From The Renegade Eye Blog-The Arab Revolution - Manifesto of the International Marxist Tendency. Part One: Revolution until victory! - Thawra hatta'l nasr!

The Arab Revolution - Manifesto of the International Marxist Tendency. Part One: Revolution until victory! - Thawra hatta'l nasr!

Written by International Marxist Tendency
Monday, 14 March 2011

The Arab Revolution is a source of inspiration to workers and young people everywhere. It has rocked every country in the Middle East and North Africa to their foundations and its reverberations are being felt all over the world. These dramatic events mark a decisive turning point in human history. These events are not isolated accidents apart from the general process of the world revolution.

Cairo, January 31. Photo: Darkroom ProductionsWhat we see opening up before us is the early stages of the world socialist revolution. The same general process will unfold, albeit at different rhythms, around the globe. There will inevitably be ebbs and flows, defeats as well as victories, disappointments as well as successes. We must be prepared for this. But the general tendency will be towards a greater acceleration of the class struggle on a world scale.

The marvellous movement of the masses in Tunisia and Egypt is only the beginning. Revolutionary developments are on the order of the day and no country can consider itself immune from the general process. The revolutions in the Arab world are a manifestation of the crisis of capitalism on a world scale. The events in Tunisia and Egypt show the advanced capitalist countries their future as in a mirror.

Tunisia
Tunisia was apparently the most stable Arab country. Its economy was booming and fat profits were being made by foreign investors. President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali ruled with an iron hand. Everything seemed to be for the best in the best of all capitalist worlds.

The bourgeois commentators look at the surface and do not see the processes that are taking place in the depths of society. Hence they were blind to the processes at work in North Africa. They denied any possibility of a revolution in Tunisia. Now all the bourgeois strategists, economists, academics and “experts” make a public exhibition of their perplexity.

The country erupted after the self-immolation of the unemployed youth Mohamed Bouazizi. Hegel pointed out that necessity expresses itself through accident. This was not the only case of suicide by a desperate unemployed youth in Tunisia. But this time it had unexpected effects. The masses poured onto the streets and started a Revolution.

The first reaction of the regime was to crush the rebellion by force. When that did not work, they resorted to concessions, which only served to pour petrol on the flames. Heavy police repression did not stop the masses. The regime did not use the army because they could not use it. One bloody clash and it would have broken in pieces.

The Tunisian working class launched a wave of rolling regional strikes, culminating in a national strike. It was at this point that Ben Ali had to flee to Saudi Arabia. This was the first victory of the Arab Revolution. It changed everything.

When Ben Ali fled, there was a vacuum of power which had to be filled by revolutionary committees. They took power at local and in some places at regional level. In Redeyef, in the Gafsa phosphate mining basin, there is no authority other than that of the trade unions. The police station was burnt down, the judge fled, and the town hall was taken over by the local union which has its headquarters there. Mass meetings are held in the main square and addressed by the trade union leaders on a regular basis. They have set up committees to deal with transport, public order, local services etc.

The masses were not satisfied or pacified by their initial victory. They have been out in large numbers on the streets against any attempt to recreate the old order under another name. All the old parties have been completely discredited. When Gannouchi tried to install new governors in the regions, the people rejected them. Hundreds of thousands protested and they had to be removed.

In Tunisia the lava of revolution has not yet cooled. The workers are demanding the confiscation of the wealth of the Ben Ali family. Since they controlled vast sections of the economy, this is a direct challenge to the rule of the capitalist class in Tunisia. The confiscation of the property of the Ben Ali clique is a socialist demand.

The Tunisian workers have kicked out unpopular bosses. The left-wing 14th January Front have called for the convening of a national assembly of revolutionary committees. This is a correct demand but so far no concrete steps have been taken to implement it. Despite the lack of leadership the Revolution continues to advance with giant strides, toppling Gannouchi and raising the movement to new heights. Our slogan must be: thawra hatta'l nasr! - Revolution until victory!

The Egyptian Revolution
Tunisia opened up the Arab revolution, but it is a small country on the margins of the Maghreb. Egypt, on the other hand, is a huge country of 82 million, and it stands at the heart of the Arab world. Its numerous and militant proletariat has shown its revolutionary spirit many times. The Egyptian Revolution undoubtedly reflected Tunisia’s influence but was also based on other factors: high unemployment, falling living standards and hatred towards a corrupt and repressive government.

Tunisia acted as a catalyst. But a catalyst can only work when all the necessary conditions are present. The Tunisian Revolution showed what was possible. But it would be entirely false to assume that this was the only, or even the main, cause. The conditions for a revolutionary explosion had already matured in all these countries. All that was required was a single spark to ignite the powder keg. Tunisia provided it.

The movement in Egypt showed the amazing heroism of the masses. The security forces could not use bullets against the main demonstrations in Tahrir square for fear that a Tunisian scenario could develop. The regime imagined that it would be enough, as in the past, to crack a few heads. But it was not enough. The mood had changed. Quantity changed into quality. The old fear was gone. This time it was not the people but the police who had to flee.

This led directly to the occupation of Tahrir square. The regime sent in the army, but the soldiers fraternized with the masses. The Egyptian army is made up of conscripts. The upper ranks of the army, the generals, are corrupt. They are part of the regime, but the rank and file are drawn from among the workers and poor peasants. And the lower and middle ranks of the officer corps are drawn from the middle class and open to the pressure of the masses.

Opposition parties demanded reforms, including the dissolution of the parliament installed in December after fraudulent elections, the holding of new elections, and a declaration from Mubarak that neither he nor his son would run for president in the elections scheduled for September. But in reality the leadership was lagging far behind the masses. The movement went far beyond these demands. The revolutionary people would accept nothing less than the immediate removal of Mubarak and the complete dissolution of his regime.

Beginning with such elementary demands as an end to the emergency laws, the firing of his interior minister, and a higher minimum wage, the demonstrators, emboldened by numbers, raised their slogans to a higher, more revolutionary, level: “Down with Mubarak!” “The people demand the fall of the regime!” or simply: “Go!” In this way, the revolutionary consciousness of the masses was raised by leaps and bounds.

The state and revolution
It is futile to attempt to explain the events in Egypt and Tunisia without the central role of the masses, which was the motor force of events from start to finish. Bourgeois and petty bourgeois “experts” now try to play down the importance of the action of the masses. They see only what is happening at the tops. For them it is only a question of a “coup”, of “the army passing power to itself.” The same bourgeois historians assure us that the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 was “only a coup”. They are not capable of looking history in the face, but instead are fascinated by its hindquarters.

Their “profound” analysis is superficial in the most literal sense of the word. For the bourgeois philosophers in general everything only exists in its outward manifestations. It is like trying to understand the movement of the waves without bothering to study the submarine ocean currents. Even after the masses had taken to the streets of Cairo, Hillary Clinton insisted that Egypt was stable. She based her conclusion on the fact that the state and its repressive apparatus remained intact. But in just two weeks it was in ruins.

The existence of a powerful apparatus of state repression is no guarantee against revolution, and may be just the opposite. In a bourgeois democracy the ruling class has certain safety valves that can warn it when the situation is getting out of control. But in a dictatorial or totalitarian regime there is no opportunity for people to voice their feelings within the political system. Therefore upheavals can happen suddenly, with no warning, and immediately take an extreme form.

The armed forces constituted the main basis of the old regime. But like any other army it reflected society and came under the influence of the masses. On paper it was a formidable force. But armies are composed of human beings, and are subject to the same pressures as any other social stratum or institution. In the moment of truth, neither Mubarak nor Ben Ali could use the army against the people.

The armies of many Arab countries are not the same as the armies of the developed capitalist world. They are, in the last analysis, also capitalist armies, armed bodies of men in defence of private property, but at the same time they are also the products of the colonial revolution. Of course the tops of the army represent the interests of the ruling classes, but, as we have seen in Egypt, the ordinary soldiers and lower ranking officers are much closer to the working people and in face of a revolutionary upsurge can go over to the revolution. We saw this in Nasser's coup in 1952.

The revolution provoked a crisis in the state. Tensions were growing between the army and the police and between the police and the protesters. This is why the army council in the end decided to ditch Mubarak. The army was clearly shaken by the events and showed signs of cracking under the pressure of the masses. There were cases of officers dropping their weapons and joining the demonstrators in Tahrir square. Under these circumstances there can be no question of using the army against the revolutionary people.

Role of the proletariat
During the first two weeks power was in the streets. But having won power in the streets, the leaders of the movement did not know what to do with it. The idea that all that was necessary is to gather a large number of people in Tahrir square was fatally flawed. Firstly, it left the question of state power out of account. But this is the central question that decides all other questions. Secondly, it was a passive strategy, whereas what was required was an active and offensive strategy.

In Tunisia, mass demonstrations forced Ben Ali into exile and overthrew the ruling party. That convinced many Egyptians that their regime might prove equally fragile. The problem was that Mubarak refused to go. Despite all the superhuman efforts and courage of the protesters the demonstrations failed to overthrow Mubarak. Mass demonstrations are important because they are a way of bringing the formerly inert masses to their feet, giving them a sense of their own power. But the movement could not have succeeded unless it was taken to a new and higher level. This could only be done by the working class.

This reawakening of the proletariat was expressed in a wave of strikes and protests in recent years. This was one of the main factors that prepared the Revolution. It is also the key to its future success. The dramatic entry of the Egyptian proletariat on the stage of history marked a turning point in the destinies of the Revolution. That is what saved the Revolution and led to the overthrow of Mubarak. In one city after another the workers of Egypt organized strikes and factory occupations. They drove out the hated managers and corrupt trade union leaders.

The revolution moved onto a higher level. It turned from a demonstration into a national insurrection. What conclusion must be drawn from this? Only this: that the struggle for democracy can be victorious only to the degree that it is led by the proletariat, the millions of workers who produce the wealth of society, and without whose permission not a light bulb shines, not a telephone rings and not a wheel turns.

