Frequent readers of this blog will be aware that I am generally annoyed by "movementism" and the tendency to ignore revolutionary history in pursuit of some new revolutionary theory that is neither new nor revolutionary. Indeed, my previous post was another (and admittedly ranty) screed about this tendency. If I'm not careful, I might end up coming across as a crotchety old leftist who is afraid of new ideas––like that old man who perpetually shakes his cane at children.
Thus, I think it is probably important to again point out that my annoyance with the above tendency is balanced by my equal annoyance with the tendency to fetishize the past. As I have argued before, revolutionary theory needs to be understood as the dialectical tension of continuity and rupture. The movementism that wants to see only rupture is no less erroneous than the dogmatism that focuses only on continuity––or, more accurately, sees a continuity up to the Bolshevik Revolution and then, rejecting any notion of theoretical rupture as properly revolutionary, seeks a return to this Eden of continuity that never existed.
In the past, I have complained about the dogmatism of this traditionalist approach to communism and why it is a practice in defiance of historical materialism––something that is more properly religious than scientific and, because of this, is often forced to ignore reality. Its practitioners end up becoming sad little sectarians who annoy the hell out of everyone else in the left because they're self-righteous and do nothing to warrant their self-righteousness (like that annoying academic who thinks s/he's more brilliant than everyone else even though s/he is still working on that fifteen year PhD), and in general just make the left seem like a joke to the non-left.
But now I want to write about what I find significantly troublesome about the ideology of those marxists who think that the left died somewhere around World War One, whether or not they have decided to commit themselves to some missionary marxist sect. For there is a rather problematic story that is sometimes told about communism: from Marx and Engels to Lenin there was an unbroken movement that was amazing and properly "marxist"––the First International was a gas, the Second International was a setback, but thank god that the Third International put some of the fun back into communism… And then Stalin came along and ruined everything and marxism has lost its way ever since. Oh and maybe the "Fourth International" could have been fun, but no one's really sure what that tiny and insignificant (insignificant for world revolution, not for Trotskyists mind you) European "international" really meant anyhow because all of those Trotskyite sects who hate each other have a different interpretation of what happened.
This view of actually existing communism is a historical simplification primarily because it is virulently eurocentric. What it really breaks down to is this: the communist movement was good until it was no longer a movement centred in Europe and its colonies, and until the theory of these other movements no longer argued that the eurocentric world would lead the revolution. And maybe throw in some ahistorical analysis about how all of these other communist movements are somehow "Stalinist" just to hide your eurocentrism; sit back on your pure Marxism-up-until-1917 theory, never bother to study other revolutionary movements and the theory that actually emerged from these movements, and you can write books pining for the days when marxism was pure––meaning, of course, racially pure and properly focused on Europe.
Even the Bolshevik Revolution is white-washed according to this eurocentric traditionalism. Now we tend to forget that Russia was once considered "Asiatic", that Nazi ideology even considered Russians to be a weaker race, because this discourse has somehow succeeded in bringing the Russian Revolution into the history of Europe. Isaac Deutscher, for example, promoted this way of seeing the Bolshevik Revolution in his biography of Stalin (although it must be admitted that this biography, despite its eurocentric flaws, is better than a lot of the current pseudo-history written today) in his claim that Trotsky was an enlightened and cultured European whereas Stalin was a boorish Asiatic. The former was the proper heir of Lenin's "european" legacy, whereas the latter betrayed it with his orientalish ways, and thus the Soviet Union could have been saved if only it was properly European!
Deutscher, however, was influenced by the ideology of the so-called "Fourth International" where Trotskyism was born as a marxist theory. And it is important to note, regardless of the charges of sectarianism that might result from this insight, that the Fourth International and the theory it produced was a thoroughly eurocentric affair that succeeded in generating a discourse that would permit one to ignore any significant revolutionary developments outside of the European and European-colonized world. Pabloism, after all, was the great heresy of the Fourth International: not because it advocated that Trotskyists should work with "Stalinists" (shudder!), in my opinion, but because European marxists were horrified by the Pabloists support of anti-colonial movements in places like Algeria. We need to ask why the only Trotskyism that pushed an anti-colonial ideology was considered blasphemous by all of the other sects that splintered out of the Fourth International.
