In Defence of Trotskyism

In political Price: Waged: £1.00 Concessions: 50p

solidarity

Number 3. Summer 2010

Lars T Lih, the CPGB and Kautskyism

In Defence of Trotskyism is published by the International Trotskyist Current.

Contact: PO Box 59188, London, NW2 9LJ. Email: Socialist_Fight@yahoo.co.uk

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siła, ykseys on kesto, યુનિટિ થ્રૂ િા., Midnimo iyo waa awood, hundeb ydy chryfder, Einheit ist Stärke, एकता शक्ति है, единстве наша сила,
vienybės jėga, bashkimi ben fuqine, ‫אחדות היא כוח‬, unità è la resistenza, 団結は力だ", A unidade é a força, eining er styrkur, De eenheid is
de sterkte, ‫الوحدة هو القوة‬, Ní neart go chur le céile, pagkakaisa ay kalakasan, jednota is síla, 일성은 이다힘 힘, Workers of the World
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Lars T Lih, the CPGB and Kautskyism
Introduction
Has Karl Kautsky been misjudged by serious
Marxist historians who still believe in hu-
manity’s revolutionary future? Is Lars T Lih
right “to reassess” Lenin in order to rehabili-
tate his infamous renegade even in his
younger days before he openly went over to
the class enemy? Has he really got vital les-
sons to teach today’s working class moving
into struggle against capitalism’s deepest
crisis since the end of WWII? Or is Kautsky
not becoming another Gramsci, who was so
useful to the old Euro-Communists of the
1970s and 80s in avoiding revolutionary
Trotskyism whilst abandoning Stalinism and
moving towards open reformism?
Karl Kautsky was the highly respected “Pope
of Marxism”, Marxism’s chief theoretician
after the death of Engels in 1995 but he
opposed the Russian Revolution and was
infamously slated as a renegade to the
cause by Lenin, “burning with anger”, in his
pamphlet, The Renegade Kautsky.
Vladimir Lenin’s, Left-Wing Communism: an
Infantile Disorder, April—May 1920:
“What happened to such leaders of the
Second International, such highly erudite
Marxists devoted to socialism as Kautsky,
Otto Bauer and others, could (and should)
provide a useful lesson. They fully appreci-
ated the need for flexible tactics; they them-
selves learned Marxist dialectic and taught it
to others (and much of what they have done
in this field will always remain a valuable
contribution to socialist literature); how-
ever, in the application of this dialectic they
committed such an error, or proved to be so
undialectical in practice, so incapable of
taking into account the rapid change of
forms and the rapid acquisition of new con-
tent by the old forms, that their fate is not
much more enviable than that of Hyndman,
Guesde and Plekhanov. The principal reason
for their bankruptcy was that they were
hypnotised by a definite form of growth of
the working-class movement and socialism,
forgot all about the one-sidedness of that
Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward!
In Defence of Trotskyism page 2
form, were afraid to see the break-up which and the Socialist Equality Party led by David
objective conditions made inevitable, and North. No, Trotsky is talking about the actu-
continued to repeat simple and, at first ally existing counter-revolutionary leader-
glance, incontestable axioms that had been ship of the working-class; Stalinism as it
learned by rote.” originated in the USSR , China and Cuba and
its international adherents, the bureaucratic
So according to Lenin it was in the applica- trade union leadership and their reactionary
tion of the dialectic they failed; in the rap- political expressions in bourgeois parlia-
idly changed circumstances of WWI revealed ments, the bourgeois-workers parties inter-
that they had become one-sided and were nationally and the centrist vacillators who
so transfixed on the rapid growth of the swing between reform and revolution. All
German working class movement that they these are now more tied than ever to the
could not see the new contents in the old defence of capitalism and ever more fearful
forms. They were not crude mechanical and contemptuous of their own member-
materialists as Cyril Smith tries to portray ship.
them in Marx at the Millennium; they were
not undialectical thinkers in general but How self-proclaimed Trotskyist and other
were ‘erudite Marxists’ (which is more than revolutionary groups and parties seek to
can be said for Smith) but they still had that tackle this crisis of leadership constitutes in
separation of the Maximum Programme, turn the crisis of revolutionary leadership
which they (apart from the revisionists Bern- and of Trotskyism and it is in this way and by
steinites) still passionately believed in, and this relationship that the crisis of revolution-
the Minimum Programme, the everyday ary leadership becomes the vital and indis-
agitation for workers’ rights, wages and pensible element of the crisis of the leader-
conditions. The means of uniting and apply- ship of the proletariat as a whole. And finally
ing the revolution programme is the Transi- also note the qualifying word “chiefly”; the
tional Method, which the Bolsheviks has crisis of the leadership of the proletariat is
begun to develop since learning the lessons complemented and vitally dependent on the
of the role of the Soviets in the failed 1905 crisis of national liberation movements/semi
revolution. In Lenin’s Left-Wing Commu- -colonial countries in conflict with imperial-
nism: an Infantile Disorder and in the strug- ism. The correct orientation of revolutionary
gles at the Third Congress of the Comintern groupings to this crisis, via the theory of
1921 that programme was elaborated and Permanent Revolution, is a vital part of the
defended as against the ultra-lefts who ori- crisis of leadership of the proletariat on a
entated to the Maximum Programme and global scale. The entire Transitional Pro-
ignored both the Minimum Programme and gramme explains that it is in this way that
the means to unite the two, the Transitional “The historical crisis of mankind is reduced
Programme. to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership”.
Trotsky begins the 1938 Transitional Pro- The character of revolutionary leadership
gramme with these words “The world politi- needed today to solve this is intimately tied
cal situation as a whole is chiefly character- up with how we assess past revolutionary
ized by a historical crisis of the leadership of leaders and crucially how we regard the
the proletariat”. Note: not just the crisis of historical lessons to be learned from the
revolutionary leadership or even worse the Russian Revolution; how should revolution-
ideological crises of small sects many of ary leadership relate to the Russian and
whom “become” that leadership in their international working class? Brian Pearce,
ridiculous self-deluding imagination by self the famous translator of many of Trotsky’s
proclamation. In that respect none are more major works into English, concludes his re-
arrogant and ridiculous than the North view of Simon Pirani’s The Russian Revolu-
American Sparts lead by James Robertson tion in Retreat 1920-1924: the Soviet work-
 In Defence of Trotskyism page 3

