POLITICAL MEANING OF MIKESHIN'S ATTACK
By Joseph Hansen
Ever since Khrushchev's 1956 revelations at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist party of the Soviet Union, the ruling bureaucratic caste has faced a difficult problem with regard to Trotskyism. "De-Stalinization" was intended as a concession to the masses, but a concession to be kept under strict control, since the logical development of the mood among the masses would be the crystallization of a political-opposition aimed at ending the rule of the bureaucracy and restoring proletarian democracy. Khrushchev's revelations concerning Stalin's crimes confirmed what was long known among all knowledgeable people in the West; i.e., that the notorious trials in the thirties were nothing but gigantic frame-ups. The revelations and subsequent rehabilitation of many of Stalin's victims increased the pressure to rehabilitate Trotsky. But Trotskyism is synonomous with the program of proletarian democracy. Stalin's heirs are against that. From their viewpoint, Trotskyism offers a deadly political threat.
But on what basis could the pressure for Trotsky's rehabilitation be met? To try to restore Stalin's prestige as a counterbalance could alarm the masses. Besides, who in the Soviet Union today would believe the frame-up charges leveled against Trotsky in the Moscow: Trials?
For a time the issue could be evaded or simply postponed. But that, too, has become more and more difficult. The nagging question keeps coming up.
The bureaucratic reasoning behind Mikeshin's attack stems from political considerations of this nature. Stalin's cruder frame-up charges cannot be repeated; a more plausible approach, one that appears closer to reality is needed. In short, the "de- Stalinization" process must be applied to the propaganda against Trotskyism. The worst excesses must be buried, but without conceding anything essential..
Mikeshin's attempted solution to the problem is to roll the film backward to the twenties -- to present the world with the arguments concocted by Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev when they constituted the famous "Troika." Mikeshin adds to this truly stale hash some flavorsome morsels about current Trotskyism; and thus the Soviet public has been presented with a "new" model in attacking Trotskyism, a "new" line of argument for refusing to rehabilitate Trotsky.
Besides domestic considerations, the Kremlin's political specialists also have in mind certain international needs.
The postwar upsurge in the colonial world broke the monolithic grip of the Stalinist bureaucracy over freedom-seeking and socialist-minded movements. New forces moved to the fore. These ranged from the Titoist and Maoist groupings, which were formed under Stalinism, to the July 26 Movement of Cuba which was shaped independently in the course of struggle. Castroism in particular, with its emphasis on uncompromising revolutionary action and its insistence on presenting the socialist example of Cuba as a model for.all of Latin America, foreshadows a whole new stage in the international class struggle in which Trotskyism will emerge from its long eclipse to become a massive movement with millions of followers. This is the real source of Mikeshin's alarm over the growing influence of "Trotskyist" ideas.
Because of its socialist pretensions, the Soviet bureaucracy had little choice but to come to Cuba's aid in the face of the aggression of American imperialism. At the same time, in line with its conservative interests, the bureaucracy has sought in its own way and through its own methods to keep the Cuban revolution from being repeated. Thus under the surface of the alliance between the Soviet Union and Cuba lies a contradiction which at times becomes clearly manifest. As against the zeal of the Castro movement in pursuing and developing the class struggle on a continental scale, the Stalinists seek to impose restraints. This conflict takes place in part on the ideological field but in an unclear way.
Experts in this area, such as the old Stalinist functionary Blas Roca, label pursuit of the socialist revolution as "adventurisn," "ultrarevolutionary phrasemongering" and “Trotskyism." Against this, they advance such "reasonable" slogans as "peaceful coexistence" and due consideration for the "bourgeois democratic stage" of the revolution in industrially backward countries. In practice this means collaborating with U.S. imperialism internationally and handing leadership in revolutionary movements to the treacherous national bourgeoisie. It is to serve such class-collaborationist policies, with their catastrophic consequences, that Mikeshin includes these themes in his article, attempting to create prejudice in the minds of his readers against revolutionary Marxist policies by dubbing them "Trotskyist."
