Sun, 01 Jun 1997 16:42:56 +0200 COCKROACH!#64 part 2 (The russian Question) A EZINE FOR POOR AND WORKING CLASS PEOPLE. WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS. It is time that the poor and working class people have a voice on the Internet. Contributions can be sent to Subscribtions are free at Now on line! Check out the Home of COCKROACH! http://www.algonet.se/~malecki How often this zine will appear depends on you! -------------------------------------------------------- The russian Question.... The continuing discussion on the Russian Question., One of he LIT-CI and the WI(RFI 21 points! Bob wrote; > >Exactly! Because if we do not have a clear line on the characterization of >these states foremost the question that a capitalist counter-revolution has >taken place then this poses far reaching programmatical and tactical >questions for any organisation that claims to be authodox Trotskyist. And it >appears as if Hugh organisation unfortunately are confused about whether a >counter-revolution has taken place when they say: Hugh replied; This is begging the question. Bob starts from the conviction that a counter-revolution has taken place since 1989. We don't. Of course, as orthodox Trotskyists, we assume that a counter-revolution (Thermidor) occurred in the *regime* of these states during the twenties, consolidated during the thirties, bringing the Stalinist bureaucracy into power. Bob Well, it has been some time since I have read the stuff on "(Thermidor)" but Ok I agree that it represented a counter-revolution in the party, however it did not change the class character of the state and Trotsky's position on the USSR. Not even after the German debacle where Trotsky wrote of the Third International did it lead to Trotsky to change his position on the USSR. But the events in the Soviet Union today were hardly Thermidor in regards to the Stalinist bureaucracy but a real counter-revolution backed up with parts of the bureaucracy, parts of the army, and imperialism with a program of capitalist restoration. Not even Stalin could go that far in the 20ties and thirties.. Bob comments: > >This I unfortunately must say is very confusing! Because if the downfall of >the bureaucracies was partially because of the "revolutionary" action of the >working class in these countries then the picture would not be the one we >see today. Hugh replies; Why not? If the counter-revolution was solid, as Bob seems to imply, then surely a new bourgeoisie would have been relatively easy to create, and none of the contradictory problems ravaging the restorationist project (even to some extent in East Germany!) would have assumed the enormous dimensions they have. These include difficulties privatizing huge productive combines like GazProm, total failure to manage the land question, total failure managing questions of supply and of elementary management (such as payment), total failure providing any improvements in basic living conditions (health, welfare, education, housing, jobs, security, not to mention standard of living), total failure legitimizing the new regime, except for the brief period of euphoria following on the departure of the old regime (high point -- Yeltsin on the tank). Bob replies; Well! Glad to see that you admit there was a counter-revolution. Exactly what kind of counter-revolution? Who has political power and the state in their hands Hugh? And your arguements about the difficulties the new capitalist regimes have does not excuse taking a position on what they represent in the real world and the program they are fighting for and how they have to And pointing out there total failure to do anything in regards to health-welfare-education-housing-jobs only strenthens the arguement of the counter-revolutionary nature of the regimes in power. And the high point of Jeltsin riding in on a tank is in fact the point the state in the final analisis is who contols the guns! And in this case it is a capitialist restorationist regime in power. They do not give one dip shit about the needs of poor and working class people but destroying the entire epoch of how the former USSR and East block countries were run. Foremost the collective property forms. And despite the truthful description by you of the mass euphoria in the destruction of the Stalinist regimes who now see that the state was far more then just the Stalinist bureaucracy but much of the collective property forms, healthcare and all the rest does not change the bottom line of who has state power and who controls the guns.This is the point. In fact with the dismantling of the former USSR and Wast block countries we are quickly seeing the reorganisation of the bougeoisie as a class based on the owership of private property stolen from the former degenerated and deformed workers states. In the East block countries as well as the former USSR the bougeosie and its ideology was never destroyed. Naturally this is because of the isolation of the Soviet Union and later on its degeneration and the politics of Stalin which in fact did nothing to help destroy the International bougeoisie as a class but exactly the opposite. Stalin was certainly the grave digger of the revolution but the point is that now we are there and you just don't want to admit it.. Naturally just as the Bolshevik party had problems when they seized power and set up the dictatorship of the proletariat which lead to a bloody civil war among other things. Well the counter-revolutionary bougeois regimes in power are also having problems as it goes the other way now. However far less problems then the Bolshevik Leninists had after 1917. But the bottom line is that they do have the state power and the guns to back them up and they are quickly destroying all of the gains left from October. Lacking a Bolshevik Leninist Party in these