SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 1934 THE MILITANT PAGE THE SOVIET UNION THE 4th INTERNATIONAL The Class Nature of the Soviet State. by Leon Trotsky How the Question is Posed The break with the Communist International and the orientation toward the New International have posed anew the question of the social character of the Doesn the collapse of the Communist International also mean at the same time the collapse of that state which emerged from the October Revolution? Here, indeed, in both instance one and the same ruling organization is concerned: the Stalinist apparatus. It had applied identical methods within the as in the international arena.
We, Marxists, were never patrons of the double bookkeep ing system of the Brandlerites according to which the policies of the Staliinsts are impeccable in the but ruinous outside the boundaries of It is our convietion that they are equally ruinous in both instances. If so, isn it then necessary to recognize the simultaneous collapse of the Communist International and the liquidation of the proletarian dictatorship in the At first sight such reasoning appears to be irrefutable.
But it is erroneous. While the methods of the Stalinist bureaucracy are homogeneous in all spheres, the objective results of these methods depend upon external conditions, or to use the language of mechanics, the resistivity of the material. The Communist International represented an instrument that was intended for the overthrow of the capitalist system and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Soviet government represents an instrument for the preservation of conquests of an already accomplished overturn. The Communist parties of the West have no inherited capital. Their strength (in reality, their weakness) lies within themselves and only within themselves. Ninetenths of the strength of the Stalinist apparatus lies not in itself but in the social changes wrought by the victorious revolution. Still, this consideration alone does not decide the question: but it does bear a great methodological significance. It shows us how and why the Stalinist apparatus could completely squander its meaning as the international revolutionary factor, and yet preserve a part of its progres sive meaning as the gate keeper of the social conquests of the proletarian revolution. This dual position we may add represents in itself one of the manifestations of the unevenness of historical development.
The correct policies of a workers state are not reducible solely to national economic construction. If the revolution does not expand on the international arena along the proletarian spiral, it must immutably begin to contract along the bureaucratic spiral within the national framework.
If the dictatorship of the proletariat does not become European and world wide, it must head towards its own collapse.
All this is entirely incontestable on a wide historical perspective. But everything revolves around the concrete historical periods. Can one say that the policies of the Stalinist bureaucracy have led already to the liquidation of the workers state? That is the question now.
Against the assertion that the workers state is appar ently already liquiduted there arises first and foremost the important methodological position of Marxism. The dictatorship of the proletariat was established by means of a political overturn and a civil war of three years. The class theory of society and historical experience both equally testify to the impossibility of the victory of the proletariat through peaceful methods, that is, without grandiose class battles, weapons in hand. How, in that case, is the imper ceptible, gradual. bourgeois counter revolution conceivable? Until now, in any case, feudal as well as bourgeois counter revolutions have never taken place organically hut they have invariably required the intervention of military surgery. In the last analysis the theories of reformism, in so far as reformism generally has attained to theory, are always based upon the inability to understand that class antagonisms are profound and irreconcilable; hence, the perspective of a peaceful transformation of capitalism into socinlism. The Marxian thesis relating to the catastrophie character of the transfer of power from the hands of one class into the hands of another applies not only to revolutionary periods, when history madly sweeps ahead, but also to the periods of counter revolution when society rolls backwards. He who asserts that the Soviet government has been the question; the economic polley of the Stalinista, if you please Sage American Branderlter(the Lovestone group) compleate impeccable, but the political regime in he is bad: there is no democracy. It does not occur to these theoreticians to ask themselves why then does Stalin qaldate democracy when his economie policies are correct and successfut? Isnt it out of fear that it proletarian democracy obtained, the party and the working class would express much too restlessly and violently their enthus lasm over his economie policies?
gradually changed from proletarian to bourgeois is only, so to speak, running backwards the film of reformism.
Our opponents may gainsay, this is a general methodologie proposition and that no matter how important in itself it is nevertheless too abstract to solve the question.
