In Defence of Marxism

by Leon Trotsky, Rob Sewell (Introduction)

to James P. Cannon 9/12/39
The USSR in War 9/25/39
to Sherman Stanley 10/8/39
Again & Once More Again on the Nature of the USSR 10/18/39
The Referendum & Democratic Centralism 10/21/39
to Sherman Stanley 10/22/39
to James P. Cannon 10/28/39
to Max Shachtman 11/6/39
to James P. Cannon 12/15/39
A Petty-Bourgeois Opposition in the SWP 12/15/39
to John G. Wright 12/19/39
to Max Shachtman 12/20/39
to Nat'l Comm. Majority 12/26+27/39, 1/3+4/40
to Joseph Hansen 1/5/40
Open Letter to Cde Burnham 1/7/40
to James P. Cannon 1/9/40
to Farrell Dobbs 1/10/40
to John G. Wright 1/13/40
to James P. Cannon 1/16/40
to Wm F. Warde 1/16/40
to Joseph Hansen 1/18/40
From a Scratch to the Danger of Gangrene 1/24/40
to Martin Abern 1/29/40
to Albert Goldman 2/10+19/40
Back to the Party 2/21/40
Science & Style 2/23/40
to James P. Cannon 2/27/40
to Joseph Hansen 2/29/40
to Farrell Dobbs 3/4, 4/4+16/40
Petty-Bourgeois Moralists & the Proletarian Party 4/23/40
Balance Sheet of the Finnish Events 4/25/40
to James P. Cannon 5/28/40
to Albert Goldman 6/5/40
On the Workers Party 8/7/40
to Albert Goldman 8/9/40
to Chris Andrews 8/17/40

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Theory, Philosophy, Economics, Soviet History

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

See also Лев Троцкий

Russian theoretician Leon Trotsky or Leon Trotski, originally Lev Davidovitch Bronstein, led the Bolshevik of 1917, wrote Literature and Revolution in 1924, opposed the authoritarianism of Joseph Stalin, and emphasized world; therefore later, the Communist party in 1927 expelled him and in 1929 banished him, but he included the autobiographical My Life in 1930, and the behest murdered him in exile in Mexico.

The exile of Leon Trotsky in 1929 marked rule of Joseph Stalin.

People better know this Marxist. In October 1917, he ranked second only to Vladimir Lenin. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as commissar of people for foreign affairs and as the founder and commander of the Red Army and of war. He also ranked among the first members of the Politburo.

After a failed struggle of the left against the policies and rise in the 1920s, the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union deported Trotsky. An early advocate of intervention of Army of Red against European fascism, Trotsky also agreed on peace with Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. As the head of the fourth International, Trotsky continued to the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, and Ramón Mercader, a Soviet agent, eventually assassinated him. From Marxism, his separate ideas form the basis of Trotskyism, a term, coined as early as 1905. Ideas of Trotsky constitute a major school of Marxist. The Soviet administration never rehabilitated him and few other political figures.

Reviews

[Hantz FV · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly a defence of Marxism! This collection of articles and letters was written during the hysteria towards the beginning of the second world war, one of the stormiest periods of the last century. A period that forced every revolutionary (real or wannabe) to clearly pick a side on all important questions. Under the pressure of liberal public opinion and faced with the living contradiction of the degenerated worker's state in the USSR, a petty-bourgeois layer (really this is not an insult or anything of the kind, they really were petty-bourgeois both in their outlook and their mode of thought) in the SWP, the American section of the 4th international, in essence rejected Marxism. In a typically petty-bourgeois attempt to retain their rrrrevolutionary garb and at the same time appear reasonable (as in "not crazy enough to defend the Soviet Union against imperialism!!!") to public opinion, to please both the bourgeois and the working class, they first lost whatever orientation they had and then tried to disorient the SWP and the 4th international itself. Trotsky's intervention in this discussion is a must read for anyone who wishes to really concretely understand the Marxist method. Unfortunately Trotsky was assassinated shortly after and the incompetent leaders of the fourth clearly were not up to the task of building the international party of the working class. With the elements the 4th international attracted (from all kind of horizons) the task of forging it into a fighting party would no doubt be difficult, but judging by this book, had Trotsky been alive, we can safely say the whole process would have went entirely differently from the monstrosity it became after the war. Fortunately we have the records of this discussion and we can learn from it today to succeed where the 4th failed.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

