In Defense of Marxism Leon Trotsky 1942 ii In Defense of Marxism IN DEFENSE OF MARXISM IS LEON TROTSKY’S PREMIER DEFENSE OF THE MARXIST METHOD OF A DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM.THIS WORK IS A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS AND LETTERS TO MEMBERS OF THE US SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY FROM 1939 TO 1940. THE SWP WAS INVOLVED IN A BITTER INTERNAL DEBATE OVER THE CLASS NA- TURE OF THE SOVIET UNION, THE NATURE OF STALINISM AND THE FUTURE OF THE SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY AS A REVOLUTIONARY PARTY.IN DEFENSE OF MARXISM IS TROTSKY’S CONTRIBUTION TO THIS DEBATE. IN DEFENSE OF MARXISM WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN AN UNCOPYRIGHTED EDITION BY PIO- NEER PUBLISHERS IN 1942 FROM WHICH THIS ON-LINE VERSION HAS BEEN TRANSCRIBED BY DAVID WALTERS IN 1998. THIS VERSION BY DIMITRI VERSTRAETEN IN 2002. ADDITIONAL INFO IS ADDED FROM THE NEW PARK EDITION OF THIS BOOK (ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 1972, 4TH IMPRES- SION IN 1984) Contents A Letter to James P. Cannon . 1 The USSR in War . 3 A Letter to Sherman Stanley . 21 Again and Once More Again on the Nature of the USSR . 23 The Referendum and Democratic Centralism . 32 A Letter to Sherman Stanley . 33 A Letter to James P. Cannon . 36 A Letter to Max Shachtman . 38 A Letter to James P. Cannon . 43 A Petty-Bourgeois Opposition in the Socialist Workers Party . 44 A Letter to John G. Wright . 63 A Letter to Max Shachtman . 64 Four Letters to the National Committee Majority . 65 A Letter to Joseph Hansen . 70 An Open Letter to Comrade Burnham . 72 A Letter to James P. Cannon . 94 A Letter to Farrell Dobbs . 95 A Letter to John G. Wright . 97 A Letter to James P. Cannon . 98 A Letter to William F. Warde . 99 A Letter to Joseph Hansen . 100 From a Scratch – To the Danger of Gangrene . 102 A Letter to Martin Abern . 148 iii iv In Defense of Marxism Two Letters to Albert Goldman . 150 Back to the Party . 152 ”Science and Style” . 155 A Letter to James P. Cannon . 157 A Letter to Joseph Hansen . 158 Three Letters to Farrell Dobbs . 160 Petty-Bourgeois Moralists and the Proletarian Party . 165 Balance Sheet of the Finnish Events . 169 A Letter to James P. Cannon . 178 A Letter to Albert Goldman . 179 On the ”Workers” Party . 180 A Letter to Albert Goldman . 184 A Letter to Chris Andrews . 186 Leon Trotsky 1 A Letter to James P. Cannon September 12, 1939. Dear Jim: I am writing now a study on the social character of the USSR in connection with the war question. The writing, with its translation, will take at least one week more. The fundamental ideas are as follows: 1. Our definition of the USSR can be right or wrong, but I do not see any reason to make this definition dependent on the German-Soviet pact. 2. The social character of the USSR is not determined by her friend- ship with democracy or fascism. Who adopts such a point of view becomes a prisoner of the Stalinist conception of the People’s Front epoch. 3. Who says that the USSR is no more a degenerate workers’ state, but a new social formation, should clearly say what he adds to our political conclusions. 4. The USSR question cannot be isolated as unique from the whole his- toric process of our times. Either the Stalin state is a transitory for- mation, it is a deformation of a worker state in a backward and iso- lated country, or ’bureaucratic collectivism’1 is a new social forma- tion which is replacing capitalism throughout the world (Stalinism, Fascism, New Deals, etc.). The terminological experiments (workers’ state, not workers’ state; class, not class; etc.) receive a sense only un- der this historic aspect. Who chooses the second alternative admits, openly or silently, that all the revolutionary potentialities of the world proletariat are exhausted, that the socialist movement is bankrupt, and that the old capitalism is transforming itself into ’bureaucratic collectivism’ with a new exploiting class. The tremendous importance of such a conclusion is self-explanatory. It con- cerns the whole fate of the world proletariat and mankind. Have we the slightest right to induce ourselves by purely terminological experiments in a new historic conception which occurs to be in an absolute contradiction with our program, strategy and tactics? Such an adventuristic jump would be doubly criminal now in view of the world war when the perspective of the socialist revolution becomes an imminent reality and when the case of the USSR will appear to everybody as a transitorial episode in the process of world socialist revolution. 