Science and style
Trotskyism by Alex Callinicos, Open University Press, £6.99 ALEX Callinicos' Trotskyism appears in the Open University "Concepts in Social Science" series of student primers. Such books, on "fundamental concepts" and "modern masters", invariably tell us as much about the views of the author as the topic under discussion. Callinicos makes no attempt at the (impossible) task of a neutral exposition of Trotskyism; instead he has written a critique of "orthodox" Trotskyism, which is contrasted with the theoretical positions of Callinicos' own organization, the British Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
But this is no run-of-the-mill intervention. Callinicos occupies a unique position in the SWP, as a prolific Marxist writer on philosophy and someone who has not been afraid to express his dissent from the pro-Lukacs philosophical consensus in the SWP leadership.! His critique of what he takes to be "orthodox" Trotskyism is at root methodological, not simply a point-bypoint refutation of individual positions. While his critical jumping off points are not original, this particular attempt to attribute to orthodox Trotskyism a consistent and systematic failure to utilize a satisfactory scientific method is novel. To see what is right and what is wrong with his position it is necessary to go a little bit beyond the kind of abrasive factional polemic which is the stock-in-trade of the British Trotskyist groups.
To put it mildly, anyone who considers themselves in the continuity of orthodox Trotskyism today can hardly claim that the movement's expectations of historical development have been irrefutably fulfilled — especially for the generation loosely and inaccurately called the "1968ers"? Socialist revolution in the West has been beaten back. The collapse of Stalinism in the East has hardly resulted in the type of "political revolution" we expected. Critical evaluation of our perspectives and underlying assumptions is on the
128 International Marxist Review order of the day, not to refute Marxism or the case for socialist revolution, but to more firmly ground them in contemporary realities and tasks.
Our fundamental critique of Callinicos is not that he has attempted this task, or that everything he says is wrong. It is rather that his approach, paradoxically, is fundamentally dogmatic and sectarian, and if generally adopted by those who stubbornly adhere to socialist revolution, would lead to selfisolation, rather than the necessary regroupment, renewal and growth of the forces of revolution. Moreover, in criticizing "orthodox" Trotskyism Callinicos inadvertently shows why the theory of state capitalism is the organizing principle of the analysis which the SWP makes of the world. This leads directly to important political conclusions, implicit in Callinicos' text, which we return to after looking at his methodological points.
Callinicos' first propositions are these:
1) That Trotsky's prognoses for the development of world revolution, which underlay his decision to found the Fourth International, were wrong.
2) A crucial explanation of the falsity of Trotsky's perspectives was a wrong assessment of the Soviet bureaucracy and the prospects for its medium-term survival.
3) Orthodox Trotskyists, after the second world war, refused to accept the falsity of Trotsky's perspectives, and elements of his analysis, and attempted to prove their correctness by non-scientific theoretical manoeuvres, which led to a denial of reality. 4) The character of these theoretical manoeuvres was that of "conventionalist stratagems", ", a common feature of scientific debates, exposed by philosophers of science like Karl Popper and Imre Lakatos; conventionalist stratagems typically refuse to recognize the refutation of hypotheses by experimental results, and instead attempt to justify them by adding subsidiary hypotheses, which contradict or mystify the original hypothesis. Conventionalist stratagems have been used, inter alia, to rescue Trotsky's theory of the Soviet Union, the theory of permanent revolution, and notions that capitalism was either in massive crisis, or on the brink of descending into it (this basic argument is set out in Chapter 2 pp. 22-38). The political consequence of conventionalist stratagems was to seek "to immunize Trotsky's theories from refutation" with the danger of "transforming them into a set of dogmas"; thus the Trotskyist movement has "often displayed the characteristics of religious sectaries" (pp. 40-41). In short, orthodox Trotskyism is flawed by dogmatism, and with dogmatism goes sectarianism. In order to get to grips with the validity of this reproach, it is necessary to analyse each piece of concrete historical evi-
Review: Science and style 129 dence. Only when we have done that can we come back to Callinicos' methodological position. But to anticipate a bit, our argument will be that:
a) while conventionalist stratagems and dogmatism can and have existed within so-called orthodox Trotskyism and the Fourth International, they do not necessarily do so;
b) the SWP's leading thinkers, in particular Tony Cliff, are themselves guilty of pristine-pure conventionalist stratagems, in particular to justify the dogma of "state capitalism";
c) that Callinicos' own exposition of the Marxist method of analysing and theorizing new facts is inadequate;
d) most importantly the political conclusions which Alex Callinicos proposes are a paradoxical throwback to an alternative dogmatism, rather than a break with dogmatic method per se.
