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In this article, we want to handle two separate questions and in reverse of our usual order. First, why there is a problem regarding Trotskyism and the Comintern. Secondly, what that problem is.
Today, the basic reason that we have a severe global problem of Trotskyism, neo-Trotskyism and crypto-Trotskyism simultaneous with the collapse of Brezhnev-style revisionism is the lack of proletarian upsurge in the imperialist countries. The reason for that is the predominance of parasitism buying off the proletariat and converting it to a petty-bourgeoisie.
If we had a real proletarian upsurge at the moment, the world's Bob Avakians would have been energetically pushed aside. It would be too apparent where Avakian obtained so many of his ideas and it would also be too apparent how those ideas benefit the CIA. As it stands now, very few people read polemics; very few people ever read Stalin and Trotsky and out of those, even fewer see any difference. It seems like "all rhetoric." This all manifests itself as weak study habits and weak reading comprehension, but the underlying reason is a lack of proletarian upsurge.
As things stand, people do not trust MIM when it says there is a crypto-Trotskyist problem. The example of the New Zealand Workers Party comes as a shock for the genuine and as another "so-what" for our less motivated "comrades." That party recently merged to admit pro-Trotsky members, thus fully vindicating MIM's "crypto-Trotskyist" accusations. People hiding views compatible with Trotskyism do exist as proved by New Zealand.
So, people did not do their homework on the New Zealand situation and they still have not done their political investigation of the crypto-Trotskyism problem. That's why in this article, we are saying to step back for a little objectivity and look at history. Few will deny that there was a real split between Trotsky and Stalin.
The lazy among us will say that split was sheerly persynality. In this way, people can avoid trying to understand what it was they were talking about. In an odd way, it is a fate worse than death for both Trotsky and Stalin to be handled that way.
MIM would say the opposite. Yes, Trotsky and Stalin often sound alike and because Trotsky worked in the same party as Lenin, Trotsky especially had to use rhetoric to conceal his differences with Lenin. Nonetheless, we would say that if one cannot read Trotsky and see where Avakian and many others obtained their ideas, then it is important not to claim to be a vanguard party or aspiring vanguard party member. Mao like Trotsky and Stalin before him did think there was an important difference between Trotsky and Stalin.
If we go to marxists.org, we will find over 200 documents by Trotsky criticizing Stalin on the Comintern, the international party founded in Lenin's day to lead the international communist movement. Even so, there are some relevant Trotsky documents that did not make it into the marxists.org collection, so if anything, marxists.org understates this issue.
What Trotsky was picking up on was things Stalin was doing and saying that Trotsky considered to be "weakening of discipline" of the Comintern via "social-patriotism," but which in fact was Stalin loosening the grip of the Comintern to account for national conditions. Trotsky was right that there was a difference with Stalin on this and this came out before Stalin and Mao abolished the Comintern completely. It was not a completely abrupt abolition of the Comintern, but an understanding reached through the development of the international communist movement, which is why even Trotsky could comment on it as it was happening. Trotsky even correctly predicted that Stalin would liquidate the Comintern; although Trotsky completely incorrectly guessed the context as the utter destruction of the communist movement instead of its unparalleled victories in World War II.
Imagine if you believed that all the countries in the world are the same, perhaps with the difference that maybe some countries are 10 years behind others. However, after 10 years, a more backward country would go through an exact sequence of events and end up where the more advanced country had been 10 years earlier. Imagine also that you believe all countries eventually become 90% proletarian.
In this sort of sequence, the formation of an international party like the Comintern advocated by Trotsky completely makes sense. The reason is that a comrade in any one country can know the conditions in any other without even going to that country, mainly because the countries just are not that much different.
Since countries are allegedly so similar, opposition to the Comitern leaders and emphasis on local conditions comes off as "nationalism" or even "racism" by the people of color. That's all assuming the homogeneity of countries to begin with. It amounts to saying, "if you cannot see the homogeneous nature of reality, then you must be a nationalist."
Because of some things Marx said about early capitalism that simpleton Trotskyists took and over-applied, Trotskyists believe people in the most advanced countries know what is going to happen to the rest of the world, and in that case, it completely makes sense to take some communists from those most advanced countries and put them in charge of the communist parties of all countries, like interchangeable parts, just with some comrades having more experience than others. That is the Trotsky scenario.