In any case, what is most interesting about the theory that emerged from the Fourth International was that it was a theory that recentered Europe as the global agent of revolution. In a combined and uneven global mode of production, the best that revolutions in the periphery could do was hold their revolution in permanence and wait for the "proper" proletariat of the imperialist centres to lead the revolution: the marxist equivalent of imperialist discourse about the peripheries "catching up" to the advanced and civilized centres. Thus, any revolutionary communist movement and its theory manifesting in the periphery would be treated, by necessity, as backwards, useless, and part of the theoretical fall from grace that happened after 1917. Most probably this theory was "Stalinist"… although Stalinism, regardless of it common pejorative usage, is really an empty concept that breaks down to little more than "they seem to like Stalin so they're bad" or "this is 'socialism in one country' damnit"––complete nonsense, really.
This is why I have little patience for Trotskyism as a revolutionary theory. Not because I think Stalin was super awesome (and I have even less patience for the binary ideology, often promoted by some Trotskyists, that all Leninist theories that aren't Trotskyist are somehow secretly "Stalinist"), but because I find the commitments of historical Trotskyism to be wholly eurocentric. None of this is to say, of course, that the Soviet Union under Stalin wasn't also affected by eurocentrism: Stalin's approach to anti-colonial movements was no more laudable than Trotsky's would have been if he was in the same position, and there is an eerie similarity in Stalin and Trotsky's approach to revolutionary theory. Nor am I trying to say that Trotsky was an uber counter-revolutionary who was taking money from the CIA––really, I could care less for these arguments. My point, here, is that Trotskyism is the prime example of that traditionalist marxism that, in seeking a paradise before the collapse of the Bolshevik Revolution, imagines that all of the communist movements since that point are worthless––primarily worthless because they are not properly "european". What we call Trotskyism isn't Trotsky anymore than Marxism is properly Marx, Leninism is properly Lenin, or Maoism is properly Mao.
But of course this fetishization of the "good old days" of marxism has become broader than the boundaries drawn by the Fourth International. It is now an entire industry of eurocentric marxism that, though at one point was influenced by Trotskyism (which became the prime marxist ideology at the centres of capitalism), has now morphed into a nebulous orthodox marxism. More importantly: the arguments made from the position of this orthodoxy have now succeeded in affecting heterodox marxisms who are unaware of the orthodox nature of some of their core commitments.
Those marxist theories that go further than Trotskyism in recentering marxism in Europe––that reject the theory of the labour aristocracy, downplay the importance of imperialism, de-emphasize the role colonialism played in the emergence of capitalism, fetishize a working class that is essentially white, continue to promote an historical ignorance when it comes to every revolutionary movement after the Russian Revolution… all of these theories result in the erasure of over two thirds of the world's population.
So forgive me if I have little tolerance for those who are overly nostalgiac for a pure communism that existed up until 1917––or, even worse, those whose "pure communism" is only to be found in the works of Marx and Engels––because I feel that this is an attempt to write-off the majority of the world's population, and primarily the most oppressed peoples in the world, because they are incapable of contributing to revolutionary science. Moreover, I feel it demonstrates ignorance to the actual unfolding of communism as a living science; those who claim that there has been no development in marxist theory since 1917 are those who refuse to study the Chinese Revolution and those who are unaware that maoism was asserted as a new development of revolutionary communism around 1993. And even if we forget these molar crystallizations of revolutionary communism (which we should not), then what about an entire constellation of revolutionary theory that has exploded, from 1917 until now, due to the struggles of the most oppressed? Here is where these revolutionary moments of the new triumph over the traditionalism of the old… and yet marxist traditionalists, because they are immersed in tradition and only tradition, are incapable of grasping the fact that communism needs to be a living science in order to be properly revolutionary.
Thus, I think it is probably important to again point out that my annoyance with the above tendency is balanced by my equal annoyance with the tendency to fetishize the past. As I have argued before, revolutionary theory needs to be understood as the dialectical tension of continuity and rupture. The movementism that wants to see only rupture is no less erroneous than the dogmatism that focuses only on continuity––or, more accurately, sees a continuity up to the Bolshevik Revolution and then, rejecting any notion of theoretical rupture as properly revolutionary, seeks a return to this Eden of continuity that never existed.
