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Hello folks, So I sent an email to Louis about this, but thought it was worth introducing myself. I'm a 20-year-old student from Britain who is currently a member of the Grantite IMT led by Alan Woods, and the British section known as Socialist Appeal. We have a membership of just over 400 people and at my university myself and the comrades run the 'Marxist Society'. Over the past month and a half I have had a crisis of faith which has led me to abandon Trotskyism entirely. It all began as an investigation into the facts of the Kronstadt rebellion. It is clear that Trotsky's explanation is complete bullshit, and that the rebel sailors were not counter-revolutionaries at all. They were murdered in cold blood for defending the genuine ideas of October. Our organisation promotes Trotsky's false narrative. Falsehood of any kind makes me incredibly angry. Being forced to defend these lies in the name of 'democratic centralism' makes me even more angry. But it didn't stop there. I began reading more about the USSR's degeneration and am no longer convinced that it was entirely down to 'objective factors'. I think we have to concede that the Bolsheviks made some bad decisions which did not help matters at all and did pave the way for Stalin. I admire Lenin and Trotsky but if we are genuine Marxists we must be honest and objective and accept that they made mistakes which made possible the monstrous totalitarian nightmare that came after them. This does not mean rejecting Bolshevism entirely, but critiquing it and learning from it. Blind idolatry and worship of these figures is preposterous. That is not a Marxist or a scientific approach to history, yet so-called Marxists will defend their heroes to the death, even abusing dialectics to do so. However, if we take a dialectical approach to the question of the USSR, we must accept the interplay of subjective and objective factors. To praise Lenin and Trotsky for all the good things and blame all the bad things on the 'objective' situation is hypocritical formalism. It also manages to zig-zag between 'Great Man' history, which is idealist, and crude materialism, both of which are equally anti-Marxist. I also stumbled across Louis' blog around the same time and have been convinced by his withering critiques of 'Leninism' and 'democratic centralism', which has produced nothing but sects and cults. The IMT is no exception to this. Trapped in an echo-chamber, I was a true believer who thought only our organisation could lead the working-class to socialism. Little did I know that so many groups have tried the exact same thing and failed, not because they didn't have the 'correct' leaders but because the whole model is inherently flawed and based on Zinovievist methods of organisation. I went to the trouble of openly expressing my heresy with a couple of leading comrades - both the branch secretary who runs the society and the full-timer for our region. Both went into panic mode. After a failed attempt by the branch secretary to talk me out of my heresy I was dissuaded from raising these issues in branch because the new recruits had a 'low political level' (i.e. were stupid) and could easily be swayed by my heretical ideas. The full-timer gave me a call in which he brought out the whole gamut of 'from a scratch to gangrene' nonsense about how I was in danger of losing my soul to liberal hellfire unless I returned to the path of true Bolshevism and stopped reading the 'wrong' people about what happened in the Russian Revolution. I considered this bullshit, but I shouldn't be surprised. After all, he is paid to spout the party line and police comrades like some Grand Inquisitor for any sign of dissent. A day after this phone call I had a reading group with the full-timer, the branch secretary and another comrade on a book written by Ted Grant and Alan Woods called 'Russia: From Revolution to Counter-Revolution'. We covered the introduction and first chapter. I pointed out some inaccuracies and problems with our narrative about the revolution's degeneration, and easily rebutted many of the frankly weak and tired cliches they kept putting forward. I even brought up stuff they had no knowledge of. So ignorant were they that they hadn't even read that Trotsky set a date for the German revolution in 1923, or that he made a 'rotten compromise' with Stalin around the time of Lenin's illness and death. The next day I had the full-timer message me on Facebook accusing me of 'lowering the political level' (i.e. not bowing down to the all-knowing full-timer trying to impose the correct 'line') and other nonsense. Pointing out factual inaccuracies in a book written by the organisation's founders, it turns out, is even more heretical than criticising Trotsky. I have since been told to write up a document of my disagreements to be circulated internally as part of a 'democratic debate'. I'm not stupid and know it will be a waste of time. My thinking was to go along with it, and if I can convince at least a few people that our entire narrative is bullshit, it's worthwhile, but now I don't know. Maybe I should just resign and give up on this cult. Nevertheless, my eyes have been opened. The organisation really is toxic. Our internal life is nothing like that of the Bolsheviks pre-1917. We do not encourage dissent, debate, disagreement. We encourage conformity with the 'line' and unthinking obedience. Alan Woods and co are making all the errors they rightly accused the Taaffeites of making. We are building a cult of Trotsky and Ted Grant. It is sickening, really. It is, quite frankly, Stalinism. Why the hell does my disagreement on the issue of the USSR and the Comintern have to be a pretext for me being hounded out as a heretic? Why do we have to parrot the same line on what happened 100 years ago? What healthy organisation imposes such an intellectual straitjacket on its members? The Labour Party does not insist that all its members defend a 'line' on whether Tony Blair was a good PM or not. It is insanity. And yet this is our organisation, complete with its 'centre', its self-selecting CC voted in by slate, its know-it-all full-timers, its 'correct' line on everything. It is soft totalitarianism. Imagine if these people ever enjoyed state power. I am quite honestly heartbroken. I have no social circle outside the organisation. I have met so many people I consider good friends over the past two years. I still have great respect for Alan Woods as a theoretician. I face leaving them all behind. I have spent so much time, money and energy helping build the organisation. Even now, I feel some loyalty to it. My Facebook feed is an echo-chamber of comrades from across the world. I am tempted to post my statement of resignation, but I am partly terrified at the response I will get. I am fairly well-known in the organisation, both by comrades in Britain and foreign comrades I happen to be Facebook friends with and see my posts on a regular basis. I have contemplated deleting my social media entirely so as to relieve myself of this stress. In any case, principles are more important than friendship. I am so disoriented and devastated right now, but also relieved that I am on the verge of freeing myself from mental servitude. At least it's only been two years. _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