countries is the reason it has gone so far already with out a bitter civil war breaking out. Hugh continues; Bob must be clear when he talks about counter-revolution. The Nazi counter-revolution in Germany was carried out by default so to say as a result of the passivity and blind rivalry of the two great working-class parties. It was "solid" insofar as it had a powerful social base in the desperate petty-bourgeoisie that received no leadership from the proletarian leaderships, and it also had the backing of the big bourgeoisie. It involved a counter-revolution in the *regime*, but didn't affect the bourgeois character of the state. Why is the current set-up in the ex-Soviet Union not solid at all in the way the Nazi (or the Italian) counter-revolutions were? Because it lacks a solid political base. There was no desperate petty-bourgeoisie, there was no big bourgeoisie -- all the solid political factors were *foreign and external* as far as class lines were concerned. The bureaucracy had no social clout of its own, the mass of the people were born to participation by right in the socialized forces of production and had no social interest whatever in the removal of this birthright. And although the bureaucracy obviously functioned as the agent of imperialism within the workers' state, it was precisely as an agent and not in its own right or for its own intrinsic class interests -- after all, it wasn't a class, but a caste, an excrescence on the body of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Bob replies; Hugh says that bureacracy has no social clout in these countries and no Social base. Well if that was and is the case then why is it that things are moving so fast in the other direction of capitalist restoration? I would say that it depends on a number of factors. One is that the bougeoisie and petty bougeoisie were not destroyed in the these countries despite what he claims. In fact the petty bougeoisie (the peasantry) and small shop owners, the intelligencia have existed all the time side by side the collective property forms and in the bureaucracy. The big bougeoisie although driven in exile and defeated in the Soviet Union and Eastern block countries have been quick to claim "property" rights especially in the east block countries after the revolutionary overthrow. The bureaucracy which is and was a petty bougeois leech on the workers state shows its character quite clearly after the revolutionary overthrow it quite quickly jumping on the restoration wagon and trying to get a big a piece of the collective pie as possible. In the Soviet Union the big bougeoisie is being formed partially from criminal maffia elements and partially from the petty bougeoisie in the bureaucracy..It is also backed up by the officer corps of the armed forces which certainly know if they play there cards right will also get a piece of the action..All of this can be done because the Proletariat beheaded of any kind of revolutionary leadership for decades finds itself demoralised,confused and partially defeated. Hugh continues; We claim that the only way to understand the contradictions and the unsolved problems in the ex-SU etc, and the problems imperialism is having with these countries, is to see that the processes of 1989 and after contained the huge contradiction of a proletarian motive force (the "workers' and popular revolution" we refer to) and a counter-revolutionary, pro-restorationist leadership which was able to ride on the back of the revolutionary upheaval precisely because of the lack of Bolshevik-Leninist leadership in the Soviet working class -- largely thanks to the treacherous revisionism of Pabloism coupled with the ferocious Stalinist political repression of all dissident movements, proletarian or not. Bob replies And this is where we have the real problem. You see this as some sort of process disconnected to who has state power. As if the counter-revolutionary regime that rode to power on the tanks of the red army can be treated seperatedly from the political superstructure. I feel that it can not. If this was the case then Lenin would never have wrote his "April" theses and would have tried to reform the Februari government instead of its revolutionary overthrow. And in the case of these countries today the complete lack of a Bolshevik Party to fight for a new October! The proletariat by itself certainly can not overthrow the new regime. It needs a party to do this. So in fact we have a defacto situation of a counter-revolutionary regime with state power and no Bolshevik Party to lead the masses against it. Bob > Where and When? And if not then the revolution you are talking >about must be something new and profound even for Trotskyists..The bottom >line of this document is some sort of stage theroy of a state that exists >between a Stalinist deformed and degenerated workers state and a counter >revolutionary state in the hands of the capitilists and their lackies which >is supportable? Hugh replies; Seeing a transitional unresolved contradictory form of state is far from subscribing to a stage theory! States don't change in a split second or even overnight. There is always a transition of some kind. The challenge of our current period is the distortedly long-drawn-out character of this transition due to the utter confusion in the consciousnesses of the actually existing leaderships concerning the real social and historical forces involved. If we look at October we can see an unusually clean break with the bourgeois state and its absolutist-Tsarist/bourgeois-democratic Menshevik regimes due to the precise consciousness of the Bolshevik leadership of what was involved and what needed to be done to promote the introduction of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But there was nonetheless a prolonged period of