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Third camp

The Third Camp, also termed third camp socialism, denotes a tendency in socialist thought that emerged primarily within North American Trotskyism during the late 1930s and early 1940s, positing the world divided into two imperialist "camps"—capitalist democracies and Stalinist bureaucracies—while championing an independent working-class politics as a revolutionary third alternative unbound to either.^[1]^[2] This position crystallized amid debates over the Soviet Union's nature following the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, with proponents like Max Shachtman arguing that the USSR represented not a degenerated workers' state but a bureaucratic collectivist or state-capitalist system qualitatively distinct from socialism, necessitating opposition to both superpowers' expansions without deference to Western liberalism.^[3]^[4] Key to its framework is the insistence on working-class self-emancipation through democratic organizations, rejecting "lesser evil" alignments in foreign policy and prioritizing anti-Stalinist internationalism alongside critiques of capitalist exploitation.^[5] Defining characteristics include advocacy for "political warfare" against totalitarianism—such as exposing Soviet gulags and supporting dissident movements—while fostering civil rights domestically, as seen in writings by figures like Phyllis and Julius Jacobson.^[6]^[3] Controversies arose from its evolution, with early adherents forming groups like the Workers Party and Independent Socialist League, but later divergences: Shachtman himself shifted toward supporting U.S. interventions like the Bay of Pigs as bulwarks against communism, drawing charges of reformism or neoconservative drift from orthodox Trotskyists who viewed it as capitulation to imperialism.^[7]^[8] Despite such splits, third camp ideas persist in organizations like Workers' Liberty, emphasizing non-sectarian socialism amid superpower rivalries, distinct from "campist" alignments favoring one bloc or the Third World against the West.^[9]

Definition and Principles

Core Tenets of Third Camp Socialism

Third Camp socialism maintains that genuine socialism requires the independent political action of the working class, unaligned with either the capitalist "first camp" led by the United States or the Stalinist "second camp" dominated by the Soviet Union. This position rejects any strategic support for one bloc against the other, viewing both as exploitative systems incompatible with workers' emancipation; instead, it calls for building a third camp through international socialist solidarity and grassroots organization. The foundational slogan, "Neither Washington nor Moscow, but international socialism," underscores this refusal to subordinate class struggle to geopolitical rivalries, as articulated in Workers Party declarations during the early Cold War.^[10]^[2] A central tenet is the characterization of the Soviet Union not as a deformed workers' state but as bureaucratic collectivism—a novel form of class society where a parasitic bureaucratic stratum monopolizes the means of production, enforces totalitarian control, and suppresses democratic rights more severely than in capitalist democracies.^[3] Proponents like Max Shachtman argued that nationalized property alone does not equate to socialism without workers' control, positioning Stalinism as a counter-revolutionary force that deformed revolutionary potential into elite domination.^[11] This analysis extends to rejecting the Soviet bloc's "anti-imperialism" as a veneer for expansionist totalitarianism, demanding critical support only for genuine popular revolts against it, without reliance on Western military aid.^[3] The doctrine emphasizes "socialism from below," prioritizing self-emancipation through democratic workers' movements, trade unions, and civil liberties over top-down state models.^[2] It advocates a "democratic foreign policy" that bolsters anti-Stalinist resistance and anti-colonial struggles via political means, such as propaganda and solidarity, while upholding the principle that "the main enemy is at home"—the domestic ruling class— to avoid deflecting class antagonisms onto external foes.^[3] This framework insists on universal human rights, including freedom of speech and assembly, as preconditions for socialism, critiquing both camps for their erosion of these under the guise of anti-capitalism or anti-communism.^[12]

Distinction from Other Socialist Positions

The third camp position fundamentally diverges from Stalinism and orthodox Marxism-Leninism by rejecting the characterization of the Soviet Union as a socialist or workers' state in any form, instead analyzing it as a bureaucratic collectivist or state capitalist system dominated by a parasitic ruling caste that exploits the proletariat, necessitating opposition equivalent to that against Western capitalism.^[2] Stalinists, by contrast, upheld "socialism in one country" and defended the USSR as the vanguard of global proletarian revolution, even amid its internal contradictions and expansionist policies post-World War II.^[13] In contrast to traditional Trotskyism, third camp advocates abandoned the doctrine of the USSR as a "deformed workers' state" requiring unconditional defense against imperialist threats, arguing that such a stance compromised working-class independence by aligning revolutionaries with a counter-revolutionary bureaucracy during conflicts like World War II.^[14] Trotskyists maintained that the Soviet property relations, despite bureaucratic degeneration, retained progressive potential redeemable through political revolution, whereas third camp thinkers like Max Shachtman contended that the regime had evolved into a new class-exploitative order, demanding rejection of both geopolitical camps to foster genuine socialist internationalism.^[8] Third camp socialism also separates from social democracy by insisting on revolutionary overthrow of capitalism rather than gradualist reforms within bourgeois parliamentary systems, critiquing the latter's collaboration with capitalist states and its failure to challenge imperialist alliances during the Cold War era.^[3] While social democrats often integrated into national welfare states and NATO-aligned frameworks by the 1950s, third camp proponents prioritized building autonomous workers' organizations outside both blocs, viewing alignment with either as subordinating the proletariat to alien ruling classes.^[15] This emphasis on non-alignment extended to opposition against fellow-traveling tendencies in the broader left that equated anti-Stalinism with pro-capitalism.

