Deus Ex Machina: Burgeoise History.
As a a runner up to a more thorough series of posts about historical materialism and praxis I've come to write the following. As always, I am more indebted to my comrades for the argumentation and idea rather than any talent or inspiration I might have in myself.
One of the many problems that plague the Left, particularly the Swedish Left, is our critique of past regimes - particularly the Soviet Union and revolutionary China. Because they were defeated and because we have been pressed back further and further we have accepted the allegations from the burgeoise papers and their academic cohorts.
Burgeoise critique, however, is completely senseless. Like their history, it is a sort of deus ex machina system of explanation. It usually goes like this: from nowhere comes a figure that suddenly enters the political stage and everything changes. Hitler was evil, thus, Germany became evil. Stalin was a mass murderer, thus the Soviet Union was the work of Stalin. A few variations exist on this theme, one of them being the culturalist explanation (Huntington, imperialists, colonialists and other racists) and another being a sort of leftist liberal 1984 style paranoia and fear scenario that, though it may explain bits and pieces of things, misses the larger picture.
Rather than just being plain wrong, we must realize something else as well. Each assault on our history from the burgeoise is not an attack on right or wrong - the upper classes couldn't care less - but against us, against the working class. To back away is not going to cause them to cease, not at all, they will continue and continue - each time with more absurd allegations - until they have neutralized us entirely. The debate on Lenin, the Soviet Union, the Left Party and Communism in Sweden is a prime example. It cannot be won by backing off.
Critique is at the heart of Marxism, as is the understanding that material interests are the stuff that make up the central conflicts of society and from which our understanding of ourselves and our relations come from. We must devote our time to a critique the left. The Trotskyites have devoted the most time to their critique of the Soviet Union and in particular, Ernest Mandel have produced some excellent and eye-opening thesis on what actually happened during the time of the Soviet Thermidor and the decline of the socialist state. Read it.
One of the many problems that plague the Left, particularly the Swedish Left, is our critique of past regimes - particularly the Soviet Union and revolutionary China. Because they were defeated and because we have been pressed back further and further we have accepted the allegations from the burgeoise papers and their academic cohorts.
Burgeoise critique, however, is completely senseless. Like their history, it is a sort of deus ex machina system of explanation. It usually goes like this: from nowhere comes a figure that suddenly enters the political stage and everything changes. Hitler was evil, thus, Germany became evil. Stalin was a mass murderer, thus the Soviet Union was the work of Stalin. A few variations exist on this theme, one of them being the culturalist explanation (Huntington, imperialists, colonialists and other racists) and another being a sort of leftist liberal 1984 style paranoia and fear scenario that, though it may explain bits and pieces of things, misses the larger picture.
Rather than just being plain wrong, we must realize something else as well. Each assault on our history from the burgeoise is not an attack on right or wrong - the upper classes couldn't care less - but against us, against the working class. To back away is not going to cause them to cease, not at all, they will continue and continue - each time with more absurd allegations - until they have neutralized us entirely. The debate on Lenin, the Soviet Union, the Left Party and Communism in Sweden is a prime example. It cannot be won by backing off.
Critique is at the heart of Marxism, as is the understanding that material interests are the stuff that make up the central conflicts of society and from which our understanding of ourselves and our relations come from. We must devote our time to a critique the left. The Trotskyites have devoted the most time to their critique of the Soviet Union and in particular, Ernest Mandel have produced some excellent and eye-opening thesis on what actually happened during the time of the Soviet Thermidor and the decline of the socialist state. Read it.
Labels: Ernest Mandel, History, Ideology, the Onion historical materialism, the Soviet Union, Trotskyism
posted by Björn at 3:33 PM
3 Comments:
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[this is not a message from the organisation cms umeå, I'm just borrowing its google-user. /Vidugavia]
Yes, the trotskyite tradition has been pretty occupied with the question about the development of the soviet union. But the problem is that they, in many aspects, have been blinded by their own tradition. Zealously defending each and every move made by Lenin and Trotsky, many trotskyites are hindered from realizing that these two played an active part in the downfall of the revolution from within. When Stalin and friends rose to power they didn't have to defeat any institutions of workers power, these institutions were allready defeated. The soviets was allready rendered into powerless tools. All independent trade unions was allready forbidden. These words from 1921 from Trotsky himself can pretty well describe the situation:
"They have come out with dangerous slogans. They have made a fetish of democratic principles. They have placed the workers' right to elect representatives above the Party. As if the Party were not entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship temporarily clashed with the passing moods of the workers' democracy!"
I think I agree with you; more or less. If we believe that history has a material and structural basis then we should really manage to avoid the sectarian cults of personality that crops up so often in the Left, particularly the Communist Left. I agree that there are worrying tendencies of turning Trotsky and Lenin into some sort of perfect people and that all they did was perfect and good.
With that said, I am not sure that I can accept Lenin and Trotsky - and the groups around them - as the ones to actively destroy the revolution. Lenin's Testament, the fight between internationalism and socialism in one nation and other conflicts and events show that there is a workers resistance towards Stalinism. However, I do agree that the major basis of proletarian democracy - Soviets, were essentially gone by the time of Stalin.
Trotsky does say, as far as I understand anyway, that Stalin is an effect, not a cause. That does him some credit and I believe that it is correct. Stalin was a cause of the events and situation of revolutionary Russia and the Russian working class losing power.
But with that said, let me repeat that Trotsky and Lenin were no saints, and it serves no purpose to imagine that they were. I agree with Mandels text, however, in saying that the results of the "restauration" (a word I am not convinced suitably explains the events of the late 20's) had their basis in the material rather than any evil of the politbureau, the Communist Party or other revolutionaries.
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