Stalin charged that the Trotsky view depended on a "mechanical" view of even development. If you have paid any attention to what MIM has said, MIM has always said the same thing. Therefore, it's revealing to listen to the other side, and do it carefully so as not to think it's all just rhetoric concealing perysnality differences. Admitedly, much of the time, Trotsky is putting up window-dressing, so it can be difficult to find where he disagreed with Lenin. Most of what Trotsky says about the superiority of Western culture and most of his read-between-the-lines chauvinism comes in comments in-passing that signal the imperialist country petty-bourgeoisie that he is their man. Nonetheless, to rebut the Socialist Workers Party, MIM recently chose a quote from Trotsky in 1936 that has a relatively high concentration of his differences with Lenin. Trotsky starts by not mentioning how Lenin saw imperialism as the final stage of capitalism with its own specific character:
The draft [Trotsky referring to a document he opposed that was to guide the Comintern--ed.] refers time and again, and not always in the proper place, to the law of uneven development of capitalism as the main and almost all-determining law of that development. A number of mistakes in the draft, including one fundamental error, are theoretically based on the one-sided and false non-Marxian and non-Leninist interpretation of the law of uneven development. In its first chapter the draft states that "the unevenness of economic and political development is an unconditional law of capitalism. This unevenness becomes still more accentuated and aggravated in the epoch of imperialism." . . .
What Trotsky does not like is how the comrades were zeroing in on Lenin's theory of imperialism, and specifically how it was different from Trotsky's. Trotsky goes on while trying to hide his differences with Lenin:
In the first place, it would have been more correct to say that the entire history of mankind is governed by the law of uneven development. Capitalism finds various sections of mankind at different stages of development, each with its profound internal contradictions. The extreme diversity in the levels attained, and the extraordinary unevenness in the rate of development of the different sections of mankind during the various epochs, serve as the starting point of capitalism. Capitalism gains mastery only gradually over the inherited unevenness, breaking and altering it, employing therein its own means and methods. In contrast to the economic systems which preceded it, capitalism inherently and constantly aims at economic expansion, at the penetration of new territories, the surmounting of economic differences, the conversion of self- sufficient provincial and national economies into a system of financial interrelationships. Thereby it brings about their rapprochement and equalizes the economic and cultural levels of the most progressive and the most backward countries. Without this main process, it would be impossible to conceive of the relative leveling out, first, of Europe with Great Britain, and then, of America with Europe; the industrialization of the colonies, the diminishing gap between India and Great Britain, and all the consequences arising from the enumerated processes upon which is based not only the program of the Communist International but also its very existence.
If English colonialism is making India level with it, then if we take the English comrades, they know what is going to happen to India. Then there is no reason that English comrades cannot head the Comintern to lead the revolution in India. We can see the appeal of this sort of reasoning for exiles sitting in Europe--unwilling or unable to go back to their countries, unwilling to know conditions in their new countries and still wanting to play a leadership role. If exiles do not think hard about the overall picture, they are going to make Trotskyist mistakes. Ditto Eurocentric racists.
In fact, the Comintern did start along these lines before Stalin and Mao decided that international communism had matured enough that it could afford to adopt a more realistic view. No longer were Lenin's ideas confined to those who could read Russian in the last generation. There was no reason for oversimplification and that remains true in 2004. In some places in the world, we have dropped our glorious banner, but the problem is not a lack of translation or the complete newness of Lenin's ideas. Our ideas are out there, available, but scoffed at in some localities. In other localites, the solution applied to Germany in 1945 will be required. The problem is not a lack of a Comintern.
Now imagine that countries are quite different, sometimes hundreds of years apart in economic development. Imagine that in some countries 90% of the population is proletarian and in others most of the country is parasitic while in still yet others 80% of the population consists of pre-capitalist peasants. Some countries are experiencing economic boom while others are stagnating and still others are suffering a decline in per capita income. In other words, imagine reality, not Trotskyist fantasy. In this case, an expert comrade in one country will not automatically know all the other countries. Quite the contrary, adopting a mechanical and homogeneous view of the world encourages passivity with regard to local conditions and the development of leadership. It's also a question of developing enough leadership comrades, and not thinking that we just need one in London somewhere.
Contrary to what Trotsky said, imperialism is no longer "progressive." It did not make India England's equal the way it made the united $tates its equal, precisely because Lenin was right. Capitalism had reached its decadent and parasitic phase--the stage he called imperialism. It is a measure of the idiocy of Trotskyists that in 2004 they still can't see that England did not make India "level" with it, and only where a class struggle raged against landlords and with the leverage of communist pressure did any serious economic development occur since World War II.
India has to develop based on its own thrust for development. The United $tates has made no country its equal the way England made the 13 colonies its equal economically. A number of countries under U.$. domination such as Haiti have actually gone backward. The parasitism of imperialism makes differences among nations worse.
Certain ideas go together very well. MIM's emphasis on parasitism and decadence in the imperialist countries goes along with revolutionary defeatism, counting on armed struggle and not working with the CIA. Parasitism and decadence also explains why imperialism does not create more countries with a u.$.-level of development. These same reasons account for why revolutionary struggle happens in the Third World and not the imperialist countries. Finally, parasitism leading to uneven development also explains why an international party is inappropriate. It would encourage people to see their countries as more similar than they are instead of encouraging investigation of local conditions.
We cannot deny that Trotsky's ideas fit together coherently, only that they are not realistic and prompt no revolutions since the death of Lenin in 1924. To review those ideas, Trotsky held 1) Capitalism is still a progressive force in the most advanced countries, and the backward countries benefit from that influence; hence it is proper to work with the CIA against Islam for example. Just ask Wolfowitz or Irving Kristol. 2) The Western workers are the most advanced because they work with the most advanced technology. 3) The Western workers produce the proletarian leadership that can guide the whole world and it is a nationalist error not to follow their leadership properly constituted in a Comintern--now referred to by Trotskyists as the "4th International." 4) Capitalism tends to level out differences.
In the academic world, the ideas of Bill Warren and the authors of Empire fit together with Trotskyism fine. Those seeing a literally homogeneous world should definitely support the Trotskyist line against us Maoists. The last to buy the line in the book Empire should be us followers of Lenin, Stalin and Mao.
In the world today, among the Third World parties MIM is familiar with, the Communist Party of the Philippines is clearest on the difference between Stalin and Trotsky and why there is no Comintern. On the other hand, the most concentrated expression of Trotskyism claiming that it is not Trotskyism is found in the RCP=U$A, PLP and some like-minded imperialist country organizations. The same demographic reasons that give rise to Trotskyism and the Fourth International give rise to RCP=U$A and PLP.
If any of this is news to you the reader, please consider one of two possibilities: 1) You are new to this sort of discussion. Welcome. Keep in mind that some people are bought-off and others are weak readers and you won't be so surprised by the "diversity" among those calling themselves communist. 2) You have been calling yourself a "Marxist-Leninist" or "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist" for years or aspiring to join a party that is "Marxist-Leninist" or "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist" and you never noticed who said what and how Trotsky's ideas fit together versus Stalin's. Let us at MIM suggest that you are not the material qualified to be in a vanguard party. It is important that scientific communist leaders have discernment, and not just an emotional attachment to a particular persyn. People in this boat should make self-criticism and hope it serves as an example to others. One pollster has suggested that the reason Bu$h retains popularity in Amerika as opposed to other imperialist politicians is not anything having to do with facts regarding Iraq or even jobs, but just some glorious photo opportunties Bu$h had after 911 that created an emotional bond. Obviously we have a big interest in defeating that kind of thing, because even some oppressed people may fall for it. We want to show people how they can tell they have gone for something emotional and not the truth.
Whatever truth may be contained in the Avakian crew's assertions, it should be put forward as part of a Trotskyist party, not a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist one. They want to hold those views: fine. Just don't call them Marxist-Leninist-Maoist. RCP=U$A was never a follower of Stalin and Mao and tacking on "Maoism" to "Marxism-Leninism" in 1993 did not change that. Likewise, a number of other parties hold similar views. PLP added in Trotsky's view of the united front and war communism. People who intend to be Leninist should read "Imperialism." The key words are "decadent," "moribund," and "parasitic," giving rise to "uneven development." Imperialist countries are not "progressive" bringing "technological progress" and making everyone more productive--not according to Lenin. If you want that view, Trotsky is your man. The CIA and Avakian are your natural leaders today. Just talk Avakian into dropping the facade.