Shachtmanism
Encyclopedia
Shachtmanism is the form of Marxism
associated with Max Shachtman
. It has two major components: a bureaucratic collectivist analysis of the Soviet Union
and a third camp
approach to world politics. Shachtmanites believe that the Stalinist rulers of Communist countries are a new ruling class
distinct from the workers and reject Trotsky's description of Stalinist Russia as a "degenerated workers' state
".
in 1939, as Shachtman's supporters left that group to form the Workers Party
in 1940. The tensions that led to the split extended as far back as 1931. However, the theory of "bureaucratic collectivism," the idea that the USSR was ruled by a new bureaucratic class and was not capitalist, did not originate with Shachtman, but seems to have originated within the Trotskyist movement with Yvan Craipeau
, a member of the French Section of the Fourth International
, and Bruno Rizzi
.
Although Shachtman groups resignation from the SWP was not only over the defence of the Soviet Union
, rather than the class nature of the state itself, that was a major point in the internal polemics of the time.
, who proposed this at the founding of the SWP in 1938. C. L. R. James
referred to the implied theory, from which he dissented, as Carter's little little pill. The theory was never fully developed by anybody in the Workers Party and Shachtman's book, published many years later in 1961, consists earlier articles from the pages of New International
with some political conclusions reversed. Ted Grant
has alleged that some Trotskyist thinkers, including Tony Cliff
, who have described such societies as "state capitalist" share an implicit theoretical agreement with some elements of Shachtmanism. Cliff, who published a critique of Shachtmanism in the late 1940s, would have rejected this allegation.
.
A more current term for Left Shachtmanism is Third-Camp Trotskyism, the Third Camp being differentiated from capitalism
and Stalinism
. Prominent Third Camp
groupings include the Workers' Liberty grouping in Australia
and the United Kingdom
and by the International Socialist predecessor of Solidarity.
The foremost left Shachtmanite was Hal Draper
a writer who worked as a librarian at the University of California, Berkeley
and became influential with left-wing students during the Free Speech Movement
. Julius Jacobson
and the New Politics
journal continued to develop and apply this political tradition.
and, when possible, defeated by the collective action of the working class. Consequently, adherents support free labor unions and democracy movements around the world. Domestically, they organized in the civil rights movement and in the labor movement. Social democrats influenced by Shachtman rejected calls for an immediate cease-fire and the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam, but rather opposed bombings in Vietnam and supported a negotiated peace that would allow labor unions and government-opposition to survive. Such social democrats helped provide funding and supplies to the Solidarity, the Polish labor union, as requested by the Polish workers.
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
associated with Max Shachtman
Max Shachtman
Max Shachtman was an American Marxist theorist. He evolved from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL-CIO President George Meany.-Beginnings:...
. It has two major components: a bureaucratic collectivist analysis of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and a third camp
Third camp
The third camp, also known as third camp socialism or third camp Trotskyism, is a branch of socialism which aims to oppose both capitalism and Stalinism, by supporting the organised working class as a "third camp"....
approach to world politics. Shachtmanites believe that the Stalinist rulers of Communist countries are a new ruling class
New class
The "New Class" model, as a theory of new social groups in post-industrial societies, gained ascendency during the 1970s as social and political scientists noted how "New Class" groups were shaped by post-material orientations in their pursuit of political and social goals...
distinct from the workers and reject Trotsky's description of Stalinist Russia as a "degenerated workers' state
Degenerated workers' state
In Trotskyist political theory the term degenerated workers' state has been used since the 1930s to describe the state of the Soviet Union after Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in or about 1924...
".
Origin
Shachtmanism originated as a tendency within the US Socialist Workers PartySocialist Workers Party (United States)
The Socialist Workers Party is a far-left political organization in the United States. The group places a priority on "solidarity work" to aid strikes and is strongly supportive of Cuba...
in 1939, as Shachtman's supporters left that group to form the Workers Party
Workers Party (US)
Not to be confused with the modern Marxist-Leninist party, Workers Party, USA.The Workers Party was a Third Camp Trotskyist group in the United States. It was founded in April 1940 by members of the Socialist Workers Party who opposed the Soviet invasion of Finland. They included Max Shachtman,...
in 1940. The tensions that led to the split extended as far back as 1931. However, the theory of "bureaucratic collectivism," the idea that the USSR was ruled by a new bureaucratic class and was not capitalist, did not originate with Shachtman, but seems to have originated within the Trotskyist movement with Yvan Craipeau
Yvan Craipeau
Yvan Craipeau was a French Trotskyist activist.Born in La Roche-sur-Yon, he helped found a local independent Marxist organisation while still in his teens. Expelled from school, he moved to Paris and became associated with the Trotskyist group around La Verité. In 1930 this group founded the...
, a member of the French Section of the Fourth International
Fourth International
The Fourth International is the communist international organisation consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky , with the declared dedicated goal of helping the working class bring about socialism...
