One additional point on Harman

As I pointed out in April 2006 on this blog see (what McDonnell meeting
reveals about the period?) that if Brown carried on with Blair's offensive
against the Labour Movement there was a potential of titanic class battles.
The postal strike next friday and UNISON conference defeating Prentis in
favour of co-ordinated public sector srike action against low pay and
privisation is an indication of what's coming.

I have outlined how the radicalisation is already influencing the Labour
Party. If these strikes come into conflict with Brown it could deepen
the tensions within this party. By an oreination to the Labour Party
Trotskyists are not Conservative (with a small c) to youth who
rebel on the sreets which might appear in this radicalisation.

It could even be a sign of this radicalisation deepening into a pre-revolutionary
crisis. The role of Trotskyists is to link the revolutionary youth with the
millions of workers opppsing Brown. In doing this Trotskyists do not
adapt to the ultra-leftism of the youth who might subsitute themselves
for revolutionary action of millions and don't understand how to break
millions of workers from Social Democracy. A revolution is only possible
when millions of workers are convinced of this course. If the Ruling Class
senses a pre-revolutionary crisis is coming they could use Social Democracy
to give out reforms to stop a potential revolution. This is why Trotskyists
have to relate to Social Democracy so we can keep in touch with these workers
and don't allow ourselves to be outmanourved.

Why Harman's election to deputy leader of the Labour Party represents a radicalisation!

HARMAN’S ELECTION REPRESENTS A RADICALISATION IN THE LABOUR MOVEMENT DESPITE ITS DISTORTED CHARACTER.


Harriet Harman’s election to deputy leader of the Labour Party this afternoon represents in a distorted manner a radicalisation within the Labour Movement against Brown’s policies. Her acceptance speech reflected this when she called for more council housing; for more democracy in the Labour Party; criticising to a certain extent the Iraq war; and what potentially a Labour government could achieve. Two examples of this she cited were the minimum wage and increased rights for gays/lesbians.

As a Trotskyist I have many criticisms of her acceptance speech. Examples are Harman prettifying one-sidely the increases in NHS which have largely strengthened private Capitalists; supporting British Imperialist troops in Iraq; and supporting the family. Those payments to a limited degree have peripherally strengthened the NHS. Harman played a terrible role in 1997 in cutting single parent benefits. Where the ultra-lefts go wrong is not seeing that radicalisations can take on all kinds of distorted forms and they break in practice from the Transitional method of posing demands on Social Democrats to carry out a fight so we can win their mass base over.

Trotsky in the 1920s argued for example argued that the landslide victory of Liberals in a 1906 British General Election represented a radicalisation reflecting a European radicalisation strongly influenced by the 1905 Russian revolutionary upheaval. Marxists would not vote Liberal because it was a Bourgeois party. Voting for Social Democrats is tactical and permissible because they are part of the workers movement. Trotskyists should demand that Harman fights for policies that benefit workers and the oppressed by struggling against Brown.

Brown is trying to stop this growing radicalisation within the Labour Party by trying to form a coalition government with Bourgeois parties e.g. Liberal Democrats and Conservative Party. Those on the left who argue falsely the Labour Party and Russia is Capitalist have confused intermediately stages of going in that direction with the completion of this process. Due to confusing those stages in these processes they are caught in a difficult position with the Bureaucrats in Russia reversing Capitalist restoration which is helping this economy to recover.

Labour going Bourgeois has been setback in a big way with the Blairites being kicked out. The fight against Brown will determine whether Labour will stay a workers party and whether a major left split will break from Labour. Trotskyists do not believe like the old Militant group that Labour can be transformed into a revolutionary party but relate to millions of workers who look to Social Democracy for a lead, so that Trotskyists can win millions of workers to a mass revolutionary party.

New sections on Marxism verses Revisionism

MARXIST PROGRAMME AGAINST REVISIONISM AND SECTARIANISM.


CHRIS HARMAN’S ERRORS IN 2002 MARXISM SPEECH ON “LATIN AMERICA” FLOWS FROM SEPERATING POLITICS FROM ITS ECONOMIC FOUNDATION IN IMPERIALIST DOMINATION OF COLONIES AND SEMI-COLONIES,


Revolutionary Marxists flowing from the method of Historical Materialism started by Marx and Engels have always looked to the economic base of a society to determine its class character. Throughout history there have been different regimes and political superstructures within the same mode of production.

In the 20th century and carried to our century [1] over there have been the examples of Fascism and Stalinism. Fascism politically expropriated the Bourgeoisie but the Capitalists still controlled those economies. The Stalinist Bureaucracies expropriated/expropriating the Proletariat politically but the workers remained/still do even in Eastern Europe and Russia today the ruling class due to Bureaucratic Castes basing themselves on a essentially non-Capitalist mode of production.

Trotsky stated in the “Revolution Betrayed that” the Soviet Bureaucracy had the most power of any ruling layer in history because of them holding this unique position of representing the Workers’ State thrown up by poverty of Soviet society and defeats of major revolutions Trotsky wrote:

“In its intermediary and regulating function, its concern to maintain social ranks, and its exploitation of the state apparatus for personal goals, the Soviet bureaucracy is similar to every other bureaucracy, especially the fascist. But it is also in a vast way different. In no other regime has a bureaucracy ever achieved such a degree of independence from the dominating class. In bourgeois society, the bureaucracy represents the interests of a possessing and educated class, which has at its disposal innumerable means of everyday control over its administration of affairs. The Soviet bureaucracy has risen above a class which is hardly emerging from destitution and darkness, and has no tradition of dominion or command. Whereas the fascists, when they find themselves in power, are united with the big bourgeoisie by bonds of common interest, friendship, marriage, etc., the Soviet bureaucracy takes on bourgeois customs without having beside it a national bourgeoisie. In this sense we cannot deny that it is something more than a bureaucracy. It is in the full sense of the word the sole privileged and commanding stratum in the Soviet society”. [2]




BRITISH SWP BREAK FROM MARXIST HISTORICAL MATERIALIST APPROACH OF SUBORIDNATING POLITICS TO ECONOMICS.


Where forces have broken historically for years/decades against consistently Trotskyist positions you have to judge them on their practice. Harman’s theoretical analysis of the British Raj is in conflict with the SWP opposing Imperialist rule in practice. It is still a very dangerous position because Marxists judge any process or force in the way it affects the productive forces. Marxists fought the Raj politically because how it damaged the Indian economy.

This method of judging all forces by its relationship to the productive forces was started by Marx and Engels. In the last analysis all social reality relates to an economic system with classes tied up with it. There can be autonomous forces but they are a reflection even if sometimes indirectly of that mode of production and classes fighting it out in politics. Battles also occur in other spheres.

Since Tony Cliff and his faction broke with Trotskyism in 1947 with their revisionist theory of State Capitalism they broke from the Marxist approach of seeing that despite a political counter-revolution of Stalinism within the Soviet Union its economic base was non-Capitalist. Trotsky in the Revolution Betrayed attacked State Capitalist theory for confusing state intervention for private firms under Capitalism which he correctly called bailing out a decaying system, and state planning which has arisen out of a revolution overthrowing Capitalism. The latter was progressive he argued because by the overturn of Capitalism it had developed the productive forces rapidly by removing fetters of Capitalist profit. One important point he made is that nationalisation is progressive if forced on by workers because it poses the question of who owns it.