1Bruno R., La Bureaucratisation du Monde; Paris 1939 2 In Defense of Marxism I write these lines in haste, which explains their insufficiency, but in a week I hope to send you my more complete thesis. Comradely greetings, V. T. O. [Leon Trotsky]2 2Because of the conditions of his residence in the various countries in which he lived after his exile, Trotsky often used pseudonyms in his letters. His letters were frequently signed with the name of his English secretary. (New Park edition) Leon Trotsky 3 The USSR in War The German-Soviet Pact and the Character of the USSR Is it possible after the conclusion of the German-Soviet pact to consider the USSR a workers’ state? The future of the Soviet state has again and again aroused discussion in our midst. Small wonder; we have before us the first experiment in the workers’ state in history. Never before and nowhere else has this phenomenon been available for analysis. In the question of the so- cial character of the USSR, mistakes commonly flow, as we have previously stated, from replacing the historical fact with the programmatic norm. Con- crete fact departs from the norm. This does not signify, however, that it has overthrown the norm; on the contrary, it has reaffirmed it, from the neg- ative side. The degeneration of the first workers’ state, ascertained and explained by us, has only the more graphically shown what the workers’ state should be, what it could and would be under certain historical condi- tions. The contradiction between the concrete fact and the norm constrains us not to reject the norm but, on the contrary, to fight for it by means of the revolutionary road. The program of the approaching revolution in the USSR is determined on the one hand by our appraisal of the USSR as an objective historical fact, and on the other hand, by a norm of the workers’ state. We do not say: ”Everything is lost, we must begin all over again.” We clearly indicate those elements of the workers’ state which at the given stage can be salvaged, preserved, and further developed. Those who seek nowadays to prove that the Soviet-German pact changes our appraisal of the Soviet state take their stand, in essence, on the posi- tion of the Comintern — to put it more correctly, on yesterday’s position of the Comintern. According to this logic, the historical mission of the work- ers’ state is the struggle for imperialist democracy. The ”betrayal” of the democracies in favor of fascism divests the USSR of its being considered a workers’ state. In point of fact, the signing of the treaty with Hitler sup- plies only an extra gauge with which to measure the degree of degeneration of the Soviet bureaucracy, and its contempt for the international working class, including the Comintern, but it does not provide any basis whatso- ever for a reevaluation of the sociological appraisal of the USSR. Are the Differences Political or Terminological? Let us begin by posing the question of the nature of the Soviet state not on the abstract-sociological plane but on the plane of concrete-political tasks. Let us concede for the moment that the bureaucracy is a new ”class” and that the present regime in the USSR is a special system of class exploitation. 4 In Defense of Marxism What new political conclusions follow for us from these definitions? The Fourth International long ago recognized the necessity of overthrowing the bureaucracy by means of a revolutionary uprising of the toilers. Nothing else is proposed or can be proposed by those who proclaim the bureaucracy to be an exploiting ”class”. The goal to be attained by the overthrow of the bureaucracy is the reestablishment of the rule of the soviets, expelling from them the present bureaucracy. Nothing different can be proposed or is proposed by the leftist critics3. It is the task of the regenerated soviets to collaborate with the world revolution and the building of a socialist society. The overthrow of the bureaucracy therefore presupposes the preservation of state property and of planned economy. Herein is the nub of the whole problem. Needless to say, the distribution of productive forces among the various branches of economy and generally the entire content of the plan will be drastically changed when this plan is determined by the interests not of the bureaucracy but of the producers themselves. But inasmuch as the question of overthrowing the parasitic oligarchy still remains linked with that of preserving the nationalized (state) property, we called the future revolution political. Certain of our critics (Ciliga, Bruno and others) want, come what may, to call the future revolution social. Let us grant this definition. What does it alter in essence? To those tasks of the revolution which we have enumerated it adds nothing whatsoever. Our critics as a rule take the facts as we long ago established them. They add absolutely nothing essential to the appraisal either of the position of the bureaucracy and the toilers, or of the role of the Kremlin on the in- ternational arena.