Below is an examination of the theoretical side to the bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, and a critique which contrasts the Trotskyist view that “Stalinism” is the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class with the correct marxist-leninist view that the most counter-revolutionary force in the working class is pro-imperialist social democracy.
IN THE MARXIST REVIEW for July 2006, Dave Wiltshire in his article “In Defence of Permanent Revolution” reviews a book called 100 Years of Permanent Revolution – Results and Prospects. In this review, Wiltshire claims that
‘The struggle for the theory of permanent revolution was the struggle against what would become the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the world working class, Stalinism’. (MR: P.21)
The above passage by Wiltshire is actually a summing up of Trotskyism. Trotsky’s permanent revolution theory has always been regarded as having explained, in advance, the Russian revolution, and subsequently became the theoretical basis for the struggle against what Trotskyists claim is the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class – “Stalinism”.
Let us deal with these two issues separately, although keeping in mind that Trotskyists see a relation between the two. First, an issue of historical fact.
It is well known by Marxist-Leninists that in defending his permanent revolution theory Trotsky perpetrated the biggest theoretical lie ever perpetrated in the history of the revolutionary movement; this is the lie that it was Stalin who invented the theory of socialism in one country – a theory used to oppose Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. In fact, it was Lenin who raised the possibility of socialism in one country as a stage in the world revolution in the ranks of the Bolsheviks. As we explain this elsewhere, we need not go into this here.
Regarding the Russian revolution, there were three views about how it would develop. Lenin argued that the working class should take the lead in the democratic revolution with the peasantry. This would result in the establishment of a radical democratic dictatorship of both these classes, which would pursue the democratic revolution to the end, fulfilling the minimum programme, and depending on conditions such as the organisation and consciousness of the working class would later transform the revolution into a struggle for socialism. The main thing for Lenin was that the bourgeoisie was too cowardly to lead the democratic revolution and would betray it by arranging a compromise with Tsarism. It was this factor that determined the leading role of the worker-peasant alliance in the democratic revolution.
The Mensheviks argued that the bourgeoisie should lead their own democratic revolution, and that the working class should limit itself to supporting the capitalists and avoid scaring them into making a deal with reaction. Only after a long period of social, economic, and political development would the Mensheviks countenance any struggle for socialism. Lenin criticised the Mensheviks for ignoring the vacillating and cowardly nature of the bourgeoisie in those countries with a belated capitalist development during the bourgeois democratic revolution.
Trotsky argued that the working class should lead the democratic revolution and by virtue of having state power would not stop at the democratic stage but start an immediate struggle for socialism. But to remain in power the working class would have to spread the revolution more-or-less immediately to the other advanced capitalist countries. This was a pseudo-left position that ignored potential objective and subjective conditions, rendering Trotsky’s standpoint very dangerous. Trotsky also underestimated the role of the peasantry, but later denied this. We can ignore this denial by simply turning to his early writings on his theory of permanent revolution, where he wrote that Russia’s socio-historical development had laid
‘…the whole burden of the bourgeois revolution upon the shoulders of the proletariat…’ (L. Trotsky: Results and Prospects, 1906, in: The Permanent Revolution; New Park Publications July 1963; p.203)
But for Marxism-Leninism, both the proletariat and the peasantry as a whole would bear the burden of the revolution during its bourgeois democratic stage.
Trotsky also referred to the proletariat as ‘…the only revolutionary class in the country’. (Trotsky op. cit. p.252)
Again for Marxism-Leninism, not only the proletariat, but also the peasantry as an whole would play a revolutionary role during the stage of the bourgeois democratic revolution, while during the socialist stage only the poorer strata of the peasantry would be expected to play a revolutionary role, while the middle peasants could be neutralised.
So, although Trotsky assigned to the peasantry a supporting role, he thought the working class would bear the whole burden of the bourgeois revolution, no doubt because it was the only revolutionary class in the country. That Trotsky underestimated the role of the peasantry is clearly revealed when he later remarked that
‘…Lenin never regarded the peasants as a socialist ally of the proletariat…’. (L. Trotsky: What is the Permanent Revolution, three concepts of the Russian revolution; published by Spartacist, 1970, pages unnumbered.)
