The death of Mike Banda

Mike Banda, 1930-2014

I just found out that Mike Banda (Michael van der Poorten) died on August 29. A few words are in order. Although I have not seen or spoken to the man in 35 years and found his political orientation after 1985 repugnant, I was nevertheless saddened to hear of his passing. Banda, along with Gerry Healy, Cliff Slaughter and several other veterans of British Trotskyism, was responsible for the most serious attempt to build a mass revolutionary party of the working class in Britain in the postwar period. That this attempt imploded in the end is now well-known and that its leadership degenerated and discredited the good name of Trotskyism is also well known. But it would be a huge mistake to draw the cynical conclusion that the spectacular demise of the Worker Revolutionary Party proved that the attempt to break out of tiny sectarian groups and find a road to the masses that can actually lead a revolutionary movement against capitalism is a hopeless and futile effort.

Banda, who was the National Secretary of the Workers Revolutionary Party from 1978 to 1985, and prior to that was in charge of the print operations of the movement, was a talented organizer and magnetic speaker. His deep knowledge of the history of Marxism, of the struggle of colonial people for liberation from imperialism and in particular of the history of Trotskyism, made him a formidable polemicist and debater. He was also someone I got to know and respect during my years in the Workers League.

This isn't the place for a lengthy examination of Banda's political trajectory. Obituaries for old or ex-revolutionaries are often occasions to vent for people with axes to grind against the deceased, and the few I've seen of Banda are no exception. Banda's career as a Trotskyist was hardly unblemished: his support for the Chinese cultural revolution in 1967 or his uncritical praise for the leadership of the North Vietnamese in 1975 come to mind. But those mistakes are hardly adequate to account for Banda's evolution after the breakup of the WRP, as he eventually became a supporter of imperialism and Zionism and a strident opponent of Marxism and of the movement he had spent most of his adult life building. An analysis of the contradictions and class pressures within British Trotskyism would be a big part of the story, and that would also take in the degeneration of the Labour Party and the trade unions. Still, the vitriol with which Banda came to attack Trotskyism is noteworthy, and suggests that a layer of individual psychological motivation was also at work.

Alex Steiner

I'd like to add something to what Alex has said about Banda. I did not know him very well, but I agree that he was at times a powerful speaker. For someone new to the movement, as I was in the 1970s, Banda and Healy seemed to give voice in their oratory to the immense power of the working class and the inspiring possibilities for its liberation. I think that represented more than just talented rhetoric: it expressed what was best in the traditions of Trotskyism and of the British working class. Healy said, I think on more than one occasion, that the working class had never really had its chance, and when I listened to him or Banda hold forth at public meetings, I felt that here at last the working class was finding its voice. Alas, it didn't turn out that way.

I also want to say that one of the big tragedies of the Healy-Banda generation of revolutionaries is how little they have left behind as a legacy of revolutionary theory. Of course it would be unfair to compare them to titans like Lenin and Trotsky, but a comparison to someone like James Cannon is appropriate, and his legacy is more substantial. Ernest Mandel, for all his rotten politics, left behind a substantial body of work on Marxist economic theory. George Novack did some useful work on philosophy. What do we have from Banda and Healy, or even from the WRP's leading theoretician, Cliff Slaughter? Not much. Why this was so is a complicated story, but it means that the task or revitalizing a revolutionary movement in the future will be that much the harder.

Frank Brenner

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A comment on the resolution of the SEP on the fight against war

The word "war" appears 97 times.

The word "imperialist" appears 23 times.

The word "imperialism" appears 36 times.

The word "pseudo", as in "pseudo-left", appears 6 times.

The word "fight" appears 13 times, usually coupled with the word "against".

The word "ruthless" appears 3 times, the latter 2 instances not as a disparaging adjective describing the enemy but as a positive characterization of oneself.

The resolution, titled, "The Fight Against War and the Political Tasks of the Socialist Equality Party",

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/08/25/reso-a25.html,

was, as usual, passed unanimously.

We have previously commented on the SEP's practice of passing resolutions "unanimously" and we note that their "Third Congress" did not represent a departure from this practice. ( http://permanent-revolution.org/polemics/distorting_history.pdf) Likewise, we have also commented on the idiosyncratic accounting system by which the SEP keeps track of which Congress they are convening. (http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/search/label/founding_congress)

Of course one expects lots of references to war and imperialism in a resolution on the fight against war,  but in this case there is very little content behind those words.  The SEP sees imperialism in 2014 as a return to 1914 and are convinced that history is repeating itself complete with a tense summer of international incidents reprising the tension of the summer of 1914.  But imperialism while it continues to plague the planet is very different today than it was 100 years ago. For one thing, the use of military power to back up economic interests, while certainly still in play,  is embarked upon with much greater reluctance today, as witnessed by the obvious paralysis of the Obama Administration toward the events in Syria, Iraq and now Ukraine.  What the SEP sees as the increasingly bellicose foreign policy of the Obama administration is seen by virtually every other analyst as the largely incoherent policy of a weak administration unsure of what to do and reluctant to get involved in any long term military escapades aside from some easy pickings through the employment of drones with its minimal commitment of U.S. military resources.  Even the Republican hawks opposing Obama have not yet dared to advocate the use of American ground forces in Syria or the Ukraine.  This could change of course, especially if the Republicans regain the White House,  or for that matter a Democratic hawk like Hillary Clinton, but for now the SEP's outcry over the preparations of the U.S. for a new World War strikes one as manufactured hysteria rather than rational analysis.

This is perhaps most obvious in the SEP's analysis of the Obama Administration's "pivot to Asia".  The numerous references to this policy in the pages of the SEP's online publication, the World Socialist Web Site,  depicts it not as an exercise of American policy toward Asia aimed at increasing its economic and political influence against its rivals, but as an outright preparation for war with China.  Of course economic and political rivalries can under certain conditions lead to war but it is one thing to warn about the dangers of such policies and quite another to proclaim their inevitable consequence being all out nuclear conflagration. The latter interpretation, which has been hinted at more and more openly, especially by the Australian SEP, represents a form of politics that can be characterized as "crisis mongering". To cite one recent example, the following article from the WSWS repeatedly makes references to the "U.S. war preparations against China" as if this was already an accomplished fact and mobilization was just around the corner. (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/08/16/nzpl-a16.html) Rather than educating the working class about the nature of imperialism and the dangers of war, crisis mongering is meant to frighten the masses into making a choice on the spot between "absolute evil" and "absolute good". Such methods of recruitment are more characteristic of a cult than a serious revolutionary movement. Contrast this with the patient approach taken by Trotsky in 1934 in the document, War and the Fourth International:

"77. To conquer revolutionary positions in the trade unions and other working-class mass organizations, it is necessary to break pitilessly with bureaucratic ultimatism, to take the workers where they are and as they are, and to lead them forward from partial tasks to general ones, from defence to attack, from patriotic prejudices to the overthrow of the bourgeois state."

(https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1934/06/warfi.htm)

"Bureaucratic Ultimatism" is a good description of the stance of the SEP toward the working class.  They have long ago abandoned the Transitional Program and any conception of taking workers in their day to day practice from where they are to the tasks required for a social revolution. Rather workers are berated to either join their movement or live with the guilt of enabling the counter-revolution. Word War and counterrevolution are depicted as inevitable - unless millions of workers suddenly join the SEP. The SEP document contains no programmatic demand to be implemented by the working class other than the demand to join the SEP!  This means that in order to do anything at all you must already be convinced of the truth and validity of the entirety of the SEP's analysis.  It is an all or nothing proposition, one that is characteristic of ultra-left sectarians.

