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In defence of Marxism

Theoretical journal of the Leninist-Trotskyist Tendency

Written: 1993.
First Published: May 1993.
Source: Published by the Leninist-Trotskyist Tendency.
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In defense of Marxism
Number 2 (May 1993)

Discussions with the PTS of Argentina

The following two documents continue the discussion with the PTS of Argentina and its co-thinkers in the Internationalist Faction of the LIT. (Other documents were published in the first issue of In defence of Marxism.) The first is a reply to a lengthy series of theses, Faced with the downfall of the order of Yalta and the death agony of Stalinism, today more than ever: Reconstruct the Fourth International, which were published in the PTS’s paper Avanzada Socialista in late 1990. It takes up those parts of the theses dealing with the PTS’s characterisation of, and tactics towards, the LIT, and its conception of regroupment, which it tied closely to an ‘optimistic’ reading of events in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

The second document consists of extracts comprising the bulk of a letter to the PTS and the IF of the LIT, taking up in more detail differences over perspective and the restoration process. Despite the fact that it was the PTS which proposed a written discussion to the LTT, including a public notice to this effect (see the ‘Declaration of Intent’ in Workers News No. 33), it has chosen not to reply to either of the documents presented here, or to The collapse of Stalinism and the German Anschluss: a reply to Comrade Cato (see In defence of Marxism No.1).

Although substantial differences were apparent during lengthy discussions with the PTS in 1991 – especially in relation to its tendency to see outbreaks of ‘revolution’ and ‘counter-revolution’ everywhere – we remain convinced that, even if this chapter has closed, it is only through such patient and comradely discussions that genuine Trotskyist regroupment can be advanced.

The collapse of the ‘order of Yalta and Potsdam’ and the rebuilding of the Fourth International – A reply to the PTS

Our aim is the solution of the crisis of leadership of the world proletariat. This means ultimately constructing a fighting, mass International, bringing together the most militant and revolutionary elements of the working class into a single world party. Such a party must set itself nothing less than the task of leading the world proletariat in the struggle to overthrow imperialism and capitalism and achieve socialism. Such a party would, we believe, realise the aim of Trotsky in founding the Fourth International.

Within what can only very loosely be described as the ‘world Trotskyist movement’ there is a spectrum of positions on how to build / rebuild the FI. At one pole there are sects both large and small which do not accept that the task poses the question of regroupment. Instead they monotonously state every day, month and year that the question is reduced to building their exclusive church, which they usually claim is the FI. At the other pole lie currents (eg the Ramos-ILRFI) which call for the reunification of all or most of the existing Trotskyist forces in a single International. Far from overcoming the crisis of leadership this latter position ignores the political roots of this crisis. Numbers alone solve nothing. The parties of the FI with the greatest mass influence – the POR of Bolivia and the LSSP of Ceylon / Sri Lanka – went over to centrism and counter-revolution.

Since we anticipate that rebuilding the FI will require a protracted period of regroupment, splits and fusions, we are cautious about emphasising the mass character of a rebuilt FI – even if we agree, of course, with the goal. One of the features of Lambertism has been its mechanical distinction between a ‘mass’ international on the one hand, and ‘groups’, ‘organisations’ and ‘parties’ on the other. The FI was not proclaimed on the basis of its numerical strength, but on the basis of its programme. It was the party of those cadres who strove to transform the International Left Opposition / Movement for the Fourth International into an authentic international leadership of the world working class.

During the 1930s, the Trotskyists were able, in the eyes of advanced workers and intellectuals, to claim legitimately that they represented the only genuinely international revolutionary movement. Aside from the Stalinists (who retained mass support) the only international contenders – the Right Opposition and the London Bureau – fell apart.

The epigones of Trotsky, lacking both political authority and a consistent programme, fell into the sectarian trap of self-proclamation. Healy’s International Committee, and subsequently the Vargaites, declared themselves to be the sole political continuity of Trotskyism. Quite apart from the political objections to such claims, they ignored the fact that, from the standpoint of vanguard elements of the working class, the question of who represents genuine Trotskyism had not been solved at all. This contributed to the particular sectarian outlook such tendencies adopted. Ignoring the crisis of the Trotskyist movement, they converted their aim of becoming a mass leadership into an ultimatum to the masses to recognise them alone as the Trotskyists.

