In defence of October
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‘In De ‘In Defence of October’ is the title of a lecture Leon Trotsky
delivered in 1932 in Copenhagen when he was in exile. This article is
based on the lecture and traces the developments of ‘Trotskyism’ up to
the present times. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia took place in
Czarist Russia in November 18, 1917 according to present calendar. Full
article available in http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/11/oct.htm
www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/11/oct.htm
*****
Seventy six years after Leon Trotsky delivered the address to the
Social Democratic students in Copenhagen history has recorded mighty
events in human civilisation. Rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy in the
Soviet Union, the great Depression of 1930s and rise of German Fascism
and the Second World War, the Korean War, Vietnam War are major military
adventures in the twentieth century. In the twenty-first century
invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the current economic crises
evident in failures of American banks and financial institutions are
signs that human society is in peril.
This is more painful when you realise that about 25,000 people die
every day of hunger or hunger-related causes because they have no money
to buy food. This is one person every three and a half seconds.
Can humans eliminate such excruciating conditions from the world and
avoid the daily struggle of existence?
The first experiment to create such conditions in human history was
the worker’s state Trotsky created with Lenin and the Bolshevik party in
1917 in Russia.
That collapsed in 1991 after seventy years of existence. Coinciding
with the collapse of Soviet regime the spread of liberal myths about the
market economy took place. In End of History and the Last Man a book
written in 1992 by Francis file:wiki\Francis_Fukuyama Fukuyama argued
that the advent of Western liberal file:wiki\Liberal_democracy
democracy may signal the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution
and the final form of human Government.
This is diametrically opposed to Marx’s theories. The end of history
is the end of class rule as Marx explained.
What really has happened in the world after Fukuyama’s theories is
different.
Economic downturns, bankruptcies, crash of dotcom bubble, Japanese
recession on the economic front as well as military adventures in
Afghanistan, Iraq not to mention rise of racism, fundamentalism,
terrorism is the order of the day. Currently, the world economy is
facing the threat of long term economic down turn equivalent to the 1930
Great Depression. In this background an assessment of Leon Trotsky’s
Defence of October revolution is timely. Was the prophet right?
Materialist conception of history
Trotsky starts his lecture with an explanation of the materialist
conception of history.
“Human society is a historically-originated collaboration in the
struggle for existence and the assurance of the maintenance of the
generations. The character of a society is determined by the character
of its economy.
The character of its economy is determined by its means of productive
labour. For every great epoch in the development of the productive
forces there is a definite corresponding social regime. Every social
regime until now has secured enormous advantages to the ruling class”.
“Revolution means a change of the social order. It transfers the
power from the hands of a class which has exhausted itself into those of
another class, which is in the ascendant.”
Trotsky was fond of stressing that Marxists don’t prepare
revolutions, they prepare for revolutions. As he stated in his speech,
“No tactical recipes could have called the October Revolution into
being, if Russia had not carried it within its body.
“The revolutionary Party in the last analysis can claim only the role
of an obstetrician, who is compelled to resort to a Caesarean
operation.”
The causes of October
In regard to the causes of October Trotsky analyses three factors.
* Why and how did this revolution take place? More correctly, why did
the proletarian revolution conquer in one of the most backward countries
in Europe?
* What have been the results of the October revolution?
* Has the October Revolution stood the test?
The answer to the first question was given by Lenin who simply said
that the ‘Chain broke at the weakest link’.
What he meant was that the capitalist system was an interconnected
chain and Russia was the weakest link. Historically, it may be
noteworthy to recall that in 1905 Russia was defeated by Japan in war
and that was one reason which paved the way for the revolution in 1917.
In regard to the results of October revolution it can be said that
instead of a weak feudal country the revolution consolidated a modern
state in one tenth of the globe. Whether the October revolution stood
the test has to be taken with subsequent fortunes of Trotskyism as a
world political movement. Russia carried the seeds of reaction to the
revolution in its womb and the history of world Trotskyite movement is
the struggle against this reaction. In ‘Revolution Betrayed’ Trotsky
explained that the bureaucracy will betray the revolution.
