No examination of the crisis of the U.S. communist movement would be complete without an examination of the current standing of the three main deviations from Marxism-Leninism which have shaped our movement historically–anarchism, social democracy and Trotskyism.
In the general ideological disorientation of the communist movement resulting from the domination of the two main current opportunist lines, the door has been opened for the historic lines of demarcation to be blurred. In varying degrees, tendencies toward anarchism, social democracy and Trotskyism have managed to penetrate the communist movement. In addition, these retrograde trends have been able to get a new lease on life because of the vacuum of leadership as the communist movement itself collapsed into opportunism. As a result, Marxist-Leninists today are obliged to confront these historic deviations anew, both within their own ranks and as these deviations are encountered in the mass movements.
For these reasons, we deem it appropriate to include here a summation of the principal expressions of anarchism, social democracy and Trotskyism, historically and as they are encountered today in the U.S.
If the “New Left” upsurge of the 1960’s which occurred principally in western Europe and North America can be said to have had a particular ideological character, it was the rebirth of anarchism. While some revived or turned to the classical teachings of Proudhon, Bakunin, Goldman and others, its principal expression was much more modern. Given that the period was one of intense international class struggle highlighted by the national liberation war in Indochina in opposition to US imperialism, the emphasis of the traditional communist parties on “peace” rather than struggle made it impossible for them to give effective leadership to the growing militancy of the masses, especially the masses of youth who became politically active during this period.
At the same time, the ideological and political deterioration of the CPSU helped give new legitimacy to traditional anarchist views that the real source of oppression was “the state” or authority in general and not a particular socio-economic system.
In addition, in the US, the class composition of the New Left–largely the alienated young of petty bourgeois origin–provided fertile ideological ground for the revival of anarchism.
Ideologically, anarchism is rooted in the world outlook of the petty bourgeoisie. The intellectual strength of this class rests in two features: first, the moral values and principles it upholds are those associated with rising capitalism, when the bourgeoisie was still a revolutionary class, giving this outlook a certain historical validity; second, the overwhelming majority of professional ideologists are themselves of the petty bourgeoisie, self-enterprise being their principal mode of production. They provide a large number of prolific, articulate and talented voices.
Individualism and self-cultivation are among the principal ideological manifestations of anarchism. Just as the petty bourgeoisie writhes under the oppression of monopoly capital which undercuts its material basis for existence as a class, so too does it recoil at the prospect of its own proletarianization, that fate worse than death to which monopoly is ultimately consigning it. Anarchism is one of the ideological forms through which resistance to its loss of identity can be most militantly expressed.
The material foundation for the existence of the petty bourgeoisie is small-scale production. It is not surprising, therefore, that the “solutions” anarchism proposes for the oppression of monopoly should frequently be expressed in such phrases as “small is beautiful” and should emphasize decentralization of the social structure. These solutions found a ready audience in the rebellious anti-authoritarian youth movement in the US in the 1960s. The counter-culture of the late sixties and early seventies was a particular attempt at realizing in life the idealist world outlook of anarchism.
Politically, anarchism can frequently link up with the struggle against imperialism because objectively it reflects the views of those who are oppressed by monopoly. Likewise, since whenever the class struggle develops to the point where it is being expressed politically–as in the mass antiwar movement which was obliged to challenge the state apparatus directly–anarchism can find itself in the mainstream of revolutionary practice.
But within these broad movements, anarchism frequently tends toward ultra-leftism. Losing patience with the masses and unable to organize people in their millions, anarchism tends toward individualized forms of struggle–whether of moral witness (pacifism) or small group violence (the Weather Underground). It wants to solve all problems at once and dismisses “reform” struggles as a distraction from revolution.
