File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxism-international.9801, message 348


Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 21:01:23 -0500 (EST)
From: "Bruce D. Burleson" <anvil-AT-tiac.net>
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: Another salvo at the state caps




Jorn lectures me on Trotsky:

> Actually Tony Cliff has written a 4 vol. biography on Trotsky, where esp.
> vol IV, "The darker the Night, the brighter the Star" is intersting, IMO.
> As an introduction to Trotskys ideas I think Duncan Hallas' (SWP-UK founder
> member) small book "Trotsky's Marxism" is excellent. In the SWP quarterly
> journal "International Socialism" you will find plenty of references to
> Trotsky. Alex Callinicos (leading SWP-UK member) has also written a book on
> "Trotskyism" (which I haven't read), and Bookmarks has published a major
> selection of Trotsky's writings on "Fascism, Stalinism and the United
> Front" - at a more reasonable price than Pathfinder's.
> So I think you have got the wrong impression - the fault probably not yours
> alone.


I've read most of the above listed books; found them wanting.  Trotsky
must be rolling over in his grave over state capitalist theory.  Imagine,
not supporting the USSR, or for that matter North Korea, just because
of differences with Stalinism.  That is ultraleftism at its worst.


> >least of all the Transitional Program (a document most
> >IS'ers have probably never heard of).  Now I see that that is because
> >the IS tendency is only *nominally* Trotskyist.
> 
> Yes, I *have* read the Transitional Programme. It's interesting enough, but
> I never understood why its become such a fetich for large parts of the
> Trotskyist movement. I think his writings on the United Front, on
> stalinism, on revolutionary strategy and tactics in relation to France in
> the mid-30's and, not to forget, Spain are much more interesting.


I beg your pardon?  The Transitional Programme was the single most 
important document Trotsky wrote.  It summarizes the political program
of the Trotskyist movement--fighting for reforms that benefit the
working class, with a perspective of socialist revolution.  To place
the Programme on the back burner, IMO, is to essentially discard Trotsky.
The American SWP made the same mistake under Barnes in the early 1980's,
and now look at how hopeless their party is.


> A debate about who is most "Trotskyist" IMO is a sterile debate. I can only
> say that we consider ourselves to stand in the tradition of socialism from
> below, a tradition whose main theorists include Marx, Engels, Lenin,
> Trotsky, Luxemburg, Garmsci and others.


Yes; however, your "tradition-of-socialism-from-below" is without
merit, because (1) your tendency has neither the political or physical
continuity of Trotskyism (or Marxism for that matter), and (2)
your tendency does not consist largely of *working-class* people.

Moreover, tactics used by your tendency -- obnoxiously shoving your
tabloidish newpapers in the faces of workers rather than being part
of the struggle -- will not get you anywhere.  These are all reasons
why I left the ISO, eventually for Socialist Action.


> Also: Trotsky had his faults, as did Marx and Lenin. When we say that we
> are Marxists, Trotskyists etc. the point is not to lick their boots, but to
> stand on their shoulders. That way we have a chance to look farther than
> they could.


No one is licking anyone's boots here.  Is it licking Trotsky's boots 
to say that the Transitional Programme is more important than you have
surmised?  The contents of that Programme are, IMO, what will keep a
*true* Trotskyist party from simply wandering around in a useless
circle for years, building forums but never being in the unions or
working class movement as a whole.

Bruce Burleson



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