Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 18:44:12 +0000
Subject: M-G: Re: M-I: the Trotsky quarantine.


KARL And is it true tha Lenin died from syphilis?

Mark, Chris and Karl and other interested list members, 

One of the features of this debate about Stalinism, is that, apart 
>from Bob's and Hugh's contributions,  there seems to be a virtual 
ignorance of Trotsky's contemporary analysis of Stalinism in contrast 
to a flood of books by bourgeois academics  rushing to make their 
careers, or flesh out their class interests, which is the same thing, 
on the bones of the SU. 

Trotsky's analysis was superior because  1) He was there as a main 
leader of October  2) played a key role in the events as a leader of the 
opposition, 3) was a marxist dialectician. Together these add up to much 
more than the latter-day bone-pickers. Therefore, Trotsky left us a record of 
the struggle which cannot possibly be reconstructed from any other 
source. 

I get this impression - of a Trotsky quarantine - from the ridiculously 
clumsy views of Trotsky and Trotskyism held by many people on this list
  1) Trotsky is talked of as an individual, not as a revolutionary leader.
 2) Karl finds it a contradiction to say that the degenerated workers state 
could also be a dictatorship of the proletariat - this is elementary stuff for an 
ex-trotskyist like Karl.   3) Mark thinks that because I identify 1923 as the 
beginning of the Stalinist betrayals, that I give up on defending the 
USSR and blocking with the Stalinists in its defence. Again an abysmal 
misreading of Trotsky.  What does Mark think Trotsky meant by Political 
Revolution?  5) There is a common tactic on this list to reduce Trotsky to 
post-war trotskyism with which they may have had bad experiences. 
 They are not the same.  6) certain caricatured views attributed to Trotsky.
 e.g. to say as Mark does, that Trotsky counter-posed Stalinism to 
World-Revolution as if to prove that because World-Revolution is impossible 
then Stalinism was, unfortunately, necessary. But Trotsky  meant by world 
revolution what was already obvious to the Bolsheviks from the start and 
was the principle behind their foreign policy in the early years - how to get 
the European and Asian workers to smash their bosses and come to the 
rescue of the Russian revolution? 

Anyway, the effect is to close off Trotsky from the analysis of what 
caused Stalinism, and therefore what it takes to overcome it, and to 
prevent it from occuring again.  Mark says, it won't happen again 
because "we now know" that socialism is impossible in one country. 
First, he doesnt recognise that the petty bourgeois will never 
concede this as it is against their class interests which is to manage a 
peaceful national road to socialism.  Second, more important, 
he doesnt recognise this as a fundamental tenent of Bolshevism. 

We did not have to experience Stalinism to learn that lesson. The 
Bolsheviks deduced this from their marxist method, and Lenin never 
conceded this position. Even when he was writing at the end of the need 
for workers and peasants to collaborate to save the workers state, it 
was so that it would survive until the impending revolution took 
place in the East and in Europe.

But these revolutions never happened. What happened instead?  
According to Mark, Lenin succumbed to syphilis and abandoned the 
historic stage leaving some  `iron law' of history to assert itself. 
No such stage, no such law. The revolution was forced onto the 
back foot for reasons we can probably agree on, and the bureaucracy 
began to take power and to defend its position by rejecting Bolshevik 
politics for menshevik politics. 

That is, permanent revolutions such as occured in Russia,  would be 
postponed to allow support for bourgeois revolutions which would not
 activate revolutionary opposition against the bureaucracy in the SU. 
 In China the "Bloc of 4 classes" doomed the emerging working class to 
massacre at the hands of the nationalists. Godena some months back 
tried to excuse this counter-revolution by blaming the infant, poorly 
organised working class and communist party.  The CP was very well 
`organised', from Moscow,  with Chiang as an honorary member of the 
Comintern.  Even so, the CP was so well organised it forced Chiang to 
turn on the working class rather than risk being overthrown in a Chinese 
October.  Hows that for an iron law of history? One down one to go!

This pattern of menshevik/stalinist betrayals was driven through against the 
resistance of the left opposition. This was class struggle. The bureaucracy, 
representing a petty bourgeois peasant and NEPman social base, took a 
position mediating the struggle between the working class and the 
world bourgeoisie. It blocked with the world bourgeoisie against the 
world working class in order to consolidate its caste rule in the SU.  
This reached its fatal point of no return in Germany where the 
communists blocked with Hitler against the `social fascists'. 

 So Stalin and Stalinism had, following some `iron law' of 
history, having made sure that the revolution failed in the East, now 
made sure that the revolution failed in the West. In both cases it was 
Trotsky and the oppositionists who fought with Bolshevik method 
and programme,  to overturn the grip of  the bureaucracy on the 
international movement.  They failed but not for want of trying and 
against the terrible odds of international stalinism exploiting the authority 
of October and of Bolshevism to retain their grip on the working masses 
steering them into chauvinist popular fronts to defend "socialism in 
one country".

No matter how much historical `fact' is turned over today as archives 
and memories are exposed to the hordes of academic bone-pickers,  
none of this essential class analysis of the basis of Stalinism will 
be disproved. Not until the working class settles accounts with this rotten 
history, and has broken from all those who continue today to find reasons 
to defend any aspect of Stalinism, will it be able to free itself from the dead 
hand of the bureaucracy and strike out on an independent course for 
socialist revolution. 

Bolsheviks/Leninists/Trotskyists Unite!
Forward to a new Revolutionary Communist International!

Dave. 
 

 



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                          Yours etc.,
                                     Karl   


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