At this time, in 1927, Trotsky still characterised as “mistakes”, rather than “betrayals”, the actions of the Stalinists. In part, that is because he thought that, under the impact of such great events, in a revolutionary period, the possibility existed not only to correct them, but also to return the CP and Comintern to a revolutionary perspective. After all, to characterise such actions as “betrayals”, as with those of the Second International, in 1914, would imply a split, the need to build a new party and International, a conclusion that Trotsky did not arrive at, for several more years.
In fact, the appraisal of the underlying material conditions was itself wrong. The period of long wave uptrend that had led to rapid growth of the international labour movement, began around 1890. Its “boom” phase ran from around 1902-1914. From 1914 to around 1926, it entered the crisis phase, characterised by more intense class struggle, wars and revolutions, as described by Trotsky in Flood Tide and The Curve of Capitalist Development, associated with these conjunctures from one phase to another. But, the period from 1926 to 1939, was already a period of stagnation. That period of stagnation, seen previously between 1875-90, and later between 1986-99, is one in which the working-class is pushed on to the back foot, because capital responds to the crisis, resulting from a squeeze on profits from increased wages, due to relative labour shortages, by engaging in a new technological revolution to replace labour with fixed capital.
In 1875-90, it revolved around the introduction of electric power in place of steam, in 1926-39, it was the introduction of mass production assembly lines, using that same combination of electric power, as well as the introduction of internal combustion engines in place of steam-power, and horse-power for transport. In 1986-99 it is the introduction of the microchip and its associated technologies. All of these base technologies are developed in the preceding crisis phase, as a response to rising wages/labour shortages. The Innovation Cycle, for example, peaked in 1935 and 1985.
In the stagnation phase, capital accumulation is characterise by intensive accumulation. That is, rather than additional fixed capital and, consequently, labour being employed, to produce a larger gross output, existing fixed capital is replaced, as it wears out, by new, more efficient fixed capital, to produce more or less the same level of gross output. One new machine replaces two or more older machines, and so, now, only one worker is required to operate it, making 1,2 or more existing workers redundant, so increasing labour supply, and reducing wages.
As wages fall, profits rise, due to an increase in the rate of surplus value. The new fixed capital is relatively cheaper, and also brings about a moral depreciation of existing fixed capital. So, both the mass and rate of profit rises, net output rises, relative to gross output, and creates the conditions for the new upswing. So, around 1926, as this stagnation period proceeds, workers were already put on the back foot by capital. Material conditions had moved against them, and in favour of capital, just as had happened in 1875-90, and 1985-99. Its why, in both periods, workers go down to serial defeats, as compared to the relative victories in the previous period.
Consequently, Trotsky's hope that this was still a revolutionary period was mistaken and forlorn, and the strategy should have taken that into consideration. The “mistakes” and “betrayals” of the Stalinist, bureaucratic-centrists and other opportunists, were an ideological reflection of this change in material conditions, and the defeats of workers were not solely a consequence of those mistakes and betrayals, but also of the change in material conditions, which weakened them, relative to capital, in the productive process, and the social relations based upon it. In these conditions, both the petty-bourgeoisie and the backward layers of the proletariat are strengthened, and, given the “chvostism”, or tailism, of the opportunists and centrists, this presses down on them. Trotsky notes this effect in Russia itself.
In this context, the errors of the Stalinists, centrists and opportunists, in relation to the Popular Front with the bourgeoisie/petty-bourgeoisie, also, cannot be divorced from its “stages theory”, and Socialism In One Country, in opposition to the Marxist theory of permanent revolution.
“The chvostist theory of “stages” or “steps” repeatedly proclaimed by Stalin in recent times, has served as the motivation in principle for the opportunist tactic. If the complete organizational and political independence of the Chinese Communist Party is demanded, it means that steps are being skipped over.” (p 62)
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