expect them necessarily to agree with me, But I do think I have a particular contribution to make in disoussing Deutscher's work and that this can help make for a better understanding of both its importance and its shortcomings, (2) In a footnote on page 312 of the third volume of his biography, Deutscher refers toa dispute the American Trotskyists had with opponents within the movement in 1953-54 who, apparently following. Deut~ scher's evaluation in Russia After Stalin and in articles in the press at the time, pursued a policy which seemed to lead to conciliation with Stalinism, if not to capitulation. After the experiences with » capitulations in Trotsky's day -=- which also were based on events inthe Soviet Unions; e Coe, the turn to industrialization and the opening of the Third Period in the Comintern, both of which appeared to bo. turns in the direction of Trotskyism -~ James P, Cannon and his. com thinkers raised warnings. That the danger was not without reality was borne out by the fact that in several countries small groups of
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learned anything at all: from Trotsky it is the necessity to under stand human phenomena, to seek objeotive explanations, rather than o indulge in expressions of distaste or dissatisfaction,
Fortunately, Deutscher himself offers us an opportunity to do this, because it can readily be seen that the root of his attitude toward the Trotskyists lies in his major criticism of Trotsky: The proclamation of the Fourth International and Trotsky's devotion to the construction of it in the last decade of his life are desoribed by Deutscher as no less than a "fiasco,"
‘It would be hypocritical of Trotskyists to say that this part of Deutscher's work does not detract from the value of his biography. It does, Nonetheless, we must regard this fault, as we considor it, with a. sense of proportion, If it detracts, it in no way vitiates,
Trotskyists did in fact wind up by joining the Communist party, at that time still in the grip of unreconstructed Stalinism, Deutsocher's ideas were seen as the fountainhead of this trend and therefore attacked, As Joseph Hansen has acknowledged in his review of The Prophet. Outcast, “many harsh and even unjustified things" were said about him, - (See International Socialist Review, winter 1964,) —
Insofar as the present writer was involved, although only © in private correspondence quoted by Cannon, in thése unjustified remarks, a personal apology ‘and explanation is in order. I was not acquainted with Deutsoher at the time and knew little about him beyond what appeared in print and what others in England related to me, Tho heat of the polemic distorted for me both the nature of his contributions to the British bourgeois press (Churchill at the time obviously based himself on these in his first efforts among Western statesmen to meet the Kremlin's "so-existence" line) as well as his attitude toward the Soviet bureaucracy itself, Later on, particularly after 1956, I had occasion to recognize that I erred, more especially after attending some of Deutscher's lectures, : It became clear to me that, whatever our differences may be, he spoke -- and wrote -- from Marxist con-= victions, making no concessions of principle either to the publica~ tions for which he wrote and the organizations for which he lectured or to the Soviet bureaucracy which he took as his subject, It was then obvious to me that I had done him an injustice,
As matters turned out, our opponents of that time within the Trotskyist movement did not bear out our fears either, We had erred, I believe, in not grasping that the time was not propitious for oap= itulations to Stalinism, Under the impact of events in the international extension of the revolution in Asia, Africa and Latin Amer~ ica, as well as within the Soviet camp, we found ourselves coming closer togother again in our views, influenced mutually in the course of polemic and discussion, I would like to think that our relations with Deutscher were similarly affected by this new international trend, although on a different level,
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If we regard this as a major fault in the work, and examine its implications, we must do so with no less objectivity than in reoognizing the merits of the biography as a whole,
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Trotsky!s need for the proclamation of the Fourth International and his preoccupation with the "menial" tasks-of its construction were no less a part of the man than his theoretical contributions or his writings in various fields, or even his genius in action in the 1905 and 1917 revolutions, For, if there was anything that pore vaded every phase of his thought and activity, it was the dialectical method of Marxism, not as some "closed system," but as a living and . developing mode of thinking, linked with historical experience, whose lessons. were indispensable to solving the problems of humanity. The root of his decision on the Fourth International lies in the very origins of Marxism, .
