Kasama’s Regroupment: How Broad? How Honest?
Posted by Mike E on January 4, 2009
Leon Trotsky
By Mike Ely
“Bryan the Trot” wrote the following commentary in the “About Kasama” thread:
“I find the “reconceive as we regroup” stuff unconsciously dishonest. There is a thread of continuity that led to this grouping, particularly from the US New Left and the RCP.
“Why, if Kasama isn’t claiming to inherit US Maoism, doesn’t it just fuse with some other “Marxist regroupment” project, like Solidarity, SPUSA or FRSO?
“Would Kasama allow members who adhere to Trotskyism and want the theoretical and programmatic outlook of Trotskyism to guide Kasama? So, how broad and honest is this “regroupment” stuff?”
More Discontinuity than Inheritance?
It is interesting how different our perspective and assumptions are.
First, we (meaning the Kasama Project) don’t think we should look at politics in terms of tradition or inheritance — or mainly focus on “maintaining continuity.” I’m aware this is different from the outlook of some Trotskyist currents. and we don’t argue that we are the “real” Maoists, or that the RCP (who many of us have left) are somehow “fake” Maoist. This line struggle is really not over the mantle of “authentic” Maoism, or any similar inheritance. Really, that way of looking at things would never have occured to me — our view of communist theory and Maoism is far more contradictory and dynamic than that.
We are, moreover, engaged in a discussion of how much discontinuity there needs to be vis-a-vis previous forms of communist politics (including Maoism) — and (in comparison for example to the RCP) we tend toward a rather healthy dose of discontinuity.
In Letter 9 we wrote:
We need to discard ruthlessly, but cunningly, in order to fight under difficult conditions. We will be traveling light, without baggage and clutter from earlier modes of existence. We need to preserve precisely those implements that serve the advance, against fierce opposition, toward our end goal. We need to integrate them into a vibrant new communist coherency — as we thrive on the run.
It is a great creative challenge. We don’t need a remake of the RCP, but better. The theoretical knife must cut deeper than that. There needs to be negation, affirmation, and then a real leap beyond what has gone before. We need a movement of all-the-way revolutionaries that lives in this 21st century. Not some reshuffling of old cadre, but the beginning reshuffling of a whole society.
So, while it may be true that there is a “thread of continuity that led to this grouping” (in the sense that some of us have a common history), it is in many ways a certain spirit of discontinuity that animates the Kasama Project.
Our concept is buiilding on and transforming the best in Marxism.
There is no value in trying to purify or refine or resurrect previous forms of Marxism (with the assumption that there, somewhere in the past, was the ideal Marxism, and our task is to uncover it and cling to it). The world (including our thinking about the world) is, of necessity, far more dynamic.
A dogmatic method of seeking to “inherit” some previous form of Marxism (if I understand your use of the term correctly) would be, in my view, to start with a fatal mistake.
Rushing to Marry Boojie?
Bryan asks:
“Why, if Kasama isn’t claiming to inherit US Maoism, doesn’t it just fuse with some other “Marxist regroupment” project, like Solidarity, SPUSA or FRSO?
Are those really the only choices?
When I lived in the West Virginia coalfields, i knew a girl (Debbie) who had been married early to Thomas. When she divorced him, I asked her, “So what are you going to do now?” She answered “I guess I’ll just marry Boojie.” Boojie was the only other guy her age in that holler. We thought at the time (and my partner shared with Debbie) that this was some seriously self-limited thinking — ovelooking the real and quite exciting possibilities in the larger world.
Kasama has had no organized discussion of any of the groupings you are mentioning — though obviously many of us are aware of them. I suppose it is true (superficially speaking) that these organizations use similar words about “regroupment” — but so what?
Speaking for myself, the idea of fusing with these formations has little appeal to me, largely because of the nature of their projects (i.e. the defining centerpoints of their politics) — though I have met, and respect, members of each.
I really don’t feel compelled to rush into a marriage with Boojie — we are not stuck in one holler (or one left ghetto of little groupings). There is a big blue planet out there with billions of interesting people.
What about Trotskyism?
You asked:
“Would Kasama allow members who adhere to Trotskyism and want the theoretical and programmatic outlook of Trotskyism to guide Kasama?
