On the history of the Swedish
Marxist-Leninist movement,
and the bankruptcy of Trotskyism

(CV #35, March, 2005, CV #36, Sept. 2005, and CV #37, Feb. 2006)

.

. On October 4, 2004, the League for the Revolutionary Party (Swedish initials -- FRP) of Sweden dissolved. The comrades involved are not discouraged, nor have they abandoned the revolution. But they are determined to build up communist organization on a new basis, and they decided to dissolve the FRP to show the need for a thorough break with its original Trotskyist foundations.

. Below are their statement on the dissolution of the FRP, and their longer "evaluation document" on the history of the FRP. These are not documents complaining about this or that minor problem or personality. Instead they discuss the major issues of communist work, as they appeared in Sweden, from several years before the formation of the FRP to the present. These issues affect anti-revisionist communists all over the world. The evaluation document in particular is long and detailed, and refers to many events in Sweden and the world communist movement which few new activists in the US are now aware of. But the reader who takes the time to work his way through the history and analysis that it presents, will find that this document repays serious study many times over.

-- Joseph Green, for the Communist Voice Organization

List of contents:

STATEMENT ON THE DISSOLUTION OF THE FRP
(League for the Revolutionary Party of Sweden) - October 4, 2004

INTRODUCTION

THE BACKGROUND
Rightist turn -- and crossroads
To carry the anti-revisionist struggle through to the end -- or stop half-way and slide backwards
The Communist League of Norrkoping: possibilities and limitations
Derailing: Trotskyism, liquidationism and pipe-dreams
The Workers' List
The IS Tendency

"THE RUSSIAN QUESTION"
Cliff's theory of Russian state capitalism
Further wandering about the wilderness: Daum and "statified capitalism"
To try repairing what cannot be repaired
Joseph Green's critique

THE MOST ORTHODOX IN THE FAMILY
The SJD affair

CLASS ANALYSIS
To extend the concept "worker": Mandel, Cliff and Daum
Demagogical argumentation
To narrow the concept too much -- and getting out of step with reality

OPPORTUNISM AND SECTARIANISM

THE PROGRAM QUESTION
The Transitional Program
FRP vacillates back and forth
Conclusions

DISTINCT LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
What did Lenin actually say?
The IS Tendency and LRP

REFORMISM AND ELECTIONS
The FRP line at the general elections
LRP's views

"MILITARY BUT NOT POLITICAL SUPPORT"

PERMANENT REVOLUTION
Anti-imperialist united front
Cliff and Daum

CLASS STRUGGLE AND FORCES OF PRODUCTION

"SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY"
Factional considerations
The consequences of Trotsky's point of view
The Leninist view of transition from capitalism to socialism
International implications

THE HISTORICAL HERITAGE
The early Trotsky
Down with forgeries of history!
The Soviet Union changes color
The Trotskyist movement
Stalinist domination -- and the beginning of break-up from it

OUR LONG WAY BACK
The COFI split
A cautious re-orientation

WHAT NEXT?
The capitalist crisis and its ideological effects
Unite theory and practice!
Short-range tasks

SUPPLEMENTS TO THE FRP EVALUATION DOCUMENT
* A letter of May 3, 1990 to the Marxist-Leninist League of Sweden
* Excerpt from a letter to MLF, December 6, 1989

Text:

STATEMENT

. COFI was the organized expression, at the international level, of the Trotskyist trend formed around the League for the Revolutionary Party-USA (LRP). It has demarcated itself from other Trotskyist trends in a first and foremost negative sense, i.e. out of what it does not want to stand for: the various forms of accommodation to, and capitulation before, Stalinism, reformism, petty-bourgeois nationalism, etc. , which have been, and still are, legion in the Trotskyist milieu. Concretely, this means rejection of e.g. the claim that others than the working class can create "workers' states" and that Stalin's counter-revolution in the 1930's limited itself to be purely political, not social, i.e. that the Soviet Union remained a "workers' state". Likewise, it means rejection of e.g. strategical entryism and the constant vote for social-democratic or "left" parties in elections, as well as of the idea that some kind of general "labor party" should be advocated rather than the revolutionary party. These demarcations are, in themselves, a good beginning, but the traditional Trotskyist point of departure has turned out to result in opportunist accommodations nevertheless. Thus, for instance, LRP calls for "military but not political" support for reactionary regimes which are in conflict with the U.S. or any other imperialist power; most recently it was Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Another example is how the proud talk that only the working class can make socialist revolution, turns out hollow as LRP has re-defined the concept of the working class to include the very "middle-class intelligentsia" whose influence they warn of.

. Positions taken in a positive sense, i.e. alternatives to other Trotskyists, are scarce, except for the theory of "statified capitalism" which has been put forward in Walter Daum's book The Life & Death of Stalinism. As this theory has turned out to contain a number of contradictions pointing in widely differing directions, making possible widely differing interpretations of its strategical implications, there were mechanisms of split built-in from the very beginning -- and as soon as this trend was spread outside the U.S. , various parallel and mutually gainsaying orientations came forth, each of which being able, with a certain logical right, to claim being a reasonable deduction of Daum's theory. As long as there was no challenge to the control of COFI exercised by the LRP leadership, it was prepared to close its eyes to Menshevism (in Australia) and to our right opportunism. For a while, the LRP leadership was even ready to try to recruit a petty-bourgeois organization in Kurdistan which hailed religion and Bundist organizing on ethnic lines. In a short time, the tensions within COFI became so severe that it blew apart in 1994-95 when the LRP leadership attempted to re-gain control by means of bureaucratic big-stick methods. FRP was purged after a fumbling effort to express a partially correct criticism, and has since then had nothing to do with them. For a couple of years, FRP declared itself an "external section of COFI", in hope of a change in LRP from within, but began subsequently a cautious re-orientation. In 1998 the publication of the paper Rod Gryning (Red Dawn) ceased, and its newsletter, too. Indeed, most of FRP's intervening activities came to a halt, the focus turning to theoretical studies instead.

. It is now clear that LRP's claim to represent the real essence of Trotskyism is without foundation: other Trotskyists, who regarded countries with statified economies as "workers' states", were probably making the most adequate interpretation of Trotsky's views. Nor can the above-mentioned negative demarcations, taken by LRP/COFI as its point of departure, at a closer look be derived from orthodox Trotskyism. Also in this respect are other Trotskyists in a number of ways more representative. This has, in turn, forced us to think matters over again, point by point. We had, from the beginning, seen how Stalinism leads to class-collaboration and thought that the theory of permanent revolution is the solution: to deny stages in the struggle (albeit not denying it in the sterile manner typical of ultra-"leftists", but rather by seeing it all as a continuous process just rolling on). We had not understood the difference between Marx's discussion in 1850 of "the revolution in permanence" and Trotsky's theory. Nor had we understood the difference between the early Comintern's use of transitional slogans and that of Trotskyism, but thought that the latter provides the key to how everything can be connected. We had not understood the difference between condemning the Moscow trials and accepting the Trotskyist claims to be the sole real alternative to Stalinism. We had not understood that the old debate on "socialism in one country" constituted a blind alley -- and, actually, a proof as to how the differences between Stalin and Trotsky were of a quantitative, not qualitative, nature. And so on.

. The resolution on the classics of Marxism-Leninism, adopted by FRP last year, which criticized some of Trotsky's ideas and stated that he can not be regarded as a classic alongside Marx, Engels and Lenin, was simply a sign of the extent to which our re-consideration had reached at that moment. Now we declare that Trotskyism, taken on the whole, is a branch of modern revisionism. Trotsky himself was a continuously vacillating centrist, who in fact never broke with the tradition of the Second International before 1914 -- a tradition which, in various forms, was brought into Comintern and the Russian Bolshevik Party as well, and managed to survive Leninism.

. On the occasion of the dissolution of FRP, an evaluation document has been adopted, entering in more detail about how we view the political errors of FRP and COFI, and our view of the Marxist-Leninist tradition. We also formulate a more precise critique of Trotskyism than there is space for in a statement like this. That document can be ordered by e-mail to

rodgryning@hotmail. com or by letter to

Box 190 15,
161 19 Bromma, Sweden.