, and Bruno Rizzi
Bruno Rizzi
Bruno Rizzi was an Italian unorthodox political theorist.-Early activities:Born in Porto Mantovano, he joined the Italian Socialist Party in 1918 but among others, left in 1921 to be among the founders of the Communist Party of Italy in 1921. He left the PCI in 1930.Due to persecution by the...
.
Although Shachtman groups resignation from the SWP was not only over the defence of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, rather than the class nature of the state itself, that was a major point in the internal polemics of the time.
Currents influenced by Shachtman
Regardless of its origins in the American SWP, Shachtmanism's core belief is opposition to the American SWP's defence of the Soviet Union. This originated not with Shachtman but Joseph Carter and James BurnhamJames Burnham
James Burnham was an American popular political theorist, best known for his influential work The Managerial Revolution, published in 1941. Burnham was a radical activist in the 1930s and an important factional leader of the American Trotskyist movement. In later years he left Marxism and produced...
, who proposed this at the founding of the SWP in 1938. C. L. R. James
C. L. R. James
Cyril Lionel Robert James , who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J.R. Johnson, was an Afro-Trinidadian historian, journalist, socialist theorist and essayist. His works are influential in various theoretical, social, and historiographical contexts...
referred to the implied theory, from which he dissented, as Carter's little little pill. The theory was never fully developed by anybody in the Workers Party and Shachtman's book, published many years later in 1961, consists earlier articles from the pages of New International
New International
New International is a magazine of Marxist theory published by the Socialist Workers Party of the United States between 1934 and 1940, and since 1983.The magazine was founded and edited by Martin Abern and Max Shachtman...
with some political conclusions reversed. Ted Grant
Ted Grant
Edward "Ted" Grant , 9 July 1913 in Germiston, South Africa – 20 July 2006 in London) was a South African Trotskyist who spent most of his adult life in Britain...
has alleged that some Trotskyist thinkers, including Tony Cliff
Tony Cliff
Tony Cliff , was a Trotskyist who was a founding member of the Socialist Review Group which went on to become the Socialist Workers Party...
, who have described such societies as "state capitalist" share an implicit theoretical agreement with some elements of Shachtmanism. Cliff, who published a critique of Shachtmanism in the late 1940s, would have rejected this allegation.
Left Shachtmanism
Left Shachtmanism, influenced by Max Shachtman's work of the 1940s, sees Stalinist nations as being potentially imperialist and does not offer any support to their leadership. This has been crudely described as seeing the Stalinist and capitalist countries as being equally bad, although it would be more accurate to say that neither is seen as occupying a more progressive stage in the global class struggleClass struggle
Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....
.
A more current term for Left Shachtmanism is Third-Camp Trotskyism, the Third Camp being differentiated from capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
and Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
. Prominent Third Camp
Third camp
The third camp, also known as third camp socialism or third camp Trotskyism, is a branch of socialism which aims to oppose both capitalism and Stalinism, by supporting the organised working class as a "third camp"....
groupings include the Workers' Liberty grouping in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and by the International Socialist predecessor of Solidarity.
The foremost left Shachtmanite was Hal Draper
Hal Draper
Hal Draper was an American socialist activist and author who played a significant role in the Berkeley, California, Free Speech Movement and is perhaps best known for his extensive scholarship on the history and meaning of the thought of Karl Marx.Draper was a lifelong advocate of what he called...
a writer who worked as a librarian at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
and became influential with left-wing students during the Free Speech Movement
Free Speech Movement
The Free Speech Movement was a student protest which took place during the 1964–1965 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley under the informal leadership of students Mario Savio, Brian Turner, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and...
. Julius Jacobson
Julius Jacobson
Julius Jacobson was an American socialist writer and editor who edited Anvil, New International, and New Politics, all publications in the Third Camp tradition of socialism, a democratic Marxist tradition sometimes called "Shachtmanite" after its significant theorist, Max...
and the New Politics
New Politics
New Politics was a term used in the United States in the 1950s to denote the ascending ideology of that country's Democratic Party during that decade...
journal continued to develop and apply this political tradition.
Social Democratic Shachtmanism
Social democratic Shachtmanism, later developed by Shachtman and associated with some members of the Social Democrats, USA, holds Soviet Communist states to be so repressive that that communism must be containedContainment
Containment was a United States policy using military, economic, and diplomatic strategies to stall the spread of communism, enhance America’s security and influence abroad, and prevent a "domino effect". A component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet...
and, when possible, defeated by the collective action of the working class. Consequently, adherents support free labor unions and democracy movements around the world. Domestically, they organized in the civil rights movement and in the labor movement. Social democrats influenced by Shachtman rejected calls for an immediate cease-fire and the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam, but rather opposed bombings in Vietnam and supported a negotiated peace that would allow labor unions and government-opposition to survive. Such social democrats helped provide funding and supplies to the Solidarity, the Polish labor union, as requested by the Polish workers.
External links
- The Lubitz Trotskyana.Net - biographical sketch and selective bibliography
- Collection of writings by and on Shachtman on the Workers' Liberty website
- Max Shachtman Internet Archive at Marxists.org
- New International Archive (1940-1946) & (1947-1958) in the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL)