USSR and Marxism

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Stalin and Ribbentrop sign the notorious 'Stalin-Hitler Pact' in 1939 IN HIS last writings (e.g. "The USSR in War', September 1939, to be found in 'In Defence of Marxism'), Trotsky accepted for the first time the theoretical possibility that the USSR could be considered a new form of class society on the basis of the existing bureaucratically collectivised economy.

Discussing the theoretical possibility, Trotsky nevertheless considered the conclusion premature.

For the remaining 11 months of his life, he very strongly argued from the position that collectivised property remained historically tied to the proletariat and the perspective of proletarian revolution. Max Shachtman and the SWP (USA) minority who in 1940 founded the Workers' Party developed the theoretical speculation of Trotsky in September 1939 into an attempt at a distinct analysis of Stalinism as a new form of class society. I think it is therefore possible to argue, as Laurens Otter does (letters, SO 110), that had Trotsky lived he would have developed an entirely different analysis to that which the so-called orthodox Trotskyists produced in response to the survival and expansion of the Stalinist system.

But we cannot know land if we did, that would not necessarily be the last word).

Mosi of the post-war Trotskyists developed the positions Trotsky actually fought on in 1939 and '40 and which he applied to the THE conference last weekend of the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science (BSSRS) was one of the largest yet, with over 150 socialist scientists attending. But I came away feeling disappointed and frustrated.

Though the discussion groups and the contributions from European speakers were useful, the discussion of strategies for socialist science in Britain was a low point — none were discussed!

And virtually all the speakers were white, middle-class men as well.

The speaker from France showed how Mitterrand's approach differed little from that of previous right-wing governments. While making gestures towards socially responsible science, in practice expans an of Stalinism into Eastern Poland and the Baltic states. I did concede in my reply to Glynis Powell that Trotsky saw Stalinism as a transitional phenomenon, and therefore that its survival and expansion had implications for the theory.

These cannot be decisive.:

My original article quoted Trotsky's 1940 assessment of what had happened in 1928, when the bureaucracy, in control of the state machine and having defeated the Communist opposition, defeated its bourgeois competitors for 'control of the surplus product'.

That too was a historie turning-point in the consolidation and stabilisation of *the rule of the bureaucracy. There too Trotsky's thinking had to change and develop.

He had, earlier, in a much quoted letter to the oppositionist Borodai, derived the (deformed) working class character of the USSR from the fact that the deformed revolutionary party remained at the centre of the state and could be reformed. That ceased to be true by the late '20s.

Some oppositionists therefore concluded that at that point the bureaucracy had to be considered a new ruling class.

Trotsky! He insisted that the nationalised property was now the decisive remnant of October, despite the complete political expropriationist and pollica inLogical 111 -consistency? No - a Marxist attempt to keep abreast of reality. For the loss of working class political power did not, as Trotsky nad feared, lead to bourg 01s counter-revolution anc the snuffing out of October. The bureaucracy developed, in its own twisted and oppressive way, the nationalised property rooted in the workers' revolution.

Trotsky related to , that and developed a working class programme accordingly. By 1933 he drew the conclusion that a working class political revolution was necessary to restore direct workers' power in the USSR and to realise the progressive potential of the nationalised property forms.

There is a parallel between Trotsky in 1928 and after, and the 1940s 'orthodox Trotskyists' . For the latter it was not a question of 'taking the line' from old texts but of analysing the world and specifically the survival and expansion of Comrade Otter has no grounds for certainty that Trotsky would have gone with Natalia and Grandizo Munis (saying the USSR was state capitalist) or with Max Shachtman (saying it was bureaucratic collectivist). • What the 'orthodox Trotskyists' made of their theories, and the origins of the recurring gravitation uf segments of them towards Stalinism — that's a significant question, and a big one. Those who have stood on the same degenerated/ deformed workers' state analysis and yet retained a Trotskyist hostility to all variants of Stalinism prove that the gravitation is not an inevitable consequence of the analysis.

Laurens Otter misses my point about repression: my original article surely dealt with the concrete oppression in the USSR. But when we are trying to classify the societies where Stalinist bureaucracies rule, it is not useful to talk about oppression on a level of abstraction which can accommodate all historical forms of class society.

Otter himself makes the same sort of mistake when, discussing one possible development of Trotsky's views, he talks about 'surplus value' '. This implies capitalism, not the 'bureaucratic collectivist' theory developed by Shachtman, which would have been the conclusion of Trotsky if he had pursued his theoretical speculation of September 1939.

JOHN O'MAHONY, London.

They join Doug Hoyle and John Golding. Outsider for the post of chair was Tony Benn though, as New Scientist points out, he "at least has experience in science and technology policy - unlike the new NEC nominees"!

Correction.

Readers were probably wondering where Chipko activists in India got the money to buy trees to save them from being chopped down. The answer is that they hug the trees - a more dangerous but cheaper way of protecting them. Apologies for my poor handwriting!

Contact SO Science 8PL. IN THD 108th issue of Socialist Organiser November 11, Alan Campbell asked 'Why support Mil itant?'. • read his arguments with interest.

While 1 share, reluctantly, some of the criticisms of Militant, with regard to women's rights, gay rights and the anti-nuclear campaign of CND, there is one argument I don't share. In fact I doubt that he has put over the issue of the Falklands correctly.

Would he like to quote 'chapter and verse' on this? Where did Militant ask its supporters to join the armed forces?

My reason in tackling Alan Campbell is to clarify in my mind at least, the role played by the Militant at present. I have heard on a few occasions recently descriptions of activities of the Militant that I find unrecognisable to me. Except for a few.

I shall not go through each issue in turn. On the issue, though, of the Register, four socialist groupings have come together to fight Golding's McArthyism. Yet the Militant, they whose aid I thought went, have appeared to cast off'this offer of cooperation. Indeed,. they have gone after the clothes of respectability' , Labourist 'respectability'. 'Please Sir, it wasn't me' Some years ago, Ron Hayward told a conference that 'No one should tell anybody else what sort of socialist they should be' Until now. Stalin and Beria were intent on deciding what sort of 'Communist' a Party member should be in the Soviet Union. Now Golding, Mortimer and Healy will be deciding what sort of 'socialist' Labour Party members should be.

To return to the question. Perhaps I should ask question instead. 'Why support Socialist Organiser?' [ a good answer may win you a recruit]. Socialist Challenge is the paper of the IMG. Newsline is the paper of the WRP. Socialist Worker is the mouthpiece of the SWP. Militant is the paper of ... I the RSL according to the Stalinists and their friends on the Labour Right].

So who do the Socialist Organiser speak for?

Yours for Socialism and Enlightenment, David J Lawton York Labour Party and NUPE • SOCIALIST ORGANISER is the paper of the Socialist Organiser Alliance. Membership of the local SOA groups is open to all supporters of the paper and policy is decided by regular meetings of delegates from these groups.

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cold shoulder