Before starting to deal with Callinicos' methodological objections to orthodox Trotskyism, we should note that his whole discussion of this assumes what it is intended to prove — that the theory of state capitalism better explains the post-war world than the degenerated workers' state theory. This we emphatically deny. In particular, the theory of state capitalism, far from being vindicated by the 1989-91 revolutions in Eastern Europe, is disproved by them. How come this more planned form of "capitalism" went into crisis before Western capitalism? And how can socialists remain neutral on the question of privatization and price rise attacks on the working class, attacks which destroy important social gains which state capitalist logic implies?
Callinicos fails to show at an empirical level what has happened in the postwar world which is a priori incompatible with Trotsky's theory of the USSR. In the light of this failure, many of the methodological points he makes seem a bit artificial or beside the point. Prognoses: the foundation of the Fourth International
Numerous commentators share Callinicos' view that the perspectives upon which the Fourth International was founded were wrong, and hence declare the foundation of the FI to have been a mistake. The "refuted conjectures" of Trotsky were the expectation of post-Second World War revolutionary crises which would raise the Fourth International to a mass movement leading revolutions; the prognosis that the Stalinist bureaucracy would collapse under the impact of war; and the expectations of catastrophic capitalist crisis after the war. Callinicos cites, in particular, the declarations of the 1938 Transitional
130 International Marxist Review Programme in this regard. Since these propositions did not come true, then Trotsky's perspectives were "invalidated", although orthodox Trotskyists refused to accept this fact.
The SWP position on whether the foundation of the FI was wrong per se seems to have evolved over time; earlier critiques of the FI did not necessarily express this view. What is true is that Trotsky's motives for finally declaring for the Fourth International, after five years of resistance to the idea (1933-38), were not as simple as Callinicos thinks. Trotsky's real political "testament", , the 1940 Manifesto of the FI, speaks of the possibility of new defeats, a possible stabilization of capitalism, and in that eventuality the necessity to prepare new cadres for the long term in preparation for new revolutionary upheavals:
But it is not a question of a single uprising. It is a question of an entire revolutionary epoch.
The capitalist world has no way out, unless a prolonged death agony is so considered. It is necessary to prepare for long years, if not decades, of war, uprisings, brief interludes of truce, new wars, and new uprisings. A young revolutionary party must base itself on this perspective. History will provide it with enough opportunities and possibilities to test itself, to accumulate experience, and to mature. The swifter the ranks of the vanguard the more the epoch of bloody convulsions, the less destruction our planet will suffer. But the great historical problems will not be solved in any case until a revolutionary party stands at the head of the proletariat. The questions of tempos and time intervals is of enormous importance; but it alters nothing in the general historical perspective nor the general direction of our policy.
The conclusion is a simple one; it is necessary to carry on the work of organising and educating the vanguard with tenfold energy. Precisely in this lies the task of the Fourth
International. 4
This passage does not read like the work of a man who based everything, including the whole future of socialism as Callinicos contends, on the certainty of revolutionary victories coming out of the war. It seems certain however that the certain advent of world war weighed heavily in Trotsky's mind in deciding to formally found the FI. He was only too conscious of the weakness of the forces which the FI had at its disposal. As Pierre Broué and Daniel Bensaïd have shown in detail Trotsky did not first attempt to build the Fl out of pristine-pure revolutionary Marxist forces. On the contrary, he made repeated attempts to approach "centrist" or "left centrist" forces, most famously at the time of the "Bloc of Four", to regroup those forces breaking to the left of social democracy and Stalinism. Contrary to the myths of Trotsky's detractors and dead-end sectarians, the decision to proceed with the formation of the FI on the basis of solely "Trotskyist" forces represented a bad second best, the acceptance of a defeat and not a victory; it was an indicator
Review: Science and style 131 of the utter isolation of the revolutionary Marxist forces.
One can debate this or that aspect of Trotsky's approach to the leftist parties which he sought to make allies; at various times perhaps his polemic with them was too harsh. Be that as it may, the factor which counted most in this process was the objective situation, the succession of defeats suffered by the working class during the 1930s which weighed heavily on the course taken by the non-Trotskyist communist organizations.
