Letters

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I find Lars T Lih’s argument in relation to Lenin and permanent revolution strange (‘A hundred years is enough’, September 19).

Firstly, are Lenin’s April theses and ‘Letters on tactics‘ a rebellion against his own earlier “dogma”? No, for reasons that both Lenin and Trotsky described. The formulation of the ‘democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry’ (bourgeois democracy) was seen to be algebraic. The working class was a small minority, and the peasantry was the largest section of society. Only history would determine how the balance of forces would play out.

As Lenin notes even in his 1905 Two tactics of social democracy in the democratic revolution, “Like everything else in the world, the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry has a past and a future. Its past is autocracy, serfdom, monarchy and privilege ... Its future is the struggle against private property, the struggle of the wage-worker against the employer, the struggle for socialism ...”

Yet, Lih says, “In account after account of 1917, you will read that Lenin’s theses called for ‘bourgeois-democratic revolution’ to be replaced by ‘socialist revolution’ - and yet, despite ubiquitous quote marks, neither these words nor any equivalent expression appears in Lenin’s text.” What does Lih think Lenin means here then by “the struggle for socialism”?

Lih talks of Trotsky introducing a new “anti-Lenin” character, Kamenev, suggesting that no theoretical antagonism between the two existed. A reading of ‘Letters on tactics’ shows precisely such an antagonism between Lenin and the “old Bolsheviks”, of whom Lenin picks out Kamenev as their representative.

Even before the publication of the April theses, this antagonism between the two had flared up, with Lenin sending increasingly angry missives back to Russia about the positions taken by Kamenev in relation to his support for the Provisional Government, on the basis of the ‘democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry’.

According to Trotsky, he telegraphed to Petrograd: “Our tactic; absolute lack of confidence; no support to the new government; suspect Kerensky especially; arming of proletariat the sole guarantee; immediate elections to the Petrograd Duma; no rapprochement with other parties. In this directive, only the suggestion about elections to the Duma instead of the Soviet, had an episodic character and soon dropped out of sight ...”

Trotsky adds that Lenin wrote a letter, filled with alarm: “Our party would disgrace itself forever, kill itself politically, if it took part in such deceit ... I would choose an immediate split with no matter whom in our party rather than surrender to social patriotism ... Kamenev must understand that a world historic responsibility rests upon him.”

Trotsky says: “Kamenev is named here because it is a question of political principle. If Lenin had had a practical militant problem in mind, he would have been more likely to mention Stalin. But in just those hours Lenin was striving to communicate the intensity of his will to Petrograd across smoking Europe, Kamenev with the cooperation of Stalin was turning sharply toward social patriotism” (History of the Russian Revolution chapter 15).

It was neither Lenin nor Trotsky ‘innovating’ here, but applying, in practice, their existing theory. It was Kamenev, Zinoviev and Stalin who were failing to apply that theory, in practice, on the basis of the real material conditions, and who, instead, were applying a dogma, without analysing the nature of the material conditions they faced. It was they who had sought to support the Provisional Government, and adopted a “revolutionary defencist” position.

Lih says: “The story as told by Lenin himself a few years later is very different: ‘On April 7, I published my theses, in which I called for caution and patience.’ He goes on to tell his 1921 audience that in April 1917, a ‘left tendency demanded the immediate overthrow of the government’, but that he ‘proceeded from the assumption that the masses had to be won over. [The government] cannot be overthrown just now [in April 1917], for it holds the vlast due to support from the worker soviets; to date, the government enjoys the confidence of the workers.’”

This is a false dichotomy, introduced by Lih, who continues: “According to the rearming narrative, the danger Lenin faced on his return was (allegedly) from conciliatory ‘semi-Mensheviks’, such as Kamenev and Stalin. According to Lenin himself in 1921, the danger he faced consisted of impatient leftists, who needed to be slowed down. And, when we turn to the text of the theses, we find - surprise, surprise! - Lenin’s memory did not fail him. The need for ‘patient explanation’ (Lenin’s mantra after his return to Russia) was the central novelty of the theses.”

So Lenin’s threat to split the party (not a split with ultra-lefts, but with the “old Bolsheviks” and other elements driving the Bolsheviks towards “social-patriotism”) is all just a myth, it appears. Of course, Lenin - and Trotsky - argued against leftists and Blanquists seeking a premature insurrection. That was precisely what their response to the July days was all about! Of course, Lenin - and Trotsky - argued the need to “patiently explain” in order that the dialectical processes of the revolution, in a condition of dual power, provided them with the conditions for such an overthrow.

