 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Shachtmanism" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(June 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Shachtmanism is the form ofMarxism associated withMax Shachtman (1904–1972). It has two major components: abureaucratic collectivist analysis of theSoviet Union and athird camp approach to world politics. Shachtmanites believe that theStalinist rulers of proclaimed socialist countries are anew ruling class distinct from the workers and rejectTrotsky's description of Stalinist Russia as a "degenerated workers' state".[1]
Shachtmanism originated as a tendency within theUS Socialist Workers Party in 1939, as Shachtman's supporters left that group to form theWorkers Party in 1940. The tensions that led to the split extended as far back as 1931. However, the theory of “bureaucratic collectivism”, the idea that the USSR was neither a “workers’ state” of any kind nor a form of capitalism, but rather was ruled by a new form of bureaucratic class, did not originate with Shachtman, but seems to have originated within the Trotskyist movement withYvan Craipeau, a member of the French Section of theFourth International, andBruno Rizzi.
Although the Shachtman group's resignation from the SWP was not only over the defence of theSoviet Union, rather than the class nature of the state itself, that was a major point in the internal polemics of the time.
Regardless of its origins in the American SWP, Shachtmanism's core belief is opposition to the American SWP's defence of the Soviet Union. This originated not with Shachtman butJoseph Carter (1910–1970) andJames Burnham (1905–1987), who proposed this at the founding of the SWP in 1938.C. L. R. James (1901–1989) referred to the implied theory, from which he dissented, as Carter's little liver pill. The theory was never fully developed by anybody in the Workers Party and Shachtman's book, published many years later in 1961, consists earlier articles from the pages ofNew International with some political conclusions reversed.Ted Grant (1913–2006) has alleged that some Trotskyist thinkers, includingTony Cliff (1917–2000), who have described such societies as "state capitalist" share an implicit theoretical agreement with some elements of Shachtmanism.[2] Cliff, who published a critique of Shachtmanism in the late 1940s,[3] would have rejected this allegation.
Left Shachtmanism, influenced by Max Shachtman's work of the 1940s, seesStalinist nations as being potentiallyimperialist and does not offer any support to their leadership. This has been crudely described as seeing the Stalinist and capitalist countries as being equally bad, although it would be more accurate to say that neither is seen as occupying a more progressive stage in the globalclass struggle.
A more current term for Left Shachtmanism is Third Camp Trotskyism, the Third Camp being differentiated fromcapitalism andStalinism. ProminentThird Camp groupings include theWorkers' Liberty grouping inAustralia and theUnited Kingdom and by the International Socialist predecessor ofSolidarity.
The foremost left Shachtmanite wasHal Draper (1914–1990),[4] an independent scholar who worked as a librarian at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, where he organized theIndependent Socialist Club and became influential withleft-wing students during theFree Speech Movement.Julius Jacobson (1922–2003) and theNew Politics journal continued to develop and apply this political tradition.[5]
Social democratic Shachtmanism, later developed by Shachtman and associated with some members of theSocial Democrats, USA, holdsSoviet Communist states to be so repressive that communism must becontained and, when possible, defeated by the collective action of the working class. Consequently, adherents support freelabor unions and democracy movements around the world. Domestically, they organized in the civil rights movement and in the labor movement. Social democrats influenced by Shachtman rejected calls for an immediate cease-fire and the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam, but rather opposed bombings in Vietnam and supported a negotiated peace that would allow labor unions and government-opposition to survive. Such social democrats helped provide funding and supplies toSolidarity, the Polish labor union, as requested by the Polish workers.
| Part ofa series on |
| Libertarian socialism |
|---|
 |
Libertarian socialist tendencies developed within early Shachtmanism, leading to certain individuals and groups moving towardsanarchism andlibertarian Marxism.Dwight Macdonald left the Workers Party shortly after it was first established, founding thePolitics magazine and becoming ananarcho-pacifist duringWorld War II. While still within the Workers Party, theJohnson–Forest Tendency developed a form of libertarian Marxism that characterized the Soviet Union asstate capitalist, while also developing ablack liberationist program.[6] The trade union activistStan Weir was in turn inspired by the Johnsonites to rejectvanguardism and traditionaltrade unionism, in favor of a bottom-upsyndicalist model. WhileMurray Bookchin himself had stayed with the Cannonite Socialist Workers Party, he briefly joined a group that worked together with the Shachtmanite Workers Party, later developing towards agreen anarchist philosophy - which he labelled "social ecology".[5]
In the wake of World War II, the Independent Socialist League began to forge alliances with other "third camp" groups, holding joint conferences with such organizations as theIndustrial Workers of the World, theLibertarian League and theWar Resisters League. An anarchist newspaper noted that the ISL's political thought had developed greatly since its break with orthodox Trotskyism in 1939, stating that "in some respects these comrades are evolving in a generally libertarian direction."[5] However, as Shachtman himself moved towards social democratic tendencies, the further left segments led by Hal Draper split to form the International Socialists, attracting many libertarian socialists through Draper's pamphletTwo Souls of Socialism - which advocated for a popular and democratic "socialism from below".[7] However, due to the International Socialists' preoccupation withelectoralism, revolutionary socialists split from the organization to form theRevolutionary Socialist League, which included a sizeable number of libertarian socialists.[8] Libertarians of the RSL, led by Christopher Z. Hobson and Ron Tabor, eventually broke entirely from Trotskyism, Leninism and Marxism, becoming anarchists and forming the founding nucleus of theLove & Rage Anarchist Federation.[9] Tabor later identified Left Shachtmanism as having provided a bridge between Trotskyism and anarchism, through the concepts of the "Third Camp", "socialism from below" and the "united front". He also criticized the International Socialists for itssocial democratic,centrist andreformist tendencies.[10] Draper, in turn, has criticized anarchism as "fundamentally antidemocratic in ideology", labeling it as anelitist andauthoritarian ideology.[11]
TheInternational Socialist Organization also established itself around Draper's conception of "socialism from below", and like the Revolutionary Socialist League before it, a number of anarchists have since left the organization after developing towards more libertarian philosophies.[12]