The problem with this work (as with Cannon’s companion volume “Struggle for a Proletarian Party”), beyond its digressions into tangential issues of philosophy and scurrilous personal attacks, is that it deconstructs a straw man to a great extent. As in 1956 and 68, the main question was not the character of the soviet state but its oppressive acts and policies that people of good will could unite in political struggle to oppose without being required to agree on that underlying issue. The context here was the Stalin-Hitler Pact, the outbreak of World War 2 and the partition of Poland between the USSR and Nazi Germany, something the leaders of the future Workers Party all agreed on, including Abern (Harry Allen).

Unconditionally defend the Soviets as a working class organization as we would a corrupt, bureaucratized union? Fine, but the USSR was not in any kind of defensive posture in 1939. And while socialists and progressives defend unions against attacks by the bosses, they don’t defend them when they go on strike against the hiring of minorities as happened on occasion in this period. Personal attacks, obsessing over petty organizational issues and virtue signaling about belief in dialectics did nothing to illuminate these critical political questions.

Also eliding a serious discussion of that historical conjuncture were glib epithets about the minority being “petty bourgois” (middle class), which aside from being irrelevant to the issues at hand, were also false as the Workers Party was a working class organization active in the labor movement (its fraction in the UAW played a leading role in organizing against the wartime no strike pledge). Anyone who has read this book should also read Max Shachtman’s reply to it, “Crisis in the American Party: An Open Letter in Reply to Comrade Trotsky”, a devastating polemic that unpacks these issues.

[Kiara · Rating 5 out of 5]

trotsky rocks and this book is amazing

[Sasha Boucher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly Trotsky at his best! A scientific and thorough take down of the petty-bourgeois approach to revolutionary communist political organization. The method and insight is invaluable for the modern day communist. At times it's enough to elevate your blood pressure as you see the philistine moralizing and barefaced empiricism being passed off as "Marxism" by these comfortable academics and intellectuals. Their social position under pressure of bourgeois public opinion surrounding World War 2 and the Hitler-Stalin pact organically leaves them susceptible to all sorts of theoretical capitulations and short-sighted perspectives on world events, which leaves them advocating for pacifism, inactivity, merely acting as literary figures rather than as a force for the establishment and defence of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Trotsky's takedown of this petty-bourgeois cowardice is razor sharp, and to top it all off, the book ends by allowing the petty-bourgeois cowards to speak for themselves, demonstrating their weaknesses clearly, followed by their open renunciation of Marxism and abandonment of communist politics. This will give you x-ray vision for petty-bourgeois tendencies within the labour movement generally and within the revolutionary party in particular.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

A work of brilliance, Trotsky never yielded for a moment to the revisionists in the American SWP, and out of this polemic emerged a great exposition of dialectical materialism, along with a further development of the analysis of the Soviet Union first set out in The Revolution Betrayed.

“I see that you are an adversary of dialectics,” he replied, somewhat astonished.
“Yes, I don’t see any use in it.”
“However,” I responded, “the dialectic enabled me, on the basis of a few of your observations on economic problems, to determine what category of philosophical thought you belong to — this alone shows that there is an appreciable value in the dialectic.” p.68 ibid.

Brilliant.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book. Could use a real academic approach from a new author. What’s here requires a lot of context searching for documents on the Marxism website.

[Reese Gaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll write more later but it has some great sections which clearly lay out the "ABC's of Marxism" especially dialectical materialism. However it is often confusing as it's essentially a collection of letters a normal person who isn't familiar w American and russian socialist politics in the 30s doesn't have the context to understand. Trotsky is a little funny tho def a sassy guy

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read in 2019.

[The Laughing Man · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book amuses me to the extreme, Trotksy "criticizes" the system he and Lenin built after being ousted from it.

One wants to hold him from his collars and shake him real hard while yelling BUDDY YOU CAUSED THIS, YOU MADE THIS HAPPEN.

But arent they always like this, leftists almost always fraction right after reaching an apex and turn on each other, start blaming each other for all the mistakes and atrocities they did during their tenure...

