Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 00:12:22 -0500 (EST)
From: Paul Zarembka <zarembka-AT-acsu.buffalo.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: state capitalism


On 13 Mar 1997, neil wrote:

> Paul Z. wonders why did i include trotskyism in
> the swamp of defenders of state capitalism .
> It goes beyond the fact that Trotsky himself 
> (he may have changed--he may not have
> before he was murdered ) called the (ex)USSR
> a degenerated workers  state with  (pro-worker)
> economic base. He said workers ere NOT 
> exploited (produced surplus value that was robbed form them)
>  in the USSR! He denied the USSR
> had a ruling class under Stalin  (only a "caste")
> . He called for workers/progressives to defend Russia when it made its
> spheres of influence deals to divide Eastern europe
> with the 3rd Reich.

Neil, I didn't understand before what you are getting at because the
comments you made about the Soviet economy were not dissimilar with 
Trotsky's, but now I think I know more where you are coming from.  The
implication of my own work would be pushing the capitalist restoration
before Trotsky's death. And I have major problems with the same issues you
raise above. But I'd like to set that aside for the moment and ask if I
understand you correctly to be arguing that Trotsky (as well as Stalin) 
represented state capitalism at least since 1922?  If so, what about
Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution?  I have a feeling you are leading us
down some path and I'd like to hear laid out more clearly where you are
coming from or trying to take us to.  Also, your sentence below on Cliff
and Daum being maverick Trotskyists was sufficiently cryptic that I didn't
understand if you accept their positions or not; i.e., where to they fit
in with your thinking?

Also, your cited sources are unfamiliar to me.  Are they party positions
and supports for present-day political practices?

If any Trotskyists on the list would care to enjoin Neil on Trotsky's
practices in 1922-24, that would be an education for me.

Thanks.

Paul

> Nor was the Trotsky ' left opposition " so left after all.
> When it was formed in 1923 , it was basically at first 
> a kind of loyal opposition to the degeneration of 
> Bolshevik Party--after Kronstadt and NEP, etc.
> But now The Russian  leadership  was looking for new allies 
> after  the workers western soviet movements were smashed
> in Italy,  Germany, Hungary, etc.
> 
> They found these partly in the "irredentist powers " in the West,
> Germany, Austria, Turkey, etc and  both stalin and trotsky
> promoted an unprincipled  alliance system to play off the defeated
> Central powers imperialists against the Entente imperialists
> who were still carrying out attacks and embargoes of  the USSR.
> in 1922-4.
> 
> Trotsky/Stalin  supported ALL  secret codicils of the Rapallo Pact
> of 1922, including the ones initiating  NO more Russian support 
> for communist groups in Germany and the beginnings of
> secret military /economic pact  between Moscow and Weimar
> Germany..
> When the German  workers again in insurrected in 1923, the Russain 
> state  now denounced the workers for 'ultra -leftism" and said the 
> German workers in revolt should accept the bitter pill,
> go back to work and work thru legal parliamentary channels only.
> 
> Trotsky/stalin  both supported  thru the comintern the rightist
> move in the German KPD to a policy of "national bolshevism"
> in 1923-5 including unity with German  nationalist and fascist groups
> to oppose Entente imperialist "victors" cutting the German army and
> navy  down 
> The KPD,  supported by Stalin and Trotsky groups policy , built
> a united front with the right wing reaction to oppose the  French
> imperialist occupation of the Ruhr a/c Weimar could not carry
> out the payments of reparations.
> This was even referred to as some kind of "Schlageter Front"
> (Schlageter was a neo-nazi shot by the French  for carrying
> out bombings of French  occupation forces.) which both Trotsky 
> and Stalin wings of the rulers  backed from Russia.
> Both  wings also accepted  tha absurd notion that Germany was 
> now an 'oppressed nation" fighting for "national liberation". 
> 
> The main rason i employ this info is to show that from the
> get-go there is mainly quantiative political differences in
> the Stalin-Trotsky  programme for workers in struggle. 
> Sometimes not even that ! Also because the Trotsky people 
> make such a big hullaballo about their alleged "internationalism", 
> when correctly attacking the nationalist  stalinists.
> 
> Also getting back to the trotsky people on state capitalism ,
> today 99% of them have a cover-up position on state-caps 
> rule . The Cliffist SWP/UK trend and Walt  Daum's LRP/US are real  
> mavericks in  the trotsky melieu with  their developement of theory
> exposing this  state capitalism, masquerading as marxism.
> 
> Sources: CWO/UK  Revolutionary Perspectives --old series
> and ex-Solidarity/UK  on the German issues in the 1922-5 period.
> 
> for the Communist-left 
> Neil



     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---