Reawakening of the Egyptian nation
Marxism has nothing in common with economic determinism. Mass unemployment and poverty are an explosive issue. But there was something else present in the revolutionary equation: something more elusive, which cannot be quantified but it is a no less potent cause of discontent than material deprivation. It is the burning feeling of humiliation in the hearts and minds of an ancient and noble people dominated by imperialism for generations.

There is the same general feeling of humiliation in all the Arab peoples, enslaved and oppressed by imperialism for over 100 years, subordinate to the dictates, first of the European powers, then of the transatlantic giant. This feeling can find a distorted expression in the guise of Islamic fundamentalism that rejects everything western as evil. But the rise of Islamism in recent years was only the expression of the failure of the Left to offer a genuine socialist alternative to the pressing problems of the Arab masses.

In the 1950s and 60s, Gamal Abdel Nasser’s dream of Arab socialism and Pan-Arabism aroused the hopes of the Arab masses everywhere. Egypt became a beacon of hope to the oppressed and downtrodden Arab masses. But Nasser did not carry the programe to its logical conclusion and under Anwar Sadat it was thrown into reverse. Egypt became a pawn in the great power politics of the USA. In the three decades of Mubarak's rule these tendencies were multiplied a thousand fold. Mubarak was a stooge of the USA and Israel who shamelessly betrayed the Palestinian cause.

In the last three or four decades the Arab psyche was coloured by disappointment, defeats and humiliation. But now the wheel of history has turned 180 degrees and everything is changing. The idea of revolution has a very concrete meaning in the Arab world today. It is capturing the minds of millions and is becoming a material force. Ideas which connected with only a few are now convincing and mobilizing millions.

Revolutions are great clarifiers. They test all tendencies. Overnight the ideas of individual terrorism or Islamic fundamentalism have been swept aside by the revolutionary torrent. The Revolution has reawakened half-forgotten ideas. It promises a return to the old traditions of socialism and pan-Arab nationalism, which have never completely disappeared from the popular consciousness. It is no accident that songs of resistance from the past are being revived. Images of Nasser have appeared on demonstrations.

We are witnessing a new Arab renaissance. A new consciousness is being forged in the heat of struggle. Democratic demands are fundamental for the people under such circumstances. People who have been enslaved for a long time finally cast aside the old passive and fatalistic mentality and raise themselves up to their full stature.

One can see the same process in every strike, for a strike resembles a revolution in miniature and a Revolution resembles a strike of the whole of society against its oppressors. Once they get active, men and women rediscover their human dignity. They begin to take their destiny into their own hands and demand their rights: we demand to be treated with respect. That is the essence of every genuine Revolution.

The Revolution is raising consciousness to a higher level. It is cutting the ground from under the feet of the reactionaries who have confused the masses and befuddled their senses with the poisonous fumes of religious fundamentalism. Despite the lying propaganda of the imperialists, the Islamists played little or no role in the Revolution in Tunisia and Egypt. The Revolution despises sectarianism. It cuts across all divisions and unites men and women, young and old, Muslim and Christian.

The revolutionary movement cuts across religion. It cuts across gender. It brings the Arab women onto the streets to fight alongside their men. It cuts across all national, ethnic and linguistic divisions. It defends oppressed minorities. It gathers together all the living forces of the Arab nation and unites them in common struggle. It enables the revolutionary people to rise to its full height, to recover its dignity and to rejoice in its freedom. Men and women can raise their heads and say with pride: “We will no longer be slaves”.

The limits of spontaneity
The Revolution in Tunisia and Egypt came from below. It was not organized by any of the existing political parties or leaders. All of them were left far behind by a movement they had not foreseen and for which they were completely unprepared. If there is one lesson to be drawn from the experience of the Egyptian Revolution, it is this: the revolutionary people can trust nobody but themselves – trust in your own strength, your own solidarity, your own courage, your own organization.

When we look at Egypt the historical comparison that immediately comes to mind is Barcelona in 1936. With no party, no leadership, no programme and no plan the workers marched on the barracks with extraordinary courage and smashed the fascists. They saved the situation and could have taken power. But the question is precisely: why did they not take power? The answer is the lack of leadership. More accurately, they were let down by the anarchist leaders of the CNT in whom they placed their trust. Whoever has illusions in anarchism had better study the history of the Spanish Revolution!

At first sight the movements in Tunisia and Egypt appear to be a spontaneous revolution with no organization or leadership. But this definition is not really exact. The movement was only partly spontaneous. It was called into being by certain groups and individuals. It has leaders who take initiatives, put forward slogans, call demonstrations and strikes.

A lot of emphasis has been placed on the role of social networks as Facebook and Twitter in Tunisia and Egypt (and earlier in Iran). There is no doubt that the new technology has played a role and is extremely useful to revolutionaries and made it impossible for states such as Egypt to retain the information monopoly they once enjoyed. But those who exaggerate the purely technological side of things are distorting the real essence of the Revolution, that is, the role of the masses and the working class in particular. That is because they wish to portray the Revolution as a mainly middle class affair, led exclusively by intellectuals and Internet enthusiasts. This is entirely false.

In the first place, only a small proportion of the population have access to Internet. Secondly, the regime practically disconnected the Internet and disrupted mobile telephone services. This did not stop the movement for a single minute. Without Internet and mobile phones the people organized demonstrations using a very old technology, which is known as human speech. The same technology was used to bring about the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution, which sadly had no access to Facebook or Twitter but did a tolerably good job anyway. An even bigger role than Facebook, however, was played by Al Jazeera. Millions of people could watch the events as they unfolded, day by day, hour by hour.

As we have seen, it is not true to say that the Egyptian Revolution had no leaders. There was a kind of leadership right from the beginning. It consisted of a loose coalition of more than a dozen small parties and activist groups. It was they who issued a Facebook call for a “day of rage” to coincide with Police Day on January 25th. Some 80,000 Egyptian web-surfers signed up, pledging to march on the streets to voice demands for reform.

Both in Tunisia and Egypt initially the demonstrations were convened by groups of mainly young people who provided the leadership that the “official” opposition parties failed to provide. The Economist refers to “the emergence of loosely related groups pressing for reform, run via the internet by youths of generally secular outlook but no particular ideology. Some coalesced around labour rights. Some promoted human rights or academic freedom.”

These actions, then, were carried out by a decisive minority and therefore they were not purely spontaneous. But this was just the tip of a very large iceberg. Public sympathy was on the side of the protesters. The nationwide protest turned into a general uprising against the Mubarak regime, with simultaneous mass protests all over Egypt. So in fact, there was a kind of leadership, although not with very clear ideas. However, in both Tunisia and Egypt the response from the masses took the organizers by surprise who did not dream of the extent of this support they would get. None of the organizers anticipated the huge numbers that answered the call, and fewer still expected the riot police to let them get very far.

It is true that the “spontaneous” character of the Revolution provided a certain protection against the state, and in that sense it was positive. But the lack of an adequate leadership is also a serious weakness that has very negative effects later on.

The fact that in both cases the masses succeeded in overthrowing Ben Ali and Mubarak without the aid of a conscious leadership bears eloquent witness to the colossal revolutionary potential of the working class in all countries. But this statement does not exhaust the question under consideration by any means. The weakness of a purely spontaneous movement was seen in Iran, where despite the tremendous heroism of the masses, the Revolution ended in defeat – at least for the time being.

The argument that “we do not need leaders” does not bear the slightest scrutiny. Even in a strike of half an hour in a factory there is always leadership. The workers will elect people from their number to represent them and to organize the strike. Those who are elected are not arbitrary or accidental elements, but generally the most courageous, experienced and intelligent workers. They are selected on that basis.

Leadership is important, and the party is important. A child of six could understand this proposition, which is the ABC of Marxism. But after A, B and C there are other letters in the alphabet. There are some who call themselves Marxists who imagine that unless and until a Marxist party stands at the head of the proletariat, there can be no question of a revolution. Such ridiculous pedantry has nothing in common with Marxism. The revolution will not unfold in an orderly manner, with the revolutionary party conducting the masses with a baton.

In 1917 Lenin said that the working class is always far more revolutionary than even the most revolutionary party. The experience of the Russian Revolution proved that he was correct. Let us remind ourselves that in April 1917 Lenin had to appeal to the workers over the heads of the Bolshevik Central Committee, which adopted a conservative attitude to the question of proletarian revolution in Russia.

The same conservative mentality, the same aristocratic distrust of the masses, can be seen in many of those who regard themselves as the “vanguard” of the class, but who, in practice, act as a break on the movement in a decisive situation. It is sufficient to refer to the sorry role of the old so-called vanguard in Iran, who had survived from the 1979 revolution, but who stood aloof from the revolutionary masses who came onto the streets in their millions to challenge the regime in 2009.

Do Marxists say that unless and until the revolutionary party is built and stands at the head of the working class, revolution is impossible? No, we have never said such a thing. The revolution proceeds according to its own laws, which develop independently of the will of revolutionaries. A revolution will occur when all the objective conditions are present. The masses cannot wait until the revolutionary party has been built. However, once all the objective conditions are present, the factor of leadership is indeed decisive. Very often it means the difference between victory and defeat.

Revolution is a struggle of living forces. Victory is not predetermined. In fact, at one point, the Egyptian Revolution came very close to defeat. Tactically speaking, staying in Tahrir square was not the best option. This showed the limited outlook of the organizers. Mubarak almost outmanoeuvred the movement, buying off some layers, and mobilizing the lumpenproletarian thugs for vicious attacks. It could have succeeded. Only the decisive intervention of the masses, and particularly the intervention of the working class, prevented defeat.

The problem of leadership
The masses never have a finished plan at the beginning of a revolution. They learn through struggle. They may not know exactly what they want, but they know very well what they do not want. And that is sufficient to propel the movement forward.

Leadership is a very important element in war. This is not to say that it is the only element. Even the most brilliant leaders cannot guarantee success if the objective conditions are unfavourable. And sometimes it is possible to win a battle with bad generals. In a Revolution, which is the highest expression of the war between the classes, the working class has the advantage of numbers and its control of key parts of the productive apparatus of society. But the ruling class possesses many other advantages.