transition in which the ownership of the land and the organization of industry were not susceptible to clear-cut either-or definitions as socialist or bourgeois. Trotsky's own definition of the Soviet Union as a degenerated workers' state in *The Revolution Betrayed* in 1936 is in fact a transitional definition. And that was after the very clear-cut social revolution of October, followed by a less clear-cut but nonetheless classical counter-revolution (Thermidor). Our present problems classifying the ex-Soviet Union include the contradictory nature of the class forces and their trajectories in the revolutionary mobilizations of the late 1980s. But there is absolutely no problem in adopting a transitional definition something like "former workers' states in the grip of restorationist projects led by counter-revolutionary bourgeois regimes with more backing from imperialism than their own peoples". And we emphasize the need for discussion, intervention and analysis -- we are committed to understanding through critical involvement in the struggle of the working class to overcome the problems facing it in these countries. Bob replies; No and yes in fact in regards to how Trotskyists approach the question of a counter-revolutionary capitalist and pro capitalist regimes in these countries. In the first place these countries in a new world war are no longer defensible as deformed and degenerated workers states for example. With the new regimes in power they become a part of parts of the capitalist-imperialist world. The transitory character does not change the fundementals. To talk about "Thermidor" in this situation I see very strange. In fact I see Trotsky talking about Thermidor in the sense of the parasitic bureaucracy on top of the gains of October making a counter-revolution anside of the Bolshevik Party in order to gain control of the party apparatus and thus the state. In these states today it is a counter-revolution led by the bureacracy on a program of capitalisr restoration and the dismantling of these states and all gains made in regard to collective property forms. Just ain't no way I can see that "Thermidor" has anything to do with it. Even more so in the eastern block countries..The deformed workers states which never had any Octobers at all! And you claim that we can characterize these states as former "workers" states while we work out the problems of sorting out the contradictions. But in this case that is difficult because if they are "former" workers states this means that one of the basic political pillars of Trotskyism has to be revised. That is the Defense of the former degenerated and deformed workers. And in your original document you are quite silent about the neccessity of this fundemental change in political line. This worries me very much. That is why we just can not as Trotskyists just wait and see what happens claiming that there exists some sort of transitional state with a counter-revolutionary regime in power. Either these states are defensible against imperialism or not! We can not base our analisis on some sort of "process" but the actual political situation that exists in reality. In fact this question will as always be the fundemental deviding line between orthodox Trotskyists and the rest of the swamp. To hedge on a wait and see what happens won't work. In order to make this more concrete we can take for example Sweden and the defense of the welfare state. Communist naturally on principle defend the reforms that were actually fought for and won in these states against the present attempts to dismantle the welfare state in the wake of the destruction of the former "workers"states. Naturally Trotskyist have always understood that Sweden is a greedy little imperialist country with a greed capitalist class. Today we have a counter-revolution that has taken place in the former workers states with a program of capitalist restoration. Now that means that tactically we could fight for defending the collective property forms of these states against restorationist attack. But, it certainly does not mean that we can defend these states against imperialist attack as it is the capitalists and imperialists in these countries that have political power. If the above is true then something fundemental has taken place in these countries which means that Trotskyists who have always defended these states against imperialism no longer can do so. Or do we have the line that these states are transitional states and thus our line on defense is maybe-maybe not.. So it really bothers me that people claiming to be Trotskyist are trying to find all kinds of arguements to avoid take a position on this stuff. Because what it really means is we accept the Transitional program or rewrite it with a paragraph of maybe-maybe not they are defensible or that a capitalist counter-revolutionary regime has taken power and these countries are no longer "workers" states but and integral part of the imperialist system.. Bob wrote; >This I see as and adaption to empirical movements of the >"masses" without a Bolshevik Party who in these states would have fought for >a political revolution.There can not be any in betweens. Hugh replied; This is quite wrong. There are lots of in-betweens, lots of transitional possibilities. In the first place there are many different kinds and degrees of revolutionary mobilization -- "empirical movements of the masses" -- armed and unarmed, successful or not at removing a social target. And in the second place there are many different kinds of leadership -- we have seen non-Bolshevik leaderships such as those at the heads of the Yugoslav, the Chinese, the Cuban and the Vietnamese revolutions go beyond their own subjective limitations and create a workers' state, because of the power of and the pressure from the mobilization