Militant: Trotsky and Revolution

[Militant No. 335, 17th December 1976, p. 9]

Dear Comrades,

Will ‘Militant’ be making any reply to, or a review of the recent Young Communist League publication COGITO entitled “Trotsky and World Revolution” (published May 1976 and now reprinted). This represents the second part of a major critique by the YCL of the ideas of Trotsky and deserves the critical appraisal of ‘Militant’.

The first part, published in 1969 and called COGITO “Trotsky – his ideas” was replied to in a 106 page document entitled ‘Lenin and Trotsky – What they really stood for’ by Ted Grant and Alan Woods which promised to “…deal in a detailed manner…” with the issues raised in the second part. To date there has been no mention of Cogito in the pages of ‘Militant’ except for an advertisement, paid for by the YCL!

Despite free review copies it now appears that the Editorial Board has not even bothered to read it. Bob McKee’s two part obituary to Chairman Mao (issues 322 and 323 in September) makes no estimate of how a “Stalinist” Party such as the Chinese Communist Party could be so successful in the leadership of the Chinese revolution and furthermore he repeats the hoary old nonsense about Chiang Kai Shek being a honourary member of the Comintern Executive. He never ever was!

It’s time that ‘Militant’ showed that it is not afraid to tackle the major ideological questions raised by the YCL and soon!

Yours Fraternally

Ian Findlay

(National Education Organiser YCL)

EDITOR’S REPLY

We are glad that Comrade Findlay is so eager to see our reply to the YCL publication. Perhaps this is a reflection of the upsurge of support and sympathy for our ideas throughout the labour movement, and its effect on the more serious thinking workers in the Communist Party.

Unfortunately when dealing with an article containing so many distortions and misconceptions as this, no honest Marxist can dash off a hasty reply.

But before dealing with the points raised in Comrade Findlay’s letter we must first ask him why has neither Monty Johnstone nor the ‘Morning Star’, nor the Communist Party or the YCL published a review or replied to our 106 page reply to his original article. The publications of the CP have not even mentioned this important Marxist work!

In his introduction to ‘Trotsky and the World Revolution’, Johnstone takes up the inadequate replies of other tendencies. Yet he is not prepared to reply to the only detailed answer to his original article. This is what Johnstone writes in his introduction:

“A 106-page reply to the 35-page ‘Cogito’ article came from Alan Woods and Ted Grant of the Militant Group entitled ‘Lenin and Trotsky: What they really stood for’ (London 1969). Its laboured apologetics seem to me dogmatic and extraordinarily blinkered, but it keeps to the issues under discussion and avoids the extraneous abuse of the Black article. I see it has now been printed in Ceylon along with a brief answer to an article by the Ceylonese Maoist leader Shanmugathasan.

The book carries the singular subtitle: “Reply to Monty Johnstone (Moscow) and N Shanmugathasan (Peking).”! The authors promise to “deal in a detailed manner” with the further questions treated in this second part. Will they, I wonder, be prepared to admit that Trotsky was wrong on any of the issues discussed and, if so, to make a Marxist analysis of the reasons?”

This is the sum total of Johnstone’s answer to the arguments of Grant and Woods! Cheap jibes – of a beaten adversary – about “dogmatism” and “blinkered” etc. This is all! We can only conclude that Comrade Johnstone was completely incapable of answering the book ‘Lenin and Trotsky: What they really stood for’.

In his ‘Trotsky and the World Revolution’ Johnstone refers to the arguments of ‘Militant’ just once… in a footnote! Moreover he deals with Trotsky’s ideas between 1923-40 in just 14 pages! Trotsky’s published collected writings alone between 1929-40 runs to many volumes. In addition Trotsky published numerous books in the period covered by Johnstone’s pamphlet.

One of the longest sections of Monty Johnstone’s “serious work” is on the Spanish Civil War. This runs to just over three pages! Trotsky’s writings on Spain between 1931-37 – the bulk of it dealing with the Spanish Civil War – is in a book 400 pages long. Johnstone has dealt with Trotsky’s ideas on this and other issues in a completely lightminded fashion. The elementary responsibility of a serious critic is to avoid distorting your opponent’s ideas.