As for the actual "analysis" of the SEP, once one get past the boiler-plate rhetoric the meager substance in places degenerates into incoherence. This is particularly true of their statements about Russia and China. The resolution here states,

41. One mechanism through which pseudo-left forces are seeking to legitimize US and European aggression is through the false characterization of Russia and China as “imperialist” countries. This characterization, which tears both Russia and China out of all historical context, is aimed at conditioning public opinion to accept ever more dangerous provocations by the imperialist powers in both Asia and Eastern Europe. It is bound up with the theory that the Soviet Union and China after the 1949 revolution were “state capitalist,” and that the immense transformations that took place with the restoration of capitalism did not represent a change in the social foundations of the regimes. The destruction of nationalized property relations in both countries was connected to the efforts by finance capital to reduce them to colonial status, not with their rise as new centers of imperialist power.

42. Leon Trotsky, writing in 1929, anticipated with great prescience the socio-economic consequences of the restoration of capitalism in the USSR. Far from becoming “imperialist,” he noted, “A capitalist Russia could not now occupy even the third-rate position to which czarist Russia was predestined by the course of the World War. Russian capitalism today would be a dependent, semi-colonial capitalism without any prospects.” [10] The Socialist Equality Party is implacably opposed to the bourgeois regimes in both China and Russia. Representing the interests of a tiny layer of capitalists and oligarchs, they have no genuine independence from imperialism and are incapable of principled opposition to the machinations of the US and Europe. Our opposition to these regimes, however, is rooted in the fight to mobilize the working class as an independent political force, on the basis of a socialist program.

Now it is true that the restoration of capitalism in Russia and China "was connected to the efforts to reduce them to colonial status" but did that effort succeed? While capitalist restoration has undoubtedly brought about increasing misery for the working class, neither Russia or China have in fact been reduced to colonial status and their native bourgeoisie have ideas of their own independent of the wishes of finance capital in Europe and North America.

There is also no logical connection between the designation of these countries as "state capitalist" by groups that broke from Trotskyism decades ago and their designation as imperialist countries today.  If Russia and China are not imperialist powers then what exactly are they? To be sure both Russia and China are minor imperialist powers when compared to the U.S. or Germany.  They play approximately the same role vis a vis the major imperialist powers today as Czarist Russia did in relation to Great Britain 100 years ago. Furthermore, Russia's interests are primarily of a regional character rather than a global one, seeking to secure its hegemony over a swath of territory that marked the boundaries of the old Czarist empire. One cannot say the same thing about China, which has taken aggressive actions internationally to ensure a continuous flow of raw materials to feed its economy. Amazingly,  though the SEP resolution is ready to condemn those who consider Russia and China imperialist nations, the SEP never tells us what they think Russia and China are.  Neither the SEP resolution, nor any of the numerous articles in the WSWS ever provide a theory of the nature of Russia or China.   All we are ever told is what they are not. They strongly infer, without saying so, that Russia and China have the same status as oppressed colonies. But this is obviously absurd which is apparently why the SEP falls short of actually saying so. To be sure China has become the main supplier of cheap labor to all the major international corporations who have outsourced their manufacturing facilities to that country.  But China also exercises enormous leverage on the entire world economy as a result of its huge investments abroad and its key role in propping up the dollar. And China's military power marks it as indeed a powerful rival to U.S. interests in Asia.

Similarly, the SEP hints that Russia is in some way still a workers state without actually coming out and saying as much.  They don't say that because it is obviously an absurd position to suggest that the Russia of Putin and the oligarchs still represents, even in a distorted manner, the heritage of the October Revolution. ( The absurdity of this position did not stop groups like Spartacist from advocating it for many years after capitalism was restored in the former Soviet Union. )  But although the SEP admits that capitalism has been restored in Russia it still treats Russia in many ways AS IF it were still a workers state and worthy of being defended against imperialist aggression. One could call this the politics of AS IF!  All their rhetoric about their "implacable" opposition to the bourgeois regimes in Russia and China cannot hide the fact that the SEP has consistently adapted itself to the maneuvers of Russia in relation to the Ukraine and have no independent perspective for either the Ukrainian or the Russian working class.

And of course there is nothing in this document about how the SEP intends to raise the consciousness of the working class.  Here is what they write about this subject:

46. The SEP must strive through persistent political work to educate and raise the consciousness of the most advanced sections of the working class. In doing so, it must combat the endless stream of falsifications and propaganda emanating from the media and the mouthpieces of the ruling class. It must seek to inoculate the workers against all forms of nationalism and chauvinism, encouraging solidarity with the struggles of all workers in every country. The defeat of imperialism is possible only through an international movement, but the building of an international party means the fight in every country to win the working class to an international program and perspective.

We are waiting for a representative from the SEP to articulate their protocols for "inoculating" the working class.

Contrast this empty rhetoric with the concrete proposals put forward by Trotsky in the document War and the Fourth International:

70. The first prerequisite for success is the training of party cadres in the correct understanding of all the conditions of imperialist war and of all the political processes that accompany it. Woe to that party that confines itself in this burning question to general phrases and abstract slogans! The bloody events will crash over its head and smash it.

It is necessary to set up special circles for the study of the political experiences of the war of 1914-18 (ideological preparations for war by the imperialists, misleading of public opinion by military headquarters through the patriotic press, the role of the antithesis defence-attack; groupings in the proletarian camp, the isolation of the Marxist elements, etc., etc.).

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1934/06/warfi.htm

"General phrases" and "abstract slogans" is exactly what we get from the SEP resolution.

And at the end of the day we cannot help but notice that in this document that lays such emphasis on "inoculating" the working class against bourgeois ideology the word "dialectics" does not appear once.

Alex Steiner

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Little crimes and big crimes

by Frank Brenner

Michael Brown, it seems, was stealing from a convenience store just before he was shot. The Ferguson police released the store video in an obvious effort to discredit him; his parents called it a character assassination. It certainly was that, but it sure looks on the video like he and his friends were walking out with some cigars and not paying for them. In NYC earlier the same week a man was shot by the cops, again black, again over a theft: this time it was an adult with a long record of convictions for petty larceny. About ten days after Brown's murder, another black man was killed by the cops in St. Louis: they said he was wielding a knife but that he'd stolen a couple of drinks from a convenience store before that.

It's understandable that people outraged by police violence don't want to discuss this, but I think that's a mistake because the apparently common feature of petty crime says something notable about the class divide in America. Al Sharpton did address the issue: he was complaining about the so-called 'broken windows' doctrine brought in by Rudy Guiliani when he ran NYC, which has since become standard operating procedure for police departments across the country. The basic premise is this: if you let individuals get away with minor offenses like breaking windows, they'll feel emboldened to commit more serious crimes, so the police need to be ruthless in stamping out minor thefts or other acts that often used to be labeled as mischief. Sharpton is a demagogue who specializes in co-opting the outrage of the black community for his own machinations within the Democratic Party power structure; nonetheless, the issue is a legitimate one. The people who get caught up in these 'broken window' police dragnets are overwhelmingly poor, young and (disproportionately) black and Hispanic.

That petty crime is widespread in working class neighborhoods shouldn't shock anyone. If anything, the wonder is that such crime isn't more pervasive given the steep rise of social inequality in the last quarter century, and along with that, the wiping out of the industrial heartland of America and of the labor movement. St. Louis is a prime example of that decline. A few years ago it had the biggest murder rate of any city in the country, for all I know it still may hold that dubious honor. A piece in the Guardian said Ferguson is a wasteland in terms of any social opportunity: minimum wage employers like MacDonalds and Walgreens, and a slew of PayDay and Cashstop loan sharks. Obama's hype about hope has done nothing for countless places like this, or for anybody else outside the elites. If you strip millions of young people of any realistic hope for a decent future and block any channels for meaningful political engagement and resistance, then petty crime is an inevitable reaction.