In the past, I have complained about the dogmatism of this traditionalist approach to communism and why it is a practice in defiance of historical materialism––something that is more properly religious than scientific and, because of this, is often forced to ignore reality. Its practitioners end up becoming sad little sectarians who annoy the hell out of everyone else in the left because they're self-righteous and do nothing to warrant their self-righteousness (like that annoying academic who thinks s/he's more brilliant than everyone else even though s/he is still working on that fifteen year PhD), and in general just make the left seem like a joke to the non-left.
But now I want to write about what I find significantly troublesome about the ideology of those marxists who think that the left died somewhere around World War One, whether or not they have decided to commit themselves to some missionary marxist sect. For there is a rather problematic story that is sometimes told about communism: from Marx and Engels to Lenin there was an unbroken movement that was amazing and properly "marxist"––the First International was a gas, the Second International was a setback, but thank god that the Third International put some of the fun back into communism… And then Stalin came along and ruined everything and marxism has lost its way ever since. Oh and maybe the "Fourth International" could have been fun, but no one's really sure what that tiny and insignificant (insignificant for world revolution, not for Trotskyists mind you) European "international" really meant anyhow because all of those Trotskyite sects who hate each other have a different interpretation of what happened.
This view of actually existing communism is a historical simplification primarily because it is virulently eurocentric. What it really breaks down to is this: the communist movement was good until it was no longer a movement centred in Europe and its colonies, and until the theory of these other movements no longer argued that the eurocentric world would lead the revolution. And maybe throw in some ahistorical analysis about how all of these other communist movements are somehow "Stalinist" just to hide your eurocentrism; sit back on your pure Marxism-up-until-1917 theory, never bother to study other revolutionary movements and the theory that actually emerged from these movements, and you can write books pining for the days when marxism was pure––meaning, of course, racially pure and properly focused on Europe.
Even the Bolshevik Revolution is white-washed according to this eurocentric traditionalism. Now we tend to forget that Russia was once considered "Asiatic", that Nazi ideology even considered Russians to be a weaker race, because this discourse has somehow succeeded in bringing the Russian Revolution into the history of Europe. Isaac Deutscher, for example, promoted this way of seeing the Bolshevik Revolution in his biography of Stalin (although it must be admitted that this biography, despite its eurocentric flaws, is better than a lot of the current pseudo-history written today) in his claim that Trotsky was an enlightened and cultured European whereas Stalin was a boorish Asiatic. The former was the proper heir of Lenin's "european" legacy, whereas the latter betrayed it with his orientalish ways, and thus the Soviet Union could have been saved if only it was properly European!
Deutscher, however, was influenced by the ideology of the so-called "Fourth International" where Trotskyism was born as a marxist theory. And it is important to note, regardless of the charges of sectarianism that might result from this insight, that the Fourth International and the theory it produced was a thoroughly eurocentric affair that succeeded in generating a discourse that would permit one to ignore any significant revolutionary developments outside of the European and European-colonized world. Pabloism, after all, was the great heresy of the Fourth International: not because it advocated that Trotskyists should work with "Stalinists" (shudder!), in my opinion, but because European marxists were horrified by the Pabloists support of anti-colonial movements in places like Algeria. We need to ask why the only Trotskyism that pushed an anti-colonial ideology was considered blasphemous by all of the other sects that splintered out of the Fourth International.
In any case, what is most interesting about the theory that emerged from the Fourth International was that it was a theory that recentered Europe as the global agent of revolution. In a combined and uneven global mode of production, the best that revolutions in the periphery could do was hold their revolution in permanence and wait for the "proper" proletariat of the imperialist centres to lead the revolution: the marxist equivalent of imperialist discourse about the peripheries "catching up" to the advanced and civilized centres. Thus, any revolutionary communist movement and its theory manifesting in the periphery would be treated, by necessity, as backwards, useless, and part of the theoretical fall from grace that happened after 1917. Most probably this theory was "Stalinist"… although Stalinism, regardless of it common pejorative usage, is really an empty concept that breaks down to little more than "they seem to like Stalin so they're bad" or "this is 'socialism in one country' damnit"––complete nonsense, really.