In the working class movement, anarchism tends toward dual unionism, since it sees the subjective ideas of individual workers as being more important than the objective position of the working class in society. Its view of how society should be organized is to eliminate the state and establish “workers’ control” over the economy at the point of production. Since, under present conditions, this can be achieved only through a society organized on the basis of small cooperatives, such a solution is dependent on the revival of small-scale production. It is actually an only slightly disguised form of early capitalism with the workers now cast in the role of a cooperative grouping of self-employed individuals–in short, the petty bourgeoisie’s image of socialism. There is little point in discussing the merits of this view since it is thoroughly idealist from beginning to end, having no material basis for realization in life, but certainly capable of sowing illusions among sections of the workers and feeding into anticommunism from the “left.”
But let anarchism speak for itself. We offer the following remarks from a small anarchist publication (Freespace) not because the periodical is itself significant but because its views typify this tendency’s self-consciousness:
We are anarchists because we oppose all forms of dominationism and authoritarianism. We will settle for nothing less than social relations based on equality, mutual respect, responsibility to one another and freedom. We recognize that the state is the ultimate manifestation of all forms of injustice. We recognize that governments are composed of unhealthy, sexually repressed individuals who crave power because they lack the capacity to seek life-affirming pursuits....
We are anarchists because we are absolute. We will oppose all institutions or philosophies that would attempt to negate or deny the essence of life. Whether it is US capitalism, South African fascism, or the “people’s” governments of China, Vietnam or Russia we will fight them unequivocally and totally and we will continue fighting even after they have vanished. As anarchists, we must at last go on the offensive. For too long the authoritarians have dominated left-wing politics. For a brief time in the sixties it seemed as if we would prevail; perhaps we became too complacent for we obviously did not prevail–not yet anyway. Organizationally, of course, anarchism must stand opposed not only to the Leninist party whose “authoritarian” structure is a constant nightmare to its self-indulgent libertarianism, but to the very idea of a vanguard proletarian party. For anarchism does not support the working class seizing state power; it opposes state power itself. And in the wake of every socialist revolution, anarchism has objectively attacked the workers’ state power as a “betrayal” of the revolution. In all organizational work, anarchism poses process against results. Upholding abstract egalitarianism and refusing to recognize uneven development, it opposes leadership as inherently “elitist” and argues that the “rotation” of leadership is a more important principle than the effectiveness of leadership.
Anarchism as an ideological tendency in political life generally is an almost inevitable phenomenon under capitalism. But for anarchism to be able to penetrate Marxism, for life-style revolution to parade as proletarian revolution, are phenomena which indicate the deep crisis of the US communist movement.
Largely discredited by the treachery of the Second International in uniting with imperialism and opposing revolution in the period from World War I through the mid-fifties, social democracy also obtained a new lease on life with the consolidation of revisionism in the CPSU and the communist parties of the west. But it could not do so without at least the appearance of a transformation.
Classical social democracy, therefore, split in the mid-sixties. That wing whose naked anti-communism made it the open accomplice of US imperialism in Vietnam could have no claim on the rising militancy of the young. New forces and new faces came to the fore. Marx was rediscovered–the “human” Marx whose ideological purity was not stained by such nasty realities as the dictatorship of the proletariat or the vanguard party. (Never mind that it was Marx who wrote: “between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the dictatorship of the proletariat.”–“Critique of the Gotha Program.”)
Even Lenin might be grudgingly acknowledged as a revolutionary leader whose theories might have been appropriate to the situation of. Tsarist Russia–but do not try to palm off “Leninism” on us. Imperialism would be opposed, and might even be characterized as a “system.” But in line and strategy, all forms of social democracy see imperialism as a “policy” of monopoly capital which could, therefore, be defeated in its own right without the defeat of capitalism.
In western Europe, the old pro-Soviet parties moved to play the role assigned to neo-social democracy, doing so in the name of “Eurocommunism.” In the US, however, the continuing ideological and political dependence of the CPUSA on Moscow made it necessary and possible for the new versions of social democracy to develop and flourish in new organizational forms, ranging from the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) of Michael Harrington and the newspaper In These Times, to the “revolutionary” New American Movement (NAM) and others.
