Socialism from Above or Below

The quotation at the right is from the beginning of “The Two Souls of Socialism,” by Hal Draper (1992), published as a pamphlet in 1966. Draper’s editor notes, “Its political impact on a generation of socialists in the United States and Great Britain has been considerable.” (Haberkern, 1992, p. xvii) It influenced that wing of Trotskyism which rejected Trotsky’s belief that the Soviet Union under Stalin (and after) was some sort of “workers’ state.” Instead, these semi-Trotskyists held (correctly) that the U.S.S.R. had developed a bureaucratic ruling class which collectively exploited the workers.