22.07.1999
Comrade 100%
Dave Craig looks at Trotsky on China
“We shall participate in the struggle under our slogans; above all, under the slogans of revolutionary and consistent (100%) democracy,” writes Trotsky in a letter to the Chinese Left Opposition in January 1931 (Leon Trotsky on China New York 1974, p497). I have already argued that Trotsky was a revolutionary democratic communist. So I accept that in the above statement Trotsky was not lying nor being a mendacious liberal Kautskyist. He was not a centrist nor an ultra-left, unlike some of his latter-day supporters. He was fighting on two fronts: against the centrists (ie, Stalinists) to the right, and against the ultra-leftists within his own Left Opposition.
This does not mean that we agree with everything Trotsky said or did. There is plenty of scope for disagreement within the camp of revolutionary democracy. To illustrate the arguments, I have chosen one article on ‘The slogan of a National Assembly in China’, written in April 1930, and one important paragraph from an article ‘On the slogan of soviets in China’ written in April 1927. These show Trotsky’s thinking on the constituent assembly and dual power. I have made a series of comments in square brackets to emphasise or criticise important points.
Trotsky 1930
It seems to me that our Chinese friends deal with the question of political slogans of democracy too metaphysically, even scholastically. The ‘intricacies’ begin with the name: constituent assembly or national assembly. In Russia until the revolution we used the slogan of a constituent assembly because it most clearly emphasised a break with the past. But you write that it is difficult to formulate this slogan in Chinese. If so, the slogan of a national assembly can be adopted.
In the consciousness of the masses, the slogan’s content will depend, firstly, on the implication revolutionary agitation gives it and, secondly, on events. [Similarly the content of the slogan of a federal republic will likewise depend on the same.] You ask, “Is it possible to carry on agitation for a constituent assembly while denying that it can be achieved?” But why should we decide in advance that it cannot be? Of course the masses will support the slogan only if they consider it feasible. Who will institute a constituent assembly [or a federal republic] and how will it function? Only suppositions are possible. [True.] In case of a further weakening of the military-Kuomintang regime and increasing discontent among the masses, particularly in the cities, it is possible that an attempt will be made by a part of the Kuomintang together with the ‘Third Party’, to convene something on the style of a national assembly. They will, of course, cut into the rights of the more oppressed classes and layers as much as they can.
Would we communists enter such a restricted and manipulated national assembly? If we are not strong enough to replace it - that is, to take power - we certainly would enter it. Such a stage would not at all weaken us. On the contrary, it would help us to gather together and develop the forces of the proletarian vanguard. Inside this spurious assembly, and particularly outside of it, we would carry on agitation for a new and more democratic assembly. If there were a revolutionary mass movement, we would simultaneously build soviets. [Trotsky is combining revolutionary agitation for bourgeois democratic demands with building soviets.] It is very possible that in such a case the petty bourgeois parties would convene a relatively more democratic national assembly, as a dam against the soviets. [But this does not frighten Trotsky or force him to drop bourgeois democratic demands.]Would we participate in this kind of assembly? Of course we would participate; again, only if we were not strong enough to replace the assembly with a higher form of government: that is, soviets. Such a possibility, however, reveals itself only at the apex of revolutionary ascent. But at the present time we are far from there. [If we are not at this apex where the transfer of power to soviets is possible and practical, we will continue to fight on the terrain of the bourgeois democratic republic.]
Even if there were soviets in China, which is not the case, this in itself would not be a reason to abandon the slogan of a national assembly. [Precisely.] The majority in the soviets might be and in the beginning would certainly be in the hands of the conciliatory and centrist parties and organisations. [Here is the clue as to why we cannot simply leap over dual power.] We would be interested in exposing them in the open forum of the national assembly. In this way, the majority would be won over to our side more quickly and more certainly. When we succeeded in winning a majority, we would counterpose the programme of the soviets to the programme of the national assembly [when the political situation and political consciousness among the masses has matured], we would rally the majority of the country around the banner of the soviets, and this would enable us, in deed and not on paper, to replace the national assembly, this parliamentary-democratic institution, with soviets, the organ of the revolutionary class dictatorship. [Trotsky’s ideas are based on the dialectical interrelations between assembly and soviets, until the class struggle makes the soviets ready for power. Dual power is the period in which the revolution ripens and matures.]
In Russia the Constituent Assembly lasted only one day. Why? Because it made its appearance too late; the soviet power was already in existence and came into conflict with it. In this conflict, the Constituent Assembly represented the revolution’s yesterday. But let us suppose that the bourgeois Provisional Government had been sufficiently decisive to convene the Constituent Assembly in March or April [1917]. Was that possible? Of course it was. The Cadets used every legal trick to drag out the convening of the Constituent Assembly in the hope that the revolutionary wave would subside. The Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries took their cue from the Cadets. If the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries had had a little more revolutionary drive, they could have convened the Constituent Assembly in a few weeks. Would we Bolsheviks have participated in the elections and in the assembly itself? Undoubtedly, for it was we who demanded all this time the speediest convening of the Constituent Assembly. [So much for the theory that the bourgeoisie (Cadets) or the petty bourgeoisie (Mensheviks and SRs) are the revolutionary democrats!]
Would the course of the revolution have changed to the disadvantage of the proletariat by an early convening of the assembly? Not at all. Perhaps you remember the representatives of the Russian propertied classes and, imitating them, also the conciliators were for postponing all the important questions of the revolution ‘until the constituent assembly’, meanwhile delaying its convening. This gave the landowners and capitalists a chance to mask to a certain degree their property interests in the agrarian question, industrial question, etc.
