My friend's response to Chomsky's "Soviet Union versus Socialism"

Thank you everyone for your responses and help. I'm heading to the library later tonight to get my hands on Brinton.

Also, I couldn't help not sharing this with you all. One of my other friends decided just to send the message to Noam Chomsky, and to see what he thought, this was his response!:

I can't respond to the "accusation" because I've proudly been a libertarian socialist (anarchist) all my life, very close to genuine (hence anti-Bolshevik) Marxists like Anton Pannekoek, Paul Mattick, Karl Korsch, and others. The phrase "state priests" was a typographical error introduced by the editors. The original was "state priesthood." A few comments below.

Noam Chomsky

----- Original Message -----
From: charles weinstein (by way of Noam Chomsky <chomsky@mit.edu>)
To: Noam Chomsky
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 3:11 PM
Subject: My friends rebuttal to your article "The Soviet Union Versus Socialism" (1986)

Dear Honorable Exalted Professor Chomsky,

Below is a essay response to your 1986 article "The Soviet Union Versus Socialism". I've recently gotten into Socialism and studying other forms of government. I presented your article to my friend and I was hoping you could present your response to his criticism and analysis of your arguments. If you could please respond to his accusation of you having a libertarian anarchist bias that would be great. Also, I apologize in advance if his criticism of you is harsh, but he got offended when you called Lenin and Trotsky "state priests". I hope you don't take it personally.

I'm including a link to your essay for easy reference because I know that you answer hundreds of e-mails daily.

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1986----.htm

(Below this line is my friends response)
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Interesting article but over simplified. I would love to discuss these ideas anytime. There are a few things i must add however.

1. Chomsky notes that "upon assuming power, immediately devoted themselves to destroying the liberatory potential of these instruments (the soviets) establishing rule of the party."

This could not be taken further out of context. First, Trotsky and Lenin operated within the Bolshevik party for years as the least popular party amongst the workers parties and political parties. I.e Menshiviks. Prior to the 1917 revolution in Russia the Bolsheviks recruited from work places and were themselves fighters for and of the soviets. As for Trotsky and Lenin "assuming power" it was not forced upon the workers. At the point of the Bolsheviks taking power they had full support of the soviets not only because several Bolsheviks were involved in the soviets and had been for years but because they put forth the best program for the workers. The Menshiviks at the time of the insurrection and the democratic socialist were against the insurrection by the workers and soviets. The other socialist parties thought the workers should wait and try to win democratically via the transitional government while the majority of workers were being sent to kill their German brothers, get killed, and were starving in the streets and in the battle front. The Bolsheviks did not "assume" power alone, they were elected because the workers identified overwhelmingly with their agenda which was, "all power to the soviets".

Note that this is completely irrelevant on simple logical grounds. It says nothing about what Lenin and Trotsky did "upon assuming power." I won't go into the accuracy of these statements, because of their obvious irrelevance. But if your friend is familiar with the literature, he/she will know that a rather standard left critique of Lenin is that he veered to the left in the February-October period (April Theses, State and Revolution) to capitalize on the revolutionary ferment of the period, though "upon assuming power" he (and Trotsky) did exactly what I described.

2. Chomsky also says that the goal of socialism "...is not reached by a new directing and governing class substituting itself for the bourgeoisie but only realized by workers themselves being master over production" This criticism is again very isolated and detached from the actual time period and struggle. The Bolshevik party or the worker's vanguard, does not aim to govern the masses but aims to put forth the most progressive and imperative agendas for the working class in each struggle they face, the Bolsheviks did just that and set up a workers state.

Quite the contrary, Lenin-Trotsky set up a state that they ruled, in which the workers organizations were demolished, and workers were turned into what they called a "labor army," exactly as described in detail in the sources I cited, and as illustrated by the few directives of the leadership that I quoted in this brief essay (which, you'll notice, the author ignores) -- and indeed as Trotsky had predicted in his critique of Bolshevism before he joined Lenin (same with the others I cited).