In any case, the foundation of the Fourth International was surely to guard the continuity of revolutionary Marxism, irrespective of the precise course of the class struggle. But three things can be said of Trotsky's prognoses. First, as a militant politician and not just a detached commentator, he wanted to lift the vision of his forces to the maximum possibilities inherent in the situation; "build the FI and prepare for certain total defeat" was hardly an appropriate rallying call. Second, some of his perspectives were clearly falsified by events; but some were in important ways confirmed.
The aspect of Trotsky's prognosis which was most clearly falsified was the expectation of the collapse of the Soviet bureaucracy during the war. We know of course how close the USSR was brought to collapse by the maladministration of Stalin and his bureaucratic lieutenants. But the extraordinary mobilization of the Soviet people to defeat fascism, surely not just the result of bureaucratic-command terror, but at the very least a practical understanding of the terrible consequences of Nazi victory as shown by the events in Western Russia and the Ukraine, ensured Nazism's defeat and Stalin's victory. Indeed, Trotsky's views on the USSR in war were part of a more overall underestimation of the possibilities for the relative stabilization of bureaucratic rule. Such an underestimation was of course based on the perfectly correct understanding of the ultimate interdependence of even an autarkic USSR and the world economy; and the inevitability either of capitalist restoration or of political revolution. But Trotsky's timescale here was extremely telescoped. The possibility of the survival of a bureaucratized workers state for decades depended of course on the immense natural and labour-power reserves of the USSR. This was what enabled the Soviet Union to be cut off from the rest of the world economy, to undergo a process of primitive accumulation on the basis of increasing inputs of labour power and raw materials. Such a way out could only be a temporary one; sooner or later the Soviet economy would go into crisis because of its relative inability to compete with the development of the productive forces in the advanced capitalist economies. But we know now full well that this process took several decades. Trotsky's alternatives — either successful revolution and the linking up of the
132 International Marxist Review Soviet economy with a new international division of labour, or alternatively capitalist restoration, were historically correct; the timescale was not.
The possibility of revolutions following the war was only partly disproved. The mass armed resistance movements in France and, especially, Italy had the objective possibility of seizing power. And the second world war was followed by a series of revolutionary upheavals in the third world, most notably (and crucially) China.
The probability of capitalist slump following the war was again only partially falsified by events. A dire economic situation faced the whole capitalist world after the war, with the exception of the USA. What is true is that the (very weak) Fourth International was slow to recognize that a new capitalist boom had started; although given that for most countries it did not develop until around 1950, this delay in comprehension (until about the time of the Third World Congress in 1951) was hardly catastrophic.
We can debate endlessly the precise outcome of Trotsky's various programmatic declarations and predictions about the outcome of the war. But what Callinicos fails to do, like many before him, is show why the foundation of the Fourth International depended on the correctness of the most optimistic projects for the collapse of Stalinism, capitalist crises and successful revolution. You can argue that if the possible scenario of the 1940 Manifesto came true, new defeats and thus a long period of preparation, which in large part it did, then the projection of large masses following the FI would be falsified, which it was. Why did that negate the work of the international regroupment and organization of revolutionary forces, the "long work" of cadre formation and preparation? Why was the work that Pablo and others did in reorganizing the Trotskyist movement in Europe under Nazi occupation "negated" by the falsification of the most optimistic revolutionary expectations? This is a non-sequitur in Alex Callinicos' position. You can even argue that the structures of the movement, the understanding of international democratic centralism appropriate to a tiny movement was wrong, and that it had fateful consequences during the 1953 split. But that again does not invalidate the necessity of international work and regroupment to prepare and organize the revolutionary forces. In other words, contrary to what Deutscher and dozens of other have alleged, the most optimistic perspectives of were not, and could not be, the sole or even main justification of the formation of the FI. Callinicos' alternative to the founding of the FI is unstated. Should the international Trotskyist current have been disbanded for purely national work? If not, then it comes down to a discussion about name and structures, not political content.
As might be expected from an adherent of "state capitalist" theory, Callinicos places a great deal of emphasis on the debate on the character of eastern
Europe, and subsequently Cuba and China, which occurred in the Trotskyist movement. For him, the analysis of eastern Europe as "deformed workers states" was a classic "conventionalist strategy". Since the "core theory" (the
USSR being a degenerated workers state) had to be preserved, auxiliary hypotheses (eastern Europe being deformed workers states) had to be added
However, this was because the original theory was unable to predict "new facts" (eastern Europe having statized economies), and thus represented a
"degenerating (sic) research programme" as opposed to the "progressive
We shall not here attempt to go into the debate of the class nature of the
Soviet Union and eastern Europe which has been rehearsed endlessly. Except to highlight one point. For Callinicos the central point on which the research programme represented by Trotsky's theory of the Soviet Union fails is that it negates fundamental Marxist axioms on socialism being the "self-activity the unbridgeable antagonism between the definition of Russia as a degenerated workers' state and fundamental elements of Marxism such as...the self-mobilization and self- conscious action of the masses as a necessary element of socialist revolution.