Truth is always concrete. The thesis of the irreconcilability of class contradictions should and must direct us in our analysis but cannot replace its results. One must probe deeply into the material content of the historical process itself.
We reply, it is true, a methodological argument does not exhaust the problem. But in any case it transfers the burden of proof to the opposing side. Critics, who consider themselves Marxists, must demonstrate in what manner the bourgeoisie that had lost power in a three years struggle could resume this power without any battles. How ever, since our opponents make no attempt to invest their appraisal of the Soviet state with any sort of serious theorctical expression we shall try to perform this labor for them here. The Dictatorship over the Proletariat The most widespread, popular and at first sight irrefutable argument in favor of the non proletarian character of the present Soviet state is based upon the reference to the strangulation of the liberties of proletarian organizations and to the almightiness of the bureaucracy. Is it really possible to identify the dictatorship of an apparatus, which has led to the dictatorship of a single person, with the dictatorship of the proletariat as a class? Isn it clear that the dictatorship of the proletariat is excluded by the dictatorship over the proletariat?
Such enticing reasoning is constructed not upon materialistic analysis of the process as it develops in reality but upon pure idealistic schemas, upon the Kantian norms. Certain noble friends of the revolution have provided themselves with a very radiant conception of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and they are completely prostrated in the face of the fact that the real dictatorship with all its heritage of class barbarism, with all its internal contradictions, with the mistakes and crimes of the leadership fails entirely to resemble that sleek image which they have provided Disillusioned in their most beautiful emotions they turn their backs to the Soviet Union.
Where and in what books can one find a faultless prescription for a proletarian dictatorship? The dictatorship of a class does not mean by a long shot that its entire mass always participates in the management of the state. This we have seen, first of all, in the case of the propertied classes The nobility ruled through the monarchy before which the noble stood on his knees. The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie took on comparatively developed democratic forms only under the conditions of capitalist upswing when the ruling class had nothing to fear. Before our own eyes, democracy has been supplanted in Germany by Hitler autocracy, with all the traditional bourgeois parties smashed to smithereens. Today, the German bourgeoisie does not rule directly, politically it is placed under complete subjection to Hitler and his bands. Nevertheless, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie remains inviolate in Germany, because all the conditions of its social hegemony have been preserved and strengthened. By expropriating the bourgeoisie politically Hitler saved it, even if temporarily, from economic expropriation. The fact that the bourgeoisie was compelled to resort to the Fascist regime testifies to the fact that its hegemony was endangered but not at all that it had fallen.
Anticipating our subsequent arguments, our opponents will hasten to refute: although the bourgeoisie, as an exploiting minority can also preserve its hegemony by means of a Fascist dictatorship, the proletariat building a socialist society must manage its government itself, directly drawing ever wider masses of the people into the task of government.
In its general form, this argument is undebatable, but in the given case it merely means that the present Soviet dictatorship is a sick dictatorship. The frightful difficulties of Socialist construction in an isolated and backward country coupled with the false policies of the leadership which in the last analysis also reflects the pressure of backwardness and isolation have led to the result that the bureaucracy has expropriated the proletariat politically in order to guard its social conquests with its own methods. The anatomy of society is determined by its economic relation. So long as the forms of property that have been created by the Octber revolution are not overthrown, the proletariat remains the ruling class.
Dissertations upon the dictatorship of the bureaucracy over the proletariat without a much deeper analysis, that is, without a clear explanation of the social roots and the class limits of bureaucratic domination, boil down merely to high falluting democratic phrases so extremely popular among the Mensheviks. One need not doubt that the overwhelming majority of Soviet workers are dissatisfied with the bureaucracy and that a considerable section, by no means the worst, hates it. However, it is not only due to repressions that this dissatisfaction does not assume violent mass forms: the workers fear that they will clear the field for the class enemy, if they overthrow the bureaucracy.