Historical Development

Pre-WWII Roots in Trotskyism and Anti-Stalinism

The Third Camp position originated within the Trotskyist movement's opposition to Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in the Soviet Union during the late 1920s and 1930s. Leon Trotsky, after his expulsion from the Communist Party's Politburo in October 1927 for criticizing Stalin's theory of "socialism in one country" as a retreat from international revolution, organized the Left Opposition to defend the Bolshevik legacy while denouncing the emerging bureaucratic caste's suppression of inner-party democracy and workers' control. Trotsky's writings, such as The Revolution Betrayed (1936), framed the USSR as a degenerated workers' state where nationalized property forms persisted despite the Thermidorian reaction under Stalin, necessitating a political revolution to restore proletarian rule rather than outright social counter-revolution.^[16]^[14] This anti-Stalinist framework inherently rejected alignment with either Western capitalist democracies or the Stalinized Comintern, positioning Trotskyists as advocates for independent working-class action amid rising fascist threats and the Great Depression. The Moscow Show Trials of 1936–1938, in which Stalin liquidated perceived rivals including former Trotsky allies, intensified Trotskyist critiques of Stalinism as a counter-revolutionary force that betrayed October 1917 by prioritizing national autarky and police terror over global socialist expansion. Trotskyists countered Stalinist orthodoxy by upholding permanent revolution, arguing that isolated Soviet development had led to bureaucratic degeneration rather than genuine socialism.^[16] Theoretical fissures prefiguring explicit Third Camp divergence emerged in the late 1930s through challenges to Trotsky's defense of Soviet property relations. Italian activist Bruno Rizzi, influenced by observations of Soviet and fascist bureaucracies, developed the concept of bureaucratic collectivism around 1937–1939, positing the Stalinist elite as a novel ruling class exploiting workers via state-controlled production without private ownership or proletarian democracy. Rizzi submitted his manuscript The Bureaucratization of the World to Trotsky in 1939, urging recognition of the USSR as a non-socialist formation, but Trotsky dismissed it as capitulationist, reaffirming the degenerated state thesis. Similar early doubts surfaced among French Trotskyists like Yves Craipeau, who explored bureaucratic collectivism as an alternative to unconditional USSR defense.^[17] These pre-WWII debates culminated in the founding of the Fourth International on September 3, 1938, in Paris, as a world party of socialist revolution to combat both imperialist capitalism and Stalinist "deformation" of communism. The International's program emphasized third-camp independence by calling for proletarian internationalism against the Comintern's popular fronts with bourgeois governments and Stalin's purges, which had decimated revolutionary cadres. By 1939, amid the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact's revelation of Stalinist realpolitik, these roots exposed tensions that would fracture Trotskyism, with anti-Stalinist skeptics increasingly viewing the Soviet model as antithetical to working-class emancipation.^[14]

Post-WWII Emergence and the Shachtman Split (1940s)

The split within the American Trotskyist movement crystallized in early 1940, when a minority faction led by Max Shachtman broke from the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) over fundamental disagreements regarding the class nature of the Soviet Union and the appropriate tactical response to its expansionist actions. Triggered by the Soviet invasion of Finland in November 1939 amid the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the minority rejected the SWP majority's position—aligned with Leon Trotsky's view of the USSR as a degenerated workers' state deserving defense against imperialist attack—in favor of characterizing it as a bureaucratic collectivist society dominated by a new exploiting elite, warranting no such unconditional support.^[18]^[19] This rupture, formalized at the SWP's internal convention in April 1940, resulted in the expulsion of the minority, who immediately founded the Workers Party (WP) as an independent organization committed to revolutionary socialism independent of both Western capitalism and Soviet bureaucratism.^[20]^[21] The Third Camp doctrine emerged directly from this schism, framing world politics not as a binary struggle between capitalist democracies and fascist or Stalinist powers, but as a tripartite division requiring workers to form an autonomous third pole oriented toward genuine socialist internationalism. An April 1940 editorial in the WP's theoretical journal New International defined the Third Camp as encompassing resistances like Czech students against Nazi occupation and Finnish workers against Soviet invasion, emphasizing opposition to all imperialist blocs in favor of proletarian self-organization.^[22] Shachtman elaborated this in his May 1940 manifesto "Against Both War Camps—For the Camp of World Labor!", arguing that loyalty to the working class demanded rejection of alignment with either the Anglo-American or Axis-Stalinist coalitions, positioning the WP as a vanguard for global labor's independent action amid escalating wartime contradictions.^[23] This stance extended Trotskyist anti-Stalinism into a broader critique, influencing WP agitation against the U.S. entry into World War II as an inter-imperialist conflict, while prioritizing domestic labor organizing and opposition to bureaucratic distortions in both capitalist and Soviet systems.^[3] In the post-World War II phase of the 1940s, as the Cold War contours sharpened with the U.S. containment policy and Soviet bloc consolidation, the WP's Third Camp framework gained traction among anti-Stalinist socialists disillusioned with orthodox Trotskyism's lingering USSR orientation. The party, peaking at around 300-500 members, published works like Labor Action to propagate critiques of both camps, advocating workers' control and democratic planning as antidotes to state capitalism in the East and monopoly capitalism in the West, while engaging in union caucuses to combat Communist Party influence in labor movements.^[20]^[24] By 1948, seeking broader reach, the WP fused with elements of the Socialist Party of America to form the Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation, but ideological tensions over Third Camp purity led to Shachtman's faction departing in 1949 to establish the Independent Socialist League (ISL), which sustained the doctrine's emphasis on non-sectarian anti-totalitarianism into the 1950s.^[21]^[20] This evolution underscored the Third Camp's role as a bridge between wartime factionalism and Cold War-era independent leftism, prioritizing empirical analysis of Stalinist deformations over dogmatic fidelity to Trotsky's formulations.^[3]