Lih fails to quote those bits of the theses that rip his argument to shreds. For example, contrary to the impression given by Lih, Lenin writes, following up the sentiments expressed in his earlier messages from abroad: “How can the petty bourgeoisie be ‘pushed’ into power, if even now it can take the power, but does not want to?” (‘Letters on tactics’).

He goes on: “This can be done only by separating the proletarian - the communist - party, by waging a proletarian class struggle free from the timidity of those petty bourgeois. Only the consolidation of the proletarians who are free from the influence of the petty bourgeoisie in deed and not only in word can make the ground so hot under the feet of the petty bourgeoisie that it will be obliged under certain circumstances to take the power; it is even within the bounds of possibility that Guchkov and Miliukov - again under certain circumstances - will be for giving full and sole power to Chkheidze, Tsereteli, the SRs and Steklov, since, after all, these are ‘defencists’.”

Again, what does Lih think Lenin means here, when he talks about “waging a proletarian class struggle” if not a struggle to convert the bourgeois revolution into proletarian revolution? Lih does not understand the meaning of permanent revolution. He understands it, in the corrupted form presented by Bukharin, to justify the Stalinist tactics and failure in 1927, in relation to the Chinese Revolution. In other words, in formalistic rather than dialectical terms. He sees these as two distinct and separated revolutions, as events, rather than as part of a single, continuous and intermingled process. The point about permanent revolution, as set out by Marx in his 1850 address, and by Trotsky and Lenin, is not only that the tasks of the bourgeois national revolution are undertaken by the proletariat, in conjunction with the peasantry/petty bourgeoisie, but that they are undertaken by proletarian means, not by bourgeois-democratic means.

In 1850, Marx could not formulate that precisely, because it is only after the Paris Commune that the outlines of such means become apparent. Yet he was still able to write: “Alongside the new official governments they must simultaneously establish their own revolutionary workers’ governments, either in the form of local executive committees and councils or through workers’ clubs or committees, so that the bourgeois-democratic governments not only immediately lost the support of the workers, but find themselves from the very beginning supervised and threatened by authorities, behind which stand the whole mass of the workers. In a word, from the very moment of victory the workers’ suspicion must be directed no longer against the defeated reactionary party, but against their former ally, against the party which intends to exploit the common victory for itself” (K Marx and F Engels, ‘Address of the central committee to the Communist League’).

1905 and 1917 confirmed permanent revolution, because the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, were carried out by proletarian means, by the establishment of workers’ and peasants’ soviets, but - as Marx, Lenin and Trotsky recognised - in the process, the conflicting class interests of the proletariat with those of both the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie/peasantry would become apparent. It is this context in which the process of patiently explaining occurs, and through which the Bolsheviks win over the majority in the soviets that in April they lacked, and which was required to move to the insurrection.

Lih fails to distinguish between a proletarian revolution and a commitment to immediately introduce socialism. That is the same conflation that Stalin introduced later, in justification of his theory of ‘socialism in one country’. If Lenin did not believe that socialism could be constructed in Russia, Stalin argued, then why did he argue for the socialist revolution, rather than limiting himself to simply the bourgeois-democratic revolution? But, as Trotsky notes in his appendix to The revolution betrayed, even Stalin, initially, recognised the distinction.

He writes: “In April 1924, three months after the death of Lenin, Stalin wrote his brochure of compilations called The foundations of Leninism.” He quotes Stalin as saying: “For the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the efforts of one country are enough - to this the history of our own revolution testifies. For the final victory of socialism, for the organisation of socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially a peasant country like ours, are not enough - for this we must have the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries” (The revolution betrayed).

A proletarian revolution and creation of a workers’ state are a necessary condition for the development of socialism, but not a sufficient condition. Neither Lenin nor Trotsky could argue in 1917 for an immediate introduction of socialism, but that is not at all the same thing as arguing for a proletarian revolution.

The proletarian revolution was, in fact, the precondition for the Bolsheviks commencing those tasks which, indeed, lay the basis for a future transition to socialism, such as utilisation of the state to promote large-scale socialised capital (state capitalism) at the expense of small-scale capital, and petty commodity production, the introduction of a monopoly of foreign trade, and so on.

Arthur Bough
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Trans rant

Comrade Macnair’s recent letter (September 19) has several weaknesses. which I feel like deserve a reply. The first I will deal with are the claims he makes around queer bashing and the historical role that trans people have played in the fight for general queer liberation, and the reason why there is on the whole such unyielding solidarity between cis gays and lesbians and their gender-queer siblings. (That is not to say the relationship is perfect - I can rant long and hard about the cultural norms of transphobia even in supposedly accepting queer spaces, but that is neither here nor there.)