The only current which was able to successfully carry off the method of self-proclamation for a long period was the United Secretariat. It was able to do so not because of its political virtues, but because it could claim organisational continuity (despite all the splits it suffered) and because it represented the strongest numerical tendency internationally.

The USec was thus able to propose ‘reunifications’ under its discipline as the only way to overcome the crisis of the Trotskyist movement (whenever it was forced by circumstances to acknowledge the existence of a crisis). The remainder of the time it avoided discussing the criticisms of other Trotskyist currents, preferring to denounce them simply as incurable sectarians – a characteristic method of ‘big’ groups seeking to wall their members off from opposition.

The PTS’s criticism of the LIT is thus far correct and, of course, it is true that the basis of the LIT’s de facto self-proclamation is its national Trotskyism, its strength in Latin America and its weakness in other continents. We also agree that the LIT lacks any consistent strategy for rebuilding the FI.

Rebuilding the FI for us means two combined tasks. First, the building of our own strong international tendency, recognised by vanguard sections of the working class as their leadership; second, the reconquest of the Trotskyist banner, through the struggle for clarification of differences between those who describe themselves as Trotskyists. Central to both these tasks is the necessity for systematic intervention in the class struggle and the mass organisations of the working class. A correct policy, based on an accurate analysis of the given stage of class struggles, and a correct understanding of the political tasks which flow from this, is the only basis on which the second task can be ultimately fulfilled. Only on this basis will it be possible to unite all genuine Trotskyists and to intervene in the crisis-ridden centrist groupings of all shades in order to save the revolutionary-minded cadres from the demoralising effects of adaptationism. Experience should teach us that in organisational matters, ultimatums normally represent nothing other than political weakness.

The LTT disagrees with the analysis of the roots of the crisis of the FI which was put forward by Nahuel Moreno after the split in the USec in 1979, and developed for the first time in the Theses for the reconstruction of the Fourth International of the Fourth International (International Committee) in 1980.

Moreno maintained that the crisis of the Fourth International was caused by ‘Pabloite revisionism’. We insist that ‘Pabloism’ was only a product of this crisis – albeit its most extreme expression. It is not a question of semantics but of the Marxist method. To propose that ‘revisionism’ in itself can be the root cause of anything is to succumb to a thoroughly idealist interpretation of Trotskyist history.

We hold no brief for the politics of Pablo and Mandel in the early 1950s. But it is necessary to oppose the myth-making of all the strands of ‘orthodox Trotskyism’ and their conspiracy theory of ‘Pabloite revisionism’. Quite apart from their typical trait of attributing everything that went wrong to the ‘bad men’ and playing up the ‘struggle’ of the ‘good guys’ (Cannon, Healy, Lambert and Moreno), it fails to explain the social, material and political roots of the degeneration of the FI’s leadership.

Moreno and Lambert’s 1980 Theses put forward the position that in 1951 the FI’s leadership had been suddenly taken over by ‘Pabloite revisionism’ and that this caused the crisis of the FI. They did, however, concede that the documents of the FI since Trotsky’s death had been ‘sectarian’ and ‘fragmentary’. Richard Price in his review of David North’s The Heritage We Defend (Workers News No. 13-15) and Bob Pitt in his series on Gerry Healy (Workers News No. 22 to present) and in his article The Fourth International and Yugoslavia 1948-50 (Workers News No. 32) have demonstrated the falseness and distortions of the ‘IC tradition’ and in particular its dishonest account of the rise of ‘Pabloism’. We have stressed that a crisis was already present at the time of the second world congress in 1948.

