Post by Louis N ProyectLouis: I think the answer in a nutshell is Stalinophobia. There has always
been a hatred toward the Stalin the individual that spilled over into
negative feelings toward the Soviet socialist state. The Trotskyists of
the 1930s had this inclination but were also anticapitalist. As the cold
war started, they dropped their anticapitalism and burnished their
anti-Stalinism to such a high degree that it turned into anticommunism.
There is much to be said for this explanation; however, one should not
neglect the role of the "Stalinist" CPUSA in
moving many toward an anti-Stalinist, and, ultimately, anti-Communist
position. For every Sidney Hook or Max Eastman, there were hundreds of
honest Communists who could not, for one reason or another, stomach much
of what the CP was doing in the thirties and early forties. This included
working closely with the Democratic Party, the trade union bureaucracy,
etc., and later, swallowing whole the Stalin-Hilter Pact, and, eventually,
abjuring strikes and slowdowns in an attempt to secure the opening of a
Second Front against fascism. Add to this the behavior of the Party
leadership to most non-Party elements within American Marxism , treating
them in effect as a potential "fifth column" of subversives, and one can
readily view the familiar Trotskyist path from revolution to reaction if not
with equanimity, at least with a measure of understanding.
True, as Louis (P) points out, there were other factors, and, of course,
opportunism played its role. Many second generation immigrants,
especially, once free of the impetuosity of youth (as well as the
constraints of urban poverty), discovered the blandishments of middle class
life in the US, and went rapturously "native" in defense of the American
Way of Life (sometimes even before being asked). But I would be remiss
in not pointing out that the American CP's slavish following of Moscow's
line as regards opposition on the Left (understandable in some limited
respects), together with other factors, extracted a high price in unity
and, ultimately, popular support.
Post by Louis N ProyectWhat I find interesting is the degree to which "post-Trotskyist" Jim
Miller thought the collapse of the USSR was an unqualified step forward
for socialism. With the fall of "Stalinism", Cuba no longer had to use the
nasty tractors, fuel oil and food they got from the murderers of Trotsky.
They would instead use pristine and politically correct oxcarts and
handplows for agriculture.
I agree. And not just the American SWP. A genuinely nauseating spectacle.
Louis Godena
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