What is Trotskyism? - Tony Clark,

What is Trotskyism? - Tony Clark,

4. TROTSKY AND SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY.

The Marxist, Communist struggle against the exploitation of the working people by heartless capitalists had its first resounding success in the October revolution of 1917, which opened a new chapter in human history. But the retreat of the world revolution, or at least, the European revolution meant that the Soviet revolutionaries would have to continue with the process of building socialism in one country, holding on while waiting for the return of the revolution. Although the civil war had been won at great cost, and the supporters of exploitation defeated, the revolution nevertheless, had to face a world of capitalist encirclement in what was a backward, semi-feudal, capitalist country.

This is of course the key element in understanding the disputes between the leading personalities of the Russian revolution. After the death of Lenin in 1924, the two leading contenders for the leadership of the soviet communist movement emerged to be Stalin and Trotsky. While some bourgeois historians of the cruder type see the struggle between these as merely a personal struggle by power hungry people Marxist-Leninists base their analysis on the policy difference between them. The main demarcation came to be, on the one hand, those who believed that it was possible to continue with the process of building socialism in one country and, on the other hand, those who believed that it could not be done. The former lined up behind Stalin, while the latter rallied to Trotsky.

While Trotsky wanted the international communist movement to choose between socialism in one country, or world revolution, for Stalin and his supporters this was a false, undialectical presentation of the question. In other words the Marxist-Leninists who gave Stalin their backing rejected, resolutely, the ‘either’, ‘or’ thesis of Trotskyism. Stalin fought against all attempts to split the international communist movement along the Trotskyite line of either socialism in one country or world revolution. For Stalin, to split the communist movement along these lines could only serve the interests of the world bourgeoisie. For the Marxist-Leninists, building socialism in one country was in no way opposed to the world revolutionary process, as the Trotskyites argued; in fact the opposite was the case, the building of socialism in the Soviet Union would serve the process of world revolution. Those who defended socialism in one country were in fact serving the interests of world revolution and thus the interests of the international working class.

The struggle against Stalin and those who defended the possibility of building up socialism in one country was actually, that is, objectively, the struggle against the interests of the world working class. To oppose Stalin on this issue, more than anything else, served the interests of imperialism.

The argument that socialism could be built in the Soviet Union brought Stalin into direct conflict with Trotsky and his followers, who put around, and continue to do so, the argument that Stalin had broken from Leninism on this very question.

There can be little doubt that in ranging himself against the building of socialism in the USSR, Trotsky’s role would now be to use this issue to disrupt the unity of the international communist movement. This would be the inevitable effect of asking communists to choose between socialism in one country, or world revolution. In 1928, in his work on ‘permanent revolution’, Trotsky puts this choice absolutely clearly.

‘Either permanent revolution or socialism in one country - this alternative embraces at the same time the internal problems of the Soviet Union, the prospects of revolution in the East, and finally, the fate of the Communist International as a whole’. (L. Trotsky: The Permanent Revolution; New Park Publications; 1962; p.11)

In effect Trotsky said, choose between socialism in one country or world revolution. This became the essence of Trotskyism after the death of Lenin. On the other hand Stalin said, there is no need for such a choice because socialism in one country and world revolution are not opposed, they are complementary; one serves the other.

For Trotsky, permanent revolution or socialism in one country were the two ‘alternatives’ facing the communist vanguard of the international working class. Stalin considered that this was another pseudo-leftist line being served up by Trotskyism, which had now inveigled itself in the ranks of Bolshevism.

Although Lenin and the Bolsheviks had the perspective of a European wide revolution, these hopes were turned to dust following the treachery of Social Democracy, before and after the First World War. The defeat of the revolution in Germany during 1918-19 served to isolate the Russian revolution. The 1923 uprising in parts of Germany reinforced this isolation. Lenin had expected direct support from successful revolutions in the more advanced capitalist countries. The Bolsheviks had to make do with the indirect support of the workers opposing their own bourgeoisie’s anti-Soviet manoeuvres. All the Bolsheviks could do now was to hold on and wait for the revival of the international revolution.

This meant doing everything possible to defend the Soviet Union from the machinations of imperialism. With the working class in power in the Soviet Union, they could pursue a path that led to surrender, or another path could lead to building socialism in ‘one country’. Lenin certainly, at least on a theoretical level did not reject this possibility, as Trotskyites like to claim. We can find several textual supports for this view. We must not confuse theory and perspectives as the Trotskyites usually manage to do. For while in terms of perspectives the Bolsheviks clearly based themselves on the early development of the world revolution, this perspective was not realised. It was therefore necessary to go back to theory and produce new perspectives in the light of new developments.