The state is an apparatus for maintaining the dictatorship of a minority of exploiters over the exploited majority. The ruling class holds many other powerful levers in its hands: the press, radio and television, the schools and universities, the state bureaucracy and also the spiritual bureaucrats and thought police in the mosques and churches. In addition it possesses an army of professional advisers, politicians, economists and other specialists in the arts of manipulation and deception.

In order to fight against this apparatus of repression, which has been built up and perfected over many decades, the working class must develop its own organizations, led by an experienced and determined leadership that has absorbed the lessons of history and is prepared for all eventualities. To argue that it is possible to defeat the ruling class and its state without organization and leadership is like inviting an army to go into battle untrained and unprepared to face a professional force led by experienced officers.

In most cases, such a conflict will end in defeat. But even if the Revolution succeeds in overwhelming the enemy in the first charge, it will not be enough to guarantee ultimate victory. The enemy will regroup, reorganize, modify its tactics, and prepare for a counteroffensive, which will be all the more dangerous because the masses will have been lulled into believing that the war has already been won. What at first appeared to be a moment of triumph and joy turns out to be the moment of extreme danger for the fate of the Revolution, and the lack of an adequate leadership in such cases will prove to be its Achilles’ heel, a fatal weakness.

The leadership of the protest movement contained diverse elements and different ideological tendencies. In the last analysis, this reflects different class interests. In the beginning this fact is disguised by the general appeal to “unity”. But the development of the Revolution will inevitably give rise to a process of internal differentiation. The bourgeois elements and the middle class “democrats” will accept the crumbs offered by the regime. They will compromise and enter into deals behind the backs of the masses. At a certain stage they will desert the Revolution and pass over to the camp of reaction. This is already happening.

In the end it is the most determined revolutionary elements that can guarantee the final victory of the Revolution: those who are not prepared to compromise and are willing to go to the end. New explosions are implicit in the situation. In the end one side or the other must triumph. The objective situation is ripe for the assumption of power by the working class. Only the lack of the subjective factor – the revolutionary party and leadership – has prevented this from taking place so far. The overcoming of the problem of leadership is therefore the central problem of the Revolution.

Intrigues at the top
It was the national insurrection that persuaded the generals that only Mubarak’s departure could calm Egypt’s streets and restore “order”. This was, and remains, their overriding obsession. All talk of democracy is merely a fig-leaf to disguise this fact. The generals were part of the old regime and participated in all the dirty work of corruption and repression. They fear the Revolution like the plague and want only a return to “normality” – that is, a return to the old regime under a different name.

The ruling class has many strategies for defeating a Revolution. If it cannot do so by force, it will resort to cunning. When the ruling class faces the prospect of losing everything they will always offer concessions. The overthrows of Ben Ali and Mubarak were a great victory, but they were only the first act of the revolutionary drama.

The representatives of the old regime remain in positions of power; the old state apparatus, the army, police and bureaucracy, is still in place. The imperialists are intriguing with the tops of the army and the old leaders to cheat the masses out of everything they have won. They offer a compromise, but it is a compromise that would maintain their power and privileges.

Defeated on the streets, the old regime is striving to strike a bargain, that is, try to fool the leaders of the opposition, so that they in turn could fool the masses. The idea was that once the initiative was in the hands of the “negotiators”, the masses would become mere passive onlookers. The real decisions would be made elsewhere, behind locked doors, behind the backs of the people.

The men of the old regime are slowly beginning to recover their nerve. They have begun to feel more confident and redouble their manoeuvres and intrigues, basing themselves on the more moderate sections of the opposition. The masses feel uneasy. They do not want the movement to be hijacked by professional politicians and careerists who are bargaining with the generals like merchants haggling in a bazaar. But the question remains: how to carry the Revolution forward? What needs to be done?

As the movement becomes more radicalized, some of the elements who played a leading role in the early stages will fall behind. Some will abandon it; others will go over to the enemy. This corresponds to different class interests. The poor people, the unemployed, the workers, the “men of no property” have no interest in maintaining the old order. They want to sweep away not only Mubarak but the entire regime of oppression, exploitation and inequality. But the bourgeois liberals see the struggle for democracy as the path to a comfortable career in parliament. They have no interest in carrying through the Revolution to the end or of disturbing existing property relations.

For the bourgeois Liberals the mass movement is only a convenient bargaining chip, something with which they can threaten the government to give them a few more crumbs. They will always betray the Revolution. No trust whatever can be placed in these people. El Baradei now says that he opposes the constitutional amendments, but instead of demanding an immediate constituent assembly, he says that elections should be postponed, that the conditions are not present, that the time is not right, and so on and so forth. For these gentlemen the time for democracy is never right. For the masses who have shed their blood for the Revolution, the time for democracy is now!

The IMT says:

•No trust in the generals!
•No trust for self-appointed “leaders” who call for restoring “normality”!
•Keep the mass movement in being!
•Organize and strengthen the revolutionary committees!
•For a clean out of all the supporters of the old regime!
•No deals with the old regime!
•The current "interim regime" has no legitimacy and should be removed immediately. Demand the convening of a Constituent Assembly now!
The Muslim Brotherhood
Some, including Khamenei in Iran, say that the revolutionary movement we are witnessing is about religion, that it is “an Islamic reawakening”. But this is clearly not the case. Even the main clerics in Egypt admit it. They fear being swept aside if they try to portray the Revolution as a religious movement. It is a movement of all religions, and therefore of no religion. There was no animosity against Christians on the demonstrations. There was not even a hint of anti-Semitism.

Religious sectarianism is a weapon used by reactionaries to confuse the people. The December attacks on the Coptic Christians were clearly engineered by the secret police in order to create a sectarian divide and divert attention from the real problems of the masses. They are resorting to the same dirty tactic now in order to divide the masses on sectarian lines, fomenting conflict between Muslims and Copts in an attempt to split and disorient the people and undermine the Revolution.

The revolts in Tunisia and Egypt are largely secularist and democratic, and often deliberately excluding the Islamists. The notion that the Muslim Brotherhood was the “only real opposition” was false to the core. The basic demands of the Egyptian demonstrators are for jobs, food and democratic rights. This is nothing to do with the Islamists and is a bridge to socialism, which has deep roots in the traditions of Egypt and other Arab countries.

Some misguided people on the left have described the movements in Tunisia and Egypt as "middle class" revolutions. These same so-called left-wingers have been flirting with reactionary groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood for a long time. They try to justify this betrayal of Marxism on the grounds of the so-called anti-imperialist stance of the leaders. This is false from start to finish. The so-called Islamists are anti-imperialists in words only, but in practice represent a reactionary trend. They are, in fact, the fifth wheel of the cart of the old regime.

The imperialists have tried to use the Islamists as a bogeyman to confuse the masses and conceal the real nature of the Arab Revolution. They say: “Look! If Mubarak goes, al-Qaeda will take his place.” Mubarak himself told the Egyptian people that if he went it would be “like Iraq”. These were all lies. The role of the fundamentalists and organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood has been grotesquely exaggerated. Such organizations do not represent a force for progress. They pose as anti-imperialists but they stand for the interests of the landlords and capitalists. In the last analysis they will always betray the cause of the workers and peasants.

It is frankly a scandal that certain European left groups, and even some who call themselves Marxists, have supported the Islamists. This is nothing less than a betrayal of the proletarian revolution. It is true that the Muslim Brotherhood is divided along class lines. The leadership is in the hands of conservative elements, capitalists and wealthy businessmen, while its rank and file members include more militant sections of the youth and those who come from poorer and working class backgrounds. However, the way to win the latter over to the side of the revolution is not by making alliances with their capitalist leaders, but rather to subject them to implacable criticism, in order to expose their hollow claims at being anti-imperialist and pro-poor.

This is precisely the opposite of what these groups did when they made an alliance with the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in organising the Cairo anti-war conference. In effect, these left organisations were providing the Muslim Brotherhood leaders with a left cover, approving their false anti-imperialist credentials and thus strengthening their grip on their own membership.

In the past the Muslim Brotherhood were backed by the CIA to undermine the leftward moving nationalism of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Islamic fundamentalism was a creation of John Foster Dulles and the US State Department, to cut across the left after the 1956 Suez War. But when Sadat and Mubarak became American stooges their services were no longer required. Hillary Clinton and others have said that the Muslim Brotherhood are not a threat, that they are people who can be worked with. This is a clear indication that the imperialists will once again try to use the Islamists to head off the Revolution.

Similarly, Hamas and Hezbollah were originally set up to cut across the PFLP and other left tendencies in Palestine. Later, the CIA created Osama bin Laden as a counterweight to the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. And now they are again intriguing with the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood to head off the Revolution in Egypt and deceive the people. But the Muslim Brotherhood is not a homogeneous movement and is now splitting into different factions along class lines.

The poor people who support the Brotherhood are one thing. The leaders are another thing altogether. In the 1980s leaders of the Brotherhood were key beneficiaries of economic liberalization – the programme of infitah or “opening” – under which Sadat and then Mubarak dismantled the state sector, favouring private capital. One study of Brotherhood businessmen suggests that at this point they controlled 40 percent of all private economic ventures. They are part of the capitalist system and have every interest in defending it. Their conduct is not determined by the Holy Qur’an but by class interest.

The “hard line” Islamists are as frightened of the revolutionary masses as the regime itself. The Muslim Brotherhood declared that it would not negotiate with the government until Mubarak stepped down. But the moment the regime beckoned with its little finger, they changed their minds. One of their leaders went onto Tahrir square, where the protestors were standing firm and preventing the tanks from occupying the square with their bodies, appealing to them not to clash with the army.

Our attitude to such people was worked out long ago by Lenin who warned at the Second Congress of the Communist International:

“11) With regard to the more backward states and nations, in which feudal or patriarchal and patriarchal-peasant relations predominate, it is particularly important to bear in mind:

first, that all Communist parties must assist the bourgeois-democratic liberation movement in these countries, and that the duty of rendering the most active assistance rests primarily with the workers of the country the backward nation is colonially or financially dependent on;

second, the need for a struggle against the clergy and other influential reactionary and medieval elements in backward countries;

third, the need to combat Pan-Islamism and similar trends, which strive to combine the liberation movement against European and American imperialism with an attempt to strengthen the positions of the khans, landowners, mullahs, etc.” (Lenin, “Draft theses on the national and colonial questions”, 5 June, 1920, our emphasis)

That is the real position of Marxism towards reactionary religious trends. It is the position that the IMT firmly defends.

