THE
STALIN DEBATE
For most classical Marxists,
socialism was not possible in a society which was socially backward from the
standpoint of the development of the productive forces and the political education
of the revolutionary class. This was certainly the view of leading Russian
Marxists such as Plekhanov, Lenin and Martov. It was also the view of Trotsky.
Stalin, by all accounts, must have shared the same view as well, which probably
explains his temporary dithering and alliance with Kamenev in giving partial
support to the provisional government on his return from Siberian exile. In
other words, Stalin subscribed to the classical Marxist view that socialism was
the outcome of an advanced industry and a generally educated population.
Lenin’s tactics for the revolution
were concerned with forming an alliance between the working class and the
Russian peasantry, the latter forming perhaps 80% of the population. This
combined force would support the most radical capitalist revolution in which
the peasants would benefit from land distribution and the working class from a
democratic regime - a situation which favoured the development of the class
struggle in the direction of socialism. The Mensheviks also wanted a capitalist
democracy in which there would be some land distribution from above and where
the working class would gain the space to struggle for socialism, or so they
claimed. They, however, imagined this state of affairs being brought about by an
alliance between the working class and the conservative bourgeoisie.
Trotsky introduced a new line of
argument, which represented a break from Marxism, because he took the novel
position that working class dictatorship can, or should be, established in a
socially backward society. In his view, the coming revolution, led by the
working class, would not stop at the bourgeois democratic stage, but would
proceed to the socialist stage – i.e. the dictatorship of the proletariat,
which would move towards socialism in Russia, while fomenting revolution
abroad.
The view that the dictatorship of
the proletariat can and should be established in a backward country found
little support on the Marxist left and absolutely none with the Mensheviks.
This abandonment of Marxism for what was rightly considered to be left
adventurism excluded Trotsky from mainstream Marxist opinion, dogmatically
upheld by the Mensheviks and more creatively applied by Lenin.
In reflecting on the various
theories about the Russian Revolution put forward by the different
protagonists, we need to see them in the light of the revolution itself. The
Russian revolution occurred during the first world imperialist war. This event
transformed the theoretical presuppositions of Lenin completely, turning
everything upside down.
On returning to Russia, Trotsky,
with no political party behind him, began negotiations to join the Bolshevik
Party. There was a ‘convergence’ between Lenin and Trotsky. To understand how
this convergence took place we need to understand the nature of Lenin’s
Marxism. Lenin had previously argued that the revolution would lead to the
establishment of a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry,
which would oversee a radical completion of the democratic revolution. In his
1917 April theses he suggested that the workers’ and peasants’ soviets
represented such a dictatorship.
Before the Bolsheviks won
majorities in the urban soviets, Lenin became increasingly convinced that
Europe was “pregnant with revolution”. On returning to Russia, and in view of
the developing European revolutionary situation, he concluded that it would be
absurd doctrinairism to now limit the Russian Revolution to the bourgeois
stage.
Lenin moved towards the
dictatorship of the proletariat because of the increasingly revolutionary
situation in Europe and internal conditions in Russia. In the light of this
situation, Lenin saw no problems in letting Trotsky into the Bolshevik Party.
Contrary to what many leftists are taught, Lenin did not go over to
establishing working class dictatorship in a backward country because he agreed
with Trotsky’s permanent revolution theory, but rather because he based
himself on the imminence of the European revolution and the internal
conditions in Russia. He thought that under these conditions not to go beyond
the capitalist limits of the Russian revolution would mean siding with dogmatic
Marxism against dialectics.
Lenin was right: Europe was on the
verge of revolution, particularly in Germany, the most important of the
advanced countries in this respect. Unfortunately, social democracy betrayed
the German revolution. Lenin and the Bolsheviks had to fight a civil war to
remain in power. At the end of the civil war, the emergency measures of war
communism were abandoned in favour of a new economic policy (NEP), entailing a
mixed economy. In 1923, the revolutionary tide began to recede, the Russian
revolution became isolated and by January 1924, Lenin was dead.
The retreating post-war revolutionary
tide and the increasing demoralisation of the working class, combined with a
restive peasantry, led to a new debate in the party about the way forward for
the revolution. One group around Trotsky sought to place major emphasis on the world
revolution, although the revolution was in retreat. The other group,
around Stalin, basing itself on the retreat of the revolution, sought to place
the emphasis on building socialism in one country, a process
which would require the transitional economy of the new economic policy.
Trotsky, who had previously, dogmatically, advocated working class dictatorship
in a backward country, now came out against the theory of socialism in one
country.
From a Marxist standpoint, Trotsky
was wrong in theoretically advocating working class dictatorship in a backward
country, while Lenin was right to go beyond the bourgeois revolution based on
the imminence of the European revolution. After the betrayal of the German
revolution by social democracy and the consequent isolation of the Russian
revolution, the Bolsheviks could either relinquish power or retain power. If
they chose to retain power, this could only be in the name of building
socialism in one country via a mixed economy. Stalin turned to Lenin’s writings
and found that the latter had previously argued:
“Uneven economic and political
development is an absolute law of capitalism, hence, the victory of socialism
is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone” (VI
Lenin CW Vol 21, Moscow 1977, p342).