Exile Leon Trotsky was exiled from Russia in 1929. The subsequent
history of his movement is the history of the Fourth International which
he originated. That history was a struggle against Stalinism.
Trotsky explained that Stalinist bureaucracy arose in Russia due to
the backwardness of the country. He insisted that the fate of the
revolutionary regime depended on the extension of the revolution beyond
the borders of the USSR. Without the victory of the working class in the
advanced capitalist countries of Europe and North America, the Soviet
state would not survive. It was on this very question that the conflict
between the Left Opposition headed by Trotsky and the Stalinist
bureaucracy centred.
Socialism
The promulgation of the theory of ‘socialism in one country’
represented a fundamental repudiation of an essential tenet of Marxist
theory and the world revolutionary perspective upon which the October
Revolution had been based. It marked a turning point in the history of
the USSR: the policies of the Soviet Union were severed by the
bureaucracy from the fate of the world socialist revolution. The
material interests that found expression in the program of ‘national
socialism’ were those of the bureaucracy itself.
To the extent that State property was the source of its income and
privileges, a nationalist policy of an essentially defensive character
served the interests of the Stalinist regime. The most outrageous
expression of this betrayal was in Germany.
The Stalinist policy of ‘social fascism’ - which claimed that the SPD
and Hitler’s party were ‘twins’ - opposed all forms of collaboration
between the Communist Party and the Social Democracy, even for defensive
purposes. It deprived the Communist Party of any means of winning the
confidence of workers still loyal to the SPD.
As the Communist Party leadership developed the criminally complacent
slogan, “After Hitler, us.” Trotsky warned in December 1931.
“Worker-Communists, you are hundreds of thousands, millions; you cannot
leave for any place; there are not enough passports for you.
Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and
spines like a terrific tank. Your salvation lies in merciless struggle.
And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring
victory. Make haste, worker-Communists, you have very little time”. The
same betrayals in Britain, Spain, Portugal, China, Germany by Stalinists
in the stages of the world revolution gives the answer to the question
why capitalism as a world order exists still.
Fascism
Fascism is the answer to socialism that capitalism in crises
produced. The Great depression produced Hitler in Germany. In 1981 the
Stalinist bureaucracy restored capitalism in USSR. The property laws
were changed to accommodate private property and the law of inheritance
was amended. Now, there is a proper capitalist class in Russia.
A class which robbed State property. The same imperialist laws are
rampant. Russia is being encircled by hostile regimes supported by US
imperialism. This was foreseen by Trotsky as far back as 1932. (see
Revolution Betrayed).
Fourth international
Trotsky decided to organise the Fourth International in September
1938 after Stalinist betrayals paved the way for Hitler. Its founding
document was The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth
International.(WSWS file:index.shtml: History
file:sections\category\history\history.shtml: The Fourth
file:sections\category\history\h-icfi.shtml International)
Trotsky stated: “Without a socialist revolution, in the next
historical period at that, a catastrophe threatens the whole culture of
mankind. The turn is now to the proletariat, i.e., chiefly to its
revolutionary vanguard. The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to
the crisis of the revolutionary leadership”.
Thanks to Stalin the death agony of capitalism has been extended. The
Stalinist bureaucracy murdered virtually the entire leadership of the
October Revolution. Hundreds of thousands of socialists, the finest
representatives of several political generations of Marxist
intellectuals and workers, were physically exterminated.
The fascist dictator Mussolini commented with admiration that
Stalin’s regime had killed far more communists than his own. Hitler’s
concentration camps too claimed the lives of hundred thousands of
socialists. So today we are without Marxist thinkers in the calibre of
Leon Trotsky. We have to build new Marxist cadres if human civilisation
is to survive.
(Trotsky’s writings are available in the web. The writer is the
author of ‘Yugandaraya’ a novel about the backdrop of JVP uprising in
1971)
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