Macnair claims: “This includes right now (but not 10 years ago) the demonisation of trans rights.” Now I will admit I am young - by the time I damned the earth with my presence the twin towers were a historical memory. I know that trans rights may not have been the big media palava they are today, but it was still a fucking vicious field.

To give a series of examples around the sheer fucking normalisation of bigotry to trans people 10 years ago, which Macnair claims was when the basic rights that we are still fighting for today weren’t demonised. First off, we have the 2013 suicide of Leelah Alcorn, a 17-year-old trans woman who killed herself, having been forced into conversion therapy by her parents. Also in 2013, but across the Atlantic in the United Kingdom, we have the fucking murder of Lucy Meadows - a teacher who was forced to announce her transition in the press and got the full force of the Daily Heil’s wrath against her. Her very existence as a trans woman saw one of the biggest newspapers in the UK asking if she had the right to exist as a teacher for the simple act of being trans.

So, no, comrade Macnair: trans rights were demonised 10 years ago; they have been demonised for longer. Many of the horrendous cases of queer bashing were trans people being murdered, and the case of Brandon Teena in 1993 saw comedians on national television making light of their death. Even in the fair city of Melbourne, where I routinely blight the walls with Revolutionary Communist Organisation posters, there are still routine attacks against queer people. So Macnair would do well to retract his claim that I “downplay the very real risks of queer-bashing and other forms of victimisation experienced by people who were identified by others as gay or lesbian in the 1970s”.

Now on to the more theoretical arenas. I do not disagree with my illustrious comrade, when he argues that: “In the first place, ‘the class struggle’ includes all the divide-and-rule means used by the capitalist class and its state to maintain its rule.” The phrase that I live and breathe in my politics is the ancient slogan of ‘No war but class war’. However, I feel that comrade Macnair misunderstood my point. The struggle of communists in the fight for trans and broader queer liberation is revitalising the earlier understanding that only militant revolutionary action on a class basis will smash homophobia. These are facets of the class struggle - nothing more, nothing less,

I made a mistake in my last latter. The struggle is to intervene in them in a manner that allows for us to remove the lies that capitalism or bourgeois reformism will save queer lives, and I will admit that there is an air of moralism in the way I wrote here. The scourge of Aids may have faded, but it is still far too common for queers to have to bury each other; it is far too common for our bonding to be over trauma and fear than over joy. I want a better life, better politics and better hopes for my friends and siblings - that is as much a driving force of my politics as is the historical role that communists must play.

Macnair’s second-last paragraph touches on my argument that the negation of capitalism will not in and of itself negate queer oppression. I stand by this: even during the periods of Bolshevik rule that I would categorise as socialist, women’s oppression, for instance, was not dealt with on an effective basis, because of the lack of thought paid to feminism by the Second International. Now, since a major facet of capitalism is the oppression of minorities, socialism will have to deal with the muck of the ages that its birth pangs will leave it covered in. It is the task of communists to fight unerringly against these relics to scour them away. So, no, Macnair, the negation of capitalism will not in and of itself negate oppression of minorities, but the task of communists is to ensure that it does.

Finally, I would like to return to the original thrust of my first letter. The failure of the CPGB to uphold a revolutionary position on trans liberation is a fundamental one that must be addressed post-haste. The United Kingdom is a deeply transphobic country - in its culture, in its medical institutions and in its politics. The death of Alice Litman in 2022 after having to wait 1,023 days for an appointment with the Gender Identity Development Service is the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Communists must wage an unerring fight against this: when Sunak used Brianna Ghey as a cheap ploy against that worthless scab, Starmer, there was no clearer example of the flat-out reactionary politics towards trans people held in the British state. As the government debates implementing the Cass report - which is nothing more than flat-out, bullshit pseudo-science that only seeks to make trans people’s lives worse - the struggle for communists is to smash this oppression and secure revolutionary leadership of this fight. Because, if you don’t fight, you lose.

If comrades want to see more of my writings on this topic, the RCO has recently uploaded our archive onto our website. In Direct Action 12 is the transcript of a small speech I gave on Trans Day of Visibility. There is also a piece by me on this issue in the final issue of Direct Action.

Brünnhilde Olding
RCO, Australia

Thumbs up?

In her article, ‘Corbyn’s maybe party’ (September 19), Carla Roberts comments on Andrew Fisher, stating that he “has just given the thumbs up to Italy’s rightwing prime minister, Giorgia Meloni”, as well as to her policies in asylum.