Marx, in "settling accounts" with the Young Hegelians, with his whole Hegolian experience, had already written in his youth that up to that time the philosophers had seen their task as explaining the world, ‘while the real task of philosophy now was to’ change it. That is why he and Engels and their grouping, as a "splinter" of. the Left Hegelians, proceeded to the urganization of the Communist Leaguo, initiated with the Communist Manifesto. For Trotsky, too, it was not enough to explain the world in his~epoch, im which Stalinism and fas~ cism and preparation for.another world war predominated, The explanation had to be embodied in an organization aimed at changing it,
What kind of organization was it to be? Historical experience had shown that only the type of combat organization developed by Lenin had been capable of leading a prolétarian revolution to the successful overthrow of the capitalist system, of changing fundamontally the old world and laying the foundations of the new socialist world, Trotsky had had that lesson brought home to him both in the course of long ycars of struggle against.Lenin's concept as well as in the. fire of revolution; that is, by negative and positive exper ience, Deep appreciation of the crucial importmce of the Leninist type of organization dominated his attitude toward the Communist party throughout his long internal struggle with Stalin. He was cere tain of the correctness of that struggle. He was aware of the grow=ing degeneration of the party in Stalin's grip; but this did not cause him to alter his appreciation of the Leninist concept of the party. (In the.second volume of his work, Deutscher touches on this aspect of Trotsky's view of the party; but, as I tried to show in a review of that volume at the time, he does not give it the woight. it deserves and consequently lays undue stress on psychological and other factors that obscure rather than clear up the question of why he persisted in the line of reform and why he defended the party against previous opposition tendencies. )
The experience with the riso of Hitlor in _ Germany, which | showed
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that under Stalinism the biggest party outside the Soviet Union, in the most promising situation within any of the advanced capitalist countries, could be wiped out without even coming to the point of combat, was the decisive event which convinced him that the Third International was a finished foree as a revolutionary instrument... The concept of tho Leninist party, the embodiment of Marxist thodught as a moans of aotion, had to be saved from continuing discreditment by Stalinist degeneration. It could be done only by building on that concept anew, under a new banner. That was what required the pro-« clamation of” the Fourth International and.the difficult, painful, often frustrating process of the primitive accumulation, so to speak, of Marxist forces anew, 7
To be sure, the careful student will find strewn throughout tho chaptor dealing’ with this subject, cnough quotations, references and remarks by Deutscher himself, to reconstruct this view of Trotsky!s decision, partioularly by tracing them back to original SOUrCES » Here, as elsewhere, Deutscher is conscientious in his scholarship, But he appears to be affected by a compulsive memory from his own past: as a leader of the Polish Trotskyists at the time, he opposed the proclamation of the Fourth International in the thirties; thought it was premature and unwisc, because such a step in the past was al~ ways taken ina poriod of revolutionary upsurge; in consequence, his view had been borne out against Trotsky!s because of the failure of the new international to lead revolutions, to assume mass proportions and make a major impact in the world during the erisuing years, It is the only difference of opinion with Trotsky, certainly the only doocumented one, that Deutscher mentions for that whole period. Deutscher thus suddenly projects himself, as it were, into the political score he is depicting,
One can understand the temptation of the political protagonist to get satisfaction from a seeming confirmation of a judgment and forecast as against that of a Trotsky, but then the question arises -~ certainly after an interval of twenty-five years -~ what is the point? What alternative course was proposed and tried that proved superior? Deutscher does not say. I trust he will not take it amiss if we conclude that Deutscher!s past as politician here seems to echo cacophonously with the more harmonious work of Deutscher the historian,
In part, therefore, Deutscher does not treat the problem alto« gether as an historian and a scholar, Still, he does have scoond thoughts about it. He writes: "[Trotsky] believed that he was bring~ ing to lifo an organization that would play a decisive part in the revolutionary class struggle to come, What is less clear is whethor he hoped for success in the near future or whether he was working 'for history’, without any such hope. His own statements are contra~ dictory," Deutscher then proceeds to examine these statements,
[To be concluded next week, ]
AND’ WHAT