If the Constituent Assembly had been convened, let us say, in April 1917, then all the social questions would have confronted it. The propertied classes would have been compelled to show their cards; the treacherous role of the conciliators would have become apparent. The Bolshevik faction in the Constituent Assembly would have won the greatest popularity and this would have helped to elect a Bolshevik majority in the soviets. Under these circumstances the Constituent Assembly would have lasted not one day, but possibly several months. This would have enriched the political experience of the working masses and, rather than retard the proletarian revolution, would have accelerated it. [Again during dual power, the revolutionary political experience of the working class is developed.] This in itself would have been of the greatest significance. If the second revolution had occurred in July or August instead of October, the army at the front would have been less exhausted and weakened and the peace with the Hohenzollerns might have been more favourable to us. Even if we assume that the proletarian revolution would not have come a single day sooner because of the Constituent Assembly, the school of revolutionary parliamentarism would have left its mark on the political level of the masses, making our tasks the day after the October revolution much easier.
Is this type of variant possible in China? It is not excluded. To imagine and expect that the Chinese Communist Party can jump from the present conditions of the rule of the unbridled bourgeois-military cliques, the oppression and dismemberment of the working class, and the extraordinarily low ebb of the peasant movement to the seizure of power is to believe in miracles. [The same miracle that the SWP believe - they would have us leaping from Tony Blair’s constitutional monarchy to the seizure of power in one go.] In practice this leads to adventurist guerrilla activity [or other forms of pathetic SWP-style economism], which the Comintern is now covertly supporting. We must condemn this policy and guard the revolutionary workers from it. [Absolutely.]
The political mobilisation of the proletariat in leadership of the peasant masses is the first task that must be solved under the present circumstances - the circumstances of the military-bourgeois counterrevolution. The power of the suppressed masses is in their numbers. When they awaken they will strive to express their strength of numbers politically by means of universal suffrage. [There is no reason to assume that such political awakening would not take similar form in bourgeois democracies.] The handful of communists already know that universal suffrage is an instrument of bourgeois rule and that this rule can be liquidated only by means of the proletarian dictatorship. [Of course we do.] You can educate the proletarian vanguard in this spirit beforehand. But the millions of the toiling masses can be drawn to the dictatorship of the proletariat only on the basis of their own political experience, and the national assembly would be a progressive step on this road. This is why we raise this slogan in conjunction with four other slogans of the democratic revolution: the transfer of the land to the peasant poor, the eight-hour working day, the independence of China, and the right of self-determination of the nationalities included in the territory of China.
It is understood that we cannot rule out the perspective - it is theoretically admissible - that the Chinese proletariat, leading the peasant masses and basing itself on soviets, will come to power before the achievement of a national assembly in one or another form. [Nothing can be ruled out.] But for the immediate period at any rate this is improbable, because it presupposes the existence of a powerful and centralised revolutionary party of the proletariat. In its absence, what other force will unite the revolutionary masses of your gigantic country? Meanwhile it is our misfortune that there is no strong centralised Communist Party in China; it has yet to be formed. The struggle for democracy is precisely the necessary condition for that. [This is an excellent point and relevant for those interested in building such a party in the UK.] The slogan of the national assembly [or federal republic in the UK] would bring together the scattered regional movements and uprisings, give them political unity, and create the basis for forging the Communist Party as the leader of the proletariat and all the toiling masses on a national scale.
That is why the slogan of the national assembly on the basis of universal, direct, equal, secret ballot must be raised as energetically as possible, and a courageous, resolute struggle developed around it [a real revolutionary democratic attitude, not found amongst our sterile British economists]. Sooner or later the sterility of the purely negative position of the Comintern and the official leadership of the Chinese Communist Party [and the economistic British SWP] will be mercilessly exposed. The more decisively the communist Left Opposition initiates and develops its campaign for democratic slogans, the sooner this will happen. [Excellent.] The inevitable collapse of the Comintern policy will greatly strengthen the Left Opposition and help it to become the decisive force in the Chinese proletariat”.
Trotsky 1927
But wouldn’t soviets mean dual power for an indefinite period? On one side would be the national-revolutionary government (if, when thoroughly reorganised, it holds its own and experiences an upturn), and on the other side, the soviets. Yes, this means dual power or elements of dual power. [This is a republic with dual power.]
“But we were against dual power.” [Trotsky here is quoting his own left Trotskyist allies and soon gives his own answer.] We were against a dual-power regime insofar as we were striving to seize power ourselves as the proletarian party. We were for dual power, ie, a system of soviets - while there was a Provisional [ie, republican] Government insofar as soviets restricted any bourgeois pretensions to dictatorship. Dual power during the February revolution was progressive insofar as it contained new revolutionary possibilities. [Trotsky is recognising the contradictory and two-sided aspect of dual power.] But this progressiveness was only temporary. [Absolutely correct.] The way out of the contradiction was the proletarian dictatorship. [Obviously.] Dual power lasted only eight months in our case. In China this transitional regime [or transitional republic] under certain conditions could last considerably longer, and vary in different parts of the country. To call for and begin organising soviets means in fact to begin introducing in China elements of dual power. This is both necessary and healthy. [Barry Biddulph please note.] This alone will open up further prospects of a revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. [Even after the April thesis!] Without this, all talk about this dictatorship [by left Trotskyists] is simply chatter, which the Chinese popular masses know nothing about”.