The IMT says:

•Defend the unity of the revolutionary people!
•Down with the pogrom-mongers and hate-merchants!
•Oppose all discrimination based on religion!
•No compromise with reactionary and obscurantist trends!
•Every man and woman must have the right to hold any religious belief or none!
•For the complete separation of religion from the state!

In The Time Of The Be-Bop Baby Boomer Jail Break-Out- “The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era-1964”- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Martha and the Vandellas performing Dancing In The Streets(lordy, lordy, yes).

The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era: 1964-Still Rocking, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1989

I have recently been on a tear in reviewing individual CDs in this extensive Time-Life Rock ‘n’ Roll series. A lot of these reviews have been driven by the artwork which graces the covers of each item, both to stir ancient memories and reflect that precise moment in time, the youth time of the now very, very mature (nice sliding over the age issue, right?) baby-boomer generation who lived and died by the music. And who fit in, or did not fit in as the case may, to the themes expressed in these artwork scenes. Here we have the latter, the not fit in part, for this reviewer anyway.

This 1964 art cover piece with its drawing of a high school girl (school used as backdrop here to let you know, just in case you were clueless, that the rock scene was directed, point blank, at high school students, high school students with discretionary money to buy hot records, or drop coins in the local juke box), or rather her high heel sneakers (Chuck Taylor high tops, for sure, no question, although there is no trademark present no way that they can be some knock-offs in 1964, no way, I say). The important thing, in any case, is the sneakers, and that slightly shorter than school regulation dress, a dress that presages the mini-skirt craze that was then just on its way from Europe. Naturally said dress and sneakers, sneakers, high- heeled or not, against the mandatory white tennis sneakers on gym days and low-heel pumps on other days, is the herald of some new age. And, as if to confirm that new breeze, in the background scouring out her high school classroom window, a sullen, prudish schoolmarm. She, the advance guard, obviously, of that parentally-driven reaction to all that the later 1960s stood for to us baby-boomers, as the generations fought out their epic battles about the nature of the world, our world or theirs.

But see that is so much “wave of future” just then because sullen schoolmarm or not what Ms. Hi-heel sneakers (and dress, ya, don’t forget that knee-showing dress) is preening for is those guys who are standing (barely) in front of said school and showing their approval, their approval in the endless boy and girl meet game. And these guys are not just of one kind, they are cool faux beat daddy guys, tee-shirted corner boy guys, and well, just average 1964- style average guys. Now the reality of Ms. Hi-heel sneakers (and a wig hat on her head) proved to be a minute thing and was practically forgotten in the musical breeze that was starting to come in from Europe (British invasion led by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones) but it was that harbinger of change that the old schoolmarm dreaded and we, teenagers, especially we teenagers of the Class of 1964, were puzzled by. All we knew for sure, at least some of us knew , was that our class, at least for a moment, was going to chase a few windmills, and gladly.

That is the front story, the story of the new breeze coming, but the back story is that the kind of songs that are on this CD with that British invasion coming full blast were going to be passé very soon. Moreover, among my crowd, my hang-out crowd, my hang-out guy and girl crowd of guys who looked very much like those guys pictured on the artwork here, if not my school crowd (slightly different) the folk scene, the Harvard Square at weekend night, New York City Village every once in a while folk scene, the Dylan, Baez, Van Ronk, Paxton, Ochs, etc. scene was still in bloom and competitive (although that scene, that folk scene minute, ironically, would soon also be passé).

Thus 1964 was a watershed year for a lot of the genres, really sub-genres, featured here. Like the harmony-rich girl groups (The Supremes, Mary Wells, The Shangri-Las, Martha and the Vandellas, Betty Everett) and the surfer boy, hot-rod guys of blessed neighborhood memory (Ronnie and the Daytonas, The Rivieras, and The Beach Boys, a little). But it was also a watershed year for the guys pictured in the artwork (and out in the neighborhoods). Some would soon be fighting in Vietnam, some moving to a commune to get away from it all, and others would be raising holy hell about that war, the need for social justice and the way things were being run in this country. And Ms. Hi-heel sneakers? Maybe, just maybe, she drifted into that San Francisco for the Summer of Love night, going barefoot into that good night. I like to think so anyway.

Watershed year or not, there are some serious non-invasion stick-outs here. Under The Boardwalk (great harmony), The Drifters; Last Kiss, Frank Wilson and The Cavaliers; Dancing In The Streets (lordy, lordy, yes), Martha and the Vandellas; Leader Of The Pack (what a great novelty song and one that could be the subject of a real story in my growing up neighborhood), The Shangri-Las; Hi-Heel Sneakers, Tommy Tucker (thanks for the lead-in, Tommy), and, the boss song of the teen dance club night, no question, no challenge, no competition, Louie, Louie by the Kingsmen

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Website- A List Of Solidartiy Actions For April 9th and 10th 2011- Free Bradley Manning Now!

Click on the headline to link to a Private Bradley Manning website entry for the solidarity activities scheduled for the weekend of April 9-10, 2011.

Markin comment:

Free Bradley Manning Now!

In Support Of The April 9-10 Private Bradley Manning Solidarity Actions- A Personal Note

This post (really re-post) apllies to the upcoming April 9-10 Bradley Manning Solidairy actions as well as the event discussed below.

Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning At Quantico, Virginia On Sunday March 20th At 2:00 PM- A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner

Of course I will be standing at the front gate to the Quantico Marine Base on March 20th because I stand in solidarity with the actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious doings of this government, Bush-like or Obamian. If he did such acts. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning (or someone) exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justification rested on a house of card. American imperialism’s house of cards, but cards nevertheless.

Of course I will be standing at the front gate to the Quantico Marine Base on March 20th because I am outraged by the treatment of Private Manning meted to a presumably innocent man by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. The military has gotten more devious although not smarted since I was soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago. Allegedly Private Manning might become so distraught over his alleged actions that he requires extraordinary protections. He is assumed, in the Catch-22 logic of the military, to be something of a suicide risk on the basis of bringing some fresh air to the nefarious doings of the international imperialist order. Be serious. I, however, noticed no ‘spike” in suicide rates among the world’s diplomatic community once they were exposed, a place where such activities might have been expected once it was observed in public that most of these persons could barely tie their own shoes.

Now the two reasons above are more than sufficient reasons for my standing at the front gate to the Quantico Marine Base on March 20th although they, in themselves, are only the appropriate reasons that any progressive thinking person would need to show up and shout to the high heavens for Private Manning’s freedom. I have an addition reason though, a very pressing personal reason. As mentioned above I too was in the military’s crosshairs as a soldier during the height of the Vietnam War. I will not go into the details of that episode, this after all is about soldier Manning, other than that I spent my own time in an Army stockade for, let’s put it this way, working on the principle of “what if they gave a war and nobody came.” Forty years later I am still working off that principle, and gladly. But here is the real point. During that time I had outside support, outside civilian support, that rallied on several occasions outside the military base where I was confined. Believe me that knowledge helped me through the tough days inside. So on March 20th I am just, as I have been able to on too few other occasions over years, paying my dues for that long ago support. You, brother, are true winter soldier.

Private Manning I hope that you will hear us, or hear about our rally in your defense. Better yet, everybody who read this join us and make sure that he can hear us loud and clear. And let us shout to those high heavens mentioned above-Free Private Bradley Manning Now!

From The Archives Of The Spartacist League (U.S.)- "Lenin And The Vanguard Party"-Part Five- The Struggle Against The Boycotters

Lenin And The Vanguard Party-Part Five- The Struggle Against The Boycotters

Markin comment on this series of articles:

Oddly enough, when I first became serious about making a revolution in the early 1970s, a socialist working class-led revolution, in the eternal quest for a more just and equitable society, there were plenty (no enough, there are never enough, but plenty) of kindred spirits who were also finding out that it was not enough to “pray” such a revolution into existence but that one had to build a party, a vanguard party in order to do so. The name "Lenin," the designation "Bolshevik," and the term "world socialist revolution" flowed easily from the tongue in the circles that I began to hang around in. As I write this general introduction, right this minute in 2011, to an important series of historical articles about the actual creation, in real time, of a Leninist vanguard working class party (and International, as well) there are few kindred, fewer still in America, maybe, fewest still, and this is not good, among the youth, to carry the message forward. Nevertheless, whatever future form the next stage in the struggle for the socialist revolution takes the question of the party, the vanguard party really, will still press upon the heads of those who wish to make it.

Although today there is no mass Bolshevik-style vanguard party (or International)-anywhere-there are groups, grouplets, leagues, tendencies, and ad hoc committees that have cadre from which the nucleus for such a formation could be formed-if we can keep it. And part of the process of being able to “keep it” is to understand what Lenin was trying to do back in the early 1900s (yes, 1900s) in Russia that is applicable today. Quite a bit, actually, as it turns out. And for all those think that the Leninist process, and as the writer of these articles is at pains to point it was an unfolding process, was simple and the cadre that had to be worked with was as pure as the driven snow I would suggest this thought. No less an august revolutionary figure that Leon Trotsky, once he got “religion” on the Bolshevik organizational question (in many ways the question of the success of the revolution), did not, try might and main, have success in forming such a mass organization. We can fight out the details from that perspective learning from the successes and failures, and fight to get many more kindred.
*******
Markin comment on this article:

Leon Trotsky, the great Russian revolutionary leader, came late to an understanding of the need for a tight-knit Bolshevik-style revolutionary working class party to lead the socialist revolution. However once convinced of that necessity he held to the vanguard party organization notion until the end of his life. Along the way he noted that one of the virtues of the Russian Bolshevik Party was that it had derived its authority from having waged, unlike many Western communist parties, struggles within the party against all forms of erroneous strategies and tactics (to speak nothing of having worked under every possible kind of political condition from legal to illegal). Thus the key struggle against the Bolshevik Duma boycotters that forms the central theme of this article was already worked out early. Worked out in the sense that there was a proper communist use of non-working class political organizations. The notions of setting up as oppositions within those organizations (here the Duma, elsewhere various parliamentary formations) and the use of such places as tribunals to speak for working class issues stems from this understanding. A tip of the hat to Lenin on that one.
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To read about the overall purpose of this pamphlet series and other information about the history of the document go the the American Left History Archives From-Lenin and The Vanguard Party-Preface To The Second Edition And Part One, dated March 15, 2011.

