The Internationalist Group (Jan Norden) show their confusion between the “Role” and the “Nature” of Stalinism: Such revisionist arguments directly contradict Trotskyism. Trotsky repeatedly stressed the “dual position,” “dual function,” “dual role” and “dual character” of the Stalinist bureaucracy: ..In claiming that the Stalinists ledthe counterrevolution, the ICL in effect declared that the bureaucracy had lost its dual nature that it ceased to be a contradictory layer. If today the SL/ICL leadership takes a quarter-step backwards when their revision becomes too blatant, opining that some bureaucratic sectors may “balk at the consequences”of counterrevolution (in China but not in the DDR or USSR?!), they nonetheless oppose seeking to split the bureaucracy in the course of a workers’political revolution [1] Dave Bruce’s document, Trotsky and the Materialist Analysis of Stalinism fully explains this error: It cannot be over-stressed that, in spite of widespread claims to the contrary, Trotsky never referred to the ‘dual nature’ of the workers’ state, the bureaucracy or anything else. As a complex of institutions comprising millions of people, it would be absurd to talk of a ‘dual nature’ of a bureaucracy. On the contrary, in The Transitional Programme, he had written: “. . . from genuine Bolshevism (Ignace Reiss) to complete fascism (F. Butenko). The revolutionary elements within the bureaucracy, only a small minority, reflect, passively it is true, the socialist interests of the proletariat. The fascist, counter-revolutionary elements, growing uninterruptedly, express with even greater consistency the interests of world imperialism . . . Between these two poles, there are intermediate, diffused Menshevik-S.R.-liberal tendencies which gravitate toward bourgeois democracy.” What he did write about was the dual role, the dual function of the workers’ state and the bureaucracy, more or less interchangeably. And that was no accident: the bureaucracy had usurped the state, leaving the working class no role or function within it. The Marxist conception of the workers’ state assigned the role of defence of the state and of control of its bureaucracy to the working class, organised in Soviets. The capacity of the class to perform this role had been portended by the short-lived Paris Commune of 1871 and, to a degree, proved by the early experience of post-revolutionary Russia. However, under the appallingly difficult conditions of the first, backward and isolated workers’ state, the working class surrendered the role. By the mid-1920s, if Trotsky is to be believed, the Thermidorian reaction had occurred and the bureaucracy had become the state. [2] This confusion has clear implications today for assessing the likely trajectory of the left Stalinist leadership of the Numsa split from the ANC and SACP today. Trotsky is clear on the role of Stalinism and he certainly does not think like the Spart family that because they are obliged to do certain progressive things in defence of their privileges that this means that they are counter revolutionary most of the time but revolutionary on some occasions, as Pablo thought. Here Trotsky spells it out in October 1939: “A Counter-Revolutionary Workers’State” Some voices cry out: “If we continue to recognize the USSR as a workers’ state, we will have to establish a new category: the counter-revolutionary workers’ state.” This argument attempts to shock our imagination by opposing a good programmatic norm to a miserable, mean, even repugnant reality. But haven’t we observed from day to day since 1923 how the Soviet state has played a more and more counter-revolutionary role on the international arena? Have we forgotten the experience of the Chinese Revolution, of the 1926 general strike in England and finally the very fresh experience of the Spanish Revolution? There are two completely counter-revolutionary workers’ internationals. (our emphasis – SF). These critics have apparently forgotten this “category.” The trade unions of France, Great Britain, the United States and other countries support completely the counterrevolutionary politics of their bourgeoisie. This does not prevent us from labelling them trade unions, from supporting their progressive steps and from defending them against the bourgeoisie. Why is it impossible to employ the same method with the counter-revolutionary workers’ state? In the last analysis a workers’ state is a trade union which has conquered power. The difference in attitude in these two cases is explainable by the simple fact that the trade unions have a long history and we have become accustomed to consider them as realities and not simply as “categories” in our program. But, as regards the workers’ state there is being evinced an inability to learn to approach it as a real historical fact which has not subordinated itself to our program. [3] [1]ICL Still Caught Between Shachtman and Trotsky,internationalist.org/iclcaught0301.html [2]Trotsky and the Materialist Analysis of Stalinism [3] Trotsky, Again and Once More Again on the Nature of the USSR. revolutionaryhistory.co.uk/…/again-and-once-more…
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 09:36:42 +0000
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