The inter relations between the bureaucracy and the class are really much more complex than they appear to be to the frothy democrats. The Soviet workers would have settled accounts with the despotism of the apparatus had other perspectives opened before them, had the Western horizon famed not with the brown color of Fascism but with the red of revolution. So long as this does not happen, the proletariat with clenched teeth bears. tolerates. the bureaucracy, and in this sense recognizes it as the bearer of the proletarian dictatorship In a heart to heart conversation, no Soviet worker would be sparing of strong words addressed to the Stalinist bureaucracy. But not a single one of them would allow that the counter revolution has already taken place. The proletariat is the spine of the Soviet state. But in so far as the function of governing is concentrated in the hands of an irresponsible bureaucracy we have before us an obviously sick state Can it be cured?
Will not further attempts at cures mean a fruitless expendi ture of precious time? The question is badly put. By cures we understand not all sorts of artificial measures separate and Apart from the world revolutionarxism. Mercimovement but a further struggle under the banner of less criticism of the Stalinist bureaucracy, training the cadres of the New International, resurrecting the fighting capacity of the world proletarian vanguard this is the essence of the cure. It coincides with the fundamental direction of historical progress.
During the last few years appropriately enough our opponents have told us more than once that we ware losing time in vain by occupying ourselves with curing the Comintern. We never promised anybody that we would cure the Comintern. We only refused, until the decisive test, to pronounce the sick as dead, or hopelessly ill. In any case, we did not waste a single day euring. We formed revolutionary cadres, and, what is no less important, we prepared the fundamental theoretical and programmatic positions of the new International.
The Dictatorship of the Proletariat as an Idealistic Norm Messrs. Kantian sociologists (we apologize to the shade of Kant) often reach the conclusion that real dictatorship, that is one which conforms to their ideal norms existed only in the days of the Paris Commune, or during the first period of the October revolution, up to the BrestLitovsk peace or, at best, up to the NEP. This is indeed sharpshooting: sim a finger at the sky and hit the bull eye! If Marx and Engels called the Paris Commune the dictatorship of the proletariat it was only because of the force of the possibilities lodged in it. But by itself the Commune was not yet the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Having scized power, it hardly knew how to use it; instead of assuming the offensive, it waited; it remained isolated within the circle of Paris; it dared not touch the state bank; it did not and indeed could not put through the overturn in property relations because it did not wield power on a national scale. To this must be added Blanquist one sided ness and Proudhonist prejudices which prevented even the leaders of the movement from completely understanding the Commune as the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The reference to the first period of the October revolution is not any more fortunate. Not only up to the BrestLitovsk peace but even up to autumn of 1918, the social content of the revolution was restricted to a petty bourgeois agrarian overturn and workers control over production.
This means that the revolution in its actions had not yet passed the boundaries of bourgeois society. During this first period soldiers soviets ruled side by side with workers soviets, and often elbowed them aside. Only toward the autumn of 1918, did the pretty bourgeois soldier agrarian elemental wave recede a little to its shores and the workers went forward with the nationalization of the means of production. Only from this time can one speak of the inception of a real dictatorship of the proletariat. But even here it is necessary to make certain large reservations.
During those initial years the dictatorship was geographically confined to the old Mosoew principality and was compelled to wage a three years war along all the radii from Moscow to the periphery. This means that up to 1921, precisely up to the NEP that is, what went on was still the struggle to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat upon the national scale. And since, in the opinion of the pseudoMarxist philistines, the dictatorship had disappeared with the beginning of the NEP, then it means that, in general, it had never existed To these gentlemen the dictatorship of the proletariat is simply an imponderable concept, an ideal norm not to be realized upon sinful planet. Small wonder that theoreticians of this stripe, insofar as they do not renounce altogether the very word dictatorship, strive to smear over the irreconcilable contradiction between the latter and bourgeois democracy, Extremely characteristic, from the laboratory and not the political point of view, is the Parisian sect of Communist democrats (Souvarine Co. The very name already implies a break with Marxism. In the critique of the Gotha program, Marx rejected the name social dem ocracy in view of the fact that it places the revolutionary socialist struggle under the formal control of democracy.
