IMLR: Comrade, Trotsky’s ‘Third International After Lenin’ has a central status in Trotskyism. Why is this so, in your opinion?

TC: I think this is because it is the founding document of Trotskyism, or at least lays the basis for a founding document. It brings together and encapsulates all of Trotsky’s previous opposition to the Stalin leadership through a criticism of the draft programme proposed for the Comintern in 1928.

IMLR: In his criticism, which is subtitled ‘a criticism of fundamentals’, Trotsky sets himself the task of exposing the shortcomings of the 1928 draft. To what extent did Trotsky achieve his purpose?

TC: Well, if you are a Trotskyist, you would automatically say that Trotsky achieved his purpose, but, of course, from the standpoint of Marxism-Leninism such a view could not hold water. To even begin to answer your question a great deal of background information on Trotskyism is required, which I will attempt to give here in summary form, so you will have to bear with me for a while. Those people who support Trotskyism do so because they regard it as possessing an explanatory power, which in fact is reinforced by the ascendancy of right-wing revisionism in the international communist movement. Invariably you will find that such individuals have an undeveloped understanding of Marxism-Leninism and therefore they accept Trotskyism quite uncritically. Trotskyism is an integral ideology which confuses theory with perspectives, beginning with a particular version of the theory of permanent revolution, through to lack of understanding of Lenin’s theory that the weakest links in the chain of imperialism will tend to break first, thus precipitating revolutions in the more undeveloped countries and, as a consequence of uneven development creating the possibility of socialism starting in several or one country, as part of the world revolutionary process. Finally, Trotskyism arrives at an ultra-left position regarding the struggle against bureaucracy in the Soviet Union and ended up confusing Leninist peaceful coexistence with opportunist peaceful coexistence. When Marxist-Leninists criticise Trotskyism they are not attacking sincere people who want to oppose the injustices of capitalism, but rather those who have misled them into taking an incorrect view. These leaders have themselves been misled by their leader, whose name happened to have been Trotsky. Consequently, a criticism of Trotskyism is primarily a criticism of Trotsky. This criticism does not begin with Stalin; it begins with Lenin. It was Lenin who began the criticism of Trotskyism, but of course, we all know this.

This criticism is based on the following premises: firstly, rejection of Trotsky’s version of the theory of permanent revolution in which there is an ‘abstract’ transition from the democratic to the socialist revolution, without taking into consideration concrete factors which made such a transition possible in the case of Russia, while, at the same time having an incorrect view of the role of the peasantry in both stages of the revolution. Secondly, Trotsky’s opposition to building socialism in one country as part of the world revolutionary process, plus the conscious falsification of the origins of this conception, attributing it to Stalin, while every student of Lenin’s writings knows this to be a lie. Finally, Trotsky’s attempted hijack of the struggle against Soviet bureaucracy based on a pseudo-left platform.

Marxist-Leninists do not think that Trotskyism will simply go away. The reason for this is that it is related to the academic stratum of petty-bourgeois class forces in society who accept the Trotskyist version of the ideological history of the Russian revolution. I am not speaking of the history of the revolution as a record of events, which took place in general, but of the ‘ideological’ history of the revolution. Trotsky’s supporters on the academic level make a big deal of the removal of images of Trotsky and other political figures from Soviet period photos. These were images of people who had fallen from grace, so to speak and one cannot be surprised by the removal of certain images when one considers the process of open and concealed class struggle taking place in the Soviet Union, when the very survival of the state and the rule of a class was at stake. Revolution is not the normal state of society, and if certain individuals were deemed to be playing a counterrevolutionary role, why should, in this ‘abnormal’ state of society, anyone be surprised if individuals, who are considered to be endangering the political power of the working class, have their images removed from the public domain. One can, in the revolutionary interest justify this. However, there can be no justification of the falsification of Marxism-Leninism involving such matters as the origin and meaning of the idea of socialism in one or several countries as part of the process of international revolution. This was a real problem for Trotsky. Conscious that Stalin had Lenin’s posthumous authority to support his political line, in fact the political line of Lenin himself, Trotsky devoted a considerable section of his ‘Third International After Lenin’ in an incredible effort to falsify the theoretical tradition of the Bolshevik party which he only joined as late as August 1917.

IMLR: I think you are rushing ahead too much. Let us try to give some structure to the interview, which roughly mirrors the structure of Trotsky’s work. I am using the New Park edition of ‘The First International After Lenin’. Before I go to the body of the text have you anything to say about the foreword in this edition.

TC: The foreword is unsigned and the remarks it makes are purely in line with Trotskyism and do not go beyond pseudo-leftism. There is however, a point it makes in keeping with bourgeois and Trotskyist historiography, which I would like to address. This concerns the dissolution of the Comintern. The foreword argues that

‘…in 1943, to conciliate his allies, Churchill and Roosevelt, Stalin formally wound up the Communist International’.

That Stalin wound up the Comintern to conciliate Churchill and Roosevelt has become one of the established legends of Trotskyism. This is repeated by Trotskyists and most bourgeois historians as a matter of fact. For instance, in his book, Stalinism in Britain, Robert Black, who is no longer a Trotskyist, makes the statement that ‘In order to establish the right tone for his horse-trading with entire peoples and continents, Stalin made the greatest gesture of all. He dissolved the already moribund ‘Communist’ International on May 15, 1943’. (R. Black: Stalinism in Britain; pp. 194-5)

The question that needs to be raised is why did Stalin feel the need to wind up the Comintern on May 15, 1943, the very year when the war began to go in Stalin’s favour. In fact in February 1943, the Nazis were defeated at Stalingrad. At ‘Stalin’s City’, the German army there surrendered after one of the greatest battles in history. So it seems strange to me that Stalin should wait until 1943 to dissolve the Comintern. Why did he not seek to ‘conciliate’ the allies earlier, say, on 22nd June, 1941, when the fascist threat to the Soviet Union was at its highest, or during the siege of Moscow and Leningrad, when the Soviet Union faced a mortal threat? Anyone who supports the ‘Stalin abandoned the Comintern to conciliate the allies’ theory, should at least agree with the idea that the best time to conciliate the allies would have been when the danger to the Soviet Union was at its maximum extent.

However, we see an opposite picture. Stalin appears to conciliate the allies when things begin to go in the Soviet Union’s favour. In fact, there was no question of conciliation when Stalin turned his back, so to speak, on the old Comintern. It is interesting, in this respect, that J. N. Westwood, in ‘Endurance and Endeavour’ remarks that

‘The Comintern, which the war had made largely irrelevant, was dissolved in 1943, a gesture which the West chose to regard as placatory’. (P.349)

If we leave aside Westwood’s incorrect view that it was the war that made the Comintern irrelevant, we see that there is no argument that Stalin wanted to conciliate the allies. On the other hand he points out that it was the West who ‘chose’ to regard the dissolution of the Comintern ‘as placatory’. If the West chose to regard the dissolution as placatory, there was little that Stalin could do about it. With all these facts, we need to look for other reasons why Stalin dissolved the Comintern. This is necessary, for Stalin has been much abused for this dissolution by the Trotskyists, who shed many tears for the dissolution of "Lenin’s" Comintern. Westwood points out that ‘More important foreign communist parties after June 1941 were instructed to back the war effort of the allies’.

Needless to say, those ultra-leftists who did not back the war effort of the allies were helping the Nazis to defeat the Soviet Union.

IMLR: So, how do Marxist-Leninists explain the dissolution of the Comintern? Stalin must have borne the main, or some responsibility for its dissolution.

TC: I am not trying to avoid making Stalin responsible for it. Arguably, we should applaud him for it.

Westwood says it was the war that made the Comintern irrelevant, but this view is, of course, nonsense. The war would have made the Comintern more relevant not less. What do we mean by the dissolution of the Comintern? This is, in essence, the dissolution of its leading executive committee, the ECCI.

This body had become dominated by revisionists and this led Stalin no longer to support it, but to build up a new anti-revisionist centre. Even the totally anti-Stalin writer Michael Reiman notes that at the Sixth Congress in July 1928 Stalin had been ‘relegated to the background by the moderates’. This confirms the Marxist-Leninist view that Stalin had been largely sidelined by the Comintern leadership, which is of great importance when we consider the dissolution of the old Comintern. The real reason for the dissolution of the Comintern was not made public.

IMLR: So there are two clearly contrasted views concerning the dissolution of the Comintern: the Trotskyist view, which is shared by many bourgeois writers on history, is that the Comintern was dissolved as a concession to Stalin’s allies. The other view is that the ECCI had become so dominated by revisionist elements that Stalin could no longer work with them and so initiated its dissolution. Some left circles can still denounce Stalin for the dissolution of the Comintern, after all it was sponsored by Lenin and represented a great advance in developing the international vanguard of the working class and oppressed peoples. What is your reply to such criticism?

TC: Did not Lenin walk out of the Second International when it became opportunist, when its top leadership became dominated by revisionist elements? No one denounces Lenin for that. Do you ever hear the Trotskyists denouncing Lenin for turning his back on the 2^nd International, when he could no longer work with such revisionists? On the contrary, Lenin is universally applauded for it by people who consider themselves revolutionaries. Stalin, people must remember, did not go as far as Lenin. Whereas the latter turned his back on the parties of the 2^nd International, and not merely its leading organ, Stalin only went so far as supporting the dissolution of the ECCI, but did not turn his back on the individual communist parties. Yet the Trotskyists raise a hullabaloo about Stalin dissolving the revisionist dominated ECCI. We can see that Stalin’s action was not against the individual communist parties, as such, but directed against the revisionist hold on the ECCI.

IMLR: Do you have any other criticism to make of the foreword to the New Park edition of ‘The Third International After Lenin’?

TC: Well I noticed that the second paragraph of the foreword makes the following remark: ‘The theory of ‘socialism in one country’ had no support in Marxism, nor had it ever been Lenin’s belief, after the October Revolution, that the task of building socialism could be carried out in a backward and isolated peasant country like the Soviet Union without the victory of the revolution on an international scale’. This is, of course, Trotskyist ultra-leftist fundamentalism.

This passage fails to recognise the development of Marxism into Marxism-Leninism, and the change in the nature of the world revolutionary process on the basis of imperialism which made socialism possible in one country as part of this process. Secondly, it makes the self-evident claim that Lenin never believed that socialism was possible in a backward country, as if to suggest that Stalin believed it was possible. But I have never come across any writings by Stalin where he argues that socialism was possible in a backward country. Stalin’s reply to backwardness was the industrialisation of the Soviet Union. So it is necessary to scotch the lying suggestion by Trotskyists that Stalin believed that socialism was possible in a backward country.