At the time of the insurrection we have a backward country (majority of the people could not read, write, study previous struggles, or observe the threat impending on their new society as they starved day to day) Russia, striving for socialism. The soviets put forth the Bolsheviks as their party to lead the insurrection and stabilize their new order while they themselves continued being active in the struggle. Upon the "assumption of power" the Bolshevik party and Lenin were busy assessing all threats, this meant creating a people's army to defend the new society from enemies such as "the whites" which were pro-capitalist armies operating with the goal of destroying the new workers state from the inside. With the Bolshevik party leading, the workers were able to withdraw from the imperialist war with Germany, nationalize banks, set up public institutions of education, abolish the church in cooperation with the state, and begin prepping itself for future fights. IF you read "The state and revolution" by Lenin you will find the entire Bolshevik agenda and a very interesting chapter entitled "the withering away of the state" . In this chapter Lenin argues that the state is the workers defense of their new society, Its purpose is to establish permanent dictatorship of THE WORKING CLASS by organizing production/distribution/consumption of food/ goods according to needs and also protecting the new society from capitalist countries and spreading the revolution abroad. Chomsky's analysis of Lenin and Trotsky totally ignores this doctrine of withering statehood.

The reference to State and Revolution is accurate. As noted, before assuming power Lenin veered sharply to the left, taking positions close to the anarchists and the the Marxists he later denounced as "ultra-leftists". Meanwhile he and Trotsky did exactly as I described, destroying the socialist institutions -- all of which began before the intervention, incidentally, and continued after it was beaten back with the help of popular left forces that Trotsky proceeded to destroy.

3. Finally, too many times do intellectuals wrap together the motives of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin as one uniform idea and path. There is a reason that by 1940 there was only one Bolshevik left, Stalin, because he killed off and exiled all other Bolsheviks one by one till his own power was solidified. Lenin's purpose was to establish a worker's state in time of turmoil to protect the transition of power to the workers. He knew he was going to die and did all he could in defense of the workers to set up instruments of workers power such as abolishing ranks in the military and establishing a worker's wage in political office. Lenin learned of this necessity by studying past workers struggles such as the Paris commune and its naevity of impending attacks. Trotsky was his own person as well, he argued that the revolution must spread internationally and even disagreed with many of Lenin's programs. Trotsky because of his arguing for support of German workers, Spanish workers, and Italian workers against fascism lead to his exile by Stalin.

Partially true, but clearly irrelevant, so I won't comment on its limits and misrepresentations.

It is true that mistakes were made but we must recognize the necessity of a workers state for defense of the struggle. We know now reflecting on history that in another revolution the leading party should not abolish other parties but allow national and local assemblies to argue policy and allow workers to decide. In the U.S, education levels soar far above Russian people's in 1917 thus more control and work organizing will occur and be supported by the new state, that and the majority of u.s citizens are not already starving so room for error will be more expansive than the Bolsheviks allowed in the soviet union.

No comment necessary

Chomsky is a smart cookie but don't forget what he is, an intellectual totally distant from any true struggle. Essentially he writes his opinion on a period in which he assumes the Bolsheviks could have acted differently disregarding in his article any urgency for the workers to protect their embryotic state from foreign/native invaders, poverty, starvation, and an escalating war with Germany. I love Chomsky but cannot stand his libertarian socialism aka anarchist critiques of a period he cannot fully understand because he is a mere intellectual not a revolutionary militant. The man reads and writes books, he doesn't struggle with people to create their contents. All power to the soviets!

I don't know who the author is, but I am reasonably confident that he/she knows nothing about me, and my extensive participation in activism, including direct resistance, which would have led to a long prison sentence had it not been for the Tet offensive, continuing until today. I don't know what the author does as a "revolutionary militant," but I am reasonably confident that he/she is far more removed from "true struggle" than I have been for many years -- matters that someone interested could determine by inquiring among poor and suffering people actually engaged in struggle here and around the world.

If Trotsky and Lenin were "state preists" then i would argue that Chomsky is the toilet bowl of workers democracy as he flushes important lessons down the drain for the purpose of "radical" thought critique and justifying his own passivity in his life.

I won't comment, except to say that the last phrase demonstrates that the author knows nothing whatsoever about me, as he/she would were he actually engaged in popular struggles.