This is indeed at the heart of the theory of state capitalism, and far from being its strongest point is indeed its weak link. It could only be used against those who ever thought that the USSR and Eastern Europe were socialist, which the FI never did. Moreover the (not very difficult) theoretical move of disproving that these countries were socialist never succeeded in demonstrating why they were some form of capitalism, which is why the Cliff tradition has largely failed to produce an effective refutation of the theory of bureaucratic collectivism. For Cliff was forced to concede in the founding text of his tendency, State Capitalism in Russia, that the Soviet Union lacked central features of capitalism, most notably the functioning of the economy through the operation of the law of value. This admission, in the context of rejecting the "degenerated workers state" or transitional society theory, more or less inevitably leads to bureaucratic collectivist theory. Indeed, given Cliff's impressive listing of the economic achievements of the Soviet Union in his
1948 text, it could only logically lead to a theory of progressive bureaucratic
Stalinism of the working class"
it:
problem shift" of Tony Cliff's state capitalist thesis.
'. As Tony Cliff, approvingly quoted by Callinicos puts
Review: Science and style 133
134 International Marxist Review collectivism. This was avoided by Cliff only by a series of "conventionalist stratagems", auxiliary hypotheses, which far from being a "progressive problem-shift" as Callinicos alleges, were in fact theoretical manoeuvres to detend the core theory, state capitalism. As we shall see these theoretical manoeuvres were essentially the theory of "deflected permanent revolution" and the "permanent arms economy". Booms and slumps
The centrality of state capitalist theory in the world view of the SWP leadership can be seen in Callinicos' account of the cycle of post-war capitalist economic development, contrasted with the account of orthodox Trotskyism and particular the theories of Ernest Mandel. Callinicos (pp. 79-83) argues that arms production explains the post-war capitalist boom; that the main form of economic competition between imperialist powers is competition over arms production; that the law of value was reintroduced into the Soviet Union by competitive arms production with the West; and the theory of the permanent arms economy enabled Cliff to predict that the boom would turn into slump (this last point is a particularly outrageous travesty of historical truth which we shall come to). The all-pervasive explanatory powers of the theory of the permanent arms economy is contrasted with Mandel's theory of long waves of capitalist development which is a "failure"
What should we make of all this? The theoretical moves which led to these positions is clear enough. To maintain the dogma of state capitalism the law of value in the Soviet Union has to be reintroduced through the back door, which is done with arms production. Arms competition becomes a generalized theory of inter-imperialist conflict; and in turn a theory of capitalist stability during the boom. But it manifestly did not become a theory which enabled an explanation of why the boom would turn into crisis. For since in this theory arms production "destroys capital" and does not contribute to capital formation, it prevents the workings of the tendency of the organic composition of capital to rise, thus attenuating capitalism periodic crises. What the SWP theorists never explained was why the permanent arms economy stopped working, especially in a world where the volume arms production got bigger every year! In truth the advent of the long wave of capitalist recession, and the massive international crisis of 1974-5, caught the IS-SWP by surprise. On the contrary, Mandel argued in 1964 that the post-war boom would soon turn into a prolonged period of crisis, an impending long wave
Mandel's theory of long waves in capitalism is of course not part of the
"orthodoxy" or programmatic positions of the Fourth International. It is a scientific hypothesis, open to falsification like any other. But it seems hard to credit Callinicos' summary dismissal of a theory which so evidently corresponds with at least the basic facts of the post-war world — that is a long wave of capitalist expansion, followed by a long wave with an "undertone of recession". But there is a methodological dispute which Callinicos brings to
• bear on this question. He specifies that it is "Mandel's...unsuccessful attempt to integrate the idea of long waves of economic development. with
Marx's theory of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall"(p. 43) which is the fundamental objection. Callinicos objects on two counts; first that "long waves" of capitalist development cannot be integrated with an account of the normal booms and slumps which constitute the 8-10 year business cycle.
