By Richard Mellor in California
In 1938, two years before he was assassinated by a Stalinist agent, the Russian revolutionary and Marxist, Leon Trotsky wrote that, “The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat.” ‘Working class’ is a more familiar term than proletariat among working people.
No one is right all the time, despite certain individuals, especially leaders of the numerous self-styled revolutionary organizations that are around today, claiming the opposite. But this statement by a person who was a major figure in perhaps the most important event in the history of the modern working class, the Russian Revolution of 1917, has been validated by objective reality.
Black Lives Matter movement
We see it in strikes, like the strike wave of the 1980s here in the US, that were defeated by a powerful combination of the US capitalist class and the trade union hierarchy. And we have seen it in revolutions, like the Spanish Revolution of 1936 and the rise of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, or Venezuela today, and so on. The Greek working class voted overwhelmingly to empower the leadership of Syriza to develop and organize a movement to take on the European capitalists and instead were dealt a hand of betrayal.
Today, especially since the recent social upsurge led by the Black Lives Matter movement, after the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breona Taylor by the US security forces (police), we are witnessing an unprecedented global struggle against capitalism and its violence.
At this very moment, there is resistance to the capitalist state on all continents except Antarctica and it’s quite possible penguins are on the march there. In Chile, Ecuador, Colombia there are mass protests. In Bolivia, the US-instigated coup that overthrew the Morales government and the Movement for Socialism–Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (MAS-IPSP), has been thrown back and the MAS returned to power. This is an important victory, but nothing is guaranteed and, as in all movements, leadership is crucial. Venezuela is just one of the many examples that prove you can’t have ‘half a revolution’ and you cannot govern in the interests of those who sell labour power as well as those that buy it.
Nigerian youth fighting militarised police
Workers and youth are fighting a militarized police force in Nigeria. In Thailand, there are battles and in Russia, youth are challenging the dictatorial policies of the former KGB man, Putin. Throughout the world, workers and youth are fighting in the streets against their militarized police forces and in some cases the military itself. Both urban and rural proletarians are either engaged directly in struggle or on the verge of mass uprisings kept down only be repressive measures.
Global capitalism is in crisis and it cannot find a way out. In the same document that contains his quote about leadership Trotsky wrote of the global capitalist class that they see, “… no way out. In countries where it has already been forced to stake its last upon the card of fascism, it now toboggans with closed eyes toward an economic and military catastrophe. In the historically privileged countries, i.e., in those where the bourgeoisie can still for a certain period permit itself the luxury of democracy at the expense of national accumulations (Great Britain, France, United States, etc.), all of capital’s traditional parties are in a state of perplexity bordering on a paralysis of will.” (My added emphasis). This could have been written today.
Same demands, desires and ideas
History is repeating itself and one of the main reasons is the crisis of leadership that was absent in 1938. We can see the same demands, the same desires, the same brutal response to the struggle to get them from all the governments throughout the world; we see this regardless of religion, sexual preference, gender, race, colour and so on. The only thing lacking is a leadership, rooted in and arising out of the class that leads these struggles. This is the elephant in the room, as the saying goes.
The plethora of self-styled revolutionary organizations have failed miserably to gain any serious foothold among the working class or to build any significant left current in the workers’ organizations. They are sectarian, undemocratic and are incapable of approaching workers in a way that can draw them to revolutionary conclusions. Their esteemed theoreticians’ reasons for this failure are generally to blame workers ourselves for our backwardness, etc. People and organizations that never make mistakes can never be blamed for them.
When I visited Trotsky’s house in Coyocan, Mexico City, where he was assassinated, it was disappointing, even embarrassing to see the papers there from the various organizations bearing his name that, certainly in the US, are seen as distant and disconnected to their lives by most workers.
There is much to be positive about as the international movement against capitalism and the free market violence grows. This absence of leadership is a hindrance; it ensures that the movement will be more violent than need be. After all, workers have the numbers and the social power to transform society peacefully; it is the ruling class that won’t allow this.
Movement sometimes driven back
It will mean that reaction will also take its toll at times if the movement is driven back: racism, tribalism, communalism and religious sectarianism will be encouraged. But we learn lessons from struggle and also look to our history and struggle from the past as the world’s youth in particular lead the charge.
The consequences of defeat are much greater today, with climate change and the potential for nuclear war or disaster in some way or another. But we should be optimistic. The importance of Trotsky’s statement is that it exposes the obstacle to our liberation, aside from the capitalist class that is, and that is our own leaders, the absence of a revolutionary leadership in a revolutionary era. It is not the working class that is weak, it is our leadership, and it is every worker’s obligation to learn the lessons of the past and play some role in building the movement anew.
From the US socialist website, Facts for Working People. The original can be found here.
October 28, 2020