Here was Lenin’s theory of the
world revolutionary process in a nutshell, and Stalin felt justified in using
it to support his political line. I would argue that without holding up the
goal of socialism in one county the revolution would have completely collapsed,
having lost its historical justification. The Trotskyist idea of the working
class taking power in one country to spur on world revolution without being
able to build socialism in their own country, is nothing but leftwing
adventurism. Alternatively, socialism in one country not only served the
purpose of countering the increasing demoralisation of the working class and
Communist Party by restoring legitimacy to the revolution within the context of
its decline in other countries, but it was also possible according to Lenin.
By using Lenin’s argument
concerning the world revolutionary process, Stalin was able to isolate Trotsky,
who was increasingly seen as a troublemaker in party ranks. No matter how optimistic
Trotsky was about world revolution, whose echoes were becoming fainter every
day after 1923, Stalin was able to convince others in the communist leadership
that Trotsky’s views, although sounding ‘revolutionary’ on the world arena,
could only cause defeat and demoralisation within the Soviet working class. I
would argue that Stalin’s arguments won over the majority in the international
communist movement.
Where for Stalin’s faction
building socialism in one country served the interest of the world revolution,
Trotsky argued that this essentially Leninist theory represented the outlook of
a conservative Soviet bureaucracy which no longer wanted to support the
project of world revolution. But Trotsky never convincingly explained why
Lenin’s theory was counterrevolutionary or why conservatives in the party and
state bureaucracy would support the building of socialism in one country while
opposing the revolution in other countries.
The Stalinist faction used the
slogan of socialism in one country to galvanise the working class and
communists in a struggle for modernisation, which would lay the foundation for
socialism and inspire the international working class to take on their own
conservative bourgeoisie. By 1927, the party had lost its patience with Trotsky
and he was expelled from the party, not because of his views, but after openly
flouting party discipline and leading, or at least encouraging, anti-government
demonstrations in a period of rising tensions between the Soviet regime and
imperialism.
The Trotskyist opposition had
fought for a policy of industrialisation and collectivisation from the early
1920s onwards, but Stalin held on to the mixed economy of NEP, which lasted
from 1921 to 1928. One view is that the peasants withholding grain from the
urban population to get an increase in prices forced Stalin’s hands - in other
words, socialisation and the collectivisation drive was not consciously
planned, but rather was a reaction to a perceived threat to the regime. The
other view is that, since the Soviet regime needed to strengthen itself in the
countryside, arguably it could not have pursued collectivisation earlier. In
any case, the peasant problem, a more confident regime and the threatening
noises being made by the leaders of capitalism conspired to put an end to NEP.
A period of modernisation was set in motion, which turned the Soviet Union into
an industrial power strong enough to play the leading, or at least decisive,
role in the defeat of fascism.
During the 1926 British General Strike, Soviet Stalinists
mobilised the workers to raise money for the miners. About £1 million was
collected, a huge sum in those days, which the British Labour leaders rejected.
But according to Trotskyism, ‘Stalinism’ is a counterrevolutionary trend.
Stalinists supported anti-imperialist movements around the
world, and the Soviet Stalinists gave financial aid to foreign communist
parties; was this all in the name of counterrevolution? Stalin’s supporters in
Britain led the struggle to stop the fascists at Cable Street; was this to
serve the interest of counterrevolution? The Soviet Stalinists gave material
assistance to the republican side in the Spanish civil war - hardly the actions
of a conservative regime.
The greatest defeats experienced by the working class in the
period of Stalin were those in China in 1927 and in Germany, by fascism, in
1933. I would argue that, although opportunist mistakes played a role in China,
and communist sectarianism made it easier for social democracy to betray the
working class in Germany, this was hardly a reason to write off the communist
movement, as Trotsky was to do. Above all, these defeats are a warning about
trying to direct world revolution from an international centre.
Trotsky not only claimed that Lenin’s theory of socialism in
several or one country was the counterrevolutionary ideology of a conservative
Soviet bureaucracy, but he went further, arguing that the Stalinists were the greatest
counterrevolutionary agency of imperialism in the working class, through
and through, a counterrevolutionary role which Lenin had previously assigned to
social democracy. Trotskyism fails to explain why pro-Soviet Stalinists were
more counterrevolutionary than the pro-imperialist social democracy.
