[lbo-talk] liberals & fear

Michael Pugliese michael.098762001 at gmail.com
Sun Sep 11 09:38:50 PDT 2005


Cf. a similiar earlier de-radicalizing current. Partisan Review had a series on, "The New Failure of Nerve." See, "A Partisan Century, " ed. by Kurzweil.

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/goldman/1943/07/hook.htm
>From Fourth International, Vol.4 No.7, July 1943, pp.212-215.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O'Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).

When Sidney Hook attributes failure of nerve to all those who, overwhelmed by the unexpectedness and hideousness of the war, retreat into the realm of religion and mysticism, he is on solid ground and makes out a very good case. (See his articles in the last three numbers of Partisan Review.) In every period of great upheaval and violence many persons in the general progressive movement give up the struggle for a better world as utterly hopeless and find solace in the abstractions of religion and metaphysics. Insofar as Hook attacks all forms of religious belief and insists on the use of reason and scientific method no thinking person can have any quarrel with him. But Hook then goes on, in the same articles, to create an amalgam by including the Trotskyists among those who have lost their nerve when confronted by the problems of the war. In doing so he has not only done violence to common sense but, one is tempted to say, he is actually attempting to forestall the accusation that he himself has lost his nerve. He has not taken refuge in religion, but he has found peace and safety in supporting the war.

It is difficult to conceive how, even in the remotest sense, failure of nerve can be ascribed to the Trotskyists, who worked out a basic theory before the war, anticipating all the arguments presented by the supporters of the war, and remained firm in their convictions after the outbreak of the war. Failure of nerve is a term appropriate to those who, because of the unexpected, change their ideas, but is hardly applicable to those who predict an event and, when it occurs, follow the theory which they had formulated beforehand. Whatever the Trotskyists and their theory could be accused of, they can hardly be accused of a failure of nerve.

Three things (among many others) can be said about those whose nerve failed them when the war came. They changed their ideas about the war; they support it; they face no possible prosecution at the hands of the government. All three are applicable to both Hook and the religionists and not one is applicable to the Trotskyists.

But let us dispense with this terminological argument and proceed to the main issue – whether Hook or the Trotskyists are correct in their respective positions on the war.

Hook's False Description of Our Stand

To help him in his argument Hook presents a completely incorrect picture of the Trotskyist position. According to him the Trotskyists consider the war of "no concern to socialists"; believe that Roosevelt and Hitler "should be fought at the same time"; "that Roosevelt should be fought first because Lenin taught that the main enemy of the working class is its own government." What Hook does is to take some isolated phrases found in revolutionary socialist literature and present them as the systematic position of the Trotskyists on the war.

The real position of the Trotskyists can be summarized as follows: no support to any power fighting the war for imperialist purposes; continuation of the struggle for socialism during the war. Essentially that was Lenin and Trotsky's position during the First World War. It is true that in addition, other ideas and slogans were advanced and discussed during the First World War which leftist sectarians still insist upon placing at the center of a revolutionary program. These leftists do not understand that certain ideas and phrases were valuable during the First World War because they served the purpose of sharpening the cleavage between reformist and revolutionary socialists and of educating revolutionary cadres in intransigeance after the unexpected political collapse of the Second International. But these ideas were not and could not be part of the essential position of the revolutionary Marxists towards imperialist war. For example, there is no justification for giving the phrase "revolutionary defeatism" a meaning separate and apart from the general Marxist attitude towards the war. Since revolutionary socialists never believed in helping an enemy government defeat their own government, the expression "revolutionary defeatism" can be correctly understood only in the sense of continuing the revolutionary struggle for socialism during the war. Likewise the slogan "the main enemy is at home" is only another way of saying that so long as the proletariat does not possess state power it has no chance to struggle for its own interests against any foreign oppressor and must necessarily confine its efforts against the capitalist enemy at home. The basic idea of the revolutionary Marxist position towards an imperialist war is: no class peace during a reactionary war.

Hook is distorting our position when he says that the war is of no concern to the Trotskyists. Nor is it correct to say that the Trotskyists are "neutral." They do not stand aside and view the war with indifference. They conceive their duty to be to educate the masses to the real nature of the war, to help them in their struggles against the capitalists during the war and to prepare them to take governmental power in order to abolish war and fascism. This is neither indifference nor neutrality.

Correctly understood, the position of the Trotskyists on the war makes completely irrelevant such a question, raised by Hook, as whether the Trotskyists are willing to permit Hitler to invade England without lifting a finger to oppose him. Non-support does not mean that the Trotskyists, any more than others, can refrain from working or fighting. So long as we Trotskyists are supported only by a minority of the population there is nothing for us to do except to submit in action to the position accepted by the majority of the population. Nor can our position of non-support directly affect the military outcome of the struggle. Either the working class comes to power under the leadership of the Trotskyists, in which case the war against Hitler is immediately transformed into a war for socialism against capitalism, or the working class remains subject to the capitalists and then the Trotskyists have no alternative other than to work and fight as other workers have to do.

The Dilemma Which Faces Hook

The attitude of the Trotskyists may have an indirect effect on the military struggle only in the sense that they defend the right of the workers to strike against the employers for higher wages and better conditions. Hook does not say whether he supports or condemns strikes. If he carries his support of the war to a logical conclusion he should do what the Stalinists and other reformists supporting the war do: condemn the strike of the miners.

If, on the other hand, he does not permit his logic to interfere with his sympathies for the workers, and he supports the strike of the miners, then he is doing just as much to "hamper the war effort" as the Trotskyists who do not support the war. It may be said that John L. Lewis supports the war but still calls the miners out on strike. But John L. Lewis is not a logician. Logic demands that he who supports the war should oppose any continuation of the class struggle because it may affect the military outcome of the struggle.

The central question is whether one believes in continuing the struggle for socialism during the war. Hook may claim that, although he supports the war, he still believes in continuing the struggle for socialism. He favors an independent Labor party and certain economic demands for the workers. But he does not treat the question of how the workers shall fight for their demands. The strike weapon remains the primary means of achieving the economic demands of the workers, and Hook evades this crucial question.

Perhaps Hook will claim that, if the opportunity is afforded during the war, he will favor the taking of power by the working masses. But, if the majority of the people want to establish a socialist government during the war, Hook must reckon with the overwhelming probability that the capitalists will resist the attempt of the workers to take power. A conflict will ensue which cannot fail to affect the outcome of the military struggle. <SNIP>



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