Now consider the case of Steven A. Cohen, profiled a few weeks ago in The New York Times. Mr. Cohen is a hedge fund manager who runs SAC Capital Advisors - SAC being Mr. Cohen's initials. He is worth $11 billion. In 2012 he was implicated in what Wikipedia calls "a large criminal insider trading scandal", and last year pleaded guilty. He has agreed to pay a $1.2 billion fine and not engage in trading other people's money. It is still an open question if he will go to jail. This apparently is the one punishment he wants to avoid, though even if he goes to jail it will in all likelihood be for a relatively brief period of incarceration and under relatively minimal restrictions. The penalty about not handling other people's investments has barely made a dent in his portfolio since, according to the NYT, he has about $9 billion of his own money (even after the fine and other costs) to invest with, and the govt cannot restrict how he uses his own money. When not being the embodiment of the American entrepreneurial spirit, Cohen likes to buy art, recently purchasing a Picasso (sadly, a beautiful portrait of Marie-Therese Walter) for a cool $150 million.

Michael Brown stole a few cigars and paid for it with his life. Steven A. Cohen stole - what? - billions? certainly millions, and no doubt contributed (both 'legally' and 'illegally') to impoverishing thousands of people. He will, at worst, spend some time in jail and eventually return to a lifestyle lavish beyond the wildest dreams of people like Michael Brown.

Clearly there is a problem with the 'broken windows' doctrine. Arresting people like Michael Brown does nothing to deter people like Steven A. Cohen; on the contrary, the arrest of little thieves just makes the streets much safer and secure for big thieves to go about their business.

One has a right to ask: what does crime mean in this situation? And more importantly: what constitutes justice?

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Natalia Sedova Trotsky - How it Happened

On this day, the 74th anniversary of Trotsky's assassination, we are republishing an article by Trotsky's partner Natalia Sedova recounting the events of Trotsky's last day.  Credit is due to the Marxist Internet Archives for transcribing the article.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/sedova-natalia/1940/08/20.htm

Natalia Sedova Trotsky

Natalia Sedova Trotsky

How it Happened

---

Written:1940
First Published:1941 (English translation)
Source: Fourth International
Online Version: Natalia Sedova Internet Archive, December 2001
Transcribed/HTML Markup: Mike Bessler (original markup by ETOL)

---

(Tuesday, August 20, 1940; 7 o'clock in the morning)

"You know, I feel fine today, at all events, this morning; it's a long time since I felt so well... Last night I took a double dose of the sleeping drug. I noticed that it does me good."

"Yes. I recall that we observed this in Norway when you used to feel run-down much more often... But it isn't the drug itself that does you good, it's sound sleep, complete rest."

"Why yes, of course."

As he opened in the morning or closed at night the massive steel shutters built in our bedroom by our friends after the attack of May 24 on our home, L. D. would occasionally remark: "Well, now no Siqueiros can get at us." And upon awakening he would greet me and himself by saying, "You see, they didn't kill us last night after all, and yet you are still dissatisfied." I defended myself as best I could... Once, after such a "greeting," he added pensively: "Yes, Natasha, we received a reprieve."

As far back as 1928, when we were being exiled to Alma-Ata, where the unknown awaited us, we had a talk one night in the compartment of the train which was taking us into exile... We could not sleep, after the tumult of the last weeks, and especially the last days, in Moscow. In spite of our extreme fatigue, the nervous excitement persisted. I recall that Lev Davidovich said to me then: "it's better this way (exile). I am not in favor of dying in a bed in the Kremlin."

But this morning he was far from all such thoughts. Physical well-being made him look forward eagerly to a "really good" day's work. Vigorously he walked out into the patio to feed his rabbits, after performing swiftly his morning toilet and dressing just as quickly. When his health was poor, the feeding of the rabbits was a strain on him; but he couldn't give it up, as he pitied the little animals. It was difficult to do it as he wanted to, as was his custom--thoroughly. Besides, he had to be on guard; his strength had to be conserved for another, different kind of work--work at his desk. Taking care of the animals, cleaning their cages, etc., provided him, on the one band, with relaxation and a distraction, but, on the other hand, it fatigued him physically; and this, in turn, reflected on his general ability to work. He became completely absorbed in everything he did, regardless of the task.

I recall that in 1933 we departed from Prinkipo for France, where we lived in a lonely villa not far from Royan, by the shores of the Atlantic. Our son together with our friends had arranged for this villa which was called "Sea-Spray." The waves of the turbulent ocean came into our garden, and salt spray would fly in through the open windows. Surrounded by our friends, we lived under semi-legal conditions. We would have on occasion as many as twenty people. Eight or nine lived on the premises. In view of our position, it was out of the question to call in a housekeeper or someone to help in the kitchen. The whole burden fell on Jeanne, my son's wife, and on Vera Molinier, and I also helped. The young comrades washed the dishes. Lev Davidovich, too, wanted to help with the housework and began washing dishes. But our friends protested: "He should rest after dinner. We can manage ourselves." Besides, my son Leva told me: "Papa insists on using a scientific method of dish-washing, and this eats up too much of our time." In the end, L. D. had to retire from this occupation.

The middle way, the lackadaisical attitude, the semi-indifferent manner, these he knew not. That is why nothing tired him so much as casual or semi-indifferent conversations. But with what enthusiasm did he go to pick cacti with a view to transplanting them in our garden. He was in a frenzy, being the first on the job and the last to leave. Not one of the young people surrounding him on our walks into the country and working with him outdoors could keep pace with him; they tired more quickly, and fell behind one after the other. But he was indefatigable. Looking at him, I often marveled. Whence did he draw his energy, his physical endurance? Neither the unbearably hot sun, the mountains nor descents with cacti heavy as iron bothered him. He was hypnotized by the consummation of the task at hand. He found relaxation in changing his tasks. This also provided him with a respite from the blows which mercilessly fell upon him. The more crushing the blow the more ardently he forgot himself in work.

Our walks, which were really war-expeditions for cacti, became more and more rare because of "circumstances beyond our control." However, every now and then, having had his fill of the monotony of his daily routine, Lev Davidovich would say to me: "This week we ought to take a whole day off for a walk, don't you think so?"

"You mean a day for penal labor?" I would twit him.

"All right, let's go, to be sure."

"It would be best to get an early start. Shouldn't we leave around six in the morning?"

"Six is all right with me, but won't you get too tired?"

"No, it will only refresh me, and I promise not to overdo it."

Usually Lev Davidovich fed his fondly-watched rabbits and chickens, from a quarter past seven (sometimes 7:20) till nine o'clock in the morning. Sometimes he would interrupt this work to dictate into the dictaphone some order or some idea which occurred to him. That day he worked in the patio without interruption. After breakfast he assured me that he felt fine and spoke of his desire to begin dictating an article on conscription in the United States. And he actually did start to dictate.

At one o'clock Rigault, our attorney in the case of the May 24th attack, came to see us. After his departure, Lev Davidovich looked into my room to tell me, not without regret, that he would have to postpone work on the article and to resume preparing the material for the trial in connection with the attack upon us. He and his attorney had decided that it was necessary to answer El Popular in view of the fact that L. D. had been accused of defamation at a banquet given by that publication.

"And I will take the offensive and will charge them with brazen slander." he said defiantly.

"Too bad, you won't be able to write about conscription."

"Yes, it can't be helped. I have to postpone it for two or three days. I have already asked for all the available materials to be placed on my desk. After dinner, I shall start going over them. I feel fine," he once again assured me.

After a brief siesta, I saw him sitting at his desk, which was already covered with items relating to the El Popular case. He continued to be in good spirits. And it made me feel more cheerful. Lev Davidovich had of late been complaining of enervation to which he succumbed occasionally. He knew that it was a passing condition, but lately he seemed to be in greater doubt about it than ever before; today seemed to us to mark the beginning of improvement in his physical condition. He looked well too. Every now and then I opened the door to his room just a trifle, so as not to disturb him, and saw him in his usual position, bent over his desk, pen in hand. I recalled the line, "One more and final story and my scroll is at an end." Thus speaks the ancient monk-scribe Pimen in Pushkin's drama "Boris Godounov," as he recorded the evil deeds of Czar Boris.