Of course Trotsky thought differently. In his famous 1921 speech on economic perspectives, explaining that world capitalism was going through a
Does this mean that a new commercial-industrial upswing is excluded in the future. Not at all! I have already said that as long as capitalism remains alive it continues to inhale and exhale. But in the epoch which we have entered — the epoch of retribution for the drain and destruction of wartime, the epoch of levelling out in reverse — upswings can only be of a superficial and speculatory character, while the crises become more and more prolonged and
Here we have exactly a theory of long waves during which periodic slumps and booms continue to function, with crises getting deeper during periods of decline. But be all that as it may; his second objection is epistemological,
"Mandel's stress on multiple causality" combined with a failure to "provide a general account of the relative importance of these variables". This leads to theoretical "syncretism", a general lack of coherent theory in which
It is necessary to note a methodological confusion in this critique, that between different levels of abstraction, which is so crucial to the Marxist method. Numerous debates, most notably the "transformation problem" in
Marxist economics, become incomprehensible unless the level of abstraction
Mandel's long waves theory is a theory of capitalist development, that is a theory which attempts to integrate into its account not only basic laws of capsoon signalled by the West German recession of 1966.6 long period of decline, he states:
deep-going.
namely his assertion of the functioning of basic laws can be detected.
being dealt with is specified
Review: Science and style 135
136 International Marxist Review italist economy, but the concrete constellation of events, social and political, through which these laws find their expression. There is a school of thought, at one time somewhat influential in Britain through the writing of David Yaffe, which wants to reduce events to the direct workings of master laws like the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. But the concrete course of the capitalist economy cannot be reduced to the workings of such laws. For example, you cannot explain the post-war boom, without knowing that there was a world war which preceded it. You cannot explain the boom without integrating the outcome of the bitter post-war class struggles which followed, and the defeats which followed, particularly the defeat of the French, Italian, German and Japanese working class which were the social-political basis for the boom's "take off". In other words if you admit that the crucial variable in capitalist boom and slump is the rate of profit, you have to explain the concrete elements in the formation of that rate of profit. These centrally involve the tendency of the organic composition of capital to rise, and thus the rate of profit to fall, but also involve the outcome of social and political events — that is the class struggle. It is classically in Marxist theory those who reject the integration of the fundamental laws of capitalist economy with the outcome of the class struggle who develop mechanical and fatalistic theories — notably various theories of inevitable "capitalist breakdown" , the most developed of which was expounded by Heinrick Grossman (and it is no accident for example that David Yaffe regards himself as a pupil of Grossman).
Of course Alex Callinicos is right to reject the "multiple causality" theory of the detractors of Marxism who see no discernible laws or long-term causality in historical development. However, the reduction of events to "master-laws" ends up explaining everything by explaining nothing. Most politically debilitating, such theories do not distinguish between what lies in the ambit of human action and is thus changeable, and that which is inscribed in the "objective" situation. Such theorists of course often read into the course of the class struggle the direct workings of the economy, seeing capitalist slump as invariably leading to a downturn in the struggle, and a revival of the economy inevitably leading to an upturn. Such a mechanical view of the economy and class struggle was of course given its most complete refutation in Trotsky's speech to the 3rd Congress of the Comintern in which he brilliantly sketched the interaction of economic and political events, refuting their identity or linear causality? In passing we should note that in precisely this speech Trotsky showed how if capitalism defeated the long wave of class struggle which stemmed from the First World War, new defeats could be imposed, a new period of capitalist stabilization
Review: Science and style 137 could ensue, a new capitalist boom could develop.
Thus Alex Callinicos, in his attempts to reject non-Marxist theories of multiple causality runs the risk of bending the stick towards mechanical and dogmatic theories. Marxist method and the problem of falsification
In deciding to dismiss orthodox Trotskyism as a "degenerating research programme" Callinicos bases himself on the highly formalized protocols of Lakatos' theory of scientific knowledge. To cut a long story short, Lakatos insists that any scientific theory must specify the conditions of its own falsification; must be able to explain new facts; and that auxiliary hypotheses based on the "core" theory must genuinely defend and be in line with the core theory itself.'° In this case, Callinicos takes as the "core" theory of orthodox Trotskyism its characterization of the Soviet Union, and argues that the conditions of its falsification have been met — in the expansion of Stalinism into eastern Europe and the failure of Trotsky's post-war perspectives.
One of the characteristics of the renaissance of Marxist thought in the English speaking world since 1968 has been the attempt to utilize notions taken from academic philosophy, especially in matters concerning logic and truth; the most famous example being GA Cohen's extensive attempt to re-work the bases of historical materialism."