“….it is difficult for many of us who came in one way or another through Maoism to now engage in regroupment and reconception with people who came through other Marxist or otherwise radical trends (even other trends of Maoism, but obviously I especially have in mind the various Trotskyist trends). I do think there is something to the fact that, for a long time, among trends within Marxism, only the RCP and Bob Avakian were really willing to put the possibility and necessity of revolution out there and to try in various ways to pursue revolution. That has to count for something, but what exactly in our attempt to forge a new paradigm? It might not be a matter of Trotskyism itself having something to contribute (on the other hand, why rule this out per se?…), but why not some people who came through that experience and who themselves were looking for ways to radically change the world?”
As for myself, I am not a Trotskyist.
I have thought over the issues involved through much of my life, and have some opinions. I don’t think various codified forms of Trotskyism have the basic strategic innovations and insights we need, and on the contrary, they are in general “part of the problem.” And many of the criticisms i would have with the politics of the comintern-era communism (of economism, mechanical materialism, dogmatic approach to theory) apply quite well to Trotsky himself and to many of the currents that uphold him.
Put another way: I think Trotsky was not right (including at the time). And Trotskyists historically have not gotten it right. The key ideas of Trotskyism (permanent revolution, program of transitional demands, emphasis on working class trade unionism, the theory of bureucratic degeneration of the Russian revolution etc) are not correct. And i think that, this has led to a situation where Trotskyism internationally has neither coherence nor promise.
However, there may be value in an engagement with Trotskyists over some of the crucial issues facing radical politics in the U.S. — both because i think it would be a means of deepening the understanding of those involved and because there may be (as Bill notes) new things to learn.
Certainly we have come to the point where kneejerk shunning and disrespect for other political currents should be seen for what it is: small-minded, sterile and defensive. I am often startled about the degree of raw ignorance about the politics of other political trends (and I don’t just mean among Maoists).
There are people within the Kasama project who have come from an anarchist or a trotskyist background — and it has been (imho) a particularly valuable and interesting part of the development.
We are about to post a major polemical work critiquing the Popular Front politics of the comintern during the spanish civil war — but that barely scratches the surface of some of the historial work that needs to be done. I do not believe (based on my personal investigations) that the Trotskyist critique of the Stalin years gets at the heart of the matters (i think the theories of degenerate/deformed worker state, of bureaucratic rule, the theory of workers united front are not correct ones). But that does not mean that there is not value in a critical engagement.
An Unconscious Dishonesty?
Finally Byran asks:
“So, how broad and honest is this ‘regroupment’ stuff?”
I see no reason why the future revolutionary movement in the U.S. can’t draw cadre (and even ideas) from quite a few different corners (especially if a firm basis is built around which to gather).
But is Kasama’s breadth the measure of its honesty? Is Kasama only honest if it excludes no one, or if it announces (at the start!) exactly who it will exclude and why? Doesn’t that assume that we already know the answers to the questions we are exploring?
This kind of thinking is precisely the kind of dogmatism that kasama has taken its distance from. We believe that it is not “all there for the taking” — the answers for the revolutionary movement are not just “there” (somewhere) if we can just pinpoint the precise previous synthesis that got it correct. We think the synthesis we need is still awating formulation on many key cardinal matters.
In the final analysis the answer to your question is this: this project is honest — in the sense that it seeks to say what it knows, and seeks to be candid about what it doesn’t know. How broad it goes depends on many factors that I can’t now predict — including who comes, and what they discover, and how they transform.
But many of the problems we identified within the RCP (in the 9 letters) exist in similar forms in a number of other formations (within a number of other trends). And I would urge people to break with a fixation with “inherited” politics, and join with us in seeking to look at the world with open eyes and revolutionary communist intentions.
Radical-Eyes said
I am glad to see some engagement with trotskyism/trostskyist currents “breaking out” on this list.
Thanks to Bryan for posting–however provocatively!–and to Mike for foregrounding this dialogue…at least one hopes it can evolve as a dialogue, and through principled line-struggle.
In that spirit, Mike, I wanted to ask you–or others–to elaborate a bit more on how and why you find the core trotskyist concepts that you mention (“permanent revolution, program of transitional demands, emphasis on working class trade unionism, the theory of bureucratic degeneration of the Russian revolution”) are in your view “not correct.”
I doubt that I am the only one out here who could benefit from some–principled and non-sectarian–back and forth about any of these concepts.
Any takers? Or defenders of these concepts for that matter?
Patient Persuasion said
I was going to post the same thing as Radical Eyes. Saying that trotsky and his followers views have been simply ¨not correct¨is a bit of a superficial response to challenges posed to maoism generally by another marxist trend.
