SHACHTMAN: THE END OF THE ROAD
The September 22nd issue of Labor Action, organ of the cessation of publication and the dissolution of the organization. It invited the members of the defunct IS L to join, individually, the not-yet-quite defunct Socialist Party - Social Democratic Federation, perhaps the most right-wing Social-Democratic organization in the world. Thus has the once brilliant and promising Max Shachtman reached the shabby end of a long and strange trajectory. And with him there disappears_that curious and chameleon-like doctrine, Shacht-
One of the earliest Americans to break with Stalinism and help form the first organization of Trotskyism in the USA, Shachtman for many years was one of its principal leaders, noted for his coruscating qualities as a speaker and
The announcement of the Stalin-Hitler Pact, however, and the resultant wave of frantic anti-Soviet sentiment in New York intellectual circles, shook Shachtman badly. In a bloc with Martin Abern, another old-timer, and Professor James Burnham, a more recent acquisition, he raised what has always proved to be the fundamental question, the defense of the Soviet Union. Burnham was already denying that the U S S R was a workers' state ; Shachtman did not reach that position till later, but restudy of his subsequent development shows that he was already logically tending toward it.
The resultant internal discussion, that ran from 5 September 1939 to 9 April 1940, carried on from one side by Shachtman and Burnham and from the other almost exclusively by Leon Trotsky himself, was one of the most deep-going and extensive since the Trotskyist movement had taken form. Both Shachtman and Burnham were brilliant polemicists, and repeatedly scored debating points, unimpressed by all their sparkle, bored steadily in Marxist essence of the question, and in the process produced some of his finest theoretical work, which, assemoled in the volume, In Defense of Marxism, remains today source-book of inestimable value on nature of the Soviet Union.
contributions political theory, during this discussion taught important organizational lessons to both sides in the S W P, tendency on the part of the anti-Shachtmanists to "throw the rascals out," and went to the extreme limit of concessions to prevent a split. Always applying class criteria to all germane
Trotsky finally defined the Shachtman tendency as "petty bourgeois" and emphasized that this was strated in practice by its refusal, despite all concessions, accept the organizational essence of Bolshevism, democratic
In spite of all Trotsky's efforts, Shachtman broke with the Fourth International, left the S W P, own Workers Party. This was a crime for which Shachtman cannot be forgiven. For not only did he lead out of the movement many valuable elements who slowly were lost entirely to the revolution, but in the split itself very numerous comrades of value, confused and discouraged, "fell through the space in between" the two parties and went into inactivity. There is logical plausibility hard-boiled attitude that, since they did so, that is prima facie evidence that they "didn't have what it takes," and good riddance to them; and it is true that some were just "tired radicals" glad of an excuse. But there were others who were a real loss, as any responsible and unsectarian leader who has had genuine experience in molecularly building a movement with human material can well imagine ; and the grave blame for such losses lies also at Shachtman's door. Furthermore, for several years the existence of two parties claiming to be Trotskyist was a source of great confusion to workers turning away from Stalinism and toward revolutionary Marxism.
Shachtman, as is usually the case with people who break with the Fourth International, had megalomaniac illusions that he could bring the bulk of the national sections along
; but world tours by two Shachtmanites, one a member of the International Executive Committee who had broken away to follow him, soon revealed that the International as a whole stood solid, politically and organizationally, on its positions, and would have none of him.
Another and more immediate blow to Shachtman was the announcement, a month after the split, by his co-theoretician James Burnham, that he no longer believed in Marxism at all, and that he leaving the Workers Party as well.
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Beginning with his notorious book, The Managerial Revo-
Burnham underwent a rapid degeneration brought him finally into the same camp with McCarthyism.
But Shachtman persisted, with his Workers with the theories of "bureaucratic collectivism" and third camp." He abandoned the defense of the Soviet Union, supported such dubious figures as Mikolaïczic, and limped
This policies slowly but steadily pulling away from revolutionary Marxism. He had a momentary accession of strength when the Morrow-Goldman-Loris tendency left the S W P and joined him, but it was short-lived. Playing a kind of Bonapartist role in his party, straddling on the shoülders of a left and a right wing, he was, by the removal of his left-wing support when the Johnsonites left to rejoin the when it has been only a question of time till he disappeared toppled down into his own right wing - since as an independent political force of even the most minimal significance. Yet it is food for thought how long such a tendency — which, lying somewhere in between revolutionary Marxism and pro-capitalist Social-Democracy, has theoretically no class raison d'être to justify its independent political existence — can nevertheless creak rachitically along before it draws the logical conclusion and gives up the ghost.
But now, finally, Shachtman has reached sate haven in tha merican Social-Democracy that J P Cannon once neatl
71 characterized as "The Old Folks' Home for Tired Radicals."
