[Restrictions of space have prevented me from taking up all [the points raised in the reply to my original article, and I have concentrated in this] [illegible] weekly article. I have concentrated, therefore, on what appear [to me to be the most important theoretical and political questions raised in this] [illegible]. [I should like to thank the] IMG for giving me this opportunity to reply and look forward to continuing the debate in the future. — G.R.]
Introduction
In December 1976 Red Weekly devoted its monthly 'Battle of Ideas' supplement to a reply by Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn to an article of mine — 'The Politics of the IMG — Aspects of a Critique' — which had been published by Marxism Today in February 1976. The opening of a serious discussion on the vital and complex issue of revolutionary strategy between Communists, Trotskyists, and others on the left is long overdue. Such a discussion will be of enormous value so long as it avoids the caricature, slander and cheap demagogy which has for so long bedevilled debates on the left. The critical nature of the national and international conjuncture in which the left finds itself at present underlines the urgency of an honest and open discussion through which clarity on the question of strategy can be achieved. The publication recently of a new draft of the Communist Party's programme, The British Road to Socialism, makes this and other such discussions particularly important. For all the abuse that has been heaped upon it, The British Road to Socialism remains the only truly strategic document available to the left as a whole for public comment and discussion, and as such it will no doubt continue to be the axis around which left discussion on the problems of strategy revolves.
Theory and Politics in Trotskyism
In their reply Ali and Blackburn correctly assert that my critique of Trotskyist politics is, above all, rooted in a criticism of the theoretical tradition of Trotskyism. Such recognition, however, is not matched by any sustained attempt to confront that criticism or to develop an alternative account of that tradition. Blackburn and Ali leap over the question of theory and for it substitute what, in their view, are the key elements of the Trotskyist political tradition. The result is that neither is adequately dealt with, for any attempt to analyse and assess the political tradition of Trotskyism outside its theoretical content is, inevitably, forlorn. To say this is not to fall into the reductionist trap of [a form] of theoreticism, that is, viewing political practices as expressions of theoretical concepts, but is to affirm the necessity of mapping out the interconnections between the two spheres. Ali and Blackburn's failure in this respect pervades the whole of their enterprise. This point made, I would, however, admit that my original article does not provide an ideal point of departure for such an undertaking on their part, being wanting in some respects in clarity and rigour both in structure and content. A recapitulation and development of my original arguments is therefore necessary.
Marxism is nothing if it is not a creative science constantly developing, renewing, and transforming itself. In this respect the last decade or so has formed a particularly intense period for Marxists with the proliferation of new and diverse theories, approaches, and ideas that has occurred. Running through this novelty and diversity, encompassing all but the most neanderthal elements within Marxism, there has been a thread of unity: the project of ridding Marxism of economic determinism — the form that has predominated throughout most of its history. Such a project has been crucial both in relation to its liberating effect on Marxist theory and in its implications for revolutionary political practice.
What has all this got to do with Trotskyism? Everything, for the Trotskyist theoretical tradition constitutes a species of economic determinism. Indeed, to give credit where credit is due, within the broader tradition (more precisely sub-tradition) of which Trotskyism forms a part, Trotsky himself was the representative par excellence of that species. Chris Arthur, reviewing Geoff Hodgson's book Trotsky and Fatalistic Marxism in International (Vol.3. No.3), finds it hard to credit Trotskyism with 'fatalism' given its characteristic of excessive voluntarism. A most telling point, it would seem, until we consider that determinism within Marxism has always been of the conditional variety. As, for example, even in the case of Plekhanov, who wrote: 'Social Democracy considers historical development from the [point of view of each necessary] link in the chain of those necessary conditions which, by [being] combined, make the triumph of socialism inevitable. A necessary link cannot be superfluous. If it were suppressed, it would shatter the whole chain of events.'