I´ve never heard much interesting critique of Trotsky or trotskyism from maoists, and I myself have often held a narrow view towards it. I know that many trotskyists Ive met have not been the best organizers, but I hardly know where to start critiquing their theory because I havent engaged with it myself.
I´ve only read about half of his more than 1000 page book on the Russian Revolution, all of which is about February ‘ October 1917. When I spoke with some maoists about this they said, ¨just try to keep in mind what worldview he is advocating, and what his line would lead to¨. It has problems, but overall is a rather good book and I think its important to engage in when trying to understand the russian rev because of its thorough analysis of the events of 1917 and use of many primary sources.
The only thing I´ve read as a critique of trotsky is a stalinist criticism from the USSR which is hardly fulfilling or rigorous in ints polemic. Also Ive seen the book about Maoism and Trotskyism worldwide which features a segment on Avakian. I haven´t read this but it looks like it could be very interesting. I´m very interested in seeing some substantial critique, and agree that many would benefit from it.
Jose M said
alex:
while I can’t point to specific polemics (mainly because they aren’t popular), maoists do have specific critiques on trotskyism.
Mainly: the nature of the the Soviet Union, “traditional programme” (economism/reformism), as well as bureaucracy.
I’d be happy to get into them, but I think it’s unfair to say that maoists do not have a critique of it.
Granted, there are many maoist forces around the world and here that are very dogmatic, defensive, and crude in their approach, and we will need to break from that and engage this theory in a better way.
Stiofan said
I can’t fully explain the intricacies of Trotsky’s thought but I also share the conclusion there are major problems with Trotskyist theory and practice. At a conference dedicated to Trotsky in Moscow in 1994, organized to help revive the Trotskyist movement in the former Soviet Union, the keynote address was delivered by Mikhail Voyeikov, a distinguished professor of economics at the Russian Academy of Sciences. In his address entitled “The Relevance of Trotsky’s Ideological Legacy” he characterized the theory of Permanent Revolution this way,
But the main fault of this theory is that it is not itself necessary; from a practical point of view, it made and still makes no sense. (pg. 7 of the conference proceedings.)
This struck me as a rather harsh summation from a conference promoting Trotskyism but there it was.
One of the main organizers of this event, the prominent American Trotskyist Marilyn Vogt-Downey, presented a paper at the Conference on the Legacy of Leon Trotsky and U.S. Trotskyism last August at the Bronx campus of New York City’s Fordham University.
In that paper she discussed the Transitional Program and the absolute failure of American Trotskyist organizations to understand and implement it.
There are, of course, any number of people who will praise both these doctrines and base their organizational work on them. However, if Trotsky’s key work either doesn’t make any sense or if it is a brilliant piece of Marxist analysis that has proven to difficult to implement then it must be admitted that deciphering this legacy will be no easy task.
It is much more easy to summarize the main political perspective of the Trotskyist movement and their long struggle to continue what they believe to be the only authentic expression of Marxism. Trotsky and his followers since have always maintained that the biggest crisis in the international communist movement was a failure of leadership. The existence of the Fourth International and the affiliated parties, however small, were to be the “vanguard of the vanguard” opposing the degenerated leadership of the parties that had followed the lead of the Soviet Union.The means by which this leadership would become an actual vanguard has, to date, never been worked out.
I do not believe that the lack of political success makes Trotskyists parties makes “wreckers” or “spies.” That is all the overheated rhetoric that spiraled out of control following the series of purges in the Soviet Union carried out in the mid to late 30’s. Trotskyist lack of success has hinged directly on the dynamic of those attracted to this movement and their intense passion to engage in fierce internal battles over abstract points necessitating precipitous organizational splits as almost a matter of principle.
I meet a leading member of the Socialist workers Party named Frank Lovell when he came to speak in Minneapolis. He was at that time on the verge of getting expelled from the SWP and when the ax fell he and some of his faction formed the Fourth Internationalist Tendency – FIT. They started out with 30 stalwart members and promptly started a journal, formed chapters, commenced mass work around the issues of the day, and quickly grew to 70 members. Two of their members died and left them a chunk of money and so they had no financial problems. Nine years years into their project, fierce internal battles tore them apart and the group disappeared in the process of trying to dissolve into another organization. When it was all over, Lovell sadly observed that they had started so well and if only they hadn’t taken the new people in, everything would have been okay.
