Sentimentality is not Historical Science
(A Reply to the Trotskyist Koyama)

Written by Hiroyoshi Hayashi (1984)
Translated by Roy West

In issue 173 of Fourth International (central organ of the Fourth International), Koyama Kyo has written an article in which he claims to be aware of a debate within our party. He writes, "the source of the confusion is the Marxist Workers League's (*1) [Socialist Workers Party] definition of the USSR and China as "state capitalism". Frankly, I regret having to write a response to Koyama, since he has contributed nothing but Trotskyist set phrases, and discussed problems that we have already theoretically solved. If his comments had not had some relation to the discussions at our congress, I probably wouldn't have considered writing a response. But in fact, the problems Koyama discusses are precisely the areas raised at the congress-although none of the comrades in our party made vulgar and crude statements in the manner of Koyama. Thus, here I will reluctantly write a response to Koyama to show the degree to which he has distorted Lenin's theory of 1905, failed to understand materialism, and is not even "faithful" to Trotsky's theory

(*1)This is the former name of the Socialist Workers Party. The MWL became the SWP in 1984.

The Political Process of Revolution and its Historical and Economic Content

The first problem Koyama raises is the "contradiction" in our program between evaluating the Russian Revolution as an "overall workers-peasants revolution", while calling the Bolshevik government a "proletarian state". Koyama's explanation is the following:

According to the program, in 1917 a "proletarian government" was born from a "workers and peasants revolution", but it "ran into limitations", and thus took the "path towards state capitalism'! …According to the Marxist Workers League [SWP], the Russian state "was a proletarian government born from a workers-peasants revolution strongly marked by the proletariat. (*2)

(*2)All of the quotations from Koyama are taken issue 173 of Dai-yon intanashonaru [Fourth International].Koyama doesn't understand that there is no contradiction in saying that the Russian and Chinese revolutions were "overall workers-peasants revolutions (i.e. radical bourgeois revolutions), which could not overcome this limitation, and consequently these states had to take the path of state capitalism" (SWP Program). He cannot recognize that there is no contradiction in a proletarian government temporarily appearing at the peak of an "overall workers-peasants revolution". Indeed, this rule of the proletarian in the Russian Revolution was a historical fact, just as the rule of the Jacobins in the eighteenth century French Revolution (an "overall" bourgeois revolution) was a fact. Koyama criticizes our view as "a formula of pure economism" But where is the "pure economism" in this view? Rather, we are emphasizing that the "historico-economic" content of a revolution does not necessarily directly correspond to its political content.

Prior to our party congress, I replied in the following way to some comrades who thought that it was strange for our program to call the Soviet government a "proletarian state" while viewing the Russian Revolution as "an overall workers and peasants revolution":

As I mentioned before, the term proletarian state is a question of a political concept, and is possible even without economic maturity, just as the Jacobin rule appeared in the age of bourgeois revolution. This was an extremely radical dictatorship, based not on the industrial or liberal bourgeoisie, but on the urban poor. (In Russia as well) it cannot be said that this was not a proletarian government because the country was not directly economically mature. There is a difference in the political process and the economic process. Naturally, since the economic process is ultimately the determining one, the Russian Bolshevik government was forced to transform itself. It is not correct to deny the Bolshevik government as a proletarian state-although this term is placed in quotations it contains many limitations and restrictions-just as it would be strange not to view the Paris Commune as a proletarian government. Lenin also used quite different expressions to refer to the government before and after 1921. In 1921 he strongly emphasized the proletarian dictatorship. However, after 1921, as is clear from the "labor union debates" at the time of NEP, he criticized Trotsky's view of a workers' state, and said that the Soviet Union was a workers' and peasants' state, not a workers' state. Thus, Lenin's own view changed somewhat, and this reflected the changes in the character of the government. Clearly, NEP represented integration with the petty bourgeoisie, and a policy in the direction of cooperation and compromise, and therefore it can be said that there is a difference before and after 1921.Koyama, in fact, is the one who has fallen into the reverse of "pure economism", i.e. "pure politicism", in assuming that the Russian Revolution was a proletarian revolution since the Bolshevik government (proletarian government) emerged. Therefore, for him, the Russian Revolution was also a socialist revolution (or had to be) in its historical and economic content. In a vulgar fashion, he directly identifies the political process of the revolution with its economic content. He has twisted around a mechanical and dried up version of "historical materialism", and ended up with a reversed "pure economism"! This sort of vulgar "materialism" may be suitable to Trotskyism, but it is a method foreign to Marxist-Leninism.