Our view is underlined by the fact that the FI was unable to address, still less correct, its accumulated mistakes. Both before and after 1953, the ‘anti-Pabloite’ forces committed similar mistakes to those of the ‘Pabloites’. We therefore defend the position that the FI degenerated as a whole, including the International Committee and its main offshoots. Since then we have seen increasing numbers of hardened centrist currents of Trotskyist origin. None of the currents has been able to solve the crisis of the Trotskyist movement (a term we only use out of convenience).

This centrism of Trotskyist origin differs from other centrist formations because of its formal adherence to the need for a revolutionary international, its claim to base itself on the Trotskyist movement during Trotsky’s lifetime and on the first four congresses of the Third International. These characteristics do not make it intrinsically more progressive than other forms of centrism. However, they have given and will continue to give rise to oppositional currents within these centrist organisations, some of them moving in a revolutionary direction.

The nature of centrism – a wavering between revolution and reform – does not preclude partial turns towards more correct positions, even by organisations as a whole. But all experience during the last 50 years has shown that these left turns are temporary and inconsistent. Although it is true that, despite the degeneration of the FI, the efforts of thousands of militants have kept the Trotskyist tradition alive, it has to be clearly stated that the main hardened centrist currents of Trotskyist origin cannot be reformed. For us that includes the LIT.

The analogy drawn by Nahuel Moreno and Mercedes Petit, between the contemporary Trotskyist movement and pre-first world war social democrats, is false. We reject the comparison between the so-called ‘orthodox Trotskyists’ and the revolutionary left wing of the Second International. (Interestingly the WRP / Workers International has picked up on this argument to justify its theory of ‘continuity’.) Quite apart from the problem of comparing the inconsistencies of Cannon, Healy, Lambert and Moreno with the struggle of Lenin, Trotsky, Liebknecht and Luxemburg, the tasks in the present situation are not analogous except in the broadest sense. Before August 1914, the revolutionary left wing held to a reform perspective for the Second International.

Today the urgent task is to rebuild the FI, and this cannot be accomplished by a reform perspective. On the other hand, it does not mean the fight for a wholly new international – Lenin’s position after 1914 – because, even if it requires extension, the FI’s programme remains highly relevant. Rebuilding the FI will be a much more complicated process of regroupment, demanding a determined and systematic, but flexible, fight against the centrist leaderships.

We do not accept the ‘orthodoxy’ – a non-Marxist term once applied to Karl Kautsky – of the LIT, nor do we think that it can possibly be reformed into the nucleus of a rebuilt FI. It is another hardened centrist current, with a politically weak and miseducated leadership, but with thousands of potentially healthy cadres in Latin America.

While we understand the orientation of the PTS towards the LIT, and particularly towards the MAS – the strongest section of the LIT and the largest left party in Argentina – we think that it is wrong and misleading to maintain the title ‘faction of the LIT’.

The tactic of an organisation designating itself as a public faction traditionally applied where a minority aimed at the reform of a given party, for example the Left Opposition up to 1933. The name ‘Internationalist Faction of the LIT’ only makes sense if you consider the LIT to be de facto the Fourth International, or at least as the instrument to overcome the crisis of Trotskyism. Both ideas are contradicted by your political criticisms of the LIT, as well as by your general line on international regroupment outside of the LIT. In your thesis V you speak of united action aimed at revisionist currents, and as an example point to the PTS’s policy towards the MAS. To use the designation ‘faction’ purely out of tactical considerations will not convince MAS / LIT members. They are more likely to see it as a manoeuvre. On the other hand, renouncing the term ‘faction’ would not lessen your credibility in their eyes. It would mean however that you no longer considered the LIT to be the main reference point for revolutionaries internationally and in Argentina. The reform perspective can only be an obstacle to principled regroupment, both in Argentina and in other countries. Outside Latin America, the reform perspective has, in any case, little direct relevance in terms of regroupment.

The PTS’s attitude to the LIT is related to its position that the Morenoite current, despite important political mistakes during Moreno’s lifetime, began to make major deviations from the revolutionary road only after Moreno’s death. This, to be honest, seems to be more a reflection of the subjective development of the PTS comrades, than an objective and critical analysis of the history of the Morenoite current.

