Thanks for your reply, Tony
1.Concerning the PMP: yes, the Cannon leadership made mistakes during
WWII but nevertheless they defended the USSR against Nazi-Germany (in
contrast to the Shachtmanites) and refused to support any imperialist
camp. In any case, the centre of the Fourth International was in Europe
and here the Trotskyists made less mistakes (including in Britain where
the PMP was also implemented).
2.I don’t think one should separate ideas from humans creating such
ideas. One is related to the other. (A basic idea of materialism.)
Hence, separating Draper and his world view from specific positions of
him would be wrong and idealistic. Identifying his respectively that of
Shachtman ’s WP capitulation to Zionism and their adaption to
imperialism which took place already before his critique of Lenin is
necessary to put such critique into a broader context. I just want to
point out that such adaption to imperialism makes him hardly qualified
to understand Lenin’s program of defeatism. Surely, you would agree that
a man adapting to sexist prejudices is hardly qualified to elaborate a
program for women’s liberation.
3.Now on Draper’s specific critique. His basic confusion (and it seems
to me that you share it) is the following. You write: “/Lenin used the
phrase in two registers: (a) the symmetrical slogan, in which every
socialist works for the defeat of his own government, making the policy
uniform across all belligerents with no comparative judgment implied;
and (b) the Russia-specific claim that Tsarist defeat would be the
lesser evil for Russia, a substantive comparative judgment about a
particular state. A German socialist and a British socialist can both
advocate the defeat of their own governments without either claiming
that the other state is the “lesser evil.”/”
But the meaning of Lenin’s slogan was that for Russian socialists the
defeat of Russia is the lesser evil, for German socialists the defeat of
Germany is the lesser evil, and so on. The quotes which I have shown in
my pamphlet confirm this. The formulation (b) – to use your designation
in the quote above – is always presented not as an international slogan
but as how the international defeatist slogan should be applied to Russia.
Look at the formulation in the famous Seven Theses – the very first
document of Lenin which he elaborated in August 1914 when he was
expelled from Austria-Hungary and went to Switzerland. He wrote: “/From
the viewpoint of the working class and the toiling masses of all the
peoples of Russia, the defeat of the tsarist monarchy and its army,
which oppress Poland, the Ukraine, and many other peoples of Russia, and
foment hatred among the peoples so as to increase Great-Russian
oppression of the other nationalities, and consolidate the reactionary
and barbarous government of the tsar’s monarchy, would be the lesser
evil by far./” (LCW Vol. 21, p. 18) And in the Manifesto published on 1
November, he wrote: “/In the present situation, it is impossible to
determine, from the standpoint of the international proletariat, the
defeat of which of the two groups of belligerent nations would be the
lesser evil for socialism. But to us Russian Social-Democrats there
cannot be the slightest doubt that, from the standpoint of the working
class and of the toiling masses of all the nations of Russia, the defeat
of the tsarist monarchy, the most reactionary and barbarous of
governments, which is oppressing the largest number of nations and the
greatest mass of the population of Europe and Asia, would be the lesser
evil./” (LCW Vol. 21, pp. 32-33)
My argument is also confirmed by the following resolution of the
Bolshevik’s conference in Berne in February / March 1915:
“/THE DEFEAT OF THE TSARIST MONARCHY/
/In each country, the struggle against a government that is waging an
imperialist war should not falter at the possibility of that country’s
defeat as a result of revolutionary propaganda. The defeat of the
government’s army weakens the government, promotes the liberation of the
nationalities it oppresses, and facilitates civil war against the ruling
classes./
/This holds particularly true in respect of Russia. A victory for Russia
will bring in its train a strengthening of reaction, both throughout the
world and within the country, and will be accompanied by the complete
enslavement of the peoples living in areas already seized. In view of
this, we consider the defeat of Russia the lesser evil in all
conditions./” (LCW Vol. 21, p. 163)
So, the formulation is never that Russia’s defeat is the lesser evil for
socialists worldwide but only for Russian socialists. In the end, at
that time, the Bolsheviks were a Russian party and had a focus on
tactics in Russia.
