Politics – Page 20 – The Dream Café

On Trotsky’s The Revolution Betrayed

In my opinion, there is no question today more important and simultaneously more difficult than understanding the degeneration of the workers state in the Soviet Union. Interest in socialism is growing as capitalism produces greater and greater income disparity, and more open measures of police repression in response. There are the “socialism is a good idea but—,” people, and there are the, “I’m in favor of it as long as it can be accomplished peacefully” people, and the “I’d be in favor except that it always turns into a dictatorship” people. It is impossible to talk to any of them without the question of the Soviet Union coming up. Only once in history has the working class taken and held state power; how can those with an interest in socialism not care about it? With this in mind, I’m going to be rereading the classic work on the subject, The Revolution Betrayed by Leon Trotsky, and working through it here as I do.

In the course of discussing the Soviet Union with people, one will find a great range of assumptions, from the mystical (“It’s human nature that any group in power will want to keep that power, even if it means harsh measures of repression”) to the deeply ignorant (“Stalin simply continued what Lenin had started.”) These, and all of the other quick and easy explanations, are natural and understandable. If the Trotskyist position is wrong, that by itself explains why so few accept it; if it right, then it is a strong argument in favor of socialism, and so hardly in the interest of the educational system and capitalist propaganda to represent it fairly.

And, speaking of propaganda, if you want to follow along on these posts, be clear that that is what I am doing: propaganda, defined as conveying one’s opinion in an attempt to convince. In my previous efforts at logging notes from books I was reading (The Wealth of Nations, Capital Volume 1, and Anti-Duhring) my agenda was, above all, trying to clarify my own understanding; as a result, I mostly ignored comments unless answering them helped me work through the issue. In this case, my agenda is more polemical—I’m hoping to persuade you that I’m right. Of course, I still won’t bother answering comments from those who seem only interested in taking shots, unless doing so gives me the opportunity to advance an argument in a positive way. Reactionaries, and those who have an interest in preserving oppression, will obviously not be interested in giving my remarks a fair hearing: the view of the Soviet Union as proof that communism can never work is simply too important to them to relinquish it—just as, on my part, I have no interest in giving a “fair hearing” to avowed representatives of capital. I am coming at this from being on a particular side (the working class) and viewing things from a particular perspective (Marxism). If I do this well, those of you who are already on my side, will, perhaps, come to see the value of my perspective.

My intention for these posts is that they’re designed for those who are reading along with them; in other words, I’m going to be attempting to comment on and explain the points I want to emphasize, not recapitulate Trotsky’s arguments. I’m going to be using the Labor Publications edition, Copyright 1991, introduction by David North. I hope some few of you, at least, will follow along with genuine curiosity, motivated by a sincere desire to make the world a better place. That is all a propagandist can reasonably ask.

ETA: Will Shetterly pointed out that the text is available free on-line. Here’s the link.

Next Post: Introduction by David North.

On Democratic Socialists

Here’s another thing I just ran across on Facebook.

Not a bad summary, but it does leave out a couple of things.

Democratic socialists in 1914 supported their own national ruling classes in WWI, rejecting socialist internationalism, beginning with the German social democracy voting in favor of war bonds.

Democratic socialists (Mensheviks) in Russia in 1917, unable to control the working class opposition to the war, collaborated with Kornilov in his openly-avowed plan to massacre the Petrograd workers. Then, when Kornilov revealed that he planned to crush the Democratic Socialists along with the workers, they turned against him–by releasing the Bolsheviks they had jailed and asking for their help.

Democratic socialists in Germany handed state power back to the bourgeoisie in 1918 after the working class had taken power in spite of them; this paved the way for Hitler.

Democratic socialists betrayed the British coal miners in 1921, fending off a general strike that could have led to the taking of power by the working class. *

Democratic socialists also refused to unite with the Communist Party against Hitler (to be fair, so did the Stalinist Communist Party), thus dividing the working class and permitting the Nazis to take power without a shot being fired.

Democratic socialists, by opposing the exportation of jobs (see photo above), give credence to the notion that the worker in another country is the enemy of the worker in their country, which helps keep the working class divided.

Democratic socialists, by their reliance on unions (see photo above), find themselves supporting the trade union bureaucrats who collaborate with the corporations against the interests of the rank-and-file.

Democratic socialists begin by trying to make capitalism more equitable and democratic, but, because they accept private property as a given, and capitalism as a given, respond to circumstances where capitalism and democracy are incompatible by giving their support to capitalism. So long as we live in a class society, the State will be an instrument of the repression of one class by another. So long as we live in a capitalist society, the State will serve the capitalists. The refusal to support a direct struggle for state power disarms the working class before its enemies, however well-intentioned the democratic socialist might be.

* The leaders of the Transport Workers Union, Williams and Thomas, were both leaders of the Labor Party, the British section of the International Social Democracy: the 2nd International, and acted with the support of the party.

A Brief Observation on Liberals

I keep noticing people–liberal and conservative–who give credit (or blame) for the minimum wage, the end of child labor, the 8-hour day, medicaire, welfare, &c &c to liberal politicians. But these were products of mass struggles by the working class. The role of the liberal politician in all of this was sometimes as its expression in the legislature, and thus no more deserving of credit (or blame) than my keyboard is for the contents of this post (especially appropriate given how many spare keyboards I have lying around). More often, the role of the liberal is to do everything possible to put the brakes on the movement after making as few concessions as possible.

ETA: I’ve added the word “politician” after “liberal” because apparently the original wording was ambiguous. Mea culpa.

