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Title: Our Morals and Theirs Author: Wayne Price Date: May 15, 2020 Language: en Topics: moralism, anarchism, liberalism, marxism Source: http://anarkismo.net/article/31889
In 1938, the Marxist revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, wrote an essay, Their
Morals and Ours—usually reprinted with a sequel from a year later, “The
Moralists and Sycophants against Marxism.” (Trotsky, Dewey, & Novack
1966) His subject was the relation between means and ends in politics.
In particular he sought to counter the claim that the methods of
Marxism, as carried out by Lenin and himself during the Russian
Revolution, led to the horrors of Stalin’s mass-murdering
totalitarianism. His follower, George Novack, believed, “This treatment
of the problem of means and ends in collective action and individual
conduct is one of Trotsky’s most valuable contributions to Marxist
theory.” (6)
Some months after Trotsky’s first essay, there was a critical response
by the philosopher, John Dewey: “Means and Ends.” (Trotsky et al. 1966)
The leading U.S. philosopher of pragmatism (experimentalism),
progressive education, and liberalism, he had met Trotsky earlier. Dewey
had gone to Mexico in 1937 to chair the International Commission of
Inquiry into the Moscow Trials (also known as the Dewey Commission).
This had given Trotsky a chance to testify under cross-examination, to
defend himself against Stalin’s charges that he had worked for fascists
to betray the Russian Revolution and sabotage the Soviet Union. The
Commission had concluded that Trotsky was innocent and that the charges
were a frame-up.
Trotsky never got to respond to Dewey’s comments on his essay. In 1940,
he was murdered in Mexico by an agent of Stalin. There have been various
discussions of these expressions of views by Trotsky and Dewey, mostly
by liberals and Trotskyists. As far as I know, there has not been a
discussion of these opinions from an anarchist perspective. This is even
though Trotsky repeatedly stated that, to a major extent, he was
directing his arguments against anarchists. His opening sentence stated
his opposition to “Messrs. democrats, social-democrats, anarchists, and
other representatives of the ‘left’ camp.” (13) He sneered at
“idealistic Philistines—among whom anarchists of course occupy first
place….” (21-22) “But perhaps the most lamentable role is that played by
the anarchists.” (27) Much of the sequel essay is an attack on Victor
Serge, a former anarchist. This suggests that an anarchist response may
be useful.
It might be objected that anarchism has so little in common with either
liberalism or Trotsky’s Marxism that not much can be learned from
examining either. It is true that both ideologies are committed to the
use of the state in changing society—a fundamental difference from
anarchism. But revolutionary anarchists shared with Trotsky the goal of
overthrowing the capitalist system and the existing (capitalist) state,
and replacing them with alternate institutions. (I am speaking of the
school of revolutionary anarchism, from Bakunin and Kropotkin to the
anarcho-syndicalists and communist-anarchists.) And anarchists share
with Dewey’s version of liberalism the goal of a society which is
cooperative, non-capitalist, radically democratic and self-managed,
rooted in neighborly communities and workers’ managed industries, and
intelligently experimental. Dewey was quite to the left of most
liberals, then and now. For example, he opposed Roosevelt’s New Deal,
and the Democratic Party, from the left. (For the relation between
Dewey’s pragmatist/experimentalist philosophy and anarchism, see Price
2015.)
Philosophically, both Trotsky and Dewey rejected supernaturalism or a
divine basis for morality. They believed that morals were rooted in
human activities, interests, and institutions. Trotsky regarded himself
as a “materialist” while Dewey called himself a “naturalist.” They
believed that moral actions should be judged by their consequences,
rather than by absolute standards. In this sense, “the ends justify the
means.” But ends could only “justify” means if the means really resulted
in desirable ends.
Trotsky declared, “In practical life as in the historical movement, the
end and the means constantly change places.” (19) This is “the dialectic
interdependence between means and end…” (42) Likewise, Dewey referred to
the “principle of interdependence of means and end.” (56) Means are good
if they produce good ends (not just what someone claims will be good
ends, but really results in them). Good, desirable, ends justify the
means only if they can be reached by these means—and if they lead on to
further, valued, means-and-ends.
Neither Trotsky or Dewey looked to “final ends,” but Trotsky did propose
a standard for judging ends. “…The end is justified if it leads to
increasing the power of man over nature and to the abolition of the
power of man over man.” (40) Dewey agreed with this standard: “…Others
than Marxists might accept this formulation of the end and hold it
expresses the moral interest of society….” (56)
Since Trotsky’s formulation may be interpreted in a patriarchal and
“promethean” fashion, let me rephrase it: The end is justified if it
leads to increasing the ability of humans to satisfy their needs through
productive interaction with nature and to the abolition of the power of
some humans over others.
Anarchists have held all sorts of views on philosophy and religion. Yet
I think that most could agree with such an approach. However, it is
extremely vague. Differences lie in the application of such
abstractions.