Roberts doesn’t specify the location of Fisher’s “thumbs up” to Meloni, but evidently she’s referring to Fisher’s September 16 article, entitled ‘We have nothing to learn from Giorgia Meloni about immigration’ at inews.co.uk. I’m not particularly a supporter of Fisher’s politics, but I don’t think Meloni would read that article and think ‘Hey, that guy’s giving me a thumbs up!’ in general or in relation to the xenophobic basis of her policy on immigration and border control. The article was a critique and, for all its limits, doing better than almost all you’ll see in the mainstream media - and most from the electoral left.

But, even if you don’t agree with that characterisation of his critique of contemporary UK border control politics, I don’t think anyone could read that article and seriously believe Roberts is giving an accurate account of what Fisher says about Meloni.

Ben Rosenzweig
email

Tired Stalinism

I thought the left was way beyond praise or apology for Joseph Stalin and all the political shibboleths associated. I see that illusions die slowly, as the Weekly Worker letters have proven.

Stalin had a lot of ‘accomplishments’ under his belt during the years of ruling the degenerated ‘communist’ movement in Russia, which took on the acronym, ‘USSR’. The Soviet Union was not well represented, to say the least, by the said person, Joseph Stalin.

It’s not unjustified - on the contrary, perfectly understandable - to dismiss the ‘communist’ party after Lenin’s demise in 1924, as a sheer bastardisation of the political intentions of the brave proletariat, aligned with the peasantry, who put into effect the first fledgling workers’ state in history. It wasn’t a revolutionary bourgeois democracy, as some academics and others claim - it was undoubtedly the beginnings of proletarian hegemony and a socialist revolution. Stalin was in charge of the enfolding degeneration, so the buck stops with him and the bureaucratic caste he was enmeshed in.

Stalin didn’t basically show signs, during 1917 or before, of the future counterrevolutionary life that was to consume him. But there were plenty of signs during the Civil War; his actions were those of a loose cannon: ie, his over-the-top, violent approach to things and lapses in judgment. He garnered a lot of criticism from Lenin and Trotsky. But Lenin nominated him in 1922 to be the general secretary at the 11th Party Congress; this was a fateful decision of monumental proportions.

There are disadvantages with the passing of time in terms of the maximal perspectives of primary witnesses, but there’s enough of a perspicacious Marxist consensus that would convict Stalin of being one of the most consequential and sinister criminals in human history. He was a skilful tactician with relatively low-level theory to speak for himself, similar to Zinoviev’s limitations in theory (Grigory was good with oratory and agitation). By 1923, before Lenin died, the ‘troika’ (Kamenev and Zinoviev, who were master vacillators, and Stalin) formed the notorious conspiracy to prevent Leon Trotsky from getting anywhere near the levers of power: a triumvirate of three symbiotic peas in a pod. Stalin exploited these two smart (but not smart enough) Jews to further his political ambitions, being someone with a lust for power.

For Andrew Northall (Letters, September 19) to say that Zinoviev and Kamenev “obtained their just deserts” is an off-the-wall assertion that betrays a deficiency in his thinking. It’s widely recognised that they were railroaded with fabricated charges. Their questionable past and chequered role in the communist movement in no way makes null and void the injustice of their subsequent false imprisonment and execution - and the execution of their family members. Their story, and the ultimate fate that befell them and countless others in Stalin’s orbit, is not to be swept under the rug of history.

‘Lenin’s Testament’ (1922-23), generally authenticated by many scholars, expresses his wishes: Lenin explicitly rejects Stalin and wants him removed from power. He infers that his preference is for Leon Trotsky to be in a top political position as his successor. Lenin’s words were thrown to the wind. Everything that came afterwards which was the brainchild of Kamenev, Zinoviev, Stalin and their ilk, such as the concepts of ‘Trotskyism’, ‘Bolshevisation’, ‘the cult of Lenin’, ‘Luxemburgism’, ‘social fascism’, ‘popular front’, etc, is a commentary about the corrupt, anti-Marxist, undialectical, privileged clique that Stalin was a part of.

These concepts persist, and can differ in form, to this very day. So those comrades such as Andrew Northall who want to say that ‘Stalinism’ only refers to the narrow definition of Stalin and his years of autocracy (my word) are trying to avoid accountability for the endurance of these ideas. For him to say it’s “anti-communist” to identify and fight these trends is a complete escape from all scruples and responsibility. It’s not “anti-communist” to recognise that ‘Stalinism’ has been an abiding and intractable political tendency that doesn’t fade, but has a phoney legitimacy way beyond Stalin and his Russian totalitarian time span. Stalin was a master manipulator of power, who took advantage of the exhaustion of the working masses after the Civil War: the isolation, scarcity, economic depression and external pressures - all were like a truncheon which destroyed the aspirations of the toiling masses.

