In Defence of Trotskyism

In political Price: Waged: £1.00 Concessions: 50p

solidarity

Number 3. Summer 2010

Lars T Lih, the CPGB and Kautskyism

In Defence of Trotskyism is published by the International Trotskyist Current.

Contact: PO Box 59188, London, NW2 9LJ. Email: Socialist_Fight@yahoo.co.uk

Unity is strength, L'union fait la force, Es la unidad fuerza, Η ενότητα είναι δύναμη, .‫ اتحاد قدرت است‬, đoàn kết là sức mạnh, Jedność jest
siła, ykseys on kesto, યુનિટિ થ્રૂ િા., Midnimo iyo waa awood, hundeb ydy chryfder, Einheit ist Stärke, एकता शक्ति है, единстве наша сила,
vienybės jėga, bashkimi ben fuqine, ‫אחדות היא כוח‬, unità è la resistenza, 団結は力だ", A unidade é a força, eining er styrkur, De eenheid is
de sterkte, ‫الوحدة هو القوة‬, Ní neart go chur le céile, pagkakaisa ay kalakasan, jednota is síla, 일성은 이다힘 힘, Workers of the World
Unite!
 In Defence of Trotskyism page 2

Lars T Lih, the CPGB and Kautskyism

Introduction form, were afraid to see the break-up which ridiculous self-deluding imagination
objective conditions made inevitable, and by self proclamation. In that re-
Has Karl Kautsky been misjudged by serious continued to repeat simple and, at first spect none are more arrogant and
Marxist historians who still believe in hu- glance, incontestable axioms that had been ridiculous than the North American
manity’s revolutionary future? Is Lars T Lih learned by rote.” Sparts lead by James Robertson
right “to reassess” Lenin in order to rehabili- and the Socialist Equality Party led
tate his infamous renegade even in his So according to Lenin it was in the applica- by David North. No, Trotsky is talk-
younger days before he openly went over to tion of the dialectic they failed; in the rap- ing about the actually existing
the class enemy? Has he really got vital les- idly changed circumstances of WWI revealed counter-revolutionary leadership of
sons to teach today’s working class moving that they had become one-sided and were the working-class; Stalinism as it
into struggle against capitalism’s deepest so transfixed on the rapid growth of the originated in the USSR , China and
crisis since the end of WWII? Or is Kautsky German working class movement that they Cuba and its international adher-
not becoming another Gramsci, who was so could not see the new contents in the old ents, the bureaucratic trade union
useful to the old Euro-Communists of the forms. They were not crude mechanical leadership and their reactionary
1970s and 80s in avoiding revolutionary materialists as Cyril Smith tries to portray political expressions in bourgeois
Trotskyism whilst abandoning Stalinism and them in Marx at the Millennium; they were parliaments, the bourgeois-workers
moving towards open reformism? not undialectical thinkers in general but parties internationally and the cen-
were ‘erudite Marxists’ (which is more than trist vacillators who swing between
Karl Kautsky was the highly respected “Pope can be said for Smith) but they still had that reform and revolution. All these are
of Marxism”, Marxism’s chief theoretician separation of the Maximum Programme, now more tied than ever to the de-
after the death of Engels in 1995 but he which they (apart from the revisionists Bern- fence of capitalism and ever more
opposed the Russian Revolution and was steinites) still passionately believed in, and fearful and contemptuous of their
infamously slated as a renegade to the the Minimum Programme, the everyday own membership.
cause by Lenin, “burning with anger”, in his agitation for workers’ rights, wages and
pamphlet, The Renegade Kautsky. conditions. The means of uniting and apply- How self-proclaimed Trotskyist and
ing the revolution programme is the Transi- other revolutionary groups and par-
Vladimir Lenin’s, Left-Wing Communism: an ties seek to tackle this crisis of
tional Method, which the Bolsheviks has
Infantile Disorder, April—May 1920:
begun to develop since learning the lessons leadership constitutes in turn the
of the role of the Soviets in the failed 1905 crisis of revolutionary leadership
“What happened to such leaders of the
revolution. In Lenin’s Left-Wing Commu- and of Trotskyism and it is in this
Second International, such highly erudite
nism: an Infantile Disorder and in the way and by this relationship that
Marxists devoted to socialism as Kautsky,
struggles at the Third Congress of the crisis of revolutionary leader-
Otto Bauer and others, could (and should)
the Comintern 1921 that pro- ship becomes the vital and indis-
provide a useful lesson. They fully appreci-
gramme was elaborated and de- pensible element of the crisis of the
ated the need for flexible tactics; they them-
fended as against the ultra-lefts leadership of the proletariat as a
selves learned Marxist dialectic and taught it
whole. And finally also note the
to others (and much of what they have done who orientated to the Maximum
Programme and ignored both the qualifying word “chiefly”; the crisis
in this field will always remain a valuable
Minimum Programme and the of the leadership of the proletariat
contribution to socialist literature); how-
is complemented and vitally de-
ever, in the application of this dialectic they means to unite the two, the Transi-
tional Programme. pendent on the crisis of national
committed such an error, or proved to be so
liberation movements/semi-colonial
undialectical in practice, so incapable of
Trotsky begins the 1938 Transi- countries in conflict with imperial-
taking into account the rapid change of
tional Programme with these words ism. The correct orientation of
forms and the rapid acquisition of new con-
“The world political situation as a revolutionary groupings to this cri-
tent by the old forms, that their fate is not
whole is chiefly characterized by a sis, via the theory of Permanent
much more enviable than that of Hyndman,
historical crisis of the leadership of Revolution, is a vital part of the
Guesde and Plekhanov. The principal reason
the proletariat”. Note: not just the crisis of leadership of the proletar-
for their bankruptcy was that they were
crisis of revolutionary leadership or iat on a global scale. The entire
hypnotised by a definite form of growth of
even worse the ideological crises of Transitional Programme explains
the working-class movement and socialism,
small sects many of whom that it is in this way that “The his-
forgot all about the one-sidedness of that
“become” that leadership in their torical crisis of mankind is reduced

Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward!

