An Open Letter to Comrade Burnham¶
Core Argument¶
In this polemical chapter, Trotsky mounts a comprehensive defence of dialectical materialism against what he perceives as the empiricist and opportunist deviations of James Burnham and Max Shachtman. The core argument is that Burnham's rejection of dialectics represents not a superior scientific outlook but a regression to pre-Marxist modes of thought, trapped between Aristotelian formal logic and divine revelation. Trotsky insists that dialectics is the logic of evolution, indispensable for scientific analysis, and that to dismiss it as a religion without offering an alternative is intellectually shallow. He draws on historical precedent: Bernstein, Kautsky, and Mehring demonstrate that abandoning dialectics leads inexorably to opportunism, while its defence remains consistent with revolutionary communism.
The chapter situates this dispute within the broader history of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, comparing Burnham's demand to abandon philosophy for 'concrete political questions' to the Menshevik Martov and Dan's objections to Lenin's insistence on placing principled questions first. Trotsky argues that Burnham raised the question of the USSR's class character, forcing a debate on method, then withdrew his resolution while continuing to draw political conclusions from that sociological premise. He accuses Burnham of replacing 'Marxist politics' with 'experimental, critical, scientific politics'—terminology designed to accommodate bourgeois public opinion while avoiding the discredited word 'Marxism'.
Trotsky's polemic extends to practical revolutionary politics, where he finds the opposition weakest. He defends his directive for eastern Poland against Shachtman's call for simultaneous insurrection against Hitler and Stalin, and dismisses the opposition's analysis of Finland as lacking principled distinction. Two general features characterise the opposition: the splitting of sociology from dialectical materialism and politics from sociology, producing empiricism and impressionism; and abstentionism—refusing participation in struggle under ultra-radical phrases. Trotsky warns that the party must become proletarian or cease to exist, rejecting demands for unlimited democracy as petty-bourgeois bewilderment.