The ISO has a great weekly newspaper and yearly conference and, mores than any I identify with them. The Opposition’s “Platform” III. And it is easy to take the analysis presented – and to use that analysis to understand what the Trots advocate now. I’d be interested to hear an explanation of how Workers World Party and PSL are Trotskyist. Far from fighting for national liberation, they supported the return of French imperialism, backed by British troops. was their only programme. If Trotskyism is counter-revolutionary, what do people here at ML make of the bureaucratization of the Soviet Union? Clearly what Cannon is saying is that for the revolutionary organisation its strategy for taking power (its programme) – whether it is adequate to the task or not – will indeed decide everything. That is being published here in Norman, Oklahoma, where I have been working on a couple of books over the last five months but I would appreciate your input in the meantime. That book has been explicitly rejected by the leaders of both WW and PSL as “Stalinist.” One can say that that is hardly worse than the so-called “communists” of the Gus Hall outright modern revisionist type and that may be true but it is merely true. However, they seem to me much more focused on Socialist Worker and their monthly rather than building revolution. Pham Binh completely misses the source of post-war Trotskyism’s failure to develop mass parties. In contrast, to my understanding neither the WWP nor the PSL has launched any major public criticism of any leading world revolutionary in at least the last twenty years. Both of them support the DPRK, for instance, and Sam Marcy, from the beginning, differed from other Trotskyists on this point. Rather than putting unity above political clarity and organisational effectiveness, Trotsky rightly made programme the precondition of unity: “Unity is an excellent thing. That is a contribution of course of millions of Soviet workers and peasants, but to the extent we can blame anything, good or bad, on a single person such as Stalin, it was a contribution of Stalin. I would be interested in your opinion of the work I have done in Chapters one through ten of the book at http://www.abcsofcommunism.info. This includes a critique of Trotskyism, asserting that its failure to create mass parties or lead revolutions is primarily due to the elevation of programme above all else. It is split into two great camps. Excellent compilation of materials to study Trotskyism thanks comrade. Furthermore, I see the mention of critiques of Stalin begin shut down as revisionist or “counter-revolutionary.” I have read Lenin’s Marxism and Revisionism and I think it counter acts Marx when he said in the Manifesto, “do not set up any sectarian principles of their own by which to shape and mold the proletarian revolution.” The the tactics and understanding of the movement should be taken as it happens, not as if discovered by Marx at one period and applicable to all others. Criticism of the post-1924 leadership of the Soviet Union, analysis of its features; after 1933 also support for political revolution in the Soviet Union and in what Trotskyists term the deformed workers' states. That leaves the peasant question. I explain why his views are mistaken. In Vietnam in 1939 the Trotskyists launched a daily paper, won 80 per cent of the votes to the Cochin China Colonial Council. TROTSKY SHOULD BE DENIED BY THE REVOLUTIONARY PEOPLE. Neither the WWP nor the PSL is guilty of either of those things. The Soviet Union made mistakes; but in fact Trotsky would have made far greater ones. Of course, nothing is politically monolithic, and any reasonably sizable organization has a political process and political struggle going on within it. I have dealt with the question of Trotskyism extensively in chapters 13 through 16 of the new book The ABC’s of Communism, Bolshevism 2011. This could only have resulted in the whole of the international Trotskyist movement being disoriented by Nin’s errors, setting back the Marxist movement on the eve of world war. A detailed study of Trotskyist theory is a large topic, which I and others have dealt with in a number of articles in the anti-revisionist journal, Communist Voice. they did not isolate themselves – but they did not abandon their criticism of the POUM. That is certainly a reactionary manifestation.” (James P. Cannon, Marxists Internet Archive). Cannon, no more than Trotsky, Lenin or Marx, would not have contrasted the class struggle to programme. Enter your email address to subscribe to The Marxist-Leninist and receive notifications of new posts by email. Since the 1960s they have scarcely mentioned programme. Most of my other criticisms of "Trotskyism" are criticism of many self-proclaimed "Trotskyists" that reject anti-imperialism because of the "big bad dictators", insist that democracy is only possible in the political method by which it's employed today (multi-party, "free elections," bicameral legislature, presidential system), and resemble social democrats more than Marxists. No wonder the Trotskyists debated and split over how to analyse these developments. Trotskyism has been criticised from various directions. “The main difficulty with Trotskyist organisations, groups, and parties is that they have been unable to become mass parties like the Bolsheviks or even influential within the workers’ movement of any country during any period in the past 70-80 years. Keep up the excellent work. At the same time, only a small proportion of time, effort, and resources go to leading and organising militant struggles for tangible gains like rent control or a living wage.”