 In Defence of Trotskyism page 3

to the crisis of the revolutionary “Is the treachery of bad leaders

leadership”. of the workers‟ movement (in
that case the German Social
The character of revolutionary lead- Democrats) any longer an ade-
ership needed today to solve this is quate explanation for the tragic
intimately tied up with how we as- disappointments of the 20th
sess past revolutionary leaders and century? Or do we have to re-
crucially how we regard the histori- examine the proposition of the
cal lessons to be learned from the Russian Revolutionaries that the
Russian Revolution; how should 20th century was “rotten-ripe
revolutionary leadership relate to for socialist revolution” if only
the Russian and international work- the “crisis of the leadership of
ing class? Brian Pearce, the famous the working class” could be
translator of many of Trotsky‟s ma- overcome? That was the essen-
jor works into English, concludes tial proposition behind the deci-
his review of Simon Pirani‟s The sion of many serious people of
Russian Revolution in Retreat 1920- Pearce‟s generation to devote
1924: the Soviet workers and the their lives to the cause of com-
new Communist elite, Routledge munism (including yourself,
(London) 2008, thus: Terry!, RM) and, in the 1960s and on our books, £80 for Pirani’s tome, €
1970s, others (including the author 147.00 / US$ 210.00 for Lars T Lih’s Lenin
“Ought we not to see what hap-
of The Revolution in Retreat ) followed suit, Rediscovered, What is to be Done in Context,
pened in those years in Soviet Rus-
joining Trotskyist ‘parties’ that claimed they to perpetuate the division of mental and
sia as a social process that began
had absorbed the lessons of Stalinist as well manual labour as far as possible.
through, and was driven by, the
as Social-Democrat betrayals…was it right to
realities of the situation, but was Kautsky and democracy
define the 20th century as one requiring
taken charge of by those who found
only ‘the building of the revolutionary party’
it had results to their advantage? Behind the elevation of Kautsky
to bring about world socialist revolution as
Must we not ask whether some- and the attacks on Lenin and Trot-
‘revolutionary situations’ matured? … Do we
thing like „Stalinism‟ was ultimately sky is the question of democracy.
not now need new thinking? Thinking that
inevitable, in a country like Russia All through the nineteenth century
absorbs our history certainly. But thinking
at any rate? What difference would the “Red Republicans” equated the
which recognises that it is only now … we
a revolution in Germany, say, have goal of universal suffrage – adult
can see, through a glass darkly perhaps, that
had on developments in Russia? We male to begin with – with socialism;
the conditions for – and the urgent necessity
know that the best of the Bolshe- if the working class had universal
of – socialist planning on a human-need
viks set their hopes on that.” suffrage then they would surely
basis and a world scale have emerged. If so,
vote for socialism and it would have
Terry Brotherstone , ex-WRPer and we need a radically new discussion about
to be implemented. Bourgeois par-
an adherent of the Movement for how this has come about and what to do
liaments were the arena for
Socialism, (MfS, they surely have about it.”
“democracy” and, as the working
nothing as committed as a mem-
Right, Terry, who will achieve this “planning class was ever growing in numbers
bership) cannot abide this quite
on a human-need basis” for us? The answer and proportion of the population,
moderate defence of the heritage of particularly in Britain, France and
settled upon by you, Cliff Slaughter, Cyril
the Russian Revolution – Pearce Germany then the objective proc-
Smith, and Lars T Leh et al certainly is NOT
was 93 when he wrote that and his
the working class and building a revolution- ess of development would give us
break with Stalinism was never socialism. This was rational of the
ary party to repeat the “mistake” – “blind
quite complete because of the
alley” Smith outrageously called the victory revisionism of Eduard Bernstein in
nasty experience he endured in his
of the Russian Revolution led by the Bolshe- the German Social democracy and,
encountered with Gerry Healy‟s
viks and Pirani and the whole MfS eventually though rejected by Kautsky in the
„Trotskyism‟ in the late 1950s.
accepted this. And lest any serious intellect turn of the century It did eventually
Brotherstone, in chiding Pearce, reveal itself as the real, unspoken
from academia should consider repeating
supplies the standard – and only assumptions of the majority in the
the “mistake” of those earlier generations
possible – response to Trotsky‟s 1914 vote for the war credits to the
and devote their lives to the cause of the
opening line of the Transitional Pro- Kaiser to enable WWI to be waged.
revolution and so connect with workers in
gramme:
struggle let us put a high a price as possible

Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward!