Plekhanov expresses a view common to all the theorists of Second International Marxism. Whereas for them the 'necessary conditions' came eventually to be constituted by political practices of the passivist type, in Trotskyism voluntarism forms the link in the deterministic causal chain and, concomitantly, the consequences of a 'break' in the chain are seen as catastrophic in content ('Socialism or Barbarism'). In the one case a 'passive fatalism' dominates; in the other [that which] Hodgson describes [as] Trotsky's position — a 'modern form of the old mechanicism .... masked by the general theory of permanent revolution ....'. The economic determinist co-ordinates of Trotsky's thought find full expression in his concept of the epoch, which he defines in the following passage: 'The revolutionary character of the epoch does not lie in that it [permits the accomplishment] of the revolution .... at every given moment. Its revolutionary character consists in profound and sharp fluctuations and abrupt and frequent transitions from an immediately revolutionary situation; in other words such as enable the CP to strive for power.'
What are we to make of such a statement? To argue that it is an empirical generalisation derived from observation, or that it constitutes a subjectivist excess, is to denigrate Trotsky's thought. In fact it arises out of a particular conception of the relation between economics and politics (more precisely, the moment of class consciousness within politics) in the 'epoch of capitalist decline'. That relation is [one in which the economic determines the political]. [illegible] 'In the [most] recent [imperialist] stage the dialectics of economics were [expressed] directly in politics.' Or again: 'Politics is the [most concentrated expression of economics]... [illegible] crises-revolutionary upsurges. And since the imperialist epoch is characterised by the exhaustion of capitalism's capacity to expand the productive forces, the system is periodically beset by intense economic crises which, in the words of Mandel, 'must periodically lead to revolutionary situations' (original emphasis!).
Here also is a vision of the movement of the masses mirroring the explosion of contradictions at the economic level: 'In all countries the proletariat is racked by deep disquiet. The multi-millioned masses again and again enter the road of revolution.' Why? Because .... 'The orientation of the masses is determined first by the objective conditions of decaying capitalism ....'
It is within this schema that we can locate one of the two characteristic expressions of Trotskyist voluntarism — vanguardism, that is, an overestimation of the state of class consciousness and the stage reached in the struggle and [under]estimation of the terrain that has yet to be conquered by the working class and its allies. The other component of Trotskyist voluntarism is, of course, leadership reductionism — [the] historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of [revolutionary] leadership. This is [the] component which constitutes [the] hallmark of Trotskyism. [The] economic determin[ism is] [illegible] continuous [but the causal chain in] politics is discontinuous by way of time ('Politics considered as a mass historical force always lags behind economics') and blockages ('The chief obstacle in the path of transforming the pre-revolutionary into a revolutionary stage is the opportunist character of the proletarian leadership'). The role of leadership (the 'Revolutionary Party') is thus to make good the lags and clear away the obstacles. Let us take the question of political consciousness and view, by analogy, [the] stages of development in terms of progress up the rungs of a ladder. [It requires the appropriate] economic circumstances to climb up the ladder to the very top rungs (a 'revolutionary situation'). In a similar vein, Mandel recalls Trotsky's metaphor of steam (the masses in revolutionary movement) and a piston (the party). The piston compresses the steam at the decisive moment. Little wonder that for Trotsky the question of the party was the 'question of questions'. Thus it is apparent that Trotsky's economic determinism leads to a political problematic defined by the notion of preparing for the revolution of which the most important aspect is the forging of the instrument of the revolution, the party.
Clearly this schema contains elements of truth, for capitalism is periodically rent by economic, social and political crises, reformist leaders do obstruct the revolutionary process, and revolutionary leadership is crucial. However, the reductionist content of the framework within which problems such as these are posed impedes rather than facilitates analysis, distorts rather than clarifies. Within this model, for example, the concept of ideology as a mediating level (to take one instance) between the economic and political finds no place. This is no academic question, for its [absence] [illegible] the task of developing appropriate modes of political intervention. The notion of revolutionary situations arising automatically out of [economic crises] prohibits [an examination] of how to [create] a revolutionary situation. In other words, [it precludes the development] of a strategy for the preparation of revolution rather than one of preparing for the revolution. The political consequence of the latter is the condemnation of revolutionaries to the role of perpetual opposition within capitalism.