IMLR: Let us now move from the foreword and go to the main body of Trotsky’s text, but before we do that, did you see anything interesting in Trotsky’s preface to the French edition?

TC: Before we proceed to the main text, I saw something humorous. Trotsky quotes Klara Zetkin, who made a statement on Trotsky at a meeting of the programme commission for the Sixth Congress, which Trotsky replies to.

This is what Trotsky wrote: ‘A respectable old lady-she was formerly Klara Zetkin-said that no ideas emanating from Trotsky could be considered correct’. Most people probably would not go as far as Klara. But she was closer to the truth than she realised, as far as theory is concerned.

IMLR: Now we can proceed to the main text and I will include in this Trotsky’s introduction under the title: The Draft Programme of the Communist International-A criticism of Fundamentals. Is there anything of note in the introduction to which you would like to draw attention?

TC: Yes. In his introduction Trotsky recognises the need for ‘scientific criticism’, but also adds that, in two or three places he had to rely on memory. This must be borne in mind.

IMLR: The main body of the text is divided into three sections. At the end, there is a long letter titled ‘What Now’ and a final article called, ‘Who is leading the Comintern today’. These do not form part of the main text so I will deal with this later. The first question I will ask relates to the first section called ‘The Programme of International Revolution or A Programme of Socialism in One Country’. What is your general impression of this first chapter?

TC: Well, for a start, the very title of this chapter is an apt summary of the mistakes it will contain. Trotsky calls this first chapter ‘the programme of international revolution or a programme of socialism in one country’. So immediately, we see that Trotsky treats the whole question in a non-dialectical way, contrasting socialism in one country to world revolution. The title of this chapter warns us that we are dealing here with Trotskyist fundamentalism. Within the intellectual discourse of Trotskyism, world revolution is always placed in opposition to socialism in one country. Trotskyism breaks down the dialectical unity between the two to such an extent that all we are left with is one-sided opposition between two integrally related processes.

IMLR: What is the second thing, that is, apart from the title, that stands out in this section?

TC: What I noticed was that Trotsky criticised the authors of the draft program for failing to take account of the growing ascendancy of American imperialism, or, in other words American expansionism. What Trotsky suggested at the time was that the economic centre of gravity, so to speak, had shifted to the United States. Therefore, rivalry between the United States and Europe, and in particular with British imperialism, would form the basis on which world developments would proceed.

So for Trotsky, the 1928 draft programme, in its failure to recognise this obvious point, formed one of its weakest aspects. Where Trotsky thought that world events could only mock the authors of the programme, It was in fact Trotskyism which was mocked. Because everyone knows that although the economic centre of gravity had shifted to the US, imperialist rivalries did not develop along the lines suggested, or predicted by Trotsky. Where Trotsky predicted that the main rivalry would be between Britain and the United States, the opposite was the case. Britain and America joined forces against their other imperialist rivals, such as Germany and Japan. It is necessary for us to emphasise that this was no casual remark, which Trotsky made. I will prove this by referring to Trotsky’s Writings on Britain, New Park Publications, where he categorically makes it clear, in the preface to the American edition, that

‘….the fundamental antagonism in the world is that between Britain and America, and all other antagonisms which seem more acute and more immediately threatening at the given moment can be understood and assessed only on the basis of the conflict of Britain and America’. (L. Trotsky: Trotsky’s Writings on Britain: New Park Publications; p. 9)

There has been no other case in modern world history where a political prognosis has been so devastatingly refuted by events. That is Trotskyism for you. Trotsky wanted the Communist International to adopt his perspective that imperialist conflict would lead Britain to fight America and that ‘Stalinists’ who could not see this could only mislead the working class. Can you blame people like Klara Zetkin who decried the influence of Trotskyism? Anyway, we get a taste of the scientific analysis, which Trotsky demanded.

IMLR: Some would argue that although Trotsky’s world perspectives were cruelly mocked by world history, at least he got it right regarding American expansionism.

TC: No one needed to be a Marxist to recognise American expansionism, but some knowledge of Marxism is necessary to know where it is all leading and to offer perspectives. Trotsky fought to win the Comintern to his perspective, which was then mocked by history. It may be a laughing matter now, but can you imagine how the Trotskyist would have ridiculed ‘the Stalinists’ for getting it so absolutely wrong on truly global proportions. When the Trotskyists criticise Marxist-Leninists for making mistakes perhaps we should remind them of the greatest mistake of perspective that the left has ever known, which was Trotsky’s prediction that imperialism would lead to war between Britain and America.

IMLR: In his criticism of the draft programme Trotsky criticise the authors for using the word ‘conflict’ between the imperialist powers instead of the word ‘rivalry’. Is there any significance, in your view, to this, or is it merely hair-splitting?

TC: Yes, in the criticism, Trotsky criticises the use of the word ‘conflict’ between Europe and America, suggesting that it should be replaced by the word ‘rivalry’. These words do not mean the same thing, yet they both contain each other. Whether you choose one or the other depends on what you are aiming to convey. There is nothing wrong in Trotsky suggesting that the word ‘rivalry’ was preferable. But if we are going to criticise the draft for using the word ‘conflict’ instead of ‘rivalry’, we can also criticise Trotsky as well because in his writings on Britain he chooses to use the word ‘conflict’ in relation to Britain and the United States. Therefore, what is good for the goose is also good for the gander. Trotsky writes that the draft

‘….loosely says conflict’. (T. Trotsky: Third International After Lenin; New Park; p.5)

the very term he uses when defending his thesis that the coming conflict between the U.S. and Britain should be the basis of Marxist understanding of world events in the years following the first imperialist war. For Trotsky the term ‘conflict’ was too loose and although it can be conceded that the term conflict can be inappropriate in the absence of a real conflict between the imperialist powers, and that ‘rivalry’ is a more appropriate expression, it is interesting to note that Trotsky, in his draft criticism uses a term, at one stage, which is at least ten times more inappropriate than the usage of the word ‘conflict’ when he remarks that

‘…the most important source of revolutionary upheavals will be the interrelations of Europe and America’.

(Trotsky: ibid. p.8)

Anyone can clearly see that the term ‘interrelation’ between Europe and America, which Trotsky uses, in this instance, is far looser than the term ‘conflict’ used in the draft programme.

IMLR: Trotsky criticises the draft for what he suggests is its failure to recognise the economic shift of the centre of gravity to the U.S. Do you think this was valid point to make?

TC: I am certainly not defending any weaknesses in the draft programme, which Trotsky sets out to criticise. What I am doing is showing the failure of Trotsky’s criticism, not to defend any mistakes of the draft, which in the main was written by Bukharin. I think that the draft recognised that the centre of economic gravity was shifting to the United States, but opposed the conflating of economics with politics in a simplistic way. Trotsky fought for the view that the main contradiction would be between Europe and America, in particular between the latter and Britain. Trotsky saw war breaking out between America and Britain, where the authors of the draft saw the contradictions in Europe would be more serious. In this, they were right and the Trotskyists were absolutely wrong. When people get it wrong on such a huge scale, especially one who sought to claim the allegiance of the international revolutionary vanguard, it is a warning that you should be on guard.

IMLR: Let me go on to another question: this concerns the slogan of the ‘Soviet United States of Europe’. Trotsky wanted this slogan included in the draft programme, and he points out, by way of contrast, that this slogan was accepted by the Soviet communist party way back in 1923. What is your view on this?

TC: In fact, what Trotsky actually says on this point is that the slogan of the United States of Europe, which Lenin had opposed was accepted

‘…after a rather protracted struggle’. (L. Trotsky: op. cit.; p.9)

The timing here is very significant because Lenin’s illness begins in 1923. After their defeat in the trade union debates if 1920-21, the next bid which the Trotskyist faction made for power begins with the onset of Lenin’s illness. So, with Lenin out of the way, the Trotskyists ‘after a protracted struggle’, these are Trotsky’s own words, somehow got the Soviet communist party to accept the slogan of the Soviet United States of Europe. Trotsky asks whether the authors of the draft may

‘…want to "return" to Lenin’s position of 1915 precisely on this question? (Ibid. p.9)

and Trotsky suggests that the authors lack an understanding of Lenin on the matter. He points out that at the beginning of the First World War Lenin was hesitant about using the slogan of the ‘United States of Europe’. The slogan was, Trotsky says, originally included in the theses of the ‘Sotsial Democrat’ (the central party organ at the time), but then Lenin rejected the slogan. Trotsky goes on to argue that for Lenin, the use of the United States of Europe slogan was not a question of principle but one of tactic. In other words, what Trotsky is saying here is that Lenin rejected the slogan for tactical reasons before the war. But Trotsky does not say whether Lenin was right or wrong. All he wants to do is to establish the appropriateness of the slogan in the proposed 1928 programme. We may ask, what is the evidence that Lenin’s rejection of this slogan was of a tactical rather than of a principled nature? Trotsky provides no evidence whatsoever. To attempt to find an answer to this question would mean looking at what Lenin put in its place. In fact, Lenin proposed the slogan of the ‘United States of the world’, which would seem to suggest that Lenin rejected the slogan favoured by Trotsky on principled grounds. Having said this, it is also necessary to explain why. Here we are back to the question of how socialism in one or several countries would possibly relate to the world revolutionary process. For Lenin it was necessary to provide the Marxist movement with slogans which opportunists could not hide behind. In this respect the United States of Europe slogan, even if prefixed with ‘socialist’ in front, could not achieve this. Opportunists could hide behind the slogan if a revolutionary situation developed in their country on the grounds that it would be futile to lead the workers liberation movement to power, because you see, socialism was impossible in one country and so on. So, although Trotsky, personally, came out against any form of temporising inaction on the part of revolutionaries in the separate countries, he misses the point Lenin was trying to make, which was the need for correct slogans. Trotsky may have subjectively opposed ‘temporising’ inaction on the part of revolutionaries in separate countries, but, on the objective side, the slogan of a Socialist United States of Europe was wrong because it suggested the notion of simultaneous revolutions. In other words, slogans cannot be based on our subjective desires, for although we would like simultaneous revolutions against the bourgeois exploiters, this is not how things would necessarily develop. Lenin came to this conclusion based on his understanding of the significance of the uneven economic and political development of capitalism. ‘ Socialism is impossible in one country’, it ‘has to be international’ cry the ultra-left. This statement, because it is correct from the historical perspective, is wrong when translated into a tactical orientation. It confuses the end, (international socialism), with the beginnings, (the transition from socialism in one or several countries to international socialism). The slogan: socialism is international or it is nothing, is not a Marxist-Leninist slogan, and often leads to counterrevolutionary attacks against those countries, which, as a result of uneven development, begin the transition to socialism first. So, we see that Trotsky, although personally against the notion of ‘simultaneous’ revolution at the time, nevertheless promoted a slogan which suggested, whether he liked it or not, simultaneousness. Trotsky, in his criticism of the 1928 draft reminds the reader that

‘In 1923 the Communist International adopted the controversial slogan’. (L. Trotsky: The Third International After Lenin; New Park; p.12)

It was, we have to agree with Trotsky, certainly a ‘controversial’ issue. And what this shows is that although Lenin was by this time weakened by sickness, there was a spirited attempt to defend Lenin’s ideas from the incursions by the Trotskyist ideologues. What all this really means is that the essential differences between Marxism-Leninism and Trotskyism concerned the nature of the international revolutionary process. Unless this is understood nothing else can be understood, that is to say it is not possible to understand the struggle between Leninism and Trotskyism in the workers liberation movement. The choice was between Lenin’s theory of the world revolutionary process and Trotsky’s theory of this same process.

