C O M M U N I S T P A R T Y A L L I A N C E
SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY:
THE MOST COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY FORCE IN THE WORKING CLASS.
By Tony Clark.
Social Democracy – The Most Counter-Revolutionary Force. Page 1
C O M M U N I S T P A R T Y A L L I A N C E
SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY:
THE MOST COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY FORCE IN THE WORKING CLASS.
By Tony Clark.
IN THE 1930s Trotsky made a fundamental revision of Marxism-Leninism. He started the argument that “Stalinism” had become the most counter-revolutionary force in the working class. This was at a time when social democracy was defending imperialism, as it still does today, and when the “Stalinists” were defending the Soviet Union, aiding anti-imperialist movements around the world and mobilising support for anti-fascist struggles. One example was communist support for the republican side in the Spanish civil war through Soviet material assistance and the communist-organised International Brigade, consisting of 35,000 fighters who were prepared to die to defeat fascism. Another example was when the British communists stopped the fascists at Cable Street. These initiatives and movements were led by people who were, to one degree or another, supporters of Stalin. In view of all this, why did Trotsky come out with such a ludicrous position, suggesting that “Stalinism” was more counter-revolutionary than the social democratic movement, which had remained pro-imperialist from 1914, siding with the bourgeois regimes against the working class at every opportunity?
Below, the Editor of the International Marxist-Leninist Review talks to Tony Clark in order to throw some light on this important issue.
IMLR: The first thing to ask is, why did Trotsky call people who were defending the Soviet Union, aiding the anti-imperialist movement, and supporting and leading the struggle against fascism such as in the Spanish civil war or at Cable Street, the most counter-revolutionary force in the working class?
TC: The simple answer to that question would be that Trotskyism is an ultra-left ideology. It is far more successful than other ultra-left ideologies because it is able to claim a connection with the 1917 revolution in which Trotsky participated as a leading member. Ultra-leftists are people who pay little or no attention to concrete factors when putting forward all types of radical slogans and tactics, which are in contradiction to actual, concrete circumstances. Trotsky was such a man, although when he was a member of the Bolshevik party under the leadership of Lenin his ultra-left tendencies were restrained to some extent. The problem we have with Trotskyism is that it is able to conceal its ultra-leftist ideology from those who are unschooled in Marxism-Leninism by hiding behind the tradition of the Russian revolution.
IMLR: What would you say was a good example of the ultra-leftism contained within Trotskyism?
TC: The subject of this discussion is a good example, in fact the best example of the ultra-leftism contained within Trotskyism. Here we see a perfect example of how ultra-leftists, in this case Trotskyists, ignore concrete factors to argue that “Stalinism” is the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class through-and-through. The facts which they ignore, and facts are stubborn things, are facts such as Stalinists defending the Soviet Union, supporting national liberation movements against imperialism, organising anti-fascist resistance in Spain and elsewhere like Cable Street in London, fighting racism in the United States, supporting anti-imperialist regimes. The Trotsky theory has to ignore all the above facts, brush them aside, so to speak, for it to be able to argue that “Stalinism” is the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class, through-and-through. To be able to ignore facts to such an extent, in order to put forward a line which you want people to believe is revolutionary, is a sure sign of ultra-leftism.
Ultra-leftists, therefore, do not reason from the facts or all the facts, or even the most important facts; they ignore all the facts, or some of the facts, or the most important facts. If you are not arguing from the facts, it means you are arguing from your subjective feelings and wishes. When you can ignore the facts to one degree or another, it means that you can argue, for instance, that the most counter-revolutionary force in the international working class are the people who support the Soviet Union, the anti-imperialist national liberation movements, the anti-fascist struggles, anti-imperialist regimes. This is precisely what Trotskyism does.
What I am arguing basically is that a political tendency in the working class which supported the Soviet Union and associated countries, and the struggles and movements I have referred to above and also anti-imperialist regimes cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be regarded as the most counter-revolutionary force in the working class. I think it is important to make this point because it is not a side issue; what we are talking about is the political foundations of Trotskyism from the 1930s onwards.
IMLR: You have argued that on the most fundamental level of communist politics Trotskyists are in opposition to Marxism-Leninism when they assert that “Stalinism” is the most counter-revolutionary force in the working class. Can you elaborate? How is this difference fundamental?