Gramsci
Armed with this preliminary consideration of the theoretical backdrop to the Trotskyist political tradition, we can now get down to cases. Ali and Blackburn object to my counterposing Gramsci against Trotsky, and after stressing the difficulties involved in assessing either they go on to suggest a major point of convergence in their political thought which I am accused of ignoring. Clearly there are problems in assessing Gramsci and Trotsky, more so in the [former since however] cryptic Gramsci's writings may be, there is one point on which they are crystal clear and on which all commentators agree: Gramsci made a decisive break with the deterministic Marxisms of the Second and Third Internationals. Trotsky, as we noted above, made no such break; he merely shifted the deterministic co-ordinates of the passivist Second International tradition to his own brand of catastrophism within the tradition of the Third International. It is this gulf which separates Gramsci from Trotsky. We can illustrate this by reference to the role of economic crises in the strategic thought of each. For Gramsci, economic crises created 'more favourable ground' for revolutionary intervention. For Trotsky, as we have seen, they play the role of providing the decisive ground for revolutionary intervention, indeed Trotsky's strategic thought holds out no effective solutions without the ground they provide. The difference is not accidental but arises from the circumstance of Gramsci's break with economic determinism, which opened the way for him to investigate those structures in capitalist society which buffer the effects of economic incursions in the form of crises and the like.
What of this convergence in the political thought of Gramsci and Trotsky? According to Ali and Blackburn, 'for both, a crucial defining feature of governments in the bourgeois democratic states is that they rest on the consent of the masses ....' Agreed. But to say this is not to say very much, for it would be difficult to find any major figure in the history of the international revolutionary movement who did not accept this truism. The crucial task is the identification of the mechanisms of production of this consent and thereby enable a strategy to be devised by which this consent to the capitalist order can be broken, a consent for a new social order be established, and on this basis a working class power strong enough to carry through the revolutionary process created. In relation to this problem Ali and Blackburn go on to suggest a complementarity between Gramsci and Trotsky, the one concentrating on the ideological and cultural reproduction of consent, the other on the political forms that the expression of this consent assumes in bourgeois democratic states. For Trotsky the primary 'political form' involved is the role of the reformist workers parties in holding the working class in check. In truth the complementarity is more apparent than real, for Trotsky's concern with the role of social democracy appertains to an object wholly different from that of Gramsci — that is, not as a mechanism of consent but as an obstacle in the path of the revolution. Hence, though Trotsky may furnish us with 'essential insights' into the operation of the bourgeois democratic system, there is a notable absence in his thought of any real attempt to constitute it as a determinate object of analysis. Any search for such in his collected writings on the major bourgeois democracies will be in vain.
A careful reading of those works reveals why this is so. Trotsky's analytical object throughout these writings is with the conjuncture, whether it be France 1936, Britain of the General Strike, or Germany in the prelude to fascism. In all of these cases the conjuncture is characterised as revolutionary or pre-revolutionary. What happens is that the bourgeois democratic system as an object of analysis is dissolved into an analysis of the conjuncture until all that [remains] is an aspect of that system, namely, the role of the social democratic leaders. Which leads me to the general point that the Trotskyist political tradition is prefigured by the couplet epoch-conjuncture; in other words, the epoch is viewed as a series of revolutionary conjunctures and the object of political analysis is these conjunctures and the modes of political intervention within them. Omitted here is any concept of the strategic — the link between epoch and conjuncture and between conjunctures themselves. What do we mean by this? Precisely, the delineation of the strategic problems of taking power and making a transition to socialism in, for example, advanced capitalist societies of the [West — this requires an] appropriate analysis, different from that involved in analysing the conjuncture, asking, for example, different questions such as what is the nature of ruling class power, etc. Without it you not only end up with no strategy but with no real knowledge of how to intervene in particular conjunctures and how to link those interventions with a precise strategic line of advance. You end up, as in the case of the IMG, moving from conjunctural posture to conjunctural posture, now student [power] now the 'new' thinking, now the general strike, and, finally, the present position, a class struggle tendency in the labour movement. Whither the IMG? Whatever criticism one might make of the Communist Party line over the past period, it at least has had the merit of consistency — a consistency based on the fact that it has got a strategy.
