“But I do like what you say about bureaucratisation. That way we can show that Stalinism was really not about Stalin, but a general tendency that exists within our movement of which we must always be wary whatever our theoretical label. It seems to me that, like always, we don’t really disagree.”

The key text for this – albeit of bourgeois origin – is Robert Michels’ Political Parties. If you ignore his positing of ‘iron laws’ , and occasional tendency to platitude, he often raises very good points about precisely this topic (although his concern is the prewar german SPD).

Well what’s the problem ? The fact is that indeed the bureaucracy, although starting out as part of the worker’s movement, or to be precise, the workers’ state separated itself from the proletariat, first piecemeal, then in more clearcut and violent ways, until it became a new class, with control over the means of production, and extracting surplus-value from the workers.

That part of the workers’ movement became aware early of the risk of this separation arising, you can see in the writings of Lenin in 1920-23 and Trotsky 1923 onwards.

Second part – and this is where I feel you haven’t been talking to the right trots ! – is the analysis of stalinism within the workers movement, ie the various CPs around the world. They certainly didn’t become new ruling classes themselves, as the seat was still occupied, but turned to various kinds of reformism from the influences of the local conditions, strength of the local workers movement, and the interests of the Kremlin bureaucracy.

So it’s all there to be analysed, with the good old trusty tools of historical materialism ! On the other hand I must say fear you’re going down an impasse looking for the causes of stalinism in our sullied souls…

Fortunately though I guess the WRP didn’t have access to the levers of state power.

So I agree with “charliemarks” that bureaucratisation is the important issue here, and of course in this respect Trotsky was correct in his analysis if perhaps a little slow in getting there.

As far as the point about not defining your politics exclusively in terms of one revolutionary tradition goes I agree absolutely. It is really mainly in regard to the class nature of the USSR debate that I describe myself as pro-Trotsky. If we were discussing Cuba I could equally well describle myself as pro-Guevara! And while I don’t find much to like about Mao himself, there are aspects of the Maoist movement in places like the Philippines and Nepal that I think we can certainly learn from.

I too regard myself as “pro-Trotsky”, but I also regard myself as pro-Gramsci, pro-Luxemburg, pro-Pannekoek, pro-many people on different issues. The problem with the left is that they often become attached to the theorists and then proceed from there to reject any tradition with which their revolutionary icon might have come into contact with. I am very interested in what you say about your organisation. I will be following your blog closely for more info.

Andy, I think you are being a bit too harsh when you say that Trotsky would have been worse than Stalin. I am really not sure that Trotsky would not have murdered Bukharin (the murder of Bukharin for me is the epitome of what is wrong with Stalinism) as despite being a ruthless bureaucrat, he did not seem to suffer from Stalin’s paranoia. Certainly, Trotsky’s criticism of the Soviet bureaucracy would have been impossible if it hadn’t turned back to bite him in the arse as it was to a large extent his creation. People seem to forget that he was calling for the militarisation of labour in the early 20s.

BTW Tim B says: “I think that the “human raw material” factor in revolutionary politics is often hugely underestimated – I have no doubt for instance that had Gerry Healy got his hands on state power he would have been just as bad as Stalin!”

I would go further, if Trotsky had come to power he would probably have been worse than Stalin.

What is crucialy missing from Trot accounts in the “a big boy did it and ran away” school of Societ history, is any looking at the role actually played by the left opposition in the crucial years 1926 to 1928.