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In Defence of Marxism

Core Argument

In Defence of Marxism is Leon Trotsky's comprehensive polemical defence of dialectical materialism as the indispensable theoretical foundation of revolutionary Marxism, written during the 1939-40 crisis within the American Socialist Workers Party. The book's central thesis is that the rejection of dialectical materialism leads inexorably to political opportunism, theoretical confusion, and the abandonment of revolutionary politics. Trotsky argues that the factional dispute over the nature of the Soviet Union—whether it remained a degenerated workers' state or had become a new form of class society—was not an isolated tactical disagreement but a fundamental struggle over Marxist method itself.

Trotsky sets out to prove that the USSR, despite the Stalinist bureaucracy's crimes, remained a degenerated workers' state whose nationalised property and planned economy constituted progressive conquests of the October Revolution that must be defended against imperialist attack. He insists that those who reclassified the USSR as a new class society—whether "bureaucratic collectivism" or "state capitalism"—were not offering a superior analysis but capitulating to petty-bourgeois pressure and anti-Soviet hysteria. The political stakes were immense: to abandon the defence of the USSR was to abandon the perspective of socialist revolution itself, substituting historical pessimism for the revolutionary optimism demanded by the epoch of world war.

The book's second great argument concerns the nature of revolutionary organisation. Trotsky defends democratic centralism against what he characterises as mechanical and destructive conceptions of internal party democracy. He insists that the party must combine ideological firmness with organisational patience, conducting implacable theoretical struggle while avoiding splits wherever possible. The opposition's demand for "unlimited democracy" and independent public organs is exposed as a petty-bourgeois distortion of Bolshevik norms, a cover for factional ambition rather than a principled defence of democratic rights.

Overview

The book unfolds as a series of letters, articles, and polemical interventions written between September 1939 and August 1940, tracing the arc of a factional struggle that would tear apart the American Trotskyist movement. Trotsky writes from exile in Coyoacán, Mexico, intervening by correspondence in a dispute that began with the Nazi-Soviet Pact and the outbreak of the Second World War. The immediate trigger was the demand by James Burnham, Max Shachtman, and Martin Abern that the SWP revise its position on the defence of the USSR, arguing that the Stalin-Hitler pact proved the Soviet Union could no longer be regarded as a workers' state.

Trotsky's theoretical grounding is the Marxist theory of the state and social formations, developed from Marx and Engels through Lenin. He argues that the class character of a society is determined by its property relations, not by the policies of its government or its diplomatic alignments. The USSR remained a workers' state because the means of production remained nationalised and the economy planned, however bureaucratically deformed. The Stalinist bureaucracy was not a new ruling class but a parasitic stratum whose power rested on the temporary conditions of backwardness and imperialist encirclement; it could be overthrown through political revolution while preserving the social conquests of October.

The book's place in the Marxist tradition is that of a classic defence of orthodoxy against revisionism. Trotsky draws explicit parallels between the Burnham-Shachtman opposition and earlier revisionist currents: Bernstein's revisionism, Kautsky's centrism, the Mensheviks' opposition to Lenin's conception of the party. He identifies in Burnham's rejection of dialectics the same trajectory that led earlier intellectuals from Marxism to opportunism. The polemic is grounded in the Hegelian-Marxist tradition that Trotsky saw as indispensable to revolutionary science: dialectical materialism as the logic of evolution, capable of grasping phenomena in their continuous change and determining the critical limits where quantitative shifts become qualitative.

The argument develops through several phases. The early letters establish the theoretical line of demarcation: the USSR remains a degenerated workers' state, and the task is political revolution against the bureaucracy, not social revolution against the property forms. Trotsky then turns to the question of method, insisting that the opposition's rejection of dialectical materialism is not a harmless philosophical preference but the root of their political errors. The middle chapters dissect the opposition's theoretical eclecticism, exposing Burnham's pragmatism, Shachtman's evasiveness, and Abern's clique politics as expressions of petty-bourgeois pressure on the proletarian party.