Lev Davidovich led a life close in semblance to that of a prisoner or a hermit, with this difference that in his solitude he not only kept a chronological record of events but waged an indomitably passionate struggle against his ideological enemies.

Brief as that day was, Lev Davidovich had until five in the afternoon dictated into the dictaphone several fragments of his contemplated article on conscription in the United States and about fifty short pages of his exposure of El Popular, i.e. of Stalin's machinations. It was a day of physical and spiritual equanimity for him.

Jacson Appears

At five, the two of us had tea, as usual. At twenty minutes past five, perhaps at half past, I stepped out on the balcony and saw L. D. in the patio near an open rabbit hutch. He was feeding the animals. Beside him was an unfamiliar figure. Only when he removed his hat and started to approach the balcony did I recognize him. It was "Jacson."

"He's here again," it flashed through my mind. "Why has he begun to come so often?" I asked myself.

"I'm frightfully thirsty, may I have a glass of water?" he asked, upon greeting me.

"Perhaps you would like a cup of tea?"

"No no. I dined too late and feel that the food is up here," he answered, pointing at his throat. "it's choking me." The color of his face was gray-green. His general appearance was that of a very nervous man.

"Why are you wearing your hat and topcoat?" (His topcoat was hanging over his left arm, pressed against his body.) "It's so sunny today."

"Yes, but you know it won't last long, it might rain." I wanted to argue that "today it won't rain" and of his always boasting that he never wore a hat or coat, even in the wont weather, but somehow I became depressed and let the subject drop. Instead I asked:

"And how is Sylvia feeling?"

He did not appear to understand me. I had upset him by my previous question about his topcoat and hat. And he was completely lost in his own thoughts, and very nervous. Finally, as if rousing himself from a deep sleep, he answered me: "Sylvia?... Sylvia?..." And catching himself, he added casually: "She's always well."

He began to retrace his steps towards Lev Davidovich and the rabbit hutches. I asked him as he walked away: "Is your article ready?"

"Yes, it's ready."

"Is it typed?"

With an awkward movement of his hand, while he continued to press against his body his topcoat in the lining of which were sewn in, as it was later revealed, a pickaxe and a dagger, he produced several typewritten pages to show me.

"It's good that your manuscript is not written by hand. Lev Davidovich dislikes illegible manuscripts."

Two days earlier he had called on us, also wearing a topcoat and a hat. I did not see him then as, unfortunately, I was not at home. But Lev Davidovich told me that "Jacson" had called and had somewhat surprised him by his conduct Lev Davidovich mentioned it in a way which indicated that he had no desire to elaborate upon the matter, but at the same time he felt that he had to mention it to me, sensing some new feature about the man.

"He brought an outline of his article, in reality a few phrases--muddled stuff. I made some suggestions to him. We shall see." And Lev Davidovich added, "Yesterday he did not resemble a Frenchman at all. Suddenly he sat down on my desk and kept his hat on all the while."

"Yes, it's strange" I said in wonderment. "He never wears a hat."

"This time he wore a hat," answered Lev Davidovich and pursued this subject no further. He spoke casually. But I was taken aback: it seemed to me that on this occasion he had perceived something new about "Jacson" but had not yet reached, or rather was in no hurry to draw conclusions. This brief conversation of ours occurred on the eve of the crime.

Wearing a hat.. topcoat on his arm... sat himself down on the table--wasn't this a rehearsal on his part? This was done so that he would be more certain and precise in his movements on the morrow.

Who could have suspected it then? It stirred us to embarrassment, nothing more. Who could have foretold that the day of August 20, so ordinary, would be so fateful? Nothing bespoke its ominousness. From dawn the sun was shining, as always here, the whole day brightly. Flowers were blooming, and grass seemed polished with lacquer... We went about our tasks each in his own way, all of us trying in whatever we did to facilitate Lev Davidovich's work. How many times in the course of that day did he mount the little steps of this same balcony, and walk into this, his room, and sit down on this very same chair beside the desk... All this used to seem ordinary and is now by its very ordinariness so terrible and tragic. No one, none among us, not he himself was able to sense the impending disaster. And in this inability a kind of abyss yawns. On the contrary, the whole day was one of the most tranquil. When L. D. stepped out at noon into the patio and I perceived him standing there bareheaded beneath the scorching sun, I hastened to bring him his white cap to protect his head against the merciless hot rays. To protect from the sun... but even at that very moment he was already threatened with a terrible death. At that hour we did not sense his doom, an outburst of despair did not convulse our hearts.

I recall that when the alarm system in the house, the garden and the patio was being installed by our friends and guard posts were being assigned, I drew L. D.'s attention to the fact that a guard should also be posted at his window. This seemed to me at the time so palpably indispensable. But L. D. objected that to do so it would be necessary to expand the guard, increase it to ten which was beyond our resources both in point of money and of available people at the disposal of our organization. A guard outside the window could not have saved him in this particular instance. But the absence of one worried me. L. D. was likewise very touched by a present given him by our American friends after the attack of May 24. It was a bullet proof vest, something like an ancient shirt of mail. As I examined it one day, I happened to remark that it would be good to get something for the head. L. D. insisted that the comrade assigned to the most responsible post wear the vest each time. After the failure suffered by our enemies in the May 24 attack, we were absolutely certain that Stalin would not halt, and we were making preparations. We also knew that a different form of attack would be used by the G.P.U. Nor did we exclude a blow on the part of a "solitary individual" sent secretly and paid by the G.P.U. But neither the bullet-proof vest nor a helmet could have served as safeguards. To apply these methods of defense from day to day was impossible. It was impossible to convert one's life solely into self-defense--for in that case life loses all its value.

The Assassination

As "Jacson" and I approached Lev Davidovich the latter addressed me in Russian, "You know, he is expecting Sylvia to call on us. They are leaving tomorrow." It was a suggestion on his part that I should invite them to tea, if not supper.

"I didn't know that you intend leaving tomorrow and are expecting Sylvia here."

"Yes...yes... I forgot to mention it to you."

"It's too bad that I didn't know, I might have sent a few things to New York."

"I could call tomorrow at one."

"No, no, thank you. It would inconvenience both of us."

And turning to Lev Davidovich, I explained in Russian that I had already asked "Jacson" to tea but that he refused, complaining about not feeling well, being terribly thirsty and asked me only for a glass of water. Lev Davidovich glanced at him attentively, and said in a tone of light reproach, "Your health is poor again, you look ill... That's not good."

There was a pause. Lev Davidovich was loath to tear himself away from the rabbits and in no mood to listen to an article. However, he controlled himself and said, "Well, what do you say, shall we go over your article?"

He fastened the hutches methodically, and removed his working gloves. He took good care of his hands, or rather his fingers inasmuch as the slightest scratch irritated him, interfered with his writing. He always kept his pen like his fingers in order. He brushed off his blue blouse and slowly, silently started walking towards the house accompanied by "Jacson" and myself. I came with them to the door of Lev Davidovich's study; the door closed, and I walked into the adjoining room....

Not more than three or four minutes had elapsed when I heard a terrible, soul-shaking cry and without so much as realizing who it was that uttered this cry, I rushed in the direction from which it came. Between the dining room and the balcony, on the threshold, beside the door post and leaning against it stood... Lev Davidovich. His face was covered with blood, his eyes, without glasses, were sharp blue, his hands were hanging.

"What happened? What happened?"

I flung my arms about him, but he did not immediately answer. It flashed through my mind. Perhaps something had fallen from the ceiling--some repair work was being done there--but why was he here?