These last considerations on Trotskyist politics do not apply to Gramsci. Gramsci, unlike Trotsky, was a genuine strategic thinker, and in his work we can discern elements of a strategic line appropriate to the conditions of advanced capitalist societies. In my original article I sought not to appropriate Gramsci's political legacy — how could I, for it has yet to be constituted — but to contrast certain of his strategic ideas (war of position, counter-hegemony, national road) and contrast these to Trotskyist conceptions and to demonstrate the superiority of the former over the latter.
However, as Perry Anderson has recently pointed out, Gramsci shares with Trotsky the absence of any consideration [of bourgeois democracy as the] linchpin of Western capitalism. Ali and Blackburn also [charge that the approach taken in the article 'evades the real] problems of Marxist strategy in a bourgeois democracy'. The omission was in part a consequence of the fact that my critique was never intended to be more than a partial one, and in part a consequence of what I was dealing with, that is, Trotskyism, which as we have seen is also guilty of such an omission. The clue to my approach on this question is contained in Ali and Blackburn's [description] of the British Road as 'fundamentally orthodox'. For what is the British Road to Socialism if not an attempt to grapple with the problem of [socialist revolution] within a [bourgeois democracy]? Far from representing a 'cultural reformism' (in my opinion [the British Road is focused] firmly on state power and on the problems of taking [state] power located in a bourgeois democratic framework. In this respect the unifying concept of the British Road of a 'democratic road to socialism' is highly significant. It will prove instructive to compare and contrast the approach taken by the Communist Party with that of Blackburn and Ali.
Bourgeois Democracy and Proletarian Revolution
[For the CP], the strategy for a socialist revolution [involves] the working class and its allies appropriating the system of bourgeois democracy for itself. The instrument of this strategy is the system's own petard — democracy. Hence the notion, for example, of the democratic transformation of Parliament into an institution of working class power. Contained within this strategy is also a strategy of dealing with the state [apparatus], for the concept of democratic transformation extends to many of its key sectors — the civil service, for example. In a sense what is proposed here is the [progressive] incorporation of those sections of the State [amenable to it] into the system of bourgeois democracy, which is itself the site of mass struggles for democratisation by the working class. Furthermore, such a strategy creates the conditions for a successful hegemonic struggle — the importance of which [Blackburn] and Ali [themselves recognise in] their [advocacy] of [the transformation] of civil society or, as Anderson argues, bourgeois democracy 'constitutes the formal framework of all other ideological mechanisms of the ruling class. It provides the general code in which every [specific message is elsewhere transmitted'. Far from] advocating, as Blackburn and Ali suggest I do, a self-sufficient hegemonic project which renders 'revolutionary politics' redundant, I am arguing for a strategy which can unify political and ideological struggle.
As I understand it, Ali and Blackburn's alternative to the above approach is as follows. Bourgeois democracy contains within it elements of proletarian democracy. The task of revolutionaries is to avert the incorporation of those elements into the system and to build upon them to create a counter-democratic pole of attraction from which an assault on State power can be launched. The instrumentalities of this policy are those developed by the first four Congresses of the Comintern, Trotsky, and the Fourth International, namely, transitional demands, the united front, the transitional programme, workers governments, etc. Tactical excursions onto the terrain of bourgeois democracy (for example, [electoral] intervention by revolutionaries) form part of this [strategy].