As stated above, the poor peasantry was the ally of the working class during the socialist stage of the revolution. It was expected that the middle peasants would vacillate, in which case such vacillation could be neutralised.
What happened in 1917 was that the first imperialist world war speeded up the contradictions in Russian society making it possible and necessary to shorten the period of transition from the democratic to the socialist revolution. Without the influence of the war, any attempt to turn the capitalist revolution into a socialist one in the short term would have been disastrous for the working class. In the absence of wartime conditions, which disorganised the Russian bourgeoisie and their foreign imperialist backers, any attempt to realise Trotsky’s permanent revolution strategy would have led to a second Paris Commune for the Russian workers movement. This would be even more certain if the flames of revolution failed to establish in the more advanced capitalist countries as was subsequently the case. In short, any attempts to pursue Trotsky’s strategy under more peaceful conditions favourable to the bourgeoisie would have been doomed. The Trotskyists fail to understand that it was the conditions inflicted on the masses by war that made it possible for the Leninists to win support to go beyond the democratic stage to the socialist revolution. This had nothing to do with Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution.
The Trotskyist argument that in 1917 Lenin came over to Trotsky’s theory is sheer nonsense. It was not the logic of Trotsky’s theory that Lenin embraced but the logic of events brought forward by the first imperialist world war, about which even in 1928 Trotsky had nothing to say regarding the relationship between the war and the revolution. Of course, Trotskyists argue that it was Trotsky’s theory that reflected the logic of events; i.e., the working class was able to come to power and begin an early struggle for socialism, having completed the democratic revolution. But that this was all made possible by wartime conditions escapes them. Without wartime conditions Lenin would not have won a majority on the Bolshevik Central Committee to capture power in the name of socialism.
Had the revolution taken place under more peaceful conditions, the prominent voices which opposed the seizure of power, like Kamenev and Zinoviev, would not have been limited to two, but probably would have made up the majority of the Central Committee on a more firm basis. In fact, when Lenin first placed his April Theses before the Bolshevik Party, it was opposed by the majority, with only Stalin and Alexandra Kollontai among the first to support the new line. The essence of Lenin’s April Theses was that wartime conditions made it possible and necessary to go beyond the limits of the democratic revolution.
What happened in the 1917 Russian revolution was that Lenin’s revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry came into being in the form of the workers and peasants Soviets, but was unable to complete the democratic revolution due to the opportunist leadership of the Soviets. After several months, due to conditions created by the war, the Bolsheviks were able to win the leadership of the Soviets, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and lay the basis for a struggle for socialism. Lenin had clearly stated in his Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution that
“Like everything else in the world, the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry has a past and a future. Its past is autocracy, serfdom monarchy, and privilege…its future is the struggle against private property, the struggle of the wage-worker against the employer, the struggle for socialism…” (See: CW: Vol.9, pp.84-85)
The struggle for socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin’s revolutionary democratic dictatorship would, at a certain stage, be transformed into the dictatorship of the proletariat, which was what occurred in the Russian revolution of 1917. The early transformation of the one into the other was a direct consequence of the imperialist war. Lenin replied to Kamenev, who had criticised him for orientating the Bolshevik party for a struggle for socialism, with the remark that
‘Comrade Kamenev’s mistake is that even in 1917 he sees only the past of the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. As a matter of fact its future has already begun, for the interests of the policies of the wage-worker and the petty proprietor have actually diverged already, even in such an important question as that of “defencism”, that of the attitude towards the imperialist war’. (See Lenin in: CW. Vol. 24; pp.42-54)
That is how the Russian revolution developed, with the early transformation of the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry in the period of dual power with the provisional government and under conditions of the imperialist war, into the dictatorship of the proletariat and the beginning of the struggle for socialism. It was the betrayal of the democratic revolution by the opportunists under the above conditions, which made it possible and necessary for Lenin to begin to take steps towards socialism. Lenin pointed out that
‘Control over a bank, the merging of all banks into one, is not yet socialism…’
But are steps in the direction of socialism.
