[Marxism] Ronald Aronson considers Leon Trotsky

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

I want to draw comrades' attention to a long, serious but profoundly
wrong-headed review of the new edition of Isaac Deutscher's biography of
Leon Trotsky on the Nation Magazine website:
<http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050314&s=aronson>http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050314&s=aronson

It is written by Wayne University professor Ronald Aronson who has
committed himself to writing and lecturing about Marxism throughout his
academic career. Like many tenured radicals, Aronson started out as a 1960s
activist. You can find out about his past at:
<http://www.professionalrevolutionary.org/aronsonbio.htm>http://www.professionalrevolutionary.org/aronsonbio.htm.
His most recent work is "Camus and Sartre: The Story of a Friendship and
the Quarrel That Ended It," a book that appears much more charitable toward
Camus than I would be.

As an undergraduate in the 1960s, I had Camus's books jammed down my throat
by Heinrich Blucher at Bard College. Blucher was married to Hannah Arendt
and shared her libertarian, anti-Communist prejudices. I hadn't thought
much about Camus in recent years, but was reminded of how put off I had
become by some of his ideas after reading the late John Hess's evisceration
of the French existentialist in Monthly Review, one of his crowning
achievements. You can read this at:
<http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2004w05/msg00233.htm>http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2004w05/msg00233.htm
along with a NY Times article by Edward Rothstein on the topic "Camus and
the Neo-Cons: More in Common Than They Might Suspect."

Aronson's review starts off on a rueful note:

"It is impossible to read Deutscher's Trotsky biography today without being
struck by how remote these hopes now seem. The Soviet Union is gone, and
revolutionary projects aiming at human emancipation seem to have exhausted
themselves."

I would tell the good professor to take heart since Cuba is alive and well
and, as an added bonus, Hugo Chavez has just declared himself in favor of
socialism. I sometimes wonder why the USSR occupied such a large place in
the hearts and minds of the academic left, since it obviously was already
beyond hope when we were all young and gay. Is it possible that the USSR
plays the same role for these good people as Jane Austen novels play for
MLA members?

After making some very charitable comments about what a positive
inspiration Leon Trotsky was, Aronson rolls up his sleeves and begins
working over his subject. Getting down to brass tacks, Aronson writes that
"Trotsky's Marxism was of little use in negotiating the new situation
created by the Bolshevik Revolution." Why? Because:

>>Stalin sought power; Trotsky did not. In the void of backward Russia in
which the Bolsheviks ruled in the name of the workers but stood above all
social classes, the "base" of workers so trusted by Trotsky mattered less
than the "superstructure" of increasingly self-interested party officials
appointed by Stalin. The reality that sealed Trotsky's and the Soviet
Union's fate was not Marxist at all.<<

I am not exactly sure whether a reality, one way or another, can be
described as "Marxist" or not. Soviet history teaches us that a social
layer drawn from the party hierarchy, plant management, military officers,
etc. assumed power and ruled as a kind of intermediate layer between the
Russian working class, which had been decimated by civil war, and world
imperialism. If there is some other analytical tool that can describe the
logic of these events with more acuity than Marxism, then let's hear it.
What are we talking about? Foucault? Mike Albert and Robin Hahnel? The
Amherst neo-Althusserians? Aaah, no thanks.

Continuing along his rueful way, Aronson shakes his head in disappointment
over the foolishness of the Bolshevik leaders who thought that the Russian
revolution could unleash a world revolution. Didn't they know that such a
move was premature? Echoing Kautsky, without having the honesty to mention
his name, Aronson cites Engels, who supposedly warned that a leader coming
to power before the time is "ripe for the domination of the class which he
represents" is "irrevocably lost." This comes from "The Peasant War In
Germany," an 1850 work that examines the career of 16th century peasant
leader Thomas Muenzer. I would think that a more immediately relevant text
is Marx's 1881 letter to Zasulich, which argued that a peasant-led
revolution in backward Russia could lead to a generalized European
working-class uprising. Then, again, revolution is not like buying real
estate in Manhattan. A certain amount of risk is inevitable.

Aronson thinks that the prospect for revolution in Europe during the 1920s
was dim at best. "What, after all, were the grounds for thinking that the
Russian Revolution would trigger a European revolution that would support
the Soviet Union and transform the world? Hadn't French and German workers
marched off to war proudly and spent four years killing one another at the
behest of their rulers?"

With his busy schedule, I am not sure whether Aronson has delved into the
fascinating history of the German working-class of the 1920s, but the
preponderant evidence is that those four years of war turned them into
fierce opponents of the capitalist system. The Communist Party of Germany
had 350,000 members in 1921. That's a lot of revolutionary minded workers,
methinks. And the non-Communist workers were just as uppity. In the state
of Saxony a Socialist named Erich Zeigner headed the government. He was
friendly with the Communists and made common cause with them. He called for
expropriation of the capitalist class, arming of the workers and a
proletarian dictatorship. But maybe the Bolsheviks were doomed to failure
until the CP had recruited 700,000 members? Or, if Zeigner had not only
called for a proletarian dictatorship, but for the annexation of Germany to
the USSR as well? We don't want to go off half-cocked, do we?

(The German revolution failed not because the workers were not ready for
basic change, but because a revolutionary party had not been built. For
those still committed to Marxism, those tragic days are still worth studying.)

Aronson's review concludes with the observation that Marxism leads to a
single-party state and warnings against "the belief that radical acts of
will can transform the world without degenerating into brutality" and a
prudent reminder "that force cannot create a humane society." I would have
expected him to mention the need to wear rubbers in the rain.

I don't know. That sounds a lot like Camus to me. What people like Camus
and Aronson don't seem to understand is that revolutions are not made as a
matter of choice. They are events that are as inexorable as childbirth.
When such events are on the horizon, all that one can hope for is a good
midwife. That requires a strong stomach. For those with refined
sensibilities, it might make sense to choose another vocation than
revolutionary politics.


Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org


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