One thing that really disturbs me about marxism is how it operates like a religion. You can do anything "for the greater good" during the build up towards and during the revolution... There are never any "mistakes" instead there are "necessary collateral damages"...

But once the said marxist agent gets expelled from his clique he turns on them and opens up about those "mistakes" and how horrible they were, this shows marxists ALWAYS KNEW what they were doing was evil, murderous and destructive, but they kept on doing it "for the cause"...

[Olive Rickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forgot I was meant to be reading this so I finished it off this afternoon.

On lawfulness, truths to be found in going beyond small isolated concrete facts

The law of labour value determines prices not 'immediately, but it nevertheless does determine them. Such 'concrete' phenomena as the bankruptcy of the New Deal find their explanativn in the final analysis in the 'abstract' law of value. Roosevelt does not know this, but a Marxist dare not proceed without knowing it. Not immediately but through a whole series of intermediate factors and their reciprocal interaction, property forms determine not only politics but also morality.

[cia sunshine ☭ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finally finished this horrid book. It took me like a month and a half. I am a proud communist, and I like a lot of other communist theory, but this was atrocious in my opinion. Call me stupid or unlearned if you want, but Trotsky speaks like a pretentious asshole that enjoys debating just to prove that he’s smarter than everyone around him. Half of his arguments felt like bullshit because he was attacking what felt like minuscule points because he was butt-hurt because someone was slightly wrong. If I went through and re-read that, I could name out some fallacies probably, but I don’t want to torture myself why longer. I just don’t think I agree with him or his attitude.

[Liza · Rating 5 out of 5]

superb, just marvelous

[James Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trotsky points out the timeless relevancy of Marxism and class conscienceness which is seen today in the campaign of Bernie Sanders. It is high time that the workers of the world unite!

[pauline · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite readings in our course.

[Mason Groves · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compilation of evident persistence to develop real answers on a variety of overlapping issues during Lev's time, when the petty-bourgeoise shift in the Trotskyist American factions waged an intellectual war on Marxism, the USSR, and Dialectics. The answers that Trotsky gives surrounding the USSR's invasion of Finland, the role of Marxism in political science, the state and class structure of the USSR (what he called the degenerated workers' state), the split from social reformism, and Lenin's battles with the Mensheviks pre-revolution are stocked with countless uses of dialectics as a philosophic basis for his answers, and also useful lessons for any socialist revolutionaries.

One of the best sections I found, contrary to the popular favourite of "ABC's of Dialectical Materialism" (though crucial in its own right), was "From a Scratch to Gangrene", showing a plethora of tasks required for a socialist party such as the SWP in USA, and all others. In this lengthy section, Trotsky clearly lays out all misconceptions and evidencing about his arguments for democratic centralism, the role of dialectics and Marxism in the political sphere, the tasks of revolutionaries, and the requirement of socialists to stray from social reformism, and stick to a path of a workers revolution by incorporating workers and workers organisations such as unions into the political movements that the party rides the waves of. I felt this was especially prevalent as the gap between the trade union movement in western countries and the critical intellectuals and revolutionary scholars has never been wider.

Trotsky's persistence and anger can be felt in so many of the written letters; his frustration to explain core revolutionary concepts that were falling on the deaf ears of the social chauvinists, reformists, and careerists of the SWP can be expressed throughout the writings; never has a collection held so many rhetorical questions. And rightfully so! The dire need to return the tradition of Marxist beliefs, theory of permanent revolution, and workers coordination in the higher ranks of a so called "workers'" party had never been higher since the tragic abortion of the German revolution in the 1920's, where figures such as Luxembourg failed to carry the torch of socialism into the west of Europe due to devastating betrayals.

Decades of experience from this man can be felt in every section, and for all Marxists, Marxist-Leninists, Bolsheviks, and revolutionaries I say read this collection.

[Geoff Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Defence of Marxism is a chronological collection of letters and articles, 1939-40, most by Trotsky himself, charting the development of [warning: spoiler following!] a mass split in the American Socialist Workers Party, of which Trotsky, although living in Mexico, was a member.

This book was published posthumously, two years after he was assassinated. Metaphorically, we get to see Trotsky lobbying comrades and crossing metaphorical swords with comrades. There are some quite exciting passages, as Trotsky and his opponents slash at each other with their arguments and jibes, attempting to draw first political blood – or even to take out their opponents.