 In Defence of Trotskyism page 4

The working class itself was as-

signed the role of a stage army;
their demonstrations and strikes
served to force through parliament
the enabling acts to allow for the
implementation of enough nation-
alisation of the leading heights of
industry and generous social wel-
fare provisions so socialism would what is the form workers rule must adopt them as our own from the pre-1914
be achieved by the progressive un- take. Crucially were the BolsheviksGerman Social Democratic party (SPD) in
folding of this inevitable historical right to dissolve the Constituent order to enrich and develop Marxism today
process. This was the strategy of Assembly in 1918 and rely of the as Lih proposes? Certainly there are some
the far left in Britain in the struggle Soviets as the form of workers questions, like women’s oppression, on
for the Great Reform Act of 1832, rule? Was the counter- which the SPD were far more advance than
where they were deceived by the revolutionary violence of Stalinismthe Bolsheviks. Or must we reject them en-
rising millocracy into assisting it in and the bourgeoisie the same as tirely as Smith proposes? Should we not
forcing a measure of power sharing the revolutionary violence em- accept Trotsky advice to Burnham in January
on the landed aristocracy. Chartism ployed by the soviets and Trotsky 1940 “beware of the infiltration of bour-
also focused on parliament, with Red Army during the Civil War? See geois scepticism into your ranks. Remember
fewer illusions but nonetheless with Universal rights and Imperialism‟s that socialism to this day has not found
no apparent alternative. This parlia- neo-liberalism offensive, by Ret higher scientific expression than Marxism.
mentarianism is the very boring Marut in Socialist Fight no 2 (Gerry
Bear in mind that the method of scientific
political content of all Tony Benn‟s Downing‟s documents on Scribd) socialism is dialectic materialism. Occupy
speeches, it is also the essence of for a detailed exposure of the fraud
yourselves with serious study! Study Marx,
the more leftist reformist, pro- of bourgeois democracy. This is theEngels, Plekhanov, Lenin and Franz Me-
gramme of groups as disparate of introduction, hring.” No mention of Kautsky but certainly
the pseudo-Trotskyist Socialist no total, irresponsible rejection of the Marx-
Party and Socialist Appeal and the “Imperialism‟s neo-liberalism offen- ist tradition of the Second International as a
CPGB. sive since the 1980s cloaked its whole.
brutal advance against the working
The Paris commune of 1871 was a class and poor of the world by a The CPGB and Lih are using many basic
proto-soviet and the failed Russian hypocritical championing of Marxist concepts so ably propagated by
Revolution of 1905 finally put the „democracy‟ and „rights‟ - from Kautsky, Mehring, Wilhelm Liebknecht and
working class centre-stage, finally „democracy‟ within trade unions others to smuggle in the Erfurt programme
the conundrum was solved, here and „democracy‟ for the USSR and of separation of minimum programme and
was direct mass participatory de- Iraq all based on the „free market‟ Maximum programme which characterised
mocracy as envisaged in ancient and „free trade‟. This ideological the German SPD and led to its shipwreck
Greece albeit for the elite male offensive left its victims far poorer after their appalling 4th August vote for the
“citizens”. Therein lies the confu- and with far less effective collective Kaiser’s war credits already alluded to, one
sion about the dictatorship of the rights. „Revolutionaries‟, like the of the blackest days in the history of the
proletariat which Smith and the SWP, hailed the fall of the Berlin world workers’ movement. Cyril Smith uses
MfS, Lih and the CPGB, Hal Draper Wall, the neo-liberal counterrevolu- total rejection to smuggle in the straightfor-
the AWL and the Commune exploit. tion's greatest achievement. They ward philosophical idealism which rejects all
Because this working class democ- thereby foolishly welcomed their materialism and all dialects in order to pre-
racy is directly counterposed to own political marginalisation. Ret sent a ridiculous Libertarian non-
bourgeois democracy. If the MfS Marut examines the ideological revolutionary humanist Marx as the model
crudely equated soviet democracy roots of this offensive and outlines for today’s revolutionaries?
with bourgeois democracy or de- Marxism‟s answers”
mocracy in general (e.g. the Crucially was Kautsky, “the Pope of Marx-
CPGB‟s „extreme democracy, i.e. a Lars T Lih: the renegade’s champion ism”, and the SPD correct to pursue the
perfect form of capitalist rule) or model of the “party of the whole class”
Was the young Kautsky so fundamentally
borrowed the anti-communism of armed with the Erfurt Programme as op-
different from the renegade (as Lih says is
Raya Dunayevskaya Lars T is more posed to Lenin and Trotsky’s revolutionary
implied by the term “renegade”) that we
sophisticated in his anti- party armed with a Transitional Programme
must learn these fundamental lessons and
communism and confusion as to (workers’ united front 1920, TP 1938)?

Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward!