It is quite obvious that there is no difference in principle between Communist democrats and socialist democrats. social democrats that is. There is ahrd and fast partition between socialism and communism. Transgression begins only when socialism and communism as a movement or as a state is subordinated not to the actual course of the class struggle, not to the material conditions of the histrical process but to the supra social and supra historical abstraction, democracy which in reality is a weapon of self defense serving the bourgeoisie against the proletarian dictatorship. If during the epoch of the Gotha Program it was still possible to see in the word social democracy only an incorrect and non scientific name for a proletarian party, whose spirit was healthy, then the entire subsequent history of bourgeois and social democracy turns the banner of democratic communism. into the banner of an outright class betrayal.
Bonapartism An opponent of the Urbahns type will say that there has been really no restoration of the bourgeois regime as yet but also there is no longer a workers state; the present soviet regime is a supra class or an inter class Bonapartist government. In its own time we sctteld our accounts with this theory. Historically, Bonapartism was and remains the government of the bourgeoisie during periods of crises in bourgeois society. It is possible and it is necessary to distinguish between the progressive Bonapartism that consolidates the purely capitalistic conquests of bourgeois revolution and the Bonapartism of the decay of capitalist society, the convulsive Bonapartism of our epoch (von Papen Schleicher, Dolfuss, and the candidate for Dutch Bonapartism, Colijn, etc. Bonapartism always implies political veering between classes; but under Bonapartisin in all its historical transmigrations there is preserved the one and the same social base; bourgeois property. Nothing is more absurd than to draw the conclusion of the classless character of the Bonapartist state from the Bonapartist wagging between classes or from the supra class position of the Bonapartist gang. Monstrous nonsense! Bonapartism is only one of the varieties of capitalist hegemony.
If Urbahns wants to extend the concept of Bonapartism to include also the present soviet regime then we are ready to accept such a widened interpretation under one condition: if the social content of the Soviet Bonapartism will be defined with the requisite clarity. It is absolutely correct that the self rule of the Soviet bureaucracy was built upon the soil of veering between class forces both internal as well as international. Insofar as the bureaucratie veering has been crowned by the personal plebiscitary regime of Stalin, it is possible to speak of soviet Bonapartism. But while the Bonapartism of both Bonapartes as well as their present pitiful followers has developed and is developing on the basis of a bourgeois regime, the Bonapartism of soviet bureaucracy has under it the soil of a soviet regime. Terminoogical innovations or historical analogies can serve as conveniences in one manner or another for analysis but they cannot change the social nature of the soviet state. Those who are interested. If there are such, may become ac quainted with the platform of communist. democrats them.
Belves. From the viewpoint of the fundamentals of Marxism it is difficult to conceive of a more charlatanistie document. To be continued)
Discussion Articles ter und Lethe political notice of of the new serve of American capitalism is now Days, patterned to the present Am the ensulag difficulties and political, Only complete unification being put in the most precarlous crea situation, which will be the consequences to its rule over the the national economy under the outlived modes of producttou apa of nique of world economy and the JUST OFF THE PRESS!
but by necessity, for the crisis is October. providing the internationell in the state under stress of suttice for the continuation of capt Here in America at that time we IN JEWISH still in ita left ward flood counter alist revolutionists are there in internal contradictions currents not withstanding. the miss, at the time, with the nos Contradictions of Roosevelt Regime essary clarity in leadership and The Imperialist State begins to the rule of finance Function of Imperialist State of Pascism is needed to stabilize Capitalism and more of Finance THE FOURTH INTERNATION.