ers and the new Communist elite, Routledge thinking? Thinking that absorbs our
(London) 2008, thus: history certainly. But thinking which
recognises that it is only now … we can
“Ought we not to see what happened in see, through a glass darkly perhaps, that
those years in Soviet Russia as a social proc- the conditions for – and the urgent
ess that began through, and was driven by, necessity of – socialist planning on a
the realities of the situation, but was taken human-need basis and a world scale
charge of by those who found it had results have emerged. If so, we need a radically
to their advantage? Must we not ask new discussion about how this has
whether something like ‘Stalinism’ was ulti- come about and what to do about it.”
mately inevitable, in a country like Russia at
any rate? What difference would a revolu- Right, Terry, who will achieve this
tion in Germany, say, have had on develop- “planning on a human-need basis” for
ments in Russia? We know that the best of us? The answer settled upon by you,
the Bolsheviks set their hopes on that.” Cliff Slaughter, Cyril Smith, and Lars T
Leh et al certainly is NOT the working
Terry Brotherstone , ex-WRPer and an ad- class and building a revolutionary party
herent of the Movement for Socialism, (MfS, to repeat the “mistake” – “blind alley”
they surely have nothing as committed as a Smith outrageously called the victory of
membership) cannot abide this quite mod- the Russian Revolution led by the Bolsheviks vote for the war credits to the Kaiser to
erate defence of the heritage of the Russian and Pirani and the whole MfS eventually
enable WWI to be waged.
Revolution – Pearce was 93 when he wrote accepted this. And lest any serious intellect
that and his break with Stalinism was never from academia should consider repeating The working class itself was assigned the
quite complete because of the nasty experi- the “mistake” of those earlier generations role of a stage army; their demonstrations
ence he endured in his encountered with and devote their lives to the cause of the and strikes served to force through parlia-
Gerry Healy’s ‘Trotskyism’ in the late 1950s. revolution and so connect with workers in ment the enabling acts to allow for the im-
Brotherstone, in chiding Pearce, supplies the struggle let us put a high a price as possible plementation of enough nationalisation of
standard – and only possible – response to on our books, £80 for Pirani’s tome, € the leading heights of industry and generous
Trotsky’s opening line of the Transitional 147.00 / US$ 210.00 for Lars T Lih’s Lenin social welfare provisions so socialism would
Programme: Rediscovered, What is to be Done in Context, be achieved by the progressive unfolding of
to perpetuate the division of mental and this inevitable historical process. This was
“Is the treachery of bad leaders of the work-
manual labour as far as possible. the strategy of the far left in Britain in the
ers’ movement (in that case the German
struggle for the Great Reform Act of 1832,
Social Democrats) any longer an adequate Kautsky and democracy where they were deceived by the rising
explanation for the tragic disappointments
millocracy into assisting it in forcing a meas-
of the 20th century? Or do we have to re- Behind the elevation of Kautsky and the
ure of power sharing on the landed aristoc-
examine the proposition of the Russian attacks on Lenin and Trotsky is the question
racy. Chartism also focused on parliament,
Revolutionaries that the 20th century was of democracy. All through the nineteenth
with fewer illusions but nonetheless with no
“rotten-ripe for socialist revolution” if only century the “Red Republicans” equated the
apparent alternative. This parliamentarian-
the “crisis of the leadership of the working goal of universal suffrage – adult male to
ism is the very boring political content of all
class” could be overcome? That was the begin with – with socialism; if the working
Tony Benn’s speeches, it is also the essence
essential proposition behind the decision of class had universal suffrage then they would
of the more leftist reformist, programme of
many serious people of Pearce’s generation surely vote for socialism and it would have
groups as disparate of the pseudo-Trotskyist
to devote their lives to the cause of commu- to be implemented. Bourgeois parliaments
Socialist Party and Socialist Appeal and the
nism (including yourself, Terry!, RM) and, in were the arena for “democracy” and, as the
CPGB.
the 1960s and 1970s, others (including the working class was ever growing in numbers
author of The Revolution in Retreat ) fol- and proportion of the population, particu- The Paris commune of 1871 was a proto-
lowed suit, joining Trotskyist ‘parties’ that larly in Britain, France and Germany then soviet and the failed Russian Revolution of
claimed they had absorbed the lessons of the objective process of development would 1905 finally put the working class centre-
Stalinist as well as Social-Democrat betray- give us socialism. This was rational of the stage, finally the conundrum was solved,
als…was it right to define the 20th century revisionism of Eduard Bernstein in the Ger- here was direct mass participatory democ-
as one requiring only ‘the building of the man Social democracy and, though rejected racy as envisaged in ancient Greece albeit
revolutionary party’ to bring about world by Kautsky in the turn of the century It did for the elite male “citizens”. Therein lies the
socialist revolution as ‘revolutionary situa- eventually reveal itself as the real, unspoken confusion about the dictatorship of the pro-
tions’ matured? … Do we not now need new assumptions of the majority in the 1914 letariat which Smith and the MfS, Lih and

Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward!