The Struggle Against The Boycotters

The Fifth Congress of the RSDRP, held in London in May 1907, was almost evenly divided between the Bolsheviks with 89 delegate votes and the Mensheviks with 88. At the Fourth Congress a year earlier three associated parties—the Jewish Bund, Latvian Social Democrats and Luxemburg/Jogiches' Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL)—had been incorporated into the RSDRP on a semi-federated basis. At the Fifth Congress the Bund had 54 delegate votes, the Latvian Social Democrats 26 and the SDKPiL 45.

In the course of a year's sharp factional struggle against the Mensheviks' liberal tailism and pro-Constitutional Democrat (Cadet) policy, the Bolsheviks had overcome their minority position within the Russian social-democratic movement. However, now the factional leadership of the RSDRP depended upon the three "national" social-democratic parties. The Bund consistently supported the Mensheviks. The Lettish Social Democrats generally supported the Bolsheviks, but sometimes mediated between the two hostile Russian groups. It was through the support of Rosa Luxemburg's SDKPiL that Lenin attained a majority at the Fifth Congress and in the leading bodies of the RSDRP for the next five years. The Lenin-Luxemburg bloc of 1906-11 is significant not only in its actual historic effect, but also because it reveals the rela¬tionship between evolving Leninism and this most consistent and important representative of pre-1914 revolutionary social democracy.

The decisive issue at the Fifth Congress was the attitude toward bourgeois liberalism, and specifically electoral sup¬port to the Cadet Party. With the support of the Letts and Poles (and also the left-wing Trotsky/Parvus group among the Mensheviks), the Bolshevik line carried; the Congress condemned the Cadets:

"The parties of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie, headed by the Constitutional Democratic Party [Cadets], have now definitely turned aside from the revolution and endeavor to halt it through a deal with the counterrevolution."
—Robert H. McNeal, ed., Decisions and Resolutions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1974)

Another resolution instructed the RSDRP Duma fraction to oppose "the treacherous policy of bourgeois liberalism which, under the slogan 'Safeguard the Duma,' in fact sacrifices the popular interests to the Black Hundreds" (ibid.). A few months after the Congress, a party conference decided to run independent RSDRP candidates in the upcoming Duma elections and to support no other parties.

While the Lettish and Polish Social Democrats supported the general Bolshevik line at the Fifth Congress, they also moderated Lenin's fight against the Mensheviks. They voted against Lenin's motion to condemn the Menshevik majority of the outgoing Central Committee. The defection of the Latvian Social Democrats and the SDKPiL also accounted for Lenin's only serious defeat at the 1907 RSDRP congress. The congress voted overwhelmingly to oppose the Bolshe¬viks' "fighting operations" for "seizing funds" of the tsarist government.

During this period the Mensheviks' attack on the Leninists centered on these armed expropriations. Their near-hysterical reaction to the Bolsheviks' expropriations flowed from its shocking impact on bourgeois liberal respectability. Also the expropriations gave the Bolsheviks a financial superiority over the Mensheviks. In condemning the Bolsheviks' expropriation of government funds, the Mensheviks were convinced that they had unimpeachable social-democratic orthodoxy on their side.

The Bolsheviks, however, did not face the normal situation in which such robbery would immediately trigger the repressive apparatus of an overwhelmingly powerful and centralized state. Neither did they risk the condemnation of workers who might think they were mere criminals in political garb. Nor did the Bolsheviks maintain these expropriations as a "strategy" to be carried out over an extended period with the likely result of degeneration into lumpen criminal activity.

Lenin believed that there was a continuing revolutionary situation, in which the mass of workers and peasants were actively hostile to tsarist legality. The Bolsheviks' expropriations were concentrated in the Caucasus, where armed peasant and nationalist bands regularly challenged tsarist authorities. Lenin regarded the expropriations as one of several guerrilla tactics in the course of a revolutionary civil war.The Bolshevik-Menshevik dispute over armed expropriations was thus inextricably bound up with their fundamental difference over the political and military vanguard role of the proletarian party in the revolution to overthrow the autocracy.

Lenin's position on armed expropriations was presented in a resolution for the Fourth Congress held in April 1906. He continued to uphold this position through 1907:

"Whereas:
(1) scarcely anywhere in Russia since the December uprising has there been a complete cessation of hostilities, which the revolutionary people are now conducting in the form of sporadic guerrilla attacks upon the enemy.... We are of the opin¬ion, and propose that the Congress should agree.... (4) that fighting operations are also permissible for the purpose of seizing funds belonging to the enemy, i.e., the autocratic government, to meet the needs of insurrection, particular care being taken that the interests of the people are infringed as little as possible."
—"A Tactical Platform for the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P." (March 1906)

Tsarist Reaction and the Ultraleft Bolsheviks

Shortly after the Fifth RSDRP Congress, in June 1907 the reactionary tsarist minister Stolypin executed a coup against the Duma. The Duma was dissolved and a new (Third) Duma proclaimed on the basis of a far less democratic elec¬toral system. In addition, the social-democratic deputies were arrested and charged with fomenting mutiny in the armed forces.
Stolypin's coup marked the definitive end of the 1905 revolutionary period. The victory of tsarist reaction opened up a new, and in one sense final, phase in the Bolshevik-Menshevik conflict, over the need to re-establish the underground as the party's basic organizational structure. The onset of reaction also produced a very sharp division within the Bolshevik camp between Leninism and ultraleftism, a factional struggle which had to be resolved before the historically far more significant conflict with Menshevism could be fought to a finish.

The conflict between Lenin and the ultraleft Bolsheviks centered on participation in the reactionary tsarist parliamentary body. Behind this difference lay Lenin's recognition that a reactionary period had set in, requiring a tactical retrenchment by the revolutionary party. The first battle occurred at a July 1907 RSDRP conference to determine policy for the upcoming Duma elections. Lenin still believed that Russia was passing through a general revolutionary period but regarded boycotting the elections as tactically unjustifiable:

"Whereas,
(1) active boycott, as the experience of the Russian revolu¬
tion has shown, is correct tactics on the part of the Social-
Democrats only under conditions of a sweeping, universal, and
rapid upswing of the revolution, developing into an armed
uprising, and only in connection with the ideological aims of
the struggle against constitutional illusions arising from the
convocation of the first representative assembly by the old
regime;

(2) in the absence of these conditions correct tactics on the part
of the revolutionary Social-Democrats calls for participation in
the elections, as was the case with the Second Duma, even if all
the conditions of a revolutionary period are present."
—"Draft Resolution on Participation in the Elections to
the Third Duma" (July 1907)

In presenting this resolution Lenin found himself a minority of one among the nine Bolshevik delegates to the conference. The resolution passed with the votes of the Mensheviks, Bundists and Lettish and Polish Social Democrats; all the Bolsheviks except Lenin voted against.

The Bolshevik boycotters were, to be sure, greatly over-represented at this particular party gathering. Lenin had significant support for his position among the Bolshevik cadre and ranks and was quickly able to gain more. However, the ultraleft faction of 1907-09 was the most significant chal¬lenge to Lenin's leadership of the Bolshevik organization that he ever faced. The ultraleft leaders—Bogdanov (who had been Lenin's chief lieutenant), Lunacharsky, Lyadov, Alexinsky, Krasin—were very prominent Bolsheviks. As likely as not, a majority of the Bolshevik ranks supported boycotting the tsarist Duma in this period. Only Lenin's great personal authority prevented the development of an ultraleft faction strong enough to oust him and his supporters from the official Bolshevik center or to engineer a major split.

Lenin was aided in this faction struggle by the heterogeneity of the ultraleft tendency. A not very important tactical question divided the ultraleft Bolsheviks into two distinct groupings, the Otzovists ("Recallists") and the Ultimatists. The Otzovists demanded the immediate, unconditional recall of the RSDRP Duma fraction. The Ultimatists demanded that the Duma fraction be presented with an ultimatum to make inflammatory speeches, which would provoke the tsarist authorities into expelling them from the Duma or worse. In practice, both policies would have had the same effect, and Lenin denied that there was a significant division among his ultraleft opponents.

Lenin's position on the ultraleft faction was presented in resolution form at a June 1909 conference of the expanded editorial board meeting of Proletary, a de facto plenum of the Bolshevik central leadership. At this conference, Bogdanov was expelled from the Bolshevik organization. The key passages of the resolution state:

"The direct revolutionary struggle of the broad masses was then followed by a severe period of counter-revolution. It became essential for Social-Democrats to adapt their revolutionary tactics to this new situation, and, in connection with this, one of the most exceptionally important tasks became the use of the Duma as an open platform for the purpose of assist¬ing Social-Democratic agitation.

"In this rapid turn of events, however, a section of the workers who had participated in the direct revolutionary struggle was unable to proceed at once to apply revolutionary Social-Democratic tactics in the new conditions of the counter¬revolution, and continued simply to repeat slogans which had been revolutionary in the period of open civil war, but which now, if merely repeated, might retard the process of closing the ranks of the proletariat in the new conditions of struggle." [emphasis in original]
—"On Otzovism and Ultimatumism"

Bogdanov's answer to Lenin is summarized in his 1910 "Letter to All Comrades," a founding document of his own independent group:

"Some people among your representatives in the executive collegium—the Bolshevik Center—who live abroad, have come to the conclusion that we must radically change our previous Bolshevik evaluation of the present historical moment and hold a course not toward a new revolutionary wave, but toward a long period of peaceful, constitutional development. This brings them close to the right wing of our party, the menshevik comrades who always, independently of any evaluation of the political situation, pull toward legal and constitutional forms of activity, toward 'organic work' and 'organic development'."
—Robert V. Daniels, ed., A Documentary History of Communism (1960)

Bogdanov's phrase about "a long period of peaceful, constitutional development" is ambiguous, perhaps deliberately so. As against many Mensheviks, Lenin did not regard a new revolution as off the agenda for an entire historical epoch, i.e., for several decades. By 1908, he concluded that before another revolutionary upsurge (like that of 1905) there would be a lengthy period in terms of the working perspectives of the party and relative to the past experience and expectations of the Bolsheviks. 1908 was not 1903. And this reality was precisely what the Otzovists/Ultimatists denied.