. We retain that communism has nothing to do with the fallen East Bloc -- or, for that matter, with any of those regimes which continue to call themselves "socialist": China, North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba. By communism, we mean the merger of revolutionary Marxism with the working-class movement, and also the classless society which is the final goal for its struggle. This struggle is more current and more life-important than ever! The capitalist system -- regardless of form -- has got no future to offer mankind; it can proceed only downwards. Precisely for that reason is it so much more crucial that the scientific re-construction advances and that all deviations and distortions are dug out with their roots. This is the first, indispensable step. Of course, it has to be done in organized forms, and not isolated, book-worm style, but as part and parcel of cadre-building aimed at the creation of an authentic Communist Party in Sweden.

Stockholm, October 4, 2004

EVALUATION DOCUMENT

INTRODUCTION

. Last year, we adopted a resolution on the classics of Marxism-Leninism, which marked a rejection of our Trotskyist identity and an initial departure from Trotsky himself. Shortly thereafter, we made contact with the American Marxist-Leninists in Communist Voice; the subsequent correspondence has clarified a lot to us. As compared to the resolution, we have gained qualitatively new insights on the roots of modern revisionism and the similarities between Trotskyism and Stalinism. A number of clues are now visible before us. Therefore we have now arrived at putting an end to FRP's existence -- not in order to give up the struggle for Communism, but in order to carry it forward, uproot all that is wrong, bolshevize our own practice and create adequate forms for it. The aim of this document is to clear the table properly of political deviations from Marxism-Leninism and to account for the lessons drawn.

. Of course, we and our political trajectory should be understood as a product of our time. The victory of modern revisionism already in the 1930's was a tremendous setback for the international workers' movement; it did, to be sure, never succeed in stamping out or breaking the revolutionary tradition entirely, but it did distort it and mix it up with alien ways of thought. To lay bare the historical roots of modern revisionism and reconstruct scientific socialism and the collective memory of the proletariat, is a difficult and still not completed task. We are probably not the last ones to go astray into the political wilderness of Trotskyism. By elucidating how that happened and why we now turn back, we might, hopefully, contribute somewhat to lighten the path.

. In the course of the writing process, this document has been considerably extended. From having at first been intended just as an evaluation of the FRP experience itself and with digressions just in by-passing, to specify certain problems raised as the account goes on, like the theories on "the Russian question", it has turned out to be necessary to dwell somewhat more on such matters for the discussion to be comprehensible at all, and not a fragmentary, incoherent enumeration of assertions. Yet, since limitations, after all, have to be made, we have been compelled to be very short on some points and limit ourselves to tell where we stand.

THE BACKGROUND

Rightist turn -- and crossroads

. Here in Sweden, one could see how the solidarity movements followed suit, turning away from previous anti-imperialist stands and activism oriented towards the broad masses, in favor of more of lobbyism and dismantling of grass-root work. (At a completely different level, one could, at the same time, witness how social-democracy quietly buried all talk of "the third step" to "economic democracy", and how almost the entire corps of economists made a sudden turn away from their advocacy of Keynesian solutions and their cautious critique of monetarism, replacing it all with the eager adoption of the gospel of "the market" and "de-regulation".)

. In brief: forces which, in one way or another, had been or tried to be or claimed to be revolutionary, now began to show a more and more overtly reformist face, while the reformists, in turn, began to show a more and more overtly bourgeois face. These displacements in the political landscape put Marxist-Leninists before a number of new questions -- and this meant, amongst other things, to bring up matters which had been taken for granted and have another look at them. How were things, actually, with the Stalin period, with the history of the Comintern (and with the tradition from the subsequent Cominform)? Was it really sufficient to condemn the theses of the 20th CPSU Congress in 1956 -- that "the peaceful, parliamentary road to socialism" was now possible; that social-democracy was a progressive force; that imperialism was no longer war-mongering by its nature; that the armed struggles of the oppressed nations had become superfluous and dangerous; that Titoism should be seen as just another brand of communist policy; and so on and so forth? Hadn't similar views and stands (except the one on Titoism) been promoted for a long time already, both from Moscow and by numerous communist parties all over the world? This had to be examined, in order to make sure standing on a solid ground and not getting pulled away by the avalanche rightwards.

. Such was the road-fork appearing before a small number of young Swedish communist workers a little more than twenty years ago. Maybe the above description *looks like* something exclusively theoretical, but in fact it wasn't. Behind it all was, of course, the crisis of capitalism and its repercussions on the political level in the form of changing conditions for the various class forces' relation to one another -- and how that affected the international Marxist-Leninist movement.

. We were neither alone nor first in reacting the way we did. When the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA had been founded (in 1980), it had explicitly been done without and against social-chauvinists -- something which arose the wrath of some others as an impermissible ideological struggle. In spite of this, the MLP,USA continued to demarcate itself from opportunism in the Marxist-Leninist movement and advocated open discussion as the only reasonable way to resolve the vexed questions arising. Their 2nd party Congress in 1983 had highlighted a vast number of principled stands on the various fields of class struggle and called for a return to the classics of Marxism-Leninism. In the next few years, this was followed by an extensive publication of materials reviewing the history of the communist movement. Meanwhile, in Nicaragua, its Marxist-Leninist Party made an important practical contribution through its staunch upholding of the independent struggle of workers and peasants in opposition to the Sandinista government instead of acting in the spirit of the popular front; that provided a living illustration of how the differences stood. In Iran, the Communist Party, founded in 1983 (and its organization in Kurdistan, Komala) went straight against the current by refusing to either collaborate with the Islamic regime or getting bogged down in populist strategies. In Portugal in the mid-1980's, a communist organization was founded, which started publication of the journal Politica Operaria. Somewhat later, a proletarian revolutionary organization arose in the Philippines. Still other examples could be added. So, models and guiding lights were not lacking. For a time, we oriented ourselves in a good direction, before we got off the track and ended up in Trotskyism.

To carry the anti-revisionist struggle through to the end
-- or stop half-way and slide backwards

. What, then, about the Swedish KPS? It was the last, in a relative sense the most advanced, of the party-building attempts of the Marxist-Leninist movement in our country. The critique of Maoism, which had begun to appear about 1973, had grown and led to a number of groups and individuals after 1977-78 characterizing Maoism as one more brand of modern revisionism. This corresponded to international developments and was, undoubtedly, a big step forward. But although the Maoist influence was now gone, the Stalinist influence remained! Despite a certain hesitation in parts of the KPS -- there was an informal discussion on the obvious similarities between the Maoist "three worlds" theory and CI's popular-front line -- the KPS was unable to do as the MLP or the Nicaraguan MAP-ML, but stopped half-way. Therefore, the final judgment on the KPS must be that although it -- along with the previous process of demarcation and formation -- constituted a part of the experience in the struggle for the re-creation of a Marxist-Leninist party in our country, we can regard it as no more than an attempt only.

. At the time of its founding in 1982, the KPS had, as has subsequently turned out, an over-optimistic perspective of development with too high speed. A rapid deepening of the crisis was expected, with a repetition of the great depression of the 1930's -- and a corresponding, quickly upcoming mass radicalization before which reformism would step by step expose itself, revisionists of all hues prove themselves unable to maneuver to catch up with the situation, etc. The too-short time-perspective caused the party-building to be strongly forced ahead, which amongst not a few comrades resulted in getting burned out and disillusioned as the expectations did not materialize. At the same time, the cadre education was poor.

The Communist League of Norrkoping:
possibilities and limitations

. Against this background, it is an open question whether it really was right to leave the KPS as early. Could the would-be leading CLN/MLLS comrade possibly have acted differently, thus evading his expulsion in 1983? Weren't there, in the background, a certain political weariness (already then!) and gaps in the political judgment? Would comrades have been in a better shape if remaining in the party -- or would that have led to an even faster demoralization? Had the situation been better if we could have acted as a third, authentically Marxist-Leninist alternative in the strife which took place within KPS in 1988-89?

. Judging on the basis of the report by the Central Committee minority to the 3rd Congress of the KPS in 1989 -- the only document published in which the differences are presented -- and taking a stand on each question separately, the minority was right on class consciousness, on the capitalist crisis, on Swedish arms export and on immigrant's right to vote in general elections, while the majority was right on the aim and direction of the central organ, and may have been at least a bit less wrong on Nicaragua. However, to sort things in such a way becomes meaningless, considering the brazen liquidationism of the minority and the hardened, sterile Stalinism of the majority. Could we, had we been present, have won over the party on our side and isolated both these wings by showing that there is a different and more consistent way of waging the struggle against liquidationism than the Stalinists were able to do -- or was it already too late? These are questions which we have to ask ourselves honestly and seriously. To the picture belongs also the fact that the majority constellation just some four years later itself turned liquidationist; this time the agenda was merger with the former SKA to form a newspaper-association so as to keep up the SKA paper, now with the name Nya Arbetartidningen [New Workers' Paper]. As far as we know, demoralization was by then so wide-spread, that there was no resistance against the party dissolution.