I took no delight in reading an article online detailing this history history. (Reflections on the Fourth Internationalist Tendency
by Paul Le Blanc). I knew Frank to be a dedicated communist who had devoted a lifetime in struggle. His articles were insightful and his energy boundless but his vision was limited to a small circle of friends who thought pretty much the way he did.
If re-groupment means negotiating over the merged central committee than I don’t want it because it won’t mean anything. If Kasama were just a split trying to replicate an organization I never belonged to than I wouldn’t want that either. I don’t need an discussion circle to analyze the New York Times and craft a well written theoretical journal that nobody reads. All of the things that pass for the limited vision of many American revolutionaries are just not good enough. They aren’t good enough not because the cadre are bad but because our people and our country and this suffering planet need so much more. I do not know where Kasama will end up but I agree it is time to take a different path, to learn to travel light, and to do something new .
nando said
I think we need to engage on the terrain of today, not the terrain of 1924.
The Soviet line struggles(between 1917 and trotsky’s death in the late 1930s) are well explored terrain. Those issues can be revisited as needed (referenced, summed up etc.) — but they revolve around a set of issues that are rather moot (imho), and superceded (including by the whole sweep of the Chinese revolution etc.)
For those seeking a detailed Maoist critique of the historic issues around trotskyism, I suggest “On Trotskyism: Problems of theory and history” by Kostas Mavrakis (luckily available online thanks to Marx2Mao!)– which explores those issues with substance and integrity. And which I have found quite convincing (as opposed to the far more dogmatic, Stalin-era mythology, “Trotskyism: Counterevolution in Disguise,” by M.J. Ogrin — a work and a history which would be embarassing for communists if it was not so tragic and damaging. (Truly the Comintern method of critiquing Trotskyism, with crude lies and cop baiting, is what Maoists call a “negative example.”)
but again: I think we need to engage on the terrain of today, not the terrain of 1924.
First because : “been there done that” — i.e. as a movement we have “been there.” There is value for individuals (and new communists and radicals) to explore these historic issues and line struggles — but even there the value arises when it is done inthe context of the question of today.
Second, we need to approach these line questions in a contemporary way because the terrain has clearly shifted. Few forces take their stand on the basis of lines forged in the 1920s, and those that do are often too dogmatic to matter. Many trotskyist forces have taken their distance from Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution (including the Workers World Party and the U.S. Socialist Workers Party) — so revisiting that 1905 theory may not be worth the time. The fact is that trotskyism is not a single current at all, and has become highly diffuse — with very little cohesion both theoretically or organizationally. It is worth exploring where some of these current now stand, and their own evolution makes it pretty worthless to go back to the Soviet theoretical disputes of 1924-27.
third, many of the main theoretical stands of “orthodox” trotskyism took bodyblows from history, just a few examples:
a) It was said (by trotskyists) in the 1940s, that the Comintern had beocme a counterrevolutionary force, and so any revolutions after world war 2 would only arrive from non-stalinist movements. In fact Mao (breaking with stalin’s directives) led the worlds second great socialist revolution in 1949. (Trotskyists, facing this dilemma had two “logical” ways to go: some simply said that china had not had a socialist revolution, others announced that it was possible to have revolution “with a blunt instrument” — i.e. without a trotskyist vanguard leading.)
b) Trotskyism’s theory of permanent revolution including a continuation of previous European socialist thought on the peasantry (which saw them as largely conservative, and only capable of revolutionary activity in close conjuncture with an urban working class uprising leading the way.) In fact (again after World War 2) the vast anti-colonial upsurge (spearheaded by China, and rippling through Indochina, Korea, India, Latin America, the Middle East and africa) showed that reality was quite a bit more complex: in many places anti-feudal agrarian revolution of peasants (especially under communist leadership) played a far more dynamic role than allowed in “classic” trotskyist theory (or in the politics of the trotskyists of those times).
c) A core trotskyist theory was that it was impossible to have “socialism in one country” — in fact, over the sweep of the twentieth century, it was revealed that it was quite possible to establish and deepen a socialist mode of production (at least in one or two large socialist countries), but (as Mao said) it was not possible to “fully consolidate socialism” or move onto communism itself, without the overthrow of imperialism on a world scale. The early trotskyist assumption (that revolution could not succeed in stabilizing itself in the Soviet Union, much less in a country like china, without revolution in the “advanced countries” providing the most advanced forces of production) proved to be mistaken. Clearly, the fact that revolution has (so far) taken place one country at a time has been a problem of socialist transition, filled with real and frustrating difficulties for communists. But it would be hard to argue today (after the experience of a century) that it is impossible to “take the socialist road” in one country, while supporting the advance of socialist revolution worldwide.