Trotsky argued the following against “State Capitalism”:
“We often seek salvation from unfamiliar phenomena in familiar terms. An attempt has been made to conceal the enigma of the Soviet regime by calling it “state capitalism.” This term has the advantage that nobody knows exactly what it means. The term “state capitalism” originally arose to designate all the phenomena which arise when a bourgeois state takes direct charge of the means of transport or of industrial enterprises. The very necessity of such measures is one of the signs that the productive forces have outgrown capitalism and are bringing it to a partial self-negation in practice. But the outworn system, along with its elements of self-negation, continues to exist as a capitalist system.
Theoretically, to be sure, it is possible to conceive a situation in which the bourgeoisie as a whole constitutes itself a stock company which, by means of its state, administers the whole national economy. The economic laws of such a regime would present no mysteries. A single capitalist, as is well known, receives in the form of profit, not that part of the surplus value which is directly created by the workers of his own enterprise, but a share of the combined surplus value created throughout the country proportionate to the amount of his own capital. Under an integral “state capitalism”, this law of the equal rate of profit would be realized, not by devious routes – that is, competition among different capitals – but immediately and directly through state bookkeeping. Such a regime never existed, however, and, because of profound contradictions among the proprietors themselves, never will exist – the more so since, in its quality of universal repository of capitalist property, the state would be too tempting an object for social revolution.
During the war, and especially during the experiments in fascist economy, the term “state capitalism” has oftenest been understood to mean a system of state interference and regulation. The French employ a much more suitable term for this etatism. There are undoubtedly points of contact between state capitalism and “state-ism”, but taken as systems they are opposite rather than identical. State capitalism means the substitution of state property for private property, and for that very reason remains partial in character. State-ism, no matter where in Italy, Mussolini, in Germany, Hitler, in America, Roosevelt, or in France, Leon Blum – means state intervention on the basis of private property, and with the goal of preserving it. Whatever be the programs of the government, stateism inevitably leads to a transfer of the damages of the decaying system from strong shoulders to weak. It “rescues” the small proprietor from complete ruin only to the extent that his existence is necessary for the preservation of big property. The planned measures of stateism are dictated not by the demands of a development of the productive forces, but by a concern for the preservation of private property at the expense of the productive forces, which are in revolt against it. State-ism means applying brakes to the development of technique, supporting unviable enterprises, perpetuating parasitic social strata. In a word, state-ism is completely reactionary in character.
The words of Mussolini: “Three-fourths of Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state” (May 26, 1934), are not to be taken literally. The fascist state is not an owner of enterprises, but only an intermediary between their owners. These two things are not identical. Popolo d’Italia says on this subject: “The corporative state directs and integrates the economy, but does not run it (‘dirige e porta alla unita l’economia, ma non fa l’economia, non gestisce’), which, with a monopoly of production, would be nothing but collectivism.” (June 11, 1936) Toward the peasants and small proprietors in general, the fascist bureaucracy takes the attitude of a threatening lord and master. Toward the capitalist magnates, that of a first plenipotentiury. “The corporative state,” correctly writes the Italian Marxist, Feroci, “is nothing but the sales clerk of monopoly capital ... Mussolini takes upon the state the whole risk of the enterprises, leaving to the industrialists the profits of exploitation.” And Hitler in this respect follows in the steps of Mussolini. The limits of the planning principle, as well as its real content, are determined by the class dependence of the fascist state. It is not a question of increasing the power of man over nature in the interests of society, but of exploiting society in the interests of the few. “If I desired,” boasts Mussolini, “to establish in Italy – which really has not happened – state capitalism or state socialism, I should possess today all the necessary and adequate objective conditions.” All except one: the expropriation of the class of capitalists. In order to realize this condition, fascism would have to go over to the other side of the barricades – “which really has not happened” to quote the hasty assurance of Mussolini, and, of course, will not happen. To expropriate the capitalists would require other forces, other cadres and other leaders.
The first concentration of the means of production in the hands of the state to occur in history was achieved by the proletariat with the method of social revolution, and not by capitalists with the method of state trustification. Our brief analysis is sufficient to show how absurd are the attempts to identify capitalist state-ism with the Soviet system. The former is reactionary, the latter progressive”. [3]
Trotsky and Marxists have argued since for a Political Revolution to overthrow Stalinism because the planned economy can only reach its full potential if Bureaucratism is rooted out. He best defined his position in a work entitled “In Defence of Marxism” where Trotsky argued the Soviet Bureaucracy stood in conflict with the needs of a Workers’ State. In quote 2 Trotsky points out why the Bureaucracy would implode and be threatened by Political Revolution the more that economy developed. Trotsky wrote:

“It is not a question of substituting one ruling clique for another, but of changing the very methods of administering the economy and guiding the culture of the country. Bureaucratic autocracy must give place to Soviet democracy. A restoration of the right of criticism, and a genuine freedom of elections, are necessary conditions for the further development of the country. This assumes a revival of freedom of Soviet parties, beginning with the party of Bolsheviks, and a resurrection of the trade unions. The bringing of democracy into industry means a radical revision of plans in the interests of the toilers. Free discussion of economic problems will decrease the overhead expense of bureaucratic mistakes and zigzags. Expensive playthings palaces of the Soviets, new theaters, show-off subways – will be crowded out in favor of workers’ dwellings. “Bourgeois norms of distribution” will be confined within the limits of strict necessity, and, in step with the growth of social wealth, will give way to socialist equality. Ranks will be immediately abolished. The tinsel of decorations will go into the melting pot. The youth will receive the opportunity to breathe freely, criticize, make mistakes, and grow up. Science and art will be freed of their chains. And, finally, foreign policy will return to the traditions of revolutionary internationalism... [4]
,,, The historical justification for every ruling class consisted in this – that the system of exploitation it headed raised the development of the productive forces to a new level. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, the Soviet regime gave a mighty impulse to economy. But the source of this impulse was the nationalization of the means of production and the planned beginnings, and by no means the fact that the bureaucracy usurped command over the economy. On the contrary, bureaucratism, as a system, became the worst brake on the technical and cultural development of the country. This was veiled for a certain time by the fact that Soviet economy was occupied for two decades with transplanting and assimilating the technology and organization of production in advanced capitalist countries. The period of borrowing and imitation still could, for better or for worse, be accommodated to bureaucratic automatism, i.e., the suffocation of all initiative and all creative urge. But the higher the economy rose, the more complex its requirements became, all the more unbearable became the obstacle of the bureaucratic régime. The constantly sharpening contradiction between them leads to uninterrupted political convulsions, to systematic annihilation of the most outstanding creative elements in all spheres of activity. Thus, before the bureaucracy could succeed in exuding from itself a “ruling class,” it came into irreconcilable contradiction with the demands of development. The explanation for this is to be found precisely in the fact that the bureaucracy is not the bearer of a new system of economy peculiar to itself and impossible without itself, but is a parasitic growth on a workers’ state”. [5]

Cliff in a talk at Marxism 1999 [6] attacked Trotsky for pointing out the instability of Soviet Stalinism and that only it by being defined as a ruling class could its stability to the 1980s be explained. The reality of Soviet Bureaucratic instability because of it being a caste in contrast to Cliff’s impressionism was apparent from the early 1950s onwards. As the French Marxist Annul School points real contradictions sometimes reflects themselves in medium to long-term processes. The crisis of Soviet Stalinism from 1985 onwards as Trotsky outlined was proven correct.



IN DEFENCE OF THE LENINIST-TROTSKYIST THEORY THAT IMPERIALISM STILL CONSIDERABLY HOLDS BACK THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES.


Chris Harman made some amazing statements from someone who considers himself a Marxist when he stated in a speech at Marxism 2002 on “Latin America” that Imperialism even at its height developed Third World countries. One example he used was the British Raj in India. He falsely argues that was also Lenin and Trotsky’s position. [7] George Novack outlined in 1953 how revisionists mislead followers that they are carrying in the tradition of Marxism where they are rejected it. After a while they become more confident in rejecting Marxism. Novack wrote:

Revisionism comes from a masked change in the fundamental theory, methods and perspectives of the revolutionary workers' movement. It is a departure from scientific socialism in theory and in practice which derails the class struggle from a correct and consistent coarse. It is undertaken under pressure from alien social ideas, interests and forces. In its first stages, revisionism does not come forward in an open and forthright challenge to the Marxist position, but proceeds by stealth. It vies to insinuate its new ideas into the structure of the established ones, inserting them as levers in order to undermine and eventually overthrow the established positions. It doles out its modifications bit by bit, until it becomes bold enough to counterpose its revisions squarely to the old line...
This procedure often may appear like deliberate deceit; it is imposed upon the revisionists, however, by circumstances beyond their control. On the one hand, this procedure reflects the objective trend of revisionist thinking, which deviates from Marxism a step or so at a time -- often without admitting that fact to itself, or to speak of others. On the other hand, the revisionists have to reckon at every stage with the solidly-rooted traditions of the revolutionary movement, which stand like a giant barrier athwart its path; and they must therefore resort to protective colouration. The favourite pretext is to claim that they are doing nothing but bringing Marxism up to date, modernizing it, bringing it abreast of new events unforeseen by anyone, especially the founders and great leaders of the movement. For example, in 1939-40, Shachtman counterposed to Trotsky's vigorous defence of Marxism, what he called the 'concreteness of living events.' And that is precisely how the Cochranites have been proceeding”. [8]


TROTSKYISM VERSES RESSITE CONCILLATIONISM TOWARDS ISLAMIC BOURGEOIS FORCES.


In that speech Harman also made a serious error in defining actual semi-colonies in 2002 e.g. Iraq as Imperialist. This probably would not be his post US-Iraq war as the SWP have correctly supported the resistance in Iraq against Imperialism. One big problem of the Ress-led leadership apart from historic SWP tendency towards Stalinphobia which clouds consistent anti-Imperialism is that they are concillationist to Islamic Bourgeois forces. They do not apply the classical Leninist-Trotskyist approach of having a united front military with these forces against Imperialism in countries they are occupying/attacking but also at the same keeping their political independence from these Bourgeois forces.

It would be wrong to exclude from single-issue united front campaigns within Imperialist countries Bourgeois forces if they carry out the line of clear anti-war demands of e.g. troops out now which can potentially mobilise millions of workers in alliance with the oppressed, including layers of Middle Class elements. Any move to exclude Bourgeois forces would break up a principled campaign and play into their hands of hegemonising the masses.

One way it becomes unprincipled is when you draw up a wider political programme with Bourgeois forces in electoral alliances and forming a party with them in it. This leads to watering down key aspects of the Trotskyist programme such as class independence and supporting in a big way struggles of oppressed elements e.g. Women, Gays/Lesbians etc. Even when Trotskyists do entry work in mass Social Democratic parties we fight for our programme in a Transitional manner.

Trotsky opposed the Popular Front because it meant supporting Bourgeois interests at the expense of workers and oppressed elements. We are not in the same advanced stage within Britain as France in the 1930s. A proper Trotskyist group would have taken the anti-war struggle within the Labour Party which would have quickened Blair’s demise and seriously challenged Brown.

As strikes deepen against privatisation and low pay among public sector workers there is going to be growing battles within the Trade Unions and Labour Party. Respect publicly has supported the postal workers but class divisions within this alliance will grow as the class struggle sharpens. This is indicated with the implosion in Respect within Tower Hamlets. It was an opportunist adventure divorced from real battles in the Labour Party which will determine where workers go politically in their millions. Trotskyists relate to that party because we hope through going through an experience with these millions to break them from Social Democracy so they lead a struggle for power.

