing after liberals. People become Trotskyists because they want to
criticize revisionism. But if this is taken one-sidedly, it leads to
opposition to socialist governments and support for counterrevolution.
People become Stalinists because they are proud of the achievements of
the revolutions of 1917 and 1949 and want to defend them. But
if this is taken one-sidedly, it leads to blind and uncritical
"boosterism" (I hope this word has meaning outside the U.S.) and
a renunciation of the duty to provide an independent analysis.
I believe that Trotskyists are in fact always in danger of being
overrun by petty-bourgeois sectarians, but on the other hand Stalinists
are always in danger of being infected by the conservative sentiments of
non-socialist secions of the working class and of
slipping back into Browderism and liberalism.
There, now everyone is probably angry with me equally! :-)
Louis Paulsen
member, Chicago branch, Workers World Party
http://www.workers.org
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