4.Finally, on the issue of “campism”. You write: “/On campism and
political support (point 8): you take my position as a denial of the
distinction between imperialist and semicolonial states. That is not my
position. The third-camp position makes the distinction perfectly
well./” First, I have to say that as far as I know comrades coming from
the Shachtmanite or Cliffite tradition usually avoid using the category
“semi-colony”. But I don’t want to claim that I know all works from the
“Third Camp”.
In any case, what is the consequence for you from accepting the
distinction between imperialist and semicolonial states? Do you support
the latter against the former? No, you don’t. So, it is a distinction
which has no consequences for you.
I certainly do not deny that you are fully opposed to imperialism.
However, my argument is that you want to fight imperialism without
supporting those non-imperialist forces which actually fight against
this or that Great Power. Your anti-imperialism is therefore, in my
view, an abstract, platonic anti-imperialism.
Such an approach is alien to the whole Marxist tradition – starting from
Marx and Engels to Lenin and Trotsky. They always supported specific
(petty-)bourgeois forces and states fighting against this or that Great
Powers. In the pre-imperialist epoch, Marx and Engels supported the
Ottoman Empire (and even England) against Russia, the “backward catholic
insurgents in Poland and Ireland and Russia respectively Britain,
Austria-Habsburg against Prussia, the North against the South in the
American Civil War (Marx even wrote a letter of congratulations to the
bourgeois President Abraham Lincoln!), etc. Lenin and Trotsky supported
the bourgeois Turkish state in its war of independence against Britain
and Greece, China against Japan, Ethiopia against Italy, etc.
Your approach not to support any (semi-)colonial state against an
imperialist power or not to support any (petty-)bourgeois rebel army
against an imperialist occupier leads you to abstain from all the
concrete struggles against imperialist powers. It is a kind of
“anti-imperialism” which guarantees that in the past 50 years you (resp.
those who share your approach) never had to support any concrete
anti-imperialist struggle! Or am I wrong? Did you support any concrete
struggle against any imperialist power in the past decades? Or do you
wait for an abstract working class to take action and until this happens
you refuse to support any anti-imperialist struggle?
In solidarity,
Michael
Am 28.06.2026 um 18:22 schrieb Anthony Teso via groups.io:
Thanks for the prompt reply, Michael.
I have a couple of clarifications, since I think several of your
rebuttals address arguments I was not making. The central issue, as I
see it, is whether “defeat is the lesser evil” can be both a
universal, symmetrical slogan and a comparative ranking of powers. As
a universal slogan, it means that socialists in every imperialist
country oppose their own ruling class and its war effort; as a
comparative judgment, it means that one state’s defeat is objectively
preferable to another outcome. Those are different claims, and I do
not think the response acknowledges the shift between them. So the
burden is to show how the same phrase can function in both ways
without sliding from revolutionary defeatism into political support
for another state.
PMP and conscription
On the PMP and conscription (item 5): I did not say you opposed the
Proletarian Military Policy. My point was more specific: your
concession regarding conscription (point 4) does not align with the
PMP’s logic. The whole gambit of the PMP was to meet workers within
the bourgeois military machinery and fight for proletarian control of
military training, not to prefer one recruitment mechanism because it
provides better agitational access.
If the question is “which staffing model is easier to organize
inside?” that is a tactical-opportunity argument, not the PMP’s
strategic argument. I am glad we agree that our tradition supports the
PMP; my point is simply that your argument about conscription does not
actually rest on it. Your own caveat about Cannon succumbing to social
patriotism in WWII highlights the danger identified by the third-camp
critique: isolating that “mistake” from the policy is more difficult
than you would like.