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| "We must fight to make sure that communism remains the property of Europeans!" |
This is why I have little patience for Trotskyism as a revolutionary theory. Not because I think Stalin was super awesome (and I have even less patience for the binary ideology, often promoted by some Trotskyists, that all Leninist theories that aren't Trotskyist are somehow secretly "Stalinist"), but because I find the commitments of historical Trotskyism to be wholly eurocentric. None of this is to say, of course, that the Soviet Union under Stalin wasn't also affected by eurocentrism: Stalin's approach to anti-colonial movements was no more laudable than Trotsky's would have been if he was in the same position, and there is an eerie similarity in Stalin and Trotsky's approach to revolutionary theory. Nor am I trying to say that Trotsky was an uber counter-revolutionary who was taking money from the CIA––really, I could care less for these arguments. My point, here, is that Trotskyism is the prime example of that traditionalist marxism that, in seeking a paradise before the collapse of the Bolshevik Revolution, imagines that all of the communist movements since that point are worthless––primarily worthless because they are not properly "european". What we call Trotskyism isn't Trotsky anymore than Marxism is properly Marx, Leninism is properly Lenin, or Maoism is properly Mao.
But of course this fetishization of the "good old days" of marxism has become broader than the boundaries drawn by the Fourth International. It is now an entire industry of eurocentric marxism that, though at one point was influenced by Trotskyism (which became the prime marxist ideology at the centres of capitalism), has now morphed into a nebulous orthodox marxism. More importantly: the arguments made from the position of this orthodoxy have now succeeded in affecting heterodox marxisms who are unaware of the orthodox nature of some of their core commitments.
Those marxist theories that go further than Trotskyism in recentering marxism in Europe––that reject the theory of the labour aristocracy, downplay the importance of imperialism, de-emphasize the role colonialism played in the emergence of capitalism, fetishize a working class that is essentially white, continue to promote an historical ignorance when it comes to every revolutionary movement after the Russian Revolution… all of these theories result in the erasure of over two thirds of the world's population.
So forgive me if I have little tolerance for those who are overly nostalgiac for a pure communism that existed up until 1917––or, even worse, those whose "pure communism" is only to be found in the works of Marx and Engels––because I feel that this is an attempt to write-off the majority of the world's population, and primarily the most oppressed peoples in the world, because they are incapable of contributing to revolutionary science. Moreover, I feel it demonstrates ignorance to the actual unfolding of communism as a living science; those who claim that there has been no development in marxist theory since 1917 are those who refuse to study the Chinese Revolution and those who are unaware that maoism was asserted as a new development of revolutionary communism around 1993. And even if we forget these molar crystallizations of revolutionary communism (which we should not), then what about an entire constellation of revolutionary theory that has exploded, from 1917 until now, due to the struggles of the most oppressed? Here is where these revolutionary moments of the new triumph over the traditionalism of the old… and yet marxist traditionalists, because they are immersed in tradition and only tradition, are incapable of grasping the fact that communism needs to be a living science in order to be properly revolutionary.
I'd have to disagree with your view on Vietnamese Troskyism. While the original Troskite movement in the late 20s to the early 30s was a largely intellectual movement, there was a split between the faction that didn't really do anything of much worth (The October faction) and another Troskite faction that was willing to engage in a united front with the Stalinists (La Lutte), and this united front was by no means riddled with factionalism, in fact the Troskites essentially bent over backwards to cooperate with Stalinists and conceded to an alliance completely on their terms. In fact the Troskites even promised not to criticize the Soviet Union or Stalin in any shape or form in their newspaper.
ReplyDeleteThe La Lutte faction was responsible for most of the unionization efforts of 1937-1938 and in the 1935 election the Troskites were the first party in Vietnam to nominate candidates that were members of the working class, which is significant because Vietnamese culture at that time was contaminated with a view that only intellectuals were capable of governing. Additionally, the Troskites organized local action committees (which they considered Soviets) to prepare for a Vietnamese-wide Popular Congress to organize the struggle for Independence and the Troskites were known to engage in clandestine activities before they achieved legal status.
The Troskites only split with the Stalinists during the popular front government of Mainland France because the Stalinists argued that anti-imperialist struggle was playing into the hands of European Fascism and that Independence should be delayed to fight "fascism" while the Troskites essentially adopted the line of the later Ho Chi Minh that such a Eurocentric attitude was detrimental and irrelevant to the struggle for Independence and that the primary task of the Vietnamese socialist movement was anti-imperialism.
