Louis Proyect's article "Thoughts triggered by the 80th anniversary of Leon Trotsky's assassination" (https://louisproyect.org/2020/08/24/thoughts-triggered-by-the-80th-anniversary-of -leon-trotskys-assassination/) raises a number of important issues about Trotsky's political errors. I think these issue deserve consideration, although I think that the article places them in too narrow a context.
The article notes that the Trotskyist movement expected that World War II would give to socialist revolution or utter catastrophe. It says that "This analysis of the world situation was strongly influenced by Trotsky's conceptions from the start of the second world war which were of a 'catastrophist nature'". Well, to be precise, Trotsky directly declared this in May 1940. (1) Proyect calls this "catastrophism", which is perhaps an unfortunate choice of terms, given that Trotsky's fantasy predictions were wrong, but catastrophes have occurred repeatedly in the last century, and we face more in the coming years. More on this in a moment. In the latter part of the article, it makes the important point that "The 'catastrophism' of the Trotskyist movement is built into the manifesto that created it, the Transitional Program." This is certainly true, and for example the Transitional Program even declared that we had entered the "transitional epoch". However, the article then says that "This is the political legacy of Trotsky's uncritical acceptance of the perfect wisdom of the early Comintern. How could it be otherwise, since at that time Trotsky was one of the key leaders." This ignores the fact that Trotsky's transitional program was a continuation of the line of thinking he had been developing since the 1905 revolution, such as in the book "Results and Prospects" (1906). So "catastrophism" had a far deeper origin in Trotsky's thoughts than the early days of the CI. That's why Trotsky kept it no matter what the CI was thinking. The article says that it was Pierre Frank's view that if world socialist revolution wasn't imminent, "the Trotskyist movement would have to attune its work to these new conditions--conditions for awhile of slow painful growth, propaganda, election campaigns, etc. etc." This jumbles several different issues together. "Catastrophism" underrated the need for party-building, replacing it with the idea that if one just captured the leadership of the working class, perhaps through entryism, then the Trotskyist leadership would emerge at the head of the revolution. But at the same time, the objective situation after World War II wasn't simply gradual development. There were major upheavals, revolutions, anti-colonial wars, the threat of total nuclear annihilation, etc. This is one of the reasons why the term "catastrophism" isn't that good. Even if world revolution isn't imminent, it doesn't mean that major upheavals and "catastrophes" aren't taking place. Socialist organization has to deal with these catastrophes. The article concludes by denouncing "the organizational legacy of the Trotskyist movement", which it characterizes as "Zinoviev's schematic 'Marxist-Leninist' model." Indeed, it's important to deal with Trotsky's cult of pure administration, and his reduction of party-building to mainly a rigid centralism. A good deal of information about how the Fourth International ran under Trotsky is contained in a book by the veteran Trotskyist Georges Vereeken, "The GPU in the Trotskyist Movement". Vereeken gives a number of examples of the extreme sectarianism Trotsky directed at his associates. He does try to water this down a bit by saying that some of the worst episodes were due to the GPU infiltrating a number of agents into the leadership of the Forth International, such as Mark "Etienne" Zborowsky. But on the other hand, he says that it is "the sectarian and sterile methods of discussion" which "opened the door wide to the Zborowskis and their like" (2) And he writes that "Trotsky bears a share of the responsibility for the caricature of democratic centralism practised at the present time by a number of Trotskyist factions and for the sectarianism and the factional methods of struggle which in certain cases must be condemned from the standpoint of proletarian morality." (3) One of the particularly shocking episodes is how Trotsky treated POUM in Spain, where he worked to undermine it given that he disagreed with some of its tactics. And he bittered denounced Victor Serge and various others for maintaining friendly relations with POUM. But the problem isn't Zinovievism, but Trotsky's lack of a Marxist idea of what party-building is. He manifested a certain non-partyism from before his association with Zinoviev. It is this non-partyism that went along with later seeing the party or the Fourth International mainly from the point of strict centralism. I made a study of Trotsky's view on the party. In 2004 I wrote "It may seem strange to talk about Trotsky's non-partyism. He was a leader of the Russian Communist Party, and later founded the 'Fourth International' of Trotskyist parties. He talked about the need for the 'revolutionary leadership' of the working class. But when one examines his activity, it turns out that he had little to say about the process of party-building. He saw the party as a tool he could use to accomplish this or that aim, and he would fight for the leadership of existing parties, but he didn't care much about the process of building up the party. Moreover, he championed a series of views that denigrated the importance of the party, presenting it as a force supposedly holding back the self-activity and initiative of the revolutionary masses." (4) The result of this non-partyism is felt to this day. In my view, "overall, Trotsky as leader of the Fourth International didn't pay serious attention to building up durable organization, but reduced matters to centralism alone, and he created a repulsive form of centralism. From an organizational point of view, the world Trotskyist movement of that time, and since then, has displayed two contrasting aspects. The many splits--along with the theorizing on factionalism that will be mentioned in a moment--gave rise to a loose splintered movement, while the official movement around Trotsky, and some of the subsequent Trotskyist organizations, were rigidly and bureaucratically centralized. This was not party-building, but a caricature of it." (5) Notes: (1)See the section "Either Socialism or Slavery" of the "Manifesto of the Fourth International on the Imperialist War and the Proletarian World Revolution", May 1940, in "Writings of Leon Trotsky (1939-1940)", Pathfinder Press). (2) Vereeken (1896-1978), "The GPU in the Troskyist Movement", ch. 21, "Truth is revolutionary", p. 375. (3) Ibid., p. 371. (4) "The International Left Opposition and the Fourth International" in "An Outline of Trotsky's Anti-Marxist Ideas", part 3, http://www.communistvoice.org/34cTrotsky.html. (5) Ibid. <> -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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