It is clear that Koyama has completely misunderstood our position from his statement that the Marxist Workers League [SWP] argues that "a proletarian government was born from a workers-peasants revolution", and other stupid distortions. Obviously we don't say such stupid things, and have no reason to do so. This sort of underhanded distortion only illustrates that Koyama is unable to criticize our position.

Our standpoint is that the "overall workers and peasants revolution" and the "proletarian government", which is one of the moments in its process, can indeed be compatible, and this is a historical fact. This certainly does not mean that a "proletarian government" was born out of a "workers and peasants revolution". What Koyama is saying is totally irrational, ignorant nonsense. A "proletarian government" is not born from a "workers and peasants revolution". Just as the Jacobin dictatorship surmounted the rule of the conciliatory liberal bourgeois (Jironde), advanced the revolution, wiped out feudalistic power, and opened the path for capitalism, the Bolshevik dictatorship wiped out the old relations which had become fetters, and opened the path for state capitalism. Isn't this what Trotskyists call the "combined development of history"? Why does Koyama discard the positive elements of Trotsky's theory, while holding on to the negative ones? Koyama is a person who has "read Trotsky but doesn't understand him." Koyama does not understand the significance of Trotsky's theory. Trotsky, at the very least, was not a mechanical materialist who directly identified the political and economic processes of a revolution (although he gave precedence to the political process and his dogma of "permanent revolution" thus came into conflict with Lenin's position in 1905). Koyama is a true disciple of Trotsky in terms of opposing our idea of an "overall 'workers and peasants revolution'" and hurling insults at our "pure economism". This, however, only reveals his tendency towards politicism, and his estrangement from the materialist conception of history, towards an idealistic or romantic view of history or Duhring-style Gewalt Theorie (theory of force).

On Leninism and Trotskyism

Koyama pretends to discuss Lenin, but since he has obviously never seriously read Two Tactics, he can only evaluate Lenin as seen through his own Trotskyist-tinged (permanent revolution) glasses. For instance, he writes the following:

According to Hayashi's theory, there is a long period of years or decades between a bourgeois revolution and proletarian revolution in backward countries…but it is already obvious that Lenin did not construct a "Great Wall" between the two revolutions. Lenin's view in his 1905 Two Tactics can be summed up as the idea that "the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry has a past and a future: the past being the struggle to crush the feudal, landowner system, and the future being the struggle to overcome the bourgeoisie and achieve socialism" [Koyama's summary of Two Tactcs p. 71]. But the time difference between this past and present, in the context of 1917, was the few months between February and October. The only ones to construct a Chinese Wall between these two revolutions were the Mensheviks at the time, Stalin after his anti-Trotskyism struggle of 1924, and now Hayashi.Koyama is free to misunderstand Lenin's position seen through the eyes of Trotsky, but it is surprising that he would raise the stupid view that Lenin's position confused or identified the bourgeois and proletarian revolutions. This is equivalent to saying that Lenin was not a historical materialist. In Two Tactics, Lenin referred to the theories of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Trotsky and others who hoped to immediately realize socialism, as the "hollow anarchist phrases" of the "most ignorant people". (*3)

(*3)Lenin, Two Tactics, pp. 19,20.