IMLR: So, basically you are against Trotsky’s view that for Lenin, the issue of the slogan of a Socialist United States of Europe was a tactical question and not one of principle.

TC: Yes, and I pointed out why. For Lenin it was a matter of principle. Interestingly enough, on the one hand Trotsky argues in his criticism of the draft programme that the slogan for a united states of Europe was seen by Lenin as a tactical issue, but later he argues in relation to this slogan that the authors of the draft wanted to keep the slogan in reserve, so to speak, in case of emergency, remarking that

‘When questions of principles are involved, the policy of making reservations is futile’. (Trotsky: op. cit. p.14)

What does this mean apart from the fact that while Trotsky tried to hide behind the argument that the issue of the slogan was a tactical issue as Lenin was concerned, for him it became ‘questions of principles’ in his struggle against Stalin and the authors of the 1928 draft. But this is Trotsky for you.

IMLR: I would now like to go the section of the first chapter of the criticism, which deals with the issue of internationalism and the law of uneven development. Does anything stand out here, which you want to discuss?

TC: Trotsky criticises the authors of the draft for its interpretation of uneven development. More specifically he refers to a

‘false non-Marxist and non-Leninist interpretation of the law of uneven development’. (P.14)

Trotsky tries to adopt the posture that his own interpretation of Leninism is superior to the authors of the draft. We have seen where this has led him already in regard to the thesis that the contradiction between America and Britain would form the basis of world developments and lead to war between these two imperialist powers. So to be on the safe side we cannot repose any faith on Trotsky’s pronouncements. Trotsky chides Stalin for suggesting that Engels wrote at a time where there could be no talk of the law of uneven development of capitalism. Most people would automatically assume that Stalin is talking nonsense (see page 15 of the criticism). But if you read Stalin carefully, what he is referring to is the ‘law’ of the uneven development of capitalism, not simply uneven development, because you can have uneven development without it necessarily being a law, let alone an absolute law. Thus from the Marxist-Leninist standpoint Stalin was right. I do not recollect anything in the writings of Marx or Engels where they assert that uneven development is an absolute law of capitalism. (If I am wrong, I will change my view). It was Lenin who formulated the absolute law thesis, and this is precisely what Stalin is referring to. Trotsky regarded Stalin’s words as ‘unbelievable’. Trotsky did not miss the opportunity to expose what he considered was Stalin’s lack of erudition in matters of Marxism.

IMLR: Trotsky suggests that Stalin and the draft programme treats uneven development incorrectly. For instance, in his critique Trotsky writes that ‘…what the draft programme (for the 6^th Congress) says about the law of uneven development remains in essence one-sided and inadequate’. (p.15) Is it true to any extent that Stalin's or the draft programme’s understanding of Lenin’s law was woefully inadequate, as Trotsky suggests?

TC: When Trotsky makes this point he goes into a long review about uneven development in general. That is to say the whole of human history is an expression of unevenness, but in the case of capitalism, that is, when humanity reaches the capitalist stage, there are levelling out tendencies. When Trotsky claims that Stalin treats the law of uneven development inadequately, or in a one-sided way, this is to confuse two processes. The first process is the law of uneven development of capitalism, the second process is the tendency towards levelling out, or to be more precise, combined development. What Trotsky is suggesting is that Stalin and the draft refers, in one-sided fashion, to uneven development, but ignores combined development. In my view this is a misrepresentation on the part of Trotsky, because when dealing with the two processes, the question is which of them is of greater significance - not abstractly - but for the purpose of the revolutionary programme at any particular period in history in regard to the international revolutionary process.

Trotsky regards the two processes, i.e., unevenness and combined development as fundamental (See page 16). But in essence, we see that Trotskyism serves to undermine Marxism-Leninism. Under capitalism, combined development is a law, but it is not absolute, or fundamental in the way that Trotsky suggests, as to be treated on a par with the law of uneven development. As long as capitalism exists unevenness will be paramount, that is to say, there will be imperialist countries and non-imperialist countries, in short advanced countries and less developed countries.

The question for us is, how important was the law of combined development for the revolutionary process in the period of the draft programme for the 6^th Congress? The treatment of combined development, or the significance ascribed to it in the era of the 6^th congress cannot be the same as the treatment of it today, in the new millennium. While the further development of capitalism has not liquidated unevenness, but has reduced it in terms of political development, this means that revolution can spread around the world today very quickly.

IMLR: Trotsky, in his criticism of the draft programme, wants to establish that socialism in one country cannot follow from the law of uneven development, pages 16-17. Does he come near to proving his point?

TC: The criticism of the draft is vintage Trotskyism. To answer your point, Trotsky represents a complete refutation of Lenin on this question. He refutes Lenin and pretends he is only refuting Stalin. Nowhere in his writings does Trotsky ever declare, openly, that he is opposed to Lenin on the question concerning the possibility of socialism in several or one country, as the form in which the revolution unfolds. Trotsky claims that it was the idea of socialism in one country that formed the theoretical basis of social-patriotism. For Trotsky, combined development was more important than uneven development. This was a contradiction between Leninism and Trotskyism, for whereas the former stressed unevenness, the latter gave priority to combined development. Thus Trotskyism is an ideology formed in the struggle against Leninism, but because of the victory of Leninism in the revolution, Trotsky was compelled to disguise his opposition to Leninism. This was one of the most significant attributes of Trotskyism. He refuses to come out openly against Leninism after the revolution, but presents his opposition as a critique of Stalin. Trotsky even quotes Lenin to substantiate his argument on socialism in one country, but if you read the quotes carefully they actually confirm Stalin’s arguments as Leninist. (See page 21)

Trotsky constantly confuses theory with perspectives. It is very important to point this out because the existence of Trotskyism as a trend depends on this confusion. Let me say categorically that on the level of perspectives, as far as the Russian revolution is concerned, the Bolsheviks had no perspective of socialism in one country, but when we remove ourselves from the level of perspectives and go to the level of theory, Leninism maintained that socialism was possible in several or one country alone as an integral part of world revolution. Thus when the revolutions were pushed back in the more advanced capitalist countries, this theoretical aspect of Leninism came to the fore. Those most determined for the working class to hold on to power regardless of failures in other countries began to examine Lenin’s writings, and in this Lenin himself led the way. When Lenin was removed from political activity, this grouping formed itself around Stalin. ‘The Third International After Lenin’ is a strange, surreal work, setting out to prove that Lenin was against Leninism and that therefore he must have been a Trotskyist.

Trotsky tries to claim that he lost the ideological battle because material conditions were against him, and this sounds, to the uninformed, like a plausible and very Marxist conclusion, but in the case of Trotsky it was not true. Trotsky, we must remember, had been opposing Lenin from pre-revolutionary times, and he lost the ideological struggle then. Trotsky lost the ideological struggle because all his core arguments could not stand up to serious criticism. Trotsky lost because the party and the working class wanted to hold on to power and build socialism ‘in one country’, and Trotsky told them it could not be done, and when they turned to Lenin’s writings they found that the latter regarded it as possible. Therefore, Trotsky and his followers were regarded as a serious danger to working class political power. That is why Trotsky lost, or at least one of the main reasons why he lost, if we leave aside that he was held in distrust by the political representatives of the working class after his proposal for the militarisation of labour, which borders on fascism.

IMLR: In his criticism of the draft one of the most incredible things is what Trotsky has to say about Lenin’s article on co-operation! What is your view on Trotsky’s interpretation?

TC: I think here we see Trotsky’s political dishonesty and left-opportunism in full bloom. All the time Trotsky is saying that it never entered Lenin’s mind that socialism could be built in the Soviet Union, but the Lenin of the article ‘on co-operation’ says it can. So Trotsky is faced with a problem. For factional reasons he does not want to appear to be disagreeing with Lenin, so he has to reinterpret Lenin in such a way as to make his arguments against Stalin seem credible. He makes Lenin’s article say things it did not say, and as the students of Socrates realised, an argument, once committed to writing, cannot defend itself. I do not think it is possible to find another example where Trotsky exposes himself so much than with his attempts to reinterpret Lenin’s article on co-operation (See page 25; and see page 27 on the socialist revolution in Russia).

IMLR: Trotsky contrasts Stalin’s 1924 position on socialism in one country with his 1926 position, suggesting that the 1926 position was a complete reversal. Is there any evidence to support Trotsky’s arguments here?

TC: The impression one gets from reading Trotskyist writings on this particular point is that, if a person puts forward a thesis he should not be allowed to change it, to improve it or make it more concrete. Thus, it would seem that for Trotskyists to improve one’s thesis is to prove the thesis wrong. This attitude is completely opposed to any attempts at scientific cognition.

IMLR: Trotsky gives some quotes from Bukharin to support Trotskyism's opposition to building socialism in one country. Do you think this helps him at all?

TC: Bukharin’s formulation of the question is less precise than Lenin’s or Stalin’s, so one could use some of Bukharin’s pre 1924 writings on this matter to support Trotsky; this should not be too difficult because Bukharin at this time was well known for his ultra-leftism. For Trotsky to turn to the ultra-left period of Bukharin to seek support is an indictment of Trotskyism. For instance, in 1919 Bukharin argues that the rise in Russia’s productive forces will only begin after victorious revolution in several of the major countries. Trotsky latches on to this mistaken view of Bukharin’s to support Trotskyism.