Trotsky’s argument may be summarized in this way: from time to time,
oppressed and exploited humans have risen up against their rulers.
Whether slaves or colonized people or the modern working class, this
resistance is justified. It may require mass violence, killing,
sacrifice and suffering, the accidental deaths of bystanders, and all
sorts of terrible things we otherwise want to avoid—but if necessary to
liberate oppressed humanity, then we should not reject such means or
despise those who use them.
He refused to equate “a slave-owner who through cunning and violence
shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence
breaks his chains….” (33) In the fight against the fascists in the
Spanish civil war of 1936-39, “Whoever accepts the end—victory over
Franco, must accept the means: civil war with its wake of horrors and
crimes.” (31) He pointed out that the Spanish anarchists waged violent
war against the fascist forces.
This does not mean that all means are acceptable. “That is
permissible…which really leads to the liberation of mankind….The great
revolutionary end spurns those base means and ways which set one part of
the working class against other parts, or attempt to make the masses
happy without their participation; or lower the faith of the masses in
themselves and their organization, replacing it with worship for the
‘leaders.’ Primarily and irreconcilably, revolutionary morality rejects
servility in relation to the bourgeoisie and haughtiness in relation to
the toilers….The liberation of the workers can come only through the
workers themselves. There is, therefore, no greater crime than deceiving
the masses,..in a word, doing what the Stalinists do.” (41—43)
As an anarchist I agree with these statements—in the abstract. Violence
and armed struggle tend to be necessary when the exploited rise up and
fight for liberation. But methods should not be used which discourage
self-organization and self-reliance by the struggling people. This is
well-argued and well-said.
But does it actually apply to the theory and practice of Lenin and
Trotsky? Such arguments justify revolution, but do they justify the
creation of a one-party police state? This is what Lenin and Trotsky
built—before Lenin died, Trotsky was exiled, and Stalin solidified his
rule. Trotsky claimed, “The October Revolution…replaced the bureaucracy
with self-government of the toilers….” (28) “…The Bolshevik Party…told
the toilers the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” (38)
These claims were false, and he had to know it.
The Leninists did not state that their one-party dictatorship was a
temporary measure due to difficult objective conditions; rather they
justified it in principle. Even when in opposition in the Soviet Union,
Trotsky and his Left Opposition had continued to support one-party rule.
Such a state meant that the workers and peasants were powerless to
develop alternate political policies, to chose among competing programs,
and to govern themselves. It was not revolution (as liberals claim), but
the party-state dictatorship which resulted in Stalinist state
capitalism. (Trotskyists sometime point out that Trotsky eventually came
to support a sort of pluralistic, multi-tendency, democracy in revived
soviets and councils—in the 1938 “Transitional Program.” This is true,
but he never wrote that Lenin and he had been wrong to adopt a one-party
system nor explained why they had made this error.)
Trotsky said that the masses of workers and peasants should not be
romanticized. Sometimes they are revolutionary, but often they are
passive, beaten down, or even reactionary. Therefore a revolutionary
minority should organize itself to fight for its program, to seek to
persuade the rest of the working people. So far, like many anarchists, I
would agree. This is in the tradition of the Bakuninists, the
platformists, the Spanish FAI, or today’s especifistas. But Trotsky
concluded that “a centralized organization of the vanguard is
indispensable….The internal democracy of a revolutionary party…must be
supplemented and bounded by centralism.” (49) Why centralism (rule by a
few from a center)? Why not a democratic federation? His view was
consistent with the highly centralized vision of socialism which Lenin
and Trotsky (and other Marxists) held—and aimed to create in Russia.
Their aim was a centralized economy managed by a centralized state
controlled by a centralized party.
Trotsky went on: “…If the dictatorship of the proletariat means anything
at all, then it means that the vanguard of the class is armed with the
resources of the state in order to repel dangers, including those
emanating from the backward layers of the proletariat itself.” (My
emphasis; 49) The "backward layers" are those workers who do not agree
with the party. This is not the rule of the working class but the
dictatorship of a minority (the vanguard party) over the proletariat—and
everyone else. Presumably the “vanguard of the class” has the right to
use a state to dominate everyone because it alone knows the Truth.
Dewey and Trotsky shared many values as well as underlying philosophical
premises. From an anarchist perspective, in some ways Dewey was more
radical than Trotsky. Dewey rejected state socialism in favor of British
guild socialism (a reformist version of anarcho-syndicalism). To
Trotsky, democracy was only instrumental. “For a Marxist, the question
has always been: democracy for what? for which program?” (49) This fit
with the centralized vision of socialism held by the Leninists. For
Dewey, radical democracy was a central value. He believed the liberation
of humanity was not possible without individual participation in
collective decision-making, through local communities, voluntary
associations, and workers’ self-managed industries. This was more than a
form of state; it was “democracy as a way of life.” (In my view, anarchy
would be participatory democracy without a state.)