Or was Marcel Liebman’s Leninism under
Lenin the more balanced assess-
ment of why Lenin took such a fun-
damentally different attitude to
WWI to the SPD? The fundamental
difference which we will seek to
establish is that Lenin led the Bol-
sheviks with an increasingly differ-
ent theory and practice after learn-
ing the lessons, crucially on the
need for Soviet/workers councils,
from the failed revolution of 1905.
We will establish that the goal of
Liebman is to defend the Marxist
theory and practice of the revolu-
tionary party and programme as
developed by Lenin and was so
spectacularly successful in leading
the Russian Revolution. It was this
heritage that was defended by
Trotsky. The goal of both Smith
and Lih is counter-revolutionary
and reactionary; to deny the new
generation of revolutionists these
indispensable weapons today in the
struggle to forge the leadership to
make the socialist revolution in the
revolutionary crises that this crisis
will produce in the coming months
and years
Lenin made a major practical break
with SPD methods of organising
after 1905 and deepened it after
August 1914, by evolving a differ-
ent theory on the party type and
programme. This was empirical at
first; attributing the centralism and
struggle for theoretical clarity at
least in part to illegal Russian con-
ditions but increasingly it became
conscious because of the revolu-
tionary practice of the party. This
resulted in breaking with the Ger-
man Social Democratic party type
such that by 1917 the Bolsheviks
were a totally different type of
party, capable of leading a socialist
revolution. In contrast the SPD top
leadership formed the spearhead of
the counter-revolution and their
model “party of the whole class”
splintered disastrously into its con-
stituent elements: open counter-
revolutionary reformism leading
Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward!
In Defence of Trotskyism page 5
older, more demoralised and con-
servative skilled workers in the
main, syndicalism, centrism and a
small and confused revolutionary
current. This is Liebman‟s implicit
proposition. And it is into this Kaut-
skyite blind alley Lars T Lih and the
CPGB seek to divert us.
Lars T Lih seeks to prove that
1. Lenin never broke theoreti-
cally from the pre-1914 Kautsky
(what about the above quote?).
2. that therefore the revolution
triumphed by the use of the min-
max SPD Erfurt Programme of
1891 (again the quote proves oth-
erwise).
3. and implicitly the 1921
united front offensive by Lenin and revolution by attacking the Russian Revolu-
Trotsky and the 1938 Transitional
Programme were reformist back-
sliding by the great revolutionists
as Max Shachtman, Hal Draper,
the CPGB and the AWL have
sought/seek to prove.
In developing his Marxism after
1905 Lenin no longer used the me- Kautsky than Lenin today is the message Lih
dium of Kautsky or even Plekhanov proposes, much to the delight of the CPGB’s
in the main but went straight to
Marx and Engels and eventually, in
1914, to Hegel as the intellectual
source of the dialectic. But the
CPGB wishes to develop a Kautsky-
ite Marxism as a fail-safe against
revolutionary Trotskyism. And Lars
T Lih is the unwitting, or maybe
willing, caps paw in this project.
Closely related to this is the ques-
tion of what lessons we draw from
the history of the Russian Revolu-
tion and subsequent history of the
20th century and the first decade
of the 21st in terms of the party
and programme? We also need to
restate the fundamental character
of Lenin‟s break with the old Bol-
shevik Democratic Dictatorship of
the Proletariat and Peasantry in the
1917 April Theses following his famous
analysis Imperialism the Highest Stage of
Capitalism in 1916 and its essential coinci-
dence with Trotsky’s 1904 theory of Perma-
nent Revolution.
Why do we take the two apparently oppos-
ing proposition of Smith and Lih and insist
they are essentially the same? Smith says
that Kautsky and Plekhanov distorted Marx
so fundamentally that they gutted him of
his Marxism - Karl Marx and the Future of
the Human is one of his efforts – and we
must return to the real Marx. Lenin and
Trotsky followed the philosophy of these
and so were little better. We must return to
Marx with Cyril, who is the only one to have
found his true character. Strange how this
‘discovery’ gels so well with outright reac-
tion but that’s dialectical, we must suppose!
Lih, on the other hand, says that Lenin re-
mained a Kautskyite all his life, only repudi-
ating the open crossing of class lines when
he progressed from centrism to counter-
tion. But in truth Lenin’s collected works are
full of re-examination of what went wrong
with the German Social Democracy and we
make so bold as to suggest he corrected his
earlier illusions in them sufficiently to lead
the greatest revolution in history, so he got
the bulk of that one about right, it is fair to
assert. Nevertheless we must all be more
Macnair and Bridge.
Lars T risibly sees Kautsky as the inspira-
tion for Lenin’s April Theses
In bolstering the Stalinist/Menshevik ver-
sion of revolutionary history Lih seeks to
prove that it was Kautsky who was the main
influence in Lenin’s April Theses of 1917
and Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolu-
tion was totally irrelevant, despite the com-
plete political co-incidence between the
two internationalist outlooks. Crucially he
fails to identify Lenin’s 1916 book Imperial-
ism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism as the
central political development in Lenin’s
thinking which enabled the April Theses to
identify with the third and most important
element of Permanent Revolution, the ori-
entation to the world revolution. Reducing
the famous Theses to the incapacity of the
Russian bourgeoisie to lead their own revo-
lution and portraying the adoption of social-
 In Defence of Trotskyism page 6