We all know that the rise in Soviet productive forces was possible, and did in fact occur even before revolutions in any of the advanced countries. In Trotsky, we are dealing with an individual, who although possessing literary talent, is not able to understand Leninism without misinterpretation because from the beginning he held to a different theory about the world revolutionary process.

IMLR: Trotsky, in his criticism of the draft, quotes a passage from a statement by the Young Communist League, suggesting that Russia can arrive at socialism only through the world socialist revolution. Some would say that this passage helps Trotsky. Would you agree? (See page 30)

TC: In fact, it condemns Trotskyism, from the standpoint of Marxism-Leninism, because even Trotsky acknowledges that the commission which drew up the YCL’s programme in 1921, from which this passage is taken, was under the direction of Bukharin, who was still in his ultra-left phase. Trotskyism would not exist if it were not able to attract the support of politically inexperienced people: that is why Lenin wrote ‘Left-wing communism, an infantile disorder’. This work was written with individuals like Bukharin in mind, for their edification. Of course, the Soviet Union could only arrive at the ‘final’ victory of socialism through the world revolution, but this is to say something different to the YCL’s statement above.

IMLR: One of the highlights of Trotsky’s criticism of the draft is when he comes forward to defend the theoretical tradition of the party. What have you to say on this?

TC: This is a joke, if ever there was one. The question I ask myself is, how can Trotsky defend the theoretical tradition of Bolshevism, of Leninism, when he spent all his political life fighting it. I think that this is a case of Trotsky projecting his own ideological mind set on Leninism. Thus Trotsky’s ‘Third International After Lenin’, is a continuation of Trotsky’s struggle against Leninism. He calls those who defend Lenin’s theoretical ideas ‘revisionists’, but fails to say what theory of Lenin’s they have revised. So Trotsky even misuses the term ‘revisionism’, because you are a ‘revisionist’ if you revise Marxist-Leninist principles, not because you change revolutionary perspectives.

IMLR: In the criticism Trotsky refers to ‘the present day revision of Leninism', and one gets the impression that he is genuinely, although misguidedly, concerned by what he considers to be revisionism. How do you explain this?

TC: It is obvious to any impartial student of Leninism that it is Trotsky who is revising Lenin. This conclusion cannot be avoided. The task for Trotsky is to conceal this revisionism and ‘piously’ accuse others of his own ‘crime’. The only question is how far this was a conscious and an unconscious process on the part of Trotsky. I think, in large measure, this was a conscious process, although I detect elements of unconsciousness in it, because Trotsky seems to have convinced himself that he was defending Leninism.

IMLR: How was Trotsky able to do this, to convince himself and also others that he was defending Leninism against revisionism, which pseudo-leftists refer to as ‘Stalinism’, when, in fact the textual evidence shows that it was Trotsky who was revising Lenin?

TC: Let me return to the subject regarding the relation between ‘theory’ and ‘perspectives’. Trotskyism, that is Trotsky, can be said to represent, to some extent, a symbiosis between Trotsky’s theory and Leninist perspectives. In regard to the Russian revolution, in terms of perspectives, both Lenin and Trotsky stood for world revolution. At the level of perspective both men regarded the Russian revolution as a spark which would, so to speak, light the fuse of world revolution. In short, Leninism and Trotskyism stood for world revolution. However, when we go to the level of theory both men had a different theory about the general workings of the world revolutionary process. Trotsky rejected Leninist theory about the world revolutionary process, but accepted Leninists', that is, Bolshevism’s perspective about world revolution. When it became obvious that the world revolution was late in arriving, that it was not immediately around the corner, Marxist-Leninists began to take this into account. They began to turn to a more long-term perspective. The new view was that the revolution would come but not as soon as we desired. Thus, the old perspectives were updated to meet the new situation. Trotsky came to regard the change of perspectives as ‘revisionism’. However, the new perspective was brought into line with Lenin’s theory that socialism was possible in one or several countries as part of the revolutionary process. Opposed to this theory was the Trotskyist version of the theory of permanent revolution. I think we have to agree that history confirmed Lenin’s theory concerning the workings of the world revolutionary process. I think the relation between Trotsky’s and Lenin’s theory is that the latter is more concrete. This is why I have argued elsewhere that the struggle between Leninism and Trotskyism, at the level of theory, is a struggle between the concrete and the abstract. In other words, theoretical differences in science are about the struggle between the ‘concrete’ and the ‘abstract’. When Trotsky says that, the only way to save the Russian revolution is the world revolution, no one can disagree with at this level of abstraction, not even Stalin, who wrote that the final victory is possible only on a world scale. So, in regard to Trotsky’s statement about saving the Russian revolution, is it a question of the short-term, medium or long-term? This is to pose the question more concretely.

IMLR: Trotsky, in his criticism of the draft, attempts to refute the charges against him that he is representing a social-democratic deviation in the party. Do you think he succeeds in this?

TC: ‘The Third International After Lenin’, which is a seminal work of Trotskyism, simply serves to confirm this particular charge against Trotsky, because Trotsky joined with the Menshevik and bourgeois counterrevolution in repudiating Lenin’s view that socialism could be built in the Soviet Union. Trotsky had the amazing ability to twist everything so as to save himself from political humiliation. Trotsky knew exactly what was meant by the concept of a social-democratic deviation, far more than those who follow him today. But we find that while Trotsky went out of his way to deny that he was a representative of this social-democratic deviation in the communist movement, he in fact confirmed the charges against him. This is what Trotsky has to say in his criticism, and we must bear in mind that his central motive was to dispel the charges directed against him.

‘The theoreticians of the Second International exclude the U.S.S.R. from the world unit and from the imperialist epoch; they apply to the U.S.S.R., as an isolated country, the bald criterion of economic ‘maturity’ (he means economic ‘immaturity’, TC); they declare that the U.S.S.R. is not ripe for independent socialist construction and thence draw the conclusion of the inevitability of capitalist degeneration of the workers’ state’. ( Trotsky: Third International After Lenin; p.33)

Can anyone fail to see the unity between the ‘theoreticians’ of the Second International and Trotskyism? Trotsky tries to argue that the draft programme was, at the level of method, the same as the ‘theoreticians’ of the Second International, although it comes to opposite conclusions, i.e., that socialism was possible in the USSR. What Trotsky is arguing here is that the 1928 draft for the 6^th Congress, like the theoreticians of the Second International, excludes the Soviet Union from the world economy, but Trotsky doesn’t say where this exclusion is.

IMLR: For Trotsky the draft programme is based on the notion of economic self-sufficiency. Does Trotsky have a case here?

TC: No, because the Trotskyists have always interpreted socialism in one country in terms of economic self-sufficiency, which is in fact a glaring misrepresentation. Let the Trotskyists show us anywhere in the writings of Stalin or in the draft where a theory of economic self-sufficiency is put forward. Nevertheless, a socialist country has to regulate its relations with the world market and, where possible, free itself, especially where strategic materials are concerned. Trotsky always accused Stalin of promoting a ‘reactionary utopia of a self-sufficient socialism’, but when did the Soviet Union stop trading with other countries as a policy objective. Thus, in order to avoid the label of being a social-democratic deviationist, Trotsky tries to argue that he was accused of this heresy because, you see, he rejected the notion of a ‘self-sufficient socialist society’.

IMLR: Trotsky writes in his criticism that ‘History will note that we fell into a "social democratic deviation" because we refused to accept an inferior rehash of Vollmar’s theory of socialism in one country’. Do you think there are similarities between Vollmar’s and Lenin’s theory of the world revolutionary process?

TC: In so far that there can be similarities between the most different of things then one can speak about a similarity between Vollmar’s and Lenin’s view. But Trotsky is really attacking Lenin. For factional reasons, Trotsky categorically refuses to accept what is obvious to everybody who can read and who is familiar with this issue. Let me repeat: Lenin had a theory of the world revolutionary process relating to socialism starting in one or several countries as part of this process. Vollmar’s theory differs from Lenin because he envisages an advanced country starting the transition to socialism first, and through its productive superiority win over the other capitalist countries through peaceful competition. Lenin, however, saw the world revolutionary process being unleashed and reinforced in a dynamic way by the existence of socialism in several or one country. This was the Leninist conception that those who gathered around Stalin were trying to defend in opposition to Trotsky, who referred to the ‘counterrevolutionary Stalinist theory of socialism in one country’, ignoring the Leninist view that the building of socialism in one or several countries was one of the ways in which the world revolution would be unleashed and continued against world imperialism until the final victory of socialism.

IMLR: One of the arguments of Trotsky is that, in upholding socialism in one country Stalin stood for isolated socialist development. How do you respond to this?

TC: I have already said that this argument misrepresented Stalin’s position. The argument that Stalin stood for isolated socialist development was a straw man erected by Trotsky. I think that we need only turn to the facts to judge whether such accusations are true. When Stalin argued that we have all that is necessary to build socialism, this was not meant as some recipe for isolated socialist development. All that is necessary obviously takes into consideration exports as a precondition for imports.

IMLR: Trotsky argues that the theory of socialism in one country meant driving the productive forces back within national barriers from which they had broken out under capitalism. Is this argument true in your view, or could there be a tendency towards placing breaks on the development of the productive forces?

TC: To the extent that socialist countries trade with non-socialist countries, the argument that socialism in one country means reversing the productive forces behind national barriers is a nonsense, but I have already said that the idea of an isolated socialist development was a straw man raised by Trotsky to counter Lenin’s thesis on this matter. As I argued earlier on, Vollmar defended socialism in one country and hoped that this would win over the other capitalist countries. But for Marxist-Leninists, one of the reasons for defending socialism in one country was that this would unleash, that is further, the world revolution. This was precisely what was happening until the revisionists seized power in the former Soviet Union.

IMLR: For Trotsky, telling the working class that socialism could not be built in one country was OK. It would not lead to demoralisation and defeatism. And in his criticism of the Draft Programme, he says that the masses should be told the truth. Can you comment on this?

