from an earlier discussion on the Barnesites & Trot catastrophism

[Philip Ferguson <plf13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jose G. Perez wrote on June 4:

> I think it should be said in defense of Trotsky and the early leaders of
>the Comintern that the situation they lived in circa 1920 and then in the
>late 30s were very different from our own. The question is not simply the
>catastrophism, but the refusal to correct it against overwhelming evidence,
>and then the organizational structures and norms that make such
>self-delusion possible. The only Bolshevik leader who seemed to see some of
>the problems with the "russification" of the Comintern was, of course, Lenin
>himself, but he was already in declining health.


One of my favourite Lenin quotes, which I can dig out if anyone is
interested, is where Lenin attacks people who have 'rote-learned slogans'
without ever learning the criteria for the slogans.  Unfortunately Trot
groups have totally mastered this rote-learning nonsense.  This means, in
effect, that their 'organising' simply consists, as Jose once so well put
it, of making the body flesh.  All questions have been answered, there is
'The Word', all that is needed is to recruit some numbers.

Like Jose, I wouldn't be too harsh on the 'catastrophism' of the early
Comintern.  It actually was a period of war and revolution and Marxist
ideas, in some form or another, were quite influential among large sections
of the working class.

This period was closed by a series of defeats in the 1920s and 1930s,
culminating in WW2.  The criteria for the slogans no longer existed.
However the Trotskyists continued to repeat the slogans.  I wouldn't say
this is an example of ultraleftism - in fact there were genuine
left-communists who had a much better understanding of the political
economy of the post-WW2 period (eg Paul Mattick) and a better understanding
of much of Marx's thought (eg Karl Korsch).  Instead it is better
understood by what Louis calls 'Zinovievist' norms which are a caricature
of Bolshevism and yet which were adopted wholesale by the Trotskyist
movement.

The Trot groups have been at least as guilty of opportunism and rightism as
they are of ultraleftism.  The disease takes both 'right' and 'left' forms,
including within the same organisation, at different points in time - and
even simultaneously.  An outfit like the Healyites was, at a formal level,
madly ultraleft and 'catastrophist', but much of its practice was quite
rightist.  Similarly, with the Barnesites, I would hardly call a grouplet
which has uncritically supported the ANC for 15 years, and now uncritically
supports the Republican Movement in Ireland, 'ultraleft'.  The Barnesites,
like the Healyites, are demented sectarians on one level, and right-wing
opportunists *at the very same time*.

Philip Ferguson