The new perspectives had a dualistic character. This was the defence of the possibility of building socialism in one country combined with the support for the world revolution. In other words the new perspective gave expression to Lenin’s previous theoretical notion that socialism in one country was not opposed to the world revolution. The relationship between the two was complementary, not antagonistic. It is interesting, in this respect, that Lenin’s criticism of the ‘United States of Europe’ slogan, which was at the time supported by Trotsky, gave credence to the policy arrived at by Stalin and his supporters in their disputes with the Trotskyite opposition in the party. Lenin had opposed the slogan in 1915, firstly by comparing it to another slogan relating to the ‘United States of the World’ on the grounds that

‘A United States of the World (not of Europe alone) is the state form of the union and freedom of nations which we associate with socialism until the complete victory of communism brings about the total disappearance of the state, including the democratic state. As a separate slogan, however, the slogan of the United States of the World would hardly be a correct one, first, because it merges with socialism; second, because it may be wrongly interpreted to mean that the victory of socialism in a single country is impossible, and it may also create misconceptions as to the relations of such a country to the others’. (V.I. Lenin: CW. Vol. 21; also in: Marx, Engels, Marxism; Foreign Languages Press; pp. 334,339)

It is clear that Leninism not only recognises the possibility, theoretically, of socialism in one country, but also raises questions as to the relation of such a country to the others. Trotskyism, on the other hand, is revealed as a falsification of Leninism on the very question which Trotsky sought to split the world communist movement, the false choice of socialism in one country or world revolution. If more textual evidence is required to refute the Trotskyites, in the very same 1915 article, Lenin continues with the observation that

‘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 taken singly. (V. I. Lenin; ibid.)

How was it possible for Leon Trotsky to claim he was defending Leninism by opposing Stalin, who upheld, like Lenin, the possibility of socialism in one country as part of the world revolutionary process? This contradiction, i.e., Trotsky blatantly opposing Lenin, but at the same time claiming to defend him, clearly reveals the petty-bourgeois opportunism of Trotskyism, and also, by the way, reveals the eclecticism associated with the petty-bourgeoisie. The opportunism of Trotskyism consist in its not being prepared to fight Leninism openly, but having to pretend that it is ‘defending’ Leninism, while wearing a mask in the struggle against Leninism. Trotsky, after the Bolsheviks assumed power, became a concealed opponent of Leninism in the Communist Party.

In ‘The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution’, written in 1916, on the very eve of the Russian revolution, Lenin again remarks that

‘…the victory of socialism in one country does not at one stroke eliminate all wars in general. One the contrary, it presupposes wars’. (Marx, Engels, Marxism, p.385)

Unlike Trotsky and his followers, it is absolutely clear that the foremost leader of the October 1917 Russian revolution did not theoretically oppose socialism in one country to the world revolutionary process. This, in fact, is one of the most, if not the most important demarcation between Marxism-Leninism and Trotskyism. The Trotskyites constantly go on, like the bourgeois academics, about Stalin falsifying the annals of the revolution when pictures of certain ex-leaders are removed from public view. What is far more serious in our view is the falsification of Lenin’s theoretical legacy by Trotskyism: the question of socialism in one country and its relation to the world revolution is a classical example of Trotskyite falsification.

We, for our part, do not think further textual evidence is needed to prove the point we are making, but for the sake of the reader we will continue with the above passage by Lenin where he argues that

‘The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in the various countries. It cannot be otherwise under commodity production. From this it follows irrefutably that socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois for some time’. (V. I. Lenin: Op. Cit.; p385-86)

For Lenin, the unevenness of development of commodity production, that is, capitalism, creates the possibility for socialism in one country. This would in turn raise the question of the relation of such a country to all the others. The main contradiction between Leninism and Trotskyism, after 1924, came to be between Stalin, who maintained that ‘socialism in one country’ served the interests of the world revolutionary process, and consequently, the interests of the working class, which had to be defended, and Trotskyism, which argued, contrary to all the facts, that socialism in one country was un-Leninist, was impossible, and harmed the international revolution. Since Lenin openly and clearly defended the possibility of socialism in one country as part of the world revolutionary process, to say that Stalin’s defence of Lenin on this question was un-Leninist and revisionist was the most vilest example of Trotskyite deviousness and opportunism in the communist movement. For it is clear that on this issue it was Trotsky who was the revisionist, as far as Marxist-Leninist theory is concerned.