Trotsky stated the following in 1936 against Popular Frontism:

“The People’s Front” represents the coalition of the proletariat with the imperialist bourgeoisie, in the shape of the Radical Party and smaller tripe of the same sort. The coalition extends both to the parliamentary and the extra-parliamentary spheres. In both spheres the Radical Party, preserving for itself complete freedom of action, coarsely imposes restrictions upon the freedom of action of the proletariat.
“The People’s Front” in its present guise, shamelessly tramples not only upon workers’ democracy but also upon formal, i.e. bourgeois democracy. The majority of the Radical voters do not participate in the struggle of the toilers and consequently in the People’s Front. Yet the Radical Party occupies in this front not only an equal but a privileged position; the workers parties are compelled to restrict their activity to the program of the Radical Party. This idea is most outspokenly advanced by the cynics of l’Humanité. The latest elections in the Senate have illuminated with special clarity the privileged position of the Radicals in the People’s Front. The leaders of the Communist Party boasted openly of the fact that they renounced in favour of non-proletarian parties several mandates which justly belonged to the workers. This merely means that the united front re-established in part the property qualification in favour of the bourgeoisie.
The “Front”, as it is conceived, is an organization for a direct and immediate struggle. When struggle is in question, every worker is worth ten bourgeois, even those adhering to the united front. From the standpoint of the revolutionary fighting strength of the Front, the electoral privileges should have been given not to radical bourgeois but to workers. But in essence, privileges are uncalled for here. Is the People’s Front intended for defence of “democracy"? Then let it begin by applying it to its own ranks. This means: the leadership of the People’s Front must be the direct and immediate reflection of the will of the struggling masses.
How? Very simply: through elections. The proletariat does not deny anyone the right to struggle side by side with it against Fascism, the Bonapartist régime of Laval, the war plot of the imperialists, and all other forms of oppression and violence. The sole demand that class-conscious workers put to their actual or potential allies is that they struggle in action. Every group of the population really participating in the struggle at a given stage, and ready to submit to common discipline, must have the equal right to exert influence on the leadership of the People’s Front.
Each two hundred, five hundred or thousand citizens adhering in a given city, district, factory, barrack and village to the People’s Front, in time of fighting actions, elect their representative to the local committee of action. All the participants in the struggle are bound by its discipline.
The last Congress of the Communist International in its resolution on the Dimitrov report expressed itself in favour of elected Committees of Action as the mass support for the People’s Front. This is perhaps the only progressive idea in the entire resolution. But precisely for this reason the Stalinists do nothing to realize it. They dare not do so for fear of breaking off collaboration with the bourgeoisie.
To be sure, in the election of Committees not only workers will be able to participate but also civil service employees, functionaries, war veterans, artisans, small merchants, and small peasants. Thus the Committees of Action are in closest harmony with the tasks of the struggle of the proletariat for influence over the petty bourgeoisie. But they complicate to the extreme the collaboration between the workers’ bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie. In the meantime the People’s Front in its present form is nothing else than the organization of class collaboration between the political exploiters of the proletariat (the reformists and the Stalinists) and the political exploiters of the petty bourgeoisie (the Radicals). Real mass elections of the Committees of Action would automatically eject the bourgeois middlemen (the Radicals) from the ranks of the People’s Front and thus blow to smithereens the criminal policy dictated by Moscow.
However it would be a mistake to think that it is possible at a set day and hour to call the proletarian and petty-bourgeois masses to elect Committees of Action on the basis of a given statute. Such an approach would be purely bureaucratic and consequently barren. The workers will be able to elect a Committee of Action only in those cases when they themselves participate in some sort of action and feel the need for revolutionary leadership. In question here is not the formal democratic representation of all and any masses but the revolutionary representation of the struggling masses. The Committee of Action is an apparatus of struggle. There is no sense in guessing beforehand precisely what strata of the toilers will be attracted to the creation of Committees of Action: the lines of demarcation in the struggling masses will be established during the struggle itself.
The greatest danger in France lies in the fact that the revolutionary energy of the masses will be dissipated in spurts, in isolated explosions like Toulon, Brest and Limoges, and give way to apathy. Only conscious traitors or hopeless muddle-heads are capable of thinking that in the present situation it is possible to hold the masses immobilized up to the moment when they will be blessed from above by the government of the People’s Front. Strikes, protests, street clashes, direct uprisings are absolutely inevitable in the present situation. The task of the proletarian party consists not in checking and paralysing these movements but in unifying them and investing them with the greatest possible force”. [9]

TROTSKY VERSES POPULAR FRONTISM IN FIGHTING FASCISM.


The quote from Trotsky below applies to the French situation where the LCR majority leadership capitulated to Popular Front pressures and supported a Conservative Bourgeois candidate (Chirac) against the Fascist Le Pen during the 2002 Presidential elections. It has strengthened reactionary tendencies among the Middle Class believing Conservative Bourgeois elements are the strongest force. As Trotsky pointed out to win the middle class over the revolutionary party has to be decisive in fighting for workers power,

Conservative Gaullist policies were weakened with the fight against new employment legalisation for young people with it being defeated in 2006 from mass upheavals. The radicalisation was reflected in the close vote between Royale and Surkozy in 2007 Presidential elections. There is also a deep radicalisation among certain workers, and ethnic minorities indicated by 1.5 million votes for the LCR Presidential candidate.

If the Right Wing Gaullists win the parliamentary elections there could be big strikes and upheavals on the streets with the most deprived youth of both Caucasian and oppressed nationalities/ethnicities. A genuine Trotskyist party could recruit these revolutionary elements and by conducting united front policies break millions of workers from Social Democracy.

The LCR has a history of Ultra-Leftism and Opportunism from 1969 onwards. There was a qualitative degeneration with the LCR CC Majority supporting Chirac in 2002. This policy was rejected by a big minority on the CC. By running their own presidential candidate the worse liquidationist elements were defeated. It is yet to be determined whether a faction will return the LCR to consistent Trotskyism or a new Trotskyist organisation will have to be set up.

On major international events such as the Palestinian Civil War they are still moving to the right by calling on Imperialist forces like their government and institutions such as the EU to intervene. Trotskyists oppose Imperialist intervention in whatever form because it is motivated by profits of Capitalist firms in those countries. This continued degeneration suggests that another Trotskyist party may have to be set up.

We have time to build that kind of party with millions of workers going into mass battles could lead to a pre-revolutionary crises where a revolutionary leadership can seriously lead the workers struggle for power. This is why Trotskyism has to reject Popular Frontism so that we don’t play into hands of counter-revolution as Trotsky described in 1935 when Capitalism enters a similar crisis and fight this time for the polarisation goes into the revolution’s favour. Trotsky wrote:

.
“Hitler’s assumption of power, which did not meet with the slightest resistance on the part of the two “mighty” working class parties – one of them, moreover, basing itself upon the USSR – has decisively exposed the internal putrefaction of the Second and Third Internationals. In August 1933 four organizations formulated for the first time in a programmatic document the new historic task: the creation of the Fourth International. The events that have transpired since that time have been irrefutable confirmation that there is no other road.
The annihilation of the Austrian proletariat has demonstrated that victory cannot be gained by issuing a last-minute call for insurrection to the masses, disoriented and drained by opportunism, after the party had been driven into a blind alley. It is necessary to prepare systematically for victory by means of revolutionary policies in every sphere of the working class movement.
The very same lesson immutably flows from the annihilation of the Spanish proletariat. Under all conditions, especially during a revolution, it is impermissible to turn one’s back upon the toilers for the sake of a bloc with the bourgeoisie. It is impossible to expect and demand that the duped and disillusioned masses will fly to take up arms upon the belated call of a party in which they have lost confidence. The proletarian revolution is not improvised by the orders of a bankrupt leadership. The revolution must be prepared through incessant and irreconcilable class struggle, which gains for the leadership the unshakable confidence of the party, fuses the vanguard with the entire class, and transforms the proletariat into the leader of all the exploited in the city and countryside”... [10]
... For the social crisis to bring about the proletarian revolution, it is necessary that, besides other conditions, a decisive shift of the petty-bourgeois classes occur in the direction of the proletariat This will give the proletariat a chance to put itself at the head of the nation as its leader.
The last election revealed – and this is its principal symptomatic significances – a shift in the opposite direction. Under the impact of the crisis, the petty bourgeoisie swung, not in the direction of the proletarian revolution, but in the direction of the most extreme imperialist reaction, pulling behind it considerable sections of the proletariat. The gigantic growth of National Socialism is an expression of two factors: a deep social crisis, throwing the petty-bourgeois masses off balance, and the lack of a revolutionary party that would today be regarded by the popular masses as the acknowledged revolutionary leader. If the Communist Party is the party of revolutionary hope, then fascism, as a mass movement, is the party of counter-revolutionary despair. When revolutionary hope embraces the whole proletarian mass, it inevitably pulls behind it on the road of revolution considerable and growing sections of the petty bourgeoisie. Precisely in this sphere, the election revealed the opposite picture: counterrevolutionary despair embraced the petty-bourgeois mass with such force that it drew behind it many sections of the proletariat.
How is this to be explained? In the past, we have observed (Italy, Germany) a sharp strengthening of fascism, victorious, or at least threatening, as the result of a spent or missed revolutionary situation, at the conclusion of a revolutionary crisis in which the proletarian vanguard revealed its inability to put itself at the head of the nation and change the fate of all its classes, the petty bourgeoisie included. This is precisely what gave fascism its peculiar strength in Italy. But at present the problem in Germany does not arise at the conclusion of a revolutionary crisis, but just at its approach. From this, the leading Communist Party officials, optimists ex officio, draw the conclusion that fascism, having come “too late,” is doomed to inevitable and speedy defeat (Die Rote Fahne). These people do not want to learn anything. Fascism comes “too later in relation to old revolutionary crises. But it appears sufficiently early – at the dawn – in relation to the new revolutionary crisis. The fact that it gained the possibility of taking up such a powerful starting position on the eve of a revolutionary period and not at its conclusion, is not the weak side of fascism but the weak side of Communism. The petty bourgeoisie does not wait, consequently, for new disappointments in the ability of the party to improve its fate; it bases itself upon the experiences of the past, remembering the lesson of 1923, the capricious leaps of the ultra-left course of Maslow-Thälmann, the opportunist impotence of the same Thälmann, the clatter of the “third period,” etc. [4] Finally – and this is the most important – its lack of faith in the proletarian revolution is nourished by the lack of faith in the Communist Party on the part of millions of Social Democratic workers. The petty bourgeoisie, even when completely thrown off the conservative road by circumstances, can turn to social revolution only when the sympathies of the majority of the working class are for a social revolution. Precisely this most important condition is still lacking in Germany, and not by accident”. [11]

