Determinism’s Influence on Trotsky, Luxemburg and Lenin
“We stand on the shoulders of giants. All the great revolutionaries have much to teach us. However, not all giants are equal in every respect.”
Hegel’s Influence on Lenin
There is an ongoing debate among Marxists about Lenin’s “epistemological break” in 1914–15 after reading Hegel’s Logic. He moved away from a more mechanical form of materialism exemplified by his earlier “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism” and his approval of Plekhanov’s philosophy. Marxist Humanists, and the Johnson-Forest Tendency in the U.S. Socialist Workers Party (CLR James, Grace Lee Boggs, Raya Dunayevskaya) stressed this break heavily. They also saw it as a repudiation of the mechanical materialism and determinism of the 2nd International. This viewpoint is adhered to by Kevin B. Anderson, author of Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity and Non-Western Societies and many other Marxist scholars.
In contrast, other Marxists stress the continuity of Lenin before 1914 with Lenin after his “break”. Among these especially is Lars Lih, but also somewhat Paul Le Blanc. Paul recognizes a big organizational break by Lenin with the Second International in 1912 when the Bolsheviks formed as a separate party but feels the epistemological break is overdone.
It is hard to know who is correct. However, most commentators see a big difference between Materialism and Empirio-Criticism and the Lenin’s Hegel notebooks. Anderson believes that Lenin’s Imperialism and State and Revolution were influenced if not produced by the Break.
Though Le Blanc, Lih, and others are right that the 2nd International was not completely determinist, the dominant philosophy was determinist, as expressed by the “Pope of Marxism”, Karl Kautsky. This determinism led to gradualism and reformism. For example Kautsky’s viewed his party , the German Social-Democratic Party, as a “revolutionary party, but not a revolution-making party”. Capitalist development would lead to socialism without a party leading a revolution.
Lenin emphasized the subjective factor
“For Lenin, history was not pre-determined.”
Lenin emphasized the subjective factor, that the ideas and organization of workers and were central to the success of a revolution. He argued for the need for a revolutionary party and political intervention by that party. For Lenin, history was not pre-determined. He thoroughly rejected determinism. Determinism can and often did lead to passivity and not taking necessary initiatives. Lenin’s push on the importance of clarity of ideas led some to incorrectly charge him with idealism, the notion that it is ideas on their own and not material conditions and struggle that changes history. For Lenin, clarity of ideas was necessary for clarity of struggle. He said “ without revolutionary theory, there is no revolutionary movement.”
Luxemburg on the National Question and Imperialism
“Luxemburg’s view seems to be based on the idea that the role of socialists is to facilitate or at least not get in the way of inevitable economic developments.”
It can be argued that Luxemburg’s position on the national question was at least in part an expression of an over-stress on material development and an under-emphasis on the subjective factor. She said that the growth of international capitalism would inevitably sweep in small nations, so there was no point in championing their right to self-determination. She thought that even politically independent nations would be economically dominated by imperialism so political self-determination was useless.
Luxemburg’s view seems to be based on the idea that the role of socialists is to facilitate or at least not get in the way of inevitable economic developments. Workers have to consciously seize political power to achieve socialism. However, their seizure would be the result of capitalist development. Luxemburg’s relative spontaneism until the German Revolution broke out in 1918 was in part caused by her reliance on capitalist development leading workers to take power. She said that in a revolutionary situation workers would push aside their ossified party leaders. Only later did she realize that pushing past the bureaucratic leaders would require an explicitly revolutionary party.
Luxemburg’s analysis of imperialism is another example. Her view was that capitalism would collapse when it ran out of non-capitalist areas to conquer. The collapse would lead to “socialism or barbarism”. Lenin instead argued that capitalism could continue as long as workers did not fight back sufficiently. Collapse was not pre-ordained. Workers’ consciousness, organization and struggle were central to the elimination of capitalism, not just to the creation of socialism out of the collapse of capitalism.
Though Luxemburg certainly was for revolutionary organization late in her life, she thought it was needed to prevent otherwise inevitable collapse or create socialism out of the collapse. She only came to the need for a revolutionary party late. Her previous partial spontaneism came from a greater stress on the objective factor and less on the subjective. Luxemburg’s partial spontaneism was mixed with a clear rejection of reformism and her support for conscious revolutionary action by the working class.
For Lenin, the subjective factor was central. The political program of the party and the key demands for intervention were primary. In the case of self-determination of colonies and oppressed nations, the questions he posed were “How do we help unite the international working-class?”, “How do we win workers in both the oppressed and oppressor nations to support each other?” His answer was that workers in imperialist countries had to support the demand of workers in the colonies for independence. The workers in the colonies would be unlikely to opt for international proletarian revolution unless they saw this support from workers in the imperialist countries. Likewise, to win workers in imperialist countries to socialism, they had to oppose imperialism. Lenin echoed Marx’s “A people who oppresses another cannot itself be free.” As long as workers in imperialist countries supported their own ruling class in continuing to keep the colonies, they would never revolt against it.
A key difference between Lenin and Luxemburg was this: Luxemburg said socialists had to be realistic about objective developments of capitalism and ride them through to socialism. Lenin while grounding himself on material developments, always centered on the subjective elements that could unify the working class.
Lenin and Permanent Revolution
“By April 1917, he rejected the idea that the Russian Revolution would a revolution to bring in capitalism. He came to the same conclusion as Trotsky, Permanent Revolution.”
