A very brief reply to Steve Revins on factors leading to Blairism

Steve Revins has not written the totality of my writings on this
blog which has looked several times all the factors playing into
Blairism's hands. I agree with Revins that the break-up of
the Soviet Union and industrial defeats for workers during the
1980s also contributed to the rise of Blairism.


There are two points where I fundamentally disagree with
Revins. Revins considering the Iranian revolution of 1979
as a defeat is a ultra-left sectarian line which Gerry
Downing as correctly attacked as an ultra-left break with
Permanent Revolution. This is one of the few issues
which I agree with Downing. In the early stages of
Iran's revolution in 1978 there were workers committees
challenging Capitalism within the factories. Mandel quoting
Marx in "Power and Money" said revolutions can be followed
by counter-revolution. This is what happened when Islamic
Fundamentalists consolidated their power.


Despite the counter-revolution, Imperialism did not restore a total
client regime in Iran, they have not overthrown an autonomous
Bourgeois Nationalist regime. As Downing argued in
the Weekly Worker many months ago the struggle against
Imperialism even by Bourgeois Nationalists is one key
Bourgeois-Democratic task which are tied up with
Socialist tasks which can only be achieved by overthrowing
Capitalism. Trotskyists while keeping their political
independence from Bourgeois Nationalists in the
semi-colonies utilise conflicts with Imperialism to organise
mass protests and utilise any military struggle against Imperialism
to strengthen the workers. This limited anti-Imperialist victory
in 1979 is very important as American Imperialism is being
defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan, and constitutes a major
obstacle to Imperialism totally controlling the Middle East.


On China I draw the opposite conclusion to Revins. Despite
the crimes of Stalinism in Tinaman Square during 1989 the
example of China as a workers' state particularly its massive
socio-economic development pose an alternative to Capitalism.
This is even more so since the world Capitalist depression
is entering into. Examples of this is that China is one of the
few places where massive infrastructure projects are being
undertaken; whereas Britain is not allowing 40,000 students
to do their degrees this year, China turns out millions
of university graduates each year; and China has lifted
300 million from poverty.


Revins has a un-dialectical and does not apply the
concept of law of Uneven and Combined Development
in seeing the weakening of Stalinism since 1989 as
totally negative. It is true Imperialism made tremendous
inroads into Eastern Europe and ex-Soviet states; and
this was utilised by Liberal Bourgeois ideologues
to claim Socialism was dead. Now with the mistakes of
Imperialism with the Iraq war and trends towards a global
Capitalist depression Trotskyism can now become a mass force.



This would not be possible without the 1989 events.
As a tendency within the Socialist Action editorial board in
Britain argued in a document to the FI's 13th World Congress
that the crisis of the workers' states were tied up with deepening
economic problems within the world capitalist economy.
Trotskyism largely blew its opportunity from 1989 to 2007 because
elements went from adaptation to Stalinism towards another extreme
of Third Campism.