ist measures as a national consideration themselves at the level of the empirical with each of these. Some observers have
without questioning why the working class application of these axioms to Russia.” dispensed with specific catalysts and spoken
should had developed such advanced inter- either of Lenin’s cynicism or of an existential
nationalist consciousness, Lih and the CPGB If we read the ‘theses published in 1915’ – ‘rejection of Big Brother’. I have now put
demonstrate their essential capitulation to they are in Lenin CW 21 – we see that Lenin forth a new explanation: the role of catalyst
the Menshevik/Stalinist theory of socialism is still advocating a bourgeois democratic was played by Kautsky’s article of April
in a single country and a left wing version of revolution in Russia, albeit led by the work- 1917, which showed Lenin how he could
the British Road to Socialism. ing class and indeed in this he is still a both remain loyal to central Marxist axioms
‘Kautskyite’. The very weak case that Kaut- and move forward to a socialist revolution in
In an introduction to an article by Kautsky, sky led Lenin to break from Kautskyism, in Russia without waiting for the international
Lenin and the ‘April theses’ January 15th, this vital important matter is further under- revolution.”
2010 by the Communists Students http:// mined if we look at the previous article to
communiststudents.org.uk/?p=4074 (and in the theses in Volume 21. It is Kautsky, Lars T Lih would only have to skip one article
the Weekly Worker) Lars T Lih argues that Alexrod and Martov – True Internationalists, in his Volume 21 to discover, much to his
this was the inspiration for Lenin’s famous of course true internationalist social patri- chagrin that the inspiration was ‘of course
April Theses. Why anyone should think that otic chauvinists is the theme of the article. Trotsky’. Here is the extract from Lenin de-
this appalling social chauvinist (and Lenin And it is on internationalism that the April nouncing Trotsky’s theory of Permanent
had called him just this many times since Theses are based, they could not be inspired Revolution in 1915. The astute Marxist will
1914) should have inspired Lenin in 1917 from so hostile a source. Lih goes on to re- be able to see that this is a caricature of
because of a few ambiguous formulations is mark, Trotsky’s Permanent revolution nonetheless
a mystery. Here is how Lars T Lih puts his it is but a few short steps away from the
case; “Kautsky’s April article also foreshadows the April Theses.
later clash between Lenin and himself. Kaut-
“First, what exactly was new in Lenin’s fa- sky insists that socialism is impossible with- Here is Lenin, On the Two Lines in the Revo-
mous April Theses? The following planks in out democracy, by which he means political lution, Nov 1915:
Lenin’s 1917 platform are not new: all freedoms such as right of assembly, of press,
power to the soviets, no support for the and so on. Of course, Lenin also emphasised “This state of affairs patently indi-
provisional government and the imperialist the relation between democracy and social- cates the task of the proletariat.
war, the necessity of a second stage of the ism, but on a different plane. Lenin’s entire That task is the waging of a su-
revolution, in which the proletariat would emphasis in 1917 is on mass participation in premely courageous revolutionary
take state power. These themes can all be administration rather than on political free- struggle against the monarchy
found earlier – in particular, in theses pub- doms. This emphasis stands in contrast to (utilising the slogans of the January
lished in October 1915. What is new is earlier old Bolshevism, for which political Conference of 1912, the “three pil-
Lenin’s insistence on taking ‘steps toward freedom was a central goal.” lars”), a struggle that will sweep
socialism’ in Russia, prior to and independ- along in its wake all the democratic
ent of socialist revolution in western This only goes to show that the reference to masses, i.e., mainly the peas-
Europe. This theme occurs for the first time the need for soviets made by Lenin in 1915 antry…
in remarks jotted down in April 1917 – im- was not a precursor to his powerful slogan
To bring clarity into the alignment
mediately after reading Kautsky’s article. Of All power to the Soviets of April 1917. The
‘three whales of Bolshevism’ or ‘three pil- of classes in the impending revolu-
course, we cannot simply argue post hoc,
lars’- Democratic Republic, Confiscation of tion is the main task of a revolu-
ergo propter hoc (“with this, therefore be-
the Landed Estates, Eight-Hour Working tionary party. This task is being
cause of this”). Nevertheless, this coinci-
Day, were still the programme then with an shirked by the Organising Commit-
dence in time opens up a possibility that
entirely different political perspective. But tee, which within Russia remains a
should be seriously examined.
Lars T Lih then presents us with a profound faithful ally to Nashe Dyelo, and
Of course, these verbal echoes are hardly historical mystery, where on earth could abroad utters meaningless “Left”
direct proof that Kautsky’s article had a Lenin have got the ideas of the April Theses phrases. This task is being wrongly
large impact on Lenin. Nevertheless, they if not from Kautsky? tackled in Nashe Slovo by Trotsky,
add weight to the strong circumstantial case who is repeating his “original” 1905
for seeing Kautsky’s article as the catalyst “Many other candidates have been pro- theory and refuses to give some
for Lenin’s great innovations in his ideologi- posed for the catalyst for Lenin’s ideological thought to the reason why, in the
cal outlook. The innovations are not at the innovations in 1917. Among those put for- course of ten years, life has been
level of the Marxist axioms themselves – ward are Hegel, Bukharin, the political writ- bypassing this splendid theory.
Lenin as well as Kautsky continued to take ings of Marx and Engels, JA Hobson and, of
course, Trotsky, but there are difficulties From the Bolsheviks Trotsky‟s origi-
these for granted. The innovations reveal
nal theory has borrowed their call
Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward!