Moreno and Lambert’s 1980 Theses, which claimed to be a manifesto of those Trotskyist forces ‘which had resisted revisionism’ (Thesis XXXVIII), ignored the history of the Morenoite current during the ’50s and ’60s: it made the SWP of the United States the scapegoat for the political failures of the Lambertists, condemned the SWP alone for splitting the International Committee in 1963 and it did not breathe a single word about Moreno’s policy up to 1969. In itself this is a strong hint that there were serious problems in defending Moreno’s ’orthodoxy’ before 1969.

According to our limited and fragmented archives, Moreno’s forces adapted to Peronism during their entry into the Peronist movement. We should stress that we are not, in principle, opposed to entering non-proletarian movements under certain circumstances. We know that this entrism was the subject of repeated criticisms by the Chilean section of the IC (see Ken Moxham, ‘The International Committee and Latin America 1958-64’ in Workers News No. 33). For all its ‘anti-Pabloism’, Palabra Obrera joined the USec in 1964. The PRT adapted to guerallism, even proclaiming its ‘integration’ into OLAS in 1967. Within the PRT, encouraged by Moreno’s flirtation with Castroism, there emerged a strong guerrillaist tendency, which distanced itself from Trotskyism and turned towards Mao, Guevara, Kim Il Sung and Ho Chi Minh. Only in 1969 did Moreno’s current move towards the defence of ‘orthodox’ positions.

During the ’70s, the Morenoite leadership had its best period, showing tactical flexibility, defending a number of correct positions, and laying the basis for the considerable expansion of the organisation. A few cadres of the present LTT participated In the Leninist-Trotskyist Faction, which was formed by Moreno and the SWP.

This opposition within the USec, however, did not fight on consistently revolutionary positions but was a centrist combination. This remained the case after the break-up of the LTF and the founding of the Bolshevik Faction. We have set out in detail our attitude to the Simon Bolivar Brigade (see ‘The Simon Bolivar Brigade: Questions for Comrade L. Perez’ in Workers News No. 21). The break with the USec In 1979 was of course more than justified; but the formation of the Parity Committee and, in late 1980, the Fourth International (International Committee), in which our German comrades participated, was not a step towards rebuilding the FI but, on the contrary, another unprincipled manoeuvre. Moreover it resulted in a defeat for the Morenoite leadership at the hands of the Lambertists and in considerable membership losses.

The LIT, founded in 1982, did not correct or overcome the political mistakes of the flirtation with Lambertism, but deepened them. This is particularly true of the policy of ‘united revolutionary fronts’ with non-Trotskyist forces on the basis of fragments of the revolutionary programme – a type of ‘left Lambertist’ strategy paralleled by Lambert’s attempt to rebuild the First International. It is also true of the concept of the imminence of revolution, the idea of an uninterrupted and irresistible revolutionary offensive everywhere, culminating In the LIT considering imperialism to be a paper tiger (see ‘Critical comments on the policies of the LIT’ in Workers News No. 34).

Their objectivist and mechanical theory, which downgraded the struggle for principled politics, favoured further political adaptation, deviation and finally programmatic liquidation.

These brief comments on the history of the Morenoite leadership clearly exclude the idea that its centrism began only after Moreno’s death. It is necessary for the PTS to make a balance sheet of the history of Morenoism, and to break with the myths of ‘orthodox Trotskyism’, just as we have had to. Of course it will be necessary also to assess the strong sides of Morenoism, even If these cover only a relatively short period of its history, and to draw some lessons from its success in organising workers.

From the late ’60s to the late ’70s the combined crises of imperialism and Stalinism led to a chain of revolutionary upheavals. This upsurge favoured the growth of almost all organisations of Trotskyist origin in Europe, North America and Latin America. The centrist leaderships were able to exploit these favourable conditions, but no single grouping was able to win organisational hegemony, still less to solve the political crisis of the Trotskyist movement. All the major currents plunged into triumphalism; all expected an uninterrupted and irresistible movement towards world revolution, without carefully analysing each twist and turn in the international and national political situation.