TC: The masses were told the truth, according to Marxism-Leninism, that socialism was possible only as part of the world-wide revolutionary process, but also that it was also a means to unfurl and reinforce this process, which was what was taking place, if we examine the facts. The masses, the working class, were told the truth but not in accordance with Trotskyism. To say to the masses, as the Trotskyists wanted to say, that socialism was impossible in the Soviet Union, which was at the same time the line of the Mensheviks and the bourgeoisie, did not simply mean defending a social democratic deviation in the communist movement, and also going against what Lenin had taught, for no good reason; it also meant fanning the flames of defeatism and demoralisation, which the bourgeoisie and their social-democratic yes men thought would burn up the revolution. Trotskyism on this issue was ultra-leftism, the adoption of radical sounding phrases, which when we examine them closer, are revealed as serving the interest of counterrevolution. The Trotskyists, the Mensheviks and the bourgeoisie all stood on the same platform that socialism was impossible in one country, i.e., in the Soviet Union, but for Lenin it was not only possible, it was also a means of unleashing world revolution.

Let me say that the whole debate about socialism in one country, which theoretically speaking, Lenin argued was possible in connection with the world revolutionary process, was about which camp would triumph: the camp of the bourgeois-Menshevik counterrevolution argued that socialism wasn’t possible in the Soviet Union. This was the camp Trotsky chose to join after Lenin was removed from the political stage by illness. Or, in the post Lenin period, the Stalin camp, which said socialism was possible in the Soviet Union, a view based on a careful reading of Lenin. This camp, which came to be led by Stalin, refused point-blank to feed the working class a diet of defeatism and demoralisation about the lack of potential of the revolution to achieve socialism. Trotsky, who led the camp of defeatism in the ranks of the Communists after breaking discipline in 1927, was purged from the party. It was not personal but political. It was necessary to stop his message of defeatism, which was demoralising the leadership, reaching the party and the working class. So the attitude became ‘expel him from the party. Let him go and give his message of defeatism to the petty-bourgeois elements in the bourgeois run countries where it would do less harm’. Stalin can certainly be criticised for not acting earlier to purge the party of this defeatism, and when Trotsky was eventually purged it was not for his views, but as I said, for breaking ranks.

IMLR: In his criticism of the draft, the way Trotsky actually puts it is the following: ‘The worker who understands that it is impossible to build a socialist paradise, like an oasis in the hell of world capitalism, that the fate of the Soviet Republic and therefore his own fate depend entirely on the international revolution will fulfil his duties toward the USSR more energetically than the worker who is told that what we already possess is presumably 90 per cent socialism’. How do you view this line of argument?

TC: I doubt whether Lenin or Stalin, in defending the possibility of socialism in one or several countries was referring to a socialist ‘paradise’. The period of transition from capitalism to socialism is a period of revolution; of upheavals. A country which takes the path of socialism aims to lay the foundations of socialism and bring about a gradual improvement of the life of the people, but this does not mean you can achieve a ‘paradise' yet, in this period of transition. The international working class, especially that section in the imperialist countries, fulfil their duties to the Soviet Union by placing limits on the bourgeois attempts to intervene and defeat the revolution. They were, however unable to overthrow their own bourgeoisie. Lenin had said this would not be easy. Revolutions are the result of deep internal contradictions within a country, which of course can be brought to a head by international factors. Marxist-Leninists cannot live on the expectation that workers, say in a country like Britain or Germany, can and will make a revolution in their own countries simply out of a desire to save the revolution in another country. We all wish if this was the case. If it was, capitalism would have been done away with decades ago. Without contradictions being brought to a head in their own countries, the duty of the working class is to put pressure on their own imperialist ruling class against intervention, against waging war. This active sympathy itself will aid the development of the revolutionary movement. So telling the working class that socialism was impossible in the Soviet Union served to demoralise the Soviet working class without leading to revolutions in the advanced capitalist countries. Trotsky’s policy of defeatism, in regard to the Soviet Union, and ‘optimism’ towards the international revolution leads to the collapse of the Soviet revolution and thus the weakening of the world revolution. Real optimism in regard to the world revolution meant defending the building of socialism in the Soviet Union as part of the world revolutionary process.

IMLR: In criticising the draft Trotsky denied that his attacks on socialism in one country were meant for Lenin. Rather, he says they were meant for others like Vaillant, the French social patriot and the German, Lensch, who was also a social patriot. What is your view on this?

TC: Well, this is absolutely ridiculous in my view, not to mention that it should have caused a great deal of mirth in those who recognised the need to oppose Trotsky. If you oppose the theory of socialism in several or one country as the way in which the revolutionary process begins to unfold, why exclude Lenin from your criticism. If you say that those who support socialism in one country as part of the world revolutionary process are expressing ‘national narrow-mindedness’ and social-patriotism, then why exclude Lenin? Trotsky only sees one side of social-patriotism, that is the side that argues that we will defend our country in war because it has all the conditions for socialism, surely this is worth defending. However, the other side of social-patriotism, of opportunism, was justifying the refusal to lead the working class liberation movement to power in their own countries on the grounds that the socialism must be international or it is nothing. In other words, the opportunists not only used exclusivity and nationalism to justify their treachery, but they also used pseudo-internationalism as well. In order to counter this pseudo-internationalism Lenin adopted the line, after seeing through the antics of the opportunists, that the only true internationalism is working for the revolution in one’s own country.

IMLR: For Trotsky, Stalin’s and the draft’s defence of ‘socialism in one country’ went against the grain of internationalism because, in Trotsky’s view, ‘The invincible conviction that the fundamental class aim, even more so than partial objectives constitute the very heart of revolutionary internationalism’. Is this something you agree with?

TC: I agree with Lenin that true internationalism is working for the revolution in your own country. Trotsky says that the fundamental class aims of the proletariat cannot be achieved within national boundaries. But this all depends on what is meant by ‘fundamental class aims’. Trotsky assumes that the fundamental class aim of people like Stalin was socialism in one country. I understand by fundamental class aim of the proletariat the need to bring to an end the unjust system of capitalism exploitation. This is not a national question but international. However, in concrete terms, your demonstrate your support for this international aim by fighting for the revolution in your own country. For instance, if the US working class desire to aid the communist struggle against exploitation, let them fight and overthrow their own imperialist leaders.

IMLR: Trotsky argues when criticising the draft that ‘The theory of the possibility of realising socialism in one country destroys the inner connection between the patriotism of the victorious proletariat and the defeatism of the proletariat of the bourgeois countries. Is this true in your view?

TC: It's not easy to tell what Trotsky actually means by the ‘inner connection’, or how he views this inner connection. We know that in a socialist country the working class must be patriotic in the sense of defending socialism. And, as a matter of principle, with a few exceptions, the working class in a bourgeois state must be defeatist. Defeatism in a bourgeois state helps the working class and the revolutionaries who are fighting for socialism. Patriotism in a socialist country strengthens working class political power, therefore the international revolution, whereas patriotism in a bourgeois state strengthens the rule, that is the political power of the exploiters.

IMLR: Trotsky points out that the working class must be clear about whether the building of socialist society is a national or international task. How do you respond to this argument?

TC: The building of socialist society is both a national and international task. One cannot say, like Trotsky, that the workers must be clear about this task being either one or the other. The either/or paradigm does not apply here because the task of building socialism is both national and international. That is why Lenin argued that true internationalism meant working for the revolution in one’s own country. On this question, he saw no contradiction between the national and the international.

IMLR: Another point Trotsky makes in his criticism of the 1928 draft, and which present-day Trotskyists argue has come to pass, is that the theory concerning the realisation of socialism in one country would lead to the social-patriotic conversion of the Communist International along the lines of the Second International. What is your reply to this view concerning the ascendancy of revisionism in the international communist movement?

TC: Well, if a building collapses, there can be several different explanations. A religious person may say it's an act of god, while on the other hand a civil engineer may explain the collapse in terms of design fault, etc. The Second International was deemed to have ‘collapsed’, ideologically speaking, when its leaders supported their own bourgeoisie in the 1914-1918 imperialist war. On the other hand, the communist movement remained loyal to the Soviet Union and to Stalin for a long time. The forces of revisionist social democracy were kept at bay until the death of Stalin. After the war, the bourgeois imperialist states began to pile on the pressure on the Soviet Union, materially and ideologically. This external pressure and certain internal conditions facilitated the growth of the revisionist tendency inside the Soviet Union. But the communist parties had remained loyal to the Soviet Union and to the idea of socialism throughout. It is clear, contrary to the Trotskyist view, that defending socialism in one country as part of the world revolutionary process had nothing to do with the return of many communist parties to revisionism. This return has everything to do with the long post-war boom, which paved the way for the capture of communist parties by revisionist circles.

IMLR: Trotsky argued that it would not be possible to lead the working class to a position of defeatism in relation to the bourgeois state, unless the programme of the Comintern had an international orientation. This meant, he said, rejecting the ‘contraband’ of socialism in one country, which Stalin had introduced. What is your view on the question of the international orientation to which Trotsky refers?

TC: Comrade, here again, I think Trotsky is in error, because what can be more internationalist than calling upon the working class, in every country, to defend the first workers state…. the Soviet Republic? Internationalism had a dual aspect which meant calling on the working class to defend the Soviet Union, while making it clear, in line with Lenin’s teaching, that the true internationalism was working for the revolution in one’s own country and this was the best way to defend the Soviet Union.

In other words, the best way to express proletarian internationalism was to defend the Soviet Union; and the best way to defend the Soviet Union was to fight for the revolution in each country.

IMLR: Let me proceed to the section of Trotsky’s criticism of the draft, which deals with strategy and tactics in the imperialist epoch. Trotsky recognises that the programme of the proletarian party is not a ‘history book’, although it must recount the main, significant events of the recent past, and suggest a line of action for the future. Do you agree with Trotsky’s definition of the programme and what he has to say in this section of his criticism?

TC: I think that everyone can agree that the programme outlines the main events of the recent past while suggesting a line of action for the present and future, but you will need to be more specific about the points that Trotsky makes in this section of his criticism of the draft?

IMLR: Trotsky returns to the law of uneven development, ridiculing Stalin for suggesting that Marx and Engels were unaware of this law. Can you remind us of what you previously said on this point?

TC: What I said was that Stalin was not suggesting that Marx or Engels were unaware of uneven development of capitalism, which would have been obvious to them. What Stalin actually said was that there could be no talk of the ‘law’ of uneven development. In other words, to recognise uneven development and then to recognise it as a ‘law’ is not the same thing. So I see no reason for Trotsky to ridicule Stalin on this point.

IMLR: In the criticism, Trotsky argues that politics, considered as a mass historical force, always lags behind economics. (op. cit. p.61) Do you think this is a point in which we can agree with Trotsky?

