Contemporary Trotskyism: Parties, Sects Social Movements in Britain by John Kelly. Routledge-2018 295 pages
This new book on the history of contemporary Trotskyism is the first of
its type by an academic. In my original review of this book, I said it is
commendable for a major publisher like Routledge to produce such a book, but I
now retract that sentiment. Kelly’s book is a lightly researched hack work. It is
also a bit rich for an avowed Stalinist to write a book on the history of
contemporary Trotskyism. A member of the British Communist Party during the
1980s Kelly still seems to have kept all the ideological baggage of his
membership. His political friends in the Stalinist Morning Star concur: “It is
an almost impenetrably confusing picture, which the author does his best to
unravel. It's an uphill task given the characteristic sectarian feature of
Trotskyite organisations, resulting in frequent splits and divisions at both a
national and international level[1].
One striking aspect of the few reviews that have appeared so far in the
Pseudo Left press is their mild criticism of an author who is ideologically
hostile to Trotskyism. Any serious Trotskyist organisation would have to defend
its ideas from this type of hostile source. Ian Birchall, a member of the SWP,
perhaps sums up the complacent and defensive attitude towards Kelly and his
downplaying of the possibilities of any Trotskyist group leading a
revolutionary struggle: “Now it looks doubtful that any of the small groups
(what the French used to call groupuscules) described here will lead a
revolution. But for all that, I don't think it was just a waste of breath. For
our generations, Trotskyism, at its best, was the form taken by what the
American Marxist Hal Draper, in his magnificent pamphlet The Two Souls of
Socialism, called ‘socialism from below’ – the belief that socialism, if it
comes, will be the product of the self-emancipation of ordinary working people
through mass action; it will not be the result of relying on elected
representatives or liberation by ‘progressive’ armies. What form it will take
in the future cannot be predicted. Still, history always works by continuities
and ruptures, and somewhere amid the acres of print that Kelly has scrutinised,
the spark of human liberation still lives”[2].
Birchall is supported by another SWP member, Joseph Choonara, who writes,
“It should also be said, it is hard for me to hate a book that portrays me as
an instance of “younger members” reaching “leading positions” in the Trotskyist
movement (even if I have “done little to disturb oligarchic rule”).[3]
Kelly’s main problem is that his Stalinism heavily influences his
conception of Trotskyism. His understanding of its history is limited, as we
shall see later in this review, coloured by his politics. According to Kelly, only
when Trotskyist organisations ditch their program and history do they achieve
some limited success.
He writes: “The paradox of those success stories is that they were
achieved precisely because Trotskyist groups set aside core elements of
Trotskyist doctrine and focused on building broad-based, single-issue campaigns
around non-revolutionary goals.” The whole focus of the book is given over to
try and persuade the Trotskyists not to be Trotskyists. Kelly damns Trotskyism
for not building “a mass Trotskyist party anywhere on the planet or led a
socialist revolution, successful or otherwise”. It is according to Kelly a
“rigid and unhelpful doctrine” and has a “millenarian, revolutionary vision”.
This theme of not leading a socialist revolution runs through the entire
book. Two things strike one when reading the above comments. Firstly, as Kelly
conveniently notes, capitalism has survived in no small way thanks to the
betrayals and treachery of the Party he belonged to. Secondly it is just not
true that Trotskyists have not led significant struggles throughout the 20th and
21st centuries. If Kelly had bothered to interview some
orthodox Trotskyists of the SEP, he would have found this out. His ideologically
driven flippancy also leads him to underplay the enormous internal struggles
the Trotskyist movement has gone through, which in many respects were, in fact,
life-and-death conflicts which impacted the lives of millions of workers around
the globe.
Three significant struggles come directly to mind. The first is James P
Cannon and Gerry Healy’s opposition to Pabloite revisionism, which led to the
Open Letter's issuing and the founding of the ICFI(International Committee of
the Fourth International in 1953). Secondly Healy’s defense of Trotskyism
against Cannon’s reunification with the Pabloites in 1963. Thirdly David
North’s struggle against the Betrayal of Trotskyism by the WRP(Workers
Revolutionary Party) 1984-85. These tremendous political conflicts have little
interest for Kelly. A fact represented in the low coverage they received in
this book.