In addition, Lenin asks ‘What compels such steps?’ And he answers,
‘Famine. Economic disorganisation. Imminent collapse. The horrors of war. The horrors of the wounds inflicted on humankind by the war’. (See Lenin: CW. Vol. 24; pp.42-54)
Since Trotsky had argued that the working class would come to power and complete the democratic revolution and begin a struggle for socialism, it may be considered that his differences with the Bolsheviks were unimportant, but the truth is, as we have already explained, the implementation of Trotsky’s line under more peaceful conditions would have led to disaster for the revolution. The Bolsheviks did not implement Trotsky’s line – it was Lenin’s line which they implemented, that is, the transformation of the revolutionary democratic dictatorship under specific, concrete conditions, into the dictatorship of the proletariat, thus laying the ground for a struggle for socialism. Although it was wartime conditions that caused Lenin to begin laying the ground for a struggle for socialism, Trotskyists still argue that the Russian revolution validated Trotsky’s theory.
Lenin’s revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry which came into being in 1917 taking the form of the workers and peasants Soviets, was a transitional state which would make the transition to socialism or to an ordinary bourgeois republic depending on circumstances, especially the consciousness and organisation of the working class, if the former was to be the case. The early transformation of this transitional state into the dictatorship of the proletariat resulted from extreme and peculiar conditions which Lenin fully explains in his April Theses.
The Trotskyists argue that the struggle for Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution was a struggle against what would become, in the words of Dave Wiltshire, the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the world working class movement – Stalinism. We have already dealt with this issue elsewhere, but it is necessary to go over it again, because the claim that “Stalinism” is the most, or the greatest counter-revolutionary agency of imperialism in the working class is the basic ideology of Trotskyism. It sums up the Trotskyist world-view, used to win over those who are beginning to reject capitalism for revolutionary politics.
Trotsky’s view is completely opposed to Marxism-Leninism. For the latter, it is social democracy, which is the most counter-revolutionary agency of imperialism in the working class movement.
Consequently, the leaders of pro-imperialist social democracy must be eternally grateful to Trotsky when he came out with a new line that “Stalinism” was the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the world working class movement. The question is why did Trotsky adopt this obviously false and absurd position. Trotskyists continue to argue this line oblivious to the main outline of the political history of the working class movement in the 20th Century. From 1914 and following the Russian working class seizure of power in 1917, two basic ideological trends emerged in the working class movement; these were social democracy and communism. These trends gave political expression to a split in the working class between counter-revolutionary leaders who support social democracy and revolutionary elements who follow communism. These two trends exist although individuals can cross over from one camp to other.
While the leaders of social democracy aligned themselves with imperialism and the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, the followers of communism on the other hand – both in the period of Lenin, Stalin and after, aligned themselves with the former Soviet Union. While social democracy continued to support the struggle of imperialism against the socialist bloc of countries and the national liberation movements, the international communist movement generally speaking, and to one degree or another, continued to support the socialist bloc of countries and the forces of national liberation against imperialism. In other words, the working class movement in every country became polarised between a pro-imperialist social democratic movement versus a pro-Soviet international communist movement, with the latter aligning itself not only with the other socialist countries but with the forces of national liberation in the colonial and semi-colonial countries.
Everyone knows that social democracy supports imperialism while the international communist movement supported the Soviet union, the socialist bloc, and the national liberation movements around the world, to one degree or another, yet the Trotskyists put forward the false, absurd idea, that “Stalinism” is the “greatest” counter-revolutionary force of imperialism in the working class. Trotsky first introduced this line in the 1930s. We need to explore how this idea came into being, and what purpose it actually served in the 1930s, and serves today.