By the early ’80s the international relationship of forces had altered in favour of imperialism. The defeat of Solidarnosc in 1981; the defeat in El Salvador in 1981-2; the triumph of clerical reaction in Iran; the defeat of the British miners’ strike of 1984-5; the collapse of the ‘peace movement’ in West Germany; the military offensive of imperialist-backed forces in Mozambique, Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan; these events contributed to a partial boom which, although it was largely confined to the metropolitan imperialist countries and took place at the expense of the indebted semi-colonial countries, enabled imperialism to wage a political offensive internationally, increasing the pressure on the Stalinist bureaucracies to embark on a restorationist course.

The Stalinist bureaucracies, caught between this external pressure and the danger of political revolution at home, brought forward a preventative technocratic reform programme, which rapidly set in motion divergent social forces – both a political-revolutionary trend and a deepening counter-revolutionary drive on the part of the bureaucracies and other openly restorationist elements. Few ‘Trotskyists’ recognised either the depth of the Soviet economic crisis, or that the bureaucracy would be obliged to attempt a further round of reform. Other avowedly non-Trotskyist forces did anticipate these developments, even if they were unable to provide a programmatic answer (see for example D. Singer, The Road to Gdansk (1980) and Critique magazine). Most ‘Trotskyists’ assumed that the task of the political revolution would simply be a ‘surgical’ operation to slice off the bureaucracy from the ‘healthy’ economic foundations. The bureaucracy would respond to all critical situations with repression and a re-run of the ‘classical’ situation in Hungary in 1956 would result.

The partial boom of the mid to late ’80s and the defeats suffered by workers provided the objective basis for the deep crisis of the ‘big’ Trotskyist currents. They were taken by surprise, and either stubbornly ignored reality or capitulated to liquidationist pressures. The SWP of the United States broke into pieces; the Healyite WRP exploded; more recently Militant has split; the USec has become ever more disunited; the PTS is itself the result of a sizeable split in the LIT. Many left organisations in the imperialist countries have lost large sections of their demoralised and frustrated membership. Although Trotskyism has been less affected by this conjuncture than other left forces – Maoism for instance has virtually disappeared – its different currents were all influenced by these setbacks. With little or no understanding of the developing international situation, these centrist forces could only react in an impressionistic way and were unable to develop an independent revolutionary orientation.

The adverse conjuncture in the metropolitan class struggle, which in turn had Important effects in the semi-colonial countries, favoured right-opportunist shifts, rather than left turns, and impeded a principled regroupment policy, restricting It to small left-moving oppositions.

The partial boom, the defeats suffered by workers internationally and the imperialist offensive did not signify a prolonged period of imperialist stabilisation. The decisive national components of the working class in the imperialist countries didn’t suffer historic defeats. The unrest of workers, peasants and the petit bourgeoisie in a number of semi-colonial countries resulted in the fall of dictatorships, the re-establishment of bourgeois democracies, and favourable conditions for the coming period of intensified class struggles.

The collapse of Stalinism and the victories of the counter-revolution in Eastern Europe and the ex-USSR have not resulted in a viable or buoyant capitalism. Workers have begun to react to the effects of the restoration process. New workers organisations have emerged, albeit under contradictory, and in some cases reactionary, leaderships. The rapidly deteriorating situation in the economy and the absence of any significant revolutionary leadership led us in the summer of 1991 to an altogether more sober estimate of the political prospects in the USSR than the PTS comrades, who saw an unfolding revolutionary situation with elements of dual power emerging.

The absence of a wide-scale workers mobilisation against the August coup, the strengthening of the restorationist forces through Yeltsin’s ‘counter-coup’, the bloodless collapse of the USSR, the pauperisation of large sections of workers through the ‘freeing’ of prices – these events have underlined the general correctness of our prognosis. Of course, workers are fighting and resisting the effects of capitalist restoration and we do not seek to underestimate this for a moment. There is no getting around the facts, however, that workers have already suffered serious defeats, that the restorationist forces have advanced considerably and that the perspective of socialism has been heavily discredited in the eyes of workers. Whether the working class recovers its strength in the struggle against restoration or whether there will be a prolonged and historic setback remains undecided.