Another theme running through Kelly’s book is his obsession with the
size of the Trotskyists parties and the fact that there are so many. If Kelly
had bothered to do a little more research and drawn from history namely the
Russian revolution he would have found out that the Bolsheviks were small, tiny
in fact at the beginning and they led a successful revolution.
While it could be said that Kelly is hostile to all Trotskyist parties,
he has a particular distaste for the parties that make up the ICFI
(International Committee of the Fourth International). In perhaps the most
accurate statement of the whole book, he identifies the SEP (Socialist Equality
Party) as orthodox Trotskyists. He sarcastically writes in a true Stalinist
style that despite having only 50 members, it is “the sole political tendency
on the face of the planet that sets as its aim the revolutionary mobilisation
of the working class against imperialism”.[4]
Kelly, as already has been mentioned is incapable of understanding the
history of the different tendencies. Either Kelly has not done enough research,
or most probably due to his Stalinist politics, he does not care. This forces
him to come up with ridiculous names for the different parties, like
“institutional Trotskyism” and “Third Camp Trotskyism”. Kelly’s idea behind these strange names, which have no history in the
Trotskyist movement, is to belittle these groups to be shunned like religious
sects.
Kelly is backed up by Alex Callinicos of the SWP, who, instead of
challenging this slander, writes, “It is perhaps appropriate here to consider
why it was that the Trotskyist movement should so often have displayed the
characteristics of religious sectaries.”[5]
Kelly believes Trotskyism has been isolated from the mass worker's
movement because of its almost religious adherence to principles and
perspective. However, this so-called isolation is coming to an end. With the
collapse of the old organisations, including his own, there was a changed
relationship between Trotskyism and the working class. A point made by the ICFI
when it correctly predicted: “the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991
and the irrevocable discrediting of Stalinism, together with the political
bankruptcy of the social-democratic and reformist parties and trade union
organisations, would lead to a fundamental change in the relationship between
the Trotskyist movement and militant sections of the working class and youth,
radicalised by the deepening crisis of American and world capitalism”.[6]
It is quite striking that all Kelly draws from the centenary year of the
Russian Revolution in his introduction is that the Trotskyist movement has not
led a revolutionary struggle anywhere in the world, so why would they celebrate
this revolution?If Kelly had bothered to leave his secluded university in
London, he would have found some struggles that involved the Trotskyists in a
significant way. Another thing that needs to be challenged by Kelly’s
introduction is that the “Stalinist terror” was a product of the October
Revolution. This lie has been peddled by academics sympathetic to Stalinism for
decades.
It must be said that Kelly has approached the subject of contemporary
Trotskyism from an entirely nationalist standpoint. Perhaps one of the most
critical discussions inside the worker's movement was the struggle to build a
section of the Fourth International in Britain. The most crucial need during
the early years of British Trotskyism was to accept the international
perspective of the fourth international . As Trotsky wrote in 1938, “The present conference
signifies a conclusive delimitation between those who are really IN the Fourth
International and fighting every day under its revolutionary banner, and those
who are merely ‘FOR’ the Fourth International, i.e. the dubious elements who
have sought to keep one foot in our camp and one foot in the camp of our
enemies... Under the circumstances, it is necessary to warn the comrades
associated with the Lee group [the WIL] that they are being led on a path of evil
clique politics, which can only land them in the mire. It is possible to
maintain and develop a revolutionary political grouping of serious importance
only based on great principles. The Fourth International alone embodies and
represents these principles. A national group can maintain a consistently
revolutionary course only if it is firmly connected in one organisation with
co-thinkers worldwide and maintains a constant political and theoretical
collaboration with them. The Fourth International alone is such an
organisation. All purely national groupings, all those who reject international
organisation, control and discipline, are in their essence reactionary.”[7]This struggle receives scant attention in Kelly’s
book.
