Re: Argument for a 5th International

[Dayne Goodwin <dayneg@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sure, I'm in favor of a bigger, better, revolutionary, Marxist
international.  I wouldn't fight about whether we end up calling it the
fourth or fifth international, or something else.  I hope those engaged in
building revolutionary internationals now will be among the builders of a
bigger, better, revolutionary workers international.

        I think revolutionaries coming from different political
backgrounds could work together without necessarily agreeing, or by
agreeing to disagree, about past differences among their different
political currents.  I wouldn't fight for an organization that requires
political agreement about the past as a condition for membership.  I will
fight for what I consider to be fundamental revolutionary socialist,
Marxist political principles, i.e. that socialism means workers democracy
and the withering away of the state.

        I think a bigger, better, revolutionary, Marxist international
will in fact be built partially by learning from the experiences of past
workers movements and revolutionary struggles.  When we discuss history, I
will work to gain a better understanding, a better grasp of history for
myself and others. I am not in favor of Adam Levenstein's method which
appears to be revising history through diplomatic compromise with
Stalinist mythology and lies.

AL:  "What Trotsky failed to address in his long, ultimately terminal
power struggle with Stalin, was what he, if placed in Stalin's shoes,
would have done that would that would have altered the objective
conditions . . .

DG:  Trotsky explained that "Socialism in One Country" was utopian.
Trotsky argued for building a revolutionary, Marxist international that
organized workers to overthrow the capitalist class instead of Stalin's
general policy of leading(by any means including murder) revolutionary
workers outside the Soviet Union to support the capitalist class in their
nations - leading to defeat after defeat for revolutionary workers
movements, in China in the 1920s, in Spain in the 1930s, etc. The
exceptions to this general policy came when the Soviet army could fasten
Stalinist dictatorship on occupied territory or when Stalin temporarily
lurched in an ultraleft direction in the self-interest of the bureaucracy,
not in the interest of workers and socialist revolution.
        Trotsky argued for carrying out reasonable domestic policies, i.e.
Lenin's New Economic Policy, which intended gradually increased taxation
of prosperous farmers, and government encouragement of voluntary
collectivization.  It was Stalin who allied with conservative elements and
prosperous farmers for factional support against the Leninist left
opposition, encouraging kulaks to get rich until they were becoming a
threat to his regime(and until the left had been purged). Then Stalin
smashed the kulaks and the right with forced collectivization and murder,
seriously damaging Soviet agriculture.
        The ultraleft political line that Stalin used to justify forced
collectivization was also used to divide and politically weaken the
working class - in contradiction to Trotsky's call for working class unity
to defeat fascism.  Stalin actually wheeled and dealed and collaborated
with the Nazis while falsely accusing Trotsky of being part of a Nazi
conspiracy against the Soviet Union.  Stalin got rid of the inconvenient
Polish Communist Party in order to divide Poland into Nazi and Soviet
occupation zones in 1939.
        After Lenin died, Trotsky tried to democratically discuss and
debate Communist Party policies.  Stalin purged, imprisoned and murdered
even potential political opponents, not just the Bolshevik leadership of
1917, but even a large majority of the Central Committee elected at the
17th CPSU Congress in 1934.

AL:  . . . Thus the 'great man of history' perspective, so infamously
cited against Bolshevism, was adopted by Trotsky to some extent.
        My point being - the 4th International was created, at least in
part, by Trotsky to challenge Stalin's leadership.  . . .
        I say: the dispute between Trotsky and Stalin is a dead
issue-THEREFORE the 4th international, an instrument OF that leadership
struggle, is also dead.
        The next international, if it must have a figurehead, should have
a LIVING figurehead.

DG:  Stalin was engaged in a personal struggle against Trotsky.  Trotsky
was engaged in a political struggle against Stalin's counterrevolutionary
policies.
        Stalin succeeded in getting Trotsky murdered.  Did Trotsky try to
organize assassins to attack Stalin?
        We don't need figureheads, living or dead.  We need activists and
leaders who understand the difference between a Marxist, revolutionary
socialist perspective which focuses politically on empowering the working
class and reformist, ultraleft and Stalinist(alternating between reformism
and ultraleftism) perspectives which focus politically on the ruling
strata.  It is Adam Levenstein now, not Trotsky in the past, who is
dealing in personalistic, 'great man of history' theories and
perspectives.
        Trotsky is not responsible for whatever fanaticism or foolishness
may exist among people claiming to be his followers today.  Trotsky fought
for Marxist, revolutionary socialist politics against Stalin's pragmatic
pastiche of "Marxism-Leninism."  It was the Stalinists who initiated and
used the label Trotskyite as an epithet.