for a decisive proletarian revolu-
tionary struggle and for the con-
quest of political power by the pro-
letariat, while from the Mensheviks
it has borrowed “repudiation” of the
peasantry‟s role. The peasantry, he
asserts, are divided into strata,
have become differentiated; their
potential revolutionary role has
dwindled more and more; in Russia
a “national” revolution is impossi-
ble; “we are living in the era of im-
perialism,” says Trotsky, and
“imperialism does not contrapose
the bourgeois nation to the old re-
gime, but the proletariat to the
bourgeois nation.”
Here we have an amusing example
of playing with the word
“imperialism”. If, in Russia, the
proletariat already stands counter-
posed to the “bourgeois nation”,
then Russia is facing a socialist
revolution (!), and the slogan
“Confiscate the landed es-
tates” (repeated by Trotsky in
1915, following the January Confer-
ence of 1912), is incorrect; in that
case we must speak, not of a
“revolutionary workers‟” govern-
ment, but of a “workers‟ socialist”
government! The length Trotsky‟s
muddled thinking goes to is evident
from his phrase that by their reso-
luteness the proletariat will attract
the “non-proletarian [!] popular
masses” as well (No. 217)! Trotsky
has not realised that if the proletar-
iat induce the non-proletarian
masses to confiscate the landed
estates and overthrow the monar-
chy, then that will be the consum-
mation of the “national bourgeois
revolution” in Russia; it will be a
revolutionary-democratic dictator-
ship of the proletariat and the
peasantry!...
That is the crux of the matter to-
day. The proletariat are fighting,
and will fight valiantly, to win
power, for a republic, for the con-
fiscation of the land, i.e. to win
over the peasantry, make full use
Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward!
In Defence of Trotskyism page 7
of their revolutionary powers,
and get the “non-proletarian
masses of the people” to take
part in liberating bourgeois Rus-
sia from military-feudal
“imperialism” (tsarism). The
proletariat will at once utilise
this ridding of bourgeois Russia
of tsarism and the rule of the
landowners, not to aid the rich
peasants in their struggle
against the rural workers, but
to bring about the socialist
revolution in alliance with the
proletarians of Europe.”
Roy Wall says of this passage,
“I hope you've had a look at
page 42 of the New Park edition
effectively comes over to Trotsky's
of Permanent Revolution and Re-
position. Roy”
sults and Prospects. Trotsky states
(Oct 1928) that he thinks Lenin The last sentence of the Lenin text
never read his stuff on permanent is ambiguous on the timing of this
revolution. I think that Lenin is socialist revolution; would it have
criticizing a caricature of Trotsky'sto await the proletarians of Europe?
theory of permanent revolution, he As we shall see this ambiguity is
thinks Trotsky counterposes the present in Lenin‟s in 1905 and was
socialist revolution to the only finally resolved in 1917. Imperi-
"revolutionary-democratic dictator- alism the Highest Stage of Capitalism (CW
ship of the proletariat and peas- 22) was written in 1916 as a vital part of the
antry" (democratic dictatorship for preparation for the Theses but Lars T Lih and
short) whereas Trotsky actually the CPGB still treat the Russian Revolution
counterposes his permanent revo- as a national event, speculate on the rela-
lution to the democratic dictator- tionship between the working class and
ship. peasantry as if it was just a national revolu-
tion. So in their ideology Kautsky shakes
About the same time, 1928, Trot-
hands with Stalin’s and Bukharin’s socialism
sky realises that the epigones were
in one country and the great revolutionary
lumping his concept of permanent
socialist internationalists Lenin and Trotsky
revolution together with another
are reduced to mere gamblers on revolu-
and different concept of
tions on the rest of Europe. But this was not
"permanent revolution" held by
just Lenin and Trotsky. Remember they
Radek and Bukharin. This latter
found a receptive audience for All Power to
"permanent revolution" actually
the Soviets in April 1917; already the leftist
does counterpose socialist revolu-
Bolsheviks branches and many middle cadre
tion to democratic tasks, i.e., it
like Molotov and Shliapnikov were demand-
gives up on the minimum program.
ing the expulsion of the Pravda editorial
Lenin's 1918 criticism of the Left
board, Kamenev, Stalin and Muranov, for
Communists in the party is a criti-
betraying the revolution by supporting the
cism of this giving up of the mini-
Provisional government’s war effort on the
mum program, i.e., wrongly raising
basis of Lenin’s old slogan “the democratic
only socialist tasks… As you say,
dictatorship of the proletariat and peas-
Lenin rejects the democratic dicta-
antry” which the April Theses repudiated in
torship in his April Theses where he