Chapter 1 -Theoretical Perspectives Kelly asks this question: “Trotskyists often
describe their organisations as revolutionary vanguard parties built on the
principles of ‘democratic centralism’ whose political aim is to destroy the
capitalist state and the capitalist mode of production “.Having not been in a
revolutionary party, it is beyond Kelly’s comprehension to understand that
these parties are unlike any other party. Not only from an organisational point
of view but, more importantly, from a perspective standpoint.
While accepting to a certain extent that Trotskyist parties are
different from mainstream bourgeois parties, he goes on to slander these
organisations, believing they are akin to religious sects that insist on
upholding doctrinal purity. Given that Kelly belonged to a party that in the
past took its orders from Stalin, who murdered more Bolsheviks than the Nazis
and betrayed more workers struggle than any other organisation, it is a little
rich for Kelly to try to take the political high ground.
It is also extraordinary that in this chapter Kelly has little to say on
the history of his Party. He might want to note that the betrayals carried out
by his organisation would have something to do with the isolation of the
Trotskyists from the mass workers' movements. These betrayals were done in the
name of the October Revolution and discredited in 1917 in the eyes of many
workers.
Chapter 2 Trotsky and the Origins of Trotskyism In this chapter, Kelly questions whether
contemporary Trotskyist groups can describe themselves as the continuation of
Leninism or Bolshevism, primarily because Trotsky changed his position on many
issues. When someone makes such a statement in academia, it is standard
practice to back it up with proof. Kelly does not do this. Why? Because to do
this he would have to explain his hostility to Trotsky and his politics.
Kelly repeats some slanders of Trotsky’s position that have been the
stock and trade of academics who have perpetrated a “Post-Soviet School of
Historical Falsification”. As the Marxist writer Wolfgang Weber explains, “After
the collapse of the Soviet Union, historians of this school—including Dmitri
Volkogonov (Russia), Richard Pipes (US), Geoffrey Swain and Ian Thatcher (both
UK)—rehashed the old Stalinist lies and falsifications about Trotsky to cut off
the younger generation from the ideas of the most consistent Marxist opponents
of Stalinism”[8]
Chapter 3, Development of the Trotskyist Movement in Britain, part
1: 1950–1985 and Chapter 4, Development of the Trotskyist Movement in
Britain, part 2: 1985–2017. While these two chapters cover much history, it is surprising that Kelly
says next to nothing about the 1940s. The 1940’s are instrumental in
understanding the subsequent trajectory of all the Trotskyist groups in Britain
and internationally.
To discuss the years 1950-1985 in chapter three and then in chapter four,
1985-2017 would be a big ask for anyone. To say that Kelly’s analysis is
simplistic would be an understatement. Kelly does not devote enough care and
attention to the complex issues confronting the Trotskyist movement during this
time.
The treatment of the SLL/WRP again reveals his political bias and does
not contain a shred of objectivity. His treatment of the complex expulsion from
the WRP of Alan Thornett is a case in point. To Kelly, this was just a power
struggle between Gerry Healy, the leader of the SLL and Thornett. If Kelly had
bothered to consult the documents of the Split in the WRP in 1985 produced by
the ICFI, especially How the WRP Betrayed Trotskyism, he would have given his
readers a far more balanced understanding.
As the above document states, “It was the height of political duplicity
for Thornett to conspire against his own Party and then denounce the leadership
for violating the constitution. Healy, who then had accumulated 45 years of
experience within the communist movement, could recognise an anti-party clique
when he saw one. However, it is another matter entirely whether the leadership
was politically wise in acting to expel Thornett on organisational grounds
before an exhaustive discussion of the political differences, regardless of
their origins. This is not a question of being wise after the event. The
Trotskyist movement had, before Thornett emerged on the scene, acquired a great
deal of experience in dealing with unprincipled minorities — of which the most
famous was the Shachtman-Burnham-Abern tendency. Experience has taught the
Trotskyist movement that the political clarification of cadre must be the
overriding priority in any factional struggle — even one involving a disloyal
clique.”