d) the theory of degenerated workers state — holds that the Soviet Union (after 1924) became a new form of society led by a new kind of social stratum (i.e. that it was neither capitalist, nor truly socialist, neither led by the capitallists, nor by the revolutionary proletariat). It was held (by trotkyists) that it was a “workers state” but one that had degenerated (by being usurped by political representatives of a bureaucratic stratum.) As time went on, and as the Soviet Union went through major changes, invasion and political struggles (from 1924 to 1992) — it became more and more incredible to think that you had a society where the nature of its economic base (i.e. the non-capitalist economic forms emerging from the October revolution) were being administered (and even defended) by a ruling stratum that was neither capitalist nor socialist. (How long can a society hang in a “bonapartist” limbo, with neither capitaist nor proletarian class exercising dictatorship in the modern world?) It was not a correct theory — and some trotskyists (the schachtmanites of the ISO) changed their minds, saying that the rise of Stalin had represented the rise of a new capitalist class (and so, by logical extension, if not particularly materialist analysis, they also concluded that the great chinese revolution was jut another capitalist, nationalist power grab, not a socialist revolution.)
History gave another blow to this theory of a “degenerated workers state” as the Gorbachev years gave over to openly capitlaist forms. For Maoists this was “state monopoly capitalism becoming more openly private-traditional monopoly capitalism” — i.e. the change was largely in “form” (juridical form) of ownership (the socalled “enfranchisement of the nomenclatura”). But for trotskyists, this represented the destructions of the long-standing non-capitalist base (which had remained, in their opinion for seventy years fixed in its nature) without the civil wars and massive struggles that they predicted (and insisted) HAD to accompany a restoration of capitalism. (Caught in this logical cunundrum, some trotskyists STILL insist that Russia and china are not yet capitalist….hmmmm.)
My point here again is that history has not been kind to the three or four main theoretical postulates of “classic” trotskyism. These views have been fairly well and systematically critiqued (from many sides). And the outcome of all these events themselves (the victory of china, the exprience of socialist road in USSR and china, the process of restoration, the experience of peasants in the world’s anti-colonial and antifeudal upsurges) all point strongly away from the assumptions, predictions and proposals of the Trotskyist framework.
Put another way: trotskyism was aimed (in many ways) at creating a politics for the European trade union movements (that had their heyday in the early twentieth century). but the world revolution moved farther and farther away from those movements, and the development of imperialism cemented those movements more and more firmly to social democratic politics. Trotskyism mainly survives today where some remaining flicker of trade unionist hope flickers (in the “traditions” of the british labor movment, in the remnants of the U.S. labor movements, etc.)
* * * * * *
I realize that these few paragraphs are, just that, a few paragraphs. they are not a serious disputation of trotskyist theories — but a sketch of why I have (over time and study) concluded that trotskyism was a false start, and a mistaken direction, for any revolutionary aspirations.
And it sketches why I believe that Trotskyism has found itself in a serious, terminal dead end — dissipating as a movement. It attracts people who want radical change, but who are attracted to a socialism with strains of bourgeois democratic and social democratic thinking. But as a serious movement, it has made little progress anywhere — since its founding in the late 1930s. And if anything its “health” as a political contender has gotten steadily worse (because of the objective conundrums mentioned above — that became splitting points shattering trotskyism into countless warring factions with very little uniting them.)
again, where does that leave us:
First, we do have a theoretical-historical work to do. Maoists never produced a serious historical summation of the Soviet Union (of the 1930s, of the great line struggles and purges, of the adjustments made to confront hitler, etc.) some starts were made (including by Avakian’s critique of the Popular Front, 7th Comintern congress and the subordination of the international communist movement to Soviet state interest and foreigh policy.) But there is clearly more to do, and the Maoist algebra of “Stalin: 70% right, 30% wrong” is a verdict still in search of a serious accounting.