TC: Well, from about the 1930s Trotskyism has been telling the Marxist intelligentsia, in fact, anyone sympathetic to Marxism and the working class vanguard, that “Stalinism” had become the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the international working class. In fact, as I previously said, this ideology, this theory with no facts to support it, became the cornerstone of Trotskyism, the stone that the builders did not reject. Trotsky’s struggle against what he called “Stalinism” was on the basis that this tendency represented, or grouped together the most counter-revolutionary elements in the working class. Therefore, I do not think there can be any Trotskyism without this argument. This is in fundamental opposition to Marxism-Leninism, which views social democracy as the greatest agency of imperialism in the working class.
IMLR: Are you saying that the Trotskyist argument about “Stalinism” being the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class is what defines Trotskyism and if so, what about his other arguments?
TC: Marxism-Leninism teaches that social democracy is the greatest counter-revolutionary agency of imperialism in the working class, so that anyone who agrees with the Marxist-Leninist position and who formerly went along with the Trotskyist view will be faced with the task of re-evaluating the whole of Trotskyism. However, many of these people are petty bourgeois in nature and their method of thinking is eclectic so they can choose to reject certain aspects of Trotskyism while keeping the rest. They will not see that if a major cornerstone of Trotskyism is false then they must re-examine the whole body.
The theory that “Stalinism” had become the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class begins to define Trotskyism from about the 1930s. All Trotsky’s other arguments are preparations for and lead up to this final statement, the final conclusions of Trotskyism. From this time onwards people who are won over to Trotskyism are first won over to this basic argument, which is a theory opposed to the facts as I have indicated, and consequently opposed to Marxism-Leninism. Leftists who find themselves in a Trotskyist circle will then begin to learn about all the other aspects of Trotskyist theory after they accept the basic line of Trotskyism, which is that “Stalinism” is the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class. This is important because most of the people who join Trotskyist groups do so as a protest against social democracy. Having done so, they are then brainwashed into believing that “Stalinism” is the greatest counter-revolutionary agency of imperialism in the working class.
IMLR: You mention Trotsky’s other arguments, which lead up to the final arguments. Which ones are these in your view?
TC: These you already know, such as the theory of permanent revolution, opposition to building socialism in one country and, in practice, a one-sided approach to bureaucracy; the Trotskyists also came out against peaceful-coexistence, failing to distinguish the Khrushchevite, revisionist version from the Marxist-Leninist version.
In the first case, the early transition from the democratic revolution to the socialist revolution in Russia was made possible by the imperialist war of 1914-1818, a little fact which the Trotskyists ignore to bolster their theory of permanent revolution.
In the second case, Trotsky had argued that Stalin substituted the theory of socialism in one country for the theory of world revolution. This is the spurious argument that Stalin ignored the international character of the socialist revolution. This argument crumbles when confronted with the textual authority, which shows that Stalin was only defending Lenin’s theory of the possibility of socialism in one country, or several countries as a stage in the world revolution. In any case, if Stalin was ignoring the international nature of the socialist revolution why did he support the anti-imperialist movement and the foreign communist parties? Here we see Trotskyism ignoring concrete facts again.
On this issue the Trotskyists think they have clinched the argument when they claim that the international nature of the modern productive forces rules out the possibility of socialism existing in one country. However, Marxist-Leninists do not say that socialism can exist in one country indefinitely. To the extent that it is possible in certain circumstances is a result of the contradictions between the capitalist powers and the fact that the basic motive force for socialist production is not production for profit like capitalism, where the unplanned accumulation of capital is not a by-product of the system but its very essence. In a socialist society, which is a transitional society between capitalism and communism, production for need becomes the most dominant form of production.
The third argument of Trotskyism is that a Stalinist, conservative and counter-revolutionary bureaucracy based on a privileged stratum of bureaucrats formed itself around Stalin and took power in the Soviet Union. The first thing I have to point out here is that Stalin instigated frequent purges of the Soviet bureaucracy. This belies the notion that there was a specifically Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union. The other argument that the bureaucracy was one-sidedly conservative, that is, opposed to change, also crumbles when confronted with the fact that the Soviet Union experienced the greatest changes of the 20th Century and perhaps in world history with the rapid industrialisation and collectivisation programme set in motion by the communist party. In other words, the conservative elements in the Soviet bureaucracy did not determine the party programme. As for the argument that the Soviet bureaucracy was counter-revolutionary, this relates to the argument that it was conservative. Marxism-Leninism teaches that there was no such thing as a counter-revolutionary, Stalinist bureaucracy, but there were counter-revolutionary elements within the bureaucracy. This means that Marxist-Leninists did not talk about a ‘political revolution’ to overthrow a non-existent counter-revolutionary bureaucracy but rather the need to purge the bureaucracy of counter-revolutionary elements. It is true that there was a relatively privileged stratum of bureaucrats in the Soviet Union and I think that some pro-Soviet people did not like to talk about this and found it rather embarrassing. But Lenin recognised the existence of this caste, a word which Stalin used to describe it. Lenin viewed it as the price the working class had to pay to hold on to power. Trotsky himself started this system of privilege in regard to the Red Army to keep it on the side of the working class. Forced on the revolution because of backwardness and the perilous position of the proletarian dictatorship, Lenin recognised the system of privilege was a step backward for the revolution that must be eliminated as soon as possible. Under Lenin and Stalin, this stratum did not become a ruling caste or class. In fact, they were, in the period of Stalin, more repressed than any other bureaucratic stratum in a similar position. So we see that Trotskyism put before us several theories, which simply disintegrate in your hands when confronted with the facts.