In this contradiction, Trotsky was simply defending Trotskyism, which he had a right to do. Where he went wrong was to pretend that his position was Leninist orthodoxy, while in reality, it was simply vintage Trotskyism. Today’s Trotskyites pursue the same line, which consists of promoting Trotskyism under the banner of Leninism. In this, Trotskyism reveals itself clearly as left-opportunism of the most insidious kind. What is remarkable is that for decades Trotskyites and semi-Trotskyites have sought to gain the leadership of the vanguard of the working class on the clearly spurious basis, in complete opposition to Leninism, of the issue of the relationship between socialism in one country and the world revolutionary process.

How was it possible to perpetrate such blatant, noisy revisionism of Marxism-Leninism, while at the same time claiming to defend the heritage of Bolshevism supposedly from the ravages of Stalin? How was it possible for Trotskyism to attract an intelligentsia and use it against Marxism-Leninism in such a vulgar manner? This was possible for a number of reasons. The main reason, is of course, that although Trotskyism openly opposed Leninism in the pre-1917 days, after the success of Leninism in the October revolution, particularly after Lenin’s departure from the political scene, Trotskyism now came to represent concealed opposition to Leninism.

There were always pseudo-left elements on the fringes of the communist movement, so it wasn’t too difficult for Trotskyism to attract a following. Trotsky had based his argument on the notion that it was impossible to build an economically self-sufficient society in one country. But this is a misleading argument, because no one had suggested that there was no contradiction between socialism in one country and international capitalism. The contradiction is obvious. In defending the possibility of socialism in one country, Lenin had indirectly referred to these contradictions with the remark that the slogan of the United States of the World was wrong, not only because it made socialism in one country seem impossible, but also because

‘…it may also create misconceptions as to the relations of such a country to the others’. (V.I. Lenin: op. Cit.; p338)

The contradiction between socialism in one country and international capitalism could be manipulated and turned into a non-antagonistic contradiction on the economic plain to some extent. This was certainly the policy of Lenin. The Soviet Union was able in some measure to trade with capitalist nations, after withstanding economic blockade, without compromising the goal of building socialism. No serious revolutionaries would argue that the building of socialism in one country was detrimental to the world revolutionary process. They could, of course, argue that it is impossible to do this, although desirable. At any rate this question can never be posed abstractly. This must also lead to the question of the nature of socialism, as understood by Lenin, particularly in the Soviet context.

For Lenin,

‘State power over all large-scale means of production, state power in the hands of the proletariat, the alliance of this proletariat with the many millions of small and very small peasants, the assured leadership of the peasantry by the proletariat, etc.- is not this all that is necessary for building a complete socialist society from the co-operatives, from the co-operatives alone, which were formerly looked down upon as huckstering and which from a certain aspect we have the right to look down upon as such now, under NEP? Is this not all that is necessary for building a complete socialist society? This is not yet the building of socialist society, but it is all that is necessary and sufficient for this building’ (V.I. Lenin: CW. Vol. 27; p.392)

Given the proletariat possessing state power, and the other preconditions, Trotsky, himself, defined socialism in terms of the co-operatives. In his 1928 work on permanent revolution he remarked that

‘Socialism, that is co-operative production on a large scale, is possible only when the development of the productive forces has reached the stage at which large enterprises are more productive than small ones’. ( L. Trotsky: Permanent Revolution; New Park Publications; p.220)

But in his factional struggle against Stalin, he argued that socialism, that is, co-operative organisation of production, was not possible in one country. Trotskyism was only able to arrive at this conception by not grasping correctly the difference between the first stages of communist society with its later stages, and posing the question in a purely abstract manner. Trotskyites fail to understand that socialism is a transitional society between capitalism and the higher stage of communist society. To argue abstractly that co-operative production and working class political power is not possible in one country is pseudo-left nonsense.

All communists must support the Marxist-Leninist thesis that socialism in one country is not opposed to the world revolutionary process, but complementary to it. As we have explained, the major transformation of Trotskyism was that from open opposition to Leninism it subsequently became concealed opposition to Leninism. After the Bolsheviks came to power, Trotskyism shakes the hand of Lenin with a knife hidden under its cloak.

Trotskyism remains as the Comintern resolutions described it, a petty-bourgeois deviation from Marxism, fighting to undermine Leninism. All the lies of the Trotskyites will never change the fact, a fact which is recognised even by bourgeois scholars, that for Lenin, socialism in one country was possible as part of the world revolutionary process. In this, as on other questions, it is for the new generation of communists to expose Trotskyism’s concealed opposition to Leninism in front of the vanguard of the working class.