Even some loyal members of the S W P, back in 1940, thought that Leon Trotsky was perhaps a little too harsh in his class characterization of Shachtman and his tendency, and too sweeping, on the basis of the then scant symptoms, in his prognosis of ultimate total degeneration. Now, at the end of the long proces, it is clear that Trotsky's analysis and prediction were all too true and accurate.
At the height of the 1940 discussion, characterizing a pettybourgeois-minority document, "If this is Trotskyism, then I," wrote Trotsky, "am no Trotskyist." It has required nearly 20 years, but the confirmation of who was the Trotskyist has now been unmistakably recorded in black and white in words of few syllables: "We do not subscribe to any creed known as Trotskyism or defined as such," writes Shachtman in the groveling declaration the petty-minded leaders of the SPS D F required of him before they would allow him into the Home to sit in one of their rocking-chairs and meditate on
The end of the road. RIP. But all the accompanying tragic waste, the at any given moment scarce perceptible but always steadily irreversible degeneration, will not have been ir vain if they lead to serious reflections about the inevitable end-results of breaking with the policy and organization of the Fourth International.
Long Awaited - Now Available
THE SECOND VOLUME OF
Les ÉCRITS de LÉON TROTSKY
OU VA LA FRANCE ?
With France launched on the Gaullist adventure, this volume, casting light upon underlying historical sources and often revealing historical parallels, is of a singular timeliness today. It contains :
An Introduction by Pierre Frank
The Preface to the French edition of 1936
Où va la France? (October 1934)
Encore une fois, où va la France ? (March 1935)
Front populaire et Comités d'action (November 1935)
La France à un tournant (March 1936)
L'étape décisive (5 June 1936) |
La révolution française a commencé (9 June 1936)
Devant la seconde étape (July 1936)
Biographical notes and an index
The book, of 192 pages, sewn and paper-bound, is priced at 500 French francs ($ 1.10 or 8 shillings),
PUBLICATIONS DE "QUATRIÈME INTERNATIONALE"
64 rue Richelieu. Paris 2ème
All Trotsky's writings on Germany ("Et maintenant"; "La seule voie"; "Allemagne, clef de la situation inter-
; "Qu'est-ce que le national-socialisme ?" ; etc) and on Spain communistes"; "La Révolution espagnole et les dangers qui la menacent"; "L'Espagne, dernier avertissement"; etc.).
This convenient pocket-size pamphlet of 32 pages, the text of the lecture given at the Summer School of the
Independent Labour Party, at Ruskin College, Oxford, on August 12th 1958, provides in concentrated form the history of the formation and growth of the Fourth International and the essence of its programme. Price: 20 US
SAL SANTEN Berlagehof 36
In Great Britain: Sam Bornstein, 21 Sidney Street, London E 1.
In the Far East: Lanka Sama Samaja Party, 49 Drieberg's Avenue, Colombo, Ceylon.
and may be ordered from
To Appear about January Ist nationale"
Volume Ill
"La Révolution espagnole et les tâches
Just Off Press
THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
WHAT IT IS
WHAT IT AIMS AT cents or 1 shilling. Orders to
By MICHEL PABLO
Holland
Amsterdam W
Some Publications of the Fourth International
OTHER THEORETIGAL
ORGANS
Quatrième Internationale (French)
i
Die Internationale (German)
Revista Marxista Latinoamericana (Spanish)
De Internationale (Dutch)
RECENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS
Léon Trotsky: Écrits, 1928--1940, tome 1
Léon Trotsky: Les Bolcheviks contre Staline
Michel Pablo: La Guerre qui vient (Capitalisme ou Socialisme)
Michel Pablo: Dictature du prolétariat, démocratie, socialisme
L
Michel Pablo : The Fourth International - What It Is; What It Aims At
Ernest Germain: Les Problèmes économiques de l'URSS
Orders to: Sal Santen, Berlagehof 36, Amsterdam W., Holland
Public Organs of Some of the Sections of the Fourth International
Argentina : Voz Proletaria
Bolivia: Lucha Obrera
Brazil: Frente Operario
Ceylon: The Samasamajist
France: La Vérité des Travailleurs
Greece: 'Epyatsý Iláin (Workers Struggle)
Italy: Bandiera Rossa
Japan: ## 57 # (World Revolution)
Peru: Voz Obrera
Uruguay: Frente Obrero
Subscriptions may be channeled through:
SAL SANTEN
LANKA SAMASAMAJA PARTY
SAM BORNSTEIN
Berlagehof 36, Amsterdam W 49, Drieberg Ave., Colombo, Ceylon
21, Sidney Street, London E1