Callinicos' own intervention on this score, explained both in the work under review and his Marxism and Philosophy, is not without problems. What is not explained is the relationship of Lakatos' position to traditional Marxist notions of dialectical logic, and the conventional Marxist response to the problem of truth and verification — the unity (dialectic) of theory and practice. Callinicos in his critique of Althusser, adopts the same position as dozens of critics, seeing in Althusser's conception that the correctness of theory is confirmed only in theory a fundamental idealism. Althusser's idealism destroys the notion of the confirmation of theory in practice; indeed his notorious distinction between the (unknowable) "real concrete" and the "concrete in thought" makes the unity of theory and practice impossible.
The problem with Lakatos' specifications for the scientificity of any theory is the difficulty of transferring it from the scientific laboratory to the realm of social science. Specifically Lakatos' theory seems to work for controlled empirical experiments which require formal logic for their solution. But this method seems incapable of dealing with dialectical thought. A couple of
138 International Marxist Review examples will show what we mean.
Take the following propositions: a) Core theory: Stalinism is counterrevolutionary through and through and has gone over to the bourgeois order b) New fact: Stalinism overthrew capitalism in eastern Europe c) Auxiliary hypothesis: Stalinism can destroy capitalist social relations, while retaining its counter-revolutionary character on a world-historic scale. Now the Lakatos-meter blows up when this data is fed in because this particular machine is incapable of dialectical thought and considers the input to be gibberish.
Since Callinicos in this instance agrees with the machine, lets take a less controversial example. a) Core theory: British capitalism is in a prolonged crisis and decline b) New fact: British capitalism expanded rapidly between 1984-88 c) Auxiliary hypotheses: i) even capitalist economies in crisis can experience periods of expansion ii) even within long waves of capitalist decline, the business cycle continues to work, giving temporary "upturns" and "downturns" within the cycle. It is difficult to see how Lakatos' propositions cope with these self-evidently correct series of propositions. Once the number of variables under discussion becomes very large, the protocols of formal logic become unworkable, which is why a machine armed with a few propositions cannot replace the human mind in most scientific experiments.
This brings us straight back to the issue of levels of abstraction. Marx's famous explanation in the Grundrisse of the method of abstraction he utilized, inscribes the dialectical notion of contradiction in its very formulation: "The concrete is concrete because it is a combination of many abstractions, and hence the unity of the diverse". To put it another way, Marxist method is that of successive approximation, a constant interplay of the abstract and the concrete. In dealing with, and attempting to verify or falsify any proposition, it is necessary to know the level of abstraction under discussion. Empiricism will immediately falsify numerous propositions Marxists take as axiomatic (eg "the proletariat is a revolutionary class").
In its very formulation, Lakatos' formulation denies the possibility of one thing: the modification, or re-formulation, of the "core theory" to make it more concrete; for Lakatos the core theory of a scientific research programme must be "defended" be subsidiary hypotheses. Once the core theory is modified it is "falsified". But in Marxist theory there seems little reason to accept such a position.
But leaving aside the discussion on method, there is another factor which Callinicos accepts which he seems to have ignored. The elaborate apparatus of Lakatos' theory of scientific research programmes has been dragged out to attempt to prove that orthodox Trotskyism is a "degenerating research pro-
Review: Science and style 139 gramme". It is so because of its false "core" theory, that of the class nature of the Soviet Union. Orthodox Trotskyists have a false theoretical framework, and this it would seem vitiates their practice. Now the SWP traditionally attempts to prove this by arguing that the FI in particular has a tendency, a temptation, or a sensibility to "capitulate to Stalinism". Generally, these attempts are far-fetched, relying on the odd out-of-context quote from the 1950s. What then, comrade Callinicos, is the characterization of the Fourth International made by the SWP? Is it revolutionary — or centrist? What about the PRT in Mexico, the absolutely dominant force in the far left of that country? Or the LCR in France, or the NSSP in Sri Lanka? The proof of the pudding
Let us presume, for the sake of argument, that the answer is indeed that these forces are centrist. How come then that, aside from the SWP, Callinicos utilizes the example of the French organization Lutte Ouvrière as a revolutionary organization which has weathered the difficult years in "good shape"? Whatever its peculiarities, LO never accepted the theory of state capitalism, but considered the Soviet Union to be a workers state. Its "split" theory of a different nature of the USSR and eastern Europe is surely a "degenerating research programme"; indeed in its immobility it is hardly a research programme at all! So how come Lutte Ouvrière is in "good shape"?