TROTSKY’S DEVELOPED LAW OF UNEVEN AND COMBINED DEVELOPMENT IN HOW IMPERIALISM UNDEVELOPED THE COLONIES AND SEMI-COLONIES AND DERIVED THEORY; PROGRAMME; AND STRTAGYY OF PERMANENT REVOLUTION FROM THIS ANALYSIS.



British Capitalism was reactionary in India precisely because it smashed the productive forces in India with its indigenous textile industry being destroyed because of competing with rapidly developing British Capitalist industry. They also worked with reactionary semi-Feudal elements and also reinforcing them in certain Indian states and provinces e.g., Princes. British Capitalism also utilised reactionary institutions such as the Caste system which were thousands of years old.

The rise of Capitalism was progressive in Western Europe and Japan because it cleared out Feudal fetters to Industrialisation which laid the basis for Socialism. Marx was correct that the most progressive thing Capitalism did was to establish an international division of labour which laid the basis for world Socialist revolution.

This contradiction of Capitalism can only be understood by using the method of Dialectical Materialism and Law of Uneven and Combined Development. In its beginning Capitalism was progressive in terms of its role in revolutionising technology and production. There were other social benefits in Western Europe which Peter Camejo pointed out in 1969 with those Bourgeois revolutions in terms of land reform, and democratic rights gained.

Capitalism by its very nature stopped the development of Colonies/Semi-Colonies. When and even before the international division of labour Marxists supported colonial struggles against emerging world Capitalism and the reactionary forces allied with them due to this being the only way those societies could develop. Trotsky after 1927 concluded that Imperialist domination of these countries could only be eradicated by anti-Imperialist struggles being combined with Bourgeois-Democratic and Socialist tasks overthrowing Capitalism.


TROTSKY ARGUED THAT CAPITALISM BECAME TOTALLY REACTIONARY IN 1913 WITH ITS TRADE CRISIS WHICH LED TO DESTRUCTIVE CONFLICT OF W0RLD WAR 1.


After this Capitalism played out its progressive role and became more reactionary. By 1913 Trotsky argued that Capitalism had ceased its progressive role with the trade crisis of that year which triggered a struggle for re-division of world markets culminating in World War 1. In the past Capitalism came out of various economic crisis from 1873 to 1896 with developing new markets in gas and electrical goods. He analysed that flowing from this trade crisis in 1913 led to outbreak of a World War in 1914. Trotsky was correct in saying this was a qualitative turning point because Capitalism could only re-organise markets through a massive destructive war between major Imperialist powers. Trotsky stated:

“Why did the war occur? Because the productive forces found themselves too constricted within the frameworks of the most powerful capitalist states. The inner urge of imperialist capitalism was to eradicate the state boundaries and to seize the entire terrestrial globe, abolishing tariffs and other barriers which restrict the development of the productive forces. Herein are the economic foundations of imperialism and the root causes of the war”. [12]


PETER CAMEJO OUTLINES A BRILLIANT OUTLINE ON PERMANENT REVOLUTION IN A 1969 INTRODUCTION TO TWO WORKS BY TROTSKY.


When Peter Camejo was a Trotskyist in 1969 [13] he argued the case for Permanent Revolution excellently. Pathfinder’s edition of two of Trotsky’s works on this subject are “Results and Prospects”, written in 1906 and “The Permanent Revolution”, written in 1929.

The U.S. SWP can’t take a consistent position on struggles within Third World countries because of their break with Permanent Revolution.. It is only the Permanent Revolution which can guide Revolutionary Marxists to the complex problems of Imperialist exploitation of Colonies/Semi-Colonies; national and tribal oppression; the workers; and urban/rural middle class.

The Barnesites during the early 1980s made political adaptation to Bourgeois Nationalist regimes e.g. in Iran [14]. They on appearance did an Ultra-Left turn from the summer of 2003 in not supporting resistance to Imperialism in Iraq because of the Bourgeois nature of its leadership. [15] When the Israeli-Lebanon war broke out in the summer of 2006 Barnes sectarianily refused calls for a military united front with Hezbollah (in Lebanon) against Israel. [16]

This right wing turn on Iraq and Lebanon flows from the Barnesite sectarian fear of anti-war protests. They lack so much confidence in their ideas that do not have the confidence of taking other opponents up. In Latin America there is a turn towards Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution. Even among layers of the Cuban Communist Party leadership there is a reconsideration of this question.

Trying to adapt to this new turn in Cuba they are trying to get around this problem by publishing when Castro had a version of Permanent Revolution with his Second Declaration of Havana. In last week’s Militant there are signs of pressure to return towards Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution. During a reprint of Trotsky on Spain in a book of month column they reprint what Trotsky wrote on application of Permanent Revolution to the Spanish Revolution. As Cannon said you cannot bluff in politics. Trotsky and sooner or later a reconstructed Trotskyist movement will gain a mass base. Barnes like other revisionists will have to confront this new reality and their control of sects will be seriously challenged.

Camejo wrote:

“According to Marx, fundamental changes in the mode of production have resulted in the evolution of society in general, and class societies in particular. Slavery was succeeded by feudalism; Western European feudalism gave birth to capitalism. Capitalism, he predicted, would in turn give way to socialism, which would proceed to create a classless society...

... Marx’s provision of a socialist society presupposed the development of the highly industrialised and mechanised production fostered by capitalism. He therefore held that the socialist revolution would most likely begin in those countries where such preconditions for socialism as a powerful industry and a well-organised proletariat had already been created. Marx correctly forecast the overthrow of capitalism by the working masses. He “erred” in not foreseeing the consequences of the manner in which capitalism spread across the globe would affect the order of emergence of the anti-capitalist regimes...

... During and after their establishment in Europe, capitalist forces and relations invaded the rest of the world in forms very different from those of their original appearance in the continent. Capitalism won power in Western Europe through a series of revolutionary onslaughts against feudalism. The oppositional bourgeois-democratic forces there, in alliance with the artisans and peasants, successfully struggled for land reform, swept aside the impediments to industrialisation, and consolidated the nation. In their confrontations with the throne, the church, and the nobility, they achieved civil liberties, parliamentary democracy, and a whole set of institutions which were progressive and enlightened compared with the old regime...

... But Holland, England, France, and other powers that were reshaped by their own bourgeois-democratic revolutions, did not share their blessings or extend their gains to the overseas people they dominated. With the penetration of French capitalism, its representatives did not create a New France, dedicated to “liberty, equality, fraternity “, in Vietnam. They did not permit Vietnam to become an independent and industrialised nation, to have a land reform for the peasantry, or set up a parliamentary democracy. On the contrary, whatever was socially, economically, and politically progressive in the bourgeois revolutions of Europe was deliberately withheld and blocked from being implanted in Vietnam through the agency of French Capitalism...

... Thus, as Capitalism expanded into the more backward regions of the world, the democratic revolution did not follow or go along with it. The chief exports of imperialism were more intense exploitation and oppression on top of the old. Under the auspices of imperialism, archaic pre-capitalist forms were not rooted out but adapted to capitalist relations. Colonialism wove all kinds of degrading human relations, from caste discrimination to child labour, into its pattern. This happened when the Belgian Imperialists took over the Congo; the English India; the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America; and when all the great powers from England to Japan laid hands on China...

... In those countries which had a belated capitalist development, the bourgeoisie was to small, weak, corrupt, and cowardly to resist imperialism. As accomplices of the feudal landlords on the one hand and the foreign capitalists on the other, they were unable and unwilling to lead the workers and peasants in any consistent, through going struggle for national liberation, land reform, and social revolution...

... After noting these facts, Trotsky posed the following question: if the national bourgeoisie is opposed to the democratic revolution, how can it come about and who will lead it to victory...

