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Why make such a philistine
attack on Alfred Rosmer's book?
A letter to Socialist Review and John Molyneux
By Bob Gould
My excitement and interest were raised by a brief "review" by
John Molyneux in Socialist Review of the new book, Trotsky
and the Origins of Trotskyism by Alfred Rosmer and other early Left
Oppositionists and Trotskyists.
As an old Trotskyist, and also as a bookselling agitator, the
idea
that a new book of original material from Alfred Rosmer and others on
the origins of the Trotskyist movement excited me greatly. What did not
excite me, was the intellectually mean-spirited, bizarre character of
the Molyneux "review".
Molyneux is a professional academic and he echoes the
deliberate
philistinism of many academics, and the marketplace driven philistinism
of many publishers, in a rather revealing remark:
So the question inevitably arises, what is added by this latest volume?
The answer, sadly, is very little.
What a dopey thing for someone, who himself writes extensively
on
the history of Trotskyism to say about a book of original material from
Alfred Rosmer and others. We are constantly told by bourgeois
publishers, that many serious books about history, politics, economics
etc, are "unpublishable" because the marketplace is already "too
crowded", and it is pretty stupid for a Marxist to echo those
market-driven sentiments of the ruling class, who in fact have a vested
interest in dumbing us all down, and confining our reading to a few
texts chosen primarily by them.
As an aside, I have made my career, such as it is, as a
bookseller,
mainly secondhand and remainder, specialising, as one of my main
sidelines, in the not particularly profitable area of Marxist,
socialist, labour history, and Trotskyist literature of all sorts,
trying to maintain a substantial range in my shop so that the younger
generation can get stimulus and understanding, from the Marxist theory,
labour history, and political argument and conflict in all this
revolutionary literature.
In my view, political clarity, and the elaboration of an
immediate
perspective for the socialist movement can only come from, in the first
instance, a detailed, thorough and businesslike examination of current
objective circumstances and the relationship of class forces, but this
must be informed by the kind of dialectical clash of ideas generated by
a serious overview of the literature about Marxist theory and the
history of the labour and Marxist movements.
I am reminded that, in an earlier, less sectarian, more Luxemburgist
phase of its development, the IS Tendency published another useful
Rosmer book, Lenin's Moscow in a Pluto Press edition. A reprint
of that book is well overdue.
Molyneux asserts, in an unnecessarily unctuous way:
There is now a vast amount of literature on the subject of this
book. First and foremost there are Trotsky's own brilliant and
voluminous writings, then Isaac Deutscher's mighty Prophet
trilogy, Tony Cliff's four-volume political study, works by Victor
Serge and Natalia Trotsky, Pierre Broue, Ernest Mandel, Duncan Hallas
and many lesser figures.
Well, the above is both true and not true. It is true in the
sense
that many of those books have been published (mostly in the past),
although I am not aware yet of any English translation, for instance,
of Pierre Broue's biography of Trotsky. It is untrue, in the sense that
many of them are now out of print inaccessable, because of the
ruthless, immediate turnover-driven nature of the publishing and
bookselling game, which is the book part of the capitalist cultural
marketplace.
This dumbing down function (particularly in relation to
Marxism and
the workers' movement) of the limits set by the current capitalist
cultural market is counteracted a bit by the secondhand book business,
and by the publishing activities of most socialist groups, which keep
their favourite texts in print.
The weakness of the publishing and bookselling practices of
most
socialist groups is that they tend to encourage their members only to
read their own favoured books, and positively discourage them from
reading other things, particularly the texts of rival groupings, or
books that undermine or challenge some of the shibboleths of their own
organisation. (Molyneux's "review" is predictable in this respect.)
The heartening fact is, that in the English speaking world, if
you
add together the publishing activities of all the formations in the
Trotskyist tradition, large and small, a considerable range of the
historical literature of the movement is actually in print. However,
the vagaries of international currency transactions, etc, make many
books, accessible in one country, too expensive in another, and so on.
This problem is compounded by the sectarian bookselling
behaviour of
the various groups, which tend only to promote favoured books and the
Marxist classics, and ignore others. Taking all these factors into
account, Molyneux's philistinism is offensive in terms of the vital,
but seriously overdue, question of developing widespread discussion
throughout the socialist movement, not just occasional bilateral
discussions between the "leaderships" of socialist groups.