Koyama totally fails to understand the significance of Lenin calling for a "democratic dictatorship". The word "democratic" refers to the bourgeois content of the social revolution, which could not be overcome (in other words the fact that it was not socialist); this does not mean that politically the government is democratic. The government was a "dictatorship" of the workers and peasantry. Lenin's "democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants" was necessary, not for the construction of socialism, but to wipe out the old feudalistic relations, thereby ensuring the free, rapid development of capitalism. This should be immediately clear to any one who has taken the time to read some of Two Tactics. Has Koyama even bothered to do this?

Lenin thought that the role of this revolutionary provisional government would come to an end when counter-revolution had been crushed, and a constitutional assembly had been convened. Lenin did not necessarily clearly declare this, but no other conclusion can be drawn from the thought of Lenin at the time when he expected a democratic "enlightened" capitalism (the U.S. model of capitalist development, not the Prussian model) that would lead to the rapid development of productive power in Russia. Not only Lenin, but all of the Marxists in Russia at the time, agreed that the coming revolution was a bourgeois democratic one. The point of contention between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks was not whether it was a bourgeois revolution, but what form it would take, which class would assume hegemony, and what the outcome of this would be. Only the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Trotsky thought differently. The Socialist Revolutionaries, inheriting the Narodnik tradition, regarded the agrarian revolution as a socialist revolution, and thus said that the coming revolution in Russian would be a socialist revolution, thereby exposing themselves as petty bourgeois utopians.

Trotsky, while seemingly basing himself on Marxism and materialism, exclusively abstracted the political moment of the revolution, and came up with the dogma (i.e. attaching the word "theory" to one's wishes) according to which revolution in Russia, even if it started as a bourgeois revolution, would "have to" turn into a socialist revolution since the political struggle would ultimately lead to the proletariat taking power. This is the tendency of politicism, which is a brand of petty bourgeois radicalism we are all too familiar with.

If one focuses exclusively on the political process, the Russian Revolution can appear to be a proletarian socialist revolution since a proletarian party based on Marxism led the working class in Russia and gained power. Koyama thinks that since the proletarian government (Bolshevik government) was established, there is no way that the Russian Revolution could not have been a socialist revolution. Once the proletariat grabs power it will not let go of it, and must advance towards socialism to avoid self-destructing at the level of a bourgeois revolution.

Trotsky, along with Stalin, came up with the one-dimensional abstraction that the February revolution was a bourgeois revolution, while the October revolution was a proletarian revolution. Even when Lenin used such an abstraction, he added the provision that the February revolution was bourgeois in the sense that "political power passed to the bourgeoisie". The question of political power is certainly a central one in a revolution, but to determine the character of a revolution solely on the basis of which class seized political power, without considering the question of productive power and the developmental stage of society, represents an idealistic view of history, and a type of Gewalt Theorie. This tendency of politicism is one of the traits of Trotskyism, and reveals its limitations.

As a Marxist, Lenin in fact made a clear distinction between a bourgeois and proletarian revolution. Trotskyists loudly denounce this Leninist standpoint as "constructing a Chinese Wall between the two revolutions". However, not drawing a distinction, both conceptually and practically, between the bourgeois and proletarian revolutions leads to terrible theoretical confusion. Trotskyists don't realize how close they are to Stalinism, and how they have basically merged with it. Indeed, the Stalinists and Koyama, employ almost the same tone when they talk about the February and October revolutions, or "demonstrate" that the USSR and China are socialist. Would it really be unjust to call Trotskyists "semi-Stalinists"?

The upshot of what Koyama is saying is that the views of Lenin and Trotsky were different in 1905 (i.e., Lenin advocated the "democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants", whereas Trotsky called for the establishment of proletarian power, and socialist revolution). Isn't this an essential difference? When faced with this essential opposition, does he say that these views are really the same, or argue for the superiority of his own view? No, this shameless dogmatist comes up with a different explanation. To justify himself, he says that in 1917 Lenin recognized the errors in his old logic, and moved towards Trotsky's theory, thereby dissolving their former 1905 opposition. We have already discussed the arbitrariness of this view in a number of essays, and we won't repeat our arguments here. It is clear from many different sources that the agreement between Lenin and Trotsky was only superficial and temporary. Even at the stage when he was preparing for the 1917 revolution, Lenin emphasized that the coming revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants could not directly introduce socialism (power was not assumed for this purpose). Lenin only spoke unreservedly about proletarian dictatorship and socialist revolution during the period of "wartime communism". But it is obvious that one cannot speak of the overall character and historical content of the Russian Revolution exclusively from the perspective of the exceptional period of "wartime communism".

