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About "Thoughts triggered by the 80th anniversary of Leon Trotsky’s assassination"
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Joseph Green
Louis Proyect's article "Thoughts triggered by the 80th anniversary of Leon
Trotsky's assassination"
(https://louisproyect.org/2020/08/24/thoughts-triggered-by-the-80th-anniversary-of-leon-trotskys-assassination/) raises a number of important issues about Trotsky's
political errors. I think these issue deserve consideration, although I think that the
article places them in too narrow a context.
The article notes that the Trotskyist movement expected that World War II would
give to socialist revolution or utter catastrophe. It says that "This analysis of the
world situation was strongly influenced by Trotsky's conceptions from the start of
the second world war which were of a 'catastrophist nature'". Well, to be precise,
Trotsky directly declared this in May 1940. (1)
Proyect calls this "catastrophism", which is perhaps an unfortunate choice of
terms, given that Trotsky's fantasy predictions were wrong, but catastrophes
have occurred repeatedly in the last century, and we face more in the coming
years. More on this in a moment.
In the latter part of the article, it makes the important point that "The
'catastrophism' of the Trotskyist movement is built into the manifesto that created
it, the Transitional Program." This is certainly true, and for example the
Transitional Program even declared that we had entered the "transitional epoch".
However, the article then says that "This is the political legacy of Trotsky's
uncritical acceptance of the perfect wisdom of the early Comintern. How could it
be otherwise, since at that time Trotsky was one of the key leaders."
This ignores the fact that Trotsky's transitional program was a continuation of the
line of thinking he had been developing since the 1905 revolution, such as in the
book "Results and Prospects" (1906). So "catastrophism" had a far deeper origin
in Trotsky's thoughts than the early days of the CI. That's why Trotsky kept it no
matter what the CI was thinking.
The article says that it was Pierre Frank's view that if world socialist revolution
wasn't imminent, "the Trotskyist movement would have to attune its work to these
new conditions--conditions for awhile of slow painful growth, propaganda, election
campaigns, etc. etc."
This jumbles several different issues together. "Catastrophism" underrated the
need for party-building, replacing it with the idea that if one just captured the
leadership of the working class, perhaps through entryism, then the Trotskyist
leadership would emerge at the head of the revolution. But at the same time, the
objective situation after World War II wasn't simply gradual development. There
were major upheavals, revolutions, anti-colonial wars, the threat of total nuclear
annihilation, etc. This is one of the reasons why the term "catastrophism" isn't that
good. Even if world revolution isn't imminent, it doesn't mean that major
upheavals and "catastrophes" aren't taking place. Socialist organization has to
deal with these catastrophes.
The article concludes by denouncing "the organizational legacy of the Trotskyist
movement", which it characterizes as "Zinoviev's schematic 'Marxist-Leninist'
model."
Indeed, it's important to deal with Trotsky's cult of pure administration, and his
reduction of party-building to mainly a rigid centralism. A good deal of information
about how the Fourth International ran under Trotsky is contained in a book by
the veteran Trotskyist Georges Vereeken, "The GPU in the Trotskyist Movement".
Vereeken gives a number of examples of the extreme sectarianism Trotsky
directed at his associates. He does try to water this down a bit by saying that
some of the worst episodes were due to the GPU infiltrating a number of agents
into the leadership of the Forth International, such as Mark "Etienne" Zborowsky.
But on the other hand, he says that it is "the sectarian and sterile methods of
discussion" which "opened the door wide to the Zborowskis and their like" (2) And
he writes that "Trotsky bears a share of the responsibility for the caricature of
democratic centralism practised at the present time by a number of Trotskyist
factions and for the sectarianism and the factional methods of struggle which in
certain cases must be condemned from the standpoint of proletarian morality." (3)
One of the particularly shocking episodes is how Trotsky treated POUM in Spain,
where he worked to undermine it given that he disagreed with some of its tactics.
And he bittered denounced Victor Serge and various others for maintaining
friendly relations with POUM.
But the problem isn't Zinovievism, but Trotsky's lack of a Marxist idea of what
party-building is. He manifested a certain non-partyism from before his
association with Zinoviev. It is this non-partyism that went along with later seeing
the party or the Fourth International mainly from the point of strict centralism.
I made a study of Trotsky's view on the party. In 2004 I wrote "It may seem
strange to talk about Trotsky's non-partyism. He was a leader of the Russian
Communist Party, and later founded the 'Fourth International' of Trotskyist
parties. He talked about the need for the 'revolutionary leadership' of the working
class. But when one examines his activity, it turns out that he had little to say
about the process of party-building. He saw the party as a tool he could use to
accomplish this or that aim, and he would fight for the leadership of existing
parties, but he didn't care much about the process of building up the party.
Moreover, he championed a series of views that denigrated the importance of the
party, presenting it as a force supposedly holding back the self-activity and
initiative of the revolutionary masses." (4)
The result of this non-partyism is felt to this day. In my view, "overall, Trotsky as
leader of the Fourth International didn't pay serious attention to building up
durable organization, but reduced matters to centralism alone, and he created a
repulsive form of centralism. From an organizational point of view, the world
Trotskyist movement of that time, and since then, has displayed two contrasting
aspects. The many splits--along with the theorizing on factionalism that will be
mentioned in a moment--gave rise to a loose splintered movement, while the
official movement around Trotsky, and some of the subsequent Trotskyist
organizations, were rigidly and bureaucratically centralized. This was not
party-building, but a caricature of it." (5)
Notes:
(1)See the section "Either Socialism or Slavery" of the "Manifesto of the Fourth
International on the Imperialist War and the Proletarian World Revolution", May
1940, in "Writings of Leon Trotsky (1939-1940)", Pathfinder Press).
(2) Vereeken (1896-1978), "The GPU in the Troskyist Movement", ch. 21, "Truth
is revolutionary", p. 375.
(3) Ibid., p. 371.
(4) "The International Left Opposition and the Fourth International" in "An Outline
of Trotsky's Anti-Marxist Ideas", part 3,
http://www.communistvoice.org/34cTrotsky.html.
(5) Ibid. <>
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Louis Proyect
On 8/26/20 3:31 AM, Joseph Green wrote:
As if the key leader of a group of about 25
people, whose
"newspaper" is festooned with a hammer-and-sickle, has
anything to tell us about party-building. Yawn.
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Mark Lause
I thought I was fairly familiar with Marx's biography, but I sure can't remember ever encountering "a
Marxist idea of what
party-building is
".
He was at the edges of a few very contradictory formations. Do you mean the German Social Democracy? I think Trotsky was familiar with it. Am I missing something?
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Joseph Green
On 26 Aug 2020 at 11:17, Mark Lause wrote:
You might examine the section "The history of the proletarian party" in "An outline of Trotskyism's anti-Marxist theories (part three)" at http://www.communistvoice.org/34cTrotsky.html. -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus
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Mark Lause
With all due respect, I see references to "Marxist party-building," but, whatever great achievements Marx and Engels made in many areas, I do not believe they left a model for "Marxist party-building."
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