Having now finished the book, I am thinking the title is somewhat of a misnomer. More accurately descriptive titles might include “Crisis in the American Socialist Workers Party” or “Battle for the American Socialist Workers Party” or even “In Defence of Conditional Support for Russia Despite the Oligarchy of Stalinist Bureaucrats”.

Trotsky writes very clearly and succinctly. In this book, at least, like Rosa Luxemburg in “The Mass Strike”, he mainly presents his arguments as relatively independent constructs, rather than presuming familiarity with other texts – articles by supporters and opponents – which, at this temporal remove, 21st century readers like me might well not have read.

Or rather, although it is true that Trotsky is writing here as part of an extended discussion on the direction of the American Socialist Workers Party, and in the context of texts written by others, he outlines their arguments sufficiently well to allow readers like me who have not read the texts to follow the debate. I am thinking of less accommodating experiences with texts by Marx, Engels and Lenin.

[Serenata · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a brilliant book and it taught me a lot.

It covered a variety of important topics: the class nature of the Soviet state, the position one should have when that state is attacked during war, the principles of organising a revolutionary socialist party, etc. All the while explaining the essence of Marxist theory and philosophy.

It provides a more nuanced view of the Soviet Union - falling prey neither to the capitalist, Cold War propaganda of the West OR the apologetics that Stalinists use to defend an oppressive, decaying regime. It defends the economic gains of such an economy while completely condemning the totalitarian bureaucracy of Stalin.

In addition to the content itself, Trotsky is simply an amazing writer. This was my first time reading him properly and his wit, prose and frequent analogies made it into a really engaging read. "The ABC of Materialist Dialectics" section - which I'd heard about but never read - absolutely blew me away. You wouldn't usually think of a political book as "beautiful", but parts of this one truly were.

The book was profound, concise and razor-sharp. If you're already acquainted with the basics of revolutionary socialism, I can't recommend it enough.

[Augusto Delgado · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brillante trabajo póstumo del genio bolchevique polemizando contra la desviación pequeñoburguesa, al interior del SWP estadounidense, encabezada por Burnham y Schatman quienes arguían que la Unión Soviética dejó de ser un estado obrero, y que su defensa era una defensa de la burocracia stalinista.

Trotsky, usando el método del Marxismo, en su defensa, desbarata tales aseveraciones al esclarecer la naturaleza de la propiedad de los medios de producción, haciendo analogía con un sindicato capturado por traidores - el cual no deja de ser un organismo de clase a pesar de sus dirigentes- y, a la vez, sustenta la defensa incondicional de la conquista del proletariado mundial, que es la misma existencia del estado obrero, contra los ataques del imperialismo y el fascismo, a pesar de su dirección traidora stalinista.

Décadas más tarde, la improbable predicción que hizo en "La Revolución Traicionada" de que la persistencia del aislamiento del estado obrero y los privilegios de la burocracia conducirían a la restauración del capitalismo, nos lleva a cuestionar ¿en qué momento la burocracia stalinista se vuelve oligarquía capitalista? ¿cómo fue el proceso de degeneración para tener a Putin como el legado que dejó el contrarrevolucionario Stalin y su camarilla parasitaria? En todo caso, mientras la URSS mantuvo su carácter de clase, era obligación su defensa incondicional.

Grande el Viejo.

[Marc Lichtman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Isaac Deutscher’s The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky, 1929-1940 is pretty useless for learning about Trotsky’s life in Mexico—Deutscher didn’t even bother to visit there. Bertrand M. Patenaude wrote a book discussing this part of Trotsky’s life called Trotsky: Downfall Of A Revolutionary, which begins with the view that Trotsky’s intellectual powers were on the decline, and the mood in the Trotsky household bleak. Joseph Hansen wrote an introduction to the Pathfinder edition of Trotsky’s My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography which helps to remedy this. So does this book.

Patenaude is totally unable to understand what the struggle portrayed in this book is about. He thinks Trotsky provoked the fight (he didn’t) and that it was an obstacle to the US Socialist Workers Party being able to prepare for the Second World War. Nothing could be farther from the truth—a revolutionary party can’t prepare for war when it doesn’t know what side it’s on, and those Trotsky correctly characterized as “the petty bourgeois opposition” questioned whether the Soviet Union, despite the Stalinist deformations, was still a workers state, and thus were at best unclear about whether they would defend it in wartime. As Trotsky explains, this is like refusing to defend a bureaucratized union against the bosses.