... He observed that it was not the feudalists who primarily controlled the huge estates and facilities in the colonial countries. In Vietnam, Cuba, the Congo, and elsewhere who stood in the way of self-determination, land reform, and modernisation. Just because the advanced powers had already developed immense productive capacities among capitalist lines, the poorer colonial nations, forced to compete in the world market, could not easily industrialise themselves...

... Did that mean that the battle for the redistribution of the land, self-determination, industrialisation, and democratisation had to be given up as hopeless by the colonial and semi-colonial masses. Not at all, declared Trotsky. What it meant was that the colonial masses could not realise these demands in the same ways that they had been won in the older capitalist countries, The colonial masses would have to adopt new methods and strike out on a new path. The fulfilment of the democratic tasks formally carried out by the revolutionary and liberal bourgeoisie would have to be achieved by anti-capitalist forces and methods...

... What will be the new alignment of social classes have to be? The national bourgeoisie which headed the democratic struggles and regimes in Europe and North America, could not play that same role in the colonial countries. It was tied for life or death to the imperialists, since the abolition of control by foreign capital would immeadiately endanger its own existence and privileges...

... In order to carry through the democratic revolution, workers and peasants would have to join together to throw out both foreign overlords and the national bourgeoisie submissive to them. In that event the plebeian classes would themselves have to take power. Thus the anti-imperialist movement for democracy would lead, not to the conquest of supremacy by the native owning classes, but to an altogether exceptional outcome. A resolute struggle by the worker-peasant masses would be inexorably oriented in an anti-capitalist, pro-socialist direction...

... This perspective at once posed the following question: Which class among the insurgent population would assume the commanding position in the revolution and the regime that issued from it- the workers or the peasant? Trotsky explained that only the workers could fill that role”. [17]


NEW INNOVATIONS NEEDED FOR MARXISTS SINCE THE DEGNERATION OF U.S. SWP FROM 1979.


IN DEFENCE OF NICARAGUA AS A WORKERS’ STATE AGAINST ULTRA-LEFTS SUCH AS ALAN BENJAMIN.


Trotsky’s great contribution to Marxism was on Workers’ States as transitional societies. The Nicaraguan revolution posed this problem in a new way. By 1983 there was a considerable section of that economy nationalised but not full nationalisation which existed in other Workers’ States.

In my opinion Nicaragua was a workers and farmers government because the existing Bourgeois state was smashed. As the Sandinistas had state power they determined what the class character of that state would be. They maintained Capitalism for two years as they were in a coalition government with certain Bourgeois forces. After the Sandinistas broke with those Bourgeois layers and started nationalising industries there was armed resistance from Capitalists being expropriated.

When this qualitative break from Capitalism occurred Nicaragua became a Workers’ State. The class nature of a state is determined by what property relations it defends. This state stopped those Capitalist layers expropriated from regaining their property. Benjamin’s methodological error was confusing a fully nationalised economy with a considerable nationalised which was still minority ownership. Writing articles during 1990 in U.S. Socialist Action Benjamin downplayed major social gains from the Sandinista revolution and dismissed their policies as “austerity”. Paul Le Blanc correctly in 1990 challenged this un-dialectical method. Le Blanc pointed out by giving examples of three different Bolshevik economic policies there can be different approaches within a specific Workers’ State.



THE FAILURE OF 1989 POLITICAL REVOLUTION LEADS TO PROFOUND CRISIS OF EAST EUROPEAN AND EX-SOVIET WORKERS’STATES. NEGATIVLY IT HAS STRENGTHENED
CHINESE STALINISM AND WORLD CAPITALISM.


The revolutionary upheavals first came in China and Eastern Europe during 1989 before hitting Imperialist countries. In China the Tiananmen protests were the most internationalist and explicitly pro-Communist. Workers in Eastern Europe were going into revolt because of Bureaucratic pillage undermining social gains by cutbacks in social services e.g. nursery care and wanted more of a say in how those societies were run. There was considerable fear among those Bureaucracies of being swept away by Political Revolutions. This is why they granted the masses democratic rights.

Deviously section of these Bureaucracies used the masses as a battering ram to clear out their opponents so they could come to power. Their aim was increasing bureaucratic pillage through massive cutbacks in public services and nationalised industries. They also by making concessions to Capitalism enriched themselves through IMF loans.

Capitalism utilised the Soviet Union’s break-up to smash Socialist ideas among the masses. Their failure to restore Capitalism in Eastern Europe and Russia is now tied to a deepening Capitalist crisis. They failed to restore Capitalism because to re-impose that system would have destroyed decades of developments within these economies.

The Chinese Bureaucracy has utilised the crisis in Eastern Europe and Russia before 2000 in its ideology to deter workers from staging 1989-1991 type upheavals. This fear of a similar economic and social disaster by Chinese workers combined with economic growth has stopped a major threat of Political Revolution. There are still thousands of struggles in China going on which have the potential to go in that direction. As the Capitalist and Stalinist crises deepen workers struggles even in the degenerated Workers’ States will have a greater tendency towards anti-Stalinism and anti-Capitalism.
[1] Stalinism still politically expropriates the working class within the Degenerated Workers’ States.
[2] Trotsky 1936 Marxist Internet Archive: Revolution Betrayed. 2. Is the Bureaucracy a Ruling Class?: {Accessed June 2007}
[3] Trotsky 1936: Marxist Internet Archive: Revolution Betrayed . Chapter IX Social Relations in the Soviet Union: State Capitalism?. {Accessed June 2007}
[4] Trotsky 1936 – Marxist Internet Archive: Revolution Betrayed Chapter XI Whither the Soviet Union: The inevitability of a new revolution. {Accessed June 2007}
[5] Trotsky 1940 – Marxist Internet Archive: In Defence of Marxism. The USSR in War – Is it a Cancerous Growth or a New Organ?
[6] Cliff’s speech on State Capitalism delivered in 1999 can be found in 550+ speeches
[7]Harman’s speech is available on Resistance website in 550+ speeches in section on “Imperialism and anti-Imperialism”. His actual speech is in that section entitled:”Imperialism @Workers Revolts in Latin America” {Accessed June 2007}.
[8] Novack 1953 – Marxist Internet Archive: Towards A History of the Fourth International section on Trotskyism subjects. The Split Between the International Committee and International Secretariat 1953: Document 10- Report to the majority caucus of New York local by George Novack, August 3rd 1953.
[9] Trotsky 1936 – Marxist Internet Archive: Whither France? – Committees of Action = Not People’s Font {Accessed June 2007}
[10] Trotsky 1935 – Marxist Internet Archive: Open Letter for the Fourth International – To All Revolutionary Working Class organisations and groups. {Accessed June 2007}
[11] Trotsky 1930 Marxist Internet Archive – The Turn in the Communist International and the situation in Germany. Section 4: Petty Bourgeoisie and Fascism. {Accessed June 2007}
[12] Trotsky 1921 on Marxist Internet Archive under Bolshevik section is Trotsky. The speech is “Report on the World Economic Crisis and the New Tasks of the Communist International. {Accessed June 2007}
[13] supported by Jack Barnes and current Marxmailers such as Walter Lippman
[14] Lovell 1992 – In Defence of American Trotskyism The struggle inside Socialist Workers Party 1979 – 1983. This e-book can be found in subjects in Marxist Internet Archive. Then enter Trotskyism and access Documents and subjects. Finally go into FIT and then you will find that e-book {Accessed June 2007}
[15] This can be seen by looking at past issues of the Militant from summer of2003. {Accessed June 2007}
[16] Barnes 2006 – Militant in view past articles in 2006: ‘We are for whatever strengthens the confidence and capacity of the toilers’. Letter from SWP leader on Israel’s murderous war on Lebanon. Volume 70. No 33 - September 4th 2006 edition of Militant. {Accessed June 2007}
[17] Trotsky 1986 The Permanent Revolution @ Results and Prospects: Pathfinder New York.

Statement on incomplete point on section in the document on Trotsky saying Capitalism became totally reactionary

I should have deleted one incomplete sentence. What I wanted to say (which I add in a few weeks) that in any new process of opposites there is progress and then it turns into its opposite by becoming reactionary or outlives its usefulness. I wanted to draw analogies with space and psyhics (cosmology) and in natural sciences. The Marxist Dialectical Materilaist method can be applied to all sciences. There are three main sciences which are:- Space (Cosmology); Natural Sciences (Biology); and society (Historical Materialism). They are how matter has evolved into living organisms; and a high form of living consciouness (humanity) can transform nature and ourselves. These three sciences have seperate laws but there is a dialectical inter-relationship between them influencing each other.

There are numerous grammatical errors in this document which I also correct before adding another post on this more extended document.

Statement by me concerning Bob Dylan videos

As I said last week on Trotsky's videos there have been changes to Dylan's viedos
without my permission. I don't how to delete one of them, Therefore I don't take
any responibility for content of those videos.

Introductory section for platform of new Trotskyist group on "Marxism verses Revisionsism"

This is just a beginning of a platform for principled regroupment of Trotskyist forces. I will do more work on this in a few weeks time.

IN DEFENCE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY MARXIST PROGRAMME AGAINST REVISIONISM AND SECTARIANISM.


CHRIS HARMAN’S ERRORS IN 2002 MARXISM SPEECH ON “LATIN AMERICA” FLOWS FROM SEPERATING POLITICS FROM ITS ECONOMIC FOUNDATION IN IMPERIALIST DOMINATION OF COLONIES AND SEMI-COLONIES,


Revolutionary Marxists flowing from the method of Historical Materialism started by Marx and Engels have always looked to the economic base of a society to determine its class character. Throughout history there have been different regimes and political superstructures within the same mode of production.