Trotskyists have no reason to be pessimistic or to retreat into defeatist moods. The present period of flux and instability offers many possibilities for Trotskyists to intervene and for a principled fight to rebuild the FI. They must, however, avoid replacing concrete analysis and programmatic clarity with wishful thinking, as has been done by the Lambertist and LIT forces in Germany who fought for German unity ‘without conditions’, ie for capitalist reunification.

For years they thought that no possibility existed for an imperialist Anschluss. ‘The unity of the nation means the unity of both revolutions’ (i.e. of the political and social revolutions) stated the Moreno-Lambert Theses of 1980. History proved not only that they were wrong, but that objectively they were preparing and supporting social counter-revolution in the GDR. There was no trace either of a social revolutionary movement or of a ‘progressive national movement’ [?!] of the masses in West Germany in 1989-90 – only bourgeois expansionism and anti-communism, dressed up in democratic clothes.

The Lambertists and the LIT pretended that they were defending the gains of the working class, but their strategic aim – the destruction of the GDR during a period of class peace in West Germany – precluded a successful defence of these gains. It could only result in the victory of German imperialism. Such is the tragi-comic outcome of triumphalism and objectivism. With it collapsed the Lambert-Moreno theory of the automatic synchronisation of revolution in the two German states. This theory confused the programmatic ‘norm’ – extension of the revolution – with the specific conjuncture, and turned ‘good intentions’ into their opposite.

The imperialist Anschluss of the GDR has had contradictory influences upon the class struggle in Europe. The partial boom was already coming to a close in 1989, when the collapse of Stalinism gave imperialism another chance to stabilise itself. The conquest of the East German market led to a temporary and unexpected boom in the West German economy. World economy, however, was entering a recession. The brief advantage of West German capital was rapidly counteracted as the economies of Eastern Europe collapsed and their markets shrank. Political necessity demanded not only aid to the former GDR, but to Eastern Europe and the USSR. The relative weakness of US, French and British imperialism prevented a new edition of the Marshall Plan, and German imperialism faced new obstacles to its development. It was obliged to launch a new offensive against the gains of the West German working class.

Today there are numerous signs of growing unrest and insecurity in Europe, even if to date this has largely resulted in gains for far right movements. The collapse of Stalinism has deepened the crisis of leadership by sowing immense confusion among workers and hindering the development of generalised class struggles. The failure of social democracy to offer even a modest reform perspective to the working class has deepened its disillusion in its traditional leaderships. The prolonged recession, the development of civil war in the Balkans and the growth of racism and fascism have added potentially explosive new ingredients to the situation. We are neither falsely optimistic nor pessimistic about the emergence sooner or later of intense class struggles, which will bring with them new opportunities for the regroupment of Trotskyist forces and the rebuilding of the Fourth International.

Political perspectives on the restoration process in Eastern Europe

We welcome the convergence of our views on the national question, particularly given the events of recent months and the disarray in semi-Trotskyist circles. A number of groups have come out in defence of Serbia as ‘defending the workers’ state’, ‘defending Yugoslavia’ etc (Voce Operaia, KDE of Greece, WRP / News Line, RCP, etc), while others are neutral or dual-defeatist on the Serbia / Bosnia conflict. A polemic on Yugoslavia appears in the current issue of Workers News which you should have received recently.

. . .