TC: Certainly not! A statement such as this coming from someone who played a leading role in the Russian revolution is truly amazing. For Lenin, the Russian revolution was precisely a case of politics rushing ahead of economics. Here was a situation where a relatively backward society was combined with the most advanced political structures, the system of soviets, in other words working class political power.

IMLR: Trotsky asserts that ‘…as soon as the objective prerequisites have matured, the key to the whole historical process passes into the hand of the subjective factor, that is, the party’. (p.64) Would you agree with Trotsky here?

TC: No. Because Trotsky confuses, no doubt without intending to do so, the objective with the subjective factors of the revolutionary process. The objective, that is, the basic material conditions for socialism, have been in existence for many decades. Even in the middle of the 19^th century, Marx and Engels thought the material conditions were ready for socialism. These material conditions have certainly been ready during the 20^th century and in his transitional programme Trotsky himself said they were overripe. Therefore, contrary to what Trotsky argues in his criticism of the draft programme for the 6^th Congress in 1928, it is not actually the maturity of the objective conditions which places the key of the historical process into the hands of the party. It is rather the maturity, the development of the subjective conditions, which Trotsky mistakenly reduces to the party alone, which allows the party to play its role. As Lenin explained, without a revolutionary mood among the masses, without conditions facilitating this mood, the struggle for power is out of the question. If everything depended on the objective factors, we would have had socialism decades ago. Trotsky makes this mistake again in the transitional programme where he argues that the material conditions are ready for socialism and everything now depends on revolutionary leadership, the party, a position which ignores the matter of a revolutionary mood developing in the masses.

IMLR: One of the points that Trotsky makes is that opportunism always underrates the subjective factor; he is referring to leadership. Do you agree with this view?

TC: No. In some cases, genuine revolutionaries underestimate the role of the subjective factor in the revolutionary process, even more than the opportunists do. In fact, the opportunists understand the role and importance of the subjective factor even more than some ‘Marxists’. When Trotsky argues that opportunists underrate the subjective factor, he wants to use this thesis to blame the Comintern, in a one-sided way, for all the defeats which took place in China, Britain, Germany, and Spain.

IMLR: One of the most important events in the annals of the revolutionary movement took place in Germany in 1923. After the failure of the German revolution of 1923, Trotsky opposed the removal of Brandler from the leadership of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). His argument was that he opposed the policy of making a scapegoat of national leaders. How would you respond to this argument?

TC: In general, communists should oppose a policy of scapegoating. However, under certain circumstances, if an authoritative international leadership exists, it should reserve the right, in consultation with a national party, to replace obviously incompetent leaders. In view of the circumstances surrounding the defeat of the German revolution in 1923, and the enormous significance of this defeat, to which the Comintern leadership, under Zinoviev, contributed, I see no reason for Trotsky to have opposed the removal of Brandler.

IMLR: Trotsky argues, in the criticism of the draft that the essence of the defeat of the German revolution in 1923 was that the situation was ripe, but the leadership lagged behind. Would you agree with this assessment?

TC: The KPD leadership more than lagged behind events, it was also an immature leadership. The fifth Congress of the Comintern dealt mainly with the German defeats of 1923. The lagging behind aspect can also be applied to some members of the Soviet leadership at the time. For instance, during the crisis, Zinoviev, the leader of the Comintern, and Trotsky were off on their holidays.

IMLR: At the 5^th Congress in 1924, after the significant defeat of the German revolution of 1923, the Trotskyist opposition was accused of ‘…the loss of perspective of world revolution, the lack of faith in the proximity of the German and European revolution, a hopeless pessimism and liquidation of European revolution’. Do you consider there to be any truth in these accusations?

TC: This is a difficult question to answer. I can only ask, why were these accusations made, what was the basis for these accusations, if they did not contain some element of truth? When we search for an answer, we arrive at the question of ‘stabilisation’. The defeat in Germany was a significant missed opportunity, but the overall general picture was quite promising. I think that, to some extent, Trotsky and the opposition overestimated the stabilisation of German capitalism resulting from the defeats of 1923 and even had some success in winning the Comintern over to the idea of ‘stabilisation’. In view of the fact that the greatest economic crisis of capitalism swept the world in 1929 following the stock market crash, it is obvious that the ‘stabilisation’ thesis was superficial, and therefore essentially erroneous. The defeat in Germany is not only the responsibility of the leadership of the KPD and the Comintern, but also, in my opinion, a result of the difficulty and dubious nature of attempting to direct a revolution from a distant centre.

IMLR: Trotsky argues in the criticism of the 1928 draft, that the Comintern leadership (Zinoviev) belatedly recognised ‘stabilisation’ when already this stabilisation was beginning to pass. What is your view on this criticism?

TC: When the question of stabilisation of capitalism is under discussion, the real issue is whether it is of short or long term duration, and whether it removes the question of the immediate struggle for power. The confusion over stabilisation was itself the result of its unstable nature in the 1920s.

IMLR: Do you think that Trotsky was right to criticise the 1928 draft programme for the 6^th Congress of the Comintern for not drawing correct conclusions about the defeat of the German working class in 1923, and what he considered to be the failure of the 5^th Congress of the Comintern in 1924, to learn the lessons of the German defeat?

TC: Zinoviev was the Chairman of the Comintern in the period of the 1923 defeat in Germany. Under the leadership of Zinoviev, there can be no doubt that the Executive Committee of the International shares some of the responsibility for the defeats in Germany in 1923. There can be little doubt that this was a missed opportunity. But, as I said, before, I do not believe in revolutions being guided from some distant leadership in another country. What is necessary is not only a criticism of individuals, but a criticism of the notion of a revolution been directed by a distant leadership. In a revolution, it may be necessary to change tactics in minutes, hours or days. This is not something which I believe to be within the competence of an international leadership, no matter how talented and experienced.

IMLR: But Trotsky’s contention is that the leadership of the Comintern failed to recognise the significance of the 1923 defeat in Germany. Was this the case, in your view?

TC: There is no doubt that the Comintern showed a tendency to want to conceal the significance of the German defeat. Zinoviev had too much pride, which is a weakness, and so could not face criticism of the line he had advocated for the KPD to follow. In the period when Zinoviev led the Comintern serious subjective mistakes where made and even the basis laid for further mistakes. His supporters dominated the Comintern leadership at this time.

IMLR: In his criticism of the draft, Trotsky argues that

‘The possibility of betrayal is always contained within reformism’. (L. Trotsky: The Third International after Lenin; New Park Publications edition; p.98) Most people would see no reason to disagree with Trotsky here.

TC: I am amazed by this statement. Trotsky is wrong again because for Marxist-Leninists to say that betrayal is a possibility within reformism is to display a social-democratic deviation. It is not a question of ‘possibility’ but of ‘inevitability’. We do not say to the working class that reformism will possibly betray, rather we say that they will certainly betray.

IMLR: This remark was made by Trotsky in relation to the betrayals of the General Council in the 1926 British general strike, after which Trotsky argued that the Anglo-Soviet trade union committee should have been broken up by the soviet side. How do you view this argument?

TC: We should not confuse the General Council with the Anglo-Soviet Committee. The latter was a united-front formed to oppose intervention in the Soviet Union, which the Soviet leadership regarded as a real possibility at that time. Therefore, it is entirely understandable why the Soviet Union did not rush to break off relations by being the first to walk out of the Anglo-Soviet Committee. If the committee was formed simply to promote revolution in Britain, then walking out after the betrayal of the strike would have been the logical thing to do, but the committee was not formed only with Britain in view.

IMLR: But Trotsky argues that the General Council hid behind the Anglo-Russian Committee. Was this the case in your view?

TC: I think that to some extent this was the case. I say ‘to some extent’, because the General Council, at the time, being dominated by reformists, did not need the Anglo-Russian Committee to hide behind. It is also obvious that the British Communists misled the Soviet leaders about the actual potential of the General Council. This explains why the Soviet side did not openly criticise the CPGB’s slogan of ‘all power to the General Council’. Interestingly, we do not find Trotsky condemning this slogan in the comments on the 1928 draft programme.

IMLR: Regarding Britain in the period of the 1926 general strike, the only time when modern Britain came close to revolution, Trotsky remarks that ‘On the field of the economic and social relations of Britain, the revolution has already fully matured. The question stands purely politically’. (p. 100) Was this a correct view in your opinion?

TC: It was a correct view expressed incorrectly. What he should have said was that, while the economic or material conditions are ready for socialism, the political conditions were lagging behind.

This is the case with all technically advanced countries, which remain capitalist. The basic picture presented is one of the contradiction between the existence of the material conditions which are ready for socialism on the one hand, and on the other, the lagging behind of the subjective, political conditions. It is the duty of revolutionaries to help change the political conditions. In my opinion, the most that the 1926 General Strike could have achieved was a temporary reprieve. In fact, the miners did receive a temporary reprieve before the strike. This allowed the leaders of the British capitalists to prepare for a showdown. While the 1926 general strike was a revolutionary situation, everything pointed to its defeat: the inexperience of the communist leadership, the arrest of its leaders, not to mention that many people in the Britain of 1926 still supported capitalism, i.e., the exploitation of the working people at home and abroad. In the 1920s and 30s, there was a strong tendency for intermediate classes, the middle class, to support counterrevolution, which helps to explain the defeats in this period. Regardless of this factor, Marxist-Leninists recognise that while reformist trade union leaders are prepared to support, in some instances movements against war and participate in blocs opposed to imperialist war and intervention, this did not mean they would support revolution against capitalism. In other words, they are useless for the purpose of revolution, but not useless for the task of mobilising support against imperialist war in some instances.

IMLR: But what Trotsky argues… the point he is trying to make in his criticism of the draft, is that, if the reactionary trade union leaders were capable of conducting a struggle against their own imperialists, they would not be ‘reactionary’. What is your reply to this view?

TC: I think that Trotsky, in this instance, is confusing revolutionary action with reformist action. Everyone knows that the petty-bourgeois stratum, which includes the labour aristocracy, is under certain conditions capable of opposing war and mobilising support against it. This, however, remains within the context of pacifism. I think that the Soviet Union had to deal with this situation, so that when Trotsky, in his comments on the draft programme, accuses Stalin for no longer being able to distinguish between ‘reactionary’ and ‘revolutionary’ he is simply revealing his pseudo-leftism.