In the 20th century and carried to our century [1] over there have been the examples of Fascism and Stalinism. Fascism politically expropriated the Bourgeoisie but the Bourgeoisie still controlling these economies. The Stalinist Bureaucracies expropriated/expropriating the Proletariat politically but the workers remained/still do even in Eastern Europe and Russia today the ruling class due to Bureaucratic Castes basing themselves on a essentially non-Capitalist mode of production.

Trotsky stated in the “Revolution Betrayed that” the Soviet Bureaucracy had the most power of any ruling layer in history because of them holding this unique position of representing the Workers’ State thrown up by poverty of Soviet society and setbacks in world revolution. Trotsky wrote:

“In its intermediary and regulating function, its concern to maintain social ranks, and its exploitation of the state apparatus for personal goals, the Soviet bureaucracy is similar to every other bureaucracy, especially the fascist. But it is also in a vast way different. In no other regime has a bureaucracy ever achieved such a degree of independence from the dominating class. In bourgeois society, the bureaucracy represents the interests of a possessing and educated class, which has at its disposal innumerable means of everyday control over its administration of affairs. The Soviet bureaucracy has risen above a class which is hardly emerging from destitution and darkness, and has no tradition of dominion or command. Whereas the fascists, when they find themselves in power, are united with the big bourgeoisie by bonds of common interest, friendship, marriage, etc., the Soviet bureaucracy takes on bourgeois customs without having beside it a national bourgeoisie. In this sense we cannot deny that it is something more than a bureaucracy. It is in the full sense of the word the sole privileged and commanding stratum in the Soviet society”. [2]


IN DEFENCE OF THE LENINIST-TROTSKYIST THEORY THAT IMPERIALISM STILL CONSIDERABLY HOLDS BACK THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES.


Chris Harman made some amazing statements from someone who considers himself a Marxist when he stated in a speech at Marxism 2002 on “Latin America” that Imperialism even at its height developed Third World countries. He cited the example of India being developed by British Imperialism under British colonial Raj rule. He even slandered Lenin and Trotsky it was their position too. [3] George Novack outlined in 1933 how revisionists mislead followers that they are carrying in the tradition of Marxism where they are rejected it. After a while they become more confident in rejecting Marxism. Novack wrote:

Revisionism comes from a masked change in the fundamental theory, methods and perspectives of the revolutionary workers' movement. It is a departure from scientific socialism in theory and in practice which derails the class struggle from a correct and consistent coarse. It is undertaken under pressure from alien social ideas, interests and forces. In its first stages, revisionism does not come forward in an open and forthright challenge to the Marxist position, but proceeds by stealth. It vies to insinuate its new ideas into the structure of the established ones, inserting them as levers in order to undermine and eventually overthrow the established positions. It doles out its modifications bit by bit, until it becomes bold enough to counterpose its revisions squarely to the old line...
This procedure often may appear like deliberate deceit; it is imposed upon the revisionists, however, by circumstances beyond their control. On the one hand, this procedure reflects the objective trend of revisionist thinking, which deviates from Marxism a step or so at a time -- often without admitting that fact to itself, or to speak of others. On the other hand, the revisionists have to reckon at every stage with the solidly-rooted traditions of the revolutionary movement, which stand like a giant barrier athwart its path; and they must therefore resort to protective colouration. The favourite pretext is to claim that they are doing nothing but bringing Marxism up to date, modernizing it, bringing it abreast of new events unforeseen by anyone, especially the founders and great leaders of the movement. For example, in 1939-40, Shachtman counterposed to Trotsky's vigorous defence of Marxism, what he called the 'concreteness of living events.' And that is precisely how the Cochranites have been proceeding”. [4]



TROTSKYISM VERSES RESSITE CONCILLATIONISM TOWARDS ISLAMIC BOURGEOIS FORCES.


In that speech Harman also made a serious error in defining actual semi-colonies in 2002 e.g. Iraq as Imperialist. This probably would not be his post US-Iraq war as the SWP have correctly supported the resistance in Iraq against Imperialism. One big problem of the Ress-led leadership apart from historic SWP tendency towards Stalinphobia which clouds consistent anti-Imperialism is that they are concillationist to Islamic Bourgeois forces. They do not apply the classical Leninist-Trotskyist approach of having a united front military with these forces against Imperialism in countries they are occupying/attacking but also at the same keeping their political independence from these Bourgeois forces.

It would be wrong to exclude from single-issue united front campaigns within Imperialist countries Bourgeois forces if they carry out the line of clear anti-war demands of e.g. troops out now which can potentially mobilise millions of workers in alliance with the oppressed, including layers of Middle Class elements. Any move to exclude Bourgeois forces would break up a principled campaign and play into their hands of hegemonising the masses.

One way it becomes unprincipled is when you draw up a wider political programme with Bourgeois forces in electoral alliances and forming a party with them in it. This leads to watering down key aspects of the Trotskyist programme such as class independence and supporting in a big way struggles of oppressed elements e.g. Women, Gays/Lesbians etc. Even when Trotskyists do entry work in mass Social Democratic parties we fight for our programme in a Transitional manner.

Trotsky opposed the Popular Front because it meant supporting Bourgeois interests at the expense of workers and oppressed elements. We are not in the same advanced stage within Britain as France in the 1930s. A proper Trotskyist group would have taken the anti-war struggle within the Labour Party which would have quickened Blair’s demise and seriously challenged Brown.

As strikes deepen against privatisation and low pay among public sector workers there is going to be growing battles within the Trade Unions and Labour Party. Respect publicly has supported the postal workers but class divisions within this alliance will grow as the class struggle sharpens. This is indicated with the implosion in Respect within Tower Hamlets. It was an opportunist adventure divorced from real battles in the Labour Party which will determine where workers go politically in their millions. Trotskyists relate to that party because we hope through going through an experience with these millions to break them from Social Democracy so they lead a struggle for power.

Trotsky stated the following in 1936 against Popular Frontism:

“The People’s Front” represents the coalition of the proletariat with the imperialist bourgeoisie, in the shape of the Radical Party and smaller tripe of the same sort. The coalition extends both to the parliamentary and the extra-parliamentary spheres. In both spheres the Radical Party, preserving for itself complete freedom of action, coarsely imposes restrictions upon the freedom of action of the proletariat.
“The People’s Front” in its present guise, shamelessly tramples not only upon workers’ democracy but also upon formal, i.e. bourgeois democracy. The majority of the Radical voters do not participate in the struggle of the toilers and consequently in the People’s Front. Yet the Radical Party occupies in this front not only an equal but a privileged position; the workers parties are compelled to restrict their activity to the program of the Radical Party. This idea is most outspokenly advanced by the cynics of l’Humanité. The latest elections in the Senate have illuminated with special clarity the privileged position of the Radicals in the People’s Front. The leaders of the Communist Party boasted openly of the fact that they renounced in favour of non-proletarian parties several mandates which justly belonged to the workers. This merely means that the united front re-established in part the property qualification in favour of the bourgeoisie.
The “Front”, as it is conceived, is an organization for a direct and immediate struggle. When struggle is in question, every worker is worth ten bourgeois, even those adhering to the united front. From the standpoint of the revolutionary fighting strength of the Front, the electoral privileges should have been given not to radical bourgeois but to workers. But in essence, privileges are uncalled for here. Is the People’s Front intended for defence of “democracy"? Then let it begin by applying it to its own ranks. This means: the leadership of the People’s Front must be the direct and immediate reflection of the will of the struggling masses.
How? Very simply: through elections. The proletariat does not deny anyone the right to struggle side by side with it against Fascism, the Bonapartist régime of Laval, the war plot of the imperialists, and all other forms of oppression and violence. The sole demand that class-conscious workers put to their actual or potential allies is that they struggle in action. Every group of the population really participating in the struggle at a given stage, and ready to submit to common discipline, must have the equal right to exert influence on the leadership of the People’s Front.
Each two hundred, five hundred or thousand citizens adhering in a given city, district, factory, barrack and village to the People’s Front, in time of fighting actions, elect their representative to the local committee of action. All the participants in the struggle are bound by its discipline.
The last Congress of the Communist International in its resolution on the Dimitrov report expressed itself in favour of elected Committees of Action as the mass support for the People’s Front. This is perhaps the only progressive idea in the entire resolution. But precisely for this reason the Stalinists do nothing to realize it. They dare not do so for fear of breaking off collaboration with the bourgeoisie.
To be sure, in the election of Committees not only workers will be able to participate but also civil service employees, functionaries, war veterans, artisans, small merchants, and small peasants. Thus the Committees of Action are in closest harmony with the tasks of the struggle of the proletariat for influence over the petty bourgeoisie. But they complicate to the extreme the collaboration between the workers’ bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie. In the meantime the People’s Front in its present form is nothing else than the organization of class collaboration between the political exploiters of the proletariat (the reformists and the Stalinists) and the political exploiters of the petty bourgeoisie (the Radicals). Real mass elections of the Committees of Action would automatically eject the bourgeois middlemen (the Radicals) from the ranks of the People’s Front and thus blow to smithereens the criminal policy dictated by Moscow.
However it would be a mistake to think that it is possible at a set day and hour to call the proletarian and petty-bourgeois masses to elect Committees of Action on the basis of a given statute. Such an approach would be purely bureaucratic and consequently barren. The workers will be able to elect a Committee of Action only in those cases when they themselves participate in some sort of action and feel the need for revolutionary leadership. In question here is not the formal democratic representation of all and any masses but the revolutionary representation of the struggling masses. The Committee of Action is an apparatus of struggle. There is no sense in guessing beforehand precisely what strata of the toilers will be attracted to the creation of Committees of Action: the lines of demarcation in the struggling masses will be established during the struggle itself.
The greatest danger in France lies in the fact that the revolutionary energy of the masses will be dissipated in spurts, in isolated explosions like Toulon, Brest and Limoges, and give way to apathy. Only conscious traitors or hopeless muddle-heads are capable of thinking that in the present situation it is possible to hold the masses immobilized up to the moment when they will be blessed from above by the government of the People’s Front. Strikes, protests, street clashes, direct uprisings are absolutely inevitable in the present situation. The task of the proletarian party consists not in checking and paralysing these movements but in unifying them and investing them with the greatest possible force”. [5]
Where forces have broken historically for years/decades against consistently Trotskyist positions you have to judge them on their practice. Harman’s theoretical analysis of the British Raj is in conflict with the SWP opposing Imperialist rule in practice. It is still a very dangerous position because Marxists judge any process or force in the way it affects the productive forces.