Philosophy and Politics

Otzovism/Ultimatism was associated with neo-Kantian idealistic dualism represented by the Austrian physicist-philosopher Ernst Mach, a philosophical doctrine then much in vogue in Central European intellectual circles. Bogdanov's Empiriomonism (1905-06) was an ambitious attempt to reconcile Marxism with neo-Kantianism. In 1908 Bogdanov's factional partner Lunacharsky deepened this idealism into outright spiritualism, positing the need for a socialist religion. Lunacharsky's "god-building" was, needless to say, a great embarrassment for the Bolsheviks as a whole, and even for the Otzovist/Ultimatist faction.

Bogdanov's sympathy for neo-Kantian philosophical doctrine was both well known and longstanding. As long as Bogdanov functioned as Lenin's lieutenant, and did not in himself represent a distinct political tendency, his neo-Kantianism was considered a personal peculiarity among both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks alike. But once Bogdanov became the leader of a distinct and for a time significant ten¬dency in Russian Social Democracy, his philosophical views became a focus of general political controversy. Plekhanov, in particular, exploited Bogdanovism to attack the Bolshevik program as the product of flagrant subjective idealism. Lenin thus spent much of 1908 researching a major polemic against Bogdanov's neo-Kantianism, Materialism and Empirio-criticism, in order to purge Bolshevism of the taint of philosophical idealism.

Lenin's close political collaboration with Bogdanov, despite the latter's neo-Kantianism on the one hand, and his massive polemic against Bogdanov's philosophical views on the other, have been used to justify symmetric deviations on this question by ostensible revolutionary Marxists. That the neo-Kantian Bogdanov was an important Bolshevik leader is sometimes cited to argue for an attitude of indifference toward dialectical materialism, a belief that the most general or abstract expression of the Marxian world view has no bearing on practical politics and associated organizational affiliation. When he broke with Trotskyism in 1940, the American revisionist Max Shachtman justified a bloc with the anti-dialectician and empiricist James Burnham by citing the "precedent" of Lenin and Bogdanov.
At the other pole, Lenin's major polemic against an opponent's idealistic deviation from Marxism has encouraged a tendency to "deepen" every factional struggle by bringing in philosophical questions—by reducing all political differences to the question of dialectical materialism. This mixture of pomposity and rational idealism has become a hall¬mark of the British Healyite group. (The Healy/Banda group has become so outright bizarre that it can no longer be taken seriously, least of all in its philosophical mystifications.)

The Healyites justified their 1972 split from their erst¬while bloc partners, the French neo-Kautskyan Organisation Communiste Internationaliste (OCI), by positing the primacy of "philosophy." They appealed to Lenin's 1908 polemic against Bogdanov as orthodox precedent:

"Lenin tirelessly studied the ideas of the new idealists, the neo-Kantians, in philosophy, even during the hardest practical struggle to establish the revolutionary party in Russia. When these ideas, in the form of 'empirio-criticism,' were taken up by a section of the Bolsheviks themselves, Lenin made a specialized study and wrote against them a full-length work, Materialism and Empiric-Criticism.

"Lenin understood very well that the years of extreme hardship and isolation after the defeat of the 1905 Revolution exposed the revolutionary movement to the greatest pressure of the class enemy. He knew that the most fundamental task of all was the defence and development of Marxist theory at the most basic level, that of philosophy, [our emphasis]
— International Committee, In Defence of Trotskyism
(1973)

This passage is a complete falsification at several levels. To begin with, Lenin's historically more important political struggle in the period of reaction was not against Bogdanov's ultraleft Bolsheviks, but against the Menshevik Liquidators. In this latter struggle, philosophical questions' played no particular role.

The Healyites also falsify Lenin's relationship with Bogdanov. When Bogdanov became part of the Bolshevik leadership in 1904, he was already a well-known neo-Kantian (Machian). Lenin and Bogdanov agreed that the Bolshevik tendency as such would take no position on the controversial philosophical issues. Lenin explains this in a letter to Maxim Gorky (25 February 1908) wherein he endorses his past relationship with Bogdanov, despite the latter's philosophical deviation:

"In the summer and autumn of 1904, Bogdanov and I reached a complete agreement, as Bolsheviks, and formed the tacit bloc, which tacitly ruled out philosophy as a neutral field, that existed all through the revolution and enabled us in that revolution to carry out together the tactics of revolutionary Social-Democracy (Bolshevism), which, I am profoundly convinced, were the only correct tactics." [emphasis in original] It was the right-wing Menshevik Plekhanov who brought the question of dialectical materialism versus neo-Kantianism to the forefront in order to discredit and split the revolutionary Bolshevik leadership. In defending the Bolsheviks against Plekhanov, Lenin went so far as to deny that the issue of neo-Kantian revisionism was at all relevant to the revolutionary movement in Russia. At the all-Bolshevik Congress in April 1905, Lenin stated:

"Plekhanov drags in Mach and Avenarius by the ears. I cannot for the life of me understand what these writers, for whom I have not the slightest sympathy, have to do with the question of social revolution. They wrote on individual and social organi¬zation of experience, or some such theme, but they never really gave any thought to the democratic dictatorship."

—"Report on the Question of Participation of the Social-Democrats in a Provisional Revolutionary Government" (April 1905)

In part as a result of his later fight with Bogdanov, Lenin modified his 1905 position, which drew too arbitrary a line between political and philosophical differences. He came to realize that fundamental differences among Marxists over dialectical materialism will likely produce political divergences. However, for Lenin program remained primary in defining revolutionary politics and associated organizational affiliation. Lenin never repudiated his close collaboration with Bogdanov in 1904-07. And he was absolutely right to ally with the revolutionary social democrat, albeit neo-Kantian, Bogdanov against the pro-liberal social democrat, albeit dialectical materialist, Plekhanov. Only when Bogdanov's neo-Kantian conceptions became associated with a counterposed, anti-Marxist political program did Lenin make the defense of dialectical materialism against philosophical idealism a central political task.

Against the Mystification of Dialectics

The Marxist program as the scientific expression of the interests of the working class and of social progress is not derived simply from a subjective desire for a socialist future. The Marxist program necessarily embodies a correct under¬standing of reality, of which the most general or abstract expression is dialectical materialism. However, as Marx himself wrote in 1877 to the Russian populist journal, Otechestvenniye Zapiski, he does not offer "a general historico-philosophical theory, the supreme virtue of which consists in being supra-historical" (Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence [1975]). Dialectical materialism is a conceptual framework which permits, but does not guarantee, a scientific understanding of society in its concrete historical devel¬opment. In other words, an understanding of the dialectical nature of social reality guides a complex of historical gener¬alizations (e.g., that the state apparatus under capitalism can¬not be reformed into an organ of socialist administration, that in this epoch a collectivist economic system represents the social dominance of the proletariat) which underlies the Marxist programmatic principles.

The Healyite mystification of the Marxist attitude toward philosophy is a product of their degeneration into a bizarre leader-cult. In the early 1960s Healy's Socialist Labour League understood that dialectical materialism was nothing other than a generalized expression of a unitary worldview, and not an abstract schema or method existing independently of empirical reality. Cliff Slaughter's 1962-63 articles on Lenin's 1914-15 studies of Hegel, reprinted in 1971 as a pamphlet, Lenin on Dialectics, contain a trenchant attack upon the idealization of dialectics:

"Lenin lays great stress on Hegel's insistence that Dialectics is not a master-key, a sort of set of magic numbers by which all secrets will be revealed. It is wrong to think of dialectical logic as something that is complete in itself and then 'applied' to particular examples. It is not a model of interpretation to be learned, then fitted on to reality from the outside; the task is rather to uncover the law of development of the reality itself....

"The science of society founded by Marx has no room for phi¬losophy as such, for the idea of independently moving thought, with a subject-matter and development of its own, independent of reality but sometimes descending to impinge upon it."

Slaughter then quotes Marx's judgment on a concept of philosophy in The German Ideology: "When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of activity loses its medium of existence."

But by the late 1960s the Healyites had "rediscovered" a medium of existence for philosophy as an independent theory. Dialectical materialism was presented with much fanfare as "the theory of knowledge of Marxism," as an expression of the philosophical category known as epistemology. Thus in a collection of documents on the split with the OCI (Break With Centrism! [1973]), we read:

"What was most essential in the preparation of the sections was tq develop dialectical materialism in a struggle to understand and to transform the consciousness of the working class in the changing objective conditions. This means the under¬standing and development of dialectical materialism as the theory of knowledge of Marxism....

"We are certainly saying that dialectical materialism is the theory of knowledge of Marxism, of the path of struggle from error to truth—not to a 'final' truth, but continually making advances through contradictory struggle to real knowledge of the objective world."

This Healyite notion of dialectical materialism is both enormously restrictive and is an idealization of knowledge. There is no valid, separate theory of knowledge. At the level of individual cognition, a theory of knowledge is derived from biological and psychological scientific investigation. At the level of social consciousness, a theory of knowledge is a constituent part of an understanding of historically specific social relations. Thus, central to the Marxist understanding of knowledge is the concept of false consciousness, the necessary distortion of reality associated with various social roles.

The traditional philosophical category of epistemology (in both its empiricist and rationalist forms), by separating the conscious subject from nature and society, is itself an ideological expression of false consciousness. Dialectical materialism criticizes the various traditional concepts of epistemol¬ogy as well as other philosophical concepts and categories. But Marxism does not criticize traditional philosophy by positing itself as a new, alternative philosophy, which likewise exists independently of a scientific (i.e., empirically verifiable) understanding of nature and society.