Second, in the absense of that new work, I would personally shy away from any repeat of the old familiar debates between Trotskyism and so-called “Stalinism.” because it has been done (endlessly, endlessly, endlessly…. often poorly, sometime well). Some people find nothing more envigorating than debating old questions using very old arguments…. (as for me, I just think “don’t feed the trolls.” And those who want to know more about those old arguments, they can just go buy and read the old books that discuss them.)More important: to do such an engagement with the early Soviet line questions right, it would have to be done on a new basis (a basis that includes further critical summations of the sweep of communist experience in the twentieth century). If we are fighting for a new synthesis, why spend a lot of time repeating some very old verdicts squeezed out by our own previous and rather dated syntheses?
(One of the most disturbing things about the RCP’s Red Papers 7 — which did some state-of-the-art analysis of Soviet social imperialism in the 1930s, was the crude and simply uncritical insertion of 1930s verdicts on the line struggles of the 1930s. It stuck out like a sore thumb as a lapse in scientific methodology, and frankly as a rather cowardly lapse of integrity.)
Third, we need to engage people emerging from Trotskyism who remain seriously interested in revolutionary politics — and really, the most interesting things to engage them on do NOT include fighting over verdicts on classic Trotskyism and the linestruggles of 1926.
Bill wrote: “It might not be a matter of Trotskyism itself having something to contribute (on the other hand, why rule this out per se?…), but why not some people who came through that experience and who themselves were looking for ways to radically change the world?”
R from ATL said
Hi everyone. I’ve been lurking around on Kasama for some time now and really appreciate all the work that has been put into the site. I’d also like to thank the person who posed the question, even if it was posed “provocatively” (to put it politely!). It’s something I’ve wondered as well, as a member of Solidarity, an org. that has been more or less committed to regroupment for some time. In fact, I joined Solidarity in part because of their activism and in part due to many comrades’ direction toward regroupment and non-sectarianism.
I’m not sure what Mike means as far as “the defining centerpoints of their politics” or “the nature of their project.” Certainly, this seems to be a big disagreement, but we’re not told what the substance of it is. I’m also very unclear as to who this is directed toward, if not toward other revolutionaries in our far left holler. Maybe folks in the “social movement left”? Here in Atlanta, GA, our far left holler is pretty cramped and most of us are forced to get along (though there are a few three letter groups that don’t play nicely with others, and the ISO is strangely not one of them).
I like the fact that Solidarity, FRSO/OSCL, LRNA, and other groups recently came together for a collaborative summer school, “Revolutionary Work in Our Times.” It’s not a huge feat, but an important starting point for future work. I hope that common work/experience can become more of a basis for common understanding in the future (as opposed to debates on historical questions).
By the way, I think an abstract debate on Trotskyism v. Maoism or whatever really distracts from the productive potential of the broader discussion at hand. It’s been done plenty of times and Google should turn up plenty of them. The original question, regarding Kasama allowing “the theoretical and programmatic outlook of Trotskyism” to guide doesn’t seem to reflect any serious ongoing regroupment project that I know of.
For a very recent Solidarity statement on regroupment and refoundation, check out http://www.solidarity-us.org/refounding
What kind of concrete things is Kasama’s regroupment about? Who is involved?
Eddy said
Nando wrote:
I’ll argue that the Russian revolution shows that it is important to re-examine and develop a much broader and deeper understanding of political economy — especially the political economy of the socialist period. What does ‘socialism’ consist of? and is it possible to speak of socialism as being ‘established’ as a ‘mode of production’? (For that matter, by what metrics did socialism ‘succeed’ in either Russia or China?)
Further, it is useful to point out that all of the leading marxists in the Soviet Union ‘got it wrong’ in regard to the ‘theory of productive forces’ and ‘building socialism’. For example, as has been pointed out elsewhere, in practice Stalin adopted Trotsky’s positions regarding agriculture and industrial production and then declared ‘victory.’ Nor should we simply conclude that the Chinese comrades ‘got it right’ but lost the war.
All that said, I think we shouldn’t hinge an investigation of this problem on Trotsky or historical Trotskyism (but both have served and perhaps still serve as parts of the discussion). It is a general problem of making socialism and communism.
BobH said
It’s my impression that in France, the Trotskyist LCR has just launched a new anti-capitalist party that is attracting a lot of new people. While I share Nando’s overall assessment of Trotskyism, I think it will be interesting to see how the French situation plays out.
Also, I seem to recall that in the introduction to Charles Bettelheim’s “Class Struggles in the USSR” he made the argument that Trotsky and Stalin, despite the disagreements between them, shared a great deal of conceptual baggage from the 2nd International. Rather than rehashing old polemics, maybe turning a very critical eye toward the shared baggage of the ICM in its various incarnations is one way for theory to advance?