TROTSKY VERSES POPULAR FRONTISM IN FIGHTING FASCISM.


The quote from Trotsky below applies to the French situation where the LCR majority leadership capitulated to Popular Front pressures and supported a Conservative Bourgeois candidate (Chirac) against the Fascist Le Pen during the 2002 Presidential elections. It has strengthened reactionary tendencies among the Middle Class believing Conservative Bourgeois elements are the strongest force. As Trotsky stressed to win the middle class over the revolutionary party has to be decisive in fighting for workers power,

Conservative Gaullist policies were weakened with the fight against new employment legalisation for young people with it being defeated in 2006 from mass upheavals. The radicalisation was reflected in the close vote between Royale and Surkozy in 2007 Presidential elections. There is also a deep radicalisation among certain workers, and ethnic minorities indicated by 1.5 million votes for the LCR Presidential candidate.

If the Right Wing Gaullists win the parliamentary elections there could be big strikes and upheavals on the streets with the most deprived youth of both Caucasian and oppressed nationalities/ethnicities. A genuine Trotskyist party could recruit these revolutionary elements and by conducting united front policies break millions of workers from Social Democracy.

The LCR has a history of Ultra-Leftism and Opportunism from 1969 onwards. There was a qualitative degeneration with the LCR CC Majority supporting Chirac in 2002. This policy was rejected by a big minority on the CC. By running their own presidential candidate the worse liquidationist elements were defeated. It is yet to be determined whether a faction will return the LCR to consistent Trotskyism or a new Trotskyist organisation will have to be set up. We have time to build that kind of party with millions of workers going into mass battles could lead to a pre-revolutionary crises where a revolutionary leadership can seriously lead the workers struggle for power. This is why Trotskyism has to reject Popular Frontism so that we don’t play into the counter-revolution as Trotsky described in 1935 when Capitalism enters a similar crisis and polarisation goes into the revolution’s favour. He wrote:

.
“Hitler’s assumption of power, which did not meet with the slightest resistance on the part of the two “mighty” working class parties – one of them, moreover, basing itself upon the USSR – has decisively exposed the internal putrefaction of the Second and Third Internationals. In August 1933 four organizations formulated for the first time in a programmatic document the new historic task: the creation of the Fourth International. The events that have transpired since that time have been irrefutable confirmation that there is no other road.
The annihilation of the Austrian proletariat has demonstrated that victory cannot be gained by issuing a last-minute call for insurrection to the masses, disoriented and drained by opportunism, after the party had been driven into a blind alley. It is necessary to prepare systematically for victory by means of revolutionary policies in every sphere of the working class movement.
The very same lesson immutably flows from the annihilation of the Spanish proletariat. Under all conditions, especially during a revolution, it is impermissible to turn one’s back upon the toilers for the sake of a bloc with the bourgeoisie. It is impossible to expect and demand that the duped and disillusioned masses will fly to take up arms upon the belated call of a party in which they have lost confidence. The proletarian revolution is not improvised by the orders of a bankrupt leadership. The revolution must be prepared through incessant and irreconcilable class struggle, which gains for the leadership the unshakable confidence of the party, fuses the vanguard with the entire class, and transforms the proletariat into the leader of all the exploited in the city and countryside”... [6]
... For the social crisis to bring about the proletarian revolution, it is necessary that, besides other conditions, a decisive shift of the petty-bourgeois classes occur in the direction of the proletariat This will give the proletariat a chance to put itself at the head of the nation as its leader.
The last election revealed – and this is its principal symptomatic significances – a shift in the opposite direction. Under the impact of the crisis, the petty bourgeoisie swung, not in the direction of the proletarian revolution, but in the direction of the most extreme imperialist reaction, pulling behind it considerable sections of the proletariat. The gigantic growth of National Socialism is an expression of two factors: a deep social crisis, throwing the petty-bourgeois masses off balance, and the lack of a revolutionary party that would today be regarded by the popular masses as the acknowledged revolutionary leader. If the Communist Party is the party of revolutionary hope, then fascism, as a mass movement, is the party of counter-revolutionary despair. When revolutionary hope embraces the whole proletarian mass, it inevitably pulls behind it on the road of revolution considerable and growing sections of the petty bourgeoisie. Precisely in this sphere, the election revealed the opposite picture: counterrevolutionary despair embraced the petty-bourgeois mass with such force that it drew behind it many sections of the proletariat.
How is this to be explained? In the past, we have observed (Italy, Germany) a sharp strengthening of fascism, victorious, or at least threatening, as the result of a spent or missed revolutionary situation, at the conclusion of a revolutionary crisis in which the proletarian vanguard revealed its inability to put itself at the head of the nation and change the fate of all its classes, the petty bourgeoisie included. This is precisely what gave fascism its peculiar strength in Italy. But at present the problem in Germany does not arise at the conclusion of a revolutionary crisis, but just at its approach. From this, the leading Communist Party officials, optimists ex officio, draw the conclusion that fascism, having come “too late,” is doomed to inevitable and speedy defeat (Die Rote Fahne). These people do not want to learn anything. Fascism comes “too later in relation to old revolutionary crises. But it appears sufficiently early – at the dawn – in relation to the new revolutionary crisis. The fact that it gained the possibility of taking up such a powerful starting position on the eve of a revolutionary period and not at its conclusion, is not the weak side of fascism but the weak side of Communism. The petty bourgeoisie does not wait, consequently, for new disappointments in the ability of the party to improve its fate; it bases itself upon the experiences of the past, remembering the lesson of 1923, the capricious leaps of the ultra-left course of Maslow-Thälmann, the opportunist impotence of the same Thälmann, the clatter of the “third period,” etc. [4] Finally – and this is the most important – its lack of faith in the proletarian revolution is nourished by the lack of faith in the Communist Party on the part of millions of Social Democratic workers. The petty bourgeoisie, even when completely thrown off the conservative road by circumstances, can turn to social revolution only when the sympathies of the majority of the working class are for a social revolution. Precisely this most important condition is still lacking in Germany, and not by accident”. [7]

TROTSKY’S DEVELOPED LAW OF UNEVEN AND COMBINED DEVELOPMENT IN HOW IMPERIALISM UNDEVELOPED THE COLONIES AND SEMI-COLONIES AND DERIVED THEORY; PROGRAMME; AND STRTAGYY OF PERMANENT REVOLUTION FROM THIS ANALYSIS.



British Capitalism was reactionary in India precisely because it smashed the productive forces in India with its indigenous textile industry being destroyed because of competing with rapidly developing British Capitalist industry. They also worked with reactionary semi-Feudal elements and also reinforcing them in certain Indian states and provinces e.g., Princes. The rise of Capitalism was progressive in Western Europe and Japan because it cleared out Feudal fetters to Industrialisation which laid the basis for Socialism. Marx was correct that the most progressive thing Capitalism did was to establish an international division of labour which laid the basis for world Socialist revolution.

This contradiction of Capitalism can only be understood by using the method of Dialectical Materialism and Law of Uneven and Combined Development. In its beginning Capitalism was progressive in terms of its role in revolutionising technology and production. There were other social benefits in Western Europe which Peter Camejo pointed out in 1969 with those Bourgeois revolutions in terms of land reform, and democratic rights gained.


Capitalism by its very nature stopped the development of Colonies/Semi-Colonies. When and even before the international division of labour Marxists supported colonial struggles against emerging world Capitalism and the reactionary forces allied with them due to this being the only way those societies could develop. Trotsky after 1927 concluded that Imperialist domination of these countries could only be eradicated by anti-Imperialist struggles being combined with Bourgeois-Democratic and Socialist tasks overthrowing Capitalism.


TROTSKY ARGUED THAT CAPITALISM BECAME TOTALLY REACTIONARY IN 1913 WITH ITS TRADE CRISIS WHICH LED TO DESTRUCTIVE CONFLICT OF W0RLD WAR 1.


