The Militant

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"The political line of The Militant concerning the coup is closest to that of Socialist Action. This is because both organizations base their analysis of these events on Trotsky's class explanation of the bureaucratic counterrevolution and the road forward for the Soviet and emboldened," the statement says that "the partisans of a 'free market economy'" have not "consolidated their hold in the post-coup USSR." But they had already "consolidated their hold" on the pre-coup USSR, and now in the postcoup period are loudly proclaiming their intentions from the rooftops.

This view is backed up by theoretical assertions in the statement: "Sections of the top echelons of the bureaucracy could undoubtedly enrich themselves by becoming native agents for the penetration of foreign capital [under capitalist restoration], but much of the bureaucracy-which numbers in the millions-will lose their privileges and be driven back into the working class."

And, "if capitalism is restored it is guaranteed that the bureaucracy as a whole will not be able to establish itself as a new capitalist class."

The implication is that the bureaucracy in its great bulk, at least those not in the "top echelons," are opposed to restoration as against their own interests.

It is true that if capitalism is restored, not all or even a large majority of the many-millioned bureaucracy will become capitalists. But this doesn't mean they will "lose their privileges and be driven back into the working class." Undoubtedly, some will. But the great bulk will continue to do what they are doing now, except they will be doing it for the new capitalist masters.

Trotsky pointed out in "The Revolution Betrayed " that in the event of a capitalist restoration, the bulk of the functionaries in the state apparatus are perfectly suited by their mentality and habits to operate the capitalist state and would be retained. A workers' political revolution, on the other hand, would require the sweeping out of the bureaucratic crud on a massive scale.

Present factory and farm managers and technocrats won't lose their positions in the main under a capitalist restoration. They envy their counterparts in the West, and fervently hope they can become just like them, without the constraints of the planned economy. If the FIT doesn't believe this, take a look at what has happened with these layers in the former East Germany, where even the bulk of the secret police has been retained. Organization and our sister organizations internationally was: Workers Power East and West-Neither Moscow nor Wash ington, But International Socialism."

This sounds very revolutionary, but it led in practice to a helpless neutrality when faced with imperialism's attempts to crush the bureaucratically deformed workers' states.

Not only was this current neutral during the Korean war-under the false notion that the workers had nothing to defend in the nationalized and planned economies of North Korea and Chinathey were neutral throughout the "Cold War," placing equal blame on both the imperialist countries and the workers' states for the threat of a nuclear war.

In the United States, this meant fighting against those who wanted to concentrate their fire on Washington's war mongering and nuclear weapons buildup. Their "equal blame" line conveniently allowed them to duck the ruling class's anti-communist campaign.

Politically, they were in the same boat those who held the "bureaucratic collectivist" theory. Both currents failed to defend the Cuban revolution, and both initially were neutral in the Vietnam war, opposing the slogan of immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops as being too unilateral. Not until the antiwar movement burgeoned did they jump on the bandwagon.

In Socialist Worker, they come out for workers' revolution and workers democracy in the USSR, but one searches the issue in vain to find any concrete program for the Soviet toilers to advance Reflects the views of Workers Party (SWP).

Front-page headlines in the Sept. 6, 13 and 20 issues give a flavor of the SWP's position: "Soviet workers win giant victory by defeating coup"; "Gorbachev, Yeltsin drive to stem Soviet disintegration-Seek to defend ruling stratum, take aim at workers' rights"; "New federation in USSR keeps bureaucratic rule."

An editorial in the Sept. 6 issue says: "Working people and fighters for democratic rights should have no hesitation in identifying with the battle waged by hundreds of thousands of people against the coup in the Soviet Union. Through their actions on the barricades and in the working people."

streets working people have widened the space open to them and gained greater confidence for the struggles to come.

"Opposing the coup and identifying with those in the streets in no way means extending one iota of political support to Boris Yeltsin, or Mikhail Gorbachev who simply represent various wings of the bureaucracy.

"Yeltsin plans to drive ahead with market-oriented reforms which will further deepen the economic crisis suffered by workers and farmers; he seeks the same sacrifices and 'labor discipline' that the coup leaders wished to impose by force; and his regime is set to impose new forms of Great Russian domination on the multitude of oppressed nationalities in the Soviet Union.

"The crumbling of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) following the coup's defeat is also an event A difference may exist with Socialist Action. We think the bureaucracy intends not only to seek accommodation with imperialism, but to drive toward the restoration of capitalism, as it sees no other road out of the crisis that would preserve its privileges.

This is not clearly spelled out in The Militant, although the political line on what to do against any moves by the bureaucracy in this direction is similar to that of Socialist Action.

An SWP resolution adopted before the coup attempt but reprinted in the Sept. 6 issue and clearly meant to apply to the USSR today as well as Eastern Europe, states:

"The brutally repressive regimes [in Eastern Europe] that had blocked the workers and farmers of these countries from entering politics and acting in their own class interests are crumbling. The regimes that have replaced them are in irresolvable crisis. And the imperialists have no prospect of restoring a stable capitalism, or even reasonable social equilibrium, without a fight against the toilers—a fight whose consequences they cannot foresee. [We would only add that this fight is inevitable-B.S.] "The crisis will deepen in all these countries. It will get worse. The assaults on living standards, on what workers and farmers in these countries have come to recognize as social rights, will intensify.

"But working people will resist these attacks...."

The political line of The Militant concerning the coup is closest to that of Socialist Action. This is because both organizations base their analysis of these events on Trotsky's class explanation of the bureaucratic counterrevolution and the road forward for the Soviet working people.

This is true even if the SWP leaders have not quite fully absorbed that Trotsky's political prognosis for the USSR-either a political revolution by the workers or an overturn of the property relations by the bureaucracy—is not a far-off alternative, but has become the stark choice facing Soviet working people.

This convergence may seem surprising, given that the SWP leadership rejected its former Trotskyist program in 1981, and soon expelled those who later founded Socialist Action for defending that program. In 1990, the SWP officially stated it was not Trotskyist, and it left the Fourth International, the world party founded by Leon Trotsky with considerable help from the "old" SWP in 1938.

The explanation lies in the fact that in place of its historic program, the current SWP leadership has substituted an eclectic melange, borrowing here from Trotskyism, there from ideas of Stalinist origin—although it does not recognize the fact.

Luckily, this time it went back to its Trotskyist past. The Militant is even advertising basic works by Trotsky on Stalinism, such as "The Revolution Betrayed," "The Third International After Lenin," and "In Defense of Marxism."

It is to be hoped that the SWP membership will read or reread these works. Perhaps that will inspire them to do the same with Trotsky's other writings, which just might convince them that Trotsky was more correct and a better Marxist than some of their leaders who saw fit to "correct" and "demote" the great Bolshevik.

ON OCTOBER 1991