Derailing: Trotskyism, liquidationism and pipe-dreams

. However, as long as we thought the theory of the revisionist countries being "workers' states" was an unavoidable derivation of the logic of Trotskyism, that constituted an insurmountable barrier, because it was impossible to swallow such an idea. This barrier helped the CLN to see the connection between, on the one hand, that legal-formalist reduction of relations of production to property relations, and, on the other hand, those aspects of Trotskyist politics and strategy, e.g. the Transitional Program, which we couldn't accept. Then, when the barrier fell as Tony Cliff's theory of Russian state capitalism became known in the CLN in Summer, 1988 -- i.e. it turned out that one doesn't have to subscribe to the "workers' state" view to be a Trotskyist -- the rejection of other aspects of Trotskyism was soon undermined (regardless of the fact that Cliffites don't utilize transitional demands). This led to "the Russian question" occupying a much more central place in CLN's ideological set-up than before: it was, as it were, to serve as the very dividing line between Marxism and revisionism. Another way of expressing this is that it was used as a kind of political quality guarantee: if one just was right on that question, one could adopt any kind of Trotskyist policy without becoming a revisionist!

. The reorganization of CLN into the Marxist-Leninist League (MLF, its English initials MLLS) in 1989 changed little: first, it was done, in all but the name, on an ideological basis strongly influenced by the IS Tendency; second, this attempt to organisational straightening-up was misleading in the sense that it rather tended to inject a false optimism and slur over how badly the activity actually was performed.

. Already about the time of the reorganization into the MLLS, the organisation affiliated to the by-the-Morenoite-IG [a "left" split from the SF]-controlled "intermediate cogwheel" United Socialists. To participate in a front organisation isn't necessarily wrong in itself, and it had a certain base among a section of militant mineworkers. However, instead of leaving when the IG, following the conference, in actual fact turned the United Socialists into a propaganda organization of theirs, MLLS stayed, limiting itself to making some reservations, and then cooperated in the paper Nybyggaren, believing it might be used to reach out better. In reality, though, the effect was that the MLLS acted -- and appeared -- as a tail of these Morenoites.

. Trotskyism appeared to be the logical conclusion of anti-revisionism precisely because it could show "shortcuts", provide simple answers to complicated questions and -- then, in the situation that came up with the founding of the Workers' List -- give what seemed to be an entirely new, dynamic perspective for unity with the working-class movement. This was to play the decisive role in the process that led to the dissolution of the MLLS in July, 1990. (The Cliffites, on the other hand, did not encourage the MLLS to work either in the FS [Forenade Socialister, i.e. the United Socialists, the front organization set up by a split to the left from SF in 1988] or in the Workers' List. But influence from that quarter could provide no counter-weight, because their alternative was to stand on the sidelines and orient to university campuses and go for what there is seen as politically correct.)

. This resulted in an actual split in the MLLS, as a minority crystallized itself, consisting, in the main, of ourselves. To be sure, our world-view was also shaken considerably by the appearance of the Workers' List, as it --plus the massive protests against the attempt by the social-democratic government to issue a ban on strikes, protests which forced the notorious finance minister Kjell-Olof Feldt and his advisor Klas Eklund to resign, while an opinion poll according to which 23% of the electorate expressed its readiness to vote for the Workers' List -- for a moment made things look as if the upsurge in mass struggles, which shortly before had taken place in East Europe, would spread here, too, and under different banners: the rank-and-file of the labor movement in rebellion against class collaboration. We got disoriented! At the same time, we could see how, if not the Cliffites, then at least the IG, made an utterly professional impression with an active, intervening attitude, related to workers' struggles.

. It seemed as if our hitherto held concepts of party-building had been turned obsolete by the very objective train of developments, while, on the contrary, that of the IG confirmed -- and that we were running a serious risk of getting hopelessly left behind it all. There we sat, with a more and more passive and demoralized group, a political line which had mainly been directed towards peripheral movements in the middle strata, a journal which looked most of all like an internal bulletin, etc. -- and we could see how a broad rallying-point against austerity-politics were growing forth out of the deep ranks of the working class, and with a seeming possibility for us to intervene and affect the course of events. This was, of course, nothing but a big mirage; in reality it was a "solution" from the diametrically wrong angle to the above-mentioned contradiction between anti-revisionist ambitions and amateuristic regression. The outcome was that the minority in the MLLS did not defend the organisation against dissolution, but concurred with it.

. And yet, the Marxist-Leninist alternative was there, put forward in the document "Tasks of Workers' Communism During the Collapse of Revisionism -- A Platform of Struggle for the Consideration of Fighters Against Revisionism, Revolutionary Activists and Class-Conscious Workers Around the World", published as editorial in the January 1, 1990 issue of the organ of MLP,USA, The Workers' Advocate. It addressed a number of focal issues for building an international Marxist-Leninist movement in the new situation. To be sure, it was reprinted in Swedish translation in Rod Gryning a short while later, but with a rather dismissing comment by the staff, and there was no discussion in the MLLS about it. In hindsight, it must be stated that the platform was correct in the main and that the objections which could be raised about it are a matter of details.

The Workers' List

. Of course, in a contradiction one must take hold of the side which, from our point of view, is the positive one: in this case, the relative independence of the labor bureaucracy. But exactly what do we want and how should it be achieved? Here we allowed possibilistic reflexes replace a carefully elaborated and well-balanced analysis. With a very formal way of reasoning, one may hold that if economic struggles become politicized, that is a step forward *in itself. * This is a very common view among Trotskyists and might be given a "left" tinge in polemics by pretending that the alternative is "economism", as if an economist approach could not be at a political level, in the shape of reformism. Then there is the argument that "the very essence of reformism is class collaboration" and therefore a political party which strongly opposes the bosses can by definition not be reformist! But this is sheer sophistry: unless overall class struggle is at a very advanced level and the polarization in society very sharp, it seems likely that transforming economic struggles into political projects in broad scale doesn't mean that they begin to pose the crucial questions of power, etc. , but rather that they loose their open-ended character, becoming locked up in run-of-the-mill politicking and thus even become unable to reach more advanced stages.

. The well-considered criticisms extended to MLLS in the letter from a comrade in the Central Committee of the MLP,USA, which has been attached to this evaluation as a supplement, was not only not heeded by the chairman of MLLS, but not by us others, either. We listened just as little as we had listened to earlier criticism from the American comrades concerning the orientation towards the IS Tendency, or to the above-mentioned platform on the tasks of workers' communism.

. MLLS's notion was *not* that some kind of "inherent dynamic" could make such a party revolutionary, but rather that the revolutionary party can be built as an entryist cadre organisation inside the Workers' List since "the program is the essence of a party". And that "program" consisted, in turn, of a number of transitional demands which, moreover, were "mediated forth" to social-democratic consciousness in such a way that they looked like reformist slogans of a "more radical" kind. At the 1st Congress of the Workers' List, MLLS comrades took part in the opposition which the just dissolved United Socialists waged against the reformist majority line. Yet, a short time after the dissolution of MLLS, the IG smashed the "opinion for socialist renewal of the Workers' List" by a factional coup. We then remained in the Workers' List as a separate entryist group for another year. At the 2nd Congress, in early 1991, we backed the Wiklundites [a trend of rank-and-file workers who had emanated from the social-democratic party and been activists in the previous Dala movement], considering them "honest workers" to be defended against the rightist wing of the party. Once again we failed to challenge social-democratic consciousness; this time there wasn't even any particular opposition platform, and we acted mainly as critics of the authoritarian, bureaucratic regime which had established itself in the national leadership and in the Stockholm branch. In the typical Trotskyist manner, we saw electoralist tactics as the panacea to challenge and expose prevalent illusions. The basis for this lies in the imagination that everything elevated onto a political level must, by definition, be more advanced -- and so, the question is never asked of whether this, in the given conditions, really is what is needed to draw class-conscious workers into the kind of active struggle that can provide educating and conscious-raising experience.

