Re: [Marxism] If Marxism is a Science...

["Tony Lawless" <lifesunquietdream@xxxxxxx>]

Louis wrote against my suggestion that ISTers should rejoin the social
democracy:


"Yes, that is an inappropriate invitation. Social democracy is characterized
today by support for US imperialism's war on terror, while the ISO and the
SWP are on the front lines opposing it."


My reply has two aspects.

The first:

Gross simplification, Louis, I'm afraid; and if it were true, God help us!
How many people combined in these two groups?

The mass movement against the war is much bigger than this, and includes far
more people who would identify with the Labour Party and who almost
certainly have greater social and political weight, particularly in the
unions, to change the course of the social democracy which is right now
running the UK and spearheading the war than the two aforementioned groups.

The truth is, the majority of the working class have not broken with social
democracy yet.

Moreover, the fact that (as Einde points out) social democracy is more like
social liberalism today is not evidence that we are closer to revolution or
an argument that we are free to ignore its fortunes; it is evidence that we
are actually farther from it then ever; it is evidence that our task is that
much harder. (As Einde would not recognize, however, this is largely thanks
to the demise of the Soviet Union.)

Why did Lenin and Trotsky break with the social democracy and set up the
Communist International? Not just because of imperialist war, but because of
the existence of a country, the Soviet Union, where the social revolution
could act as a magnet to pull the workers away from the social democracy.

Everyone on this list (correct me if I am wrong) agrees that such a magnet
does not exist anymore.

So -- why the division between the Trotskyists and the social democratic
workers? As Mark said, the communists do not form a party separate from the
rest of the working class. The task of breaking the workers from social
democracy does not go away simply because we choose to ignore it.

The second:

The other reason I would suggest the ISTers should rejoin the social
democracy, however, is that, in my honest opinion, their analysis of the
Soviet Union demonstrates that they regressed to a sectarian social
democratic consciousness when they formulated the theory of state
capitalism. I argue this because there is not a word of disagreement that
the average right wing social democrat could have with Einde's analysis of
the end of East Germany's socialized economy:

"I find that many workers, perhaps even the vast majority - including the
unemployed - have a similar approach. I've met nobody except for a very few
members the former elite who would
prefer to go back to the old system - so much for a "workers' state"
rejected by the supposed ruling class!"

Einde's view is not that of Chris Harman, either in 1990 or in 1991. For
Einde, the demise of East Germany and the Soviet Union was a giant step
forward for the working class: as he suggests:

Even the unemployed! Even the unemployed don't want to go back!


Tony

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