And he said to me calmly, without any indignation, bitterness or irritation, "Jacson." L.D. said it as if he wished to say, "It has happened." We took a few steps and Lev Davidovich, with my help, slumped to the floor on the little carpet there.

"Natasha, I love you.'" He said this so unexpectedly, so gravely, almost severely that, weak from inner shock, I swayed toward him.

"0...0... no one, no one must be allowed to see you without being searched."

Carefully placing a pillow under his broken head, I held a piece of ice to his wound and wiped the blood from his face with cotton...

"Seva must be taken away from all this..."

He spoke with difficulty, unclearly, but was--so it seemed to me--unaware of it.

"You know, in there--" his eyes moved towards the door of his room--"I sensed... understood what he wanted to do.... He wanted to strike me... once more... but I didn't let him," he spoke calmly, quietly, his voice breaking.

"But I didn't let him." There was a note of satisfaction in these words. At the same time Lev Davidovich turned to Joe, and spoke to him in English. Joe was kneeling on the floor as I was, on the other side, just opposite me. I strained to catch the words, but couldn't make them out. At that moment I saw Charlie, his face chalk-white, revolver in hand, rush into Lev Davidovich's room.

"What about that one" I asked Lev Davidovich. "They will kill him."

"No... impermissible to kill, he must be forced to talk," Lev Davidovich replied, still uttering the words with difficulty, slowly.

A kind of pathetic whining suddenly broke upon our ears. I glanced in a quandary at Lev Davidovich. With a barely noticeable movement of his eyes, he indicated the door of his room and said condescendingly, "It's he"... "Has the doctor arrived yet?"

"He'll be here any minute now... Charlie has gone in a car to fetch him."

The doctor arrived, examined the wound and agitatedly stated that it was "not dangerous." Lev Davidovich accepted this calmly, almost indifferently as though one could not expect any other pronouncement from a physician in such a situation. But, turning to Joe and indicating his heart, he said in English, "I feel it here... This time they have succeeded." He was sparing me.

The Last Hours

Through the roaring city, through its vain tumult and human din, through its garish evening lights, the emergency ambulance sped, weaving through traffic, passing cars, with the siren incessantly wailing, with the cordon of police motorcycles shrilly whistling. We were bearing the wounded man unbearable anguish in our hearts, and with an alarm that increased with every passing minute. He was conscious. One hand remained quietly extended along the body. It was paralyzed.

Dr. Dutren told me this after the examination at home, in the dining room, on the floor. For the other hand, the right, he couldn't find a place, describing circles with it all the time, touching me, as if seeking a comfortable place for it. He found it more and more difficult to talk. Bending very low I asked him how he felt.

"Better now," answered Lev Davidovich.

"Better now." This quickened the heart with keen hopes. The ear-splitting tumult, the whistles and the siren continued to wail but the heart pulsed with hope. "Better now."

The ambulance pulled up at the hospital. It stopped. A crowd milled around us. "There may be enemies," it flashed through my mind, as was always the case in similar situations. "Where are our friends? They must surround the stretcher..."

Now he was lying on the cot. Silently the doctors examined the wound. On their instructions, a "sister" began shaving his hair. I stood at the head of the cot. Smiling imperceptibly, Lev Davidovich said to me, "See, we found a barber too..."

He was still sparing me. That day we had talked about the necessity of calling a barber to give him a hair-cut, but did not get around to it. He was now reminding me of it. Lev Davidovich called Joe, who was standing right there, a few feet away from me and asked him, as I learned later, to jot down his farewell to life. When I inquired what Lev Davidovich had said to him, Joe replied, "He wanted me to make a note about French statistics." I was greatly surprised that it was something related to French statistics at such a time. It seemed strange. Unless perhaps his condition was beginning to improve...

I remained standing at the head of the cot, holding a piece of ice to the wound and listening attentively. They began to undress him. So as not to disturb him, his working blouse was cut with scissors; the doctor politely exchanged glances with the "sister" as if to encourage her; next came the knitted vest, then the shirt. The watch was unstrapped from his wrist. They then began to remove the remaining garments without cutting them, and he said to me then, "I don't want them to undress me... I want you to do it." He said this quite distinctly, only very sadly and gravely.

These were the last words he spoke to me. When I finished I bent over him and touched his lips with mine. He answered me. Again... And again he answered. And once again. It was our final farewell. But we were not aware of it.

The patient fell into a state of coma. The operation did not bring him out of this condition. Without removing my eyes, I watched over him all that night, waiting for the "awakening." The eyes were closed, but the breathing, now heavy, now even and calm, inspired hope. The following day passed the same way. By noon, according to the judgment of the doctors, there was an improvement. But toward the end of the day, a sharp change in the sick man's breathing suddenly took place. It became rapid, more and more rapid, instilling mortal fear. The physicians, the hospital staff surrounded the cot of the sick man. They were obviously agitated. Losing my self-control, I asked what this meant, but only one among them, a more cautious man answered. "it would pass," he said. The others remained silent. I understood how false was all consolation and how hopeless everything really was.

They lifted him up. His head slumped on one shoulder. The hands dangled like those in Titian's crucifixion: "The Removal from the Cross." Instead of a crown of thorns, the dying man wore a bandage. The features of his countenance retained their purity and pride. It seemed as if at any moment now he would straighten up and take charge himself. But the wound had penetrated the brain too deeply. The awakening so passionately awaited never came. His voice was also stilled. Everything was ended. He is no longer among the living.

Retribution will come to the vile murderers. Throughout his entire heroic and beautiful life, Lev Davidovich believed in the emancipated mankind of the future. During the last years of his life his faith did not falter, but on the contrary became only more mature, more firm than ever.

Future mankind, emancipated from all oppression will triumph over coercion of all sorts. He taught me to believe in this too.

November, 1940
Coyoacan, Mexico

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Note: We are republishing Trotsky's essay, Independence of the Ukraine and Sectarian Muddleheads. The article was first published on the Marxist Internet Archives:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/07/ukraine.htm

Although much has changed since Trotsky first wrote this piece in 1939,  most significantly the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism in the territories it formerly administered, the national aspirations of the people in the Ukraine remains a relevant issue today.  Some have argued that Trotsky's analysis is out of date because unlike the situation in 1939, there is no longer a Ukrainian left which can be mobilized around a program that answers their national aspirations such as existed when the Borotba group made an alliance with the Bolsheviks shortly after the October Revolution.  Even if it were true that there is today no significant Ukrainian left, the task for revolutionaries is not to fold up their arms and ignore the national aspirations of the masses, but to put forward a program that can begin to pry away the Ukrainian working class from right wing nationalists and fascists.  Trotsky makes this very point where he writes,       "When the Ukrainian problem became aggravated early this year, communist voices were not heard at all; but the voices of the Ukrainian clericals and National-Socialists were loud enough. This means that the proletarian vanguard has let the Ukrainian national movement slip out of its hands and that this movement has progressed far on the road of separatism."  

To be sure the question of Ukraine's right to self-determination is posed very differently today than it was in 1939. Then it was a matter of advocating the right of Ukraine to declare its independence from the Soviet Union and establish an independent Soviet Ukraine that would determine its relations with its neighbors both to the East and the West.  Today the question is posed of the possible dismemberment of the Ukraine into a series of mini-states dominated by local oligarchs or proxies for Western imperialism such as Poland.  Nor has the threat from great Russian chauvinism disappeared. The spectre of the dismemberment of Yugoslavia in the 1990's is the ghost that haunts Ukraine today. 

Moreover, it is not possible to oppose the right wing regime in Kiev and their fascist allies by conceding the Ukrainian national question to the right,  unless that is, one is convinced that the consciousness of the Ukrainian masses does not matter and that the only thing that can be done is to support Putin's Russia as if it were a bulwark against Western imperialism and fascism.  But it is this very position,  which recapitulates the Stalinist policy of a "Popular Front" against fascism, that is precisely the position that many of our modern day sectarian muddleheads have stumbled upon, by giving short shrift to the national question, as they follow in the footsteps of the sectarians Trotsky was writing against in the 1930's.