. When we brought our work inside the Workers' List to an end in 1991, we established that while the formation of a new workers' party in one situation may reflect a break-up or, at least, an embryonic break-up, in another situation it may simply be a matter of a regroupment of certain lower-level bureaucrats, "left" forces etc. to create their own electoralist platform, making a diverting maneuver in anticipation of possible outbursts of discontent from below, etc. However, we didn't go further than this; to the extent that our summary was self-critical, that self-criticism was limited to that we ought to have resigned at an earlier stage and have kept a more pronounced distance to the Wiklundites. How matters really had stood at the time of the birth of the Workers' List -- that vexed question was swept under the rug. In practice, this meant that we had drawn no essential lessons -- although we, to be sure, from then on were to appear more critical before the working class on the limitation of various mobilizations (like in connection with the miners' protests in early 1993).

. The MLLS should never have issued calls for building the Workers' List -- certainly not as a "new socialist party of social-democratic workers", but not as a "revolutionary" party either. The only correct position would have been to state straight-forwardly that a party of the Workers' List type can not be the solution to the problems of class struggle. It's possible that we, until the 1st Congress (May, 1990) -- i.e. while double affiliation still was allowed -- should have entered, but then with the main aim at pursuing concrete agitation on all questions under discussion.

. It's indeed a big irony that we -- who had joined the critique against Albania several years before, who never had anything to do with the East bloc and who had by no means shared the opportunist adaptation towards social-democracy which was so common in vast parts of the "left" -- finally walked away from Marxism-Leninism in 1990, at a time when the Stalinist regimes in the East collapsed and the traditional type of reformist class-collaboration approached a dead end. It is not strange that much of the "left", in spite of its rhetoric, had been acting under the umbrella provided by a stable regime of class collaboration, a "wage cake" to cut up and distribute, a strong public sector, etc. , and thus reacts to the brutal crisis of capitalism with bewilderment, regressive spine-reflexes and a narrowing of their perspectives. Why, their world-view and much of their political raison d'etre was severely shaken. But *we* ought to have emerged strengthened and tempered with the new situation. The fact that we didn't, is an utterly serious -- and embarrassing -- circumstance. It reveals that we had never properly understood Marxism-Leninism and not been rooted solidly enough in the proletarian class stand.

The IS Tendency

. This -- plus the strange conception which the IS calls "permanent arms economy" in the Western countries after 1945 ("imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism but one") -- these things could we, who had no liquidationist intentions, not really swallow. Moreover, it turned out that Cliff's theory of state capitalism actually is a "third system" theory, since, according to it, the economy in countries of Stalinist type works in a capitalist manner due to an *external* factor -- the arms race. This is a very crude revisionism indeed, since what it says is essentially that use-value can be equal to, and even substitute for, exchange-value. That has consequences for class analysis, too: the view of what is surplus value is relativized and the middle strata are conceived of as a part of the proletariat. That can also lead to Keynesian illusions that it's possible to cure the crises of capitalism by increasing consumption and spend more on "socially useful" things.

. As the connections between the revisionism in Cliff's theory on Stalinism and the other revisionism and opportunism of the IS Tendency became clear to us, it appeared as a confirmation that "the Russian question" is the key. (In the case of Daum's theory, to which we turned instead, the connection between it and the general faults of the LRP was less visible. That was, of course, due to the fact that his theory of "statified capitalism" lacked the relative coherence of Cliff's theory, instead pointing in several different directions simultaneously -- but we didn't realize that until later. Our center of gravity thus remained at "the Russian question".)

. The way in which the IS Tendency related to CLN/MLLS was characterized by an ambivalent mixture of rather brusque recruiting attempts ("drop your old ideological ballast now and come join us") and suspicion. They were suspicious since they couldn't grasp how leftist critique against Hoxhaism could develop in an anti-Stalinist, and later on Trotskyist, direction. As they had this process outlined -- how at the beginning similarities between the "three worlds" theory and CI's popular-front line had been observed and the victory of Soviet revisionism had been looked for backwards from 1956 on, until it had led to critique of the concept of "socialism in one country", etc. -- they listened skeptically; it obviously didn't fit into their mind-map of the political landscape. It was much easier for them to imagine that critique of Stalin, Mao and Hoxha for not pursuing revolutionary politics, should lead to some kind of "ultra-Stalinism", which, in turn, should be akin to the "third period" driven to the extreme -- and if, contrary to all expectations, this path leads to a break with Stalinism, it should rather usher in Bordigism or something similar. This is interesting, as it shows that the Cliffites actually, when things boil down to concrete estimations, don't conceive of themselves as standing to the left of Stalinism -- regardless of their views that Stalin betrayed the revolution, re-established capitalism, etc. This attitude is, as far as we have seen, not uncommon at all in the Trotskyist milieu. There is usually more identification as critics of Stalinism as something extreme, from a liberal, anti-dogmatic, anti-sectarian, etc. angle, than as uncompromisingly revolutionary anti-revisionists.

"THE RUSSIAN QUESTION"

. The CLN had, on the other hand, almost nothing to say at all on "the Russian question" -- before Cliff's theory a short time later was abruptly adopted. As has already been mentioned, that was not the *reason* behind the Trotskyist turn, but simply the decisive factor for that turn to be possible.

. A non-Trotskyist attempt to formulate a new theory of state capitalism in the Soviet Union was made in the 1980's in the Communist Party of Iran. A special bulletin was, for several years, issued as supplement to the theoretical organ of the party, containing discussions which, to some extent, were published in English translation in Bolshevik Message, organ of the Committee Abroad of the CPI. The approach differed in a number of essential respects from that of the American and Portuguese Marxist-Leninists, first and foremost by the emphasis on wage labor and on the industrialization campaign from 1928 onwards being the expression of the replacement of the socialist perspective by that of the Russian bourgeoisie. Lenin was held to have lacked a clear understanding of how the social transformation should be carried over into the economic field, and it was considered erroneous to hold that there is a more or less prolonged transitional period between the revolutionary takeover and socialism. Except for a comrade who long before, on his own, had reached the conclusion that commodity production must be abolished as soon as possible after the working class has seized power, to be replaced by a money-less system of distribution with equal provision for all, no-one in CLN/MLLS was attracted to the ideas of the Iranian comrades.

Cliff's theory of Russian state capitalism

. In other writings, Cliff et. al. have brought up problems in the early years after 1917, but then referring to the disorganization of the working class by the Civil War and the need for the party to "substitute" for it, and to the failure of the revolution to spread to the Western countries: in short, pure explanations of cause, and very superficial ones at that. The content is that had things been different, then the problems wouldn't have arisen and there would have been no fertile ground for Stalinism; now that things unfortunately were as they were, the outcome was as it was. With such a determinist view, there is little wonder that Cliff held the counterrevolution to have been carried through as early as with the launching of the First Five-Year Plan, i.e. in 1928. With his conception of reality, there is simply no place for anything else -- that the process might have been more stretched-out and with variations in relations-of-strength, maybe temporary setbacks, etc. The explanation is instead very simple: the bureaucracy takes possession of all essential means of production and thereby becomes a ruling class. So, Cliff's theory is far from that "sophisticated" as it seems to be, but is actually utter primitive, and has, basically, rather the character of a strongly emotional indictment against Stalinism.

. After CLN's adoption of Cliff's theory, The Workers' Advocate, published several articles criticizing it, which was replied to with pseudo-dialectical, but in fact square-headedly formalist arguments: that MLP's detailed studies were empiricist, did not see the forest but only the trees, had too "sliding" a view of the turn from initiated socialist construction to state capitalism, and that Cliff's theory is correct since it points out a clear qualitative leap from workers' state to state capitalism. As the industrialization and collectivization campaign of the First Five-Year Plan dealt with the base of society while changes later on took place in the superstructure, the date of the counterrevolution set by Cliff must be right, it was stated, given the fact that transitions from one social system to another is a matter of relations of production, i.e. the base, not the superstructure. This is a very poor "Marxism" indeed -- not a scientific discussion. It reveals that CLN/MLLS hadn't really understood the highly complicated questions.

. Actually, the counterrevolution *couldn't* be *but* "sliding", as the proletarian conquest of power and the seizure of bourgeois property by the workers' state merely is the starting point in creating a transitional economy. There may be more or less far-reaching efforts to establish such an economy -- efforts which come to nothing unless there is knowledge of how to do it or due to unclarity about the goal (see the discussion of class consciousness further ahead in this document!) or because other factors turn out to be too powerful. Moreover, this means that the subjective level -- phenomena in the superstructure -- may be decisive. Crucial here is that the Party and the masses are guided by a correct Marxist-Leninist line and not by a revisionist, opportunist line which leads to the restoration of pre-revolutionary conditions in new forms.

