K.R. Bolton: The Neo-Trotskyist Foundations of U.S. Foreign Policy
[K.R. Bolton is a Fellow of the Academy of Social and Political Research, and an assistant editor of the peer reviewed journal Ab Aeterno.]
America has been the center of ‘world revolution’ since the time of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points to shape the post-war world in a single image of liberal-democracy. The policy has been one of internationalism, and the Bush description of it as a ‘new world order’ in launching the war on Iraq is the latest name. While conservatives bothered much about the USSR and Red China, the heart of ‘world revolution’ lay in Washington. Because the policies of the USA and the USSR often coincided on the world stage, in particular promoting decolonization in order to fill the void with their own versions of neo-colonialism, such policies have often been mistaken for ‘Soviet communism.’ While the ‘Soviet threat’ lies in ashes, U.S. hegemony proceeds apace, destroying reticent nations with bombs where debt and foreign aid does not work. The ideological origins of American globalist foreign policy received impetus and ideological direction from sources arising from the Trotsky-Stalin split. The Moscow Trials continue to reverberate as a major historical event throughout the world. Whatever might be said about the judicial processes of the trials, the charge at the time that Trotskyists were agents of foreign capital became reality within a few years of the trial, as Trotskyist hatred of the USSR became all-consuming. This essay examines the manner by which Trotskyism metamorphosed into a primary ingredient of US foreign policy doctrine.
“Global Democratic Revolution”
In 2003 President George W Bush embraced the world revolutionary mission of the USA, stating to the National Endowment for Democracy that the war in Iraq is the latest front in the “global democratic revolution” led by the United States. “The revolution under former president Ronald Reagan freed the people of Soviet-dominated Europe,” he declared, “and is destined now to liberate the Middle East as well.”[1]
The origins of this US “global democratic revolution” are to be found in an unlikely and far-away source: the Trotsky-Stalin split and the Moscow Trials of 1936-1938. Such was the hatred of the Trotskyists and certain allied socialists towards the USSR from Stalin onward, that this “Opposition”, came to regard the USSR as the primary bulwark against world socialism and saw in the USA the only means of resisting Soviet world power, to the extent that these Leftists were eventually found supporting America in Korea and Vietnam, and ultimately present American foreign policy throughout the world, including the war against Iraq....
Trotskyism provided the ideological basis for U.S. foreign policy, orientating U.S. foreign policy as a development from Wilsonian global liberal-democracy to what has become America’s “world revolutionary mission.” Trotskyist motivation came very shortly to be dominated by a hatred of the USSR, seeing Russia as the major obstacle to world socialism, and the USA as the only force capable of halting the USSR. From the neo-Trotskyist perspective, dialectically, capitalism became preferable to Stalinism. Capitalism represented a stage towards socialism; Stalinism was an aberration historically. Trotskyists readily joined with the CIA during the Cold War, and in the post-Cold War world have continued to have an influence, in particular ideologically, as it is now expressed by non-Trotskyists from Ledeen to Reagan and Bush. The ideology has not been repudiated by Obama.
“The permanent revolution” has been substituted for “constant conflict,” and “creative destruction;” Stalinism has been substituted for Islamofascism; Russia has been replaced by the USA as the “one truly revolutionary country in the world;” and the “world proletarian revolution” has metamorphosed into the “global democratic revolution.” Have the allegedly “paranoid” concerns of Stalin been vindicated?
Read entire article at Foreign Policy Journal
America has been the center of ‘world revolution’ since the time of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points to shape the post-war world in a single image of liberal-democracy. The policy has been one of internationalism, and the Bush description of it as a ‘new world order’ in launching the war on Iraq is the latest name. While conservatives bothered much about the USSR and Red China, the heart of ‘world revolution’ lay in Washington. Because the policies of the USA and the USSR often coincided on the world stage, in particular promoting decolonization in order to fill the void with their own versions of neo-colonialism, such policies have often been mistaken for ‘Soviet communism.’ While the ‘Soviet threat’ lies in ashes, U.S. hegemony proceeds apace, destroying reticent nations with bombs where debt and foreign aid does not work. The ideological origins of American globalist foreign policy received impetus and ideological direction from sources arising from the Trotsky-Stalin split. The Moscow Trials continue to reverberate as a major historical event throughout the world. Whatever might be said about the judicial processes of the trials, the charge at the time that Trotskyists were agents of foreign capital became reality within a few years of the trial, as Trotskyist hatred of the USSR became all-consuming. This essay examines the manner by which Trotskyism metamorphosed into a primary ingredient of US foreign policy doctrine.
“Global Democratic Revolution”
In 2003 President George W Bush embraced the world revolutionary mission of the USA, stating to the National Endowment for Democracy that the war in Iraq is the latest front in the “global democratic revolution” led by the United States. “The revolution under former president Ronald Reagan freed the people of Soviet-dominated Europe,” he declared, “and is destined now to liberate the Middle East as well.”[1]
The origins of this US “global democratic revolution” are to be found in an unlikely and far-away source: the Trotsky-Stalin split and the Moscow Trials of 1936-1938. Such was the hatred of the Trotskyists and certain allied socialists towards the USSR from Stalin onward, that this “Opposition”, came to regard the USSR as the primary bulwark against world socialism and saw in the USA the only means of resisting Soviet world power, to the extent that these Leftists were eventually found supporting America in Korea and Vietnam, and ultimately present American foreign policy throughout the world, including the war against Iraq....
Trotskyism provided the ideological basis for U.S. foreign policy, orientating U.S. foreign policy as a development from Wilsonian global liberal-democracy to what has become America’s “world revolutionary mission.” Trotskyist motivation came very shortly to be dominated by a hatred of the USSR, seeing Russia as the major obstacle to world socialism, and the USA as the only force capable of halting the USSR. From the neo-Trotskyist perspective, dialectically, capitalism became preferable to Stalinism. Capitalism represented a stage towards socialism; Stalinism was an aberration historically. Trotskyists readily joined with the CIA during the Cold War, and in the post-Cold War world have continued to have an influence, in particular ideologically, as it is now expressed by non-Trotskyists from Ledeen to Reagan and Bush. The ideology has not been repudiated by Obama.
“The permanent revolution” has been substituted for “constant conflict,” and “creative destruction;” Stalinism has been substituted for Islamofascism; Russia has been replaced by the USA as the “one truly revolutionary country in the world;” and the “world proletarian revolution” has metamorphosed into the “global democratic revolution.” Have the allegedly “paranoid” concerns of Stalin been vindicated?