Who are the Trotskyists? Daniel Serge reviews a recent book from Socialist Resistance Strategies of Resistance 2009) collects a series of essays on the Trotskyist movement, covering its history and the challenges facing today's revolutionaries. Its author, Daniel Bensaid (1946-2010) was one of the chief theoreticians of the Fourth International, the grouping of revolutionary socialist organisations established by Trotsky in 1938. From the above, it should be clear that Strategies is not an introductory booklet. It's aimed as a primer for activists who want to understand the history of their movement. However, if you are a beginner, you will be lost among its constant references to Stalinism and anti-Stalinist revolutions, the dialectical movement of history and the trajectory of the USSR. But for someone who knows socialism, and who doesn't mind embarking on unfamiliar terrain, Strategies is immensely rewarding. The bulk of the collection is taken up by "Who Are The Trotskyists?," a tour through the murky waters of the left of the international communist movement. Bensaid guides readers decade by decade from the post-Russian revolution debates on "socialism in one country," to the formation of the Fourth International and its bunkered history through the post-WW2 era, to the flowering of Marxist activity in the 1960s and 70s, ending with a sober assessment of the post-USSR era. It's the story of a small group of revolutionaries who fought their way through inhuman conditions: firstly against the Stalinist bureaucracy of the USSR, secondly against capitalist imperialism and fascism, and finally against their own internal divisions. They established groups, sometimes thousands-strong, that intervened politically on the issues of the day. Trotskyists played a central role in supporting strug gles against colonial powers, in Latin American revolutionary movements and in workers' struggles in Europe. The emphasis is on "sober." While Bensaid represents the Fourth International and not the political currents that left it, he is not drawing a red thread from his party back to Old Man Trotsky. He is critical of the post-war expectations of a new global war and the guerrilla adventures of the 1970s. However, his task is to situate all these developments historically, and not to fall into what he calls 'the condescension of posterity, judging the hopes and fears of a past epoch by our own. In the 1950s, given the nuclear build-up and the Korean War, it was quite reasonable to expect capitalism to enter another holocaust in the near future. With the upsurge of anti-colonial struggles in the 1960s, it made sense to consider forming armed struggle groups in poor countries. That history judged differently does not make the Trotskyists' decisions the inevitable result of weaknesses in their doctrine, or of Marxism itself - although Bensaid condemns those who would take Trotsky's words as sacred relics, rather than strategic pieces of the moment. Rather, their story is told through the eyes of participants. It's up to the reader to find inspiration in people from earlier times trying to change the world. The first essay ends abruptly at the turn of the millennium, and the debates it refers to are so complex that Bensaid can only summarise their decisions, not how they worked at the time. To show this process, Strategies provides a helpful selection of political essays by Bensaid addressing a range of broad and complex questions. Again, casual reader be warned: coming to terms with the end of Stalinism, the rise of postmodernism and the idea of hegemony is not a task for the faint-hearted. For example, he tries to rescue the concept of hegemony from two extremes. Firstly, he refutes the caricature of Leninism, in which the party substitutes for the class, showing that both Lenin and Gramsci thought the working class had to have several political representatives, to prove ideas in practice. On the other side, Bensaid takes structuralist fracturing, in which fundamental social antagonisms are reduced to identities, and the focus for social change shifts from class struggle to democratic citizenship. Even if you don't understand those terms, you can appreciate the awe-inspiring breadth of BenBensaid outlines the central strength of Marxism: the ability to understand the world as a concrete whole. He describes this process in "The Mole and
33 * Reviews the Locomotive." Marxism isn't just a "good theory," it's a response to the very real fragmentation that capitalism creates: "the weight of defeats and disasters reduces every news item to a dusty powder of minor news items, of sound bytes which are skipped over as soon as they are received, of ephemeral fashions and faddish understand the logic of history and be ready for the surprise of the event." History is not written in advance, because capitalism is not one-way. It depends on people, and people always resist. Understanding, participating and shaping that resistance is a task for generations of Marxists, and Bensaid has nothing but scorn for those who abandon that task at the first hint of setback. Up till his recent death he remained a radical, not from some religious, messianic vision that only he held, but from an understanding of history itself that always contains the germs of multiple Strategies of Resistance goes far deeper than this brief summary. The title essay, in particular, compresses huge debates on postmodernism and revolutionary strategy into opaque, paragraph-long theses. But read in the context of the opening history of Trotskyism, the reader sees what is at stake in this theorizing: understanding the world in order to change it. No transcendent event, no decisive moment in the far-distant future, should give socialists hope: only the fact that we possess a method, rich in history and depth, that allows us to understand and act upon the world. To that extent, Bensaid's essays provide a task - and thus an intense hope - for the present. This is the real value of this excellent collection: to see where Trotskyists have come from, where radicals in the Marxist tradition might go, and most importantly how to
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These are just some of the titles we have published to date, and more are in the pipeline. They can be bought from Socialist Resistance, at the address below; or ordered online through Amazon.co.uk 34 Books from Socialist Resistance Socialist Resistance PO Box 62732 London SW2 9GQ 1 Mexico's Zapatista rebels and the Seattle demonstrators were the tip of an iceberg of social and political revolt against the injustices of corporate-led globalisation. In 2002 John Holloway, working in Puebla, Mexico, published Change the World without Taking Power. This book debates the implications of that slogan. 2 Documents of the differences which developed last year in how Respect should be organised and built, and which led to the split promoted by the SWP following criticism of its leadership role by almost everyone else, including Socialist Resistance. £3.50 €4 $6 Middle East has suffered a seemingly unending period and mass resistance to the region's ruling classes. In this book, that resistance speaks in its own words, in a collection of some of the most powerful articles written in the last sixty years by socialist, ecologist and anti-Zionist activists across the 4 A collection of important contributions to the debate on the ecology and global capitalism's ability to control the resulting destruction of the environment. This reprinted second edition is essential reading for anyone getting to grips with ecosocialism.
£6 €7 $10 5 Written just prior to the start of the rectification period in 1986, John Lister's book explains the impact of Stalinism on the Castroist leadership. "One very useful and detailed account of the development of the Cuban revolution" - Marx£4.95 €6 $8 6 Celia Hart came from a family of veteran Cuban revolutionaries who fought with Fidel against the Batista dictatorship. Celia was an outspoken defender of the political and revolutionary heritage of Leon Trotsky. Her recent articles on this subject provoked an intense debate on the question of Trotsky internationally.
£6 €7 $10 7 Ron Ridenour's follow-up to his Cuba at the Crossroads, written while he was livng and £10 €11 $17 8 lan Angus, who wrote several of the articles in this book and selected the others from a wide range of authors and movements, is one of the world's best-known ecosocialist activists. He is editor of the online journal Climate and Capitalism, which has been described as "the most reliable single source of information and strategic insights for climate justice." lan is also Associate Editor of Socialist Voice, an Advisory Editor of Socialist Resistance, and a founding member of the Ecosocialist International Network. He lives in Ontario, Canada.
£10 €11 $17 9 Trotsky's writings on the permanent revolution are the theoretical mainspring of proletarian revolutionary strategy and are an obligatory study for all who aspire to lead the workingclass in the struggle for socialism, whether in the capitalist countries of the West or in the backward colonial countries.
£9 €10 $15 10 The credit crunch of 2008 produced an international recession in 2009. In Socialists and the Capitalist Recession, Claudio Katz and Michel Husson, fellows of the International Institute for Research and Education, and SSP activist Raphie de Santos, describe the present crisis, construct a socialist analysis of its causes, and propose socialist solutions.
£6 €7 $10 11 The account of his life and struggle by a black activist in South Africa. It records the founding and growth of the revolutionary left organisations, and includes a stern, reasoned critique of the ANC and SACP. Nikani describes his exile, a clandestine mission back into South Africa, his escape to and imprisonment in Swaziland, and his final exile to Sweden, where he died in 1999.
£10 €11 $17 12 In this personal and political account of organising car workers, Alan Thornett's first volume of biography describes his work in the militant Cowley Assembly Plant from 1959 to 1974, a period of outstanding struggle. In 1963 Alan was elected shop steward for the plant's transport drivers and in 1967, as a member of the Trotskyist SLL, as full-time deputy TGWU convenor in 1967.
£10 €11 $17 13 Kautsky's 1908 Marxist classic is an account of how what began as a minor sect in Palestine became the state religion of the Roman Empire. "There was a time when Kautsky was in the true sense of the word the teacher who instructed the international proletarian vanguard." - Leon Trotsky
£12 13 $20 14 This classic exchange was commissioned jointly by the Socialist Workers Party and the Fourth International. The debate revolves around privatisationa central issue of social and political struggles in the former USSR. Also included is a major rejoinder from Ernest Mandel.