The program of the SWP evaluates the Russian Revolution as "an overall workers and peasants revolution", while, at the same time, recognizing the establishment of a "proletarian state". This is a historical fact, not a theoretical "contradiction". Without this "combined" understanding, it would be impossible to correctly understand the "overall" development after the Russian Revolution, or the reality of present-day Russia.

What Was the "Total Historical Process of Russia"?

Another demonstration of the neo-Stalinism of Koyama (or Trotskyists in general) is his discussion of the "transitional society":

Mr. Hayashi says that NEP reveals the inevitability of capitalism in Russia. But the only thing that NEP shows us is that the proletarian state was unable to eliminate capitalistic elements, i.e. business calculations and profit, small commodity production and the market…In a transitional society, the law of value still exists in various forms. Even in the case of advanced countries, capitalistic elements could not be completely eliminated after the proletariat gains power. In the case of a backward country, such as Russia in 1917, this is even more true. But the Marxist Workers League, (SWP) defines the Soviet Union as a capitalist state (state capitalist state) merely on the basis of the fact that capitalistic elements such as business calculations, small commodity production and companies remained in post-revolutionary Russia. However, barring counterrevolution, there is no way for this proletarian state, established through violent revolution, to be overturned simply through the existence of capitalistic elements or their expansion (Ha! Ha!-Hayashi)This last bit of "logic" is simply astounding, but we will postpone comment here and first examine the concept of socialism held by Koyama (and Trotskyists in general). They tail after the Stalinists and say that in a "transitional society" the 'law of value functions', and that there is nothing strange about production for profit, not to mention the production of value (commodities). Clearly, these political radicals are incapable of coming up with any scientific conception of socialism. Even though they use the expression "transitional society", instead of socialist society (like the Stalinists), they have essentially fallen into the same position as the Stalinists, and can't avoid committing the same crime. This is because the term "transitional society" already signifies that this is no longer bourgeois society, but rather the beginning of socialism.

At our recent party congress, we emphasized that the proletarian state is already not a repressive state in the original sense, but a "half-state" which begins to wither away the moment it is established, and attacked the view of Stalinists that the proletarian state is also a state, and a "dictatorship" which oppresses other classes, and therefore it is unable to easily wither away, and instead can grow stronger.

The Trotskyists and the Stalinists are identical in the sense that they both say that value and profit are not (cannot be) eliminated "at one blow" even after the victory of the proletariat, and instead become more systematic. While they both talk about directly constructing socialism, they are in fact shrieking about how it is unrealistic or utopian to speak about the withering away of the "state", and even show contempt for the advanced workers who are struggling for socialism!

Clearly, a "transitional society" in which the "law of value operates" is itself a self-contradictory concept. Proletarian power already assumes that production is no longer regulated by profit or value. Shouldn't this point be perfectly clear? What exactly is Koyama's understanding of a "transitional society" or socialism? The only thing that is clear is that they are not much different from present-day bourgeois society in which the proletariat is not emancipated, since production is for profit and the "law of value operates".

