In Defence of Trotskyism No. 15 £1 waged, 50p unwaged/low waged, €1.50 The general historic role of the Stalinist bureaucracy and their Comintern is counter-revolutionary. But through their military and other interests they can be forced to support progressive movements. Even Ludendorff felt himself forced to give Lenin a train – a very progressive action – and Lenin accepted. We must keep our eyes open to discern the progressive acts of the Stalinists, support them independently, foresee in time the danger, the betrayals, warn the masses and gain their confidence. Trotsky, Writings, Letter on India, 1939/40, pp 108-9. Where We Stand revolution of private capi- against the onslaught of this 1. WE STAND WITH talist profit against planned reactionary Con-Lib Dem KARL MARX: ‘The eman- production for the satisfac- coalition. However, whilst cipation of the working tion of socialised human participating in this struggle classes must be conquered need. we will oppose all policies by the working classes 3. We recognise the ne- which subordinate the themselves. The struggle for cessity for revolutionaries to working class to the politi- the emancipation of the carry out serious ideological cal agenda of the petty- working class means not a and political struggle as bourgeois reformist leaders struggle for class privileges direct participants in the of the Labour party and and monopolies but for trade unions (always) and in trade unions equal rights and duties and the mass reformist social 5. We oppose all immi- the abolition of all class democratic bourgeois work- gration controls. Interna- rule’ (The International ers’ parties despite their pro tional finance capital roams Workingmen’s Association -capitalist leaderships when the planet in search of prof- 1864, General Rules). conditions are favourable. it and imperialist govern- 2. The capitalist state Because we see the trade ments disrupts the lives of consists, in the last analysis, union bureaucracy and their workers and cause the col- of ruling-class laws within a allies in the Labour party lapse of whole nations with judicial system and deten- leadership as the most fun- their direct intervention in tion centres overseen by the damental obstacle to the the Balkans, Iraq and Af- armed bodies of police/ struggle for power of the ghanistan and their proxy army who are under the working class, outside of wars in Somalia and the direction and are controlled the state forces and their Democratic Republic of the in acts of defence of capital- direct agencies themselves, Congo, etc. Workers have ist property rights against we must fight and defeat the right to sell their labour the interests of the majority and replace them with a internationally wherever of civil society. The working revolutionary leadership by they get the best price. Only class must overthrow the mobilising the base against union membership and pay capitalist state and replace it the pro-capitalist bureau- rates can counter employers with a workers’ state based cratic misleaders to open who seek to exploit immi- on democratic soviets/ the way forward for the grant workers as cheap la- workers’ councils to sup- struggle for workers’ power. bour to undermine the press the inevitable counter- 4. We are fully in support gains of past struggles. of all mass mobilisations Socialist Fight produces IDOT. It is a part Subscribe to Socialist Fight and In Defence of of the Liaison Committee for the Fourth Trotskyism International with the Liga Comunista, Four Issues: UK: £12.00, EU: £14.00 Brazil and the Tendencia Militante Bol- Rest of the World: £18.00 chevique, Argentina. Please send donations to help in their production Editor: Gerry Downing Assistant Editor: John Barry Cheques and Standing Orders to Socialist Fight: PO Box 59188, London, Socialist Fight Account No. 1 NW2 9LJ, http://socialistfight.com/ Unity Trust Bank, Sort Code [email protected]. 08-60-01, Account. No. 20227368. Page 2 Revolutionary Communism: Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin or Mao? Notes towards a critique of Maoism 11 Nov. 2012 . By Loren Goldner This is written from the left state capi- By 1925-1927, Stalin controlled the Communist talist perspective of the League for the Third International (Comintern). From the begin- Revolutionary Party in the USA so we ning of the 1920s, Russian advisors worked close- ly with the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) of the do not agree, for instance, that the rev- bourgeois revolutionary Sun Yat-sen, (leader of olutions in Vietnam or North Korea the 1911 overthrow of the Manchu dynasty) and were “bourgeois revolutions with red with the small but important Chinese Communist flags,” but say the revolutions created Party (CCP), founded in 1921. deformed workers states. But it really The Third International provided political and is an excellent expose of the bogus military aid to the KMT, which was taken over by “revolutionary” essence of Maoism. It