The later chapters address the organisational consequences of the dispute. Trotsky defends democratic centralism against the minority's demand for referendums and independent publications, arguing that a revolutionary party cannot tolerate the coexistence of two organisations addressing the working class with different programmes. He insists that the majority must exhaust every possibility for unity before proceeding with a split, but that the minority's drive toward organisational rupture must be met with principled resistance. The book concludes with the vindication of Trotsky's prognosis: Burnham's resignation from the Workers Party and his open repudiation of socialism, followed by his trajectory into the camp of American imperialism.

The book is presented as essential reading for a new generation of revolutionaries, a manual of Marxist method and organisational principle that remains relevant amid the capitalist crisis and impending class battles of the twenty-first century.

Chapter Guide

  1. Introduction to 2010 Edition — The 1939-40 SWP dispute is introduced as a crisis challenging fundamental Marxist positions, with Trotsky countering the opposition's rejection of dialectical materialism and their reclassification of the USSR.
  2. A Letter to James P. Cannon — Trotsky argues that the USSR's social character is determined by its internal class relations, not its diplomatic alignments, and defends the orthodox Trotskyist position.
  3. The USSR in War — The Marxist appraisal of the USSR as a degenerated workers' state remains unaltered by tactical pacts; the task is political revolution against the bureaucracy while preserving nationalised property.
  4. A Letter to Sherman Stanley [1] — Trotsky rejects as "unhappy invention" the argument about a degenerated "workers' empire," insisting that Marxist sociology and hysteria are irreconcilable.
  5. Again, and Once More Again on the Nature of the USSR — A rigorous defence of the USSR as a degenerated workers' state, rejecting the designation of the bureaucracy as a new ruling class.
  6. The Referendum and Democratic Centralism [1] — Trotsky defends democratic centralism against the minority's demand for a referendum, arguing it would atomise the party and paralyse its capacity for action.
  7. A Letter to Sherman Stanley [1] — Trotsky argues that the minority's challenge substitutes complaints about the "internal regime" for substantive political disagreement.
  8. A Letter to James P. Cannon [1] — Trotsky insists that ideological struggle must be sharply separated from any perspective of split, purge, or expulsions.
  9. A Letter to Max Shachtman [1] — Trotsky dismantles Shachtman's claim that the Stalin-Hitler pact necessitates a fundamental break with the Fourth International's position on the USSR.
  10. A Letter to James P. Cannon [1] — Trotsky dismisses the opposition's demand for a "cookbook" of tactical recipes, insisting that correct solutions derive from principled theory.
  11. A Petty-Bourgeois Opposition in the Socialist Workers Party — Trotsky dissects the opposition's theoretical degeneration, locating its root in hostility to dialectical materialism.
  12. A Letter to John G. Wright — Trotsky urges the proletarian wing to combine ideological firmness with cautious organisational tactics to avoid a split.
  13. A Letter to Max Shachtman [1] — Trotsky warns Shachtman that his position objectively emboldens petty-bourgeois and anti-Marxist forces.
  14. Four Letters to the National Committee Majority [1] — Trotsky argues that the minority must not be permitted to use the party's public organs to air dissident views.
  15. A Letter to Joseph Hansen [1] — Trotsky defends his analysis of the Soviet invasion of Finland, arguing that the Red Army's intervention was accompanied by embryonic civil war.
  16. An Open Letter to Comrade Burnham — Trotsky mounts a comprehensive defence of dialectical materialism against Burnham's empiricist and opportunist deviations.
  17. A Letter to James P. Cannon [1] — Trotsky explains his strategic decision to centre the dispute on dialectical materialism as the only way to begin the party's theoretical education.
  18. A Letter to Farrell Dobbs [1] — Trotsky insists that bureaucratic conservatism must be understood as rooted in material interests, not personal psychology.
  19. A Letter to John G. Wright [1] — Trotsky delivers a devastating verdict on Shachtman's pamphlet as a fundamental rupture with Marxism driven by factional passion.
  20. A Letter to James P. Cannon [1] — Trotsky communicates his contempt for Shachtman's open letter and promises a full-length polemical response.
  21. A Letter to William F. Warde [1] — Trotsky proposes the formation of a theoretical association to promote dialectical materialism within the party.
  22. A Letter to Joseph Hansen [1] — Trotsky proposes generous guarantees for minority rights as a strategic counter-offensive against the opposition's drive toward split.
  23. From a Scratch – To the Danger of Gangrene — Trotsky diagnoses the Shachtmanite opposition as a petty-bourgeois tendency whose errors, if uncorrected, will prove fatal to the party.
  24. A Letter to Martin Abern — Trotsky defends his method of publishing an unverified report while accepting Abern's denial and elevating the question of splits to a matter of principle.
  25. Two Letters to Albert Goldman [1] — Trotsky argues that the opposition's behaviour stems from petty-bourgeois hysteria, not principled political differences.
  26. Back to the Party [1] — Trotsky frames the minority's drive toward split as a desertion driven by petty-bourgeois contempt for the proletarian majority.
  27. 'Science and Style' [1] — Trotsky places Burnham in a lineage of anti-dialectical revisionism that Marx and Engels had already demolished.
  28. A Letter to James P. Cannon [1] — Trotsky insists the majority must exhaust every possibility for unity before proceeding with a split.
  29. A Letter to Joseph Hansen [1] — Trotsky mounts a sharp polemical defence against factional slanders, rejecting moralising abstraction divorced from revolutionary calculation.
  30. Three Letters to Farrell Dobbs [1] — Trotsky argues that the minority's demand for a "united" party with an independent press is a fraud: a demand for split disguised as unity.
  31. Petty-Bourgeois Moralists and the Proletarian Party [1] — Trotsky frames the split as a class conflict between proletarian discipline and petty-bourgeois individualism.
  32. Balance Sheet of the Finnish Events — Trotsky offers a Marxist assessment of the Soviet-Finnish War, insisting the workers' state must be accepted as it emerged from history.
  33. A Letter to James P. Cannon [1] — Trotsky presents Burnham's resignation as an "excellent confirmation" of his analysis and prognosis.
  34. A Letter to Albert Goldman [1] — Trotsky presents the split as an objective confirmation of Marxist method, with Burnham caught "as a fly in a web" of dialectics.
  35. On the 'Workers' Party [1] — Trotsky subjects the split to dialectical analysis, dismissing Burnham as a snob and Macdonald as intellectually bankrupt.
  36. On A Petty-Bourgeois Philistine: A Letter to Albert Goldman — Trotsky delivers a scathing polemic against Macdonald's call for "scepticism towards all theories."
  37. A Letter to Chris Andrews [1] — Trotsky articulates the revolutionary Marxist position on conscription, rejecting pacifism and sectarianism.
  38. Science and Style: A Reply to Comrade Trotsky — Burnham argues that Trotsky's polemic relies on stylistic flourish rather than logical proof and rejects dialectical materialism.
  39. Letter of resignation of James Burnham from the Workers Party — Burnham announces his definitive break with Marxism, repudiating dialectical materialism, Marxist economics, and the Leninist party.