IMLR: Trotsky goes on to give a characterisation of Bolshevism, saying

‘It was not flexibility that served (nor should it serve today) as the basic trait of Bolshevism but rather granite hardness’. (L. Trotsky: The Third International After Lenin; New Park; p. 107) Do you agree with Trotsky’s characterisation of Bolshevism here?

TC: No, because hardness, (he means firmness), and flexibility were equally important qualities of Bolshevism. For Trotsky to raise one side of these opposite qualities, that is, for him to absolutise ‘hardness’ as against flexibility, reveals more about Trotskyism than it does of Leninist Bolshevism. For Trotsky to ignore Bolshevik flexibility and only see its ‘hardness’ is to seriously misrepresent Bolshevism. This is indeed a Trotskyist caricature of Bolshevism.

IMLR: Trotsky wrote the following: ‘A programme of the Comintern must contain an infinitely more lucid and concrete characterisation of both the social and political prerequisites of the armed insurrection as well as of military and strategic considerations and methods that can guarantee victory’. (p.108). In other words, Trotsky thought the draft programme lacked the above provisions. Do you agree with Trotsky’s suggestions?

TC: I should think not. A programme, which guides the masses, should be of a general nature. In any case, no provision in a programme, contrary to what Trotsky writes, can guarantee victory. On the question of armed insurrection, it would be foolish for the Marxist programme to give a lucid, concrete characterisation of the preconditions for armed insurrection. Only a general guideline should be presented. It is for an experienced leadership to determine the right timing, for an armed uprising. I am surprised that Trotsky did not remember his own proposals to the 6^th Congress of the Comintern in 1928 when he formulated his own Transitional Programme in 1938.

IMLR: What do you think of Trotsky accusing the leadership of the CPSU and the Comintern of abusing the anti-faction resolution passed at the 10^th party Congress in 1921, and his raising the question of bureaucratic repression of any independent initiative?

TC: At one point in his criticism of the 1928 draft, Trotsky says that ‘A fighting party can never be the sum of factions that pull in opposite directions’. (p.119). This is quite true. No one would expect a disunited party to win a general election, let alone lead a revolution. Nor can such a party remain in power for any length of time. Factions are bad because they undermine the unity of a party. I think Stalin proceeded from the old dictum ‘united we stand, divided we fall’, and who is to say he was wrong? As for the issue of ‘bureaucratic repression’, any opposition to factionalism can be styled bureaucratic repression. No doubt there were those who regarded the 10^th Congress resolution banning factions as bureaucratic repression. The whole question of factions relates to the unity of the revolutionary party and a communist party strives for increasing unity.

IMLR: In his criticism of the 1928 draft programme Trotsky explains his defeat and the victory of Stalin as resulting from a movement of the working class to the right (see page 123) following upon the failure of the German revolution in 1923. You obviously would not concur with such an explanation. How do you interpret the same facts: Stalin’s victory and Trotsky’s defeat?

TC: We have already, in part, touched on this. I think that Trotsky attempted to present a simplified self justifying explanation of his defeat based on the mechanical reduction of everything to objective processes, but things were rather more complex. It is certainly true that when the masses move to the right this would favour a right tendency or grouping; likewise, a movement to the left would favour a left tendency. I assume we can all agree on this without further ado. Now, when we apply this schema to the Soviet Union what do we see? Perhaps the words ‘apply this schema’ is inappropriate, perhaps I should say, lets see to what extent developments internationally and in the Soviet Union supported this thesis. Following the defeat of the German revolution in 1923, there was bound to be a period of demoralisation, a shift to the right, if you will. The Soviet working class was naturally affected by German developments, a move to the right could not be ruled out. However, the relation between the defeat in Germany and its effect in the Soviet Union did not lead to defeatism in the latter. Indeed, the opposite process occurred at the level of leadership and this was transmitted to the working class. The defeat of the German revolution in 1923, having confirmed the isolation of the Russian revolution, did not result in the demoralisation of the Soviet leadership. Instead what we see is a determination to hold out and prepare the conditions of the building of socialism as part of the world revolutionary process until revolutions should break out again in other countries. I may be wrong, but I do not think that any sane, honest person would interpret this decision to hold out and build socialism in one country as an expression of a right-wing tendency. In short, to say that the determination to hold out and build socialism in one country, as a part of the world revolutionary process, in the face of adversities and difficulties, represents a ‘rightist’ development, as indeed the Trotskyists do say, is to turn reality on its head. If we are to remain on the basis of facts all should confess that Stalin’s determination to build socialism in one country was, in fact, a revolutionary decision. So Trotsky’s opposition to this policy was, not surprisingly, interpreted as issuing from the Menshevik stable, rightist defeatism masquerading as left-wing internationalism. From this standpoint, for the Soviet Union to survive, the Stalin leadership increasingly began to see the defeat of Trotskyism as a paramount necessity. So although one can speak of a rightward shift in general following the German defeat at least on the European scene, the process in the Soviet Union was different in that the leadership was able to stem the tide of defeatism. In this case, the part contradicted the whole, as far as Europe was concerned.

IMLR: What Trotsky argues in his criticism is that ‘The international revolutionary movement suffered defeats and together with it the left, proletarian Leninist wing of the CPSU and the Comintern went down in defeat’. (See p.123) Therefore, you are saying that this view was fundamentally flawed.

TC: I am saying it was fundamentally flawed and self serving, for although the working class suffered defeats in various countries, they did not suffer defeats in the Soviet Union. In other words, the general picture of defeats was contradicted by the particular case of the Soviet Union. The Party was able to keep the Thermidorean forces at bay. And the question of Thermidor is not an abstract question, but a class question. The social base for thermidor was the Kulaks, the bureaucrats, and the NEP men, precisely the strata that came in for attention in the purges.

IMLR: Trotsky himself recognised that there two contradictory lines. He wrote that ‘One of them was a conscious and consistent line; it was the continuation and development of the theoretical and strategical principles of Lenin in their application to the internal question of the USSR and the question of the world revolution; it was the line of the opposition’. (See p.124) What is your reply to this claim?

TC: In my view such a statement by Trotsky was self-serving nonsense. What I find amazing is Trotsky’s capacity for self-deception and lying, as if no one else can read and check things for themselves. This Goebbels-like mentality, that if you repeat a lie often enough people will begin to believe you, was probably invented by Trotsky. Every student of Lenin on the left knows that Lenin argued that the transition to socialism would begin with the victory of socialism in several or one country as part of the world revolutionary process. Now if you oppose this view you can claim many things for yourself, but you cannot claim you represent the Leninist line. Trotsky and his followers opposed, openly, this Leninist view and at the same time claimed they were defending Leninism, that they were its legatees if you will. Well, Marxist-Leninists have a word for this; it is called ‘opportunism’. Unlike Lenin, Trotsky saw only an absolute contradiction between socialism in one country and world revolution and not how the world revolution would resolve this contradiction. For Trotsky it was either one or the other, and this was Trotsky’s fundamental mistake. This mistake constituted the whole foundation on which Trotskyism rested after 1924. This is why Trotsky’s claim that he represented the Leninist wing in the Soviet communist party is opportunism, a tale for political schoolchildren. As Lenin said, like a chameleon, opportunism seeks protective coloration. Trotskyism sought the protective coloration of Leninism; it attempts to pass itself off as Leninism, while at the same time openly lying and opposing Lenin’s theory. Thus the struggle against Stalin was, in essence, the struggle to smash Leninism in the CPSU and the international communist movement and replace it with Trotskyism.

IMLR: Trotsky wrote that ‘... the opposition needs no other channel than that of the Comintern. No one will succeed in tearing us away from it. The ideas we defend will become its ideas. They will find their expression in the programme of the Communist International’. How do you view such a statement?

TC: I think that here we are dealing with delusions of grandeur. This statement simply illustrates Trotsky’s detachment from reality; a detachment which was later confirmed when he produced his Transitional Programme in 1938, which contains a passage claiming that ‘The advanced workers of all the world are already firmly convinced that the overthrow of Mussolini, Hitler and their agents and imitators will occur only under the leadership of the Fourth International’. (L. Trotsky: The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International; New Park; p.47)

IMLR: I will proceed to that section of his criticism of the 1928 draft where Trotsky deals with Chinese events, under the heading ‘summary and perspective of the Chinese revolution'. What general impressions do you get from the way Trotsky treats this matter?

TC: My general impression is that here Trotsky confuses the anti-imperialist struggle in China with the anti-capitalist struggle. For instance, whereas the draft speaks of temporary agreements with the national bourgeoisie in the anti-imperialist struggle, Trotsky declares astonishingly, ‘For practical and expedient agreements we have absolutely no use for such conditions as the one cited above’. (See p.128) but these conditions were that the bourgeoisie do not obstruct the organisation of the revolutionary workers and wage a genuine struggle against imperialism. Because Trotsky confuses the anti-imperialist stage of the struggle with the struggle for socialism, he advocates a policy, which leads to a premature split in the anti-imperialist camp. Communists propose an anti-imperialist united-front with the national bourgeoisie for the struggle against imperialism, while not losing sight of the idea that the national bourgeoisie will only go so far in the anti-imperialist struggle. Trotsky takes the view that it was the united-front with the national bourgeois in the Chinese revolution which led to its defeat, rather than how the united-front was carried out, and other factors, such as lack of experience of the Chinese party at that time. Only an experienced party can carry out a united-front policy without making right opportunist mistakes on the one hand, and left opportunists mistakes on the other.

IMLR: In his criticism, Trotsky argues that the bourgeoisie in a colonial, oppressed country fighting imperialism is not more progressive than a bourgeoisie fighting feudalism in a non-colonial country in the period of the democratic revolution. Would you agree with this point?