This argument, repeated by Perry Anderson in New Left Review, contains a number of misconceptions. Firstly, there is [a mistaken understanding of the nature of] bourgeois democracy, evidenced by the notion of belts of proletarian democracy suspended within the bourgeois democratic system. Bourgeois democracy seeks not to incorporate the working class's democratic institutions because those institutions are integral to it anyway. Indeed, bourgeois democracy was itself born of [struggles by the working class... it became] democratic precisely because those struggles made [it] a reality [illegible] revolutions. The democratic in the bourgeois sense (elections, free speech, etc.) is not in contrast to proletarian democracy but is (in [its origins and in part] an achievement of the working class), although it may [be deformed or] appropriated [by the bourgeoisie]. [Bourgeois] democracy is not just a screen behind [which the naked] power of the ruling class [operates] but, within its own terms, a reality through which the working class has been able to exert its [pressure and win real gains]. [illegible] the working class has been able to legitimise itself as a political actor in the eyes of the population as a whole. The real threat [to bourgeois democracy comes] not from [a strategy of] incorporation but from a strategy of the erosion of the [bourgeois democratic system... the] strategic indicative of the foregoing is not the overturning of bourgeois democracy and its replacement by 'proletarian democracy' but its capture by the working class and the remaking of it [in the working] class's own [image — the] transformation of bourgeois democracy into [proletarian] democracy.
Secondly, the project of a self-sufficient proletarian democracy fails to come to terms with the immense strength of the bourgeois democratic system, particularly in relation to its legitimating functions vis-à-vis the middle strata — a section of the population the working class must win to its side if it is to accumulate enough power to deal with the last line of resistance of the ruling class, the coercive state apparatus'. To abjure a real contest with the ruling class on the terrain of bourgeois democracy is to abandon into the hands of the ruling class a potent instrument indeed.
Thirdly, there is an implicit assumption that to take up the mantle of bourgeois democracy is to become its prisoner. The example of Chile is often cited in support of this argument. This misses the point that the working class is already a prisoner of bourgeois democracy; the need is for a strategy that will enable the working class to snap its chains. The advantage of the strategy of inner democratic transformation is that it tests out bourgeois democracy and reveals its limitations and in the process creates the conditions in which those very limitations can be transcended. The problem with posing proletarian democracy against bourgeois democracy is that it provides no solution to the problem of moving beyond the propagandist level except to say that the masses will learn by experience the superiority of one over the other. But what kind of experience is necessary for that to take place? Given the extent of integration of the working class into the system, the only possible experience is precisely that of waging a battle for democracy on the bourgeois democratic terrain itself. Unless, of course, you believe that circumstances will wrench the masses out of the bourgeois democratic system and thereby lay the basis for a real experience of proletarian democracy. Which brings me to my fourth point, concerning the suggested instrumentalities of this project of proletarian democracy. On this I can only repeat that Trotsky's tactical prescriptions, such as the united front and transitional demands, arise out of an economic determinist and catastrophic model of the structure and dynamics of the capitalist social order, and it is from that which they derive their meaning and coherence. Let us take the example of transitional demands. A reading of Mandel's Leninist Theory of Organisation makes it clear that the function of transitional demands is firstly to connect the revolutionary party with the advanced workers in the stage preparatory to the revolutionary conjuncture and, secondly, to connect the party/advanced workers with the working class in the revolutionary conjuncture. All very coherent so long as you accept the dual notion of building the party/preparing for the revolution and its attendant catastrophic vision.
Conclusion
I want to end on a positive note. My assessment of the Trotskyist theoretical and political tradition is a negative one, though this is in no way to belittle the historic service rendered by Trotsky in organising the October insurrection and in founding the Red Army, nor is it to belittle the very positive contributions to the struggle for socialism made by Trotskyist militants past and present. It is clear to me also, however, that there is a forward looking trend within the Trotskyist movement that is seeking to come to terms in a real way with the historic problem of socialist revolution in Western Europe, and on the evidence of their reply Ali and Blackburn are part of this trend. We can point to their recognition of the importance of Gramsci and of the importance of ideological and cultural interventions by revolutionaries within civil society, and, further, to the expressions of this in IMG practice in the women's movement and in the recent Red Weekly forums on the mass media. The problem is that analytical and practical advantages such as these are marred by an attempt to combine them with an incompatible theoretical and political tradition. As a result such advances take on a fragmented character, unintegrated into the main political line, external to it and, as a further consequence, ineffective. Sooner or later the critical trends within Trotskyism are going to have to come to terms with their movement's legacy.