Ideologically, social democracy is characterized by mechanical materialism, an outlook it holds in common with the bourgeoisie. Social democracy sees no fundamental ideological or political break between capitalism and socialism, only a change in the mode of production which will maintain the political institutions and fundamental values of the old mode of production. Social democracy sees the world as it is (or thinks it does) but cannot see that world in motion as the result of the fundamental contradictions wracking it.
Social democracy’s more specific ideological underpinning is pragmatism. It shuns theory (particularly Marxist theory) as inherently doctrinaire and as an impediment to “flexible” political activity. Social democracy fetishizes bourgeois democracy and promotes national chauvinism through theories of American exceptionalism and its implicit assumption that the political institutions of the imperialist west represent the most advanced achievements in “democracy” in world history.
Politically, modern social democracy expresses itself in a variety of forms. Chief among these is parliamentarianism. It holds that the “democratic” parliamentary path to socialism is not only possible and desirable, it is probably the only acceptable path to social transformation. In essence, social democracy views democracy as an eternal value standing above class, as a direct reflection of each individual’s “inalienable rights.” This classless view of democracy is one of the most propagated social-democratic myths, and a major component of even the most “revolutionary” social democrats’ anti-communism.
As for revolution, social democracy sees the transformation from one mode of production to another taking place gradually, step by step, a process whereby capitalism will actually evolve into socialism.
Max Gordon, former member of the CPUSA who has since become transfixed by the glories of bourgeois democracy and the staggering potential of modern social democracy, notes: “Respecting incremental (gradual) restructuring in a socialist direction, nothing in revolutionary theory or experience suggests that developed capitalist societies with bourgeois democratic social systems can be transformed in any other way.” (Viewpoint, May 1979)
In These Times calls for a political strategy in which socialists would concentrate on trying to make Congress and the state legislatures “the people’s branch” of the state. Its “magic” slogan, the key to everything, will be “full employment,” because the pursuit of this goal will require ”a democratic system of public investment and the abrogation or withering away of the corporate investment system. And that will require a mass movement poised to make the legislative branches the instruments of the popular will.”
But enough. Our purpose here is not to demonstrate the inanities which continue to be passed off as political wisdom in the name of socialism–a process requiring little more than accurate quotation. Rather, it is to draw out and demonstrate that modern social democracy is characterized by a general political line and orientation, which, while varying in particularities, has a common thread that cannot be mistaken nor possibly confused with Marxism-Leninism.
We should also note, however, that modern social democracy also expresses itself politically in constructs which strive to place themselves in proximity to Marxism-Leninism. Such tendencies can be identified by views which hold that the reform struggle can have a revolutionary character without the conscious leadership of a revolutionary party or which subordinate the development of revolutionary strategy to the task of gaining influence in the mass movement as it is.
Organizationally, modern social democracy is characterized by its antagonism to the Leninist party. “Our view of the emergence of socialism as a major political movement in American life,” declares In These Times, “necessarily rules out a concentration on doctrinal matters (not to be confused with theory and principles) that center upon organizational narrowness and verbal purity. We see socialism emerging in the US as a multi-faceted and multi-tendency movement, re-invigorating and fulfilling American democracy.” While such a view represents social democracy’s opposition to the Leninist party in its most explicit expression, we should note that the social democratic view is also implicit in all concepts which liquidate the vanguard character of the party or see the mass movements themselves rather than the conscious efforts of Marxist-Leninists as the basis for the building of the party.
Just as anarchism and social democracy came to life with the development of revisionism in the international communist movement, so too, in the sixties, did Trotskyism rise Phoenix-like from the ashes. The great-power chauvinism of the Soviet Union (and subsequently China) lent new credence to Trotsky’s long-discredited opposition to building socialism in one country; and the collapse into reformism of revisionist parties such as the CPUSA seemed to offer some justification to the consistent thread of ultra-leftism characteristic of the Trotskyist movement.