To argue as Trotsky did and the Trotskyists continue to do, that those who followed the Soviet Union through the international communist movement were the “greatest” counter-revolutionary force in the international workers’ movement, is to say that these people were more counterrevolutionary than those leaders in the working class who follow the bourgeoisie and imperialism through social democracy.
According to the logic of Trotskyism, a communist movement that defended the Soviet Union, the other socialist countries and the national liberation movements was more counter-revolutionary than a social democratic movement that supported imperialism.
Thus on what became the most important and fundamental contradiction in the working class, i.e., that between pro-imperialist social democracy and a pro-Soviet communist movement, Trotskyists teach that the pro-Soviet forces were the greatest counter-revolutionary elements in the international working class.
The Trotskyists have never grasped the absurdity of an ideology which views the supporters of socialism and the national liberal struggle as being more counter-revolutionary than the supporters of imperialism, i.e., social democracy.
Trotsky, like his followers today, was blind to the fact that if social democracy was supporting imperialism, while the international communist movement was supporting the Soviet Union and the national liberation movements around the world, then the “Stalinists” could not be the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class.
Those who failed to make a distinction between a pro-imperialist movement like social democracy and an anti-imperialist movement, like the world communist movement, and even go so far as to argue that the latter was the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class – objectively have become servants of social democracy and imperialism.
When Trotsky argued that “Stalinism” is the most counter-revolutionary force in the working class movement through-and-through, he was arguing that pro-Soviet “Stalinists” were more counter-revolutionary than pro-imperialist social democracy. In other words, he ignored the significance of the polarisation in the working class between pro-imperialist social democracy and the pro-Soviet communist movement. In Trotskyist logic, the “Stalinist” parties were more counter-revolutionary than the social democratic parties, regardless of the fact that the former were pro-Soviet and supported the anti-imperialist movements in general.
If Trotskyism says that those who follow the socialist countries are more counterrevolutionary than those who follow imperialism, what we are dealing with is an anti-communist ideology, which serves the interest of social democracy and imperialism. Lenin argued that the essence of Trotskyism was one of “shielding” the opportunists,
‘…there you have the essence of Trotskyism.’ (Lenin: CW. Vol.17; p.242-244)
When Trotsky first argued that “Stalinism” was the most counterrevolutionary agency of imperialism in the working class, what he was in effect doing was shielding social democracy. The history of Trotskyism provides a clue to Trotsky’s motives.
Before the Russian revolution of 1917, the role of Trotskyism was to try to unite the revolutionary wing of Russian social democracy with the opportunist counter-revolutionary wing. To effect this merger Trotsky was constantly attacking the Leninists, while shielding the opportunists. After his expulsion from the Soviet Union in 1929, Trotsky started to play a similar role. Seeing his task as one of guiding his followers into the camp of social democracy to capture certain leftward moving forces, Trotsky sought to make his forces more acceptable to social democracy by sending out a signal to the social democratic leaders that rather than they – the supporters of imperialism – it was the Stalinists, (the supporters of the Soviet Union. Ed.) who were the most counterrevolutionary force in the international working class movement….through-and-through..
The view that the Stalinist supporters of the Soviet Union were more counter-revolutionary than the social democratic supporters of imperialism had its origins partly in a tactical manoeuvre by Trotsky to pursue a policy of entryism in regard to social democracy. Trotsky was prepared to turn reality on its head in order to serve a tactical manoeuvre.
Even though the Stalinists defended the Soviet Union and gave support to the national liberation movement of China, North Korea, Cuba and Vietnam, and other national liberation struggles, the Trotskyists were still stupid enough to argue that “Stalinism” was the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class. The effect of all this was to boost the influence of social democracy in the working class on the one hand, and divert some leftward moving individuals away from the communist movement on the other.
Marxist-Leninists regard Trotskyism as an ideological expression of the petty-bourgeoisie in the working class movement. Nothing makes this more clear than Trotsky’s view that the supporters of the former Soviet Union, the other socialist countries and the anti-imperialist national liberation movements are the most counter-revolutionary elements in the working class, rather than pro-imperialist social democracy.