There is a deep and revealing idealism in the position of the SWP on these issues. As a matter of fact history has shown that it was possible to have either a state capitalist or degenerated workers state theory of the Soviet Union ( and in some cases even a bureaucratic collectivist theory), and maintain a fundamentally revolutionary attitude towards Stalinism and the imperialist world order. You can argue that one or other theory opened people up to this or that "pressure" or "temptation" ("campism" or "third campism" according to taste). But you cannot seriously argue that one or other theory made a revolutionary position absolutely impossible. Both state capitalist and transitional society theories enabled their adherents to judge the bureaucracy as counter-revolutionary and to support workers struggles against it.
Now, from an overall historical materialist viewpoint, this should be no surprise. Lenin insisted that without revolutionary theory there is no revolutionary practice. But he never said that without an absolutely correct theory on all things there is no revolutionary practice. Indeed such a view would be the purest idealism, to imagine that the theory which allows a revolutionary
140 International Marxist Review practice must be absolutely coherent and correct, would be an absurdity, and has been disproved by history, spectacularly in the case of the Bolshevik Party. As Alex Callinicos knows very well, Lenin's theory of the character of the Russian revolution was wrong until April 1917; but it was a theory (the "democratic dictatorship") which allowed for the leading role of the working class, and the construction of a revolutionary party. To put it another way, would an adherent of the theory of permanent revolution have been correct to insist on the building of an alternative party to the Bolsheviks on this issue? Trotsky's mature judgement on this question is well known.
This issue, the attempt to construct parties on the basis of monolithic and absolutely "correct" theory is not a side issue for Marxists: rather it is at the heart of the matter of current tasks for the international Trotskyist movement. The "missing party"
Alex Callinicos' "Trotskyism" is of course constrained by its format: an exposition of "concepts in social science". That format did not give him full scope to further elucidate his ideas about the relevance of Trotskyism today, or its practical tasks —other than to affirm its continuing relevance in a general sense. But, as comrade Callinicos would himself be the first to point out, it will only have real relevance as a practical movement, rather than just another theoretical paradigm.
The SWP's whole political approach is rather dominated by two political turns made by its founder-theorist, Tony Cliff. The first, obviously, was his adherence to the theory of state capitalism; we have seen how the theory of state capitalism became the key for Cliff in explaining modern imperialism, and even colonial revolution in his notion of "deflected permanent revolution".
The second was Cliff's 1968 turn on the Leninist party, evidently and explicitly on the basis of an assessment of the May-June events in France where "Leninist"-type organizations (JCR, Voix Ouvrière) had made an impact, whereas federalist-type organizations like the syndicalist Socialisme ou Barbarie had fragmented and been ineffective.
Since 1968 the IS-S WP has kept up a rather one-dimensional discourse on the need for a revolutionary party, and in a series of writings decried its absence as the explanation for a series of revolutionary defeats, from Chile to Portugal and Poland.'2 The one major piece its theoretical journal has published on the Brazilian Workers Party (PT) decries the absence of the "miss-
Review: Science and style 141 ing party" (!) — a pristine-pure revolutionary party in Brazil of the SWPtype. Of course for serious Marxists, and we do not suppose Callinicos disagrees, the "absence" of a revolutionary party in each situation has to be explained not as (or not solely as) the lack of a propagandistic nucleus armed with correct theories, but of the historical formation of the workers vanguard — that is generally of the weakness of the broad workers vanguard, and often a decline since the pre-Second World War period of a broad vanguard with a more-or-less revolutionary consciousness.
Without the essential mediation of a consideration of the broad historical sweep of the workers movement, theories of the "absence" of a revolutionary party can fall into an obvious voluntarism. For example, we can all agree that the existence of a mass revolutionary party in France in May 1968 would have transformed the situation, but then the existence of such a party would have assumed a whole different course of social, economic and political development in France since 1945. The conditions in France were no more propitious for the formation of such a party than they were in Britain (in some ways less), and the objective conditions prevented the followers of variously Cliff, Healy and Grant from forming such a party, just as they did the followers of Lambert, Pierre Frank and Voix Ouvrière.
