They say that insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. If this is the case, then insanity, thy name is Trotskyism. For eighty years straight, the Trotskyist movement has been advancing the same basic ideas, slogans and tactics unchanged. The dozens of Trotskyist sects in existence have convinced themselves that every other decade, they are on the cusp of a revolutionary moment that their groupuscule will be leading. Ultimately this is down to a failure to apply Marxist analysis to their own groups. Any other political ideology or movement that was in similar travails would have tons of articles written about it from all sorts of self-proclaimed theoreticians explaining the class basis of this phenomenon and its world-historical significance. There is no such analysis conducted by the leaders of Trotskyist groups as to why their organisations remain mired in irrelevance. There is only, as ever, the stout and stubborn assurance that sooner or later, their moment will come.
The Old Man himself must bear some of the blame for this. Just before his death, Trotsky made all sorts of false predictions as to the outcome of the Second World War. It was Trotsky’s belief that the war would likely end with the overthrow of the Stalinist bureaucracy and revolutionary insurrection by the working-class across Europe, much as had occurred after WWI. As it happened, the Stalinist bureaucracy was strengthened. Not only were the Nazis thrown back, but all of Eastern Europe came under Stalin’s hegemony. The Soviet bureaucracy was stronger than it had ever been in its entire existence. To the West, capitalism stabilised itself after the devastation of war, and came back roaring. Meanwhile, the Trotskyist movement remained divided, impotent and pathetic as ever.
In England, a young Trotskyist activist by the name of Ted Grant wrote up a document called ‘Preparing for Power’. In it, he explained to his comrades of the Workers’ International League that the time would soon come when the revolution would arrive in Britain, and their tiny sect would be called upon to lead the working-class to the seizure of power, as Lenin and the Bolsheviks had done in 1917. Following advice from Trotsky, a tactic was pioneered by the American Trotskyists that was later taken up by other Trotskyist activists across the globe. The idea was that, in the coming war, Trotskyist activists would not resist conscription, despite the war being an imperialist one, but would join the army and become acquainted with arms in preparation for the coming revolution. They would use their position in the army to agitate among workers. They would raise ‘transitional demands’ for workers’ control over conscription, over the selection of officers, over troop deployment, arms production, etc. Needless to say, all this agitation had little or no effect on the behaviour of the troops, who remained loyal to their commanders and to the government.
After the war was over, it became clear that Trotsky’s predictions had been falsified by history. Capitalism was entering its golden age, with Keynesian, social-democratic policies creating a large, comfortable middle-class and a prosperous working-class. The industrial working-class had reached the peak of its power and prosperity, but was less interested in revolutionary socialism than it had ever been. Marxism in the West had suffered a world-historical defeat. In the East it had become ossified in the form of a ruthless totalitarian bureaucracy which repulsed many of its former sympathisers among the intelligentsia and the working-class of the West. This should have been the moment Trotskyism called it quits.
Instead, James Cannon, leader of the American section of the Trotskyist movement, the Socialist Workers’ Party, and heir to Trotsky, insisted that nothing had changed, and the revolution had merely been postponed. Felix Morrow, one of the leading American Trotskyists, tried to talk sense into Cannon and the other Trotskyist leaders, who persisted in clinging doggedly to the old perspectives as if they were holy writ. After a few years, Morrow quit the Trotskyist movement, abandoning politics altogether to work in the publishing industry. He had wasted much of his adult life on Trotskyist nonsense, and he was done. It was clear that there would be no revolution.
The Fourth International limped on, despite splits and fusions, for another several decades. There are now dozens of groups claiming to be the ‘true’ Fourth International, but any reasonable person can see that it now lies in tatters, and that the Trotskyist movement is dead. But there are none so blind as those will not see. Even now, after over eighty years of complete failure and irrelevance, the leaders of the Trotskyist sects insist that the revolution is around the corner, that the seizure of power is only a matter of time, and that their tiny sects will one day seize power. Every year, at the national conference, the party faithful are given dull ‘perspectives’ documents outlining how the political situation will change. It is dreary stuff, dredged up from the most pessimistic articles in the Economist or the Financial Times, and used to paint the bleakest possible picture of the national and international situation. These perspectives are deliberately tweaked to hype up expectations of imminent political and economic collapse. This catastrophism lies at the heart of Trotskyism. These apocalyptic visions of the future go hand-in-hand with the dream of a shining socialist city on a hill, an ideal that will only be attained once the ‘chosen few’ of the vanguard are given complete power over society. Once in full control, they will make the world a paradise. It is beautiful nonsense, the intellectual equivalent of cocaine and LSD. Fuelled by such toxic and demented anticipations, one feels like one is floating through air. The Promised Land is within reach! Socialism within our lifetimes! It sounds too good to be true, but if we sell enough papers and recruit enough people, we will surely be in a position to influence events, to save humanity from the disaster that awaits it if capitalism is not overthrown. Such are the thoughts that run through the mind of the average sect member. And another generation of talented, dedicated individuals once again throw away their lives for the sake of this absurd cause, which substitutes wishes and make-believe for the unpleasant reality. Another generation that will drink from the dregs of cultism, and endure the bitter taste of disillusionment, then spend the rest of their lives contemplating with shame and disgust this wasted effort, this dissipated energy.
Of course, confront any Trotskyist sect leader with this and the answer is always the same. ‘You are too pessimistic. Eighty years is not enough time to make a final judgement on Trotskyism. Remember dialectics! Things are always changing. The objective conditions have yet to fully ripen.’ Despite Trotskyism going through almost every possible variant of conditions imaginable – revolution, counter-revolution, war, civil unrest – no Trotskyist group anywhere has come close to seizing power. Maybe, it isn’t the objective conditions. Maybe the problem is Trotskyism and Trotskyist ideology.
But if you are still unsure, imagine if another ideology made this excuse. Would a Marxist accept it if a liberal said, ‘Capitalism has only lasted a few hundred years. That is not enough time to make a definitive judgement on whether capitalism is reactionary or not. We need to wait at least another hundred years before deciding that capitalism is obsolete and moving on to another system.’ Or if a neoconservative said, ‘Eight years is not enough time to decide that the liberal interventionism is a disastrous idea. We need to send the troops back in for at least another several decades, and then come to a judgement.’ We can only imagine what their response would be.