1. Ali and Blackburn suggested that my article was the first serious critique of Trotskyist politics from a Communist position to avoid what they call 'traditional Stalinist slanders'. This is incorrect. I draw the reader's attention to Monty Johnstone's article 'Trotsky and the Popular Front' published in Marxism Today October/November 1975; to the same author's 'Trotsky — His Ideas' published in Cogito 1969 — a work which the IMG described [at the time] as a 'thorough and vigorous critique of Trotsky's ideas, based on an [analysis] of their content and application', which 'meticulously refuted the slanders against Trotsky' current [in] the Stalin period; and to Betty Reid's pamphlet Ultra-Leftism in Britain, published in 1969.
2. Apart from odd polemical excesses I was impressed by the seriousness of tone and approach throughout the Ali and Blackburn article. The same cannot be said, however, of Patrick Camiller's article in the latest issue of International, replying to Monty Johnstone. The dogmatic and blinkered method of the author does the IMG a great disservice and in no way provides a basis for a continuing and fruitful debate. As to the Healyite method employed in the conclusion, it should receive the contempt and condemnation it deserves. I am glad to hear that these remarks are to be withdrawn and a public apology made. One can only wonder, however, why it was that they were published at all in a journal in whose editorial the banner 'Against Monolithism' is raised.
3. At least one of our authors — Robin Blackburn — may be identified with this project. See, for example, his (with Gareth Stedman Jones) 'Louis Althusser and the Struggle for Marxism' in [D. Howard and K.E. Klare (eds), The Unknown Dimension: European Marxism since Lenin].
4. An interesting phenomenon is the process by which practico-theoretical [concepts and] persons [are integrated into an apparent unity] of coherence, structured by 'revolutionary principles'. At least two results of this are worth noting: firstly, it enables Marxists who have made a genuine break with economic [determinism at the] level of theory to adhere simultaneously to [a number of] contradictory political positions; secondly, it causes considerable confusion amongst those who seek to apply such concepts whilst not understanding their genesis. A reading of the IMG internal debates will confirm this last point.
5. It seems to me that 'determinism' is a more appropriate term to use in relation to Trotsky's Marxism.
6. Quoted in [I.] Deutscher, [an] Intellectual Biography, p.252.
7. [Trotsky,] The Third International After Lenin, pp.61-2, Pathfinder Press. [In] any case the statement was made before the majority of the [pre-revolutionary situations] occurred.
10. The Third International After Lenin [illegible].
11. I cannot deal here with the strictly economic analysis involved in Trotsky's concept of the epoch. For a good critique see the Hodgson [book].
12. [Mandel,] Leninist Theory of Organisation, p.10, IMG 1971. I must thank Ali and Blackburn for directing my attention to this text. A re-reading of it considerably clarified my criticisms of Trotskyism.
13. Transitional Programme, pp.13,14, SLL 1970.
14. Ali and Blackburn admit, without specifying, that 'Trotskyists, and even Trotsky himself (sic), have been responsible on occasion [for] errors which mis-estimated the readiness of the [masses] [illegible] as [the] struggle [gains momentum].' Two points are in order here: firstly, no explanation, apart from an implied subjectivism, is advanced for those errors; and secondly, far from such errors being occasional, they are the rule rather than the [exception]. On this latter point see [Monty] Johnstone [on the Popular Front]. Perhaps Ali and Blackburn would like to comment on the analyses contained in this [article].