So can you blame them for the split? I mean, no one can argue with a straight face that somehow the Independence struggle in Vietnam would somehow play into the hands of the fascists, and even if this was somehow true (which is 100% not) then I'd say that I'd be better to make revolution in Vietnam than it would be to "save" French "democracy" simply because strengthening the international forces of socialism empowers the ability of revolutionaries to resist fascism on a national level since it's often difficult for revolutionaries to overthrow bonapartisan states without genuine international(ist) support. But of course, that's irrelevant. There is no possibility that Stalin actually believed his own bullshit, this was just another case of Stalin manipulating the international communist movement to serve his foreign policy interests over the interests of the working class. The Vietnamese Trots then went on to criticize the Chinese Communist Party for it's alliance with the Nationalist Party (which history has proved was a correct criticism)
ReplyDeleteAnd although the Troskites didn't play much of a role during WWII (Some historians theorize that it was due to the fact that the French repressed them far more than the Stalinists and the fact that the Trots had no international support, this is probably true to an extent but most likely isn't a complete answer) they made a quick resurgence in South Vietnam where their party gained an estimated 30,000 members and began spreading revolutionary propaganda and collecting arms. By the time the Viet Ming began to repress them they were far more numerous and better armed than the Stalinists but they refused to resist because they assumed that the repression was temporary and that a united front could be resumed. They were obviously mistaken.
Now that's not to say that I have anything against Ho Chi Minh. Far from it, I've read his biography and I'm proud to say that I'd rather sing the Ballad of Ho Chi Minh than wear a Che T-Shirt and get a hundred dollars for it because his government was a shining example of revolutionary democracy that isn't found in most examples of actually existing socialism and also due to the fact that I haven't read anything about Che and unlike alot of other uncritical leftists I refuse to identify with someone that I don't understand. But it's important to recognize that despite all of his good features Ho Chi Minh was in many cases was too willing to conform to the dictates of Moscow. (Though I'd be willing to defend him for it simply due to the concrete military needs of the Viet Minh during the Third Indochinese war).
Oh and here's a source if you don't want to take my word for it: So can you blame them for the split? I mean, no one can argue with a straight face that somehow the Independence struggle in Vietnam would somehow play into the hands of the fascists, and even if this was somehow true (which is 100% not) then I'd say that I'd be better to make revolution in Vietnam than it would be to "save" French "democracy" simply because strengthening the international forces of socialism empowers the ability of revolutionaries to resist fascism on a national level since it's often difficult for revolutionaries to overthrow bonapartisan states without genuine international(ist) support. But of course, that's irrelevant. There is no possibility that Stalin actually believed his own bullshit, this was just another case of Stalin manipulating the international communist movement to serve his foreign policy interests over the interests of the working class. The Vietnamese Trots then went on to criticize the Chinese Communist Party for it's alliance with the Nationalist Party (which history has proved was a correct criticism)
Your points about La Lutte notwithstanding, I think this is a gross inflation of Trotskyist influence in Vietnam and probably something gleaned from the historical revisionism of the back pages of Workers Vanguard. Considering that you haven't provided a source, then I'm not going to take your word for it…
DeleteThe very fact that you think the Vietnamese Trots' criticism of the Chinese Communist Party (alliance with the Nationalist Party was some evidence of an important Trotskyist line reveals that you probably do get your sources from communist tabloids like the WV. The line of Trotsky on the CCP *before Mao split and refounded the party amongst the peasantry* at that period of time, the very line taken by Chen Duxhiu who was Trotsky's representative, was to stay within the Kuomintang and take it over from inside. It was Mao that understood the importance of having a parallel movement and building it outside of a bourgeois party. And later when the CCP united with the Kuomintang against the Japanese this was correct, and was proven correct because they won the wore and the Kuomintang was strangled out of power.
As for whether or not there's "no possibility Stalin actually believed his own bullshit", what are you––a psychic who has looked into the mind of Stalin and read his innermost thoughts?