All this has a bearing on the crucial issue of the formation and renewal of the revolutionary socialist tradition internationally. The international practice of the SWP, which Callinicos knows intimately, is based on the assumption that the key to the situation in each country is the formation of a propagandistic nucleus armed with the "correct" theory, namely the question of state capitalism. Thus SWP mini-clones have been established in several countries. This is a project which is doomed historically, and will lead into a blind alley — leave aside the fact that if capitalism is restored in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe the issue of the former class nature of the USSR will have declining practical relevance.
The accomplishment of socialism is a world-historical task. Thus the formation of a mass workers international is the optimum form, the best instrument, for the working class to pursue this task. But the concrete conditions for working towards this goal are very different to the 1920s or 1930s. There is no authoritative revolutionary "centre" like the Comintern in its revolutionary period. The revolutionary forces are dispersed, often — as in the example of the Brazilian PT — existing in organizations which are not consistently revolutionary, and often scattered in several organizations of different political types in one country. It is a period, leave aside precise formulations, in which the international working class has suffered important
142 International Marxist Review defeats.
There are two basic ways to approach this situation. The first is to retire to the bunker, and denounce all those not possessed of the "correct" theory. It is possible to retire to the bunker aggressively, and carry out systematic propaganda activity which can lead to certain results.
The second is to see the dispersal of revolutionary forces as a problem to be overcome; and to understand that the implantation of Marxists can only take the road of participation in the broad recomposition of the international workers movement — the Brazilian PT, with its 600,000 members is a case in point.
Now this second approach should not, and does not, lead to passivity, attentisme and a refusal to engage directly in the tasks of party building, which of course centrally involve propaganda. But it all we aspire to is the construction of small propaganda nuclei armed with our own specific theoretical nostrums, then this is a project which leads, in the end, to self-isolation.
More than that, however, it will have direct effects on the character of the organizations claiming the Trotskyist tradition. The construction of organizations on this or that theoretical dogma, as opposed to a broad anti-capitalist programme, leads invariably to monolithic regimes and splits.
The question of international orientation is one staring the SWP in the face. A small organization can get on with building in its own country without much concern for the international movement. But an organization the size of the SWP, especially an organization stemming from the Trotskyist tradition, invariably is faced with how to approach the rest of the international revolutionary movement. Denouncing everybody else for the error of their ways will end in defeat.
Trotsky's declaration in the 1940 Manifesto, that the fusion of the vanguard was a precondition for the ending of the suffering of the planet retains its force today. For the Fourth International the fusion of the vanguard is not reducible to relations between organizations which declare themselves in the Trotskyist tradition. The diversity of forces which in practice have broken from Stalinism and social democracy precludes such a restricted approach. It is true that a simple-minded ecumenical approach is forlorn, and will not enable revolutionary Marxists to look beyond the formal declarations of other currents. But it is also true that in Trotsky's practice of attempting to win broader forces to founding the Fourth International, and in his various statements that Trotskyists may well be a minority in a new revolutionary international, that theoretical ultimatism might preserve our purity, but will not allow us to achieve much. Let us put the question point blank to Alex Callini-
Review: Science and style 143 cos; Trotsky thought "Trotskyists" might be a minority in a new revolutionary international. Is it not conceivable that adherents of the theory of state capitalism might be as well?
Notes
1. On this (unresolved) debate see: Peter Binns, "What are the tasks of Marxism in Philosophy?", International Socialism Autumn 1982; Alex Callinicos, Marxism and Philosophy
Spring 1983; Chris Harman, "Philosophy and Revolution", International Socialism,
Autumn 1983.
2. Inaccurately, because a high proportion of the leading "68ers" was active well before.
3. The idea that the very foundation of the FI was wrong seems to have been developed by
Duncan Hallas; see D. Hallas, "Against the Stream", International Socialism (old series)
по 53 p.37.
4. Trotsky, Writings 1939-40 p. 218.
5. See "The Formative Years of the Fourth International", Daniel Bensaid, Notebooks for
Study and Research; IIRE, Amsterdam, and Pierre Broué, Trotsky, Fayard, Paris, 1988.
6. E. Mandel, The Economics of Neo-Capitalism, Socialist Register, London, 1964.
7. Trotsky, First Five Years of the Communist International, Pathfinder Press, New York, volume 1 p. 208.
8. See David Yaffe's article on the transformation problem in the now-defunct journal Revolutionary Communist, No 1.
9. Trotsky, op cit., pp. 207-12
10. Imre Lakatos, Philosophical Papers, Cambridge University Press 1975.
11. G.A. Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History, A Defence, Oxford, 1981.
12. See for example the anthology, Revolutionary Rehearsals, Bookmarks 1985.
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