              A.S.

Leon Trotsky

Independence of the Ukraine
and Sectarian Muddleheads

(July 1939)

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Written: July 30, 1939.
First Published: Socialist Appeal, September 15 & 17, 1939.
Source: Fourth International [New York], Vol.10 No.11, December 1949, pp.346-350.
Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters.
Copyleft: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

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Original 1949 introduction by Fourth International Leon Trotsky’s article, The Problem of the Ukraine, which we re-published in the November Fourth International, aroused widespread interest and discussion in revolutionary circles at the time of its appearance in May 1939. However, the only open opposition to Trotsky’s slogan of independence for the Ukraine came from the small sectarian Oehler group. Despite the political insignificance of this group, Trotsky seized the opportunity to further clarify his position His reply, first published in the Socialist Appeal, September 15th and 17th, 1939, proved to be a permanent contribution to the Marxist analysis of the national question. It sheds considerable light on the present-day relationship between the Great-Russian Soviet bureaucracy and the countries of Eastern Europe.

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In one of the tiny, sectarian publications which appear in America and which thrive upon the crumbs from the table of the Fourth International, and repay with blackest ingratitude, I chanced across an article devoted to the Ukrainian problem. What confusion! The author sectarian is, of course, opposed to the slogan of an independent Soviet Ukraine. He is for the world revolution and for socialism—“root and branch.” He accuses us of ignoring the interests of the USSR and of retreating from the concept of the permanent revolution. He indicts us as centrists. The critic is very severe, almost implacable. Unfortunately—he understands nothing at all (the name of this tiny publication, The Marxist, rings rather ironically). But his incapacity to understand assumes such finished, almost classical forms as can enable us better and more fully to clarify the question.

Our critic takes as his point of departure the following position “If the workers in the Soviet Ukraine overthrow Stalinism and re-establish a genuine workers’ state, shall they separate from the rest of the Soviet Union? No.” And so forth and so on. “If the workers overthrow Stalinism” ... then we shall be able to see more clearly what to do. But Stalinism must first be overthrown. And in order to achieve this, one must not shut one’s eyes to the growth of separatist tendencies in the Ukraine, but rather give them a correct political expression.

Pat Formulas Don’t Solve Concrete Tasks

“Not turning our backs on the Soviet Union,’’, continues the author, “but its regeneration and re-establishment as a mighty citadel of world revolution—that is the road of Marxism.” The actual trend of the development of the masses, in this instance, of the nationally oppressed masses, is replaced by our sage with speculations as to the ’best possible roads of development. With this method, but with far greater logic, one might say, “Not defending a degenerated Soviet Union is our task, but the victorious world revolution which will transform the whole world into a World Soviet Union,” etc. Such aphorisms come cheap.

The critic repeats several times my statement to the effect that the fate of an independent Ukraine is indissolubly bound up with the world proletarian revolution. From this general perspective, ABC for a Marxist, he contrives however to make a recipe of temporizing passivity and national nihilism. The triumph of the proletarian revolution on a world scale is the end-product of multiple movements, campaigns and battles, and not at all a ready-made precondition for solving all questions automatically. Only a direct and bold posing of the Ukrainian question in the given concrete circumstances will facilitate the rallying of petty-bourgeois and peasant masses around the proletariat, just as in Russia in 1917.

True enough, our author might object that in Russia prior to October it was the bourgeois revolution that unfolded, whereas today we have the socialist revolution already behind us. A demand which might have been progressive in 1917 is nowadays reactionary. Such reasoning, wholly in the spirit of bureaucrats and sectarians, is false from beginning to end.

Democratic Tasks Tied to Socialist Aims

The right of national self-determination is, of course, a democratic and not a socialist principle. But genuinely democratic principles are supported and realized in our era only by the revolutionary proletariat; it is for this very reason that they interlace with socialist tasks. The resolute struggle of the Bolshevik party for the right of self-determination of oppressed nationalities in Russia facilitated in the extreme the conquest of power by the proletariat. It was as if the proletarian revolution had sucked in the democratic problems, above all, the agrarian and national problems, giving to the Russian Revolution a combined character. The proletariat was already undertaking socialist tasks but it could not immediately raise to this level the peasantry and the oppressed nations (themselves predominantly peasant) who were absorbed with solving their democratic tasks.

Hence flowed the historically inescapable compromises the agrarian as well as the national sphere. Despite the economic advantages of large-scale agriculture, the Soviet government was compelled to divide up large estates. Only several years later was the government able to pass to collective farming and then it immediately leaped too far ahead and found itself compelled, a few years later, to make concessions to the peasants in the shape of private landholdings which in many places tend to devour the collective farms. The next stages of this contradictory process have not yet been resolved.

Has Stalin Convinced the Ukrainian Masses?

The need for compromise, or rather for a number of compromises, similarly arises in the field of the national question, whose paths are no more rectilinear than the paths of the agrarian revolution. The federated structure of the Soviet-Republic represents a compromise between the centralist requirements of planned economy and the de~ centralist requirements of the development of nations oppressed in the past. Having constructed a workers’ state on the compromise principle of a federation, the Bolshevik party wrote into the constitution the right of nations to complete separation, indicating thereby that the party did not at all consider the national question as solved once and for all.

The author of the critical article argues that the party leaders hoped “to convince the masses to stay within the framework of the Federated Soviet Republic.” This is correct, if the word “convince” is taken not in the sense of logical arguments but in the sense of passing through the experiences of economic, political and cultural collaboration. Abstract agitation in favor of centralism does not of itself’ carry great weight. As has already been said, the federation was a necessary, departure from centralism. It must also be added that the very composition of the federation is by no means given beforehand once and for all. Depending on objective conditions, a federation may develop toward greater centralism, or on the contrary, toward greater independence of its national component parts. Politically it is not at all a question of whether it is advantageous ’in general” for various nationalities to live together within the framework of a single state, but rather it is a question of whether or not a particular nationality has, on the basis of her own experience, found it advantageous to adhere to a given state.

In other words: Which of the two tendencies in the given circumstances gains the ascendancy in the compromise regime of a federation—the centrifugal or the centripetal? Or to put it even more concretely: Have Stalin and his Ukrainian satraps succeeded in convincing the Ukrainian masses of the superiority of Moscow’s centralism over Ukrainian independence or have they failed? This question is of decisive importance. Yet our author does not even suspect its existence.

Do the Ukrainians Desire Separation?

Do the broad masses of the Ukrainian people wish to separate from the USSR? It might at first sight appear difficult to answer this question, inasmuch as the Ukrainian people, like all other peoples of the USSR, are deprived of any opportunity to express their will. But the very genesis of the totalitarian regime and its ever more brutal intensification, especially in the Ukraine, are proof that the real will of the Ukrainian masses is irreconcilably hostile to the Soviet bureaucracy. There is no lack of evidence that one of the primary sources of this hostility is the suppression of Ukrainian independence. The nationalist tendencies in the Ukraine erupted violently in 1917-19. The Borotba party expressed these tendencies in the left wing. The most important indication of the success of the Leninist policy in the Ukraine was the fusion of the Ukrainian Bolshevik party with the organization of the Borotbists.

In the course of the next decade, however, an actual break occurred with the Borotba group, whose leaders were subjected to persecution. The old Bolshevik, Skrypnik, a pure-blooded Stalinist, was driven to suicide in 1933 for his allegedly, excessive patronage of nationalist tendencies. The actual “organizer” of this suicide was the Stalinist emissary, Postyshev, who thereupon remained in the Ukraine as the representative of the centralist policy. Presently, however, Postyshev himself fell in disgrace. These facts are profoundly symptomatic, for they reveal how much force there is behind the pressure of the nationalist opposition on the bureaucracy. Nowhere did the purges and repressions assume such a savage and mass character as they did in the Ukraine.

