Following the defeats and betrayals of 1927, the Stalinists still adopted their adventurist strategy, calling for the insurrection in Canton. The rebellion had no chance of success, given the class composition of Canton, and general counter-revolutionary period China had entered. The Stalinist theory insisted that any revolution, in China, must be a bourgeois revolution, and so its characterisation of the insurrection, in Canton, conformed to that requirement. Yet, the Stalinists also claimed that this insurrection had been carried out by a soviet, and that the government in Canton was a soviet government. That flatly contradicted the theory of Stalin, the Politburo of the CPSU, and the ECCI that,
“soviets can be only and exclusively organs of the socialist revolution.”
And, in fact, Permanent Revolution was proved correct, once again, because, when we look at the measures proposed by this government, they were those relevant to the socialist rather than bourgeois revolution, such as nationalisation of land, banks, dwellings, industrial enterprises. But, the ECCI could hardly admit to that, which would be to admit the validity of Permanent Revolution, and position of the Opposition.
“At the end of February 1928, the Ninth Plenum of the ECCI drew up the balance of the Canton insurrection. And what was the result?
“The current year in the Chinese revolution is a period of bourgeois-democratic revolution, which has not been completed. The tendency towards jumping over the bourgeois-democratic stage of the revolution with the simultaneous appraisal of the revolution as a ‘permanent’ revolution is a mistake similar to the one made by Trotsky in 1905.”” (p 294)
So, Stalin had argued that soviets are exclusively organs of the socialist revolution, and, consequently, could not be called for in relation to the bourgeois-national revolution, as that would mean accepting the Trotskyist concept of permanent revolution. Having failed to support, let alone call for, soviets, and, instead, subordinating the workers and peasants to the bourgeoisie, via the KMT, the bourgeoisie broke with the workers and peasants, slaughtering them by the thousand. As a period of counter-revolution descended, Stalin chose this moment to demand insurrections and the creation of soviets, in which the CP would still ally with the KMT as representative of the bourgeoisie. And, their task was still to be just the bourgeois revolution.
“... after a complete exhaustion of all the variations of the Guomindang, when it was necessary to sanction the slogan of soviets, we were told that only Trotskyists can connect this slogan with the proletarian dictatorship. This is how it was revealed that Stalin, during 1925-27, was a “Trotskyist”, even though the other way around.” (p 295)
Indeed, the Comintern, itself, amended its program. Having stated that soviets were incompatible with the bourgeois revolution, it now established a principal task of colonial countries to be,
“The establishment of a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry based on the soviets.” Truly miraculous! What was yesterday incompatible with the democratic revolution was today proclaimed to be its foundation base. One would seek in vain for any theoretical explanation of this complete somersault. Everything was done in a strictly administrative manner.” (p 295)
Much the same can be said of today's epigones that bowdlerise Trotsky's writing, and do somersaults of their positions, as they respond to each new event on the basis of Shachtmanite “practical politics”, and moralism as their alternative to Marxism.
Stalin was wrong, Trotsky says, both when he first declared soviets incompatible with the democratic revolution, and, then, when he, later, declared them to be the basis of it. Wrong, because this is a purely administrative, mechanical approach, devoid and divorced from the class struggle and historical context.
“Because Stalin does not understand the meaning of the democratic dictatorship, the meaning of the proletarian dictatorship, their mutual relationship, and what role the soviets play in connection with them.” (p 295)
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