The Healyite mystification of dialectical materialism— "the path of struggle from error to truth"—is primarily a justification for the infallibility of a leader-cult. The program, analyses, tactics and projections of the Healyite leadership are thus held to be exempt from empirical verification. For example, to this day the Healyites claim that Cuba is capitalist! Critics and oppositionists are told that they don't understand reality; this capacity being monopolized by the leadership, which alone has mastered the dialectical method. The similarity between the Healyite view of dialectics and religious mysticism is not coincidental.

To summarize, the systematic rejection of dialectical materialism (e.g., Bogdanov, Burnham) must lead sooner or later to a break with the scientific Marxist program. But to believe a la Healy that every serious political difference within a revolutionary party can or should be reduced to antagonistic philosophical concepts is a species of rational idealism. Such philosophical reductionism denies that political differences commonly arise from the diverse social pres¬sures and influences that bear down upon the revolutionary vanguard and its component parts, and also differences in evaluating empirical conditions and possibilities.

Significance of the Struggle Against Otzovism/Ultimatism

The end of the factional struggle between the Leninists and Otzovists/Ultimatists occurred at the previously mentioned June 1909 conference of the expanded editorial board of Proletary. The conference resolved that Bolshevism "has nothing in common with otzovism and ultimatism, and that the Bolshevik wing of the Party must most resolutely combat these deviations from revolutionary Marxism." When Bogdanov refused to accept this resolution, he was expelled from the Bolshevik faction.

As we pointed out in Part One of this series, in justifying Bogdanov's expulsion Lenin clearly affirmed his adherence to the Kautskyan doctrine that the party should include all social democrats (i.e., working-class-oriented socialists). He sharply distinguished between the Kautskyan "party" and a faction, the latter requiring a homogeneous political program and outlook:

"In our Party Bolshevism is represented by the Bolshevik section. But a section is not a party. A party can contain a whole gamut of opinions and shades of opinions, the extremes of which may be sharply contradictory. In the German party, side by side with the pronouncedly revolutionary wing of Kautsky, we see the ultra-revisionist wing of Bernstein. This is not the case within a section. A section in a party is a group of like-minded persons formed for the purpose primarily of influ¬encing the party in a definite direction, for the purpose of securing acceptance for their principles in the purest form. For this, real unanimity of opinion is necessary. The different standards we set for party unity and sectional unity must be grasped by everyone who wants to know how the question of internal discord in the Bolshevik section really stands." [emphasis in original]
—"Report on the Conference of the Extended Editorial Board of Proletary" (July 1909)

After Bogdanov's expulsion he and his co-thinkers established their own group around the paper Vperyod, deliberately choosing the name of the first Bolshevik organ (of 1905). The Vperyodists appealed to the Bolshevik ranks in the name of true Bolshevism. Though many Bolshevik workers supported the Otzovist/Ultimatist position on participating in the Duma, they were unwilling to split from Lenin's organization on this question. Thus Lenin had to combat diffuse ultraleft attitudes from the Bolshevik ranks for the next few years until the Otzovist/Ultimatist tendencies completely dissipated.

The Otzovist/Ultimatist claim to represent the true Bol¬shevik tradition, and that Lenin had become a Menshevik conciliator, could not be dismissed out of hand as ridiculous. Bogdanov, Lyadov, Krasin and Alexinsky had been among Lenin's chief lieutenants, the core of the early Bolshevik center. Lunacharsky had been a prominent Bolshevik public spokesman. The Mensheviks thus baited Lenin over the defection of his best-known and most talented collaborators. Through the 1907-09 factional struggle against Otzovism/ Ultimatism, a new Leninist leadership was crystallized from among the more junior Bolshevik cadre—Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov, Tomsky and a little later Stalin. This was to be the central core of the Bolshevik leadership right through the early period of the Soviet regime.

How does one account for the fact that most of the first generation of Bolshevik leaders defected to ultraleftism, giving way to a second generation which assimilated Leninism in its developing maturity? The Bolsheviks originated not only as the revolutionary wing of Russian Social Democracy, but were also empirically optimistic about the perspectives for revolutionary struggle. And this self-confident optimism was borne out by events. The period 1903 to 1907 was in general one of a rising line of revolutionary struggle enabling the Bolsheviks to become a mass party. It is understandable therefore that a section of the Bolsheviks would be unwilling to face the fact of a victorious reaction which required a broad organizational retreat. These Bolsheviks reacted to an unfavorable reality with a sterile, dogmatic radicalism which at the extreme took the form of socialist spiritualism. It is a mark of Lenin's greatness as a revolutionary politician that he fully recognized the victory of reaction and adapted the perspectives of the proletarian vanguard accordingly, though this meant breaking with some of his hitherto closest collaborators.

Part Six of this series will be dated April 9, 2011

Notes From The Class-War- From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky- "Trade Unions In The Epoch Of Imperialist Decay"

Markin comment:

This late work (1940) by Leon Trotsky is required reading for today's trade union and pro-working class militants who need some background in why it is necessary for our working class trade unions to maintain their independence from the imperial state.

Leon Trotsky
Trade Unions in the Epoch
of Imperialist Decay
(1940)
First Published in English: Fourth International [New York], Vol.2 No.2, February 1941, pp.40-43.
Online Version: Marxists Internet Archive, 2003.
Transcribed/HTML Markup: David Walters in 2003.
Copyleft: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive www.marxists.org 2003. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.


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(The manuscript of the following article was found in Trotsky’s desk. Obviously, it was by no means a completed article, but rather the rough notes for an article on the subject indicated by his title. He had been writing them shortly before his death. – The Editors of FI)



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There is one common feature in the development, or more correctly the degeneration, of modern trade union organizations in the entire world: it is their drawing closely to and growing together with the state power. This process is equally characteristic of the neutral, the Social-Democratic, the Communist and “anarchist” trade unions. This fact alone shows that the tendency towards “growing together” is intrinsic not in this or that doctrine as such but derives from social conditions common for all unions.

Monopoly capitalism does not rest on competition and free private initiative but on centralized command. The capitalist cliques at the head of mighty trusts, syndicates, banking consortiums, etcetera, view economic life from the very same heights as does state power; and they require at every step the collaboration of the latter. In their turn the trade unions in the most important branches of industry find themselves deprived of the possibility of profiting by the competition between the different enterprises. They have to confront a centralized capitalist adversary, intimately bound up with state power. Hence flows the need of the trade unions – insofar as they remain on reformist positions, ie., on positions of adapting themselves to private property – to adapt themselves to the capitalist state and to contend for its cooperation. In the eyes of the bureaucracy of the trade union movement the chief task lies in “freeing” the state from the embrace of capitalism, in weakening its dependence on trusts, in pulling it over to their side. This position is in complete harmony with the social position of the labor aristocracy and the labor bureaucracy, who fight for a crumb in the share of superprofits of imperialist capitalism. The labor bureaucrats do their level best in words and deeds to demonstrate to the “democratic” state how reliable and indispensable they are in peace-time and especially in time of war. By transforming the trade unions into organs of the state, fascism invents nothing new; it merely draws to their ultimate conclusion the tendencies inherent in imperialism.

Colonial and semi-colonial countries are under the sway not of native capitalism but of foreign imperialism. However, this does not weaken but on the contrary, strengthens the need of direct, daily, practical ties between the magnates of capitalism and the governments which are in essence subject to them – the governments of colonial or semi-colonial countries. Inasmuch as imperialist capitalism creates both in colonies and semi-colonies a stratum of labor aristocracy and bureaucracy, the latter requires the support of colonial and semicolonial governments, as protectors, patrons and, sometimes, as arbitrators. This constitutes the most important social basis for the Bonapartist and semi-Bonapartist character of governments in the colonies and in backward countries generally. This likewise constitutes the basis for the dependence of reformist unions upon the state.

In Mexico the trade unions have been transformed by law into semi-state institutions and have, in the nature of things, assumed a semi-totalitarian character. The stateization of the trade unions was, according to the conception of the legislators, introduced in the interests of the workers in order to assure them an influence upon the governmental and economic life. But insofar as foreign imperialist capitalism dominates the national state and insofar as it is able, with the assistance of internal reactionary forces, to overthrow the unstable democracy and replace it with outright fascist dictatorship, to that extent the legislation relating to the trade unions can easily become a weapon in the hands of imperialist dictatorship.



Slogans for Freeing the Unions
From the foregoing it seems, at first sight, easy to draw the conclusion that the trade unions cease to be trade unions in the imperialist epoch. They leave almost no room at all for workers’ democracy which, in the good old days, when free trade ruled on the economic arena, constituted the content of the inner life of labor organizations. In the absence of workers’ democracy there cannot be any free struggle for the influence over the trade union membership. And because of this, the chief arena of work for revolutionists within the trade unions disappears. Such a position, however, would be false to the core. We cannot select the arena and the conditions for our activity to suit our own likes and dislikes. It is infinitely more difficult to fight in a totalitarian or a semitotalitarian state for influence over the working masses than in a democracy. The very same thing likewise applies to trade unions whose fate reflects the change in the destiny of capitalist states. We cannot renounce the struggle for influence over workers in Germany merely because the totalitarian regime makes such work extremely difficult there. We cannot, in precisely the same way, renounce the struggle within the compulsory labor organizations created by Fascism. All the less so can we renounce internal systematic work in trade unions of totalitarian and semi-totalitarian type merely because they depend directly or indirectly on the workers’ state or because the bureaucracy deprives the revolutionists of the possibility of working freely within these trade unions. It is necessary to conduct a struggle under all those concrete conditions which have been created by the preceding developments, including therein the mistakes of the working class and the crimes of its leaders. In the fascist and semi-fascist countries it is impossible to carry on revolutionary work that is not underground, illegal, conspiratorial. Within the totalitarian and semi-totalitarian unions it is impossible or well-nigh impossible to carry on any except conspiratorial work. It is necessary to adapt ourselves to the concrete conditions existing in the trade unions of every given country in order to mobilize the masses not only against the bourgeoisie but also against the totalitarian regime within the trade unions themselves and against the leaders enforcing this regime. The primary slogan for this struggle is: complete and unconditional independence of the trade unions in relation to the capitalist state. This means a struggle to turn the trade unions into the organs of the broad exploited masses and not the organs of a labor aristocracy.