Draper and the genetic fallacy
On Draper and the genetic fallacy (point 6): I think this argument
comes close to a textbook genetic fallacy. The implication seems to be
that because Draper (or the Shachtmanites) held positions you condemn
in 1948, his 1953–54 textual analysis of Lenin must be wrong. But the
validity of a reading of Lenin’s 1914–1917 writings is determined by
the texts, not by the author’s later voting record.
Reading Lenin settles whether Draper correctly identified an
equivocation in Lenin, regardless of Shachtman’s record on Palestine
or defensiveness. The textual claim still needs to be answered on its
terms; otherwise, the issue shifts from the argument to the author’s
biography. That risks doing what the pamphlet often does: turning a
textual disagreement into a loyalty test.
The two uses of Lenin
On the substance—the two uses of Lenin (point 7): this is the real
disagreement, and I think your response inadvertently confirms it. I
take your point about preserving the anti-imperialist core of Lenin’s
position; my concern is that the formulation does more than that. You
make two claims that are in tension: first, that Lenin’s defeatism was
aimed from the beginning against all imperialist powers (Manifesto of
1914); and second, that “the lesser evil” is not an objective
international judgment as to which power is more dangerous but a
“political statement of intransigent opposition against every
imperialist power.”
If the second claim is correct, then “defeat is the lesser evil”
cannot mean what it literally says—because “lesser” is comparative. No
comparison between the powers is being made. That is Draper’s point
exactly. Lenin used the phrase in two registers: (a) the symmetrical
slogan, in which every socialist works for the defeat of his own
government, making the policy uniform across all belligerents with no
comparative judgment implied; and (b) the Russia-specific claim that
Tsarist defeat would be the lesser evil for Russia, a substantive
comparative judgment about a particular state. A German socialist and
a British socialist can both advocate the defeat of their own
governments without either claiming that the other state is the
“lesser evil.”
You may hold (a), but then “lesser evil” does no work and should be
dropped as misleading. You can keep (b), but then it is a special case
about Russia, not a general law. Your paragraph says both, and the
equivocation between the two is precisely what is in dispute. Quoting
the 1914 Manifesto establishes (a); it does nothing to rescue the
comparative language of (b), and it certainly does not license
extending (b) into a general method of ranking imperialisms today.
Campism and political support
On campism and political support (point 8): you take my position as a
denial of the distinction between imperialist and semicolonial states.
That is not my position. The third-camp position makes the distinction
perfectly well; it simply denies that the distinction creates a duty
of political support for the bourgeois or sub-imperialist regime doing
the fighting. My objection is not to opposing imperialism, but to
turning that opposition into political support for another state.
“Anti-imperialist united front” tactics against an occupation are one
thing; political support to the Iranian state, or to the war aims of a
clerical-bourgeois regime, is another.
Your formulation, as I read it, collapses the two: it derives “support
its enemy’s state” from “the US is the greater power.” That is the
move I am objecting to—the substitution of a comparative ranking of
states for an independent class line. Once “lesser evil” becomes a
ranking of states, it becomes easy to move from opposing one’s own
ruling class to granting political support to its opponent. Which
brings us back to point 7: the slide from “lesser evil for Russia,
1917” to “support the lesser imperialism / the semi-colonial
belligerent today” is the same equivocation, now doing geopolitical work.
My last paragraph—“we do not support any state fighting against
ours”—is not a refusal to oppose occupation; it is a refusal to
translate opposition to our own ruling class into support for another
ruling class.
Conclusion
So the argument is not whether to oppose German rearmament or Japanese
rearmament (we agree) or whether you formally endorse the PMP (you
do). It is whether “defeat is the lesser evil” can be both a
universal, symmetrical slogan and a comparative ranking of powers
simultaneously. I think that equivocation runs through the response:
it appears in the appeal to the PMP, in the treatment of Draper, in
the two registers of Lenin, and finally in the move from opposing
one’s own ruling class to politically supporting another state. That
is the point; I still do not think the response addresses the question.
In solidarity, Tony
--
Tony
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