We do not believe that the ex-Soviet Union can still be regarded as a degenerate workers’ state. We believe that the first victory of the bourgeois counter-revolution already lies behind us. It is not clear what your position is. You continue to regard it as a workers’ state – but according to which criteria? You argue that it would be necessary for the restorationist bureaucracy to inflict ‘important defeats’ on the working class. How important do these have to be? According to our information, workers’ standards of living have dropped by 40% in the past year. Is this not important? You could also point to the fact that the economy remains predominantly nationalised, as indeed you point to the very real problems that exist for developing a viably capitalism. The problem with all these types of argument is that they proceed from a series of ‘norms’ and then try to fit reality around them. Although Trotsky (in 1936!) expected that it would take a civil war to restore capitalism, let us not forget that he also wrote that the completion of the counter-revolution could make considerable strides forward by the ‘cold method’, so concentrated was power in the hands of the Bonapartist clique. What is more, he anticipated that any bourgeois regime would probably be obliged to maintain a large state sector for a lengthy period, since the capitalism that emerged would be very weak. We have no problem agreeing that for some time to come the prospects are for ‘multiple conflicts, national and civil wars, spontaneous mass movement uprisings, strikes etc’; however this does not have a direct bearing on the class character of the state. In fact, such developments are given added impetus as the ‘marketisation’ of the economy proceeds, throwing tens of thousands out of work and slashing real wage levels.

It seems to us that you conflate two different, if related, things: the restoration of a bourgeois state and the restoration of a ‘healthy’ capitalism. In doing so, you miss out a crucial element: namely that there has been a fundamental rupture at the level of the state. The CPSU has been outlawed without any military resistance from the armed forces. The new regime is firmly committed to restoring private ownership. The monopoly of foreign trade no longer exists. There is no planned economy. And, what is decisive, the ruling bureaucracy is performing a qualitatively different function. It is no longer possible to speak of its ‘contradictory character’. Although the old bureaucracy began the restorationist project, it was incapable of carrying it through. That is the real meaning of Yeltsin’s ‘countercoup’.

Again we have no problem in agreeing that capitalism will face acute problems in the ex-Soviet Union. The absence of any large-scale indigenous capitalist class, the severity of the economic crisis it faces, the absence of large scale western investment and the deep recession in the west make it almost inevitable that the most that can be ‘achieved’ in the short to medium term is a capitalism on the level of the ‘Third World’. This in turn determines the kind of Bonapartist regime that has emerged, resting in large part on functionaries of the old regime, but purged of elements which stand in the way of restoration.

The idea that the break-up of the Soviet Union places insoluble problems in the path of restoration is unfortunately wishful thinking. To some extent it has aided Yeltsin. Whilst ridding himself of some of the most difficult problems (the Baltic States, Transcaucasia, Georgia etc), he has through the CIS been able to preserve Russian economic and military hegemony. He has been able to play the role of mediator in a number of conflicts (eg Moldova, South Ossettia) and has succeeded thus far in defusing the Black Sea question. Your analysis fails to recognise that Yeltsin was astute enough to see that for the restorationist project to succeed and for Russia to extricate itself from a number of hopeless national conflicts, it was necessary to break up the Soviet Union. Why else would he have opposed Gorbachev over the Baltic?

You also seem to underestimate the extent to which the policy of the imperialists towards the Soviet Union shifted in the last year of its existence. Initially they hoped that it would be possible to deliver a unitary USSR into the hands of capitalist restoration. Consequently, for a long period they were very reluctant to publicly support the independence claims of non-Russian republics such as the Baltic states, and instead preferred to channel their efforts through Gorbachev, trying to prod him down the road of ‘radical reform’. But, when the extent of the economic collapse became apparent, the national conflicts deepened and, finally, the coup took place, imperialist policy shifted in favour of cultivating individual republics’ leaderships. Something very similar took place in Yugoslavia. It is rather like a huge corporation in difficulties. When the bosses realise that it is impossible to keep the entire operation going, they concentrate on its most profitable sectors.

For you, the outcome of the August coup has been a deepening of the fight between revolution and counter-revolution. Comrades, the task of developing a perspective is not to leave things at this level of generality. What are the relative proportions of these two opposite movements? Have the revolutionary forces grown significantly? What resistance have the restorationists met? What is / are the predominant outlook(s) of the trade unions? What of the growth of extreme nationalists, anti-semites and fascists?