Also, in these chapters, Kelly wastes excessive space on what it means
to “assess trends in the membership of the Trotskyist movement over time”. The constant
fixation with size belittles the Trotskyist movement's importance and
discourages a severe examination of the program and history.
Chapter 5 Doctrine, orthodoxy and
sectarianism It is debatable how much Marx, Engels, Trotsky, and Lenin Kelly has
read. Clearly, from this chapter, it is not enough. The early Marxists
understood very early that the program builds the Party. From Marx’s time,
orthodox Marxists have attached the highest importance to defending the Marxist
method and program from attack by revisionists.
Kelly calls this defence dogmatic and sectarian. It must be said that
the Trotskyist movement has survived greater insults than Kelly can produce.
There is nothing new in Kelly’s stance. The Stalinists have been attacking
Trotskyist conceptions since the late 1920s. Kelly is just rehashing their
political positions and slanders.
Chapter 6 Party Recruitment In this chapter, Kelly again berates the Trotskyist movement for its low
membership. Kelly does not explain what happened to the Labour Party and
Communist Party politically regardless of whether they have grown or declined.
Both of these organisations are organically hostile to the building of a
revolutionary party and have spent their entire existence trying to prevent the
growth of such an organisation.
Chapter 7 Party Electoral Performance Throughout his career, it would seem Kelly has been heavily critical of
Trotskyist parties such as the SEP for not ditching their “ doctrinal” attitude
towards elections. In his article Upbeat and the Margins: the British
Trotskyist Left and their exceptionally poor election results[10], he states, “The extremely poor electoral
performance, therefore, created a significant dilemma for these party leaders.
On the one hand, an open acknowledgement of an extremely poor vote implies very
little support for their programmes and potentially calls into question their
main policies and possibly their core ideology. Moreover, an open admission of
unpopularity could threaten the positive attachment of activists to their
respective parties. On the other hand, the denial of poor electoral performance
or claims that it constitutes some form of success, 1/3 potentially threaten
the credibility and authority of the party leaders. The research was therefore
undertaken to understand how Trotskyist party leaders constructed accounts of
their electoral performance which identified positive achievements in the face
of meagre vote shares”.
Kelly’s article shows some things. Firstly, Kelly has no faith that
Trotskyism can win the working class to its banner with a revolutionary
program. As Stalinists have advocated, they should ditch building a
revolutionary party and concentrate on electoral politics. Failing that, Kelly
encourages groups to liquidate their parties and work within popular front
organisations, which many Pseudo Lefts groups have all in but name done.
Chapter 9 Working in the Trade Unions Kelly correctly states that “Trotskyists have always attached enormous
importance to working inside the trade union movement because of the belief
that it represents the most organised and class-conscious section of the
working class “. Kelly intimates that the trade union question has been a
vexing issue for the Marxist movement.
For Kelly, the issue is straightforward; he is uncritical of the trade
union leadership. He cannot understand why orthodox Marxists are profoundly
critical of the trade leadership's betrayal but have reservations about the organisations.
As David North from the SEP states, “In the history of the Marxist
movement, there are two political issues, or “questions,” that have been the
source of exceptionally persistent controversy, spanning more than a Century.
One is the “national question”, and the other is the “trade union” question”.