While Trotskyist formations appear to be somewhat on the wane at the present time, the general ideological disorientation of the communist movement has made it possible for certain Trotskyist concepts to reappear within the communist movement, although they would hardly describe themselves as such.
Unlike anarchism and social democracy, Trotskyism and “modern” Trotskyism, have no clear point of distinction; we will treat the two as one.
Ideologically, Trotskyism has much in common with anarchism, except that it emerged from within the Marxist-Leninist movement and is therefore obliged to identify itself with certain of the fundamental propositions of scientific socialism.
Where anarchism would simply skip over the historical stage of socialism as a transitional society. Trotskyism tends to impose on its appraisal of socialism criteria which could be realized only in the conditions of communism; or to telescope the socialist period to a relatively short time through the theory of “permanent revolution” which, if followed faithfully, would presumably bring the international socialist commonwealth into being just as soon as everyone starts listening to the Trotskyists.
The idealism inherent in these views should be readily apparent. Socialism, according to the Trotskyists, must measure up to a preordained formula. Rather than examining–much less supporting– socialism as it has actually emerged in the world, Trotskyism insists that socialism must appear in the form they have predicted for it. Likewise, socialist revolution is largely seen as an act of will. Any assessment which leads to a line that does not advocate immediate revolutionary upheaval is viewed as a “betrayal” of Marxism.
A similar idealism shapes Trotskyism’s view of national liberation struggles which are not explicitly socialist and thus do not measure up to Trotskyist ideals of revolution. Trotskyists wind up opposing national democratic struggles (the first stage in a two-stage revolution) from the “left”! This class collaborationism and national chauvinism is rationalized by the revolutionary purism of the Trotskyists.
While Trotskyism argues for “permanent revolution,” it is actually characterized by that stand so endemic to the petty bourgeois intellectual –“permanent oppositionism.” Some Trotskyist groups even assert with great pride that such is their political function in the world–to be the permanent opposition within the left. Such a position inevitably is quite safe from error, since others will always be making mistakes that can be criticized and the oppositionists themselves will do nothing that can be criticized. To call such a stand irresponsible is, perhaps, somewhat charitable. It is not for nothing that Trotskyists have come to be characterized as permanent “splitters and wreckers.”
Other than its opposition to socialism in one country, national liberation, and a general tendency toward ultra-leftism, it is difficult to find a political consistency in Trotskyism. Some Trotskyists, like the Socialist Workers Party in the US, are so thoroughly reformist in practice that they are almost universally denounced by all other Trotskyist factions. Others merely seem to stake out the most “left” position that can be found on any question and hold that for themselves. Sometimes economism comes to the fore, as with the Spartacist League, which opposes a boycott on South Africa because this would injure black workers economically. Most still make it a point of pride to oppose all strategies (and even tactics) which involve concessions by the working class to other class forces.
What typifies Trotskyist political opportunism is that by and large it is not represented by a readily identifiable system of politics which it offers as a view of the path to revolution.
Organizationally, Trotskyism is characterized by its proclivity for splitting over virtually all political differences. Without a serious view of the tasks of proletarian revolution, all differences of opinion become matters of principle. This individualist tendency is encouraged and reinforced by the Trotskyist view that organized factions should be permitted within the vanguard party and that various centers can operate within the organization. If organization can be said to serve politics, then the Trotskyist view of organization is one that serves its fundamental political irresponsibility.
The historic demarcations which define the communist movement have been between Marxism-Leninism on the one hand and anarchism, social democracy and Trotskyism on the other. These demarcations have been made primarily on the basis of contending and antagonistic political lines, reflecting differing ideologies and class stands, and finding concrete organizational expressions corresponding to the contending political and ideological lines.
The ability of these previously discredited deviations to re-enter the communist movement is an indication both of the depth of the movement’s crisis and how much must be done to resolve it.
While these deviations are not the immediate source of the crisis, a crucial condition for the emergence of a genuine Marxist-Leninist trend internationally and in the US is reaffirmation of the historic lines of demarcation.