Further wandering about the wilderness:
Daum and "statified capitalism"

. Within the Trotskyist tradition, theories of state capitalism and of "third system" have, for the most part, attracted the same kind of people: those with marked inclinations towards viewing Stalinism as essentially a matter of lacking democracy. If, within the camp of "workers' state-ists", Mandelism represents a step in such a direction as compared to the currents originating in the International Committee of 1953 (just compare the polemics of the late 1970's between Nahuel Moreno and Ernest Mandel!), currents like Shachtmanism and Cliffism are situated still further away in the same direction. To the extent that they seek to constitute some kind of alternative to "orthodox Trotskyist" schematism, they represent a critique of it from the right. It's no accident that the IS Tendency often feels itself standing closer to the United Secretariat than to the various offsprings of the IC tradition. Walter Daum's theory of "statified capitalism" represents an attempt to reach beyond that "democratic" point of view. Daum is certainly standing a good distance to the left of Cliff and doesn't take the very absence of democracy under Stalinism as his point of departure, but the relations of production *as he conceives of them,* whereby he focuses on the law of value.

. The very first indications that Daum's theory is revisionist were noted by us in mid-1990's (in part after Bo Almunger had polemically called our attention to them). While state capitalism in Cliff's theory is based on use value, Daum's "statified capitalism" is based on fictitious capital. At a first glance, this may seem more "classical Marxist", but in fact he, just like Cliff, disconnects value and use value, albeit from the opposite direction: while Cliff has use value substitute for exchange value, replacing it, with Daum exchange value floats freely in the air instead of standing on the use-value ground. In his book The Life & Death of Stalinism, Daum revises the law of the falling tendency of the profit rate: he connects it to fictitious capital -- despite his own acknowledgment that Marx described this law as dependent exclusively on the actual, material value of capital. Then Daum goes one step further by claiming that the rate of profit is sacrificed to save fictitious value! But since use values after all cannot be dispensed with, he explains that Soviet imperialism was a matter of conquering use values -- that is, not of exploitation. Here he has got back to Cliff (albeit without the arms race as motive force). In one sense, though, this is not inconsistent at all: why, he speaks with a muddled voice about exploitation elsewhere, too, as the question arises where all that fictitious capital actually comes from! In sum, what shines through is Daum's basic idealism. We recognized it from other spheres, in which we had fought with the LRP (we'll return to this in sections ahead).

To try repairing what cannot be repaired

. The understanding of "statified capitalism" as an utterly weak link in the capitalist world system, a "deformed" kind of capitalism which cannot remain intact in the long run but has to evolve towards more "usual" forms, in which there is more space for competition, social gains can be more easily dismantled, etc. -- that we retained (and still think is the strongest point in Daum's theory).

. We asked ourselves: how would Trotsky, considering his methodological points of departure, have reasoned, if he had formulated a state-capitalism theory? As to how the counterrevolution took place, we thought it makes sense to proceed from Trotsky's strong (and, as we have subsequently understood, reductionist) emphasis on "the crisis of revolutionary leadership": the character of the leadership determines the character of the whole. In his writings on the history of the Russian revolution, Trotsky had described the soviets in the July days of 1917 as counterrevolutionary, since their leadership had jumped on the provisional government's bandwagon to hunt down Bolsheviks. Could it then be possible that what Trotsky in 1933 in retrospect referred to as the consolidation of the bureaucratic regime about the mid-1920's, was not merely a political, but the social, counterrevolution?

. But such an "analysis" would be utterly poor -- and, moreover, conspicuously reminiscent of the most sterile Maoist descriptions from the 1960's of how "socialism" in the Soviet Union had been "overthrown" by a "coup". At this point, we turned to Amadeo Bordiga. Proceeding from his critique of democracy, he had mainly the same view of the leadership question as Trotsky, but differed from him by saying that the workers' conquest of power doesn't abolish capitalism, but merely is the precondition for the abolishment of capitalism; what happens by the conquest of power is the establishment of "state capitalism under the dictatorship of the proletariat". However, before long we gave the whole project up, since the construction was so obviously senseless. One cannot in such a way detect the motive forces of Soviet capitalism -- it just reveals even more clearly how sweeping, mechanical and formal-logical Trotskyism is.

. In getting acquainted with Bordigism, we could see that it shared the methodological errors of Trotskyism. Moreover, Bordiga's own state-capitalism theory is, if possible, still more defeatist than Trotsky's opposition to "socialism in one country", because Bordiga held that things could hardly have happened differently from what was the case -- that Stalinist state capitalism was the most progressive one could possibly achieve in that situation.

. Here it should be added that the conception of the transitional period between capitalism and socialism as *only* consisting in the former's replacement with the latter, is too simple. However much we might tend towards such a view in reacting against Trotsky's claim that capitalism is abolished with the nationalization of the economy, it should be clear that such a thorough transformation of society requires mechanisms of its own to succeed. Otherwise, i.e. if it starts with a general "state capitalism under the dictatorship of the proletariat" and then has it replaced, by degree, by socialist relations of production, the entire transition is easily reduced into something purely administrative -- not much different from the commonplace revisionist version, with the planned sector extending, overwhelming small production, foreign concessions, etc. Instead, the precondition of authentic planned economy -- of socialism -- is that the toiling masses are drawn into managing the economy at all levels and exercise control over it. We can only establish that in questions of the transitional period, much remains for us to learn.

Joseph Green's critique

. 1. Daum is inconsistent in his view of the significance of competition; he provides a number of examples of competition, of anarchy in Soviet production, but at the same time he promotes a concept of "national capital", in which the emphasis is on the unified interests of the ruling class; this concept is related to Cliff's idea of "the economy as one single enterprise". Sy Landy even goes as far as to portray the Gorbachevite market reforms as a program of centralization!

. 2. Daum hasn't properly understood the fundamental contradiction in capitalism, i.e. between the social character of the process of production and the private appropriation of the result of production. Had there in the Soviet Union under Stalinism really been a social control of production, as the "national capital" view suggests, then it wouldn't be capitalism -- and that would make Marxism obsolete, since it would essentially mean that exploitation and oppression remain anyway. In fact, the "decentralization" and "devolution" to which Daum points are no mere forms-of-appearance which might be highlighted to illustrate that there is capitalism -- no, these are unavoidable, elementary traits of the capitalist mode of production. As well, Daum regards state ownership as a "proletarian form of property" in itself, which he has got from Trotsky (who had no state-capitalism theory).

. 3. Daum relates in an ambivalent manner to the question of the laws-of-motion of capital under the workers' state: on the one hand, these are to be counteracted and superseded; while, on the other hand, he says that one of the tasks of the workers' state is to accumulate capital. Similarly, Daum vacillates on the question of whether market mechanisms are to be utilized or not. He puts forward centralization in itself as a decisive criterion for the transition from capitalism to socialism, but since the chief trait of a transitional economy is the contradiction between the political rule of the working class and its inability to run the economy, it is workers' control that constitutes the central criterion of the transition to socialism. The last-mentioned was not Trotsky's view either, so what Daum tries to do is to stick to Trotsky in spite of the fact that it erases the distinctions between transitional society and state capitalism.

. 4. Daum applies fixed categories taken over from quite different contexts without making concrete investigations -- e.g. "capital" or "the falling rate of profit" are applied to Soviet conditions without any study of how these work there. Daum makes his assumptions first, a priori, and then goes on to interpret things on that basis. The same kind of methodological problem appears also in the more overall analyses, like when the character of the First Five-Year Plan is judged according to what conclusion is needed to fit into the view of our epoch.

. 5. Not even Daum's attempt to base himself on Trotsky holds. Trotsky's own methodology actually is incompatible with any form of state-capitalism theory. Those who hold that the Soviet Union still after the 1930's remained a "workers' state" of some kind are obviously right if regarded from the angle of Trotsky himself.

. It should be pointed out here that Green's critique still, to our knowledge, has been met with no response on the part of the LRP. To us, on the other hand, Green's critique was decisive in proving to us once and for all that Daum's theory doesn't work.

. Daum's theory is, however, not the only one which contains the kind of methodological absurdities which are related in #4 above. Almunger has taken a similar stand in order to motivate why, according to him, it's absolutely necessary to define any country with a Stalinist regime and a state-dominated economy as a "workers' state": not doing that, he said, is akin to assert that the international proletariat has suffered crushing defeats and that the bourgeois world order has been strengthened. So, when facts forced Almunger to back down from the usual type of Trotskyist workers'-state theory and recognize that Stalinism carried out a restoration of bourgeois society and led to "revenue-seeking", he still continues to maintain that this was within the framework of -- "workers' states".