Capital, AL AND THE SOVIET UNION organization of its artisans and this revolt of desperation will be thought the interests of the tenets of its Co, as was the case and inspirers of each measure that (The Class Nature of the lumpen proletariat, and could coun but another 177 88, 93. for the Amtion are the Interests of Plannce of Italy, Germany, etc. Stade deprives tho petty bourgeoise, the Sovlet State)
The NRA cannot be separatedustries, social insurance of a lance them widely feat with the resulting decisive dealth voternational bankers (a Fascism to the extent that its tmdcm, their democracy and their from Roosevelt Administration. Inds, etc. is meeting this popular therefore the requirements Capitalism 18 praetud mude darmers and workers of thely free pensantry with a far more erican working class, a reaction of our by LEON TROTSKY nor from its other Acts such an awakening with a similar programa taxes upon its land gentry and no 11. State Capitalism and the the economy bill, the banking laws of Reforms. In France the mobility. Roosevelt has to rob three the. In this pamphlet comrade Corporate State demand that this and that internal demand certain measures of this be the Imperialist Bankers.
The NRA has been accredited by contradiction, which will work it kind for the continuation of the the revaluation of the dollar. Let Heular regime that applied this million war veterans and govern CLEM FORSEN.
Trotsky discusses the problem us thumb through the pages of polley bent back the tory to find a similar bourgeois re for the Social Reebin revoltment employees; he had to subsid every brand of social reformistus self out if given enough time, nedure of Finance capital and capital that has been uppermost in the Immediate iam itselt.
minds of all revolutionary work gime. We need to go back to the with the strength it had glued to 1861 ize a mass of farmers by taxes upon bawing elements of state capital to be solved now in the in MINNEAPOLIS OPEN FORUM ers, since the Left Opposition days when the Communist Mani from its policy only. In tur to doles of the working class; le has bek again to Liberal tuture, in order that we can set State Form of Finance Capital the and as to our next LECTURES proclaimed the need of the the of state capitaistab at the competitor powers. The Yourth International: The proolution had shaken Europe. The Empire of counter revolution burden of feeding the netoployed Ism has been bandied about, as dificulty may be over capitalizou, that state capitallsm is nothing January 14th, at P.
blem of the Soviet Union. Are Example of 1851 Insurretion from over bonded cities and cous though the Amedoan proletariat, antiquated small industry and trade. but the reflection of the concea IS THE ROOSEVELT PROGRAM Itself to victorious bourgeoisie in we to build a new party in the ties to equally debt ridden mall which has in the main no BRINGING RECOVERY Soviet Union? Do we proclaim France. cruel, cynical reform. Trotsky has pointed out that the land middle trude and Industry in the for ordinary capitally. The remedy 18 plan similar to trated economic power of finance seu the NRA, which will establish capital of a nation in the Speaker: WILLIAM KITT La Parland tebe. o tale practice by place toate. The Corporate State of LENIN MEMORIAL MEETING Ism to meet social eslls was but Insurrection of the Parisian teorder to protect the bigger banking to priekop kind of capital. tbe stronger, more efficient plants re of the capitalist January 21st, at P.
that there is no longer a proletariat la 1851, an outburst of anger He has to organize not artisans turian dictatorship in the forward by the ruling bourgeois agninst the fraud, deceit, and sparsely scattered cities but a high am be is being faced with. Since will quickly rule and eliminate the Dascism in the consistent state workonnt workshop, public cruelty of the clique. Are we for a new revoluols reform gov. Industrial, socially powerful pro no Marxian theoretician has yet small inefficient workshops. This form for the rule of finance capital.
tion to depose the rule of statin and tactical financial reorganiza armies, thieving econotourgeois Metro the dynamic letariat of forty milions in order to conceded that there can be an coon will speed up the natural process Under it all the economne force Iteld at: 1530 Franklin Avenue ism? Also other questions hav.
tions and moves, subsidies to the the social revolution, the July perpetrate a fraud, on breacher tromy that is pure state capital of elimination, and make the of the nation are at the disposat Auspices. Minneapolis Branch. Communist Leilgue of America ing a bearing on the peasantry, etc. were the elements Days which were necesary pre trust of of a state polley designed to seg requisite for the Paris Commune. a recklessly moving nation.
upon ist, why this term at the Marxists weetlon economie power stronger of Imperialism. But let 18 not over estimate the strength of this 32 pp. 10e for all to describe a phen more quickly.