of the armed poor and working-class masses on the one hand, and because of the very existence of the Soviet workers' state on the other -- the international revolutionary legacy of October -- on the other. Bob replies; Come on Hugh. Are'nt you taking this a bit out of context. Mainly the deformed workers states came to be in the context of the existence of the Soviet Union. And the Chinese revolution in regards to the above connected to the second world war and the weakest link in the imperialist chain. It appears you are willing to use these arguements as and excuse to justify hedging on the class characterisation of the Soviet Union today. Without the existence of the Soviet Union these states would not exist today. And naturally the real point is not that these revolutions did happen in this context and the fact that with the lack of a genuinue Bolshevik Party along the Leninist/Trotsktist model they became deformed workers states. Thus from there inception threatened with destruction just because of the Stalinist nature of the political leaderships of these revolutions. Finally all of these transitional possibilities must be seen in the context of Stalinism and the destruction of the workers state it evolved from on the backs of October. It is connected in a very real historical and political reality. Now with the destruction of this state and Stalinism their certainly will not be a new round of "transitional" states automatically just appearing on the horizon. In fact exactly the oppposite. The chance of a deformed workers state coming into existence after the defeat of Stalinism and being successful in overturning property forms and seizing power are less today just because of the destruction of these states. Hugh continues; If Bob had said, only a Bolshevik-Leninist led socialist revolution is capable of creating a Dictatorship of the Proletariat without the prior existence of another such Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and leading the working masses of the world consciously to extend the revolution in the same way to their own countries -- I would agree with him. I would also agree if he said that only a revolution led by Bolshevik-Leninists would be capable of unseating a counter-revolutionary bureaucratic caste in a degenerated or deformed workers' state and replacing it with a regime of workers' democracy -- in other words of leading a classical political revolution. But he didn't, and we have to work in situations where there are all sorts of in-between phenomena. Including at present a state of affairs in the ex-deformed-workers'-states in which revolutionary mobilization has elements of both social and political revolution. Yes we agree! Then you turn around and say exactly the opposite that in the USSR there is some sort of halfway house in between a Social and political revolution. Are you saying that we need a new formulation in the transtional program for these states? As I see it the transitional program and Trotsky say the Soviet union as a transtional state after the October Revolution. This transitional state for Trotsky being defensible despite the counter-revolutionary Stalinists. At the same time he called for a political revolution to oust the stalinist bureacracy. On the other hand we have a social revolution in the more classical sense of setting up transitional states through smashing the bougeois rule with the dictatorship of the Proletariat. Are you saying that this (political revolution) is still the case in the Soviet Union the only thing that has changed is that a counter-revolutionary restorationist leadership has destroyed the Stalinists? But the state still is a degenerated workers state worth defending or not? Or is it a transitional state in the hands of a counter revolutionary regime and thus the neccessity of both a social and political revolution? Or is it a bougeois state and a new social October revolution is neccessary? If it is the second then please clarify how you can justify this line? Bob writes; >We have either a >conter-revolution in these states or Stalinist regimes or a political >revoilution led by Bolshevik Leninists Trotskyists which I must have missed. >Either that or something new which your statement sees these states as some >sort of halfway house between something linked to the "revolutionary" >activity of the masses. This is a fundemental revision of Leninism and >liquidation of a Trotsyist line if it is true. Hugh replies; It's typical that Bob writes "in these states or Stalinist regimes". The whole point is that a *state* (understood as the socio-economic foundations of a society) is not the same as a *regime* (the political superstructure of a given society). For instance, fascism or military dictatorship is a *regime* which can run a bourgeois *state*. But the bourgeois state can just as well be managed by a regime of bourgeois democracy. As I said before, we've already had the Thermidor counter-revolution in the *regime* of the Soviet workers' state. What happened in 1989 and after was a combination of two forces. One, the social motive force behind it all, was the mobilization of the masses against the Stalinist counter-revolutionary regime -- an expression of the political revolution, though it lacked conscious socialist revolutionary leadership. Two, the actual leadership in terms of the tendency gaining power and able to attempt to put its measures into practice, was the restorationist bureaucracy trying to transform itself into a bourgeoisie, and in the process handing the workers' state over to the bourgeoisie. The result is not a "halfway house", but a dialectical state of affairs containing absolutely tremendous contradictions. The seething frustrations of the Soviet masses who were unconsciously mobilizing for the political revolution, which