THE MOST ORTHODOX IN THE FAMILY

. Most likely, this has to do with LRP's general orientation to "the Trotskyist milieu" -- which even a sketchy look through the material in Proletarian Revolution shows. It is a very marked orientation at regroupment -- not in the sense that they aim to tack together diplomatic blocs with already existing trends as these are, but more in the sense of e.g. the Spartacists: regroupment with off-splits or with trends which have been shaken to their foundations due to internal crisis. Here the offensive on the British WRP might serve as example -- probably also the fact that what was to become the FRP was accepted as co-founders of COFI in 1992 despite that the LRP was well aware of the very differences which just a couple of years later were to make them declare that there was no common political ground.

. In our article in Proletarian Revolution in Fall, 1991 there were a good many opportunist deviations towards social-democracy, but the article was accepted without even the slightest remark from the staff, and the only changes which the staff proposed (and made) in the article was to insert a polemical formulation directed against Morenism! In connection with the founding conference of COFI in New York in February, 1992, one of us wrote a declaration which was directly handed over to the LRP leadership and which explicitly stated our intention to orient towards social-democratic workers; that we counted on the re-appearance of phenomena like the Workers' List and the necessity of intervention in them; that we intended to constantly use transitional demands; even to raise transitional demands for a united Europe under the slogan "For a revolutionary labor alternative to the EEC" since "European integration is unlikely under capitalism" while "many central issues in society are impossible to solve in Sweden alone". In addition, the declaration reiterated our already expressed differences on class analysis. The declaration was right opportunist, but since it, at the same time, expressed support for the LRP in all other matters, it was allowed to pass without any criticism, i.e. it was handled with diplomatic silence and we were welcome as co-founders of COFI.

. LRP's courting of the Kurdish KCM was an exception, because although this group declared "sympathy" towards Trotskyism, this was very vague; what obviously counted in their case was their expression of interest in Daum's theory of "statified capitalism". This made Sy Landy write a tasks & perspectives document in which he wrote that there may well be revolutionary currents on this planet which are not Trotskyist and that agreement may be reached through a number of programmatic points in common. When the Australian COFI section a little afterwards flirted with a group of exiles from the Turkish Dev Yol -- something which, like the approach to the KCM, in a short while came to nothing -- the LRP expressed strong disagreement. To sum up: LRP's "international party-building project" aims at getting a niche for themselves at a future thorough change in "the family of Trotskyism", and their theories are to a great extent tailor-cut for that purpose.

. Therefore, the LRP pays little attention to what's happening outside the "family". One case in point was when the LRP leadership, in the eve of the MLP's dissolution in 1993, asked us to write an "open letter" for publication in Proletarian Revolution. We then wrote a summary of how the MLP positions had developed from the 2nd congress in 1983 onwards, with the materials on the 7th congress period of the CI and on socialism -- and explained the party crisis as the outcome of having "failed to draw the logical consequence" and approach Trotskyism. A wrong analysis, as it has turned out! -- but that was the way we saw things back then. Yet, despite that this was in accordance with the official LRP view, its leadership reacted very ambivalently to the assertion that it is possible to reach Trotskyism propelled by inner contradictions between theory and practice in the M-L movement: they held on to the text for one year before finally putting it aside, writing an article themselves. It carried the headline "Middle-Class 'Marxist-Leninists' Call It Quits", and was entirely different in tone: besides its many factual errors, it was nonchalantly mocking and in a sweeping way dismissing, *not even* from an LRP/COFI point of view managing to catch what MLP actually was. The description boiled down to a trite story of "Stalinists" getting stuck in more and more trouble until getting lost completely -- coupled with complacent self-congratulation. In referring to the FRP, the article more or less reduced the process to us having, at a certain point, read Daum's book The Life & Death of Stalinism and thereby had some revelation of how matters actually stand.

The SJD affair

. We erred, at the start of the convergence, in agreeing to set up jointly with SJD/Fotfolket a special "committee for the renewal of the workers' movement" as the form in which discussions were to be pursued. We ought to have drawn some lessons from how they had been maneuvering with us in connection with the attempt in 1990 to organize a joint tendency within the Workers' List. Likewise, we ought to have drawn some lessons from their maneuvers towards us in 1991, when they dangled a joint publication in Swedish of Daum's book as a carrot before us. We thought their rejection of Morenoism would change the preconditions in a decisive manner, but as things turned out, that was not the case. Moreover, in all likeliness a COFI affiliation on their part would only have led to their maneuverism getting promoted onto an international level. SJD/Fotfolket were, it seems, in dire need of an "umbrella" to work under, as was shown a couple of years later, when they made some overtures towards Lutte Ouvriere in France.

CLASS ANALYSIS

. Since all class societies rest upon exploitation for a surplus product, which under capitalism consists of surplus value, that's thus the *kernel* of the analysis. Surplus value, in turn, must be strictly defined, without mixing in general usefulness to society or functions which indirectly contribute to surplus value or, for that matter, the numerous other existing kinds of utilization and economically unequal conditions. Those who directly create surplus value -- i.e. new such, not merely profit through re-distribution of already created surplus value -- are working in industry and agriculture as well as with storage and transportation. As the surplus value thus has been demarcated, the picture can be completed with other categories. In his famous article A Great Beginning, Lenin enumerated several criteria of class: position in the historically determined system of social production, relation to the means of production (for the most part established in law), role in the social organization of labor, way of receiving one's share of social wealth, and the size of that share.

To extend the concept "worker":
Mandel, Cliff and Daum

. Mandel motivated his view of wage labor not only with the "workers' state" theory, but also with the theory of "late capitalism": that socialization of the process of production in modern, highly advanced capitalist society, had evolved to such an extent that the public sector must be included in it as an absolutely necessary component for continuous creation of surplus value. (He seems, however, to have recognized that much of its activity isn't productive in itself). But the Cliffites, too, seize upon the extended definition of the working class as identical with wage-earners in general. In their case, too, the connection to "the Russian question" is decisive in the last instance -- albeit, of course, in an entirely different sense, since they don't put equalization marks between state-owned economy and "workers' state". As has been mentioned, Cliff viewed the U.S.-Soviet arms race as comparable to marketplace competition, thus making the Soviet economy function in a capitalist manner. That means he proceeded from the assumption that production of use value can replace production of exchange value -- which leads to more or less all labor can be regarded as in a certain sense productive. This is to go *still further* than the Mandelite theory of "late capitalism", because the consequence must -- although the Cliffites avoid to recognize it -- be a revision of Marxian labor theory of value. It cannot be altered at such an important point and with the rest of it still remaining intact; the end result is that the while theory of exploitation, the kernel of Marxist political economy, is rendered meaningless.

. In the LRP, Harry Braverman's book Labor and Monopoly Capital was seized upon to prove the existence of "the new working class" -- but while Braverman moved at a mere sociological level in his discussion of how formerly more established "middle-class professions" had been degraded and turned out more like any kind of jobs, LRP's ideas of "the new working class" rested on an idealist foundation: they proceeded from examples of militancy amongst salaried employees in the middle strata and counterposed that to an alleged growth of the labor aristocracy with its corrupting influence on industrial workers. Sy Landy even stated that the increased social mobility of the prolonged post-war boom had enabled so many intellectual workers to raise above their background, that there weren't many left in factories, plants and mines who are receptive to socialist propaganda! Then the LRP take History and Class-Consciousness by Lukacs to de-connect the very basis of class struggle from its relation to the creation of surplus value -- and connect Lukacs to Luxemburg's ideas on the inherent dynamics in class struggle. The category of class "in itself" vanishes and only class "for itself" remains; the conclusion is that class consciousness is like a spirit of anger and militancy -- a spirit floating freely and which can take possession of anyone who earn his/her living from wage or salary and doesn't own any means of production. The masses in broad scale are then to be drawn in by means of a general strike. The working class in the common sense is more or less written off as a motive force. The whole thing becomes even worse with the bribery theories which are at bottom in the view of the industrial proletariat. At the Conference in 1995 when COFI was split, especially one of the more articulate in the LRP, Matthew Richardson, declared openly that "the Swedish working class is the most aristocratic in the whole world" and that "when Saab workers demand higher pay, the capitalists can grant it to them because they exploit workers in Colombia". In the article on the Conference in Proletarian Revolution, this shone through in the comment that if one reduces the working class to the industrial proletariat, it means "making the labor aristocracy a substantial faction".

