Trotsky and the International Revolution
Let us now look at Trotsky, since Stefan Engel vehemently rejects being placed on the same level with him.
In 1923 Trotsky also sees that “capitalist forces of produc- tion had outgrown the framework of European national states” (quoted from “Is the Slogan ‘The United States of Europe’ a Timely One?,” at https://www.marxists.org/ archive/trotsky/1924/ffyci-2/25b.htm). He promotes the United States of Europe, which was vehemently unmasked by Lenin as being impossible or reactionary. Stefan Engel, like Trotsky, sees the “predominantly international character” of the “capitalist mode of production,” but worldwide instead of related to Europe.
In his work The Third International After Lenin, Trotsky writes in 1928:
“On August 4, 1914, the death knell sounded for national programs for all time. The revolutionary party of the proletariat can base itself only upon an international program corresponding to the character of the present epoch, the epoch of the highest development and collapse of capitalism.”
Quoted from “The Program of the International Revolution or a Program of Social- ism in One Country?”in The Third International After Lenin, at https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1928/3rd/ti01.htm#p1-01
For Trotsky, too, the “international revolution” is an abstract phrase that does not exist in the context of the concrete dialectical relation between the international character and national form of the revolution.
In the above article, Trotsky also attacks the Communist International:
“There is no justifying the omission of the slogan of the Soviet United States of Europe from the new draft program, a slogan which was accepted by the Comintern back in 1923, after a ra- ther protracted internal struggle....
“The entire formulation of the questions as outlined above flows from the dynamics of the revolutionary process taken as a whole. The international revolution is regarded as an interconnected process which cannot be predicted in all its concreteness, and, so to speak, its order of occurrence, but which is absolutely clear-cut in its general historical outline. Unless the latter is understood, a correct political orientation is entirely out of the question.” (Ibid.)
The vague character of Trotsky’s formulation stands out. He speaks about “the dynamics of the revolutionary process taken as a whole,” about the “general historical outline” which cannot be predicted.
Instead of denying that his theses are taken from Kautsky and Trotsky with cobbled-together quotations, we would have liked Stefan Engel to have made a comprehensive explanation of what he
considers his differences from these two persons to be. We do not see any difference!
To a criticism in the Indian paper “Red Star,” organ of the Communist Party of India/Marxist-Leninist (CPI/ML), Stefan Engel replied:
“When we speak of the international character of the revolu- tion this, of course, does not mean that, in face of such a contra- dictory, uneven and differentiated world, a homogenous international revolution can take place. Many revolutionary movements and revolutions of varied scale and character will take place at different times. But these — and that is the decisive point — must all be related to the process of an international revolution. That is objectively the case and will be a definite fact. The success of this process will be determined by the question of how the Marxist-Leninists consciously prepare themselves for this in good time and draw conclusions for their cooperation.” (Stefan Engel, an- swer to the newspaper Red Star, 1 July 2004, in: Engel, Dawn …,p. 138)
How is this different from Trotsky, who says, in the above mentioned quotation: “The international revolution is regarded as an interconnected process.”
Here, too, we see no difference. Instead of a concrete analysis, we are fed with vague phrases that do not fill us up. It is a position of total arbitrariness, in which Stefan Engel commits himself to nothing, absolutely nothing.
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