Also: let's be clear, I think Stalin was utterly wrong when it came to questions of revolution in many places, and I've argued this throughout the blog. My issue is that Trotskyism, and Trotsky, was always less relevant to worldwide communist movements than the CPSU led by Stalin––and that it was not "stalinist" for people to think like this, only a rejection of a second order [if not third order] theorist, and a movement that was primarily based in the global centres. But the Chinese Revolution began by rejecting Stalin's line (which at the time was the same as Trotsky's), and this is why it succeeded.
DeleteI find your point about Stalin interesting. JMP is right in questioning how, exactly, you were able to glean this remarkable insight into Stalin's thought process, but more than that, I'm hopeful that you can provide a source for the claim that Stalin was actively suppressing the Vietnamese independence struggle because of the struggle against fascism. Typically that sort of suppression of third world revolution is considered a hallmark of Khrushchevite revisionism (when it was declared there could be peaceful transition to socialism, and that any armed struggle might spark a nuclear war between the two world powers), so seeing it manifest under Stalin would be intriguing. Generally, Stalin was supportive of third world struggles, and though he often misunderstood the circumstances these revolutions were taking place in, and thus sometimes suggested the wrong course of action both (he and Trotsky had the same wrongheaded ideas about how the Chinese Communists should go forward for example), I have always understood that he did lend real, much needed aid, both material and ideological.
DeleteAnd although the Troskites didn't play much of a role during WWII (Some historians theorize that it was due to the fact that the French repressed them far more than the Stalinists and the fact that the Trots had no international support, this is probably true to an extent but most likely isn't a complete answer) they made a quick resurgence in South Vietnam where their party gained an estimated 30,000 members and began spreading revolutionary propaganda and collecting arms. By the time the Viet Ming began to repress them they were far more numerous and better armed than the Stalinists but they refused to resist because they assumed that the repression was temporary and that a united front could be resumed. They were obviously mistaken.
ReplyDeleteNow that's not to say that I have anything against Ho Chi Minh. Far from it, I've read his biography and I'm proud to say that I'd rather sing the Ballad of Ho Chi Minh than wear a Che T-Shirt and get a hundred dollars for it because his government was a shining example of revolutionary democracy that isn't found in most examples of actually existing socialism and also due to the fact that I haven't read anything about Che and unlike alot of other uncritical leftists I refuse to identify with someone that I don't understand. But it's important to recognize that despite all of his good features Ho Chi Minh was in many cases was too willing to conform to the dictates of Moscow. (Though I'd be willing to defend him for it simply due to the concrete military needs of the Viet Minh during the Third Indochinese war).
Oh and if you don't take my word for it then here's a source: http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/alex/works/in_trot/viet.htm
(One last small note, due to the need to copy and past my reply due to it's size, it's a bit butchered, so please forgive some repetitions, misspellings, and randomly placed sentences)
ReplyDeleteNo problem about the spelling mistakes, though your third post was redundant and only useful because it provided the source you didn't give before.
DeleteBut as for your source: I don't think the IMT counts as a valid source since most of their theory is about the same kind of history you'd find in the Workers Vanguard––largely distorted, and not a valid scholarly source. Not that scholarly sources are always correct, but they're better than what passes for sources in the Trotskyist imaginary. For the same reason I don't think that the historical insights provided by Maoist International Movement, or by some Stalinist paper.
I am willing to accept that Vietnamese Trotskyism was at one point significant, but not as significant as you seem to assume, though the reason it failed to become a revolutionary force was because of the limits of its ideology and its political line. If this great party of 30,000 was actually as significant as you assume, and only failed because it was repressed by the "Stalinism" of Ho Chi Minh and co., then logically you would have to admit that it lacked any organic connection to the masses otherwise those grouped around Ho Chi Minh wouldn't have been more significant and it wouldn't have so easily fallen out of favour with the masses. 30,000 people in the cities, if that was the actual number (and this statistic is pretty hard to prove, article from the IMT aside), is in fact a rather insignificant number. In China, for example, the communists within the Kuomintang sometimes claimed they had 100,000 members but they still were crushed because the cities were insignificant at that stage of revolutionary ferment in semi-feudal contexts and the city population was actually marginal compared to the population of the countryside.
Yeah, considering the IMT source relies heavily on citations from the Spartacist League (hence confirming what I said about the Workers Vanguard as a viable source), it's pretty dubious.
Delete