We freely admit that we have not shared your ‘optimistic’ perspective, and we think our assessment has been proved correct. The success with which nationalists have mobilised, not only against the centre but against other minority nationalities in many areas, tells us something about the consciousness of many workers. Of course we do not underestimate the significance of the emergence of new workers’ organisations but, as we told you at the time, the perspective of ‘dual power’ and a revolutionary situation emerging in the summer of 1991, was false. The coup was not a response to such a situation and the level of workers’ response to it was quite low. In a sense, you have been forced to draw back from your positions of last year. Where you saw a revolutionary situation, you now speak of revolution and counter-revolution. We repeat the question: what has been the progress of the counter-revolution?

You appear to tie the possibility of intervention to, firstly, the continued existence of a workers’ state and, secondly, the position that the working class has not suffered serious defeats. It is as if to admit anything else would be to succumb to defeatism and pessimism. We do not believe that this is the case. The task of revolutionaries is, first of all ‘to face reality squarely’, ‘to call things by their real names’. We have not written off the ex-Soviet working class. When you interviewed Kagarlitsky he was very equivocal about defending the existing workers’ state. But there was a ‘rational kernel’ to what he said, when he anticipated that the real development of a workers movement would probably take place against the effects of restoration.

Applying the method you use in relation to the ex-Soviet Union, it would logically follow that the countries of Eastern Europe are also workers’ states – even after two to three years of pro-bourgeois governments. We say ‘logically’, because in most countries there have been neither classical class defeats at the hands of a nascent bourgeoisie nor civil wars of the type envisaged by Revolution Betrayed. This creates the possibility of defending ‘workers’ states’ with semi-fascist governments.

Contained in this apparently simple question are many of the methodological problems of the post-war Trotskyist movement. The ‘Buffer Zone’ debate of 1948-51 did little to clarify matters. In fact, it ended in a compromise and every time the ‘Russian Question’ came up – China, Cuba, Afghanistan – it led to more confusion.

All that the category ‘workers’ state’ means at root is a state in which the bourgeoisie has been suppressed and replaced by a proletarian dictatorship either directly exercised by the working class or in a mutant form via a bureaucracy. To the extent that a bourgeoisie continues to exist, it is an ‘oppressed’ class, politically repressed and economically subordinate. To secure its rule: any proletarian dictatorship is obliged to embark on the creation of a non-capitalist economy. The central mistake of the post-war Trotskyists was either to attribute this development to progressive qualities of the Stalinist leadership, or to assume that workers’ states necessarily emerged as a consequence of working class struggle (however distorted). The present debate is a bit like that of the 1940’s run backwards. Although we Trotskyists all agree on a category called ‘workers’ state’ we do so for different reasons! At one pole are those who have a purely superstructural explanation; at the other pole lie the ‘economists’. Workers Power, who generally tend towards the latter camp, have at least attempted a theoretical overview in their book The Degenerated Revolution. But in their attempt to render theory more profound they have ended up tying themselves in knots. While they argue that the key determinant in the creation of workers’ states was planning (where does this leave the early USSR?) the dissolution of workers’ states is dependent on the restoration of the law of value. Given that It may take years for a ‘normal’ functioning of the law of value to re-emerge, where does this leave the Marxist theory of the state since, in the meantime, the ‘bodies of armed men’ will certainly be defending bourgeois property relations (albeit very weak ones).

To sum up: in theoretical terms the closest analogy to the present situation was that experienced in Eastern Europe in 1944-1947/8. Of course, this analogy cannot be stretched beyond its limits since the world political and economic situation is very different. For Marxists, the decisive criterion in determining the class character of a given state is the nature of the property relations it defends.

In your letter you stress the importance of deepening a discussion on the Trotskyist movement. We fully agree, and for that reason hope that you will respond to our document The Collapse of the ‘Order of Yalta and Potsdam’ and the Rebuilding of the FI as well as the large amount of material we have published in our press. In fact, we specifically raised this proposal in our letters of December 31, 1991, and February 29, 1992. We intend publishing the materials relating to our debate on Germany in the first issue of our theoretical journal In defence of Marxism, which should be ready in one month. (See ‘Debate on German reunification’ in In defence of Marxism No.1).

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In defence of Marxism Index (1992-1996)

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