One would think that there is something to be learned from so many unfortunate
experiences. But like the old fools found in the tales of Boccaccio, the ageing
and toothless radicals today are only too eager to play the cuckold again and
again. Thus, the present-day “left” organisations still insist that the
socialist movement is duty-bound to minister loyally to the needs and whims of
the trade unions. Socialists, they insist, must acknowledge the trade unions as
the worker's organisation par excellence, the form most representative of the
social interests of the working class. The trade unions, they argue, constitute
the authentic and unchallengeable leadership of the working class — the
principal and ultimate arbiters of its historical destiny. To challenge the
authority of the trade unions over the working class, to question in any way
the supposedly “natural” right of the trade unions to speak in the name of the
working class is tantamount to political sacrilege. It is impossible, the
radicals claim, to conceive of any genuine workers movement which is not
dominated, if not formally led, by the trade unions. Only on the basis of the
trade unions can the class struggle be effectively waged. And, finally,
whatever hope there exists for the development of a mass socialist movement
depends upon “winning” the trade unions, or at least a significant section of
them, to a socialist perspective.
To put the matter bluntly, the International Committee rejects every one
of these assertions, which are refuted both by theoretical analysis and
historical experience. In the eyes of our political opponents, our refusal to
bow before the authority of the trade unions is the equivalent of lèse-majesté.
This does not trouble us greatly, for not only have we become accustomed, over
the decades, to be in opposition to “left-wing” — or, to be more accurate —
petty-bourgeois public opinion; we consider its embittered antipathy the surest
sign that the International Committee is, politically speaking, on the correct
path”[11].
Chapter 11 The proliferation of Trotskyist Internationals.The problem with this chapter, like all the rest of the book Kelly
presents large numbers of statistics but very little analysis of how the
different Trotskyist groups started and where they have finished. As I said
earlier, there is a reason why Kelly does not in any detail discuss not only
the international origins of the Fourth International but its origins in
Britain. Everything Kelly examines he does so from a nationalist standpoint
point. How could it be any different? He is, after all, a Stalinist. Anyone
reading this chapter would be better off closing the book and purchasing a copy
of the newly updated history of the Fourth International called The Heritage We
Defend by David North.
This is a hack book written by a Stalinist who long ago made peace with
capitalism and has no interest in a revolutionary struggle. Eternal waves of
shame go to Routledge for publishing such a wretched book.
[1] https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/j570a3oncp
[2] http://review31.co.uk/article/view/553/was-it-all-futile
[3] Trotskyism under the Spotlight- June 2018-By
Joseph Choonara- http://socialistreview.org.uk/436/trotskyism-under-spotlight
[4] Report to the Third National Congress of the
Socialist Equality Party (UK)-
[5] Alex Callinicos-Trotskyism-
[6] Socialist Equality Party holds founding
Congress-19 September
2008-https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2008/09/cong-s19.html
[7] Founding Conference of the Fourth
International 1938 On Unification of The British Section-
[8] A blow against the Post-Soviet School of
Historical Falsification-https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2011/12/lett-d31.html
[9] How the Workers Revolutionary Party Betrayed
Trotskyism
1973 – 1985-
[10] http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/trotskyist-election-results/
[11]Why are Trade Unions Hostile to Socialism? -Two
vexed questions By David North
The Twilight of World Trotskyism John Kelly London: Routledge,
2022. 144 pp., $59.95
My first duty is to correct a mistake I made in reviewing
John Kelly’s book on British Trotskyism on this website. In that review, I
praised Routledge for publishing a book about Trotskyism. I will not make the
same mistake with this review. It says a lot about Routledge that they paid
Kelly to spew his hatred of Trotskyism over two books. Kelly’s anti-Trotskyism
goes way back. Kelly’s first so-called “critical investigation of Trotskyism” dates
back to one of his earliest major books, Trade Unions and Socialist Politics
(1988). The book was written as a defence of trade union Syndicalism while he
was still a CPGB member and a Labour Party supporter.
As David North has written, “ The Labour Party, 118 years
after its founding, is a ruthless instrument of British imperialism, led by a
cabal of right-wing warmongers dedicated to the dismantling of even the limited
reforms implemented by Labour governments in the years immediately following
World War II. One can safely assume that Mr Kelly is a devoted follower of
Jeremy Corbyn, the political eunuch who epitomises the impotence of the
contemporary practitioners of pseudo-left, anti-Marxist and anti-Trotskyist
politics. Swept into the leadership of the Labour Party with massive popular
support, Corbyn proceeded to return power to the Blairite right wing. Outside
of Britain, similar examples of political bankruptcy were provided by Syriza in
Greece and Podemos in Spain.