Mike E said
BobH writes:
I think this an important part of the picture.
In an examination of the actual history of the Soviet revolution it is impossible to side step the real and important differences between Trotsky, Stalin and Bukharin — and I believe that it is hard to avoid a verdict that on those issues of the 1920s, the line that won out was better than the lines that were defeated.
But I agree with your point, that in some ways Stalin’s politics was “kautsky’s revenge” — because over time economism and mechanical materialism became unmistakable, and then (especially after 1935) the raw nationalism, parliamentarism, pacifism and capitulation of the Comintern parties represented a major, profound and pretty fundamental departure from what had been seen as communist politics.
Eddy said
Mike wrote:
Which practice (aka line) are you speaking of specifically? It seems to me that the wrong line won out (long before 1954), and the various ‘two-line struggles’ of the 20s and 30s were not as they were portrayed by the official history.
And by that, I mean more than simply that the various CPSU Central Committees were not continually overrun with German spies and saboteurs (for example).
Bryan the Trot said
Glad I started a thread. I only check this page every couple of days, usually for a few minutes, so I can’t keep up with the whole debate, etc. My questions reflect my continuing overall general concern with the Kasama Project.
I want to echo R from ATL’s point: I’m not sure what Mike means as far as “the defining centerpoints of their politics” or “the nature of their project.” Certainly, this seems to be a big disagreement, but we’re not told what the substance of it is.
To be clear (and honest) in response to R from ATL, I am not interested in left regroupment of the type that involves the folks I mentioned. The questions are relevant to Kasama, not so much to my approach to socialist and communist work. If I was interested in broad regroupment, I’d be a member of one of those groups. I think that winning over newly radicalized workers and youth is the central task in building a Marxist organization. The widest possible unity of Marxist organizations can be useful, in united fronts around concrete issues like war, racism, budget cuts, police brutality, etc.
I do not think “Trotskyists” (a term I actually don’t use much outside the internet) can “regroup” the left under the banner of the Committee for a Workers International or one of the smaller 57 varieties. I don’t actually see that as desirable since I view most of the left as stale, out of touch, middle class and self-obsessed (harsh, I know).
I also want to make clear that the reason I come here at all is because it is one of the only dynamic groups on the US left (I include the organization I’m a member of, Socialist Alternative, as part of the dynamic section of the left).
There is only one thing that can guide the theory, practice and program of Marxists in the 21st century: the experiences of humanity. Having a dismissive approach to revolutionary continuity, historical examples, and previous practice can only lead to future errors.
As for “economism,” I think that the lack of a serious approach to economic issues is a central problem with the US left. I welcome all “workerist” and “economist” characterizations in left circles. You know, “bending the stick.” The lack of an economic program is the central problem, combined with empiricism, middle class composition and intellectual laziness (I must not be in a good mood today).
Echoing R from ATL again (after all, an echo doesn’t repeat itself just once): I’m not sure what Mike means as far as “the defining centerpoints of their politics” or “the nature of their project.” Certainly, this seems to be a big disagreement, but we’re not told what the substance of it is.
So, if SPUSA, Solidarity, FRSO and other “regroupment” projects aren’t good enough for Kasama, then what makes Kasama unique? The flowery language? A different approach to communications technology? Be honest, it is the continuity you see between your ideas, the RCP and Maoism. The anarchists and Trots involved with Kasama won’t last long once the public activity becomes more intense.
Hey Gangbox, aren’t you gonna help me out here?
Carl Davidson said
My booklet on Trotskyism, one of the few critiques from outside the Trotskyist movement from an ML perspective, written back in 1973, is available online. I tried to treat Trotsky and his theories seriously, even as I opposed them. The work is dated in that it puts SWP as the center of their trend; today it would be ISO. It has some flaws, but still holds up fairly well. Today I think Bukharin had the better position on many basic things, over both Stalin and Trotsky, but that’s another matter. Anyway, here’s the link:
http://www.ucc.ie/acad/socstud/tmp_store/mia/Library/history/etol/critiques/guardian/index.htm
Kal said
I just posted a comment on one of the later threads made out of Nanda’s post that I suppose I should have posted here, given this is where there’s a discussion, and Bryan’s made my point at greater length. Though I’m a member of a different organization (the ISO), I agree with pretty much all of Bryan’s other points, excepting perhaps his overly harsh judgment of the US left, which is in bad shape but not I think so stale or self-obsessed as all that.