Chiang kai-shek (future dictator of Taiwan after is to be found online in the Portland 1949); the Comintern in the early to mid-1920s Intyermedia Development Centre; De- viewed the KMT as a “progressive anti- imperialist” force. Many Chinese Communists velopment of Maoist Theory and Prac- actually joined the KMT in these years, some tice in the Philippines, author: Jose secretly, some openly. Maria Sison. http:// Soviet foreign policy in the mid-1920s involved portland.indymedia.org/ en/2012/11/420253.shtml?discuss aoism was part of a broader movement in the twentieth century of what might M be called “bourgeois revolutions with red flags,” as in Vietnam or North Korea. To understand this, it is important to see that Maoism was one important result of the defeat of the world revolutionary wave in 30 countries (including China itself) which occurred in the years after World War I. The major defeat was in Germany (1918-1921), followed by the defeat of the Russian Revolution (1921 and thereafter), culminating in Stalinism. Maoism is a variant of Stalinism. 1 The first phase of this defeat, where Mao and China are con- cerned, took place in the years 1925-1927, during which the small but very strategically located Chi- nese working class was increasingly radicalized in a wave of strikes. This defeat closed the 1917- 1927 cycle of post-World War I worker struggles, which included (in addition to Germany and Rus- sia) mass strikes in Britain, workers councils in northern Italy, vast ferment and strikes in Spain, the “rice riots” in Japan, a general strike in Seattle, and many other confrontations. Revolutionary Communism: Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin or Mao? Page 3 an internal faction fight between Stalin and Trot- bloody defeats everywhere. sky. Trotsky’s policy (whatever its flaws, and there It was in the recovery from these defeats that were many) was for world revolution as the only Mao became the top leader of the CCP, and began solution to the isolation of the Soviet Union. Sta- the “Long March” to Yan’an (in remote north- lin replied with the slogan “Socialism in One western China) which became a central Maoist Country,” an aberration unheard of until that time myth, and reoriented the CCP to the Chinese in the internationalist Marxist tradition. Stalin in peasantry, a much more numerous social class but this period was allied with the right opposition not, in Marxist terms, a revolutionary class4 leader Nikolai Bukharin against Trotsky; Soviet (though it could be an ally of the working-class and Third International policy reflected this alli- revolution, as in Russia during the 1917-1921 Civil ance in a “right turn” to strong support for bour- War). geois nationalism abroad. Chiang kai-shek himself Japan had invaded Manchuria (northeast China) was an honorary member of the Third Interna- in 1931 and the CCP from then until the Japanese tional Executive Board in this period. The Third defeat at the end of World War II was involved in International advocated strong support for a three-way struggle with the KMT and the Japa- Chiang’s KMT in its campaign against the nese. “warlords” closely allied with the landowning After the Third Period policy led to the triumph gentry. of Hitler in Germany (where the Communist Party It is important to understand that in these same had attacked the “social fascist” Social Democrats, years, Mao Zedong (who was not yet the central not the Nazis, as the “main enemy,” and even leader of the party) criticized this policy from the worked with the Nazis against the Social Demo- right, advocating an even closer alliance between crats in strikes), the Comintern in 1935 shifted its the CCP and the KMT. line again to the “Popular Front,” which meant In the spring of 1927, Chiang kai-shek turned alliances with “bourgeois democratic” forces against the CCP and the radicalized working class, against fascism. Throughout the colonial and semi massacring thousands of workers and CCP mili- -colonial world, the Communist Parties completely tants in Shanghai and Canton (now known in the dropped their previous anti-colonial struggle and West by its actual Chinese name Guangzhou), threw themselves into support for the Western who had been completely disarmed by the Comin- bourgeois democracies. In Vietnam and Algeria, tern’s support for the KMT.2 This massacre ended for example, they supported the “democratic” the CCP’s relationship with the Chinese working French colonial power. In Spain, they uncritically class and opened the way for Mao to rise to top supported the Republic in the Spanish Revolution leadership by the early 1930s. and Civil War, during which they helped the Re- The next phase of the CCP was the so-called public crush the anarchists (who had two million “Third Period” of the Comintern, which was members), the independent left POUM (Partido launched in part in response to the debacle in Obrero de Unificacion Marxista, a “centrist” party China.