Significant Attitudes of Ukrainians Abroad

Of enormous political importance is the sharp turn away from the Soviet Union of Ukrainian democratic elements outside the Soviet Union. When the Ukrainian problem became aggravated early this year, communist voices were not heard at all; but the voices of the Ukrainian clericals and National-Socialists were loud enough. This means that the proletarian vanguard has let the Ukrainian national movement slip out of its hands and that this movement has progressed far on the road of separatism. Lastly, very indicative also are the moods among the Ukrainian émigrés in the North American continent. In Canada, for instance, where the Ukrainians compose the bulk of the Communist Party, there began in 1933, as I am informed by a prominent participant in the movement, a marked exodus of Ukrainian workers and farmers from communism, falling either into passivity or nationalism of various hues. In their totality, these symptoms and facts incontestably testify, to the growing strength of separatist tendencies among the Ukrainian masses.

This is the basic fact underlying the whole problem. It shows that despite the giant step forward taken by the October Revolution in the domain of national relations, the isolated proletarian revolution in a backward country proved incapable of solving the national question, especially the Ukrainian question which is, in its very, essence, international in character . The Thermidorian reaction, crowned by the Bonapartist bureaucracy, has thrown the toiling masses far back in the national sphere as well. The great masses of the Ukrainian people are dissatisfied with their national fate and wish to change it drastically. ii is this fact that the revolutionary politician must, in contrast to the bureaucrat and the sectarian, take as his point of departure.

Sectarian Arguments Like Those of Stalinists

If our critic were capable of thinking politically, he would have surmised without much difficulty the arguments of the Stalinists against the slogan of an independent Ukraine: “It negates the position of the defense of the Soviet Union”; “disrupts the unity of the revolutionary masses”; “serves not the interests of revolution but those of imperialism.” In other words, the Stalinists would repeat all the three arguments of our author. They will unfailingly do so on the morrow.

The Kremlin bureaucracy, tells the Soviet woman: Inasmuch as there is socialism our country, you must be happy and you must give up abortions (or suffer the penalty). To the Ukrainian they say: Inasmuch as the socialist revolution has solved the national question, it is your duty to be happy in the USSR and to renounce all thought of separation (or face the firing squad).

What does a revolutionist say to the woman? “You will decide yourself whether you want a child: I will defend your right to abortion against the Kremlin police.” To the Ukrainian people he says: “Of importance to me is your attitude toward your national destiny and not the ‘socialistic’ sophistries of the Kremlin police; I will support your struggle for independence with all my might!”

The sectarian, as so often happens, finds himself siding with the police, covering up the status quo, that is, police violence, by sterile speculation on the superiority of the socialist unification of nations as against their remaining divided. Assuredly, the separation of the Ukraine is a liability as compared with a voluntary and equalitarian socialist federation; but it will be an unquestionable asset as compared with the bureaucratic strangulation of the Ukrainian people. In order to draw together more closely and honestly, it is sometimes necessary first to separate. Lenin often used to cite the fact that the relations between the Norwegian and Swedish workers improved and became closer after the disruption of the compulsory unification of Sweden and Norway.

Ukraine Independence Revolutionary Slogan

We must proceed from facts and not ideal norms. The Thermidorian reaction in the USSR, the defeat of a number of revolutions, the victories of fascism – which is carving the map of Europe in its own fashion – must be paid for in genuine currency in all spheres, including that of the Ukrainian question. Were we to ignore the new situation created as a result of defeats, were we to pretend that nothing extraordinary has occurred, and were we to counterpose to unpleasant facts familiar abstractions, then we could very well surrender to reaction the remaining chances for vengeance in the more or less immediate future.

Our author interprets the slogan of an independent Ukraine as follows: “First the Soviet Ukraine must be freed from the rest of the Soviet Union, then we will have the proletarian revolution and unification of the rest of the Ukraine.” But how can there be a separation without first a revolution? The author is caught in a vicious circle, and the slogan of an independent Ukraine together with Trotsky’s “faulty logic” is hopelessly discredited. In point of fact this peculiar logic – “first” and “then” – is only a striking example of scholastic thinking. Our hapless critic has no inkling of the fact that historical processes may occur not “first” and “then” but run parallel to each other, exert influence upon each other, speed or retard each other; and that the task of revolutionary politics consists precisely in speeding up the mutual action and reaction of progressive processes. The barb of the slogan of an independent Ukraine is aimed directly against the Moscow bureaucracy and enables the proletarian vanguard to rally the peasant masses. On the other hand, the same slogan opens up for the proletarian party the opportunity of playing a leading role in the national Ukrainian movement in Poland, Rumania and Hungary. Both of these political processes will drive the revolutionary movement forward and increase the specific weight of the proletarian vanguard.

My statement to the effect that workers and peasants of Western Ukraine (Poland) do not want to join the Soviet Union, as it is now constituted, and that this fact is an additional argument in favor of an independent Ukraine, is parried by our sage with the assertion that even if they desired, they could not join the Soviet Union because they could do so only “after the proletarian revolution in Western Ukraine” (obviously Poland). In other words: Today the separation of the Ukraine is impossible, and after the revolution triumphs, it would be reactionary. An old and familiar refrain!

Luxemburg, Bukharin, Piatakov and many others used this very same argument against the program of national self-determination: Under capitalism it is utopian; under socialism, reactionary. The argument is false to the core because it ignores the epoch of the social revolution and its tasks. To be sure, under the domination of imperialism a genuine stable and reliable independence of the small and intermediate nations is impossible. It is equally true that under fully developed socialism, that is to say, with the progressive withering away of the state, the question of national boundaries will fall away. But between these two moments – the present day and complete socialism – intervene those decades in the course of which we are preparing to realize our program. The slogan of an independent Soviet Ukraine is of paramount importance for mobilizing the masses and for educating them in the transitional period.

What the Sectarian Ignores

The sectarian simply ignores the fact that the national struggle, one of the most labyrinthine and complex but at the same time extremely important forms of the class struggle, cannot be suspended by bare references to the future world revolution. With their eyes turned away from the USSR, and failing to receive support and leadership from the international proletariat, the petty-bourgeois and even working-class masses of Western Ukraine are falling victim to reactionary demagogy. Similar processes are undoubtedly also taking place in the Soviet Ukraine, only it is more difficult to lay them bare. The slogan of an independent Ukraine advanced in time by the proletarian vanguard will lead to the unavoidable stratification of the petty bourgeoisie and render it easier for its lower tiers to ally themselves with the proletariat. Only thus is it possible to prepare the proletarian revolution.

How to Clear the Road

“If the workers carry, through a succesful revolution in Western Ukraine ...,” persists our author, “should our strategy, then he to demand that the Soviet Ukraine separate and join its western section? Just the opposite.” This assertion plumbs to the bottom the depth of “our strategy.” Again we hear the same melody: “If the workers carry through The sectarian is satisfied with logical deduction from a victorious revolution supposedly already, achieved. But for a revolutionist the nub of the question lies precisely in how to clear a road to the revolution, how to render an approach to revolution easier for the masses, how to draw the revolution closer, how, to assure its triumph. “If the workers carry through ...” a victorious revolution, everything will of course be fine. But just now there is no victorious revolution; instead there is victorious reaction.

To find the bridge from reaction to revolution—that is the task. This is the import, by the way, of our entire program of transitional demands (The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International). Small wonder that the sectarians of all shadings fail to understand its meaning. They, operate by means of abstractions—an abstraction of imperialism and an abstraction of the socialist revolution. The question of the transition from real imperialism to real revolution; the question of how to mobilize the masses in the given historical situation for the conquest of power remains for these sterile wiseacres a book sealed with seven seals.

