BOOKS
ON TROTSKY AND EVERYTHING ELSE
TROTSKY, THE GREAT DEBATE RENEWED. Ed. Nicol". Kra..6; I"trod.
by David Horowitz. New Critic. Pre... $8.95.
Let us summarize crudely and briefly the bulk of the debate.
Mr. KrassO thinks that Trotsky underestimated the autonomy of parties
and politi cal structures distinct from social classes - unlike Lenin, who
neither underestimated nor overestimated anything, but estimated every–
thing properly. Mr. Mandel maintains, on the contral)" that Trotsky
neither underestimated nor overestimated anything but - not unlike
Lenin - estimated everything properly. Mr. Krasso thinks that Mr.
Mandel's arguments are un-Marxist. Mr. Mandel thinks that Mr.
Krasso's arguments are un-Marxist. Mr. Johnstone states that Trotsky
was wrong in denying that socialism may be built in one isolated country
since Stalin effectively built it, though in quite an ungentle manner.
I find this discussion somewhat sectarian and somewhat boring. I
will try to explain what I mean by "sectarian" without trying to ex–
plain, however, what I mean by "boring" (I am aware that the dis–
putants probably would say that "boring" is an un-Marxist category,
and probably they would be right).
Let us now summarize less crudely and less briefly. According to
Mr. Krasso , Trotsky, throughout his political career, had never under–
stood that politi cal bodies - in particular the Party - are specific social
entities which cannot either replace social classes or be identical to
them. This, Krasso says, is what exp lains a ll Trotsky'S political blunders,
including his ultimate defeat. Before the Revolution of 1905', Trotsky
shifted from the military concep t of the party to its opposite, the party
as coextensive with the working class. Both concepts, however, run
against Lenin's theory and both show the same fai lure to understand
the relation between party and class "correctly." There is no party in
Trotsky's ana lysis of the first Russian revolution and Trotsky was him–
self a nonparty revolutional), up to 1917; in anticipating the revolu–
tionary uphea\'al he ignored specific functions of the party organiza–
tion. According to Krasso the fa llacy of "sociologism" led him to reduce