In the course of this debate, Trotsky explains that the opposition either rejects or downplays a central part of Marxist theory—dialectics! And he explains what dialectics--the logic of change--is, and why it is so important. (People who want to read more on this aspect of Marxist thought are advised to read Engels’ Anti-Dühring: Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science
and George Novack’s An Introduction to the Logic of Marxism, a series of classes that came out of this fight).

It is also important to read this along with James P. Cannon’s The Struggle for a Proletarian Party, which is a record of the organizational debate that accompanied this political debate. Trotsky wrote of the central part of this book that “It is the writing of a genuine workers’ leader. If the debate had not produced more than this document, it would be justified.”

The Socialist Workers Party, without doing anything vaguely ultraleft, had 18 leaders spend time in prison for their opposition to the US imperialist war. The Shachtman group, with practically no influence in the unions avoided this onslaught by the Roosevelt administration (see Teamster Bureaucracy and Socialism on Trial: Testimony at Minneapolis Sedition Trial. Yes, the Shachtmanites defended our right to advocate our ideas without being in prison, but so did many labor bureaucrats and liberals.

The Soviet Union no longer exists. Does that make this debate irrelevant for today? Hardly! The debate is still relevant for the Cuban Revolution, which some “leftists” see as not a workers’ state, and others see as Stalinist (and some see as Stalinist but not a workers’ state). While Joseph Hansen’s Dynamics of the Cuban Revolution: A Marxist Appreciation is a good place to start, for the most part I suggest letting the Cubans speak for themselves. For lack of space and links, I will limit myself to two that show the Cubans' selfless internationalism, Cuba and Angola: Fighting for Africa’s Freedom and Our Own and Red Zone: Cuba and the Battle Against Ebola in West Africa.

If you want to read an easier book explaining dialectical materialism, I suggest An Introduction to the Logic of Marxism.

[Tawanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book gives the reader insight into Marxism , the SWP and it's international arms during the periods of 1939-1940.

As an African reading this book it occurred to me that Marxism and it's definitions of the proletarian (peasant and worker) is limited to a Euro/Soviet centric lense.

Through the collections of writings, the reader learns Trotsky's perspective of any of the tensions and big questions at the time (from his perspective).

An interesting read, insightful in many ways.

[David Ankin]

Excellent stuff, we need more dialectics and less turning towards syllogism and linear simplifications and dismissal of the very idea of socialism. the ussr emerges out of the laboratory of history, not as a professor imagines it. abandoning socialism is suicidal for a revolutionary party!

[Ryan Castillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good read to understand the inner politics of the American Socialist Worker's Party during the 20s and 30s.

[Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really really great text but I'm so glad I'm in a reading group for this. The format requires a reading group imo. A goldmine not only of theory but of indescribable sass.

[Sam Lovesey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A petty bourgeois tendency? In my proletarian party? It's more likely than you think!

[Differengenera · Rating 3 out of 5]

collection of polemics on USSR as degenerated workers state against state capitalist / bureaucratic collectivist tendencies in fourth international. bit repetitive

[Diego Parejo perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

fundamental para entender la crítica marxista al pensamiento pequeño burgués que se materializa en estos escritos en la escisión del Partido Socialista Norteamericano. Además explica la posición que debemos mantener los marxistas respecto a cuestiones como la antigua URSS. Esta sentencia se puede resumir en la propia frase de Trotski " ¿Qué significa defensa "incondicional" de la URSS? Significa que no le ponemos condiciones a la burocracia. Significa que, independientemente de los motivos o causas de la guerra, defendemos las bases sociales de la URSS, si se ven amenazadas por el imperialismo."

[Inna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trotsky's intervention in theoretical disagreements within the US Trotskyist movement after Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. Trotsky emphasizes the importance of dialectics as a necessary basis for Marxist thought and how a non-dialectical thought has to end up with social conservatism. He also describes what he perceives as the bad and the good influences of petty bourgeoisie within the revolutionary movement.

[Matthew Matheson]

Also Alan Woods book "In Defense of Marxism"