Demagogical argumentation

. In fact, we had tried to solve the problem of the reserves of the working class by putting forward a theory of "the permanent break-up", which views workers of especially oppressed categories (women, immigrants in Sweden, Blacks in the U.S., etc.) as having a key position, linking together the proletariat in strict sense with the rest of the masses. We had -- in an admittedly unclear and insufficiently thought-over manner -- attempted to use the law of uneven and combined development to draw up the possibility that the break-up may well begin outside the ranks of industrial workers, at various focal points, then through these links be carried into the huge, concentrated industrial collectives. Of course, the author of the Proletarian Revolution article preferred to forget about this, since it would complicate the picture of us too much.

. As far as Daum himself was concerned, both before and at the 1995 COFI Conference he utilized a range of arguments from widely different angles. For a brief moment, he even found out a third category of labor besides productive and unproductive labor: reproductive labor! Instead of first investigating things and then see what the conclusions are, Daum proceeded the other way round: he started with deciding which the conclusions were to be, and then selected the arguments to get there. Daum himself admitted using such a method, as he stated that "if you define the working class as not a majority of the population, then the socialist revolution would be a minority business"! So, instead of taking a serious discussion of how to handle strategical problems which may come up after a class analysis of society has been made, one could as well, according to Daum, by-pass these problems by defining them away with a neat pen-stroke: just stretch concepts a little, "making" the working class bigger, and the matter is solved. So thinks a pure idealist. That there is a firm, material reality out there, outside the conference room, which is not the least affected by what words Daum puts on it -- that didn't cross his mind.

. Compare with how Daum handles the First Five-Year Plan, in the section on "the Russian question"! Moreover, this kind of method is by no means unique to Daum. The Cliffites as well take as point of departure what is desirable: in his book The Changing Working Class, Alex Callinicos argues that the extensive definition of the working class makes it remain big as the industrial proletariat shrinks.

To narrow the concept too much
-- and getting out of step with reality

. To say "only those who produce surplus value" is, to be sure, to get down to the level of essence, but then not to carry the abstraction process through to the end, making the journey back to the concrete again. Lenin, to the contrary, did in the quoted article precisely that, as his summary, that one class appropriates the fruit of the others' labor due to different positions in a determined socio-economic formation, is proceeded by the enumeration of several criteria.

. It's not uncommon that Lenin's criteria are dismissed as a mere empirical, incomplete, multi-factor determination -- but a *real* multi-factor determination is what one rather would find with those who weigh together wage labor, unpaid homework, discrimination and other oppressive structures to describe some vague "underclass" encompassing anything from the Florence Nightingale syndrome of teachers and nurses to the lumpenized elements' lack of "social and cultural capital". This view is common mainly in and around the "autonomous" milieu, and has to do with its un-materialist, sociologist and democratic conception of class struggle: not conceiving of it as resulting from exploitation in Marx's economical sense, but rather a kind of general utilization of people, a general powerlessness, and they view it most of all as a matter of extending democracy as far as possible to the point where it is no longer a mere formality (irrespective of whether they use the word "democracy" or not -- that varies) which in the end leads to a kind of radical "left" version of the strategy "the people vs. monopoly capital".

. Lenin's criteria are based on the insight that the essence of a phenomenon doesn't manifest itself in its absolutely clear-cut form even when we have penetrated through the form-of-appearance layers. If workers were only those who create surplus value, then correspondingly, the bourgeoisie would consist only of those who accumulate capital, i.e. the capitalists themselves (and their counterparts in state form). To try to solve this the way we did -- saying that the bourgeoisie is a class "for itself" since it is the ruling class -- isn't correct, as class analysis, as has already been pointed out, is only at the class "in itself" level. Most likely, a concrete analysis based on Lenin's criteria results in service workers being counted as a part of the working class proper, instead of a mere "periphery"; if so, we get a definition roughly corresponding to the affiliation to the main Swedish trade-union center. This was the definition used by KPS, and CLN/MLLS as well, but which we abandoned in 1991, about the same time that we approached the LRP. To a certain extent, we were affected by Almunger's polemical arguments, but in the first place it was a counter-reaction on our part against the Cliffite definition, a counter-reaction which went overboard.

. The big problem with too narrow a definition of the working class is *not* that it automatically lumps all others together into "one single reactionary mass", because that's not so. The problem is rather at two other levels. First, in most imperialist countries there is a certain ongoing "de-industrialization", as production in vast scale is frequently moved away to semi-colonial countries, or at least to countries where exploitation can be pursued more unrestrictedly. At the same time, storage-keeping is cut back, workforces are cut back by changing series of production, etc. To "conjure away" this reality by saying that even though the industrial workers now may be fewer, they have been concentrated in bigger units -- that's not really addressing the question, because often enough it's the other way round: when as much work as possible is outsourced on sub-contractors, the total workforce involved is being split up. Moreover, it's not uncommon for workers to be hired for just a limited period of time. Yet, socialization has indeed been carried further ahead in the sense all technical preconditions for production, yes, for anything to function at all, have become more centralized than ever. Supply of electricity is probably the most obvious example of this. This is the kind of things to which the bourgeois use to refer worriedly in terms of "the vulnerable society" and so on. The point here is that the decreasing number of industrial workers is countered by the increasing strategical weight of a number of service-worker categories. To be satisfied with talking of these as a "periphery" to the proletariat is, thus, becoming all the more untenable.

. Second, too narrow a definition of the working class may -- if it, which then is close at hand, leads to the conclusion that the middle strata are held to be very extensive and constantly expanding -- provide a grotesquely distorted picture of where developments in society are heading. In the light of the above-mentioned "de-industrialization", it may make it seem like nonsensical ideas of "the post-industrial society" or "knowledge society" are true and that the carriers of social progress are to be found in the middle strata. So, the kind of accommodation which easily can, and does, come about under the cloak of a far-extended definition of the working class, is possible this way, too.

OPPORTUNISM AND SECTARIANISM

. In FRP's case, the consequence of this was a certain kind of centrism -- a perpetual pendulum-motion between abstract sectarianism and opportunist accommodations, especially towards "left" social-democracy. Combining sectarianism and opportunism is by no means uncommon amongst revisionists, although the peculiar way in which it is done may differ. A typical example is organizational sectarianism in combination with political opportunism. This variant is, however, mainly motivated by the aim of preserving an in some sense "conservative" apparatus, and is therefore somewhat outside the framework of our discussion here. Since revisionists usually are cynical and lack faith in the revolutionary capacity of the working class, they often tail some non-proletarian force, which thus is given the role as a substitute for the working class; or else, they bend knee before spontaneity, in the form of crude workerism.

. With the FRP, fortunately, abstract sectarianism expressed neither an aim to preserve an apparatus, nor petty-bourgeois demagogy. It was an expression of a basically sound, albeit misled, counter-reaction against the common tailism in the "left" and its refusal to say what is. However, since we were stuck in the typical Trotskyist formalism and schematism, we made up stereotypes all the time, which, of course, only could lead to continuous collapses into opportunism; to centrist vacillation; to accommodationism.

. FRP placed itself to the left of the "left" in general, and criticized, correctly, other trends to bend down in the cold winds of the 1990's and retreat -- or rather flee -- into more and more narrow perspectives, characterized not only by welfare-state nostalgia, economism, conspiracy theories (like those of Grassman) that the capitalist crisis was a myth, a myopic focus on the Palme murder, and so on and so forth, but also of feminism, one-issue movements and diverse sub-cultures. We could see how post-modernist thought, which its deconstruction of totality into small pieces began to gain ground in the form of distinctive-character ideas, ethno-centrism, somewhat later with "queer theory" and what have you -- in brief, all kinds of things which from various angles and in differing directions represent the diametrical opposite of the societal universalism without which the proletarian class stand is impossible. We could even show how the vegan movement, which for a while affected numerous youths, by its character represented a radicalism which to an extreme degree had retreated into a "hiding place".