But Dewey (wrongly, I believe) objected to Trotsky’s belief in the class
struggle and revolution. Surely, Dewey felt, each situation should be
examined in its concrete reality, on its own merits, rather than
assuming that revolution was generally needed. Sometimes it was but
often it was not. To assume otherwise, as Trotsky did, was to abandon
the method of “intelligence” for that of “force,” Dewey held. Instead,
he charged, Trotsky arbitrarily and dogmatically insisted on the class
struggle and revolution as absolutes.
“One would expect, then, that with the idea of the liberation of mankind
as the end-in-view, there would be an examination of all means that are
likely to attain this end without any fixed preconception as to what
they must be, and that every suggested means would be weighed and judged
on the express ground of the consequences it is likely to produce. But
this is not the course adopted in Mr. Trotsky’s further discussion.”
(57)
This criticism would apply just as much to any revolutionary socialist
as to Trotsky, such as revolutionary anarchist-socialists or
anti-statist/libertarian Marxists. It overlooks the enormous amount of
experience which Marxists and anarchists have had with revolutions and
near-revolutions. Marx as well as Bakunin lived through the European
revolution of 1848 and the Paris Commune of 1871—and wrote about them.
Kropotkin wrote a history of the French Revolution. Trotsky himself was
a leader of the Russian Revolution and author of a major history of the
revolution. He also studied and wrote about revolutionary events in
Germany, China, and Spain, among other places. There is a library of
anarchist writings on both the Russian and Spanish revolutions.
These revolutionary anarchists and Marxists came to the conclusion that
even the most “democratic” capitalist class will not give up its wealth
and power without a fight, and that the capitalist state, which is its
main defense, has to be overthrown and dismantled. If capitalism is to
be replaced. Even in formal “democracies,” forceful revolution will
become necessary. (This is not a question in itself of how much violence
is necessary, which does depend on circumstances.)
It is possible to argue that these theorists have been mistaken in their
conclusions—but not to deny that their generalizations were developed on
the basis of a great deal of experience and experimentation. A focus on
the failures of Leninism—and its failure has been pretty clear—can lead
to overlooking the history of “democratic socialism,” with its peaceful,
gradual, electoral strategies. These strategies have repeatedly led to
defeat, electoral losses, the ascension of neoliberalism, the rise of
fascism, and the discrediting of socialism.
Still, Dewey has a point when he critiques Trotsky for his absolutist
thinking, expressed most clearly in his determinist confidence in the
inevitability of socialism. Trotsky wrote of “That inner dialectic which
until now has appeared in a succession of determined stages in all
revolutions….The inevitability under certain historic conditions of the
Soviet Thermidor [Stalinist counterrevolution—WP}….The inevitability of
the downfall of bourgeois democracy and its morality.” (23)
Lenin and Trotsky and their comrades thought that they could be
absolutely certain about the future—about their knowledge of the Truth.
Above all else, this justified—to themselves at least—the rule of a
righteous minority over the rest of the workers, including the “backward
layers of the proletariat.” (I think that this belief, like their
centralism, was rooted in aspects of Marx’s Marxism.)
Today however it would be hard to defend the idea that it is certain
that socialist revolution will happen—inevitably— before ecological
catastrophe or nuclear war. As Trotsky’s passage also states, we live
“in a world where only change is invariable.” (23)
Further, “inevitability” implies that people cannot really chose
socialism as a free decision; therefore revolution, like all history, is
not something which people do, but which happens to them. This is
different from the probabilistic analysis that certain forces are
pushing the oppressed toward socialist revolution and other forces are
resisting it.
Trotsky asserted that his comrades “know how to swim against the current
in the deep conviction that the new historic flood will carry them to
the other shore.” (43) There probably will be “a new historic flood” (a
revolutionary movement) but it may or may not carry us “to the other
shore” (socialism). We have to chose whether or not to risk the swim.
Dewey appears to go in the other direction, toward indeterminism. Not as
a matter of his formal theory, but he wrote as if each revolutionary
situation will be unique—there is little or nothing to be learned from
previous revolutions. Supposedly there is no reason to expect conditions
to repeat themselves. Yet, time and again rebellions have been defeated
due to the resistance of the ruling class which mobilized the forces of
its state. Repeatedly the ruling rich have organized fascist gangs,
motivated the military to overthrow civilian governments, cancelled
elections, sabotaged the economy, and set up dictatorships—until the
working class and others have been beaten down. But liberals think that
perhaps this time things will be different. Perhaps this time the
capitalist class will permit itself to be “democratically” voted out of
its wealth, standing, and power. Or so Dewey seems to have thought (and
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez believe today).