One of the first things the reader will notice of The
Twilight of World Trotskyism – is how short it is at a mere 124 pages. This is
an insult, given the history it purports to cover. Kelly’s central theme is
that Trotskyist parties are too small to trouble global capitalism. Kelly also
believes social revolutions are undesirable and impossible in today's political
climate. People who want change should forget about challenging poverty or
social inequality or, god forbid, socialist revolution. Instead, according to Kelly,
they should look to parties like Brazil’s Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers
Party), which offers limited radical reform with the promise of changing working
people's lives.
As Guilherme Ferreira shows in his excellent article, the
reality is slightly different. He writes, “The policies of the first year of
Lula’s administration represent a continuation and deepening of the attacks on
the working class and people with low incomes promoted during the 13 years
(2003-2016) in which the PT was the preferred Party of the bourgeoisie in
Brazil. In 2024, in addition to cuts in social spending due to the prospect of
a worsening world economy and the implementation of the new fiscal regime, it
is expected that social spending will be even further decreased with the
proposed “zero deficit target” for the year’s budget that the PT managed to get
Congress to approve in December. To meet this target, the budget includes a
freeze of up to 56 billion reais (11 billion dollars), and there is a threat to
end the constitutional limits on health and education.
What is emerging with increasing force is the certainty that
the reactionary anti-working class policies of the new Lula government will
pave the way for the strengthening of the extreme right and its possible return
to power in the next elections. This political phenomenon was already seen in
the election of the fascistic Bolsonaro amid the popular discrediting of the PT
after it implemented capitalist adjustment programs and its leading role in
vast corruption scandals. More recently, the same phenomenon has been seen in
Argentina, where the fascistic Javier Milei used the enormous discrediting of
Peronism to pose as a political alternative.”
Chapter 1, ‘The Origins and Content of Trotskyism’,
Kelly spends some time examining the “core elements’ of Trotskyism”. While he
mentions every Pseudo Left organisation under the sun, he does not discuss the
orthodox Trotskyist parties contained within the International Committee of the
Fourth International. (ICFI). He makes no mention of its global publication, the
World Socialist Website(wsws.org), which is the largest publication of its kind
on the web. Kelly continuously uses the generic term Trotakyist without
examining the history of various pseudo-left groups that use the term
Trotskyist only as a cover for their opportunist politics. But it is clear that
when he calls for Trotskyists to drop their adherence to Marxism, he is talking
about the Orthodox Marxists inside the ICFI.
Chapter 2 ‘A Brief Account of the Four Main Centres of
World Trotskyism: You would have thought that someone at Routledge would
have told Kelly that it was not a good idea to try and explain the origins and
history of the world Trotskyist movement using only four countries. But it
seems that the editors at Routledge have given Kelly free rein to write any
half-arse things that come into his head at any given moment. Kelly exhibits a
shocking degree of academic laziness; his aversion to including in his supposed
look at the origins of world Trotskyism, the orthodox Trotskyist on the ICFI,
is akin to leaving Jesus out of the bible. Any honest account of the origins of
world Trotskyism would have to at least look at and consider David North’s monumental
contribution to the Fourth International Heritage We Defend.
The Heritage We Defend was first published in book form in 1988. Its origins
lie in the political struggle waged by the ICFI and the Workers League, the
predecessor of the Socialist Equality Party of the United States, from
1982-1986, to defend Trotskyism against the nationalist opportunism of the
ICFI’s former British section, the Workers Revolutionary Party.