£3.85 G4 $6 15 Brazilian socialists André Passos Cordeiro, Ubiratan de Souza, Pepe Vargas, Raul Pont and João Machado describe in The Porto Alegre Alternative how Porto Alegre's participatory budget was born and developed with popular movements and local Workers' Party (PT) victories, and how it promises a radically democratic alternative in the interests of the poor to top-down political and economic decision-making.
£12 €13 $20 16 Venezuela has become a huge source of hope and inspiration for the Left throughout the world. Some see it as a shining example of how to beginbuilding a successful socialist state, but Western leaders see it as adangerous enemy and accuse Chavez of being a dictator. This book revealsthe truth by examining the country from the ground up.
£15 €17 $25
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KE THE 2 SHE WORLD BESPIOTE
DUCEMUNTS IT 0H85 George Galloway GLOBALISATION AND THE DEBATE ON POWE Salma Lagoon Rlan Thomett, and other
NEWXPANDED DITTON Ethod with an introduction by Phil Hearsa OCLARIST RESISTANI
5 Celia Hart 6
CUBA
by wat
Radical Face
oF Stalinism It 3 never too late to love or rebel
JOHN LISTER Leon Trotsky Socialists and 10
the Capitalist Recession The Permanent Revolution Basic Theories of Kort Mari & Results and Prospects With Introductions by Mich
KARL 13 14 KAUTSKY fallacies of STATE CAPITALISM Ernest Mandel Chris Harman DEBATE USSR FOUNDATIONS CHRISTIANITY Middle East: 3 war, imperiausm, and ecology Sixty years of resistance
CLOSEDLE 7 Ron Ridenour CUBA: BEYOND THE CROSSROADS
Socialist Resistance, London MY LIFE UNDER WHITE SUPREMACY AND IN EXILE LEONARD NIKANI
15
I PORTO ALEGRE ALTERNATIVE
DIRECT DEMOCRACY IN ACTION
35 4
COSOCIALISM
BARBARISM
ed by fane Kelly and Materi
8 The Global Fight for Climate Justice Anticapitalist Resporses to Chaisal Worming LIMATENOW ISTIO
12 from MILITANCY
to MARXISM LAN THARNEIT vete o renaling car wake it
16 THE REAL VENEZUELA
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Support Jerry Hicks for General Secretary of Unite Jerry Hicks' letter to Unite members:
POLICE As yet there is no definite date or timetable set for the General Secretary election. However it has to happen this year. With the election for a single General Secretary ahead of us it's worthwhile for a moment looking at where we are right now. With the economy in tatters and our members in the firing line, the union continues to be run as a business and not a service. Again and again members say they feel even more distant from the leadership and even more remote from decision making. Our members deserve a lot more There is, in my view, a lack of clear, bold leadership in our union for which, the leadership bear a collective responsibility. They have either agreed with the decisions and direction of the union or have not being able or willing to change them. Already a number of candidates have come forward though with the exception of myself, I am not an official or employee of the union. They are all senior national officials. I believe they have become part of the problem and not the solution. Our campaign on the other hand is involving and engaging, supporting and organising, with and for the members. It will require sufficient nominations to progress and I do not underestimate that task. More of the same won't do, members need and deserve a lot better than another false dawn. We confounded all the sceptics by coming second last time with nearly 40,000 votes and we believe that this time we can go one We are in it to win it and we want to win it to be able to change the union. Change from a 'can't do' union to a can union to an inclusive involving union where members decide and the union Some of the issues I stand for: • Election of all officials. • Repeal of anti union laws and when necessary confront them. N A General Secretary on an average members wage. I Members decide while the union provides. bigger. The creation of one million 'Green' jobs. • Public works programme, first 3100 jobs offered to blacklisted construction workers do' union, from a campaigning union to a fighting union, from a remote and distant
donation. following ways JerryHicks4GS • Mergers that make us stronger not just • Prioritise: Public ownership: Pensions:
jerryhicks4gs • Make the 'Peoples charter' happen. If you wish to and are able to help with the leafleting please let me know, in many places there are already small (or large!) groups of supporters organising themselves, let me know if you would like to be put in touch with others, by phone, email or meeting up. If you agree with what you have read, please consider supporting me in my campaign for General Secretary by way of an invitation for me to speak, by nomination at the designated branch meeting or by making a financial If you wish to help, want to know more, or make a donation Please contact me by either of the Tel: 07817827912 Email: [email protected] Or write to me at: 10 York Road, Montpelier, Bristol; BS6 5QE. Please make cheques made payable to All donations will be receipted, and a record of all transactions will be available for inspection. Please note that the new unite rule book does allow for donations to be made from branch funds up until to the time the election is called. Visit the campaign web site: www.