hegemonik said
To speak here from the outside perspective of a member of FRSO/OSCL (though not in any privileged role) on some of the things hinted at here:
1) Having a bit of ideological DNA in common with the Kasama Project in Maoism, I can hear where a bell goes off when people start talking about regroupment in the sense of organizational mergers and the like. The American Maoist milieu has been filled with party building efforts consisting of mergers and attempts at mergers, some of which resulted in new organizations and more than a few of which led to bitter exchanges of polemics that were sound and fury signifying… something.
IMHO, having some hindsight on that experience is what was responsible for the Left Refoundation perspective that, rather than plowing the same old terrain, we have wanted to reassess both theory and practice, and in that process do party building work driven by something higher than simply the Heavyweight Vanguard Championship Belt.
2) My own observation of the Revolutionary Work in Our Times summer school and the ongoing relationship among the various participants have been useful, not in that the participants have necessarily come to some grand unity on answers so much as we’ve been able to bat around questions within a shared ballpark — it has forced theory to be less about the private languages of Mao and Trotksy so much as what insights might, say, vets of the 70′s revolutionary tide have with regard to how to agitate based on the current conditions of economic crisis.
Do Maoism and Troskyism have their takes on that? You bet. But at this point in capitalism, events are becoming much larger than I think a single ideological trend (much less a few marginal trends) can fully describe.
3) As another lesson from the RWIOT summer school: In all this, I think it needs to be said that the advanced members of mass organizations, not pre-committed to a revolutionary organization, do have a role to play in the construction of something larger than either the pre-party formations or revolutionary-parties-in-waiting. IMHO, the treatment of this element as simply the farm league for dedicated revolutionary organizations tends to be a vestige of one-size-fits-all Bolshevization that does not take into account a much more open plain in which civil society is more open.
Will such persons join a revolutionary organization — be it Kasama, or Freedom Road, or Solidarity? Some may, and some may not; but frankly, I think it’s a bad starting point to assume that all you’ve got to do to win folks over is set up an organization with “presence” and say, “join” — or even that the main point is to win people over to the organization (as opposed to winning them over to a politics that opens them up).
gangbox said
I think Bryan the Trot very neatly summarized the greatest problem facing the American left today:
“most of the left [are] stale, out of touch, middle class and self-obsessed” and “The lack of an economic program is the central problem [of the American left], combined with empiricism, middle class composition and intellectual laziness”
I would only add there is an incapacity to reach out to the vast majority of African Americans, Latinos, Asians and American Indians, and an inability to reach out to folks of any class or race from that great swath of America between the Northeast Corridor and the big cities of California.
Solve those problems, and we’re on our way.
Don’t solve those problems – and we are seriously fucked.
Bryan the Trot said
I don’t feel that comment 11 has been sufficiently engaged.
I think this is important because it gets to the very root of what this group is all about.
R from ATL said
Thanks for putting in your .02 Hegemonik.
It would be nice to hear others talk about regroupment or Left refoundation in a less abstract, more defined manner.
What is Kasama’s contribution? I’m still not sure, other than being a cyber holding tank for ex-RCP members (kind of like Solidarity was for Trotskyists, minus the internet part–though I think it’s character has changed significantly). Come on…there’s no shortage of very intelligent folks who are great writers around here. Can we take a break from discussing the various critiques of Trotskyism or the Cultural Revolution just for a little bit?
chegitz guevara said
I missed this discussion before.
I’m not sure how much my answer will help. I am a former Trotskyist and I’m with the Kasama Project. I still think that much of what Trotskyism has to offer is valuable, such as the critique of Stalinism and the nature of the USSR, the theory of permanent revolution. I think Trotskyism has a superior analysis of fascism.
I break with Trotskyism on the doctrinaire and dogmatic aspects. I simply don’t accept that Trotskyism has the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I think Trotskyism is fatally flawed by this aspect, which has kept it unable to change with a changing world and adapt to different circumstances, but I don’t think Trotskyism is alone in owning these bad traits.
I’m not a Maoist, a Trotskyist, a Leninist, a Luxembergist, etc. I think there is value to be gleaned from all of these comrades who went before us, and so I am all of those things as well: a Maoist, a Trotskyist, a Leninist, a Luxembergist, etc.