15. Quoted in Avenas, op. cit., p.44.
16. Transitional Programme, p.13.
17. Op. cit., p.9. One may inquire, however, how the 'water' is to be boiled?
18. Leon Trotsky on Britain, p.162, Pathfinder Press, 1973.
19. A major weakness in Perry Anderson's essay on Gramsci in NLR 100 is a failure to note the significance of the theoretical distance between Gramsci and the tradition represented by the Comintern. This leads him to the curious conclusion that Gramsci's development of a much wider theory of hegemony was a function of 'the "desituated" mode of discourse peculiar to [the] texts of Gramsci's imprisonment' (p.20), whereas in fact the ground of [Gramsci's] advance [was theoretical]. Another consequence of [this] omission in the Anderson text is a confusion between [the] forms and concepts, for example, in relation to the 'United Front', a term common to both Gramsci and Trotsky, but whose theoretical constitution makes apparent the difference in content — at least if we are talking about the Gramsci of the Prison Notebooks.
20. There is a slight inaccuracy here because for Gramsci the 'rule' of the ruling class does not rest on consent — a much wider notion than that of government [alone].
21. [Trotsky,] The Communist International and The Third International After Lenin. [illegible] the [strategic conception of the role of] bourgeois democracy [illegible] Blackburn and Anderson [use] fragments lifted from a context in which Trotsky is concerned with a different object altogether.
22. Op. cit., p.26.
23. In fact the first draft of the article, twice the length of what was published, contained a substantial section on the question of the State.
24. The State is defined here as consisting of the armed forces, the police services, the judiciary, and the permanent civil service. It makes no sense to dissolve, as Perry Anderson does, the system of bourgeois democracy (electoral government, assemblies, and the system of bourgeois institutions, electoral systems) into a conception of the State. To do so is to make a mistake of the same order as those Anderson criticises, for abolishing the distinction between State and civil society by defining the State as consisting of all those institutions functional to the maintenance of ruling class power.
25. Those sections not amenable (for example, the secret police) will have, in a literal sense, to be 'smashed'.
26. Op. cit., p.26.
27. Of course, coercion forms an operational element of the armoury of ruling class power at all times. However, under conditions of capitalist democracy it becomes the dominant element only [in exceptional circumstances]; and, moreover, it is not inevitable that it should become so though it is likely to do so. The Communist Party's conception of a transition to Socialism without civil war does not exclude the question of coercion attaining dominance in the last stages of the revolutionary process, but it does posit the idea that the popular forces can contain ruling class endeavours to deploy its coercive apparatuses.
28. Although the notion here is primarily one of working class power expressing itself through existing institutions (e.g. Parliament) the development of new forms of working class power, even of the Soviet type, is not precluded. Indeed, it would seem to [me] that this should form an integral part of the strategy as a whole. Utilisation of existing institutions and the development of new, autonomous (from the bourgeois democratic system) working class institutions should be seen as complementary rather than contradictory. A problem in the British Road to Socialism is that whilst a mechanical application of the forms of the Russian revolutionary process is correctly rejected, some of its content, valid in the British situation, tends to get thrown out as well.
29. No doubt on this point the authority of the 'First Four Congresses of the Comintern' will be invoked. Authority, however, is no proof and the criticism remains valid, until shown to be otherwise, whether it is Trotsky, the Comintern, or anyone else who argued this position. Within its own terms, though, the invocation is legitimate. For the Comintern shared with Trotsky an explicit economic determinism and catastrophism. This is true even for a period after Trotsky's exit from the ranks of the Comintern. An interesting example of this concerns the so-called 'Third Period'. It is normally assumed that at no time was the Trotsky/Comintern divergence greater than in the Third Period. In many ways this was the case, but in one major [respect their] positions converged, that is, in Trotsky's acceptance of [the perspective] of a third period, a period of intense capitalist economic crisis which would be accompanied by major revolutionary upsurges on [a par] with those that had followed the First World War. Trotsky's disagreement with the Comintern was over the [tactics] to be employed during this period — as it turned out, a difference of historic proportions, at least in the case of Germany. With the Seventh [Congress of the Comintern in 1935] we [see, however, the] beginning of a [break] with economic determinism [and catastrophism] (this point is developed in a study by the Communist Party's History Group). Trotsky never made such a break and neither, hitherto, have his followers.