 In Defence of Trotskyism page 4

the CPGB, Hal Draper the AWL and the

Commune exploit. Because this working
class democracy is directly counterposed
to bourgeois democracy. If the MfS crudely
equated soviet democracy with bourgeois
democracy or democracy in general (e.g.
the CPGB’s ‘extreme democracy, i.e. a
perfect form of capitalist rule) or borrowed
the anti-communism of Raya Dunayevskaya which the SPD were far more advance than tal difference which we will seek to establish
Lars T is more sophisticated in his anti- the Bolsheviks. Or must we reject them en- is that Lenin led the Bolsheviks with an in-
communism and confusion as to what is the tirely as Smith proposes? Should we not creasingly different theory and practice after
form workers rule must take. Crucially were accept Trotsky advice to Burnham in January learning the lessons, crucially on the need
the Bolsheviks right to dissolve the Constitu- 1940 “beware of the infiltration of bour- for Soviet/workers councils, from the failed
ent Assembly in 1918 and rely of the Soviets geois scepticism into your ranks. Remember revolution of 1905. We will establish that
as the form of workers rule? Was the that socialism to this day has not found the goal of Liebman is to defend the Marxist
counter-revolutionary violence of Stalinism higher scientific expression than Marxism. theory and practice of the revolutionary
and the bourgeoisie the same as the revolu- Bear in mind that the method of scientific party and programme as developed by Lenin
tionary violence employed by the soviets socialism is dialectic materialism. Occupy and was so spectacularly successful in lead-
and Trotsky Red Army during the Civil War? yourselves with serious study! Study Marx, ing the Russian Revolution. It was this heri-
See Universal rights and Imperialism’s neo- Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin and Franz Me- tage that was defended by Trotsky. The goal
liberalism offensive, by Ret Marut in Social- hring.” No mention of Kautsky but certainly of both Smith and Lih is counter-
ist Fight no 2 (Gerry Downing’s documents no total, irresponsible rejection of the Marx- revolutionary and reactionary; to deny the
on Scribd) for a detailed exposure of the ist tradition of the Second International as a new generation of revolutionists these indis-
fraud of bourgeois democracy. This is the whole. pensable weapons today in the struggle to
introduction, forge the leadership to make the socialist
The CPGB and Lih are using many basic revolution in the revolutionary crises that
“Imperialism’s neo-liberalism offensive since Marxist concepts so ably propagated by this crisis will produce in the coming months
the 1980s cloaked its brutal advance against Kautsky, Mehring, Wilhelm Liebknecht and and years
the working class and poor of the world by a others to smuggle in the Erfurt programme
hypocritical championing of ‘democracy’ of separation of minimum programme and Lenin made a major practical break with SPD
and ‘rights’ - from ‘democracy’ within trade Maximum programme which characterised methods of organising after 1905 and deep-
unions and ‘democracy’ for the USSR and the German SPD and led to its shipwreck ened it after August 1914, by evolving a
Iraq all based on the ‘free market’ and ‘free after their appalling 4th August vote for the different theory on the party type and pro-
trade’. This ideological offensive left its vic- Kaiser’s war credits already alluded to, one gramme. This was empirical at first; attribut-
tims far poorer and with far less effective of the blackest days in the history of the ing the centralism and struggle for theoreti-
collective rights. ‘Revolutionaries’, like the world workers’ movement. Cyril Smith uses cal clarity at least in part to illegal Russian
SWP, hailed the fall of the Berlin Wall, the total rejection to smuggle in the straightfor- conditions but increasingly it became con-
neo-liberal counterrevolution's greatest ward philosophical idealism which rejects all scious because of the revolutionary practice
achievement. They thereby foolishly wel- materialism and all dialects in order to pre- of the party. This resulted in breaking with
comed their own political marginalisation. sent a ridiculous Libertarian non- the German Social Democratic party type
Ret Marut examines the ideological roots of revolutionary humanist Marx as the model such that by 1917 the Bolsheviks were a
this offensive and outlines Marxism’s an- for today’s revolutionaries? totally different type of party, capable of
swers” leading a socialist revolution. In contrast the
Crucially was Kautsky, “the Pope of Marx- SPD top leadership formed the spearhead of
Lars T Lih: the renegade’s champion ism”, and the SPD correct to pursue the the counter-revolution and their model
model of the “party of the whole class” “party of the whole class” splintered disas-
Was the young Kautsky so fundamentally armed with the Erfurt Programme as op- trously into its constituent elements: open
different from the renegade (as Lih says is posed to Lenin and Trotsky’s revolutionary counter-revolutionary reformism leading
implied by the term “renegade”) that we party armed with a Transitional Programme older, more demoralised and conservative
must learn these fundamental lessons and (workers’ united front 1920, TP 1938)? skilled workers in the main, syndicalism,
adopt them as our own from the pre-1914
centrism and a small and confused revolu-
German Social Democratic party (SPD) in Or was Marcel Liebman’s Leninism under
tionary current. This is Liebman’s implicit
order to enrich and develop Marxism today Lenin the more balanced assessment of why
proposition. And it is into this Kautskyite
as Lih proposes? Certainly there are some Lenin took such a fundamentally different
blind alley Lars T Lih and the CPGB seek to
questions, like women’s oppression, on attitude to WWI to the SPD? The fundamen-
divert us.

Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward!

 In Defence of Trotskyism page 5

Lars T Lih seeks to prove that Lih, on the other hand, says that Lenin re- (and Lenin had called him just this many
mained a Kautskyite all his life, only repudi- times since 1914) should have inspired
1. Lenin never broke theoretically ating the open crossing of class lines when Lenin in 1917 because of a few ambiguous
from the pre-1914 Kautsky (what about the he progressed from centrism to counter- formulations is a mystery. Here is how Lars
above quote?). revolution by attacking the Russian Revolu- T Lih puts his case;
tion. But in truth Lenin’s collected works are
2. that therefore the revolution tri- “First, what exactly was new in Lenin’s fa-
full of re-examination of what went wrong
umphed by the use of the min-max SPD mous April Theses? The following planks in
with the German Social Democracy and we
Erfurt Programme of 1891 (again the quote Lenin’s 1917 platform are not new: all
make so bold as to suggest he corrected his
proves otherwise). power to the soviets, no support for the
earlier illusions in them sufficiently to lead
the greatest revolution in history, so he got provisional government and the imperialist
3. and implicitly the 1921 united front
the bulk of that one about right, it is fair to war, the necessity of a second stage of the
offensive by Lenin and Trotsky and the 1938
assert. Nevertheless we must all be more revolution, in which the proletariat would
Transitional Programme were reformist
Kautsky than Lenin today is the message Lih take state power. These themes can all be
backsliding by the great revolutionists as
proposes, much to the delight of the CPGB’s found earlier – in particular, in theses pub-
Max Shachtman, Hal Draper, the CPGB and
Macnair and Bridge. lished in October 1915. What is new is
the AWL have sought/seek to prove.
Lenin’s insistence on taking ‘steps toward
Lars T risibly sees Kautsky as the inspira- socialism’ in Russia, prior to and independ-
In developing his Marxism after 1905 Lenin
tion for Lenin’s April Theses ent of socialist revolution in western
no longer used the medium of Kautsky or
Europe. This theme occurs for the first time
even Plekhanov in the main but went
In bolstering the Stalinist/Menshevik ver- in remarks jotted down in April 1917 – im-
straight to Marx and Engels and eventually,
sion of revolutionary history Lih seeks to mediately after reading Kautsky’s article. Of
in 1914, to Hegel as the intellectual source
prove that it was Kautsky who was the main course, we cannot simply argue post hoc,
of the dialectic. But the CPGB wishes to
influence in Lenin’s April Theses of 1917 ergo propter hoc (“with this, therefore be-
develop a Kautskyite Marxism as a fail-safe
and Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolu- cause of this”). Nevertheless, this coinci-
against revolutionary Trotskyism. And Lars T
tion was totally irrelevant, despite the com- dence in time opens up a possibility that
Lih is the unwitting, or maybe willing, caps
plete political co-incidence between the should be seriously examined.
paw in this project. Closely related to this is
two internationalist outlooks. Crucially he
the question of what lessons we draw from
fails to identify Lenin’s 1916 book Imperial- Of course, these verbal echoes are hardly
the history of the Russian Revolution and
ism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism as the direct proof that Kautsky’s article had a
subsequent history of the 20th century and
central political development in Lenin’s large impact on Lenin. Nevertheless, they
the first decade of the 21st in terms of the
thinking which enabled the April Theses to add weight to the strong circumstantial
party and programme? We also need to
identify with the third and most important case for seeing Kautsky’s article as the cata-
restate the fundamental character of
element of Permanent Revolution, the ori- lyst for Lenin’s great innovations in his ideo-
Lenin’s break with the old Bolshevik Democ-
entation to the world revolution. Reducing logical outlook. The innovations are not at
ratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and
the famous Theses to the incapacity of the the level of the Marxist axioms themselves
Peasantry in the 1917 April Theses following
Russian bourgeoisie to lead their own revo- – Lenin as well as Kautsky continued to take
his famous analysis Imperialism the Highest
lution and portraying the adoption of social- these for granted. The innovations reveal
Stage of Capitalism in 1916 and its essential
ist measures as a national consideration themselves at the level of the empirical
coincidence with Trotsky’s 1904 theory of
without questioning why the working class application of these axioms to Russia.”
Permanent Revolution.
should had developed such advanced inter-
nationalist consciousness, Lih and the CPGB If we read the ‘theses published in 1915’ –
Why do we take the two apparently oppos-
demonstrate their essential capitulation to they are in Lenin CW 21 – we see that Lenin
ing proposition of Smith and Lih and insist
the Menshevik/Stalinist theory of socialism is still advocating a bourgeois democratic
they are essentially the same? Smith says
in a single country and a left wing version of revolution in Russia, albeit led by the work-
that Kautsky and Plekhanov distorted Marx
the British Road to Socialism. ing class and indeed in this he is still a
so fundamentally that they gutted him of
‘Kautskyite’. The very weak case that Kaut-
his Marxism - Karl Marx and the Future of
In an introduction to an article by Kautsky, sky led Lenin to break from Kautskyism, in
the Human is one of his efforts – and we
Lenin and the ‘April theses’ January 15th, this vital important matter is further under-
must return to the real Marx. Lenin and
2010 by the Communists Students http:// mined if we look at the previous article to
Trotsky followed the philosophy of these
communiststudents.org.uk/?p=4074 (and the theses in Volume 21. It is Kautsky,
and so were little better. We must return to
in the Weekly Worker) Lars T Lih argues Alexrod and Martov – True Internationalists,
Marx with Cyril, who is the only one to have
that this was the inspiration for Lenin’s of course true internationalist social patri-
found his true character. Strange how this
famous April Theses. Why anyone should otic chauvinists is the theme of the article.
‘discovery’ gels so well with outright reac-
think that this appalling social chauvinist And it is on internationalism that the April
tion but that’s dialectical, we must suppose!
Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward!
 In Defence of Trotskyism page 6