Is this so? Okay person with a very long name(no offence), I agree. Since Pham Binh’s ideas played an important part in the recent split from Workers Power in the UK and have become fashionable amongst sections of the left, Andy Yorke replies. The POR lacked neither influence nor revolutionary experience. I found this website and it contains a lot of quotations from Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky trying to show that ML is superior to Trotskyism. Why join a fake reformist, Stalinist or Guevarist party if there are real ones around? But demarcation on the question of the Marxist programme must precede unity… in order for that unity to be honest and long lasting.”. It was a struggle to defend the clean banner of Lenin against the growing bureaucratic reaction within the Soviet state and party. At any rate, I have never seen them try to back off of the term Trotskyist. But Khrushchev announced that if a single marine landed in Cuba, “rockets will fly.”. Some issues on which the Trotskyism has proven bankrupt World developments constantly put new problems before the working class movement, and Trotskyism has stumbled on one after another. Although Interesting I am baffled by the Stalinism rampant on this site, and especially in this section. There is no substitute for understanding history and for that reason I explained the history of Trotsky et al in those chapters 13 through 16 of our book The ABC’s of Communism, Bolshevism 2012 (http://www.abcsofcommunism.info. Mine has been limited to those in Los Angeles with whom I have had contact. He says: Indeed, he says that Trotsky’s struggle “helped preserve and expand on the Marxist tradition – tradition meaning the ideas, strategy, and tactics that guide the actions of revolutionary socialists… That is above all else Trotskyism’s enduring value.”. Pham Binh is to be congratulated for taking the toughest example that he could come up with for his own argument, but it actually destroys rather than reinforces his position. This was a damning criticism which amounts to saying that three years before before the 1917 revolution, Trotsky did not consciously, that is concretely, understand what the real struggle was about in the Russian revolutionary movement. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Trotskyism is a broad political current, with many squabbling groups. But neither of them, for instance, echoes Trotsky’s criticisms of the Maoist line for its overemphasis on peasants, or, like the ISO, declares that the Cuban revolution can’t be a real socialist revolution because its earliest supporters were mainly peasants. In the 1930s Trotsky countered critics who pointed to the slow growth and setbacks suffered by the International Communist League (ICL) as signs of inherent weakness, bringing the debate back to the question of programme”. There really was such an opposition, of course, and it really did plot a coup. Pham Binh, an American socialist, has written a series of articles criticising far left groups on his Planet Anarchy website. They were aimed at the opposition, in all its forms: The Trotskyists, the Zinovievites, and the old whites who had been reintegrated into society. Many Trotskyists seek a solution in “Stalinism.” But what about the many socialist parties which were not actually socialist? It is a fact that Trotsky, on the one hand, and Lenin and Stalin on the other, put forward two very different and opposing lines on almost every major question for the international communist movement. However, throughout the 1950s the practice of the LSSP was increasingly limited to elections and trade unionism. Obviously no tiny sect can achieve this. On the other hand the reader may be moved to inquire what the proportion of their time Pham Binh or Louis Proyect spend on “struggles for tangible gains”. But what in their present outlook makes them Trotskyists? However that may be these matters cannot be finally resolved until the shooting starts and that is a ways away. Do not these two phenomena look very, very similar? ( Log Out /  Trotskyism, Class, and Feminism. Perhaps you should put up there Fidel’s speech to the closing session of the tricontinental in 1966, where he chides the Trotskyists thoroughly – as there are some thoroughly unscrupulous Trots who try and claim socialist Cuba for their own accord – http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/castro/1966/19660216. Trotsky, although incorrect on the peasant question, did recognize the potential devastating effect of Stalin’s brutal rule. Should Trotsky have put unity with Nin and the Spanish POUM above the question of programme? Revisioniosm in our country is dying as the FBI front party run by FBI special agent Sam Webb is dying and is kept alive only because the FBI does not want the extensive CPUSA real estate holdings to fall into the hands of the real communists. The crisis of the European Union Read more... (c) League for the Fifth international - Join, League for the Fifth International Fri, 10/01/2020 - 12:27, International Secretariat, League for the Fifth International Wed, 05/06/2019 - 20:12, James P Cannon and the fight for communism in the USA, International Left