To uphold Trotskyism is the same as saying Leninism is counter-revolutionary. This is because socialism in one country is derived from Lenin, and Trotskyists maintain that this theory is the ideological expression of a counter-revolutionary bureaucracy and so on. All this, of course, is opposed to the facts. Anyone who can uncritically accept all these preliminary arguments of Trotskyism is not far away from accepting the conclusion of Trotskyism, which is that “Stalinism” is the greatest counter-revolutionary agency of imperialism in the working class. This argument is possible only by ignoring the facts relating to the support that the Soviet Union and pro-Stalin communists gave to socialist countries, anti-imperialist movements and regimes, and also the role of these same people in the anti-fascist struggles, in Spain, at Cable Street and so on. Anyone who can ignore the Marxist-Leninist position that social democracy is the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class, which is not a secondary question but a central one, will have no problems with ignoring other facts.
So you see the ideological mess the Trotskyists led their followers into. The Stalinists are the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class because they defended Lenin on socialism in one country as a stage in the world revolution and because they supported the Soviet Union, the other socialist countries, the anti-imperialist movements and the anti-imperialist regimes, not to mention leading anti-fascist struggles.
IMLR: Since the Marxist-Leninist position is that social democracy is the most counter-revolutionary agency of imperialism in the working class, while Trotskyism ignores the facts and assigns this role to “Stalinism”, what evidence do they give to try and support their theory?
TC: Marxism-Leninism regards itself as a science, which means that its supporters do not play with revolutionary phrases and they endeavour to use language in as precise a manner as possible. For instance, ‘counter-revolutionary’ means essentially to be opposed to revolution. Now when the Trotskyists say that “Stalinism” is the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class, they mean that the Stalinists are more opposed to revolution than any other tendency in the working class, and since social democracy remains a tendency in the working class, according to the logic of Trotskyism the Stalinists must even surpass the pro-imperialist social democrats in being counter-revolutionary. Now if you can believe this Trotskyist fairy story you can believe anything. But you ask what evidence do the Trotskyists rely on to support their arguments.
They look at the history of the class struggle since the 1917 revolution, after the period of 1923 and they see setbacks and defeats: the defeat of the 1926 British general strike, the Chinese revolution in 1927, the defeat of German communism with the victory of the Nazi in 1933, and the victory of Franco in the Spanish civil war in 1939. Marxist-Leninists have analysed all these defeats but unlike the Trotskyists do not blame these defeats on Stalin personally or that the comintern was alone responsible for these defeats. Whether or not anyone agrees with the ‘Stalin and the comintern were responsible’ thesis is beside the point. Even if anyone believes that Stalin and the comintern never got anything right this cannot be used to support the theory that “Stalinism” is the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class. If anyone supports the Trotskyist critique of the communist movement they can argue that the Stalinists played into the hands of the counter-revolution, but this would be a different argument from the Trotskyist line that “Stalinism” is the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class. They cannot use the comintern's mistakes – if they believe such mistakes were made – to support the Trotskyist argument.
IMLR: You have argued elsewhere that this conclusion applies to the revisionist period of the Soviet Union.
TC: Lets stick with the comintern for a while. The comintern helped to build up communist parties in other countries. It gave support to the anti-imperialist movements around the world. Stalin had his supporters in the comintern. Whether it made mistakes or not, it cannot be simultaneously anti-imperialist and the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class. I think it is criminal to describe an anti-imperialist party, or other organisation in this way. The comintern had all the weaknesses we would expect an international organisation to have: lack of experience, right-deviations, left-deviationism, in other words mistakes of right and left opportunism, over-centralisation, and even the notion that the world revolution can be best guided from one international centre was later re-examined. All these weaknesses of the old comintern have to be understood, but to use the mistakes of the comintern, as the Trotskyists do, to argue that it became the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class is completely nonsensical.