Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 02:55:26 GMT
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
From: hariette-AT-easynet.co.uk (hariette spierings)
Subject: Re: Critique of Trotskyism


>Chris writes:
>
>>The paradox is that the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe has
>>provided a space for the total reexamination of what Marxism means.
>
>I don't think there's a paradox here at all.
>
>In the first place what collapsed in Eastern Europe and a lot of Asia was
>not socialism. The bureaucratic Stalinist regimes collapsed - they sold out
>to imperialism, accompanied by a wave of popular revulsion at themselves
>and their tradition of treachery and oppression.

What collapsed was actually Khruschovite-Brezhnevite anti-Stalisn (hidden
Trotskysm).


>Second, the non-capitalist foundations of the states of the ex-Soviet bloc
>have been proving far more resilient than any bourgeois experts or
>superficial journalists anticipated. 

Who built these foundations?  Was not Stalin who implemented Lenin's legacy
and built socialism in ONE COUNTRY despite the Trostkyst opposition?  Why
are they proving resilient?  Because they were solid!  They are rooted in
the minds and memories of the Soviet and world people - DESPITE ALL THE
EFFORTS OF TROTSKYSM to obliterate these foundations!  


This resilience is getting an echo in
>the minds of the people, not just in the reactionary Stalinist nostalgia of
>the Zhirinovskys but in the minds of ordinary workers having to fight for
>what used to be automatic rights. Kissinger and co were right to speak of a
>window of opportunity for imperialism of one or at most two years, that
>would last as long as the people of these countries were anaesthetized by
>the euphoria of getting Stalinism off their backs.

How funny:  While Maoists were fighting hard to unmask, denounce and
overthrow the social-imperialist creation of Khruschov and Company, the
Trots at that time were bent on defending the Soviet Union as a "deformed
worker's state"!!!!

What is Zhirinovsky got to do with Stalin?  Can you think a bit more originally?


>Third, there's a space for Marxism all right, but a total reexamination is
>only necessary for those who equated Stalinist practice and theory with
>Marxism. Chris doesn't discuss the concrete people doing the reassessment.
>As far as political organizations are concerned, the further away from
>orthodox Trotskyism they are located, the more thorough-going will their
>reexamination have to be. As far as the class is concerned, there is a real
>space for developing Marxist perspectives undistorted by the lies and
>silences of Social-Democrat and particularly Stalinist leaderships.
>Millions more people will now come into contact with Marxist ideas,
>explanations and proposals for revolutionary action without immediately
>running up against nationalist barriers and class-collaborationist
>strategies.
>
>In other words, the sellout of the Stalinist bureaucracy to imperialism is
>no paradox, the resilience of the non-capitalist economic base is no
>paradox, and the space for Marxism is no paradox. These developments
>reinforce some basic principles, and open the way to better forms of
>discussion and approaches to action than we have seen previously.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Hugh
>
The space, the "window of opportunity" for Trotskysm came and went together
with the capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union.  Now they want us to
forget how they practically all of them adjourned to Moscow under Gorbachev
and started to work for Yeltsin?  Who does this fellow thinks he can fool?
The Soviet masses are tired of Jehovahs Witnesses, Mormons and Trots!  They
know that these pests are but a natural consequence of capitalist
carpet-bagging! 
>

Obviously Trotskyst have no seriuos argument meriting serious response.  All
they have to show for themselves is Carlos's bombastic appreciation of the
SINGLE HANDED ONE MAN REVOLUTION (one wonders why do they need a party of
any kind for?)  

Here I got them the neatest solution to their problems: With all the new
CLONING technology, they should just go out and seek some of old Trot's
bones and get a DNA sample (just like in Jurassic Park).  Obtain a clone of
LEO DAVIDOVICH, and just wait a few years until he grows up (a bit like Demian).

After attending Oxford and Sandhurst and working as a "war correspondent"
for the Daily Express, just get him into any old party by filling in a handy
coupon.  Presto! HE WILL THEN, AND ALL BY HIMSELF, MAKE ANOTHER REVOLUTION! 

Now Hugh Rodwell adds a quota of suppositions, misleading statements about
the character of the ANTI-STALIN regime of Khruschov-Brezhnev-Gorbachoev,
and a liberal dosis of wishful thinking.  However, he still has to sing us
the old song to explain the lack of correspondence to actual reality.  "It
will always be tomorrow, always tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.  


Has anyone in the John Major administration though about appointing a Trot
as Chancellor of the Exchequer?  Why not.  They would certainly have no
difficulty to tell the public with a straight face that the "feel good
factor" is just around the corner.  Kenneth Clarke himself could not do it
better than they can with their tale of "coming revolutions"!  

However, I do not think Trots are as foolish as they pretend. For them the
revolution maybe always be TOMORROW.  But, nevertheles, TODAY, is not so bad
for them in any case:  There is a fool born every minute who can buy into
their "magical snake oil" and sign a coupon in the back of one of their
bourgeois subsidised papers, and on that entitlement, become a fully paid-up
member of our "vanguard" party!  A bit like buying up a "Lord of the Manor"
nobility title - a fully paid-up member of the Youth League of the
Aristocracy........of Labour!  What a laugh!


Adolfo Olaechea



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