Trotsky's Marxism Pluto Press, £2.50 A BOOK on Trotsky to coincide with his centenary by a leader of the Socialist Workers Party is bound to be both interesting Duncan Hallas' book is a concise and largely accurate account of Trotsky's The balance sheet drawn Trotsky's and overwhelmingly positive.
Long gone are the days when Tony Cliff, the leading theoretician of the SWP, could seriously argue that Rosa Luxemburg's class consciousness was far superior to tne "substitutionist Lenin and Trotsky. Or that Leninism was responsible, in large measure, for Stalinism.
All that has been junked. Under the pressure of the rise revolution since 1967-8, the central leaders of the SWP have undergone a political evolution bringing close to orthodox Leninism and hence Trotskyism. Naturally, for us, this is both welcome and refreshing.
Thus Hallas vigorously Trotsky's critique of ultra-leftism and syndicalism; positions revolutionary road to socialism, and internal party democracy. He comes out strongly to stress that Trotsky's writings on the united front remain an indispensable part of our strategic armoury today. Limited And yet when one studies the text in detail 1S clear that sympathy for Trotsky limited.
He defends Trotsky, the leader of the Bolshevik Party and of the Third Trotsky 1923. As Hallas says of this period: *Trotsky had the common outlook of the whole Bolshevik leadership, outlook which did not exclude sharp differences of opinion on this or that issue, but which was homogeneous.' Trotsky's own unique and specific contributions to Marxist theory either rejected or underplayed. His writings on Russia, Betrayed; on socialist revolution in 'third world, Revolution; the programme tactics of revolutionary Third International After Lenin; Or his specific programmatic contributions on the question of the courth do find favour with Hallas, The reason for this is not difficult to fathom. It can be traced to two formative factors in the politics of the SWP: the theory of state-capitalism', and the SWP's break with the Fourth It is these breaks which impart inconsistency to the SWP's theoretical views ana Crcale d contradiction between their practice as revolutionaries in the class struggle and important aspects programme. lhe breaks also aid 1n Hallas" critique of Trotsky somewhat incoherent.
State Capitalist Hallas repeats the 'state capitalist' critique of Trotsky's views on Russia. We won't go over this ground again, except to remark that and revealing.
of work working theories of of them defends the is somewhat 1916The young Trotsky.
essentially of defeat argument can are China. Therefore upheavals Permanent and The aim of. parties, The portalichl demonstrate that the tasks the colonial much countries question, national market, only be socialist revolution.
permanent bourgeoisie of their Since acnevement workers once again In Russia it apparently arose out successful the revolution. No such apply to Cuba or they have developed the theory of revolutions or replace imperialism with 'state capitalism'.
This is where the problems arise.
Trotsky's theory of revolution was to peasant bourgeois democratic revolution in . and semi-colonial national unity, independence, the solving of the land the creation of a genuine and so on - could solved by a proletarian, Marx, Trotsky correctly concluded that would in the imperialist epoch the national bourgeoisies were tied hand and foot to imperialism, and would not open up a struggle against the imperialist to achieve their own bourgeois democratic revolution.
was precisely the these tasks which made a self-sustained industrialisation possible, Trotsky concluded that only the socialist revolution can open the up the possibility of starting to solve the problems of the super-exploited and peasants of the 'third world'. No form of capitalism can do He understands that to attribute Chinese revolution to peasantry is to say that the latter adopted a massive independent role in world history, in the epoch imperalism; possibility that no only Trotsky but also Lenin though impossible.
Yet Hallas' theory is even more improbable: the victory of 1949 was a army 'declassed intellectuals' whose specific situation remains unelaborated. reality this is another way of arguing that the revolution was led section of the petty bourgeoisie.
was precisely this class whether in the form of the peasantry or 'declassed intellectuals Lenin, and Trotsky had said split revolutionary situation between the proletariat and the peasantry.
Hallas fails to demonstrate how his own theory is less improbable than that based on Trotsky's analysis. Is it not possible that these (thousands) of 'declassed intellectuals were in fact of the proletarian origin with a (deformed) Communist Party, proletarian ideology, which took the route of building a bureaucratically organised peasant army as the means of conquering power?
This orthodox Trotskyist position not only shows how China -derivation Cuba, Vietnam , and so on — confirm the theory of permanen revolution, but it also locates these transformations within the Leninist conception of the epoch. theory leads to the conclusion that into the worldwide struggle between the working class and imperialism, steps... the declassed intellectuals to create state capitalism!
The only logical way out of this nightmare for the analysts of the SWP is to reinstate Trotsky's theory revolution. - But additionally requires the Trotsky's theory of the Soviet Union as a bureaucratised workers' state. Throughout the last two chapters of of Hallas' book he wrestles with two undeniable facts: founded and built International, and that he declared that in principle one starts with the international movement.
Both facts are very uncomfortable class for the British SWP. The discussion in In the far left foundation of the FI has traditionally by a gone along the lines between those who thought Trotsky right and those, Was Deutscher,.
after ambiguous.
isolated, Cent.
Inat It failed to Britain. Linked while at the been Hallas pointing Trotskyists.
single-minded more reinstating Hallas' Sky. distance Trotskyism, that Trotsky the Fourth around Trotsky's OI a debate the rise like Isaac who thought he was quite explicit: are they definitively in For opposed to buiding •at international tendency? And if they are for it, then doesn't it have to have leadership bodies, Dublications? If the answer is Yes, then the conclusion is that Trotsky was right to build the FI, and it is right to do the same today •On the political fate of Trotskyism Trotsky. again Of course, he is right to point out that the Trotskyists were often disorientated, demoralised and even politically incoherAll kinds political errors afflicted orthodox Trotskyism.
But it is one-sided to ignore the past of his own tendency which became so confused failed to take sides in the Korean war, abandoned the Leninist theory of organisation, abandoned the Marxist theory of capitalist crisis, defend Cuba during the missile crisis and, in practice, failed to capitalise on thereal opportunities for ¡growth and building (seized by the orthodox Trotskyists) after 1956 in • This failure was intimately linked to its inability to defend Leninism same time explaining Stalinism. Just as with the orthodox Trotskyists, many errors have since corrected by the SWP But people who live in glass houses should behave with circumspection.
-can't resist ending by to the problems of proletarianisation faced by the He claims that the Trotskyists were led away from on proletarianisation' and their petty bourgeois character was reinforced No one denies the problems which have existed on this score. But they afflicted the IS/SWP too. . And Halla: well knows that the British SWP is no than larger orthodox Trotskyist organisations in The problem of winning workers to Trotskyism was not one of theories but of objective conditions during the long period of capitalist boom. uncomfortable dialogue with Trots- book Precisely because he wants to himself orthodox he has • distance himself from huge slices of the mature Trotsky's political thought; from the most creative development of Marxist theory since the death of Lenin.
It was precisely in his writings during the long and difficult struggle to build the Fourth International that Trotsky surpassed anything written by Lenin or Gramsci on the united front, the nature of the revolutionary party, of the bureaucracy, and proletarian internationalism.