Inductive reason from facts to theory proves, in my view,
that the Soviet regime, when led by Stalin was pro-working class and a
generally progressive force in world affairs. The view by Mike that the party
and the regime ceased to represent working class interests after the banning of
factions in 1921 is the result of one-sided reasoning. This is not to say that
I personally support the banning of factions, but I can certainly understand
Lenin’s reasoning, given the situation. If Mike were right, how would we
explain Lenin’s resolution, ‘On improving the conditions of the workers and
needy peasants’, which was supported by the 10th Party Congress? (See VI
Lenin CW Vol 32, Moscow 1977, p208).
Trotsky is best known for his denunciation of Soviet
bureaucracy and calling for its overthrow. However, there are two approaches to
choose from. The first is Lenin’s theory that the struggle against bureaucracy
was for its withering away, and the second is Trotsky’s line, which
calls for a political revolution against the bureaucracy. On this
question, Stalin again sided with Lenin.
When Mike deals with bureaucracy, he reverts to the 19th
century debate about the dual meaning of this concept. The first is bureaucracy
regarded as rule over society by state officials for their own benefit;
and the second is state officials as a group regarded as parasites on
society. In the first case, according to Mike, bureaucracy can be
overthrown, but in the second case he agrees with me that, generally speaking, they
cannot be. This distinction between the two types of bureaucracy seems to me to
be completely arbitrary.
Related to this question, by the way, is the argument being
put forward in some quarters that the essence of socialism is planning; that
bureaucracy and planning are incompatible, and due to the malfeasance of
the former there was no planning in the Soviet Union and hence no socialism.
Apart from being untrue this argument is also misleading in
another sense. The essence of socialism is not planning, because even the
bourgeoisie can plan. Arguably, the planning of monopoly capitalism puts Soviet
planning in the shade. No, the essence of socialism is production for need,
which takes the form of planning. In the absence of the market,
production for need implies planning of some sort.
Mike claims that I want to try ‘Stalinism’ again and this is
of no use. No doubt, there are people who entertain the idea of trying
Stalinism again. How they are going to accomplish this feat I do not know. In
essence, what is called ‘Stalinism’ was the struggle to modernise a backward
peasant society in record time and in the most inauspicious circumstances
possible.
Mike argues that it was the economic defeat of socialism
which led to its ideological defeat. In my view, this crude form of economic
determinism fails to explain the collapse of socialism. By turning to
revisionism, the former leaders of socialism began to pursue incorrect economic
policies from the 1950s onwards. An incorrect ideology led to incorrect
policies, which finally resulted in economic stagnation and collapse.
Khrushchev, for instance, sought unprincipled reconciliation with imperialism,
and to be accepted by the latter and get away with his revisionist policies he
had to denounce Stalin. Not that I think Stalin or anyone else is above
criticism, but this was done to appease imperialism. Revisionism in power seeks
to build a capitalist-style consumer society. This fundamental mistake about
what socialism is was not the fault of Khrushchev personally, but goes back to
the Second International and possibly even earlier.
In ‘Trying Stalinism again’, Mike equates ‘Stalinism’ with
the kind of austerity preached by some ecologists. But he is indifferent to why
some ecologists are preaching austerity. He suggests that I want Stalinism with
an ecological twist, and thus he ends up defending consumerism against what he
sees as the Stalinist-ecologist convergence.
The first thing to say here is that consumerism is a product
of capitalist society, where things are produced for profit instead of need. A
socialist society, based on production for need, is therefore against
consumerism.
Anti-consumerism does not mean denying people goods, as Mike
suggests; it means not flooding society with goods to make profits, but
producing what people need.
In my previous (14th May) letter to the Weekly
Worker , I pointed out that, since many people on the left have a consumerist
conception of socialism, it is easy to see how revisionism can take hold in
certain quarters. This sentence was edited out, but what it means is that there
is a link between revisionism and consumerism. Ideologically, the Soviet
revisionists went over to a consumerist conception of socialism, always
implicit in the old socialist tradition, which led to them wanting to compete
with capitalism in the same way that two capitalist firms compete for the market.
Having researched the ideas of consumerism, I did not find any which were
compatible with socialism - which is a production for need society.
In suggesting that I want to return to what he regards as
“Stalinist austerity with an ecological twist”, Mike forgets that most of the
austerity imposed on the Soviet Union was by imperialism. With the post-war
boom finally coming to an end, and with the world entering the greatest
energy crisis in history, as a result of peak oil, together with the
environmental threat posed to human life by capitalism, I think it makes more
sense to develop an ecological perspective within socialism. This is far more
important than continuing with the old pre-ecological differences of the last
century about the relative merits of Stalin, Trotsky and Mao, all of whom, to
my knowledge and through no fault of their own, had no ecological conception of
socialism. I only exclude Lenin from this trio because his seminal work, What
is to be done?, a stricture against opportunistic economism,
suggests to me that Lenin would have regarded the ecological issue as central
to the revolutionary movement and hence to the future socialist society.
Tony Clark, 16th June 2008.
NOTES
In this article, Tony Clark is replying to McNair's exposition Trying Stalinism again?