. But -- we did *not* understand that even our counter-reaction against all this constituted another kind of retreat, whatever our subjective intentions. We simply explained the above-mentioned phenomena as expressions of "middle-class radicalism", referring to their social base -- and our receipt, our cure, was the theory of "the centripetal break-up", according to which the masses would get centralized and politicized by pulling inwards to the traditional labor-movement and popular organizations (which then would blow up from below/from within by the pressure). In this way, the proletarian class stand was supposed to be realized. In reality, this meant nothing but tailing the average workers' level of consciousness *as it is. * This was displayed as a sometimes to the absurd driven "mediation" to a presumptive audience of social-democratic workers; a sheer minimalism in our work in mass organizations, etc. The extension of this logic was that our opposition to trade-unionism, to de-centralized, parochial perspectives, was reduced to demanding centralization and politization of trade-union work -- through amalgamations into bigger units (the respective national unions of metalworkers and miners) and through slogans like "workers' government", quasi-electoralist manifestoes like "A workers' declaration of government" etc. Thus, it might be said that we squat under the umbrella of the labor bureaucracy! That we, simultaneously, could counter other Trotskyist organizations with more "orthodox" positions on the dictatorship of the proletariat, class analysis, revolutionary traditions etc. , is hardly an excuse.

. To emphasize centralization and big-scale organizational forms in trade-unions, is implicit also with the LRP. In criticizing trade-unionism, they generally prefer to speak of "rank-and-filism", since they view parochialism as something of a main danger. Thus they had difficulties in criticizing our trade-union line, despite that they had a lot to say about our other deviations.

. Another aspect of the same set of problems concerns the very concept of "the masses"; it is frequently being used -- like by us, when we spoke of "centripetality" -- as meaning some kind of general average, "the vast multitude", and so on. This leads unavoidably to opportunism in one form or another -- which is then blamed on common people. But in contrast to class analysis, which deals with given, clear-cut categories, "masses" is a relative concept, the scope of which is conditioned by the situation in the class struggle. Under circumstances when the struggle is limited in scale and intensity, then even a rather limited number of people, perhaps a few hundreds in a demonstration, provide a "mass character" if these are people who don't belong to those involved since already before -- while "the masses" in another context refers to a majority of all the exploited and oppressed. So, here we again see how important it is to make concrete analyses of concrete conditions, judge *qualitatively* which forces are in motion, which real effects one measure or another would have. After all, the very point in pursuing what is usually referred to as *the mass line,* is not a senseless gathering of huge numbers as if it were an end in itself, but, to the contrary, to have trust in the progressive potential of the masses and link up with them, however contradictory or limited, to guide them through the kind of experience which can help raise their confidence in their collective strength, and through that, their level of consciousness.

THE PROGRAM QUESTION

. In fact, historically there has been much variation in how various revolutionary organisations have handled the question of program. In Russia the Bolsheviks at first used the RSDLP program, but they didn't alter it immediately after the adoption of the April Theses; to be sure, a party Congress was held in the Summer of 1917, but it adopted no new program (and didn't even change the name of the party). The new program was adopted in 1919, while the change of party name was made in 1918 -- both things, thus, after the conquest of power! Obviously, formulating the actual lines of action was given highest priority in the continuously changing situation of 1917 -- not the formal codification thereof. Comintern had no program at its founding in 1919, nor, for that matter, even in 1920-21, when the conditions for sections' membership were sharpened. Nor did the MLP,USA have any program in the formal sense of the word -- only a statement at its founding in 1980 and, by its 2nd Congress, a number of very detailed resolutions which all-sidedly covered all its spheres of activity. On the other hand, there are numerous examples of organisations with a formally correct program but a wrong practice -- like self-isolation from the class struggle which, of course, could result only in a kind of capitulation before treacherous leaderships in a back-hand way, by refusing to intervene, thereby allowing them free space of action.

The Transitional Program

. When we affiliated to Trotskyism and were to take a position on Trotsky's transitional program, we couldn't accept the commonly held view that it replaced both the minimal and maximal programs. Trotsky's statement that the transitional program replaces the division into minimal and maximal programs was understood by us as precisely a question of that division, neither more nor less: since the maximal program is about the goal, it can't be replaced, so the meaning must be to "mediate the maximal program forth to the level of day-to-day struggle". If so, only the minimal program is being replaced. At the same time, this spelled a problem for us, as it's a Trotskyist axiom that there can be only *one* program. We "solved" that by claiming that the transitional program is just a mediation, is not a program for itself, but merely in form.

FRP vacillates back and forth

. That, in turn, was abandoned in late 1994, as we, in connection with the fight within COFI, reached the conclusion that the "progressive minimal demands" indeed *were* transitional demands in themselves and that it had been formalist and mechanical to believe that the transitional character derives from connection to the workers' government slogan. Still another effect of the COFI split was that we put less emphasis on the until then very frequently used slogan of general strike, as likewise too mechanical. The negative result of this was that we came to attach the same central importance to constantly using transitional demands as many of the more "orthodox" Trotskyist trends do.

. The discussion of writing a strategical action program was begun in June, 1995, i.e. after the COFI split. We laid down the structure which we thought it should have. Despite that we, in principle, took the maximal program to be the point of departure and transitional demands to be "its mediation forth to the level of day-to-day struggles", we in fact never got to discuss socialism and communism, but went straight to discuss the workers' state and how to connect transitional demands to it. During 1996 a number of internal texts were written on subjects like general welfare policy, school policy, energy policy, the banking system, workers' militia, soviets, etc. Before the May 1st of that year, we had adopted three main slogans for the day-to-day struggle -- based on transitional demands of our own construction -- to be used in our immediate agitation and propaganda: "Against unemployment and de-population -- for full employment: enforced investment of speculating billions in socially useful activities!"; "Against lumpenization and dependency on dole: for a general citizen's insurance through the trade-unions!"; and "Against corruption with the means of society -- write off the state debt!". These slogans were then followed up with discussions about strategy in various areas of activity in the immediate perspective -- e.g. in relation to tenant struggles and the anti-racist struggle, plant closures, NATO, etc. , but without leading to any decision since these discussions tended to blend into the discussion of program. In the end, the programmatic discussions evaporated entirely, as we came to realize that we'd better begin at the other end, taking a new look at the Trotskyist method as such.

. The actual reason behind our prolonged veering back and forth was that reality itself continuously imposed itself upon us: we must have something concrete to tell the working class to which we, after all, were oriented with paper sales, leaflets, etc. outside plants and mines -- it doesn't suffice to come with abstract sloganeering over and over again and without precisions.

Conclusions

. This understanding does, however, in turn pose the question of how to use transitional demands at all except in situations of revolutionary crisis. Is it possible to retain that they are to replace minimal demands -- i.e. to "save" that stand from the earlier context? We don't think it would be correct. As materialism teaches us, objective reality exists regardless of how we experience or describe or define it; the difference between struggle for immediate demands and the struggle for socialism is real and cannot be conjured away by formulating programs this way or that. What does elevate the level of struggle for immediate demands is, in the first place, how it develops in terms of fighting spirit, class organization and consciousness. One demand or another isn't *in itself* the factor that raises the level of struggle and which thus can be utilized as measuring-stock; gaining wide support for a transitional demand when there's no corresponding "transitional situation", i.e. no revolutionary situation at which the question of power is prepared, would merely signify that this demand is being understood -- and used! -- *as* a minimal demand. It is then usually assigned a reformist meaning and thus doesn't function in a way that emancipates the workers' ability to act, but will play a diverting role instead.

. Then to limit ourselves to promote the maximal program is not correct, either. Why, Trotskyism plays, as a rule, the role of catching, by means of very radical rhetoric, those who no longer believe in the run-of-the-mill type of "left" reformism -- and to lead them back into the fold of class collaboration through use of the transitional program, calls for a social-democratic vote, "military but not political support" for reactionary regimes in semi-colonial countries, and so on and so forth. What Trotskyists do, doesn't necessarily differ that much from what Stalinists and others do -- what differs is the way in which it's being done. Even describing the situation as more revolutionary than it actually is ("the epoch of general and immediately forthcoming revolution", etc. ) serves that function, as it provides anything with a flamingly red color. *Thus, Trotskyism is, in the final analysis, the absolute "left wing" of reformism.* To condemn only the practice of Trotskyism (and its theoretical construction) but retaining its motivation, would just lead to turning over from right opportunism to a completely meaningless and sterile propagandism.

. Rather, communists should relate to the step-by-step advancement of the class struggle: tasks can be resolved only as consciousness reaches the level required, and then, in turn, new experience is being gained upon which Marxist-Leninists can base themselves to work for a further rise in consciousness. Here, transitional demands, too, have their proper place: as the most advanced type of immediate demands, designed for the situation when the day-to-day struggle has reached the point at which it can be turned into a struggle for power. They aim at directly attacking and dissolving the state power of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie's control of the means of production.

DISTINCT LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS