On Stalinism and Trotskyism

[L.Candreva@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Re: On Stalinism and Trotskyism

I'm following the very interesting debate on this topics, and
I would post here the observations I've made for now. They
are not ultimate, and of course I'm more than willing to hear
something that can change them

1. In the capitalist countries the politics of the stalinist
parties were in no way different from those of the
socialdemocrats. The origin of their politics is to be
definitevely found on the 7th congress of the Ic (Popular
frontism), but the roots lay in the stalinist dogma of
"socialism in one country", which conducted to the anglo-
russian committee, and the drive toward Kuomintang in the
second Chinese Revolution. As Trotsky pointed at the time, the
stalinist attitude toward the KMT is nothing else than
"menshevism" (i.e. socialdemocracy).

2. At the same time, being loyal to the stalinist (i.e.
Moscow) bureaucracy and to the "own" imperialist bourgeoisie,
which is hostile for class reasons to the Soviet degenerated
workers state, the Stalinist parties were cought in a
contradiction between the two bosses they had to serve. When
in face of extremely acute danger, in general for defensive
reasons, or when an agreement with their own bourgeoisie were
not possible, the Stalinists were able also to take power in
the name of the working class, transforming in deformated
workers states the countries thei ran. I would mantain that
this is not in opposition to the ideology of the "socialism in
one country". If the Stalinists during the 30's until 80's
were trying to destroy the revolutionary vanguards in any
possible way is because they mantained that an autentic
socialist revolution would threaten the power of a)the soviet
bureaucracy and b)the privileges that the stalinist
bureaucracy gained inside the bourgeois democracy as well.
They didn't make any difference between "trotskyist",
"bordiguists", "anarchists", "autonomists" (like the Communist
party in Italy during the late 70s' till 80s') and so on, or
even... poumists (i.e. centrists), when they fell themselves
menaced by an incombent socialist revolution. This popular
frontist politics often opened the road to the fascism or to
the extreme bonapartist reaction (as in Chile, or in Spain).
I think that the espressions the the stalinists have passed
definitively on the camp of the counterrevolution, or, as is
often, translated they are "counterrevolutionary to the core",
don't express the contradictory caracter of those
organizations, but are an index of stalinophobia. And they
bring to political conclusions that could be very harmful (for
example that you cannot make any united front with the
stalinists, or to capitulation to the official
socialdemocracy).


3. After the destruction of the Soviet degenerated workers
state there is no contradiction in the politics of the
stalinist parties that became socialdemocrats tout court (i.e.
completely loyal to their bourgeoisie without ties with an
external "enemy", like the Ussr), often left-socialdemocrats,
like Rifondazione comunista in Italy (which HAS BEEN the
stalinist, strong pro-Moscow wing of the Pci). They have no
international centre to serve, which, furthemore, is on the
top af a "socialist" state. In part their past practice
against revolutionaries cannot be completely buried, as the
leaderships of those parties have an history of gangsterism
inside the workers mouvement, they hardly can simply "forget".
But, on the other side, members of the ex-stalinist parties
are in a deep crisis, are reconsidering their history, and
hardly can be used as shock troops against revolutionaries,
with which they often work shoulder by shoulder in an union or
a factory. The bulk is of course in no way trotskyist or
semitrotskyist, but there is an opening for communist to fight
inside the "communist" parties, or side by side (I don't want
to absolutize any particular tactics) with those comrades. The
changed attitude of the Stalinist tops toward the left
organization is due (other, obviously, that there is no
international fight between stalinism and trotskism, due to
the fact that there exists no international stalinist centre)
in part to their (of the stalinists) weakness, in part to the
fact that they don't see any particular threat coming from the
"trotskists" to their privileges, and, last but not least,
because their are not part of a bourgeois gouvernement (i.e. a
popular front).



 --- MMMR v4.50reg

ÿ


     --- from list marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---