Mikeshin has still another objective in writing up "history" in this way. As is "well known," to borrow one of the favorite phrases of this school, the worst epithet in the entire lexicon of Stalinism is "Trotskyism." It has been bandied back and forth by Moscow and Peking in the Sino-Soviet conflict. To give it a semblance of plausibility, however, it must be attached to one or another of the issues in dispute and then it must be "proved" that the adversary is repeating something advocated by Trotsky or his followers.
In this instance the issue is Peking's charge that the Soviet Union has gone capitalist. The grain of truth in this is Stalin's usurpation of power and the bureaucratic degeneration of the workers state. Since Mao is an ardent admirer of Stalin, he blames everything on Khrushchev and then exaggerates to such a degree as to end ina gross error -- the Soviet Union is not capitalist; it remains a workers state, despite Peking's propaganda. Mao's view that the "class struggle" continues uninterruptedly and indefinitely after the overthrow of capitalism is utilized by Mikeshin as his peg. We learn from him that no one less than Trotsky maintained that the dictatorship of the proletariat consists of “a state of uninterrupted struggle between the proletariat and the peasantry." He also pictures Trotsky as an "ardent champion of the idea of 'revolutionary' war as a means of instigating revolution from without" -- a belligerent pose which Mikeshin evidently intends as suggestive of Mao's attitude, although he leaves it to others to draw the obvious parallel.
Mikeshin does his best to depreciate and denigrate the world Trotskyist movement. All he succeeds in doing, however, is to make more impressive the concern displayed by the Kremlin over the progress of the Fourth International. He crows over the fact that almost thirty years after Stalin exiled Trotsky from the Soviet Union, "the Fourth International has failed to gain influence over the masses of even a single country." Yet a few paragraphs further on, in relation to a new alleged split in the movement, he says: "Does this not testify to the definitive collapse of Trotskyism -- both ideologically and organizationally?"
How many times does this make in the twenty-six years since Stalin's agent drove a pickax into Trotsky's brain that the Kremlin has celebrated the "definitive collapse of Trotskyism"? Obviously a specter is haunting the Soviet bureaucracy.
Will the "new" answer to Trotskyism hold up very long? This pale replica of what Stalin's secret political police turned out in the thirties stands little chance of enduring. In fact as an echo of the past it is easily turned into fresh proof of the reactionary nature of Stalinism. The critical notes supplied by George Saunders, who translated the article, are convincing proof of this.
Still worse for Mikeshin and the figures behind him, the lessons he draws from "history" offer absolutely nothing concrete to revolutionary-minded fighters. In Stalin's time, a would-be revolutionist might swallow doubts about the validity of such arguments with the thought that this was the line handed down by great leaders who must know best. But the days of the cult and Stalinist monolithism are gone forever. Today's revolutionists demand better answers and they no longer feel inhibited in looking for them outside of "official" channels. Mikeshin and the others like him will soon discover to their discomfort that it is much more difficult to put across lies and falsifications ~- even "new" ones -- than in the good old days when Stalin was boss.
Besides that, the world Trotskyist movement is growing in strength. Its voice is standing out more perceptibly and it is harder to sweep it out of the way with mere Trotsky-baiting. A good indication can be found in the current antiwar movement. The Trotskyists are actively pressing a number of revolutionary-socialist slogans, four of the main ones being, “Withdraw U.S. Troops from Vietnam Now!" "For a United Front of All the Workers States in Defense of the Vietnamese Revolution!" "For Effective Countermeasures Against the Escalation of the War!" "Help the Vietnamese Freedom Fighters with Bigger and Bigger Demonstrations of Solidarity!"
These slogans are being pressed and echoed on an international scale by much broader forces than those acknowledging the political leadership of the Fourth International. Where do the followers of the Kremlin stand in this? In some cases they have had no choice but to participate or to go along. In other instances, they have been able to remain passive. But in no case, as yet, have they dared to engage in witchhunting this combination of slogans as "Trotskyism." Perhaps Mikeshin's superiors will assign him the task of providing some choice material from the archives to help rectify this state of affairs. Like his current achievement, what he writes will no doubt really make history.