Does Koyama really believe that there are only bourgeois "remnants" in a transitional society, but that this is not capitalism? What exactly are these bourgeois "elements" that don't gradually or rapidly disappear, but instead operate for decades, and in fact develop further? What exactly is a "transitional society" or dictatorship of the proletariat that lasts for decades (already more than seventy years)? The emptiness of this abstraction should be clear to anyone who tries to define this as a concept-at least to a person of average intelligence or someone who has picked up a bit of Marxism Koyama, however, possesses the rare talent of being able to calmly engage in such irrational arguments Koyama says "even in the case of advanced countries, capitalistic elements could not be completely eliminated after the proletariat gains power." This is nothing but the unrealistic ramblings of an onlooker "critic" (we should add here that we think that Trotsky was essentially a "leftwing" critic and not a revolutionary). The question is whether in an economically advanced country such as Japan, the proletariat could gain power (i.e. overthrow the bourgeoisie) and overcome the "capitalistic elements". Indeed, shouldn't the immediate goal for the proletariat be to gain power? Our critic Koyama, however, wanders around mumbling:

Even if the workers in Japan gain power, they will not be able to immediately eliminate capitalistic elements. The production of value and profit will remain and indeed must remain. One should not grow impatient, or think that everything can be solved at once. We need to reflect on the Russian Revolution.This is whining and opportunism. He has no concept of socialism or prospect of achieving socialism, and cannot offer anything positive or practical. He is nothing more than a critic. His reasoning, mentioned above, that "barring counterrevolution, there is no way for the proletariat state, established through violent revolution, to be overturned simply through the existence of capitalistic elements or their expansion", is simply absurd. This reveals how little Koyama understands the essence of the Russian Revolution and Bolshevik government.

The fact that the Bolshevik government, although called a proletarian government, could only collapse or be transformed, as long as the material conditions for the liberation of the proletariat were not present, is clearly a valuable historic experience. This demonstrates the correctness of the Marxist materialist view of history. Koyama doesn't seem to realize that had the Bolshevik government followed Trotsky's suggestion (theory of permanent revolution), and pursued "socialistic" policies, it probably would have collapsed under a massive wave of peasant protests. This would have been identical to the collapse of the Jacobin dictatorship in the French Revolution. In order to survive, the Bolshevik government had to abandon socialistic policies ("wartime communism") and appease the demands of the peasantry, in other words, implement "NEP". This revealed the necessity of bourgeois production in Russia. NEP also paved the way for the victory of Stalinism, making it necessary, and led to the defeat of Trotsky. Trotskyists are rather strange people, since even to this day they are unable to understand the true meaning (basis) and inevitability of their own defeat. Hence it is not surprising that they are unable to correctly understand reality or fight from a correct standpoint. Even today they caught up in the following sort of "dream":

Faced with harsh reality of the Soviet State, encircled by imperialism and facing the spread of famine, epidemics and collapse, how fortunate are those who can instruct us on the "materialist conception of history". Not only do the MWL (SWP) members, with their excessively firm conviction that "capitalism was unavoidable in Russia", transcend the "harsh reality" the Soviet state was facing, but they also completely ignore the life or death struggle towards socialism of the Bolshevik leaders. Their firm conviction that "only capitalism was possible in Russia" is inconsistent with the perspective of Lenin who tried to reach socialism through NEP, and therefore with the entire subsequent historical process in Russia.Faced with Koyama's sentimentalism, we can only say that romanticism and sentimentalism are totally different form historical science. Moreover, what we are facing now is not 1917 Russia, but the reality of the twentieth century Soviet Union (and China). By speaking of the USSR and China as proletarian states or socialist societies, Koyama beautifies and justifies the bourgeois and imperialistic reality of these countries. Can there be any greater betrayal of the workers throughout the world? The logical standpoint of Trotskyism has already come into decisive confrontation with the standpoint of the world's workers, but Koyama is completely unaware of his own act of betrayal. Is there any worse nature than illogical romanticists and sentimentalists! Koyama speaks of "entire subsequent historical process in Russia", but under Stalinism, and later, did Russia develop as an increasingly bourgeois and imperialistic state, or did it emerge as a proletarian, socialist one? (How about China?). Isn't this the "entire subsequent historical process in Russia" that Koyama is referring to? We can hardly expect a response from Koyama since this would require him to bid farewell to Trotskyist dogmatism.