favour of the essence of Trotsky’s Perma-
nent Revolution.
Marcel Liebman shows that the inspiration
for the Theses was not just Trotsky (albeit in
a distorted form) but Lenin himself in his
earlier writing. In Leninism under Lenin the
section Lenin and permanent revolution pp.
79-83 details several instances of Lenin him-
self independently considering the essential
concepts of Trotsky’s famous theory. Trot-
sky thought that Lenin’s democratic dicta-
torship was ‘unrealisable – at least in a di-
rect, immediate sense’ Results, p202. Lenin
thought that the function of this democratic
dictatorship was to establish bourgeois de-
mocracy and facilitate capitalist develop-
ment but Trotsky maintained that ‘it would
be the greatest utopianism to think that
having been raised to political domination
by the internal mechanism of a bourgeois
revolution, can, even if it so desires, limit its
mission to the creation of republican-
democratic conditions for the social domina-
tion of the bourgeoisie’. (ibid. 223-4). Lieb-
man quotes from a letter from Adolf Joffe to
Trotsky before committing suicide in 1927,
“I have often told you that with my own ears
I have heard Lenin admit that in 1905 it was
not he but you who were right. In the face
of death one does not lie and I repeat this to
you now.’ And Lenin had adopted a ‘quasi-
Trotskyist’ position himself in 1905 and Lieb-
man supplies a few quotes, the best of
which is what he calls a ‘typically ‘Trotskyist’
sentence’: ‘From the democratic revolution
we shall at once, and precisely in accor-
dance with the measure of our strength, the
strength of the class-conscious and organ-
ised proletariat, begin to pass to the socialist
revolution. We stand for uninterrupted
revolution. We shall not stop half-way’ (Vol
9, 236-37). What is this but the same phrase
‘uninterrupted revolution’ referred to in
Trotsky’s Results, p. 212, as Liebman points
out? This re-emerged in his thinking again in
April 1917 because of his own studies and
influenced by Trotsky and for this reason
they became the closest of comrades, the co
-leaders of the revolution. It is risible to
suggest he made that change under the
influence of the by-then counter-
revolutionary renegade.
Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward!
In Defence of Trotskyism page 8
This extract from the Permanent Revolution
website of February 2007 explains well what
happened on Lenin’s return in April 1917:
“It was the editorial board of Pravda that
occupied the most right wing stance within
Bolshevism. Edited by Stalin, Muranov and
Kamenev, the paper declared on 7 March:
“As far as we are concerned, what matters
now is not the overthrow of capitalism but
the overthrow of autocracy and feudalism.”
On 15 March, Kamenev used Pravda’s pages
to advocate conditional support for Russia’s
war effort now that the autocracy had been
overthrown. Small wonder then that by mid-
March rank and file worker Bolshevik cells in
the Vyborg district were voting for calls to
expel the Pravda leadership from the party.
It was Lenin who was able to transcend the
limitations of the old Bolshevik programme
and perspective. And it is testimony to the
was a severe shock not only to Chkheidze
vitality and strength of the historically con-
and the Mensheviks. Many of the leading
stituted Bolshevik cadre that open debate in
Bolsheviks, especially leading right wingers
the company led to its programmatic re-
like Kamenev, thought he had taken leave of
armament at the crucial hour. Lenin’s writ-
his senses. An eye witness account of his
ings during the war, especially Imperialism:
arrival in Russia captures the mood of initial
The Highest Stage of Capitalism, led him to
bewilderment that greeted Lenin’s new line:
see that Russia was one, albeit exceptionally
weak, link in the chain of world imperialism. “It had been expected that Vladimir Illyich
Of necessity therefore the programme of would arrive and call to order the Russian
the coming Russian Revolution could no Bureau of the Central Committee, and espe-
longer be conceived in the terms of a na- cially comrade Molotov, who occupied a
tional and democratic revolution but instead particularly irreconcilable position in regard
as a component of the international revolu- to the Provisional Government. It turned
tion against capitalism itself. out, however, that it was Molotov who was
nearest of all to Illyich.” http://
Lenin’s return from exile to the Finland Sta-
www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/1179
tion allowed him to both intervene directly
in the Bolshevik Party and further sharpen Lih emphases the organisational unity of the
his programmatic armoury. At the head of Russian Social Democratic and Labour party,
the Soviet’s official welcome party the lead- of which the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks
ing Menshevik Chkheidze urged Lenin to were only the best known factions in order
play his part in “the closing of the democ- to suggest this continued adherence to
ratic ranks”. Lenin promptly declined, de- Kautsky’s theory and practice. But Lenin
claring instead: “The world-wide socialist applied a transitional method here, not a
revolution has already dawned . . . Any day min-max method. He understood that politi-
now the whole of European capitalism may cal differences that the party tops under-
crash. The Russian Revolution accomplished stood were not understood by the party
by you has paved the way and opened a ranks much less by the working class as a
new epoch. Long live the world-wide social- whole. Therefore he practiced that ap-
ist revolution.” proach serious Marxists have come to un-
derstand as Leninism; he was inflexible and
Lenin’s forthright declaration in favour of
doctrinally dogmatic on principle once he
the socialist development of the revolution
understood it but he was totally flexible
 In Defence of Trotskyism page 9

tactically and organisationally in order to rivals did not mean he did not regard
build the revolutionary leadership. And it them as comrades in the struggle, until
was this transitional method which tri- they had definitely crossed class lines
umphed. There was joint Bolshevik/ and gone over to the enemy class. Con-
Menshevik branches up until after the Revo- trast this to the organisational sectari-
lution but the Bolsheviks won the best of anism employed by today’s SWP, SP etc
them, leaving the Menshevik organisation and yesterday’s and today’s WRP.
with a shell in the period of the revolution- Lenin’s approach was not sectarianism
ary upsurge itself and its immediate after- as is portrayed by these who look at
math. Lenin’s polemics in isolation from his
practice and it is not Kautskyism as is
In Germany there was no significant splits practiced by the CPGB and Lih who
and coming together because the “party of would look at his practice and try to
the whole class” had not differentiated ei- bowdlerise his theory to fit a reformist
ther reformism or centrism from revolution- outlook. That is the Transitional
ary theory and practice, Rosa Luxemburg’s Method.
struggle against Bernstein was taken up by
Kautsky but party unity had such importance And a few extracts from the greatest
which was accepted by all sides that ideo- Marxists of the twentieth century on
logical clarification could not be established Karl Kautsky: alds, who from now on will be treading on
in time for the revolutionary crisis. Reform- each other’s feet, dreaming about “unity”
ism, as a separate and counter-revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, The Proletarian Revolution and trying to revive a corpse. Bolshevism
tendency in the workers movement, did not and the Renegade Kautsky November 1918 has created the ideological and tactical
separate itself out in Germany, the leading foundations of a Third International, of a
The Bolsheviks’ tactics were correct; they
party of the Second International, until really proletarian and Communist Interna-
were the only internationalist tactics, be-
1914. By then, whatever Lenin’s continued tional, which will take into consideration
cause they were based, not on the cowardly
illusions in Kautsky and his method, he had a both the gains of the tranquil epoch and the
fear of a world revolution, not on a philistine
party leadership with a history of ideological experience of the epoch of revolutions,
“lack of faith” in it, not on the narrow na-
struggle against reformism and centrism but which has begun.
tionalist desire to protect one’s “own” fa-
one which did not mistake its own under-
therland (the fatherland of one’s own bour-
standing for that of its own ranks or the Leon Trotsky: Terrorism and Communism
geoisie), while not “giving a damn” about all
ranks of the other RSDLP factions. It pursued May 1920
the rest, but on a correct (and, before the
an uncompromising political offensive
war and before the apostasy of the social- Precisely because historical events have,
against all other political tendencies whilst
chauvinists and social-pacifists, a universally with stern energy, been developing in these
maintaining organisational unity with them
accepted) estimation of the revolutionary last months their revolutionary logic, the
where possible and at the very least unity in
situation in Europe. These tactics were the author of this present work asks himself:
action in the class struggle. That is Lenin had
only internationalist tactics, because they Does it still require to be published? Is it still
fought not just left bourgeois nationalists
did the utmost possible in one country for necessary to confute Kautsky theoretically?
and reformists in Russia, he had also fought
the development, support and awakening of Is there still theoretical necessity to justify
the centrists; the Mensheviks in the first
the revolution in all countries. These tactics revolutionary terrorism?
place and now recognised Kautsky as one
have been justified by their enormous suc-
after 1914, and this too was a new phe-
cess, for Bolshevism (not by any means be- Unfortunately, yes. Ideology, by its very
nomenon appearing for the first time in the
cause of the merits of the Russian Bolshe- essence, plays in the Socialist movement an
workers movement.
viks, but because of the most profound sym- enormous part. Even for practical England
Dialectics comrades; in order to have ideo- pathy of the people everywhere for tactics the period has arrived when the working
logical conflict with your opponents you that are revolutionary in practice) has be- class must exhibit an ever-increasing de-
must first establish at least a partial unity, come world Bolshevism, has produced an mand for a theoretical statement of its ex-
an agreement that you are fighting the com- idea, a theory, a programme and tactics periences and its problems. On the other
mon enemy and therefore the argument is which differ concretely and in practice from hand, even the proletarian psychology in-
your opponents politics and his methods those of social-chauvinism and social- cludes in itself a terrible inertia of conserva-
impede that struggle at best and at worst pacifism. Bolshevism has given a coup de tism – the more that, in the present case,
are totally counter-productive in certain grace to the old, decayed International of there is a question of nothing less than the
instances and in certain cases. That is an the Scheidemanns and Kautskys, Renaudels traditional ideology of the parties of the
understanding of the backwardness of his and Longuets, Hendersons and MacDon- Second International which first roused the

Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward!

proletariat, and recently were so powerful.
After the collapse of official social-patriotism
(Scheidemann, Victor Adler, Renaudel, Van-
dervelde, Henderson, Plekhanov, etc.), inter-
national Kautskianism (the staff of the Ger-
man Independents, Friedrich Adler, Longuet,
a considerable section of the Italians, the
British Independent Labor Party, the Martov
group, etc.) has become the chief political
factor on which the unstable equilibrium of
Socialist Fight: Where We Stand
We stand with Karl Marx: ‘The emancipation of
the working classes must be conquered by the
working classes themselves. The struggle for the
emancipation of the working class means not a
struggle for class privileges and monopolies but
for equal rights and duties and the abolition of
all class rule’.
We see democratic soviets/workers’ councils as
the instruments of participatory democracy
which must be the basis of the successful strug-
gle for workers’ power.
We are for the nationalisation and expropriation
of capitalist private property without compensa-
tion and under workers’ control.
The capitalist state must be overthrown and
smashed to achieve socialism.
The revolutionary process of transition to com-
munism is based on the struggle to form an
international federation of workers’ states and
such a federation is required in order to over-
come the domination of global capital.
We defend the heritage of the Russian Revolu-
tion and critically support the revolutionary
The Press of the Permanent Revolution Collective and its sympathising organisations. More information of the CoReP can be obtained at,
www.revolution-socialiste.info/CoReP.htm
capitalist society depends (i.e. on the Cen-
trists RM). It may be said that the will of the
working masses of the whole of the civilized
world, directly influenced by the course of
events, is at the present moment incompa-
rably more revolutionary than their con-
sciousness, which is still dominated by the
prejudices of parliamentarism and compro-
mise. The struggle for the dictatorship of the
working class means, at the present mo-
thrust of the first four Congresses of the Third
Communist International before the victory of
counter-revolutionary Stalinism.
No to popular fronts with the political represen-
tatives of any capitalist class to defeat fascism,
stop war or for any other reason.
No to sectarian abstention from the class strug-
gle.
We recognise the necessity for revolutionaries to the biosphere which is caused by the anarchy of
carry out serious ideological and political strug-
gle as direct participants in the trade unions
(always) and in the mass reformist social democ-
ratic bourgeois workers’ parties despite their pro so to combat this threat we must redouble our
-capitalist leaderships when conditions are fa-
vourable.
We aim to develop a programme for the emanci-
pation of the specially oppressed. We support
the right of women, Black and Asian people,
lesbians and gay men, bisexuals and transgender cated by Lenin in Left Wing Communism, an
people to caucus inside the unions and in social
democratic parties.
We fight racism and fascism. We support the
right of people to fight back against racist at-
tacks. Self-defence is no offence!
We oppose all immigration controls. Interna-
ment, an embittered struggle with Kaut-
skianism within the working class. The lies
and prejudices of the policy of compromise,
still poisoning the atmosphere even in par-
ties tending towards the Third International,
must be thrown aside. This book must serve
the ends of an irreconcilable struggle against
the cowardice, half-measures, and hypocrisy
of Kautskianism in all countries.
tional finance capital roams the planet in search
of profit and imperialist governments disrupts
the lives of workers and cause the collapse of
whole nations with their direct intervention in
the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan and their
proxy wars in Somalia and the Democratic Re-
public of the Congo, etc.
We demand of all governments a world plan to
combat climate change and the degradation of
capitalist production for profits of transnational
corporations. Ecological catastrophe is not ‘as
crucial as imperialism’ but caused by imperialism
efforts to forward the world revolution.
We support Trotsky’s Transitional Programme of
1938 in its context. We always practice the
method embodied in that document because it
is the Marxist method of mass work as advo-
Infantile Disorder in 1920.
As revolutionary international socialists we sup-
port Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution
and its applicability to the present era of global-
isation.
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