It was written as a polemic against Michael Banda, the
former WRP General Secretary, and his document, “27 Reasons why the
International Committee Should be Buried Forthwith and the Fourth International
Built.” It establishes the continuity of the fight for orthodox Trotskyism in
the political conflicts that arose inside the Fourth International in the 20th
Century. Kelly’s hatred of orthodox Trotskyism is clear, and he deliberately
ignores its history and program. And for good reason. In this respect, Kelly is
not stupid enough to go up against the ICFI. He knows that the ICFI has a track
record of dealing with and exposing Stalinists like him.
In Chapter 3, ‘The Current State of World Trotskyism’,
In this chapter, Kelly exhibits the same light-mindedness and ignorance he
showed in chapter two. He has no interest in the political differences between the
orthodox Marxist parties within the ICFI and the various pseudo-left groups. Kelly
is not interested in the programme but solely in membership and electoral
results.
In chapter 4, ‘The Dynamics of World Trotskyism, ’ Kelly
argues, and not very well, I might add, that
the Trotskyist movement has not led major protests or revolutions in the Twentieth
Century and has become an irrelevance’ for struggles today. He asks, ‘Why have
Trotskyist groups repeatedly failed to build mass organisations, despite almost
a century of organising effort in over 70 countries across six continents?
Marxist writer David North writes, “Two points must be made.
While sarcastically dismissing the failure of the Trotskyist movement to lead a
socialist revolution, Kelly ignores the counter-revolutionary actions,
frequently involving murderous violence, taken by the mass Stalinist and social
democratic party and trade union organisations in alliance with the state to
isolate and destroy the Trotskyist movement and defend the capitalist system.
Kelly pretends the Trotskyist movement was conducting its revolutionary work in
ideal laboratory conditions.
The second point, actually a question, is this: What are the
great political successes achieved by those organisations and their leaders engaged
in what Kelly calls “serious”, i.e., non-revolutionary politics? Mr. Kelly
informs his readers that he was a member of the British Communist Party during
the 1980s. What were the great and lasting achievements of this Party, which
was implicated in every crime and betrayal carried out by the Stalinist regime
in the Kremlin from the 1920s until the catastrophic dissolution of the Soviet
Union in 1991?”.
Chapter 5, ‘Explaining the Marginality of World
Trotskyism’, is much like previous chapters in that it does offer no real
analysis. Instead, it has chapter headings like ‘Reforms are no longer
possible; the choice is between ‘socialism or barbarism!’, ‘Party and electoral
programs: We demand everything!’, ‘Parliamentary elections decide nothing’,
‘Lamentation replaces analysis’, ‘Ideological certitude, electoral delusion and
millenarian fantasy’. Kelly believes that adherence to program and history is debilitating
and doctrinaire. (page 80)
After Kelly’s book, one is left to ask: If the “Trotskyist
movement has an unparalleled record of political failure”, why did Kelly and a
major global publisher release two books on the subject? The professor has
devoted excessive time and study to a movement and a man that he considers
“irrelevant?”
As David North points “ Why have the two volumes of Kelly
been published by Routledge, among the largest publishers in the world with
annual revenues of between $50 and $100 million. Why does this powerful
capitalist publishing house expend resources on publishing books about an
irrelevant organisation? It should be recalled that in 2003 Routledge also
published a biography of Leon Trotsky. I had the honour of exposing its author,
Professor Ian Thatcher, as an intellectually unprincipled slanderer. Evidently,
Routledge’s preoccupation with Trotsky indicates that it is by no means
convinced of his “irrelevance.”
Now that we are approaching the midpoint of the 2020s have
events tended to vindicate Kelly’s ridicule of the prognosis of the
International Committee five years ago? What has been the predominant tendency
in the economic, social and political structures of world capitalism since the
start of the new decade? If Professor Kelly’s criticisms of Trotskyist
“doctrinairism,” blind to the realities of the contemporary world, are correct,
he would have to demonstrate, with appropriate empirical documentation, that
the past four to five years have witnessed an organic strengthening of the
world economy, a diminution of social instability—that is, a lessening of class
conflict—and both a decline in global geopolitical tensions and growing
vitality of bourgeois democratic institutions”.