Theses are based, they could not be inspired entirely different political perspective. But chagrin that the inspiration was ‘of course
from so hostile a source. Lih goes on to re- Lars T Lih then presents us with a profound Trotsky’. Here is the extract from Lenin de-
mark, historical mystery, where on earth could nouncing Trotsky’s theory of Permanent
Lenin have got the ideas of the April Theses Revolution in 1915. The astute Marxist will
“Kautsky’s April article also foreshadows the if not from Kautsky? be able to see that this is a caricature of
later clash between Lenin and himself. Kaut- Trotsky’s Permanent revolution nonetheless
sky insists that socialism is impossible with- “Many other candidates have been pro- it is but a few short steps away from the
out democracy, by which he means political posed for the catalyst for Lenin’s ideological April Theses.
freedoms such as right of assembly, of press, innovations in 1917. Among those put for-
and so on. Of course, Lenin also emphasised ward are Hegel, Bukharin, the political writ- Here is Lenin, On the Two Lines in the Revo-
the relation between democracy and social- ings of Marx and Engels, JA Hobson and, of lution, Nov 1915:
ism, but on a different plane. Lenin’s entire course, Trotsky, but there are difficulties
emphasis in 1917 is on mass participation in with each of these. Some observers have “This state of affairs patently indicates the
administration rather than on political free- dispensed with specific catalysts and spoken task of the proletariat. That task is the wag-
doms. This emphasis stands in contrast to either of Lenin’s cynicism or of an existential ing of a supremely courageous revolutionary
earlier old Bolshevism, for which political ‘rejection of Big Brother’. I have now put struggle against the monarchy (utilising the
freedom was a central goal.” forth a new explanation: the role of catalyst slogans of the January Conference of 1912,
was played by Kautsky’s article of April the “three pillars”), a struggle that will
This only goes to show that the reference to 1917, which showed Lenin how he could sweep along in its wake all the democratic
the need for soviets made by Lenin in 1915 both remain loyal to central Marxist axioms masses, i.e., mainly the peasantry…
was not a precursor to his powerful slogan and move forward to a socialist revolution in
All power to the Soviets of April 1917. The To bring clarity into the alignment of classes
Russia without waiting for the international
‘three whales of Bolshevism’ or ‘three pil- in the impending revolution is the main task
revolution.”
lars’- Democratic Republic, Confiscation of of a revolutionary party. This task is being
the Landed Estates, Eight-Hour Working Lars T Lih would only have to skip one article shirked by the Organising Committee, which
Day, were still the programme then with an in his Volume 21 to discover, much to his within Russia remains a faithful ally to Nashe

Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward!

 In Defence of Trotskyism page 7

Dyelo, and abroad utters meaningless “Left” ing bourgeois Russia from military-
phrases. This task is being wrongly tackled in feudal “imperialism” (tsarism). The
Nashe Slovo by Trotsky, who is repeating his proletariat will at once utilise this rid-
“original” 1905 theory and refuses to give ding of bourgeois Russia of tsarism and
some thought to the reason why, in the the rule of the landowners, not to aid
course of ten years, life has been bypassing the rich peasants in their struggle
this splendid theory. against the rural workers, but to bring
about the socialist revolution in alliance
From the Bolsheviks Trotsky’s original the- with the proletarians of Europe.”
ory has borrowed their call for a decisive
proletarian revolutionary struggle and for Roy Wall says of this passage,
the conquest of political power by the prole-
tariat, while from the Mensheviks it has “I hope you've had a look at page 42 of
borrowed “repudiation” of the peasantry’s the New Park edition of Permanent
role. The peasantry, he asserts, are divided Revolution and Results and Prospects.
into strata, have become differentiated; Trotsky states (Oct 1928) that he thinks
their potential revolutionary role has dwin- Lenin never read his stuff on permanent
dled more and more; in Russia a “national” revolution. I think that Lenin is criticiz-
revolution is impossible; “we are living in ing a caricature of Trotsky's theory of
the era of imperialism,” says Trotsky, and permanent revolution, he thinks Trot-
national event, speculate on the relationship
“imperialism does not contrapose the bour- sky counterposes the socialist revolution to
between the working class and peasantry as
geois nation to the old regime, but the pro- the "revolutionary-democratic dictatorship
if it was just a national revolution. So in their
letariat to the bourgeois nation.” of the proletariat and peas-
ideology Kautsky shakes hands with Stalin’s
antry" (democratic dictatorship for short)
and Bukharin’s socialism in one country and
Here we have an amusing example of play- whereas Trotsky actually counterposes his
the great revolutionary socialist internation-
ing with the word “imperialism”. If, in Rus- permanent revolution to the democratic
alists Lenin and Trotsky are reduced to mere
sia, the proletariat already stands counter- dictatorship.
gamblers on revolutions on the rest of
posed to the “bourgeois nation”, then Rus-
Europe. But this was not just Lenin and Trot-
sia is facing a socialist revolution (!), and the About the same time, 1928, Trotsky realises
sky. Remember they found a receptive audi-
slogan “Confiscate the landed es- that the epigones were lumping his concept
ence for All Power to the Soviets in April
tates” (repeated by Trotsky in 1915, follow- of permanent revolution together with an-
1917; already the leftist Bolsheviks branches
ing the January Conference of 1912), is in- other and different concept of "permanent
and many middle cadre like Molotov and
correct; in that case we must speak, not of a revolution" held by Radek and Bukharin.
Shliapnikov were demanding the expulsion
“revolutionary workers’” government, but of This latter "permanent revolution" actually
of the Pravda editorial board, Kamenev,
a “workers’ socialist” government! The does counterpose socialist revolution to
Stalin and Muranov, for betraying the revo-
length Trotsky’s muddled thinking goes to is democratic tasks, i.e., it gives up on the
lution by supporting the Provisional govern-
evident from his phrase that by their reso- minimum program. Lenin's 1918 criticism of
ment’s war effort on the basis of Lenin’s old
luteness the proletariat will attract the “non the Left Communists in the party is a criti-
slogan “the democratic dictatorship of the
-proletarian *!+ popular masses” as well (No. cism of this giving up of the minimum pro-
proletariat and peasantry” which the April
217)! Trotsky has not realised that if the gram, i.e., wrongly raising only socialist
Theses repudiated in favour of the essence
proletariat induce the non-proletarian tasks… As you say, Lenin rejects the democ-
of Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution.
masses to confiscate the landed estates and ratic dictatorship in his April Theses where
overthrow the monarchy, then that will be he effectively comes over to Trotsky's posi-
Marcel Liebman shows that the inspiration
the consummation of the “national bour- tion. Roy”
for the Theses was not just Trotsky (albeit in
geois revolution” in Russia; it will be a revo- a distorted form) but Lenin himself in his
The last sentence of the Lenin text is am-
lutionary-democratic dictatorship of the earlier writing. In Leninism under Lenin the
biguous on the timing of this socialist revo-
proletariat and the peasantry!... section Lenin and permanent revolution pp.
lution; would it have to await the proletari-
79-83 details several instances of Lenin him-
That is the crux of the matter today. The ans of Europe? As we shall see this ambigu-
self independently considering the essential
proletariat are fighting, and will fight val- ity is present in Lenin’s in 1905 and was only
concepts of Trotsky’s famous theory. Trot-
iantly, to win power, for a republic, for the finally resolved in 1917. Imperialism the
sky thought that Lenin’s democratic dicta-
confiscation of the land, i.e. to win over the Highest Stage of Capitalism (CW 22) was
torship was ‘unrealisable – at least in a di-
peasantry, make full use of their revolution- written in 1916 as a vital part of the prepa-
rect, immediate sense’ Results, p202. Lenin
ary powers, and get the “non-proletarian ration for the Theses but Lars T Lih and the
thought that the function of this democratic
masses of the people” to take part in liberat- CPGB still treat the Russian Revolution as a
dictatorship was to establish bourgeois de-

Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward!


mocracy and facilitate capitalist develop-
ment but Trotsky maintained that ‘it would
be the greatest utopianism to think that
having been raised to political domination
by the internal mechanism of a bourgeois
revolution, can, even if it so desires, limit its
mission to the creation of republican-
democratic conditions for the social domina-
tion of the bourgeoisie’. (ibid. 223-4). Lieb-
man quotes from a letter from Adolf Joffe to
Trotsky before committing suicide in 1927,
“I have often told you that with my own ears
I have heard Lenin admit that in 1905 it was
not he but you who were right. In the face
of death one does not lie and I repeat this to
you now.’ And Lenin had adopted a ‘quasi-
Trotskyist’ position himself in 1905 and Lieb-
man supplies a few quotes, the best of
which is what he calls a ‘typically ‘Trotskyist’
sentence’: ‘From the democratic revolution
we shall at once, and precisely in accor-
dance with the measure of our strength, the
strength of the class-conscious and organ-
ised proletariat, begin to pass to the socialist
revolution. We stand for uninterrupted
revolution. We shall not stop half-way’ (Vol
9, 236-37). What is this but the same phrase
‘uninterrupted revolution’ referred to in
Trotsky’s Results, p. 212, as Liebman points
out? This re-emerged in his thinking again in
April 1917 because of his own studies and
influenced by Trotsky and for this reason
they became the closest of comrades, the co
-leaders of the revolution. It is risible to
suggest he made that change under the
influence of the by-then counter-
revolutionary renegade.
This extract from the Permanent Revolution
website of February 2007 explains well what
happened on Lenin’s return in April 1917:
“It was the editorial board of Pravda that
occupied the most right wing stance within
Bolshevism. Edited by Stalin, Muranov and
Kamenev, the paper declared on 7 March:
“As far as we are concerned, what matters
now is not the overthrow of capitalism but
the overthrow of autocracy and feudalism.”
On 15 March, Kamenev used Pravda’s pages
to advocate conditional support for Russia’s
war effort now that the autocracy had been
overthrown. Small wonder then that by mid-
March rank and file worker Bolshevik cells in
Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward!
In Defence of Trotskyism page 8
the Vyborg district were voting for calls
to expel the Pravda leadership from the
party. It was Lenin who was able to tran-
scend the limitations of the old Bolshevik
programme and perspective. And it is
testimony to the vitality and strength of
the historically constituted Bolshevik
cadre that open debate in the company
led to its programmatic re-armament at
the crucial hour. Lenin’s writings during
the war, especially Imperialism: The
Highest Stage of Capitalism, led him to
see that Russia was one, albeit excep-
tionally weak, link in the chain of world
imperialism. Of necessity therefore the
programme of the coming Russian Revo-
lution could no longer be conceived in
the terms of a national and democratic
revolution but instead as a component
of the international revolution against
capitalism itself.
Lenin’s return from exile to the Finland
Station allowed him to both intervene di- nearest of all to Illyich.” http://
rectly in the Bolshevik Party and further www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/1179
sharpen his programmatic armoury. At the
head of the Soviet’s official welcome party Lih emphases the organisational unity of the
the leading Menshevik Chkheidze urged Russian Social Democratic and Labour party,
Lenin to play his part in “the closing of the of which the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks
democratic ranks”. Lenin promptly declined, were only the best known factions in order
declaring instead: “The world-wide socialist to suggest this continued adherence to
revolution has already dawned . . . Any day Kautsky’s theory and practice. But Lenin
now the whole of European capitalism may applied a transitional method here, not a
crash. The Russian Revolution accomplished min-max method. He understood that politi-
by you has paved the way and opened a cal differences that the party tops under-
new epoch. Long live the world-wide social- stood were not understood by the party
ist revolution.” ranks much less by the working class as a
whole. Therefore he practiced that ap-
Lenin’s forthright declaration in favour of proach serious Marxists have come to un-
the socialist development of the revolution derstand as Leninism; he was inflexible and
was a severe shock not only to Chkheidze doctrinally dogmatic on principle once he
and the Mensheviks. Many of the leading understood it but he was totally flexible
Bolsheviks, especially leading right wingers tactically and organisationally in order to
like Kamenev, thought he had taken leave of build the revolutionary leadership. And it
his senses. An eye witness account of his was this transitional method which tri-
arrival in Russia captures the mood of initial umphed. There was joint Bolshevik/
bewilderment that greeted Lenin’s new line: Menshevik branches up until after the Revo-
lution but the Bolsheviks won the best of
“It had been expected that Vladimir Illyich
them, leaving the Menshevik organisation
would arrive and call to order the Russian
with a shell in the period of the revolution-
Bureau of the Central Committee, and espe-
ary upsurge itself and its immediate after-
cially comrade Molotov, who occupied a
math.
particularly irreconcilable position in regard
to the Provisional Government. It turned In Germany there was no significant splits
out, however, that it was Molotov who was and coming together because the “party of
 In Defence of Trotskyism page 9

the whole class” had not differentiated ei- to fit a reformist out-
ther reformism or centrism from revolution- look. That is the Transi-
ary theory and practice, Rosa Luxemburg’s tional Method.
struggle against Bernstein was taken up by
Kautsky but party unity had such importance And a few extracts from
which was accepted by all sides that ideo- the greatest Marxists of
logical clarification could not be established the twentieth century
in time for the revolutionary crisis. Reform- on Karl Kautsky:
ism, as a separate and counter-revolutionary
Vladimir Lenin, The
tendency in the workers movement, did not
Proletarian Revolution
separate itself out in Germany, the leading
and the Renegade Kaut-
party of the Second International, until
sky November 1918
1914. By then, whatever Lenin’s continued
illusions in Kautsky and his method, he had a
The Bolsheviks’ tactics
party leadership with a history of ideological
were correct; they were
struggle against reformism and centrism but
the only internationalist
one which did not mistake its own under-
tactics, because they
standing for that of its own ranks or the
were based, not on the
ranks of the other RSDLP factions. It pursued
cowardly fear of a world
an uncompromising political offensive
revolution, not on a
against all other political tendencies whilst
philistine “lack of faith”
maintaining organisational unity with them
in it, not on the narrow
where possible and at the very least unity in
nationalist desire to
action in the class struggle. That is Lenin had
protect one’s “own”
fought not just left bourgeois nationalists
fatherland (the father-
and reformists in Russia, he had also fought International, of a really proletarian and
land of one’s own bourgeoisie), while not
the centrists; the Mensheviks in the first “giving a damn” about all the rest, but on a Communist International, which will take
place and now recognised Kautsky as one into consideration both the gains of the
correct (and, before the war and before the
after 1914, and this too was a new phe- tranquil epoch and the experience of the
apostasy of the social-chauvinists and social-
nomenon appearing for the first time in the epoch of revolutions, which has begun.
pacifists, a universally accepted) estimation
workers movement.
of the revolutionary situation in Europe.
Leon Trotsky: Terrorism and Communism
These tactics were the only internationalist
Dialectics comrades; in order to have ideo- May 1920
tactics, because they did the utmost possi-
logical conflict with your opponents you
ble in one country for the development, Precisely because historical events have,
must first establish at least a partial unity,
support and awakening of the revolution in with stern energy, been developing in these
an agreement that you are fighting the com-
all countries. These tactics have been justi- last months their revolutionary logic, the
mon enemy and therefore the argument is
fied by their enormous success, for Bolshe- author of this present work asks himself:
your opponents politics and his methods
vism (not by any means because of the mer- Does it still require to be published? Is it still
impede that struggle at best and at worst
its of the Russian Bolsheviks, but because of necessary to confute Kautsky theoretically?
are totally counter-productive in certain
the most profound sympathy of the people Is there still theoretical necessity to justify
instances and in certain cases. That is an
everywhere for tactics that are revolution- revolutionary terrorism?
understanding of the backwardness of his
ary in practice) has become world Bolshe-
rivals did not mean he did not regard them
vism, has produced an idea, a theory, a pro- Unfortunately, yes. Ideology, by its very
as comrades in the struggle, until they had
gramme and tactics which differ concretely essence, plays in the Socialist movement an
definitely crossed class lines and gone over
and in practice from those of social- enormous part. Even for practical England
to the enemy class. Contrast this to the or-
chauvinism and social-pacifism. Bolshevism the period has arrived when the working
ganisational sectarianism employed by to-
has given a coup de grace to the old, de- class must exhibit an ever-increasing de-
day’s SWP, SP etc and yesterday’s and to-
cayed International of the Scheidemanns mand for a theoretical statement of its ex-
day’s WRP. Lenin’s approach was not sec-
and Kautskys, Renaudels and Longuets, periences and its problems. On the other
tarianism as is portrayed by these who look
Hendersons and MacDonalds, who from hand, even the proletarian psychology in-
at Lenin’s polemics in isolation from his
now on will be treading on each other’s feet, cludes in itself a terrible inertia of conserva-
practice and it is not Kautskyism as is prac-
dreaming about “unity” and trying to revive tism – the more that, in the present case,
ticed by the CPGB and Lih who would look at
a corpse. Bolshevism has created the ideo- there is a question of nothing less than the
his practice and try to bowdlerise his theory
logical and tactical foundations of a Third traditional ideology of the parties of the

Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward!

Second International which first roused the
proletariat, and recently were so powerful.
After the collapse of official social-patriotism
(Scheidemann, Victor Adler, Renaudel, Van-
dervelde, Henderson, Plekhanov, etc.), inter-
national Kautskianism (the staff of the Ger-
man Independents, Friedrich Adler, Longuet,
a considerable section of the Italians, the
British Independent Labor Party, the Martov
group, etc.) has become the chief political
Socialist Fight: Where We Stand
We stand with Karl Marx: ‘The emancipation of
the working classes must be conquered by the
working classes themselves. The struggle for the
emancipation of the working class means not a
struggle for class privileges and monopolies but
for equal rights and duties and the abolition of
all class rule’.
We see democratic soviets/workers’ councils as
the instruments of participatory democracy
which must be the basis of the successful strug-
gle for workers’ power.
We are for the nationalisation and expropriation
of capitalist private property without compensa-
tion and under workers’ control.
The capitalist state must be overthrown and
smashed to achieve socialism.
The revolutionary process of transition to com-
munism is based on the struggle to form an
international federation of workers’ states and
such a federation is required in order to over-
come the domination of global capital.
We defend the heritage of the Russian Revolu-
tion and critically support the revolutionary
The Press of the Permanent Revolution Collective and its sympathising organisations. More information of the CoReP can be obtained at,
www.revolution-socialiste.info/CoReP.htm
factor on which the unstable equilibrium of
capitalist society depends (i.e. on the Cen-
trists RM). It may be said that the will of the
working masses of the whole of the civilized
world, directly influenced by the course of
events, is at the present moment incompa-
rably more revolutionary than their con-
sciousness, which is still dominated by the
prejudices of parliamentarism and compro-
mise. The struggle for the dictatorship of the
thrust of the first four Congresses of the Third
Communist International before the victory of
counter-revolutionary Stalinism.
No to popular fronts with the political represen-
tatives of any capitalist class to defeat fascism,
stop war or for any other reason.
No to sectarian abstention from the class strug-
gle.
We recognise the necessity for revolutionaries to the biosphere which is caused by the anarchy of
carry out serious ideological and political strug-
gle as direct participants in the trade unions
(always) and in the mass reformist social democ-
ratic bourgeois workers’ parties despite their pro so to combat this threat we must redouble our
-capitalist leaderships when conditions are fa-
vourable.
We aim to develop a programme for the emanci-
pation of the specially oppressed. We support
the right of women, Black and Asian people,
lesbians and gay men, bisexuals and transgender cated by Lenin in Left Wing Communism, an
people to caucus inside the unions and in social
democratic parties.
We fight racism and fascism. We support the
right of people to fight back against racist at-
tacks. Self-defence is no offence!
We oppose all immigration controls. Interna-
working class means, at the present mo-
ment, an embittered struggle with Kaut-
skianism within the working class. The lies
and prejudices of the policy of compromise,
still poisoning the atmosphere even in par-
ties tending towards the Third International,
must be thrown aside. This book must serve
the ends of an irreconcilable struggle against
the cowardice, half-measures, and hypocrisy
of Kautskianism in all countries.
tional finance capital roams the planet in search
of profit and imperialist governments disrupts
the lives of workers and cause the collapse of
whole nations with their direct intervention in
the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan and their
proxy wars in Somalia and the Democratic Re-
public of the Congo, etc.
We demand of all governments a world plan to
combat climate change and the degradation of
capitalist production for profits of transnational
corporations. Ecological catastrophe is not ‘as
crucial as imperialism’ but caused by imperialism
efforts to forward the world revolution.
We support Trotsky’s Transitional Programme of
1938 in its context. We always practice the
method embodied in that document because it
is the Marxist method of mass work as advo-
Infantile Disorder in 1920.
As revolutionary international socialists we sup-
port Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution
and its applicability to the present era of global-
isation.
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