It is for this reason that our reply to Johnstone’s first pamphlet was prepared over a period and in painstaking fashion culminating with a 106-page book. It is impossible to deal with Trotsky’s ideas on Spain – one of the invaluable treasurers of the labour movement and an indispensible weapon in the struggles of the present generation of Spanish workers – in just over three pages!

Comrades Johnstone and Findlay can be assured that we will “deal in a detailed manner” with Johnstone’s latest pamphlet. We will certainly reply, not for the sake of attempting the impossible and trying to educate the author, but because the issues dealt with are important chapters in the history of the international labour movement and the record has to be set straight and fabrications like those contained in this article clearly exposed, if the present generation of workers is to assimilate the lessons correctly.

We will deal in detail with all the questions involved, with the betrayals of the revolution during the 1920s and ‘30s in Germany, China, Spain, France etc., and the criminal policies of Popular Frontism today in Chile, Spain, Italy, France etc. These analyses will appear in future issues of ‘Militant’ and ‘Militant International Review’, and later collected as a book in reply to the COGITO article.

When we deal with such issues, we make sure that our material is well researched and thoroughly thought out. That was the case with ‘Lenin and Trotsky: What they really stood for’, which was, as Comrade Findlay says, a detailed and comprehensive reply. We would remind Comrade Findlay that the world had to wait for at least seven years for the appearance of this COGITO article, the promised sequel to the article which we have already replied. We assure Comrade Findlay we will not take so long to reply!

In the meantime we would like to reply to Comrade Findlay’s points concerning Chiang-Kai-Shek. We are prepared to admit that it appears that he was never an honorary member of the Comintern Executive. We do not believe in leaving uncorrected even small errors of fact. But Comrades Findlay and Johnstone thereby gain nothing from this admission.

Nor does it in any way detract from the point that Bob McKee made in his article concerning the submission of the Communist Party to Chiang-Kai-Shek under orders from Stalin during the Chinese Revolution of 1925-27. What is indisputable is that… “In preparing himself for the role of executioner [of the revolution]” Chiang-Kai-Shek “wanted to have the cover of World Communism – and he got it” [Trotsky].

Moreover in 1926 the Right Wing Kuomintang under the aegis of Chiang-Kai-Shek was accepted as a “sympathising party” of the Communist International with only one vote against – Trotsky’s. Shao Li Tze, of Chiang’s personal entourage, was the fraternal delegate of the Kuomintang at the Seventh Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International in November 1926! This was a mere five months before Chiang-Kai-Shek massacred the flower of the Shanghai working class.

In our detailed reply to Comrade Johnstone we will show the criminal role that was played by Stalin, Bukharin and their supporters in the defeat of one of the most magnificent movements of the oppressed in history. When this is contrasted with the timely warnings of Trotsky it is hoped that even the most “blinkered” and “dogmatic” will see that he was right as against Stalin and Co. in his advice to the Chinese working class.

We might add that the Marxist tendency in Britain has already given an explanation of the Chinese revolution of 1944-49 in advance of the completion of that revolution in 1947.

At a time when the British ‘Communist’ Party leaders and the ‘Communist’ Party leaders everywhere were fawning on Stalin and Mao-Tse-Tung we explained the process of the revolution. We said that this was the second greatest event in human history, the Russian revolution being the first.

We predicted the end of capitalism and landlordism in China at a time when Mao with the support of British and world communist leaders was writing and speaking about 50 to 100 years of “national capitalism”. But we also pointed out the inevitable adverse side of a mainly peasant army carrying through the revolution with a passive working class.

In a backward semi-colonial country it would mean that Mao would begin where Stalin ended in the setting-up of a one party totalitarian state without real democracy.

This means that as in the case of Russia, the way to socialism in China lies through a new political revolution.

Meanwhile we would challenge the YCL to a series of public debates on these issues. We hope Comrade Findlay will agree that such an exchange of ideas can only be of benefit to the labour movement. We are confidently awaiting a reply so that these meetings can be arranged soon.