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From Trotskyism to Marxist-Leninism Part 1 (Patreon)

Published:
2023-03-06 11:17:09
Imported:
2026-06
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  • From Trotskyism to Marxist Leninism Part 1.mp3

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Content

In this special episode I examine the factors that led to my own move from Trotskyism to Marxist-Leninism. 

In part one I look at the history of Trotsky himself as a man who repeatedly violated democratic centralism in the inner party debate of the 1920's. 

Part 2 will be out next week. 

Episode outro is 'The People and the Party' by The Ensemble of Mirdita produced during the Socialist period in Albania

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Comments

Dean

Obviously, I agree with all of this considering our shared time in the SP. It almost seems pointless raking over them as there isn't even a remote possibility that they could occupy an influential position within the working-class even if the barricades went up tomorrow. However, the dead hand they and other sects clench over some aspects of union activity does need continued challenge as they play a debilitating role in organisation and political education. The same miserable trajectory you chart in Trotsky's life is mirrored in the development of the many tedious sects that followed now inching out life on the periphery. They oscillate between narrow periods of an approximated accuracy on events to bouts of hyperactive radical adventurism. Despite their protestation to the contrary, they practise a miniture form of labourism. In many ways, it was always this way, but at least the more advanced periods of class struggle during things like the poll tax campaign could at least partially anchor the organisation among the working-class albeit with some hesitation. What unites the most illusory Trotskyist with their close labourist tradition counterpart is a weighty and mystifying nostalgia. Alongside this is a stubborn refusal to acknowledge the stark differences in organisation, militancy and balance of class forces that allosed their relative periods of success to occur. As you identify, it is pointless trying to lay into the typically deluded, but nonetheless well-intentioned membership. They are the residue of a stifling democratic culture, an immutable leadership, a deliberate hollowing out of political education and a deliberate failure to draw in the more militant or developing sections of the working-class. Just like any bourgeois management structure, most of the left leaderships would rather surround themselves with largely useless but compliant echoing place holders rather than truly test and amend their praxis through the challenge and experience of an empowered proletariat. And thus, the SP and others stumble from one incident to the next in the news cycle, ill-equipped to interpret events and even less able to play a decisive role influence on the working-class when needed. Unmoored from real exposure to the working-class, opportunism, petit-bourgeois indulgence and insititutional Stockholm syndrome readily fill the vacuum. I'll leave it here with one from Lenin responding to the opportunistic deviants of his day:: “ In the train of the capitalist exploiters follow the wide sections of the petty bourgeoisie, with regard to whom decades of historical experience of all countries testify that they vacillate and hesitate, one day marching behind the proletariat and the next day taking fright at the difficulties of the revolution; that they become panic-stricken at the first defeat or semidefeat of the workers, grow nervous, run about aimlessly, snivel, and rush from one camp into the other—just like our Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries.”

Bob P.

HI Just a quick note Whilst I'm listening to this - I was in the militant from the mid eighties until the split, your version of the history is a little bit off ( understandably as the SP don't even teach their own history correctly to their own members.) The socialist appeal split off ( or rather were expelled, when it was seen how relatively weak they where in the UK at the time - not that the details are that important.) but the militant had been haemorrhaging members for years before the split and even before the poll tax campaign. This is what they were trying to deal with and were worried about. They had recruited opportunistically around the poll tax campaign and because of this lost many of their own long term cadres, who could see the error- when the poll tax campaign ended they also lost the recruits they got through that, inevitably. Which sent them into a panic. They had long abandoned any pretence at educationg their members even by the late eighties and instead had a policy of endless activism and headless chicken style work. The key point is - The membership were not really aware of the spilt until it was well underway - as the fractionalisation happened at the level of the leadership and the membership had no idea of any argument in the leadership at all. Being largely excluded from any internal debates. The actual split wasn't really a debate it was just the two factions of the leadership trying to hoover up as many members as they could get and a good number of us just didn't play the game and left or drifted away from the organisation completely. Potentially more drifted away than went with either faction. which all shows what a waste and a diversion such organisations can be, and how even what was perhaps one of the relatively better and more working class Trotskyist organisations immediately capitulated to its own narrow opportunism. Anyway thought you might find it somewhat interesting.