It is obvious that Molyneux's objection to the Rosmer book is
mainly political, and is expressed in these lines:
It may be that the editor, Al Richardson, and publishers
have an implicit political agenda here - emphasising the role and
culpability of Zinoviev and his regime in the Comintern in paving the
way for Stalin, and noting the link between Zinoviev and James P.
Cannon, the US Trotskyist leader. If this is the case it seems to me
this is a fairly obscure argument to be having at the moment.
John Molyneux's objection to having at the moment a serious
historical discussion on the role played by the Zinoviev regime in the
Comintern in the lead up to Stalinisation, is anything but obscure to
anyone with even half a brain, who observes developments in the world
Trotskyist movement.
As we speak. Molyneux's own organisation, the IS Tendency, has
recently expelled its second largest organisation, the US ISO, with
minimal political discussion, and over the past few years has conducted
a series of purges in its organisations in a number of countries.
The Militant Tendency internationally has also expelled a
number of
organisations and groups, with minimal discussion. In both these
instances, these expulsions have been justified by the "necessity" of
laying down an "international perspective", good for all countries,
coming from the "leadership" in the "centre".
The Australian Democratic Socialist Party, with the leadership
of
which the leadership of the IS International Tendency is having serious
discussions, have a James P. Cannon, Zinoviev, ultra-"Leninist" kind of
internal party regime, in their own extremely centralised organisation.
And so it goes.
In this context, publication of a book of Alfred Rosmer's
reminiscences of the early Trotskyist movement, along with the
Souvarine et al material about the early Comintern, seems to me to be a
bold publishing initiative of the most important sort, and I am
currently making arrangements to get copies of the book.
My thanks to Molyneux and Socialist Review for drawing
my
attention to its existence. (I attach, for your interest, our 500 title
labour movement and labour history booklist, to which I intend to add
the Rosmer book.)
March 18, 2002
Permanent Debate
Trotsky and the origins of Trotskyism, Alfred Rosmer
A review, Socialist Review, February 2002
Publisher: Francis
Boutle
By John Molyneaux
There is now a vast amount of literature on the subject of
this
book. First and foremost there are Trotsky's own brilliant and
voluminous writings, then Isaac Deutscher's mighty Prophet trilogy,
Tony Cliff's four-volume political study, works by Victor Serge and
Natalia Trotsky, Pierre Broue, Ernest Mandel, Duncan Hallas and many
lesser figures.
So the question inevitably arises, what is added by this
latest
volume? The answer, sadly, is very little. In itself the book has
certain things to recommend it, most obviously that much of it - the
best part - is written by Alfred Rosmer, a significant and noble figure
in the history of Trotskyism.
Rosmer writes on the basis of extensive first-hand knowledge
of the
events and deep engagement in the problems of the workers' movement,
with refreshing candour and clarity. In the third part of the book
Rosmer provides a brief and lucid account of Trotsky's last years,
using Trotsky's own words where he can. But it still doesn't mean that
it has anything new to say, either factually or by way of analysis.
Also, as an introductory text this book as a serious defect.
Its
opening chapters consist of documents dealing with the early years of
the French Communist Party by Emile Fabrol, Antoine Chavez and Boris
Souvarine, who are much lesser figures than Rosmer and do not write
half as well. Moreover, these chapters give the book a lopsided
character and prevent it being any kind of balanced overview of the
origins of Trotskyism.
It may be that the editor, Al Richardson, and publishers have
an
implicit political agenda here - emphasising the role and culpability
of Zinoviev and his regime in the Comintern for paving the way for
Stalin, and noting the link between Zinoviev and James P. Cannon, the
US Trotskyist leader.
If this is the case it seems to me that this is a fairly
obscure
argument to be having at the moment. Although there may be some truth
in this, it can easily be exaggerated to the point where organisational
and personal factors are stressed at the expense of the fundamental
objective factors conditioning the rise of Stalinism such as the defeat
of the international revolution, the isolation of the Soviet Union and
the weakness and destruction of the Russian proletariat.
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