Roberto Yepe writes: Dear Comrades—the theoretical journal Pensamiento Crítico here has recently published Nicolas Krassó’s article ‘Trotsky’s Marxism’, and promises Ernest Mandel’s reply ‘Trotsky: an Anti-Critique’; readers have been very concerned with it. I would like to make some comments on the debate.
Krassó’s location of Trotsky’s ‘sociologism—as the source of his weaknesses represents a considerable advance in the study of this passionate revolutionary. Trotsky’s shortcomings in his analysis of the Chinese Revolution illustrate this vividly. But Krassó’s dictum that Trotsky had ‘the virtues of his vices—is mere dialectical rhetoric. We are told that when he was first to return to Russia in 1905 and became the major revolutionary agitator in St Petersburg, this was because he represented par excellence the non-party man. Does this also explain why he arrived after Lenin in 1917? How can his theses on ‘permanent revolution—prior to October, with all the lucidity contained in them, be explained by his ‘vices’? Perhaps Lenin’s vices were all the greater, considering his indisputably greater virtues. . .
These are minor points, of course. The central defect of Krassó’s articles is their treatment of revolutions that failed. He may have a strong case with the British General Strike of 1926. But what about France and Italy? Was failure in these countries solely due to a ‘problematic’political situation there? Was the defeat of the Greek Revolution only caused by ‘Anglo-American invasion’, as Krassó states? The Vietnamese would be in a very bad way if this were an insuperable obstacle to revolutions: or do the Vietnamese victories at Saigon or Cuban victories at Playa Giron lack ‘consistent unity’?