Trotsky’s view is the same as saying that the communist movement is to the right of the pro-imperialist social democratic movement.
But on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, we can definitely say that the alliance between social democracy and imperialism from 1914 to the present, categorically rules any other tendency being the greatest, or the most counter-revolutionary force in the working class – particularly it rules out the “Stalinists” who did the most to support the Soviet Union, the other socialist countries, and the national liberation movements.
We realise, of course, that in the rich imperialist countries, it is more easy for Trotskyists to mislead people who are ignorant of Marxism-Leninism with talk about “Stalinism” being the “greatest” counter-revolutionary force in the working class movement, but those who were shedding real blood in the third-world in the struggle against imperialist oppression at a time when only the “Stalinist” Soviet Union gave any real, material support will know better.
This is why Marxist-Leninists can say to the Trotskyists it is not “Stalinism” but social democracy which is the most, and indeed, remains the greatest counter-revolutionary agency of imperialism in the working class. For Marxist-Leninists, the long-standing alliance between social democracy and imperialism is the only proof that is needed for the advance workers to reject the absurd Trotskyist view that “Stalinism” is the most counter-revolutionary agency of imperialism in the international working class movement.
When Trotskyists can ignore this long-standing alliance between social democracy and imperialism to argue that the “Stalinists,” those who have defended the former socialist countries and the national liberation movements, are the “greatest” counter-revolutionary force in the working class, this only goes to show the extent to which Trotskyism is detached from reality.
It was Trotsky who, for his own purposes, first ignored the alliance between social democracy and imperialism to argue that “Stalinism” was the most counter-revolutionary force in the international working class – through-and-through. For Trotsky those who were in alliance with the Soviet Union were more counter-revolutionary through-and-through than those who were in alliance with imperialism. Yet, at the same time, the Trotskyists claimed to be defenders of the Soviet Union from imperialism and from the greatest counter-revolutionary elements in the working class, not the pro-imperialist social democracy, but the “Stalinists”.
CONCLUSION. We have shown that the Trotskyist argument that the struggle for permanent revolution was a struggle against what would become the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the international working class movement was in fact an argument based on a complete rejection of Leninism in regard both to the course of the Russian revolution and in regard to Trotsky’s position on “Stalinism”.
We proved that Trotsky did underestimate the role of the peasantry when he claimed that Russia’s historical development placed the whole burden of the bourgeois revolution on the shoulders of the working class, which he viewed as the only revolutionary class in the Russian revolution and when he further claimed that Lenin never regarded the peasantry as a socialist ally of the proletariat.
We have also shown that the 1917 Russian revolution first led to the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry – a transitional regime under conditions of dual power. Due to the betrayal of the democratic revolution by the Mensheviks and other opportunists, and because of the terrible conditions imposed by the first imperialist world war, Lenin led the way for the dictatorship of the proletariat which would prepare the ground for a struggle for socialism.
Finally we have exposed the Trotskyist argument that the most, or the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the international working class movement is “Stalinism,” to be a false, anti-Marxist-Leninist argument, which serves the purpose of social democracy. For Trotsky to argue this he had to ignore the counter-revolutionary alliance between social democracy and imperialism, while simultaneously ignoring the fact that the pro-Soviet communists gave support to the Soviet Union and the national liberation movements against imperialism.
In the absurd petty-bourgeois ideological world-view of Trotskyism, the pro-Soviet elements, the “Stalinists”, who gave support to the Soviet Union, the other socialist countries and the anti-imperialist movements, were more counter-revolutionary than the pro-imperialist elements in the working class, the social democrats, who openly side with imperialism against the world revolution. This is the meaning of Dave Wiltshire’s remark about “Stalinism” being the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the working class. It is a Trotskyist argument in the service of social democracy, and through the latter serves imperialism.
T. Clark, 12 August, 2006