was on the historical agenda, are in head-on confrontation with the treacherous self-seeking greed and cruelty of the restorationists intent on selling out the workers' state to imperialism and recreating a bourgeois state in Russia etc, which they placed quite arbitrarily on the agenda although it is historically a completely ludicrous enterprise. Bob replies; yes, you are right Hugh about me writting "in these states or Stalinist regimes". Because a long time ago I read Lenin's "The State and Revolution" which appears to me that the political superstructure has everything to do with revolution and counter-revolution! And in the former USSR and east block countries it is hardly a question of running the deformed and degenerated workers states but a planned destruction or overthrow of these states and the collective property forms they rested on. And once again you claim that the masses wanted to overthrow the Stalinist regime but the point is not that but in what political context this was and is being done. Thus I wrote that; "Would it not be more honest to say that after years of Stalinist betrayal and mismanagement, the workers beheaded of any kind of real Bolshevik Leninist Trotskyist leadership, were led by the nose by various leaders down the path of capitalist counter-revolution rather then a political revolution to oust the Stalinist bureaucracy. Why this worship of workers action if it led to counter-revolutionary pro capitalist regimes? And if the Stalinist apparatus has been destroyed what has replaced it?" In fact tactically many of the "Trotskyist" organisations were supporting the counter-revolutionary mobilisations of the masses in these country completely disregarding who was leading what where! And the statement by you that the Soviet masses were striving "unconciously" for a political revolution is quite incredible. Pablo by the way used the same arguement to support "generations of deformed workers states". And Mandel and company the same phrase in regards to Castro and Che. In your case I think you are trying to find a way to liquidate the neccessity of stating quite openly that the Soviet Union and the east block countries are dead. Avoiding the neccessity of outright saýing that it is no longer a question of "political" revolution but new "social" Octobers that is on the order of the day. Hugh continues: This view of the contradictory state of affairs in the ex-USSR etc is classically Marxist in that it tries to understand the living contradictions of historical development in the perspective of the historical development of capitalism and the deepest social and political class interests of the proletariat -- that is, in the dynamic of the working class emanicipating not only itself but the whole of humanity by overthrowing capitalism and creating a new socialist society. Bob; Well how is the working class gonna do that when "Trotskyists" who are surpose to lead the revolution can not see that a counter-revolution has taken place? Why is it so difficult to say that the politics of the Stalinists has finally led to the destruction of these states with counter-revolutionary restorationist regimes in place who are quickly dismantling all the gains of October connected to intergrating these states into the imperialist capitalist system and mode of production..? Bob writes; >The movement of the "revolutionary" masses at least according to Lenin is >linked not only to the objective movement, but the subjective movement of >the leadership of those masses. This is the essence of Leninism. Hugh replies; Our position doesn't contradict this. Bob's position does because it doesn't even recognize the existence of the objective movement. Not true Hugh. Bob recognises that movement existed. The point is who was leading that movement and where has the movement winded up in regards to these states. I say capitalist counter-revolutionary regimes. You say counter-revolutionary regimes also but the point is not that movements exist but where and what they wind up being. In this case states not even any longer in the hands of a parasitic Stalinist bureaucracy based on the gains of October. But regimes based on destroying the gains of October as quickly as possible! Hardly in slow motion as Hugh would like us to believe. You quote Trotsky on his predictions. Note that Trotskyist left no question of in betweens. Either the workers would overthrow the Stalinist bureaucracy through political revolution or the Stalinist bureaucracy woul sell it out to imperialism. The only point which Trotsky did say which has not come true is the fact that it would take a violent counter-revolution to make the revolutionary overturn. This prediction proved false as I see it. In fact the Stalinist did in the end sell it out. And we have counter-revolutionary regimes in place in the Soviet Union and even more so in the Eastern block countries. But the whole point is that these countries are no longer defensible as degenerated and deformed workers states. Period. Which means we are fighting for social revolutions from Portugal to the Urals.. This is the fundemental political conclusion that must be drawn and program and tactics of building a revolutionary International has to be based on this conclusion. Thus a major revision of the Transitional program on this stuff.. Warm Regards Bob Malecki ------------------------------------------------------- Check Out My HomePage where you can, Read the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara, Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball! Or Get The Latest Issue of COCKROACH a zine for poor and working-class people http://www.algonet.se/~malecki Back issues of Cockroach and the book can also be found at; http://www.kmf.org/malecki/ -------------------------------------------------------