File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-01-01.033, message 12


From: dr.bedggood-AT-auckland.ac.nz
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 13:20:20 +0000
Subject: Re: M-I: Transitional Program


> Date:          Mon, 30 Dec 1996 10:32:39 +0000
> From:          Joao Paulo Monteiro <jpmonteiro-AT-mail.telepac.pt>
> To:            marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU,
>                marxism-general-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
> Subject:       M-I: Transitional Program
> Reply-to:      marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU

> David Bedggood says: 
> > Thanks for replying and making even clearer your political position.
> > You start by denying your are an `evolutionary' marxist. Yet in every
> > paragraph you counter-pose the objective to the subjective. You say a
> > revolutionary situation did not exist during the war so the TP was of
> > no use; Greece and Indo-China were no use. These struggles were
> > premature, just like the mensheviks thought the Russian revolution was
> > prremature.  
> 
> Monteiro: I'm the one who thanks you for replying, because there is
> indeed an important point I needed to make yet. It's true I believe all
> this was premature, including the russian revolution. All this
> revolutionary round of the XXth century will be reminded as exploratory
> sorties for socialism. But I believe so, now. If I were there, I
> wouldn't have the time for such speculative thoughts. My duty would have
> been to fulfill my revolutionary tasks the best I could. I believe the
> duty of every revolutionary is, in any revolutionary circonstances that
> he is faced with, to press it to the very limit of 
> the movement's strenghts and possibilities. As I have said before, we
> can never know for sure in advance if the situation is ripe or not. We
> will have to put our heads in every hole that the wall presents. That's
> the only way. 
> But afterwards, in retrospect, if the masses didn't move, if the
> workers' didn't correspond to the appeal, if there wasn't enough energy
> and consistency on the assault, I will say the historical situation was
> probably not ripe yet. I wouldn't go on saying yes, everything was is
> place but these guys are such cowards that they didn't move and now we
> have fascism on our backs. I would put myself in question first, which
> is precisely what Trotsty and you trotskyists will never do because you
> think the vanguard and the correct line do it all and all the masses
> have to do is follow or be damned.
>
As I said before,  Trotskyists dont blame people's personalities for 
the victories or failures of past struggles.  No revolutionary 
situation guarantees victory unless a revolutionary vanguard can 
overcome counter-revolutionary agents in the working class. 
Revolutions are made, the don't just happen.  "Ripeness" as you 
quaintly call it, obscures the many factors that contribute to a 
revolutionary situation.  Trotsky corrected himself many times. 
The most famous was on the question of the vanguard party itself - hotly 
contested on this list.  You should not judge Trotsky by latter-day 
so-called Trotskyists. 
 
> Bedggood:
> > In the epoch of imperialism, during an imperialist war, you
> > dont think a revolutionary situation existed?  
> 
> Monteiro:
> This can never be put abstractly, just like that. If the workers and the
> masses are not corresponding minimaly, then the answer is surely NO. The
> situation has to be evaluated dialectically, between the leadership's
> experience and the masses response. It's pure folly to say (as Trotsky
> did): this situation is scientificaly ripe for revolution. I've read the
> books and I say so. If the masses don't undestand, I'll expell them from
> history. They'll descend into the darkest ages. Me or barbarism. 

What you are doing here is denying the capacity of an organised 
vanguard party to make a revolution by uniting theory and practice. 
The reason that Lenin and Trotsky considered imperialist wars to be 
necessarily revolutionary situations is that their theory showed they 
were expressions of  massive crises which intensify class struggle and 
class consciousness.  But without revolutionary leadership these 
revolutionary situations become counter-revolutions. 
Germany 1919 is a good example. So the "ripeness" here comes down to  
victory  of revolutionary leadership against counter-revolutionary 
leadership.  By denying the objective character of "wars and 
revolutions" you ignore the role of revolutionaries in making 
revolutions. 
You also ignore, and apologise for 
counter-revolutionaries in stopping revolutions. So the popular 
front, instead of being a counter-revolutionary alliance with 
the bourgeoisie to smash revolutions, including Spain, becomes merely 
a defence of bourgeois democracy in an objectively non-revolutionary 
situation.  
> 
> Bedggood:
> > I have to say that your position is very similar to that argued by
> > others on this list who understand Marx's method in a anti-Bolshevik
> > and menshevik way.  You accuse me of being an idealist/volutarist
> > because I argue for a Bolshevik unity of theory and practice. 
> 
> Monteiro:
> You argue for unity of theory and theory. Stop calling menshevik, will
> you. I know it will require a immense effort on your part, but it would
> be a much apreciated friendly gesture. The mensheviks were trying to put
> their brakes on a revolution that was already in the move "spontanely".
> The masses didn't wait for the vanguard there. Your approach is to
> create a revolution entirely on your heads and call menshevik to anyone
> who doesn't see it, including the workers.

Too bad you don't like being called a Menshevik. You will have to 
learn to live with it.  You cant see that your whole approach is to 
"put brakes on revolution" in actual, historical situations because 
you are waiting for the working class to spontaneously rise up. 
 Bolshevism has  nothing to do with  me or anyone "imagining" 
revolutions in our heads and voluntaristically substituting for the
 "unripe"  workers.  It is a matter of using theory to understand 
what epoch we are in, whether capitalism is in crisis or not, and
 what the balance of class forces is.  On the basis of such theory, 
a revolutionary programme is developed which is tested in 
practice by fighting defensive or offensive struggles.  Trotsky was 
pretty good at both.  He helped to make the only socialist revolution 
in 1917 as the result of the Bolsheviks correct understanding of 
Marx's method, and ability to unite theory and practice in the 
Bolshevik Party.  And in the face of fascism, which you do not 
understand, the revolutionary Trotsky  called  for a united front 
of the German CP and SP against fascism.  The counter-revolutionary 
leaderships [no rank and file] of the CP and SP betrayed the German 
workers to fascism.    
 
Dave. 


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