Key Concepts

Dialectical materialism — The Marxist method of scientific analysis, the logic of evolution that grasps phenomena in continuous change and determines the critical limits where quantitative shifts become qualitative.

Degenerated workers' state — Trotsky's characterisation of the USSR as a workers' state whose nationalised property and planned economy remain progressive conquests of October, but whose Stalinist bureaucracy has deformed its political superstructure.

Political revolution — The revolutionary overthrow of the Stalinist bureaucracy while preserving the social conquests of nationalised property and the planned economy, as distinct from a social revolution that would change the mode of production.

Democratic centralism — The Leninist principle combining internal party democracy with unity of action and centralised leadership, opposed to mechanical conceptions of democracy that would atomise the party.

Petty-bourgeois opposition — Trotsky's characterisation of the Burnham-Shachtman-Abern faction as expressing not proletarian but petty-bourgeois pressures, substituting moralising abstraction for materialist analysis.

Bureaucratic collectivism — The theoretical alternative to Trotsky's analysis, which posits that the USSR represents a new form of class society rather than a degenerated workers' state, implying historical pessimism about socialist revolution.

Unconditional defence — The principle that the USSR must be defended against imperialist attack not because of Stalin's policies but because of the class character of its nationalised property.

Empiricism — The reliance on raw facts without dialectical mediation, which Trotsky identifies as the methodological root of the opposition's political errors.

Third Camp — The opposition's slogan positing a third camp between the imperialist powers and the USSR, which Trotsky demolishes as mechanistic pseudo-symmetry that ignores the colonial world.

Chapters

39 chapters