TC: It is not a question of which bourgeoisie is more progressive. Communists propose a united-front with the national bourgeoisie in the period of the struggle for national liberation because this helps to undermine imperialism. Trotsky, in his comments said that in certain respects the Chinese bourgeoisie was even more reactionary in relation to the working class than the Russian bourgeoisie. There is no need to disagree with this observation, but this was not the essence of the issue, which remained the question of the united-front with the colonial bourgeoisie in the anti-imperialist struggle. In China, the mistake that the communists made was not in forming an alliance with the colonial bourgeoisie in the fight against imperialism, but of not been alerted to its inevitable betrayal at a certain stage in the struggle. To understand the Chinese revolution we must remember that around 90 per cent of the population were made up of the peasantry exploited by feudalism. The struggle against feudalism, supported by imperialism was the essence of the first stage of the Chinese revolution. This meant that all those who opposed feudalism and imperialism must unite to defeat it. This is what Trotskyism failed to grasp, that the Chinese bourgeois democratic national revolution was directed against feudalism and imperialism. Trotskyists failed to understand that all those who oppose feudalism and imperialism must unite in the first stage of the Chinese revolution. It is correctly said that the Trotskyists underestimated the survivals of feudalism in China. Trotsky viewed the struggle of the national bourgeoisie as a struggle for customs autonomy. A criticism of Trotskyism, therefore, on the question of the Chinese revolution, must be based on the idea that Trotskyism failed to recognise that communists must seek to unite all those elements who oppose feudalism and imperialism in the first stage of the revolution. Trotsky failed to recognise the anti-feudal, anti-imperialist nature of the Chinese revolution, underestimated the role of 90 per cent of the population, i.e., the peasants. For a revolution to succeed three things are necessary; these are: a revolutionary party, a correct policy, and a favourable balance of class forces. In 1905, the Russian revolution was defeated, and the Mensheviks wanted to blame the defeats on the Bolsheviks and Lenin. In 1927 the Chinese revolution was temporarily defeated and the Trotskyists blamed the defeats on Stalin and the Comintern, failing to realise that these defeats were in large measure because the forces of counterrevolution were stronger than the forces of revolution. In the February 1917 revolution, during the July days, the Bolsheviks experienced a defeat and were driven underground. The forces of counterrevolution were stronger than the forces of revolution, although the Bolsheviks had a correct policy. The problem with Trotskyism is that it is one-sided, imagining that all that is needed is a correct policy for the revolution to win. But a correct policy will not succeed if the balance of forces cannot be changed in favour of the revolution, or if the communist party is not strong enough.

IMLR: Are you suggesting that Trotsky lacked an understanding of the relation between a correct policy and the relation of forces in the class struggle: the relation between the forces disposed to revolution and those disposed to counterrevolution?

TC: I am not actually suggesting this. What I am suggesting is that he considers this when its suits him, but forgets it, as an element in his analysis, when it does not suit him. The question of policy is not simply that if it is correct it leads to victory when the balance of forces is favourable. A correct policy can serve to help change the balance of forces in favour of the revolution, whereas an incorrect policy, which by the way, may look ‘left’, will help change the balance of forces in favour of the right.

IMLR: So, how does this thesis apply, concretely, to the Chinese revolution of 1925-1927?

TC: Well, the point of departure for Marxism-Leninism on these questions is the ‘general line’.

The general line of the Comintern was correct. I have already pointed out that this line sought to unite all those social forces that could be united to accomplish the first stage of the Chinese revolution: the expulsion of feudalism and imperialism from China. Trotskyism failed to understand the importance of this task. Trotsky wanted to impose his version of the theory of ‘permanent revolution’ on Chinese events, so this prevents the Trotskyists from grasping the significance of the anti-imperialist character of the first stage of the Chinese revolution. In his criticism of the 1928 draft programme proposed for the 6^th Congress of the Comintern, Trotsky was able to point out some mistakes which were made in the Chinese revolution, but particular mistakes were made on the basis of a correct general line. For the Trotskyists these mistakes were the result of an incorrect general line, which, in the opinion of Marxist-Leninists, was not the case. Marxist-Leninists recognise that particular mistakes are possible on the basis of a correct general line. The way I read Trotsky is that he was always able to point out some particular mistakes, but this was always done on the basis of his incorrect general line.

Let me put it in another way. The general line of the Comintern was correct, but particular mistakes were made. On the other hand, the general line of the Trotskyist opposition was incorrect, but they were able to point out certain mistakes of their opponents.

IMLR: What do you describe as the ‘general line’ of the Trotskyist opposition, in contrast to Stalin and the Comintern?

TC: Obviously the general line of the opposition, and I include in this the united opposition formed with the Zinovievites in 1926, was the opposition to Lenin’s view that the world revolutionary process began with, or would lead to, the victory of socialism in several or one country. As Marxist-Leninists argue, for Trotsky and his followers to see only an absolute contradiction between socialism in one country and world revolution constituted not only a rejection of Leninism but also a rejection of dialectical reasoning as well. Thus, Trotsky and his adherents confused the beginning with the end. Socialism in one or several countries was the beginning. World revolution is the end. The Trotskyist opposition did not understand the relationship between the beginning and the end. Today some academic writers who oppose Stalin, more-or-less recognise that Trotsky was wrong and try to get him off the hook by arguing that Trotsky wasn’t against building socialism in the Soviet Union, but he differed with Stalin on the matter of tempo and other matters. For instance, Alec Nove writes that

‘I agree with Richard Day that "the operative question for Trotsky was not whether Russia could build socialism in advance of the international revolution, but how to devise an optimal planning strategy, taking into account both the existing and future international division of labour"’. (See Alec Nove’s paper, which is a contribution to ‘The Trotsky Reappraisal’; p.196. This book is based on a number of anti-Stalin contributions in the form of papers submitted to the conference which took place at King’s College University, Aberdeen, Scotland, July, August, 1990.)

So we see that the more intelligent pro-Trotsky writers are trying to argue, contrary to facts, that Trotsky did not actually oppose Stalin on building socialism in one country, but questioned Stalin on the matter of tempo and the international division of labour. But there can be no doubt that whatever Trotsky’s vacillation on the issue, theoretically he rejected the line being defended by Stalin.

IMLR: In his criticism, Trotsky raises the question of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union and its effect on the political line of the party. In fact he wrote that ‘the amalgamations of many links in the party apparatus with the state bureaucracy, with the bourgeois intelligentsia, with the petty-bourgeoisie, the Kulaks in the villages; the pressure of the world bourgeoisie upon the internal mechanics-all this together creates the elements of social dual power, which exerts pressure on the party through the party apparatus’. (p.234).

To what extent would you agree that all these pressures on the party influenced its political line?

TC: Well, of course, no political party, including a communist party, exists in a vacuum. What Trotsky is trying to argue here is that it was this alien social base, opposed to socialism, that provided the Stalin group in the leadership the means to fight the opposition. It is the old argument that the Stalin group served the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy and other privileged strata. But even the most hardened anti-Communist writers have to admit, by the force of facts, that it was the better placed strata, which were the hardest hit in the purges. The representatives of the privileged strata were themselves purged by the Stalin group. The struggle against the Trotskyist opposition was the struggle against ultra-leftism in the leadership.

IMLR: What do you make of Trotsky’s interpretation of Leninism?

TC: I think that Trotsky’s interpretation of Leninism, like Zinoviev and Bukharin’s interpretation of Lenin, is ultra-leftist.

IMLR: So, you are saying that Trotsky’s Lenin did not exist in reality, but rather is a projection of Trotskyism on Lenin?

TC: That is right. The factional struggle impelled Trotsky to construct a Lenin who would be useful to him in his confrontation with his rivals. Trotsky’s Lenin, therefore, turns out to be ‘Trotskyist’ from head to foot. It was this ‘Lenin’ which he, Trotsky, used to fight Stalin.

IMLR: On page 27 of his criticism of the draft, Trotsky quotes a passage from Lenin in support of his line. Do you read this passage as a refutation of Stalin or Lenin?

TC: Permit me to quote this passage, which reads: ‘We have emphasised in many of our works, in all our speeches, and in our entire press that the situation in Russia is not the same as in the advanced capitalist countries, that we have in Russia a minority of industrial workers and an overwhelming majority of small agrarians. The social revolution in such a country can be finally successful only on two conditions: first, on the condition that it is given timely support by the social revolution in one or more advanced countries…second, that there can be an agreement between the proletariat which establishes the dictatorship or holds state power in its hands and the majority of peasant population… We know that only an agreement with the peasantry can save the socialist revolution in Russia so long as the revolution in other countries has not arrived’. (Volume 18; p. 137)

What Lenin says here is that the final success of the revolution depends on the timely support of revolution in one or more advanced countries and an agreement between the working class and the peasantry, and Lenin repeats the importance of the alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry. I do not read anything here which is a refutation of Stalin because Lenin is referring to the ‘final’ success of the revolution. So it does Trotsky no good to use passages like these against Stalin.

IMLR: You have argued that Trotsky’s, indeed, Trotskyism’s fundamental mistake is to divide up the world revolutionary process into a choice between either socialism in one country or world revolution, and you say that Marxist-Leninists were right to reject this Trotskyist theory of the world revolutionary process. How do you think this issue stands in the contemporary world?

TC: I think that Marxist-Leninists were right against the Trotskyists because the world revolution must be regarded as a process. This process can begin in one or several countries, as Lenin pointed out, and continue to embrace other countries. I think that the next stage of the revolution will be on a yet higher level so there is less reason to believe that the revolution will need to fight to maintain itself in one or several countries while the rest of the world remains in the camp of counterrevolution. If this is the case then socialism in one country will not be an issue in the future.

IMLR: One last question. This concerns Trotsky’s estimation of Stalin’s theoretical abilities in his criticism, under the heading, ‘Who is leading the Comintern today?’ Trotsky apparently disparages Stalin on matters of theory. For instance, he says that ‘When Lenin was alive, it never occurred to any of us to draw Stalin into discussions of theoretical problems or strategical questions of the International’. Have you anything to say about this portrayal of Stalin?

TC: One of Trotsky’s problems was his intellectual arrogance. Who is he referring to when he claimed it never occurred to ‘us’ to draw Stalin into discussions of theoretical problems? He is certainly not referring to Lenin because, as every Marxist-Leninist knows, it was precisely Lenin who drew Stalin into discussing important theoretical problems, even in the pre-revolutionary period. I am referring to the nationality question. Stalin’s work on this issue became the foundation for Bolshevik policy. As for Trotsky’s theoretical abilities, one of the leaders of the anti-Stalin right opposition, Ryutin, described Trotsky as not having a profound intellect, nor being a profound theoretician. So we see that on the question of theoretical ability Trotsky has his critics too.

IMLR: I would like bring this interview to a conclusion by asking what you consider to be the most significant aspect of Trotsky’s work, ‘The Third International After Lenin’?

TC: For me, as Trotsky correctly argues, the point of departure for an international programme is the international factor, in terms of the direction events are moving in economics and from this drawing the right political conclusions. In this respect the most important fact is the magnitude of error which Trotsky made in his prediction that events were leading to a conflict between American and British imperialism, which in this period was an article of faith for Trotskyism, the foundation on which he set out to criticise the 1928 draft programme of the Communist International.

IMLR: I will close the interview. Thank you for your participation.