After this Capitalism played out its progressive role and became more reactionary. One of the fundamental points Dialectical Materialism makes that in any process By 1913 Trotsky argued that Capitalism had ceased its progressive role with the trade crisis of that year which triggered the struggle for re-division of world markets collimating in World War 1. In the past Capitalism came out of various economic crisis from 1873 to 1896 with developing new markets in gas and electrical goods. He analysed that flowing from this trade crisis in 1913 led to outbreak of a World War in 1914. Trotsky was correct in saying this was a qualitative turning point because Capitalism could only re-organise markets through a massive destructive war between major Imperialist powers. He stated:

“Why did the war occur? Because the productive forces found themselves too constricted within the frameworks of the most powerful capitalist states. The inner urge of imperialist capitalism was to eradicate the state boundaries and to seize the entire terrestrial globe, abolishing tariffs and other barriers which restrict the development of the productive forces. Herein are the economic foundations of imperialism and the root causes of the war”. [8]


PETER CAMEJO OUTLINES A BRILLIANT OUTLINE ON PERMANENT REVOLUTION IN A 1969 INTRODUCTION TO TWO WORKS BY TROTSKY.


When Peter Camejo was a Trotskyist in 1969 [9] he argued the case for Permanent Revolution excellently. Pathfinder’s edition of two of Trotsky’s works on this subject “Results and Prospects”, written in 1906 and “The Permanent Revolution”, written in 1929. This is not published by the Barnesite American SWP leadership because it shows their revisionism and those two works stand in contrast to the politics they broke from during 1979 – 1981.

The U.S. SWP can’t take a consistent position on struggles within Third World countries because of their break with Permanent Revolution.. It is only the Permanent Revolution which can guide Revolutionary Marxists to the complex problems of Imperialist exploitation of Colonies/Semi-Colonies; national and tribal oppression; the workers; and urban/rural middle class.

The Barnesites during the early 1980s made political adaptation to Bourgeois Nationalist regimes e.g. in Iran [10]. They on appearance did an Ultra-Left turn from the summer of 2003 in not supporting resistance to Imperialism because of its Bourgeois nature of its leadership. [11] When the Israeli-Lebanon war broke out in the summer of 2006 Barnes sectarianily refused calls for a military united front with Hezbollah (in Lebanon) against Israel. [12]

This right wing turn on Iraq and Lebanon flows from the Barnesite sectarian fear of anti-war protests. They lack so much confidence in their ideas that do not have the confidence of taking other opponents up. In Latin America there is a turn towards Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution. Even among layers of the Cuban Communist Party leadership there is a reconsideration of this question.

Trying to adapt to this new turn in Cuba they are trying to get around this problem by publishing when Castro had a version of Permanent Revolution with his Second Declaration of Havana. As Cannon said you cannot bluff in politics. Trotsky and sooner or later a reconstructed Trotskyist movement will gain a mass base. Barnes like other revisionists will have to confront this new reality and their control of sects will be seriously challenged.

Camejo wrote:

“According to Marx, fundamental changes in the mode of production have resulted in the evolution of society in general, and class societies in particular. Slavery was succeeded by feudalism; Western European feudalism gave birth to capitalism. Capitalism, he predicted, would in turn give way to socialism, which would proceed to create a classless society...

... Marx’s provision of a socialist society presupposed the development of the highly industrialised and mechanised production fostered by capitalism. He therefore held that the socialist revolution would most likely begin in those countries where such preconditions for socialism as a powerful industry and a well-organised proletariat had already been created. Marx correctly forecast the overthrow of capitalism by the working masses. He “erred” in not foreseeing the consequences of the manner in which capitalism spread across the globe would affect the order of emergence of the anti-capitalist regimes...

... During and after their establishment in Europe, capitalist forces and relations invaded the rest of the world in forms very different from those of their original appearance in the continent. Capitalism won power in Western Europe through a series of revolutionary onslaughts against feudalism. The oppositional bourgeois-democratic forces there, in alliance with the artisans and peasants, successfully struggled for land reform, swept aside the impediments to industrialisation, and consolidated the nation. In their confrontations with the throne, the church, and the nobility, they achieved civil liberties, parliamentary democracy, and a whole set of institutions which were progressive and enlightened compared with the old regime...

... But Holland, England, France, and other powers that were reshaped by their own bourgeois-democratic revolutions, did not share their blessings or extend their gains to the overseas people they dominated. With the penetration of French capitalism, its representatives did not create a New France, dedicated to “liberty, equality, fraternity “, in Vietnam. They did not permit Vietnam to become an independent and industrialised nation, to have a land reform for the peasantry, or set up a parliamentary democracy. On the contrary, whatever was socially, economically, and politically progressive in the bourgeois revolutions of Europe was deliberately withheld and blocked from being implanted in Vietnam through the agency of French Capitalism...

... Thus, as Capitalism expanded into the more backward regions of the world, the democratic revolution did not follow or go along with it. The chief exports of imperialism were more intense exploitation and oppression on top of the old. Under the auspices of imperialism, archaic pre-capitalist forms were not rooted out but adapted to capitalist relations. Colonialism wove all kinds of degrading human relations, from caste discrimination to child labour, into its pattern. This happened when the Belgian Imperialists took over the Congo; the English India; the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America; and when all the great powers from England to Japan laid hands on China...

... In those countries which had a belated capitalist development, the bourgeoisie was to small, weak, corrupt, and cowardly to resist imperialism. As accomplices of the feudal landlords on the one hand and the foreign capitalists on the other, they were unable and unwilling to lead the workers and peasants in any consistent, through going struggle for national liberation, land reform, and social revolution...

... After noting these facts, Trotsky posed the following question: if the national bourgeoisie is opposed to the democratic revolution, how can it come about and who will lead it to victory...

... He observed that it was not the feudalists who primarily controlled the huge estates and facilities in the colonial countries. In Vietnam, Cuba, the Congo, and elsewhere who stood in the way of self-determination, land reform, and modernisation. Just because the advanced powers had already developed immense productive capacities among capitalist lines, the poorer colonial nations, forced to compete in the world market, could not easily industrialise themselves...

... Did that mean that the battle for the redistribution of the land, self-determination, industrialisation, and democratisation had to be given up as hopeless by the colonial and semi-colonial masses. Not at all, declared Trotsky. What it meant was that the colonial masses could not realise these demands in the same ways that they had been won in the older capitalist countries, The colonial masses would have to adopt new methods and strike out on a new path. The fulfilment of the democratic tasks formally carried out by the revolutionary and liberal bourgeoisie would have to be achieved by anti-capitalist forces and methods...

... What will be the new alignment of social classes have to be? The national bourgeoisie which headed the democratic struggles and regimes in Europe and North America, could not play that same role in the colonial countries. It was tied for life or death to the imperialists, since the abolition of control by foreign capital would immeadiately endanger its own existence and privileges...

... In order to carry through the democratic revolution, workers and peasants would have to join together to throw out both foreign overlords and the national bourgeoisie submissive to them. In that event the plebeian classes would themselves have to take power. Thus the anti-imperialist movement for democracy would lead, not to the conquest of supremacy by the native owning classes, but to an altogether exceptional outcome. A resolute struggle by the worker-peasant masses would be inexorably oriented in an anti-capitalist, pro-socialist direction...

... This perspective at once posed the following question: Which class among the insurgent population would assume the commanding position in the revolution and the regime that issued from it- the workers or the peasant? Trotsky explained that only the workers could fill that role”. [13]
[1] Stalinism still politically expropriates the working class within the Degenerated Workers’ States.
[2] Trotsky 1936 : Marxist Internet Archive on Trotsky {Accessed June 2007}
[3]Harman’s speech is available on Resistance website in 550+ speeches in section on “Imperialism and anti-Imperialism”. His actual speech is in that section entitled:”Imperialism @Workers Revolts in Latin America” {Accessed June 2007}.
[4] Novack 1953 – Marxist Internet Archive: Towards A History of the Fourth International section on Trotskyism subjects. The Split Between the International Committee and International Secretariat 1953: Document 10- Report to the majority caucus of New York local by George Novack, August 3rd 1953.
[5] Trotsky 1936 – Marxist Internet Archive: Whither France? – Committees of Action = Not People’s Font {Accessed June 2007}
[6] Trotsky 1935 – Marxist Internet Archive: Open Letter for the Fourth International – To All Revolutionary Working Class organisations and groups. {Accessed June 2007}
[7] Trotsky 1930 Marxist Internet Archive – The Turn in the Communist International and the situation in Germany. Section 4: Petty Bourgeoisie and Fascism. {Accessed June 2007}
[8] Trotsky 1921 on Marxist Internet Archive under Bolshevik section is Trotsky. The speech is “Report on the World Economic Crisis and the New Tasks of the Communist International. {Accessed June 2007}
[9] supported by Jack Barnes and current Marxmailers such as Walter Lippman
[10] Lovell 1992 – In Defence of American Trotskyism The struggle inside Socialist Workers Party 1979 – 1983. This e-book can be found in subjects in Marxist Internet Archive. Then enter Trotskyism and access Documents and subjects. Finally go into FIT and then you will find that e-book {Accessed June 2007}
[11] This can be seen by looking at past issues of the Militant from summer of2003. {Accessed June 2007}
[12] Barnes 2006 – Militant in view past articles in 2006: ‘We are for whatever strengthens the confidence and capacity of the toilers’. Letter from SWP leader on Israel’s murderous war on Lebanon. Volume 70. No 33 = September 4th 2006 edition of Militant.
[13] Trotsky 1986 The Permanent Revolution @ Results and Prospects: Pathfinder New York.