Lenin followed this up during the 1917 revolution by jettisoning the old Bolshevik stage theory. From early on, Lenin said the bourgeoisie would not lead the bourgeois revolution in Russia against the Czar and Feudalism. However, he thought the revolution would be bourgeois-democratic even if led by the working class in alliance with the peasantry. In other words, the key task of the revolution would be to establish a bourgeois democracy to allow the development of capitalism. By April 1917, he rejected the idea that the Russian Revolution would be a revolution to bring in capitalism. He came to the same conclusion as Trotsky, Permanent Revolution.
Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution revived Marx’s theory from 1848. It said that Russia need not have a fully developed capitalist economy and bourgeois democracy before a working-class revolution. If workers seized power in Russia, they could begin the transition to socialism as long as the revolution spread internationally. The revolution would be permanent or continuous in starting at the anti-Czar/anti-Feudal stage and quickly growing over to the anti-capitalist stage. It would be continuous in starting in Russia but spreading internationally.
The reason Lenin adopted Permanent Revolution was that he focused on the subjective consciousness of the working-class and its likely further development in the concrete conditions of Russia. The Mensheviks were the best (worst) exemplars of 2nd International determinism and insisted the revolution had to be not just bourgeois but led by the bourgeoisie. They tried to placate the bourgeoisie to convince them to take up their supposedly necessary role of leading the revolution.
Trotsky’s Determinism
“Trotsky over-emphasized an economic basis of socialism, nationalization of the economy and underestimated the subjective factor, workers’ consciousness and control of the economy.”
Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution was more dialectical than most in the second international but it still suffered from an over-stress on the material and not enough on the subjective. John Molyneux’s study of Trotsky’s determinism , Leon Trotsky’s Theory of Revolution explains this in detail. Molyneux’s analysis of Trotsky’s views was controversial among other Trotskyists including his British Socialist Worker Party comrades.
An example of the influence of determinism on Trotsky is his theory of Permanent Revolution. He said that a proletariat in political power with the dictatorship of the proletariat would not allow its continued economic exploitation. It would use its workers’ democracy to take socialist measures including the expropriation of the bourgeoisie. He implied that this was automatic and inevitable.
Trotsky was correct that the objective tendency in that direction would be strong. However, the subjective element was crucial. Even a workers’ democracy could falter and lose its political power if it did not rapidly move against the economic power of the bourgeoisie. It could make bad political choices which would undermine and finally allow the overthrow of its dominant position. This meant that the clarity in the subjective factor was absolutely essential.
One example of this was the Paris Commune. Workers took power in Paris in March 1871 and created a workers’ state. There is a good argument that its isolation in Paris could not have been overcome in 1871. However, the political decisions of the Commune shortened its life. Marx criticized it for not immediately moving against Versailles to disperse the concentrated military power of the bourgeoisie. He also said that the Commune should have seized the Bank of France to disorganize bourgeois economic power. The political balance within the Commune was a central basis of these bad decisions: The Marxists were a minority in the Commune dominated by Proudhonists and Blanquists. See Donny Gluckstein’s “The Paris Commune, A Revolution in Democracy”
The Russian Revolution was another example of political failures that undermined the dictatorship of the proletariat. The spread of the Russian Revolution to Germany was entirely possible in 1923. It would have relieved the isolation of the Russian workers’ state. The leadership of the Russian Revolution (Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin) refused to send Trotsky to Germany to help organize the German Communist Party to seize power. It let the revolutionary crisis of 1923 pass. Russia was isolated and its revolution degenerated, finally allowing the Stalinist counter-revolution. Again, lack of clarity in the subjective factor led to failure.
Beyond Permanent Revolution, Molyneux gives other examples of the determinist influence on Trotsky. One example is Trotsky’s description of Russia as a workers’ state in the 1930s long after the working class had lost actual political power to the Stalinist bureaucracy. Trotsky over-emphasized an economic basis socialism, nationalization of the economy and underestimated the and underestimated the subjective factor, workers’ consciousness and control of the economy.
Downplaying Revolutionary Organization
The underestimation of the subjective factor by both Luxemburg and Trotsky is shown by their relative downplaying of the importance of the revolutionary party. Both came to a Leninist position on the party later than Lenin. In Trotsky’s case, he later sometimes over-corrected saying it was impossible to be correct as against the Party, seeing the Party as the result of the objective forces of history.
Though Trotsky often made anti-determinist arguments, he was still overly influenced by determinism. Some of his anti-determinist statements are still important for revolutionaries. For example, he said that History does nothing, it is people that do everything. On the party, he said that it is not enough to have a sharp sword, it is also necessary to know how to wield the sword. In other words, the policy of the party was crucial.
Lenin’s Materialism
“His break with determinism was more profound than even his fellow revolutionaries, Luxemburg and Trotsky.”
Lenin of course based his strategies and tactics on material conditions. He was a Marxist and thus a historical materialist. However, within that grounding, he rejected determinism and put his emphasis on the subjective factor, clear politics as exemplified by a revolutionary vanguard party. His break with determinism was more profound than even his fellow revolutionaries, Luxemburg and Trotsky. He certainly rejected the determinism of the dominant trend in the Second International. This is the origin of Lenin’s call for seizing the key link in the chain.
To what degree Lenin’s orientation on the subjective factor came from his break with mechanical materialism in 1914–15 is still debated among Marxist historians. However, what is clear is that Lenin had a better grasp on the importance of the subjective factor than his contemporaries, even other revolutionaries.