Superficial Reasoning

Piling one dire accusation indiscriminately on top of another, our critic declares that the slogan of an independent Ukraine serves the interests of the imperialists (!) and the Stalinists (!!) because it “completely negates the position of the defense of the Soviet Union.” It is impossible to understand just why, the “interests of the Stalinists” are dragged in. But let its confine ourselves to the question of the defense of the USSR. This defense could he menaced by an independent Ukraine only if the latter were hostile not only to the bureaucracy but also to the USSR. However, given such a premise (obviously false), how can a socialist demand that a hostile Ukraine be retained within the framework of the USSR? Or does the question involve only the period of the national revolution?

Yet our critic apparently recognized the inevitability of a political revolution against the Bonapartist bureaucracy. Meanwhile this revolution; like every revolution, will undoubtedly present a certain danger from the standpoint of defense. What to do? Had our critic really thought out the problem, he would have replied that such a danger is an inescapable historical risk which cannot be evaded, for under the rule of the Bonapartist bureaucracy the USSR is doomed. The very same reasoning equally and wholly applies to the revolutionary national uprising which represents nothing else but a single segment of the political revolution.

Independence and the Plan

It is noteworthy that the most serious argument against independence does not even enter the mind of our critic. The economy of the Soviet Ukraine enters integrally into this plan. The separation of the Ukraine threatens to break down the plan and to lower the productive forces. But this argument, too, is not decisive. An economic plan is not the holy of holies. If national sections within the federation, despite the unified plan, are pulling in opposite directions, it means that the plan does not satisfy them. A plan is the handiwork of men. It can be reconstructed in accordance with new boundaries. In so far as the plan is advantageous for the Ukraine she will herself desire and know how to reach the necessary economic agreement with the Soviet Union, just as she will be able to conclude the necessary military alliance.

Moreover, it is impermissible to forget that the plunder and arbitrary rule of the bureaucracy constitute an important integral part of the current economic plan, and exact a heavy toll from the Ukraine. The plan must he drastically revised first and foremost from this standpoint. The outlived ruling caste is systematically destroying the country’s economy, the army and its culture; it is annihilating the flower of the population and preparing the ground for a catastrophe. The heritage of the revolution can be saved only by an overturn. The bolder and more resolute is the policy of the proletarian vanguard on the national question among others, all the more successful will be the revolutionary overturn, all the lower its overhead expenses.

The Critic’s Ideal Variant

The slogan of an independent Ukraine does not signify that the Ukraine will remain forever isolated, but only this, that she will again determine for herself and of her own free will the question of her interrelations with other sections of the Soviet Union and her western neighbors. Let us take an ideal variant most favorable for our critic. The revolution occurs simultaneously in all parts of the Soviet Union. The bureaucratic octopus is strangled and swept aside. The Constituent Congress of the Soviets is on the order of the day.

The Ukraine expresses a desire to determine anew her relations with the USSR. Even our critic, let us hope, will be ready to extend her this right. But in order freely to determine her relations with other Soviet republics, in order to possess the right of saying yes or no, the Ukraine must return to herself complete freedom of action, at least for the duration of this Constituent period. There is no other name for this than state independence.

Now let us further suppose that the revolution simultaneously embraces also Poland. Rumania and Hungary. All sections of the Ukrainian people become free and enter into negotiations to join the Soviet Ukraine. At the same time they all express the desire to have their say on the question of the interrelations between a unified Ukraine and the Soviet Union, with Soviet Poland, etc. It is self-evident that to decide all these questions it will be necessary to convene the Constituent Congress of Unified Ukraine. But a “Constituent” Congress signifies nothing else but the Congress of an independent state which prepares anew to determine its own domestic regime as well as its international position.

The Road to Unity

There is every reason to assume that in the event of the triumph of the world revolution the tendencies toward unity will immediately acquire enormous force, and that all Soviet republics will find the suitable forms of ties and collaboration. This goal will be achieved only provided the old compulsory ties, and in consequence old boundaries, are completely destroyed; only provided each of the contracting parties is completely independent. To speed and facilitate this process, to make possible a genuine brotherhood of the peoples in the future, the advanced workers of Great Russia must even now understand the causes for Ukrainian separatism, as well as the latent power and historical lawfulness behind it, and they must without any reservation declare to the Ukrainian people that they are ready to support with all their might the slogan of an independent Soviet Ukraine in a joint struggle against the autocratic bureaucracy and against imperialism.

The petty-bourgeois Ukrainian nationalists consider correct the slogan of an independent Ukraine. But they object to the correlation of this slogan with the proletarian revolution. They want an independent democratic Ukraine and not a Soviet Ukraine. It is unnecessary to enter here into a detailed analysis of this question because it touches not Ukraine alone but rather the general evaluation of our epoch, which we have analyzed many times. We shall outline only the most important aspects.

Democracy is degenerating and perishing even in its metropolitan centers. Only the wealthiest colonial empires or especially privileged bourgeois countries are still able to maintain nowadays a regime of democracy, and even there it is obviously on the downgrade. There is not the slightest basis for hoping that the comparatively impoverished and backward Ukraine will be able to establish and maintain a regime of democracy. Indeed the very independence of the Ukraine would not be long-lived in an imperialist environment. The example of Czechoslovakia is eloquent enough. As long as the laws of imperialism prevail, the fate of small and intermediate nations will remain unstable and unreliable. Imperialism can be overthrown only by the proletarian revolution.

The main section of the Ukrainian nation is represented by present-day Soviet Ukraine. A powerful and purely Ukrainian proletariat has been created there by the development of industry. It is they who are destined to be the leaders of the Ukrainian people in all their future struggles. The Ukrainian proletariat wishes to free itself from the clutches of the bureaucracy. The slogan of a democratic Ukraine is historically belated. The only thing it is good for is perhaps to console bourgeois intellectuals. It will not unite the masses. And without the masses, the emancipation and unification of the Ukraine is impossible.

The Charge of Centrism

Our severe critic flings at us the term “centrism” at every opportunity. According to him, the entire article was written so as to expose the glaring example of our “centrism.” But he does not make even a single attempt to demonstrate wherein precisely consists the “centrism” of the slogan of an independent Soviet Ukraine. Assuredly, that is no easy task.

Centrism is the name applied to that policy which is opportunist in substance and which seeks to appear as revolutionary in form. Opportunism consists in a passive adaptation to the ruling class and its regime, to that which already exists, including, of course, the state boundaries. Centrism shares completely this fundamental trait of opportunism, but in adapting itself to the dissatisfied workers, centrism veils it by means of radical commentaries.

If we proceed from this scientific definition, it will appear that the position, of our hapless critic is in part and in whole centrist. He takes as a starting point the specific (accidental—from the standpoint of rational and revolutionary politics) boundaries which cut nations into segments, as if this were something immutable. The world revolution, which is for him not living reality but the incantation of a witch-doctor, must unequivocally accept these boundaries as its point of departure.

He is not at all concerned with the centrifugal nationalist tendencies which may flow either into the channels of reaction or the channel of revolution. They violate his lazy administrative blueprint constructed on the model of “first” and “then.” He shies away from the struggle for national independence against bureaucratic strangulation and takes refuge in speculations on the superiorities of socialist unity. In other words, his politics—if scholastic commentaries on other people’s politics may be called politics—bear the worst traits of centrism.

The sectarian is an opportunist who stands in fear of himself. In sectarianism, opportunism (centrism) remains unfolded in its initial stages, like a delicate bud. Presently the bud unfolds, one-third, one-half, and sometimes more. Then we have the peculiar combination of sectarianism and centrism (Vereecken); of sectarianism and low-grade opportunism (Sneevliet). But on occasion the bud shrivels away, without unfolding (Oehler). If I am not mistaken, Oehler is the editor of The Marxist.

July 30, 1939

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Last updated on: 22.4.2007

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