Louis, Thank you for the links on the organizational question. I hope to get to them... and when I do I hope to maybe ask, questions or annoy you, depending on your mood ... or my lack of felicity.
In some ways, I think that revolutionary socialists after 1917 mistook special historical circumstances which led to revolution as a general rule for bringing about a revolution. How much was it a coincidence that one particular kind of organization came on top simply because it had a program that temporarily fit the masses desires for a quit to intolerable circumstances but had little to do with the theory of party organization? In all chaotic circumstances the best organized forces have an advantage, no matter if that organization is democratic, authoritarian, or theocratic. In the myth of Communists, the Bolshevik party post 1917, became an armed disciplined Jesuitical democratic-centralist combat force and that myth became a design for making a revolution. But the pre-1917 party, was baggy, not united, and its members rarely followed *the* party line because most members were not in touch with the part of the party that propagated the line. The French situation, the German situation, the Spanish situation, the Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Indian situations, all needed to develop different types of organizations, with their own discipline and organizational levels, etc. What kind of organization could best bring about an internationalist cooperative society based on freedom, equality, and solidarity, i.e. a socialist economy based on democratic forms? I’m not sure, but I am sure the pre-revolutionary party organization should look as various as the circumstances. I believe Trotsky himself “mystified” the “Leninist” organizational structure as a key to world revolution partially because it was his only tool in exile and partially because he saw himself in the strange circumstance of being the Last Leninist of the Russian Revolution. What Trotsky mystified Cannon fetishized. I admire Cannon, but he was a better politician in pre-Stalinist days. This is all to say the following about Michael’s original question. Trotsky had a long Marxist view of history, a good historian’s feeling for grand political maneuvering, and his writings on Hitler, Mussolini, and European politics in general was brilliant. Putting aside the party question, it is hard to say how he would have reacted to the post-1944 era, the Soviet victory, the Atomic era, the Cold War, the Chinese Revolution, the Greek Civil War, the Korean War, the Vietnam Wars, the neocolonial project, the Cuban Revolution, the movements for Civil Rights in the U.S., the various postwar philosophical movements, the first human in space, the stirrings of women’s liberation, etc. The problem is, would Trotsky interpret all political movements through the lens of the party question? Or would we get more concrete sociological and cultural insights? The theoretical concept of “permanent revolution” is not necessarily bound to the question of party organization. Interpreting the Global South circa 1946 to 1966, through Trotsky’s historical lens, apart from the party question would have provided much insight. Trotsky’s interpretation of the survival and apparent expansion of the Stalinist bureaucratic caste might have helped us to understand how brittle that caste really was. Or not. Jerry On Sun, Apr 11, 2021 at 11:17 AM Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > On 4/11/21 11:03 AM, Jerry Monaco wrote: > > > I’ve wondered all my adult life about this question. But I think every > Trotskyist groupuscule had its own version. To take on the task seriously > and with humility, thinking about the contingencies of thought and > Trotsky’s combination of stubbornness and feeling for reality would be more > than difficult. > > I spent 11 years in the SWP, a group that Trotsky regarded as his flagship > section. I saw it degenerate into a bizarre cult-sect that adapted to the > Trump presidency. > > After leaving the group in 1978, I became part of a informal tendency > trying to leave sectarianism behind. As much of Trotsky's Marxism sticks > with me, he never grasped how damaging Zinoviev's "Bolshevization" > Comintern was. Organizational principles have to flow from the mass > movement, not from schemas or formulas such as Zinoviev cooked up. > > Over 20 years ago I began grappling with the "organizational" question, > with 117 articles collected here: > > http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/organization.htm > > This > <http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/organization/lenin_in_context.htm> > will give you a flavor for my approach: > > Let us review the aftermath of the 1928 world congress of the Comintern. > Bukharin lost power to Stalin. Stalin then unseated Jay Lovestone, > Bukharin's supporter and leader of the American Communist Party, and turned > over party leadership to William Z. Foster, a Stalin loyalist. > > There was another American Communist leader by the name of James P. Cannon > who went his own way and aligned himself with the Trotskyist Left > Opposition. > > Cannon was born in Rosedale, Kansas in 1890 and joined the Socialist Party > in 1908. He then also joined the anarcho-syndicalist IWW three years later. > In the IWW Cannon worked with Vincent St. John, "Big Bill" Haywood and > Frank Little as a strike organizer and journalist. He switched allegiance > to the newly formed Communist Party in September 1919 and won an election > to the Central Committee in 1920. He served on the Communist International > Presidium from 1922 to 1923. Next he headed the International Labor Defense > from 1925 to 1928. > > After he declared for Trotskyism, the CP expelled him. Along with Max > Shachtman and Martin Abern, he went on to form the Communist League of > America, the first American Trotskyist group. This group eventually > developed into the contemporary Socialist Workers Party, a tiny group that > has disavowed any connection with Trotskyism. > > Cannon set the sectarian tone of American Trotskyism at its infancy. In a > speech to the New York branch of his movement, on December 23, 1930, Cannon > defined the relation of the opposition to "class" and "vanguard". > > 1. The Communist Party was still the vanguard, but the Trotskyist > opposition was the "vanguard of this vanguard." > > 2. The task of the opposition was to make the "opposition line the line of > the proletarian vanguard." > > Cannon invoked Trotsky's words to support his approach. "The revolutionary > Marxists are now again reduced (not for the first time and probably not for > the last) to being an international propaganda society....It seems that the > fact that we are very few frightens you. Of course, it is unpleasant. > Naturally, it would be better to have behind us organizations numbering > millions. But how are we, the vanguard of the vanguard, to have such > organizations the day after the world revolution has suffered catastrophic > defeats brought on by the Menshevik leadership hiding under the false mask > of Bolshevism? Yes, how?" ("The Militant", 1929) > > Has there ever been an "ideological" vanguard, Trotskyist or otherwise? > The answer is no. This is an idealistic conception of politics that has > been disastrous for Trotskyism throughout its entire existence. A vanguard > is a goal, not a set of ideas. The goal of the vanguard is to coordinate > the revolutionary conquest of power by the workers and their allies. > Building a true vanguard will require correct ideas but these ideas can > only emerge out of dialectical relationship with mass struggles. To > artificially separate a revolutionary program from the mass movement is a > guarantee that you will turn into a sectarian. > > > > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#7914): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/7914 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/82013043/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