Opposition, 1928-33; forging an international leadership. What Pham Binh calls the unorthodox Trotskyists, like Tony Cliff and the SWP tradition, openly dumped it. Here is a megaupload link to the PDF file. **** Instead it was a way for Stalin himself to consolidate power and use it for his own purposes, not the people or the Soviets as originally intended. Pham Binh, an American socialist, has written a series of articles criticising far left groups on his Planet Anarchy website. ****. But in both cases they have very little grasp of theory among members and apparently just hang onto whatever they have thought over the years which certainly includes the idea that Trotsky was good and Stalin bad – not that this constitutes much of a grasp of history let alone theory and they are not open to discussing anything with persons such as myself so I guess that pretty much leaves it up to observers. Only someone hidebound by pragmatism and formal logic could imagine that programme is embodied in a single document or that the Bolsheviks were too busy making the revolution to work out what they were doing. I know, of course, that they have a Trotskyist history. It can only happen if a revolutionary party has already created deep roots in the class. ( Log Out /  A welfare state, rising wages and full employment seemed to validate reformism and disprove revolutionary Marxism. No colonies were liberated, no ruling classes were overthrown, and no fascists were defeated by Trotskyist forces.”. Vladimir Lenin and Trotsky were close both ideologically and personally during the Russian Revolution and its … Critics have argued that since the founders of neo-conservatism included ex-Trotskyists, Trotskyist traits continue to characterize neo-conservative ideologies and practices. The reason the POR did not become a mass party was not sectarian obsession with programme, but opportunist tailing of the nationalist MNR. Trotskyism definition, the form of Communism advocated by Leon Trotsky, based on an immediate, worldwide revolution by the proletariat. Soon all three books being referenced will also be available for free at the same website: http://www.peruvianprisonbreaks.com . That leads me to think that the rank and file may not have a uniformly strong understanding of Trotsky’s historical role. All of these examples show how a STRONG, INDUSTRIALIZED Soviet Union contributed to world revolution in a way that the Soviet Union of 1929 never could have. Try again later. Rather the party, like the Bolsheviks in 1917, turns its key elements into popular slogans: “all power to the soviets”, “Bread peace and land”, “Workers control of production”, etc. “Our international work began only in 1929 – and not on virgin territory, but on territory saturated with old and powerful organisations, and with new, confused, and often treacherous organisations that claimed adherence to our principles… The real issue is the question of programme, of the historical orientation of the tendency. The American SWP’s founder James P. Cannon put it this way: ‘in the last analysis the programme decides everything’. Trotsky was not a counter-revolutionary. The Leninist explanation is that both the false socialist parties and the false communist parties are a result of revisionism, of the influence of bourgeois ideas on the workers movement. Historic issues were at stake: not least whether the revolutionary programme was a utopia, and whether Stalinism or even social democracy could perform the historic tasks of social revolution. This new class, as described by dissents (which in realty was simply a subclass of the ruling class that was a result of Stalinism which ironically was centered in the CP) was able to enjoy luxurious things while workers and peasants stood in line for bread. It’s time for a hard line here, whatever that turns out to be. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Thank you for posting the link to M.J. Olgin’s book on Trotskyism. It was named for its ideologist and leader, L. D. Trotsky (real surname Bronshtein, 1879–1940). Let em say that I do agree with your critique of the modern movement. Pham Binh’s most laughable mobilisation of “facts” is one all too familiar to those who know Tony Cliff’s interpretation of revolutionary history. Was that not counter-revolutionary? The resolutions Some Minor Questions II. The Trotskyist LSSP was the first mass workers’ party in Sri Lanka and led the 1953 general strike. It may be that one or the other of the parties underestimates the importance of work among the rural sectors in the U.S.: I don’t know enough about either of them to say. Trotskyism has been criticised from various directions. On the contrary, the recent years have seen a decline in this respect; and this is reflected in the numerical weakness of socialist political organisation. Rob Sewell examines the origins of Trotskyism in Britai. The Nomenklatura, created by the patrimonial system, first fostered by Lenin, criticized by Trotsky and solidified by Stalin, was to be a dragging force on the USSR’s economy, planning apparatus, progression and invention and is in contrary to the principle of WORKER control of the means of production, not the COMMISSAR control over the means of production. To be sure, Trotskyism uses the weapon of propaganda, the “arms of criticism”, but only to pass to “criticism by arms”, to the attempts at overthrowing the Soviet system by armed force.