More generally, indeterminism is just as bad as a hard determinism. We
are not free unless we can make choices. Choices are not real unless we
can say with reasonable probability what the consequences of different
acts are likely to be. We can predict with reasonable accuracy the
increasing danger of global climate change or economic collapse. That is
why revolution should be chosen. But suppose it were more likely that
industrial capitalism will right itself and return to an era of
prosperity, peace, and stability. Then it would be wrong to advocate
revolution, with its suffering and dangers. Unfortunately, the first,
threatening, future is more probable. A refusal to generalize from past
experience is not “intelligence,” it is willful blindness.
Other issues were raised in the pamphlet, many of which were just
mentioned without discussion. This included disputes between Trotsky and
the anarchists. He mentioned, in passing, “Kronstadt and Makhno,” (34)
without expanding on them. Both refer to examples of Bolshevik treachery
and murderous repression, which anarchists have condemned and Trotsky
had defended.
Trotsky also pointed out that, during their civil war of the thirties,
Spanish anarchists were in a coalition government together with
reformist socialists, Stalinists, and pro-capitalist parties—the
“Popular Front.” In my opinion, the main anarchist organizations (the
syndicalist union federation and the FAI) betrayed their principles in
doing this and passed up the opportunity to make a revolution. As
Trotsky wrote, they subordinated the revolution to “the salvaging of
this very same bourgeois democracy which prepared fascism’s success.”
(27)
In this case, Trotsky’s criticism was correct—but so was that of a
minority of revolutionary anarchists who also condemned this betrayal,
such as the Friends of Durruti Group. Anyway, this does not justify
Lenin and Trotsky’s policies in the Russian Revolution.
In the second, follow-up, essay, Trotsky makes a vicious and unprovoked
attack on Victor Serge, who had translated the first essay. A former
comrade of Trotsky’s, he had gone from anarchism to Leninism and had
supported Trotsky’s anti-Stalinist opposition. Trotsky and he broke over
various issues, including Serge’s (mistaken) support of the
participation in the Spanish Popular Front of the anarchists and the
POUM (a revolutionary party). The first essay had been published in
French with an anonymous “prospectus.” This summary had distorted and
criticized Trotsky’s views. Trotsky drew the conclusion that this had
been done by Serge. Serge denied any knowledge of the prospectus.
Trotsky still furiously denounced him in much of this supplementary
essay. He accused Serge of still being influenced by anarchism and not
seeing the need for the centralized party. In fact, Serge was no longer
an anarchist, but Trotsky’s attack on him was grossly unfair and
irrational. It reflected his authoritarianism.
Like the anarchists, Trotsky’s Marxist goal was a classless,
cooperative, self-managed society—without a state. Similarly, Dewey
wanted a thoroughly democratic system, organized through cooperative
intelligence, with only a minimum of coercion, if any. But both Marxists
and radical-liberals thought that such a freely cooperative society
could be won by using the state—which is a bureaucratic-military elite
institution standing over the rest of the population. Either through
elections (Dewey) or revolutions (Trotsky), the state would be the tool
of the oppressed to transform capitalism into a liberated system.
But means and ends are intertwined. A free society cannot be won through
authoritarian means. No doubt the ruling class would have to be disarmed
and its institutions dismantled, over its resistance. However the means
for doing this is not a centralized minority dictatorship but the
self-organization of the mass of working people and oppressed. Nor can
the existing state be used, through elections, to act against the
interests of the class which created it in its own image. Only through
struggle from below, with self-organization through federated workplace
councils and neighborhood assemblies, can the working people free
themselves.
On an abstract level, anarchists may agree with Trotsky and Dewey on the
interdependence of means and ends in political struggle. In Dewey’s
terms, “The liberation of mankind is the end to be striven for. In any
legitimate sense of ‘moral,’ it is a moral end.” (59) Means must be used
which are productive of this end. Anarchists can further agree with
Trotsky on the justification of the exploited and oppressed people of
the world revolting against their domination and using force and
violence to free themselves. A great deal of historical experience has
demonstrated that the revolution of the working class and all oppressed
is the only practical means of achieving human liberation.
But this must only include methods which encourage self-reliance and
self-consciousness for the working people. It must not, in Trotsky’s
phrasing, “attempt to make the masses happy without their
participation,” because “the liberation of the workers can come only
through the workers themselves.” Leninism did result in Stalinism, not
because it had a revolution but because, believing that they knew the
final Truth and had a highly centralized vision of socialism, they
established a dictatorship of their party over the working people. The
liberation of humanity means a self-managed, radically democratic,
freely cooperative society, not the dictatorship of an enlightened few.
References
Price, Wayne (2015). “Anarchism and the Philosophy of Pragmatism.”
Trotsky, Leon; Dewey, John; & Novack, George. (1966). Their morals and
ours; Marxist versus liberal views on morality; Four essays. NY: Merit
Publishers.