Equality and Justice and why the difference matters

I just saw the following on Facebook. Take a moment to think about it.

funny-equality-justice-baseball-fence

Does it seem reasonable? Think again. You see, to me, equality is not about who is standing on which box. It is about tearing down the god damned fence.

The name of the political party of which I am a sympathizer is the Socialist Equality Party, and the word “equality” was not pulled out of a hat. It is a hallowed term, reminding us always of our goal. In this context equality means something fairly straightforward: an end to social privilege. This refers to economic privilege above all, and then the reflections of economics in politics, law, and culture. The United States provides a good example of the historical movement: a deeply unequal country that was founded on the principle of equality. The continual resolution and re-assertion of this contradiction has led to (roughly in order): propertied male suffrage, white male suffrage, the ending of slavery, male suffrage, human suffrage, and the end of Jim Crow segregation.

There is a great deal more to do, and in my opinion (you, of course, are welcome to disagree), we’ve reached a place in the exhaustion of capitalism such that there is no way forward without the mass, combined strength of the working class fighting under a socialist program. And it is at this point that these sections of the pseudo-left come out, in so many words, against equality.

What does it mean? What do they mean by “justice?” Look at the picture. They do not mean the ending of privilege, they mean the shifting of privilege. To use John Scalzi’s famous and excellent analogy, they want to alter the difficulty settings on the game, not replace the game with an entirely new one. They are saying, in other words, “I want a taller box to stand on,” not, “tear down the fence.” And the theoreticians behind this movement—already privileged sections of the upper middle class—want a taller box for themselves alone. They believe the fence will always be there. And in many cases they want it there; it keeps the rabble out.

Behind those three figures are masses of people struggling to survive. The figures on the fence aren’t even thinking about those who are behind them, but they matter. They are the millions, and they are the ones who create everything—including those boxes the figures are standing on. Think about that for a minute.

The task of the day—hell, of the hour—is equality: a direct attack on any and all social privilege, and I am happy to talk to anyone who agrees with that, even if we disagree about the best way to go about it. I have nothing but contempt for those who wish to elevate themselves at the expense of the poor, the oppressed, the exploited. And that is exactly the agenda of those who reject the fight for equality.

Another Example of the Idealist Method in Action

A Facebook discussion of a particular aspect of so-called cultural appropriation led quite naturally—perhaps inevitably—to an underlying difference in method that has vital ramifications for those of us who fight for a more just, egalitarian world.

Here is the remark that, in my opinion, expresses it best: “Lack of respect as people for black people is the root cause of police assassination of black people”. And, lest anyone think this just sloppy or careless expression, not really meant, the commenter goes on to say explicitly, “economic issues are a thin veneer — a cover — for implicit prejudices that are then built into the society.” She only neglects to explain why prejudices are implicit—presumably because of Original Sin.

The root cause is seen as lack of respect as people for black people. Not a contributing factor, not an expression of a deeper problem, not an effect of conditions, but the “root cause.” “Respect” is an idea, or a set of ideas—the word describes a relationship between the thoughts in one person’s head, and another person. Thus, the root cause, is, to the commenter, an idea. This is a perfect example of the philosophical method called idealism—a method that sees conditions as a reflection of ideas, rather than the reverse. The materialist believes that, as Marx said, being determines consciousness, something recognized at least in a limited and confused way by those who say, “You just believe that because you’re white.”

“Race” as we understand it today (it previously meant nationality or ethnicity, eg, the “French race,” the “English race”) is a creation of the 18th Century, and only became popular in the United States in the early 19th when it was found useful for justifying African slavery and stealing the land of the American Indian–and speaking of, I believe the argument that tribalism is the same as racism, and is part of the human make-up, is refuted by, if nothing else, the generally friendly reception the American Indian gave the first Europeans.

The continued existence of racism—its promotion by the political Right, its acceptance as permanent by sections of the pseudo-Left—are just as much products of actual, material needs and wants as its use two hundred years ago. Then, it justified slavery and theft. Today, for the Right, it interferes with the working class unity that would challenge their property rights. For the pseudo-Leftist, it permits them to advance claims that will benefit themselves—a tiny, privileged section of the upper middle class—and ignore the genuine suffering of the masses.

Behind the idea, always look for the conditions that produced it. This, by the way, applies to the materialist method itself: materialism, emerging in the 16th Century, is the result of improvements in the technology of discovery spurred by improved lens-grinding techniques (telescope, microscope) as well as by the needs of the newly emerging bourgeoisie to break free of the rigidity of the Church regarding social status and political power.

And here’s the rub: The two differing methods produce tremendously different results. If we are to fight oppression in all its myriad forms, we must, above all, understand it scientifically. The belief that racism is “innate” leads to whole groups that stop after pointing it out—they have no program for, or hope of, actually ending it. Their activity is confined to calling working class white women racists if they wear dreadlocks. To understand racism as a product of class society is the key to developing a program both for attacking the cause—that is, the destruction of capitalist property relations and the ending of social privilege—and also a guide for battling racism itself as part of that fight:

1. The continued killing of African-Americans is an attack on the entire working class, and the working class must unite under a socialist program to destroy the system the police are using violence to defend. The fight against police violence and other forms of systemic racism has to be part of the fight against capitalism—not by (as some have accused me of advocating) “waiting until the revolution fixes everything,” but exactly the reverse: taking on the mechanisms that oppress our brothers and sisters is part of building a movement that can carry the revolution to victory.

2. Problems of racism within the working class have to be fought as part of the struggle for class unity: we must tirelessly point out, not how the white worker “benefits” from racism, but, on the contrary, how he is harmed by it—how it works in the favor of the class enemy.

This is a materialist approach to addressing the problem. What has the idealist approach to offer?