* * *
The second slogan is: trade union democracy. This second slogan flows directly from the first and presupposes for its realization the complete freedom of the trade unions from the imperialist or colonial state.

In other words, the trade unions in the present epoch cannot simply be the organs of democracy as they were in the epoch of free capitalism and they cannot any longer remain politically neutral, that is, limit themselves to serving the daily needs of the working class. They cannot any longer be anarchistic, i.e. ignore the decisive influence of the state on the life of peoples and classes. They can no longer be reformist, because the objective conditions leave no room for any serious and lasting reforms. The trade unions of our time can either serve as secondary instruments of imperialist capitalism for the subordination and disciplining of workers and for obstructing the revolution, or, on the contrary, the trade unions can become the instruments of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat.

* * *
The neutrality of the trade unions is completely and irretrievably a thing of the past, gone together with the free bourgeois democracy.

* * *
From what has been said it follows quite clearly that, in spite of the progressive degeneration of trade unions and their growing together with the imperialist state, the work within the trade unions not only does not lose any of its importance but remains as before and becomes in a certain sense even more important work than ever for every revolutionary party. The matter at issue is essentially the struggle for influence over the working class. Every organization, every party, every faction which permits itself an ultimatistic position in relation to the trade union, i.e., in essence turns its back upon the working class, merely because of displeasure with its organizations, every such organization is destined to perish. And it must be said it deserves to perish.

* * *
Inasmuch as the chief role in backward countries is not played by national but by foreign capitalism, the national bourgeoisie occupies, in the sense of its social position, a much more minor position than corresponds with the development of industry. Inasmuch as foreign capital does not import workers but proletarianizes the native population, the national proletariat soon begins playing the most important role in the life of the country. In these conditions the national government, to the extent that it tries to show resistance to foreign capital, is compelled to a greater or lesser degree to lean on the proletariat. On the other hand, the governments of those backward countries which consider inescapable or more profitable for themselves to march shoulder to shoulder with foreign capital, destroy the labor organizations and institute a more or less totalitarian regime. Thus, the feebleness of the national bourgeoisie, the absence of traditions of municipal self-government, the pressure of foreign capitalism and the relatively rapid growth of the proletariat, cut the ground from under any kind of stable democratic regime. The governments of backward, i.e., colonial and semi-colonial countries, by and large assume a Bonapartist or semi-Bonapartist character; and differ from one another in this, that some try to orient in a democratic direction, seeking support among workers and peasants, while others install a form close to military-police dictatorship. This likewise determines the fate of the trade unions. They either stand under the special patronage of the state or they are subjected to cruel persecution. Patronage on the part of the state is dictated by two tasks which confront it.. First, to draw the working class closer thus gaining a support for resistance against excessive pretensions on the part of imperialism; and, at the same time, to discipline the workers themselves by placing them under the control of a bureaucracy.

* * *
Monopoly Capitalism and the Unions
Monopoly capitalism is less and less willing to reconcile itself to the independence of trade unions. It demands of the reformist bureaucracy and the labor aristocracy who pick the crumbs from its banquet table, that they become transformed into its political police before the eyes of the working class. If that is not achieved, the labor bureaucracy is driven away and replaced by the fascists. Incidentally, all the efforts of the labor aristocracy in the service of imperialism cannot in the long run save them from destruction.

The intensification of class contradictions within each country, the intensification of antagonisms between one country and another, produce a situation in which imperialist capitalism can tolerate (i.e., up to a certain time) a reformist bureaucracy only if the latter serves directly as a petty but active stockholder of its imperialist enterprises, of its plans and programs within the country as well as on the world arena. Social-reformism must become transformed into social-imperialism in order to prolong its existence, but only prolong it, and nothing more. Because along this road there is no way out in general.

Does this mean that in the epoch of imperialism independent trade unions are generally impossible? It would be fundamentally incorrect to pose the question this way. Impossible are the independent or semi-independent reformist trade unions. Wholly possible are revolutionary trade unions which not only are not stockholders of imperialist policy but which set as their task the direct overthrow of the rule of capitalism. In the epoch of imperialist decay the trade unions can be really independent only to the extent that they are conscious of being, in action, the organs of proletarian revolution. In this sense, the program of transitional demands adopted by the last congress of the Fourth International is not only the program for the activity of the party but in its fundamental features it is the program for the activity of the trade unions.

(Translator’s note: At this point Trotsky left room on the page, to expound further the connection between trade union activity and the Transitional Program of the Fourth International. It is obvious that implied here is a very powerful argument in favor of military training under trade union control. The following idea is implied: Either the trade unions serve as the obedient recruiting sergeants for the imperialist army and imperialist war or they train workers for self-defense and revolution.)

The development of backward countries is characterized by its combined character. In other words, the last word of imperialist technology, economics, and politics is combined in these countries with traditional backwardness and primitiveness. This law can be observed in the most diverse spheres of the development of colonial and semi-colonial countries, including the sphere of the trade union movement. Imperialist capitalism operates here in its most cynical and naked form. It transports to virgin soil the most perfected methods of its tyrannical rule.

* * *
In the trade union movement throughout the world there is to be observed in the last period a swing to the right and the suppression of internal democracy. In England, the Minority Movement in the trade unions has been crushed (not without the assistance of Moscow); the leaders of the trade union movement are today, especially in the field of foreign policy, the obedient agents of the Conservative party. In France there was no room for an independent existence for Stalinist trade unions; they united with the so-called anarcho-syndicalist trade unions under the leadership of Jouhaux and as a result of this unification there was a general shift of the trade union movement not to the left but to the right. The leadership of the CGT is the most direct and open agency of French imperialist capitalism.

In the United States the trade union movement has passed through the most stormy history in recent years. The rise of the CIO is incontrovertible evidence of the revolutionary tendencies within the working masses. Indicative and noteworthy in the highest degree, however, is the fact that the new “leftist” trade union organization was no sooner founded than it fell into the steel embrace of the imperialist state. The struggle among the tops between the old federation and the new is reducible in large measure to the struggle for the sympathy and support of Roosevelt and his cabinet.

No less graphic, although in a different sense, is the picture of the development or the degeneration of the trade union movement in Spain. In the socialist trade unions all those leading elements which to any degree represented the independence of the trade union movement were pushed out. As regards the anarcho-syndicalist unions, they were transformed into the instrument of the bourgeois republicans; the anarcho-syndicalist leaders became conservative bourgeois ministers. The fact that this metamorphosis took place in conditions of civil war does not weaken its significance. War is the continuation of the self-same policies. It speeds up processes, exposes their basic features, destroys all that is rotten, false, equivocal and lays bare all that is essential. The shift of the trade unions to the right was due to the sharpening of class and international contradictions. The leaders of the trade union movement sensed or understood, or were given to understand, that now was no time to play the game of opposition. Every oppositional movement within the trade union movement, especially among the tops, threatens to provoke a stormy movement of the masses and to create difficulties for national imperialism. Hence flows the swing of the trade unions to the right, and the suppression of workers’ democracy within the unions. The basic feature, the swing towards the totalitarian regime, passes through the labor movement of the whole world.

We should also recall Holland, where the reformist and the trade union movement was not only a reliable prop of imperialist capitalism, but where the so-called anarcho-syndicalist organization also was actually under the control of the imperialist government. The secretary of this organization, Sneevliet, in spite of his Platonic sympathies for the Fourth International was as deputy in the Dutch Parliament most concerned lest the wrath of the government descend upon his trade union organization.

* * *
In the United States the Department of Labor with its leftist bureaucracy has as its task the subordination of the trade union movement to the democratic state and it must be said that this task has up to now been solved with some success.

* * *
The nationalization of railways and oil fields in Mexico has of course nothing in common with socialism. It is a measure of state capitalism in a backward country which in this way seeks to defend itself on the one hand against foreign imperialism and on the other against its own proletariat. The management of railways, oil fields, etcetera, through labor organizations has nothing in common with workers’ control over industry, for in the essence of the matter the management is effected through the labor bureaucracy which is independent of the workers, but in return, completely dependent on the bourgeois state. This measure on the part of the ruling class pursues the aim of disciplining the working class, making it more industrious in the service of the common interests of the state, which appear on the surface to merge with the interests of the working class itself. As a matter of fact, the whole task of the bourgeoisie consists in liquidating the trade unions as organs of the class struggle and substituting in their place the trade union bureaucracy as the organ of the leadership over the workers by the bourgeois state. In these conditions, the task of the revolutionary vanguard is to conduct a struggle for the complete independence of the trade unions and for the introduction of actual workers’ control over the present union bureaucracy, which has been turned into the administration of railways, oil enterprises and so on.

* * *
Events of the last period (before the war) have revealed with especial clarity that anarchism, which in point of theory is always only liberalism drawn to its extremes, was, in practice, peaceful propaganda within the democratic republic, the protection of which it required. If we leave aside individual terrorist acts, etcetera, anarchism, as a system of mass movement and politics, presented only propaganda material under the peaceful protection of the laws. In conditions of crisis the anarchists always did just the opposite of what they taught in peace times. This was pointed out by Marx himself in connection with the Paris Commune. And it was repeated on a far more colossal scale in the experience of the Spanish revolution.

* * *
Democratic unions in the old sense of the term, bodies where in the framework of one and the same mass organization different tendencies struggled more or less freely, can no longer exist. Just as it is impossible to bring back the bourgeois-democratic state, so it is impossible to bring back the old workers’ democracy. The fate of the one reflects the fate of the other. As a matter of fact, the independence of trade unions in the class sense, in their relations to the bourgeois state can, in the present conditions, be assured only by a completely revolutionary leadership, that is, the leadership of the Fourth International. This leadership, naturally, must and can be rational and assure the unions the maximum of democracy conceivable under the present concrete conditions. But without the political leadership of the Fourth International the independence of the trade unions is impossible.