AL:  . . . the very real progress made on behalf of socialism by Stalin .
. .

DG:  Stalin wasn't engaged in building socialism.  Stalin was engaged in
building a personal dictatorship based on transforming the Communist Party
into a privileged bureaucracy that ruled over and oppressed the working
class.  After Lenin's death, Stalin personally mainly damaged the cause of
socialism.
        Adam Levenstein has overlooked one of Trotsky's "brilliant
contributions" - an analysis of the petit-bourgeois nature of the
Stalinist ruling elite and a diagnosis that their government could not
endure. Either the CP bureaucracy would lead a restoration of capitalism
or the workers would overthrow the CP bureaucracy and resume a
revolutionary course toward socialism.
        Dayne Goodwin
        - - - - - - - -

On Fri, 26 Jan 2001,
> [ bounced from unsubbed Barry Stoller <bstoller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> ]
>
>
> Adam Levenstein: Nearly every Trotskyist group out there wants to
> rebuild, reform, or somehow start the Fourth International up again. Yet
> the sad, simple fact is - the Fourth International was an unquestionable
> failure.
>
> Roger Blackwell: Why would a Fifth International be any better?
>
> 'In the question of the social character of the U.S.S.R., mistakes
> commonly flow... from replacing the historical fact with the
> programmatic norm. Concrete fact departs from the norm... The
> contradiction between the concrete fact and the norm constrains us not
> to reject the norm but, on the contrary, to fight for it by means of the
> revolutionary road...' (Trotsky, In Defense of Marxism, New Park 1971,
> p. 3).
>
> It must be soberly conceded that Trotsky's 'programmatic norm' in the
> statement above refers to nothing more than his CONCEPTION of what
> socialism, particularly socialism under duress, SHOULD be. There is an
> element of nihilist utopianism even in his hard-knuckled (and tactically
> sound) argument for defending the gains of actually existing socialism,
> 'deformed' socialism as he called it.
>
> Explaining the 'degeneration' of the worker's revolution, he famously
> wrote: 'The basis of bureaucratic rule is the poverty of society in
> objects of consumption, with the resulting struggle of each against all.
> When there is enough goods in a store, the purchasers can come whenever
> they want to. When there is little goods, the purchasers are compelled
> to stand in line. When the lines are very long, it is necessary to
> appoint a policeman to keep order. Such is the starting point of the
> power of the Soviet bureaucracy' (The Revolution Betrayed, Doubleday,
> Dorin & Co. 1937, p. 112).
>
> What Trotsky failed to address in his long, ultimately terminal power
> struggle with Stalin, was what he, if placed in Stalin's shoes, would
> have done that would have altered the objective conditions that led to
> 'the poverty of society in objects of consumption, with the resulting
> struggle of each against all.' Thus the 'great man of history'
> perspective, so infamously cited against Bolshevism, was adopted by
> Trotsky to some extent.
>
> My point being...
>
> The 4th International was created, at least in part, by Trotsky to
> challenge Stalin's leadership. Yet---whether or not Trotsky, given the
> power enjoyed by Stalin, COULD have done 'better' than Stalin is a
> question that contradicts the core of historical materialism. Case in
> point: the creation of the Soviet bloc after World War Two would have at
> least met some of Trotsky's grandest internationalist ambitions. I say:
> the dispute for leadership between Trotsky and Stalin is a dead
> issue---THEREFORE the 4th International, an instrument OF that
> leadership struggle, is also dead.*
>
> The next international, if it must have a figurehead, should have a
> LIVING figurehead.
>
> ................................................
> * This opinion in no way repudiates the many brilliant contributions to
> Marxist science made by Trotsky (combined & uneven development,
> permanent revolution, unconditional defense, united front) NOR does it
> attempt to discredit the very real progress made on behalf of socialism
> by Stalin (industrialization, defeat of Nazism, development of atomic
> technology) and even those who initially followed him (political
> liberalization, deconcentration of authority, military parity with NATO)
> under the worst possible conditions. I see them all, and all their
> differences, as HISTORICAL exigencies reified.
>