Whatever good intentions Stalin had to uplift the Russian people - and that’s very debatable - are cancelled out by all the wrong decisions he made in respect to the collectivisation programme, the first five-year plan, forced labour, the campaign against the kulaks, etc. There were many bad policies regarding the industrialisation period - an industrialisation which, if it helped defeat the Nazis, was by accident and not because Stalin had a handle on what he was doing. Not to mention the Moscow trials and the Great Purge: possibly millions of people in the Soviet Union were wiped out - all opposition or imagined opposition, and their families and comrades. Deportations, executions, etc (also, Stalin’s murder squads were sent to other countries).

This virulent repression is a true fact that some people (probably Andrew Northall) would see as an unfortunate minor footnote in Stalin’s ‘balance sheet’, but it can’t be cancelled out or mitigated by any perceived ‘good’ that Stalin did. To say there was a “negative side to Stalin in dealing with his political rivals”, as Tony Clark states, also in last week’s letters, is a euphemism which would be hard to swallow at a Leninist tribunal. I’m not in the business of sugar-coating Stalin’s Cheka-inspired portfolio. (He was directly involved in the Cheka - arguably not a bad organisation in itself - but he initiated some of its worst excesses.)

The prime reason that the Soviet Union vanquished the German fascists was not due to anything to be put at the feet of Stalin - that gives him far too much credit. It was the indomitable determination of the working Russian masses, who, against all odds, refused to succumb to Nazi barbarism and slavery. The Russian people displayed an unrelenting fighting spirit, which absorbed the sacrifice of more than 20 million of their own. It was a tragic, but glorious, moment of overriding resistance and perseverance. No-one should give an iota of merit to this self-seeking, deluded opportunist, Stalin, for what the Russian people accomplished. He certainly did not have a “decisive role in saving Europe and potentially the world”, as Tony Clark declares. The accolades should be reserved for the Russian people, whose existential fight should forever be memorialised and who have yet to be compensated for their noble struggle.

I would think that it’s crucially important for the international socialist movement to approach history in an objective, materialist manner. To look at the good and bad sides of past leaders is another suggestion offered in the Weekly Worker letters, which I wholeheartedly agree with, but at a certain point this becomes a ‘popular front’ attitude that goes against the rules of communist theory and practice: ambivalence and misconceptions are the seeds of annihilation.

Stalinism is a ‘here and now’ phenomenon, which is not in any fashion an exemplary, unadulterated communism and should be opposed firmly and decisively. The sooner the left can reckon with Stalinism (there’s more work to be done) and learn from the mistakes, the sooner it can further restore communism’s good name - a name which it exquisitely deserves. We should try to distil what’s valuable in our traditions, not repeat the old, tired talking points of Stalin’s political descendants.

GG
USA

Fine writers

I used to be a Palestine Solidarity Campaign member and still receive news letters from them. But I would like to address Andrew Northall’s regular criticism of Moshé Machover and Tony Greenstein for writing about Palestine because of their non-Palestinian origins. By implication or by stated remarks he is also criticising the paper. It is not a position taken by the paper, as that would be absurd: it just happens to be the case that these two fine writers are not Palestinian.

I’m sure that it wouldn’t take much effort by the paper or its readers who are active all over the country to simply contact the PSC or any other Palestinian group in the country and invite them to write to the letters page or even write an article from someone of Palestinian descent. It really isn’t an issue and is certainly not the fault of the paper/party. This is Britain after all, so we will one way or another mainly get a socialist perspective on our country and the rest of the world from British people.

Palestinian authorities are working in most countries of the world to get support for their cause and they welcome support from all the different nationalities, as any nation being bludgeoned to death would do. Celtic Football Club fans, by the way, continue to fly Palestinian flags and pro-Palestinian messages on match days, and Sinn Féin in Ireland are vocal supporters of Palestine. We can all do our bit to help the Palestinian people. Whoever we are or wherever we come from is not really relevant.

The massive demonstrations that have taken place in London and all across Britain and rocked the establishment, as you would imagine, mainly consist of British people. Palestinian authorities and Palestinian groups have been generous in their praise of this upsurge of support in most countries of the world. We work together to get the desired result, which is the end of war by the Zionist war machine against the mainly civilian population of Gaza, as well as West Bank, which is boiling over into Syria and Lebanon, Iraq and Iran, threatening a worldwide conflagration.

The guilty parties are the US, EU and UK. It is these criminal regimes that need to be challenged every step of the way and I don’t care what country in the world offers us support and what the national origin is of those prominent in this vast liberation movement. We are all human beings and what is happening in Gaza is a terrible human catastrophe, which cannot leave any heart unmoved.

Elijah Traven
Hull