Bundles of or more cents mentate the lower classes and to Between these order from monarchy Utoplangoclan the Bighteenth Brumaire of Louis Border the world make an a hela frequently under imperialism, the whole nation (that is Paance and weakness of a national cap. IN THE COMING STRUGGLES bring necessary breaks from the more in which UNSER KAMF stsliberals, Industrialists and Bonaparte. This was because, in England and France have such bette Capital s) future is at stake. The talist economy, which seeks to 126 East 10th St. New York.
Imperialism is the rule of Finan. remedy is to monopolizet avold with national modness the social Speaker: part to do. The Second Republic classes or Vity of the JACK WEBER of France rated itself up on the this form of reactionary state rull contributions to the Permanent omy and its state for the purpose and the municlous works, by estabelech separate national unit to con Friday evening, Jan. 15th, P.
guns of the nation at Militant Hall Fascist state at the same time 154 Watkins Street, Brooklyn, THE MILITANT former clasies being hoclalist. the Roosevelt regime and the Social Stachtne of the words, Mellons, the throughout the world. Finance trol of others, in order to regulate packs within the shell of national Aurpees: Brooklyn Branch, no matter isorember 28, 1928, at the artisans, and pants. The two surface first. How will it fare for right sabotages. the Republican particular power and intinence some enterprises, government con Entered as a second class mall moinded, were demanding a Soral camp for whom he holds the stad merchantils and action des power in the state due to the domenament money everywhere noted for the basic, most highly exple republie! The capitalist met this of power!
ternational Workers School Post Office at New York, Un.
der the act of March 3, 1870.
new stage of its revolution that he When the avalanche of paper baltonary church thuas lving the inant position it holds in the econ sary. All warring powers applied live contradiction of capitalist Published the appropriation by intense The Roosevelt regime which hnsried with him whole sections of the ernment of transition.
case may be that of a Capital PARTY IS NECESSARY FOR been swept into power upon the political system by, which lance! The NRA can have ass poll operation of the blind economic law democratie rule, when the exploited contradiction when jarred by the one great rest of the world. The ordinary and continued expansion in ist nation caught in the crisis o practising what is known as netej paper ballots of the lower classes Sapete barbanken Toe been done theelical developinent in Ameria, which of capitalisme Leader. com of capitalism. Thus becomes a mortal THE EMANCIPATUT THE WORKING Martin Abera James Contor Max shachtmon Maurice who in practical Affirmative: HUGO OEHLER Arne Swabock Ileash by bribes or connd out and within, for the latter seeks of Communist League things which only a Workers Govtional two party systere allowed it other effects upon the social con of wealth and sconomic power when the Internal to solve by social revolution through Vol. VII, No. Whole No. 205)
Negative: WEINER ernment con glve (cheap govern to use its of the SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 1934 ownership of bankes and true Test, oldest, most re sciousness of the proletariat, And Finance Capital at the expense of are augmented by external barriers the Dictatorship of the Proletariat ment, a social dollar, Sunday, January 7th, P.
lo Le Party ng that is the inevitable outburst of small anit Independent capitalist, to expansion. The Nation (finance to World Socialism, the Subscription rate. 00 per year shock contracte tech at Marine Workers Hall Forelga 50 cents per copy enormous. dimensione was to be release the set for den eneste the prenehmen Bootvet ismin terstone elementos para o de cupation. The mattoa. As dit nevoie her world war tots els noms reproductions RESOLVED THAT POLITICAL league of America Opposition)