Contradictions of the USSR

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Eastern bureaucrats defined by 'social ties' with workers? are contained in the character of the USSR ...It is impossible to free oneself from those contradictions with the help of terminological sleight-of-hand ('workers' state' - 'not workers' state'). We must take the facts as they are. We must build our policy by taking as our starting point the real relations and contradictions". ('In Defence of Marxism').

And Mike's yes-or-no method leads him very far from Trotsky's policy of working class revolution in the USSR.

When some writers in the late '30s wanted to redefine the USSR as 'state capitalist' or "bureaucratic collectivist' ', Trotsky commented on this redefinition: "To those tasks of the revolution (in the USSR) which we have enumerated it adds nothing whatsoever" ('In Defence of Marxism' Yet Mike presents his programme for the USSR as soinething less than the sort of revolution we advocate against capitalism: in the USSR, he writes, we "would expect to split the state machine, while in the West the army etc. will have to be destroyed by civil war."

Now in the West too we will have to split the state machine. Revolution does not mean siaughtering every last civil service clerk, •I even every last soldier! So all Mike can mean is that he is against civil war in the USSR, and against a full demolition of the bureaucracy's structures of rule (as distinct from its personnel).

Gerry Hoffa (SO 170) has the advantage over Mike of starting from the facts rather than labels. Yet it seems to me that he uses the same method as Mike, only in the opposite direction.

Mike says: the USSR is a workers' state (Trotsky said so), therefore conditions there are pretty good. Gerry says: conditions are bad, nothing like our model of a workers' state. Therefore the USSR is not a workers' state.

Gerry concedes that Trotsky's analysis embraced the facts both of the USSR's post-capitalist basic propert relations, and of its anti-working class political and social regime, in a single dialectical conception. But, he argues Trotsky saw this contradictory society as highly unstable. The stability of the bureaucracy since 1940 forces us to revise Trotsky's analysis.

Gerry somewhat oversimplifies Trotsky s argument about the USSR s instability'. Trotsky in his later years actually argued that the USSR was 'stable' in the sense that no revolutionary upheaval could be expected there without the prior stimulus of revolutions elsewhere. He saw the USSR as unstable because he saw the world as unstable.

For sure Gerry is right that "the bureaucracy has beefed-out its roots within Soviet society" I WOULD like to give a warm welcome to the paper's new format and the editorial policy of encouraging greater variety and liveliness of content.

It's good to see poems, film and television reviews after what seems to have been a long absence. Since Socialist Organiser is almost unique among left papers in having a regular science column I'm glad the editors have started to give this proper weekly priority for publication.

Whilst on the subject of regular columns, I hope we will see the return of a regular rock column in the not too distant future.

Socialist Organiser has, and I hope will keep its progressive policies and record of campaigning on the issue of gay and lesbian liberation. To maintain this the paper needs regular if not weekly input on this subject.

Would it be possible for our gay comrades to be allocated specific space in the paper as is already the case for women? I seem to remember there used to be a weekly column for gays till recently. Is there any prospect of its restoration?

Finally I would like to draw attention to a proposal made about a year ago suggesting regular coverage and analysis of sport and related issues. what for instance would comrades view be on the subject of soccer hooliganism? But even in 1939-40 Trotsky recognised that the Kremlin bureaucracy was massively more weighty than any previous bureaucracy in world history. Can we not develop Trotsky's analysis to comprehend the increased solidity of the bureaucracy, and the long-term atomisation of the USSR's working class - rather than junking it?

I would prefer to try to develop the analysis - an analysis, which locates the USSR clearly within a Marxist view of world history, and answers the programmatic i questions with sufficient clarity. For the alternative which Gerry seems to offer is to baptise the USSR as some new form of 'bureaucratic collectivist' class society.

It's a tempting way to get away from the difficulties of I hope that the comments and suggestions I have made will be a helpful contribution in the continuing debate about JOHN McILROY, in SO 171, raised the question of the proposed laws on the political levy and the choices facing unions once they are passed. almost everyone on the left seems to be talking about the campaign that will have to be launched in order to keep a political fund. This campaign in itself will be no bad thing as it will be an opportunity to talk to members about the need for political answers to trade union issues.

Although John dismisses it in his article, I am not yet convinced that we shouldn't argue for a boycott of the ballots. On all the other issues we argue with having no truck with anti-union legislation, why should this be different?

I don't think to argue for a boycott is either avoiding the issue (the politisation of trade unions) or ultra-left. We support regular election of full time officials but that doesn't mean we back the Tories' moves on this issue. we argue that it is up to the union to decide.

If September's TUC conference censures Murray and the understanding the USSR. But a new label isn't a new theory. The label requires a full reworking ot the Marxist view of social development in order to accommodate this new historic class. And it leaves our programmatic conciusions absolutely unclear.

Is this "bureaucratic collectivism' a higher form of society than capitalism? Is it even the next historic stage after capitalism. all over the world (so that the Marxist view of socialism succeeding capitalism was wrong?) Or is it parallel to capitalism? Or a histor; ic regression "- a new 'barbarism' against which we should support capitalism?

Until we get clear answers to these questions, I am not willing to discard Trotsky's analysis.

CHRIS REYNOLDS London and its content.

Yours fraternally Alex Simpsor right wing over the NGA reaffirms a firm stand agains Tory laws and votes to cor tinue the boycott of NEDC etc., I see no reason why w shouldn't argue for a boycor of ballots on the political levs If my optimism is smashed, will reconsider, but until ther when we say no truck wit anti-union laws we shoul mean it.

STEVE BATTLEMUCH Nottinghar What they are and what they must become Socialist Organiser 35 p 5p plus postage from Sociali:

rganiser, c/o 214 Sickert Cor ondon N1 2SY.

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