Evolution During the Early Cold War (1950s-1960s)

In the 1950s, the Independent Socialist League (ISL), successor to the Workers Party and led by Max Shachtman, embodied the third camp's commitment to opposing both Western capitalist imperialism and Soviet bureaucratic collectivism, advocating instead for independent working-class action amid escalating Cold War tensions. The ISL, formed in 1949 after the Workers Party reorganized to emphasize non-sectarian socialism, published Labor Action to critique both camps, attracting intellectuals and youth disillusioned with Stalinism while rejecting alignment with U.S. foreign policy. During the Korean War (1950–1953), the ISL denounced the conflict as a clash between rival imperialisms, protesting U.S. intervention and Soviet/Chinese support for North Korea, and calling on labor movements worldwide to oppose the "ravishing of Korea" by both sides rather than endorsing either.^[25]^[26] The 1956 Hungarian Revolution marked a defining validation for third camp theory, as ISL members viewed the uprising—sparked on October 23 by student protests against Soviet control and escalating into worker-led demands for democracy and independence—as a spontaneous revolt against bureaucratic tyranny, not a capitalist restoration. Shachtman, responding to the Soviet invasion on November 4 that crushed the revolution with over 2,500 Hungarian deaths and 200,000 refugees, urged U.S. arming of the rebels to bolster their fight, though this tactical proposal divided the group, with figures like Hal Draper opposing military aid to avoid subordinating the third camp to American imperialism. This event reinforced the third camp's analysis of the Soviet bloc as exploitative and imperialist, distinct from capitalism yet equally antagonistic to workers' self-emancipation, prompting renewed emphasis on global solidarity with anti-Stalinist revolts.^[27]^[3] By the late 1950s, internal evolution shifted the ISL toward Shachtman's "realignment" strategy, which argued that revolutionary conditions were absent in the U.S. postwar boom, necessitating socialists to enter the Democratic Party to purge its conservative elements, build labor influence, and counter Stalinist threats through anti-communist coalitions. This pragmatic turn, formalized by 1957, led to the ISL's dissolution and merger into the Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation in 1958, with Shachtman advising unions and Democratic figures like Henry Jackson. While criticized by purists as abandoning class independence for liberal reformism, it reflected adaptation to Cold War realities, where third camp militants prioritized defeating Soviet expansion over immediate revolution, influencing subsequent anti-totalitarian socialists like Phyllis and Julius Jacobson.^[24]^[28]^[29]

Theoretical Foundations

Critique of the Soviet Union as Bureaucratic Collectivism

The theory of bureaucratic collectivism posited that the Soviet Union had evolved into a distinct form of class society, neither capitalist nor a deformed variant of socialism, but a novel system dominated by a bureaucratic ruling stratum that collectively controlled the means of production and extracted surplus value from the proletariat.^[30] This critique, central to Third Camp socialism, rejected Leon Trotsky's characterization of the USSR as a degenerated workers' state, arguing instead that the Stalinist bureaucracy constituted a new exploiting class, rendering the state counterrevolutionary and incapable of defense against imperialism.^[31] Proponents contended that nationalized property forms persisted, but ownership had been usurped by the bureaucracy, which operated the economy through coercive command mechanisms, including forced labor camps holding over 2 million prisoners by 1940, to prioritize elite privileges over worker welfare.^[30] Developed amid debates in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) during the late 1930s and early 1940s, the theory gained traction following events like the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which Shachtmanites viewed as evidence of the bureaucracy's imperialist ambitions akin to those of capitalist powers.^[32] Max Shachtman and Joseph Carter articulated the position in opposition to Trotsky's insistence on the USSR's proletarian property relations, with Carter's 1941 essay explicitly defining bureaucratic collectivism as a "new system of economic exploitation" where the bureaucracy functioned as the ruling class, insulated from worker control and expanding its model through conquests in Eastern Europe post-1945.^[30] Unlike state capitalism theories, which emphasized market-like valorization of labor, bureaucratic collectivism highlighted the absence of private capital accumulation, positing instead a collective bureaucratic ownership that stifled democratic planning and fostered inequality, as evidenced by the vast disparities in living standards between bureaucratic elites and the masses, with Soviet GDP per capita lagging behind Western Europe's by over 50% in the 1950s despite industrialization.^[33]^[32] Critics within the Trotskyist movement, such as Tony Cliff, challenged bureaucratic collectivism for overemphasizing the bureaucracy's autonomy and underplaying continuities with capitalist dynamics, but Third Camp advocates maintained that the theory better explained the USSR's stability as a reactionary formation, resistant to political revolution alone and requiring a full social upheaval to expropriate the bureaucratic caste.^[34] This analysis underpinned the Third Camp's refusal to extend "unconditional defense" to the Soviet bloc during conflicts like the 1950 Korean War, viewing both capitalist and bureaucratic collectivist camps as twin threats to working-class emancipation.^[35] Empirical indicators included the bureaucracy's monopolization of political power, with purges eliminating over 700,000 party members between 1936 and 1938, and the post-war imposition of similar structures in satellite states, which entrenched exploitation without fostering proletarian agency.^[30] Ultimately, the critique framed the Soviet system as a perversion of the 1917 Revolution's aims, where initial workers' conquests had ossified into a hierarchical collectivism antithetical to socialism.^[31]

Rejection of Capitalist and Stalinist Camps

The Third Camp position maintains that the capitalist camp, exemplified by the United States and its allies, perpetuates exploitation through private ownership of the means of production, wage labor, and imperialist expansion, rendering it incompatible with socialist goals.^[36] This system prioritizes profit accumulation over democratic worker control, leading to economic crises, inequality, and militaristic foreign policies that threaten global peace.^[3] Proponents argue that capitalism's inherent contradictions, including recurring depressions and the decay of bourgeois democracy, position it as an obsolete order incapable of advancing human emancipation.^[37] Similarly, the Stalinist camp, centered on the Soviet Union, is rejected as a form of bureaucratic collectivism rather than socialism, where a totalitarian bureaucracy functions as a new exploiting class controlling the economy through state ownership without worker democracy.^[37] Max Shachtman described this system in 1954 as "totalitarian or bureaucratic collectivism, a regime of modern barbarism, modern slavery, permanent police terror and super-exploitation," emerging from the isolation of the Russian Revolution but devolving into a despotic structure that oppresses laborers and peasants via mechanisms like the GPU secret police and forced collectivization.^[37] Unlike capitalism's private capitalists, Stalinism's ruling elite extracts surplus value for bureaucratic privilege, stifling genuine proletarian initiative and expanding through satellite domination in Eastern Europe post-World War II.^[36] Neither camp offers a viable path to socialism, as both embody antagonistic forces to working-class self-emancipation: capitalism through market-driven alienation and imperialism, Stalinism through centralized coercion and rejection of political pluralism.^[12] Theoretical foundations emphasize that alignment with either during conflicts, such as the Korean War (1950–1953), only prolongs mass suffering without resolving underlying exploitation, as evidenced by the war's devastation under both powers' influences.^[36] Shachtman contended that Stalinism arose amid capitalism's terminal decline but constitutes no progressive alternative, instead mirroring capitalist decay in its drive for world supremacy.^[37] This dual rejection necessitates an independent Third Camp oriented toward democratic socialism, where workers organize autonomously against both systems to achieve economic planning under popular control and international solidarity free from superpower blocs.^[12] Advocates, drawing from anti-Stalinist Trotskyist roots in the 1940s, prioritize "détente from below" through grassroots movements, critiquing both camps' elitism in favor of direct action by labor and dissidents.^[36]^[12]

Advocacy for Independent Working-Class Action

Advocacy for independent working-class action constitutes a core principle of third camp socialism, positing that the global working class must reject subordination to either the capitalist West or the Stalinist East and instead pursue autonomous organization and struggle to advance socialist goals. This stance, articulated by early proponents like Max Shachtman in 1940, frames the "Third Camp" explicitly as "the camp of the workers in factory and field, in mine and on railroad," opposing alignment with imperial powers or bureaucratic regimes in favor of labor-led initiatives free from external bloc influences.^[23] Such independence requires workers to prioritize their own class interests over national or geopolitical loyalties, as Shachtman emphasized in 1953 that a viable third camp would demand tangible organization with "dues-paying members" rather than abstract allegiance to flawed states.^[38] In theoretical terms, this advocacy critiques both camps for subordinating workers to non-proletarian elites—capitalist exploiters in the West and bureaucratic castes in the Soviet sphere—arguing that genuine socialism emerges only through direct working-class control, such as workers' councils or independent unions, uncompromised by state apparatuses. Hal Draper, a key third camp intellectual, summarized the approach: positions on wars or conflicts are determined by support for "independent working-class action" against oppressors, refusing to defend either bloc's actions as progressive regardless of rhetoric.^[3] This rejection extends to rejecting "lesser evil" defenses of Stalinism, as seen in third camp opposition to uncritical support for the Soviet Union during the early Cold War, insisting instead on building alternative movements that expose both systems' betrayals of labor.^[39] Practically, the principle manifests in calls for workers to organize strikes, unions, and political parties insulated from bloc funding or ideology, as evidenced in post-1940s third camp groups' emphasis on domestic labor struggles in the West while condemning Soviet interventions without endorsing NATO responses. For instance, during the Korean War (1950–1953), third camp advocates urged opposition to both U.S. intervention and North Korean-Soviet forces, advocating instead for Korean workers to seize control independently of foreign powers.^[40] This focus on autonomy aims to foster a revolutionary alternative, though critics within Trotskyism argued it risked isolating workers from broader anti-imperial fights.^[41] The advocacy also underscores skepticism toward state-centric socialism, prioritizing rank-and-file democracy and direct action over vanguard parties aligned with Moscow or Washington, as articulated in third camp manifestos from the 1940s onward.^[42] By 1953, Shachtman reiterated that without robust working-class institutions, third camp aspirations remain aspirational, highlighting the need for concrete building of independent labor internationals to counter both camps' dominance.^[38] This principle has influenced later anti-authoritarian socialist currents, though its implementation has varied, often confronting challenges in mobilizing masses amid bipolar pressures.^[12]

Key Figures and Organizations

Max Shachtman and Early Proponents

Max Shachtman (1904–1972), a founding figure in American Trotskyism alongside James P. Cannon and Martin Abern, emerged as the principal architect of the third camp position following internal debates within the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the late 1930s.^[43] By 1939, Shachtman led a minority faction that rejected Leon Trotsky's defense of the Soviet Union as a degenerate workers' state warranting unconditional military support in any war against imperialism, arguing instead that the USSR had transformed into a non-socialist bureaucratic collectivist order under Stalin.^[19] This critique, co-developed with James Burnham, emphasized empirical observations of Soviet totalitarianism, including the purges, forced labor camps, and suppression of workers' democracy, as evidence of a new class-exploitative system neither capitalist nor proletarian.^[44] The factional rift culminated at the SWP's national convention from April 4–7, 1940, where the minority, comprising about 40% of the membership, was outvoted and subsequently formed the independent Workers Party (WP) on April 8, 1940, with Shachtman serving as national secretary.^[19] The WP's platform explicitly advanced the third camp as a revolutionary alternative, calling for workers' organizations to maintain independence from both the "imperialist" capitalist camp and the "bureaucratic collectivist" Stalinist camp, prioritizing proletarian internationalism and democratic socialism over alignment with either superpower bloc.^[4] Shachtman articulated this in WP publications like The New International and Labor Action, framing the third camp as the nascent global force of socialist revolution, as seen in early articles such as "India and the Third Camp" published in April 1940, which applied the concept to anti-colonial struggles.^[19] Key early proponents included Burnham, who co-authored foundational documents critiquing the Soviet system but resigned from the WP in May 1941 amid disillusionment with dialectical materialism, later evolving into a conservative critic of totalitarianism.^[19] Martin Abern, a veteran Trotskyist expelled from the Communist Party in 1928, provided organizational continuity as WP national chairman and endorsed the third camp's emphasis on anti-Stalinist independence, though he grew less active by the mid-1940s.^[45] Joseph Carter, a WP theorist, contributed to internal debates on bureaucratic collectivism's dynamics in 1940–1941, advocating its distinction from state capitalism while supporting the third camp's call for workers' self-organization against both camps.^[7] By 1945, Shachtman reflected on the WP's five-year record, crediting the third camp orientation for attracting anti-Stalinist radicals disillusioned with orthodox Trotskyism's Soviet defensism.^[46] These figures, drawing on firsthand analysis of Stalinist policies rather than abstract loyalty to Trotsky's formulations, positioned the third camp as a pragmatic response to the USSR's post-1930s trajectory, evidenced by its integration into WP resolutions against supporting either side in World War II.^[46]

Post-Shachtman Groups and Intellectuals

Following Max Shachtman's death on July 1, 1972, his ideological legacy fragmented among followers, with a minority adhering to the original Third Camp framework of independent socialist politics opposing both Western capitalism and Soviet-style bureaucratic collectivism, while the majority shifted toward alignment with U.S. foreign policy through organizations like Social Democrats USA.^[7] This left-wing current, often termed "left Shachtmanism" or Third Camp Trotskyism, emphasized building movements autonomous from both imperialist blocs, critiquing Shachtman's later accommodations to American liberalism as a betrayal of earlier principles.^[7] ^[3] Prominent post-Shachtman groups included the Independent Socialist Club, established in 1964 at the University of California, Berkeley, which rejected alignment with either superpower and promoted grassroots socialist organizing; it evolved into the International Socialists in 1969, influencing campus activism like the Free Speech Movement.^[12] Another was the Campaign for Peace and Democracy, founded in 1982 by Third Camp advocates to support dissident movements in Eastern Europe and elsewhere while opposing both U.S. interventionism and Stalinist repression.^[12] Solidarity, a U.S.-based revolutionary socialist organization formed in 1986 through the merger of the Fourth Internationalist Tendency and other anti-Stalinist currents, explicitly drew on Third Camp analysis to advocate worker self-organization against all forms of state capitalism and imperialism, while distancing itself from Shachtman's post-1958 rightward evolution.^[7] ^[12] Internationally, groups like the Alliance for Workers' Liberty in the UK and its Australian counterpart upheld Third Camp positions, tracing continuity through figures who bridged Shachtman's Workers Party split in 1940 with later independent socialist efforts.^[9] Intellectual contributions came from figures like Hal Draper (1914–1990), who refined Third Camp theory in works critiquing both camps' authoritarian tendencies and advocating "democratic foreign policy" independent of state power; his influence persisted in Berkeley socialist circles and publications like Labor Action.^[3] ^[12] Julius Jacobson (1922–2003) and Phyllis Jacobson maintained the tradition through involvement in ex-ISL networks, emphasizing opposition to lesser-evil alignments and supporting independent labor action post-1958 ISL dissolution.^[9] ^[47] Joanne Landy and Thomas Harrison, active from the 1960s, advanced these ideas via the revived New Politics journal (relaunched 1986) and campaigns linking Third Camp socialism to anti-authoritarian global solidarity, such as backing Polish Solidarity in 1980–1981 without endorsing NATO.^[12] These efforts prioritized empirical analysis of Stalinist exploitation—evidenced by events like the 1956 Hungarian uprising—over abstract loyalty to "deformed workers' states," fostering small but persistent networks critiquing both Pabloite entrism in Stalinist parties and orthodox Trotskyist defensism.^[3]

International Variants and Influences

In France during World War II, Third Camp internationalism manifested through small ultra-left groups opposing all imperialist powers, including the Soviet Union, which they viewed as state capitalist rather than a workers' state. Anarchist networks, led by figures like Saulisres (Guy Arru), published Le Libertaire from December 1944 and organized in southern France, advocating transformation of the war into civil war via independent proletarian action. Bordigist elements of the International Communist Left, under theorists like Perone (Onofrio Leonardi Vercesi), issued L’Étincelle and rejected defense of any belligerent, influencing post-war formations like the International Communist Party in 1945. Other nuclei, such as the RKD-CR (publishing RK Bulletin until 1943 and leading the 1944 Renault strike committee) and GRP-UCI (Le Réveil Prolétarien, 16 issues), emphasized revolutionary defeatism across camps, dissolving by 1947 but contributing to strikes like Renault's 1948 action.^[48] In the United Kingdom, Third Camp ideas influenced post-war Trotskyist and socialist organizations, adapting the "Neither Washington Nor Moscow" slogan—originating from WWII Trotskyist debates—to Cold War contexts like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (1950s-1960s). Tony Cliff's Socialist Review Group (founded 1950, later evolving into the Socialist Workers Party) operated as a Third Camp entity, analyzing the USSR as state capitalist and prioritizing working-class independence over alignment with either superpower, as applied to critiques of the Vietnam War and National Liberation Front. The Alliance for Workers' Liberty (AWL), emerging from the Workers' Socialist League in the 1970s under Sean Matgamna, explicitly upholds Third Camp principles, promoting opposition to both capitalist and Stalinist bureaucracies through independent labor politics, as seen in their historical advocacy during events like the 1982 Falklands conflict.^[49]^[50]^[2] Broader influences extended to figures like Italian socialist Ignazio Silone, who in 1939 proposed a Third Camp as a peace front independent of fascism, communism, and bourgeois democracy, reaffirming this in 1956 amid de-Stalinization debates. A 1951 appeal by 19 democratic socialists, including Norman Thomas, targeted Asian audiences for anti-totalitarian solidarity, indicating tentative reach beyond Europe. However, explicit Third Camp variants remained marginal outside Anglo-American and French contexts, often merging with state capitalist theories (e.g., Cliff) or facing critiques from orthodox Trotskyists like Pierre Frank, who in 1951 rejected it as abandonment of USSR defense.^[51]^[52]

Applications and Positions

Stance on Major Conflicts (Korea, Vietnam, etc.)

The Third Camp position on the Korean War (1950–1953) rejected alignment with either the United States-led United Nations forces or the Soviet- and Chinese-backed North Korean regime, viewing the conflict as a clash between capitalist imperialism and Stalinist bureaucratic collectivism rather than a defense of socialism. Adherents, including the Independent Socialist League (ISL) led by Max Shachtman, opposed U.S. intervention as an imperialistic adventure initiated without broad consultation, which prolonged devastation in Korea without advancing working-class interests. They argued that neither side represented a progressive force, with the North's aggression serving Stalinist expansionism, and called instead for independent action by Korean workers and peasants to overthrow both regimes.^[53]^[36] In practice, this meant advocating opposition to the war as a socialist imperative, without extending "unconditional defense" to the Stalinist camp as orthodox Trotskyists did, and focusing on building a global third force of workers' movements to undermine both superpowers. Shachtman emphasized that supporting the U.S. would betray anti-imperialist principles, while passivity toward Stalinism enabled bureaucratic tyranny; the policy centered on mobilizing anti-war sentiment in countries like India and Britain to foster class independence. The 1953 armistice, seen as a stalemate born of mutual exhaustion, underscored the futility of the bipolar contest, reinforcing Third Camp warnings against escalation to world war.^[53]^[36] Regarding the Vietnam War (1955–1975), Third Camp thinkers similarly critiqued U.S. escalation as imperialist intervention propping up a corrupt South Vietnamese regime, while refusing to endorse the North Vietnamese Stalinist state or the National Liberation Front as vehicles for liberation. Groups influenced by early Third Camp ideas, such as post-ISL formations, argued that Ho Chi Minh's regime embodied bureaucratic collectivism, suppressing independent workers' councils in favor of one-party control, as evidenced by the crushing of non-Stalinist leftists after 1945. They opposed U.S. bombing and troop deployments—peaking at over 500,000 American soldiers by 1969—as exacerbating civilian suffering without resolving underlying class antagonisms.^[54] The stance prioritized "neither Washington nor Hanoi," advocating for Vietnamese self-determination through socialist revolution independent of both camps, drawing parallels to failed Stalinist models in Eastern Europe. This position created tensions within broader anti-war movements, where Third Camp advocates warned against illusions in North Vietnamese "socialism," citing events like the 1956 land reforms that executed or imprisoned tens of thousands of perceived class enemies. By the war's end in 1975, with the fall of Saigon, critics within the tradition noted the third way's marginal impact but upheld its consistency against superpower dominance.^[54] In other Cold War flashpoints, such as the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Third Camp supporters hailed the workers' councils as embodiments of independent action against Stalinist rule, opposing Soviet intervention while critiquing Western non-intervention as complicit in restoring bureaucracy. This pattern extended to proxy conflicts like those in the Congo (1960–1965), where they condemned Belgian and U.S.-backed actions alongside Soviet meddling, urging African workers to form autonomous defenses. Overall, the approach emphasized empirical rejection of both camps' claims to progress, prioritizing causal analysis of state capitalism's deformations over ideological loyalty.^[55]

Domestic Policy Orientations in the West

Third Camp proponents in Western nations, particularly in the United States and Britain, oriented domestic policy advocacy toward fostering independent working-class institutions that transcended both capitalist electoral frameworks and Stalinist-aligned labor bureaucracies. They prioritized rank-and-file organizing within trade unions to challenge entrenched leadership, emphasizing democratic workers' control over production as a bulwark against exploitation without reliance on state capitalism or Soviet emulation. This approach rejected social democratic reforms as mere palliatives that perpetuated wage slavery, instead calling for autonomous socialist parties or movements capable of mobilizing labor independently of the Democratic or Labour parties.^[56]^[57] In labor policy, Third Camp groups critiqued communist-dominated unions for subordinating workers' interests to Moscow's foreign policy, advocating expulsion of Stalinist elements while building militant, democratic alternatives focused on workplace democracy and strike actions. The International Socialists in the U.S., for instance, developed strategies from the late 1960s onward that included forming caucuses to amplify voices of marginalized workers, such as black and female members, to combat both capitalist hierarchies and authoritarian left influences within organized labor.^[56] In Britain, anti-Stalinist Third Camp activists within the New Left pursued similar working-class initiatives, opposing bureaucratic unionism and promoting self-activity over top-down directives.^[57] Civil rights and social equality formed another core axis, with Third Camp thinkers linking anti-racism and gender liberation to broader class emancipation, while wary of liberal co-optation or nationalist deviations modeled on authoritarian states. Phyllis and Julius Jacobson's New Politics journal, emblematic of Third Camp intellectualism, consistently championed civil liberties as inseparable from socialism, critiquing U.S. domestic repression like McCarthyism alongside Stalinist purges, and supporting movements for racial justice as extensions of workers' self-organization rather than state-managed equity.^[58] This stance extended to opposition against welfare-state expansions viewed as entrenching dependency on capitalist institutions, favoring instead direct action for universal rights grounded in proletarian independence.^[59]

Relation to Broader Anti-Authoritarian Movements

The Third Camp's advocacy for an independent socialist path, free from alignment with either capitalist or Stalinist powers, paralleled broader anti-authoritarian movements' rejection of state-dominated systems in favor of grassroots proletarian initiative. Third Camp theorists, viewing the Soviet bloc as bureaucratic collectivism rather than genuine socialism, critiqued its top-down authoritarianism as antithetical to workers' self-rule, a position akin to council communists' emphasis on autonomous workers' councils as the sole basis for socialism, unmediated by party elites or state apparatuses.^[2] This convergence stemmed from shared historical disillusionment with the Bolshevik model's degeneration into centralized coercion post-1917, prompting both currents to prioritize direct democracy over vanguardism.^[48] Hal Draper, a key Third Camp figure associated with the Independent Socialist League and later Independent Socialist Clubs, encapsulated this affinity in his 1966 essay "The Two Souls of Socialism," which posited "socialism from below"—achieved via mass self-emancipation and decentralized councils—as the authentic Marxist tradition, in opposition to "socialism from above" enforced by bureaucratic or statist elites. Draper's framework, developed amid Cold War third positionism, influenced anti-authoritarian thought by rehabilitating Marx and Engels' early democratic internationalism against Leninist centralism, resonating with libertarian socialists and autonomists who similarly stressed spontaneous worker organization to combat hierarchy in both Western liberalism and Eastern command economies.^[3] In practice, Third Camp stances on geopolitical conflicts underscored these ties; for instance, during the Korean War (1950–1953), groups like the Independent Socialist League denounced the conflict as a clash between rival non-proletarian powers, refusing support for North Korea or the U.S.-led coalition, much as anarchists and ultra-left internationalists rejected interstate wars as extensions of capitalist or statist imperialism.^[36] This non-alignment extended to the New Left period, where Third Camp-inspired activists in Britain and the U.S. integrated anti-Stalinist critiques with demands for workers' control, fostering overlaps with syndicalist and councilist experiments in industrial self-management that challenged both camps' authoritarian labor disciplines.^[57] Such parallels occasionally led to ideological migrations, with Shachtmanite Third Camp adherents like Wayne Price transitioning to anarchism by the late 20th century, citing the tradition's anti-bureaucratic impulse as a foundation for rejecting state socialism entirely in favor of stateless communism.^[60] Nonetheless, tensions persisted, as Third Camp's retention of Trotskyist organizational forms diverged from pure anti-authoritarians' aversion to any party-mediated revolution, highlighting a strategic rather than principled rift.^[12]

Criticisms and Controversies

Accusations of Capitulation to Imperialism

Orthodox Trotskyists, including leaders of the Fourth International, leveled accusations against Third Camp proponents for capitulating to Western imperialism by abandoning the principle of unconditional defense of the Soviet Union as a deformed workers' state against external aggression. This stemmed from the 1940 split in the U.S. Socialist Workers Party, where Max Shachtman and his faction rejected Leon Trotsky's characterization of the USSR, adopting instead the view of it as a bureaucratic-collectivist state akin to fascism or capitalism, thus equating it with U.S. imperialism and refusing military defense in inter-bloc conflicts. Critics argued this theoretical shift erased the qualitative distinction between imperialist exploitation and post-capitalist property relations in the Soviet bloc, effectively aligning Third Campists with the stronger imperialist power in practice.^[52] A key example cited was the Korean War (1950–1953), where Shachtman's Independent Socialist League produced propaganda supporting U.S.-led United Nations intervention against North Korea, framing it as a fight against Stalinist aggression rather than imperialist expansion. Pierre Frank, a Fourth International leader, explicitly charged that Shachtman's advocacy for a "democratic war" against the USSR—positing that a U.S. victory could preserve democratic forms and workers' rights—amounted to "capitulation to American imperialism," with such positions "virtually inscribed" in Third Camp doctrine. Frank further linked this to Yugoslavia's 1948–1949 break from Stalin, where Third Camp sympathy for Tito's regime allegedly paved the way for its military alignment with the U.S., including a 1951 agreement allowing American bases.^[52]^[61] Stalinist and pro-Soviet communists amplified these charges, portraying Third Campism as outright agency for U.S. imperialism, but Trotskyist critics emphasized its origins in renegade deviation from Marxist-Leninist internationalism, predicting it would foster illusions in "democratic" imperialism over socialist construction. In Indochina and other colonial struggles, opponents claimed Third Camp reluctance to back Soviet or Chinese aid to liberation movements similarly diluted anti-imperialist solidarity, prioritizing abstract independence over concrete working-class defense. These accusations persisted, with later groups like the Spartacist League arguing that Shachtmanite third-campism enabled tacit support for NATO interventions, such as in the Balkans during the 1990s.^[52]^[62]

Internal Debates on Socialism's Viability

Within Third Camp circles, particularly among Shachtmanites in the Workers Party and later Independent Socialist League, debates on socialism's viability intensified after World War II, driven by empirical observations of Soviet bureaucratic collectivism's failures and the relative prosperity of Western workers under capitalism. Proponents like Max Shachtman initially maintained that genuine socialism required inseparability from democracy and workers' self-emancipation, rejecting the USSR as a new exploitative order rather than a distorted workers' state, as Trotskyists claimed.^[41] This view implied that Stalinist centralization causally produced inefficiency and tyranny due to the absence of democratic planning and market-like incentives for innovation, evidenced by chronic shortages and repression in the Eastern Bloc by the 1950s.^[3] However, Shachtman's recognition of U.S. labor's postwar gains—such as rising wages and union strength—led him to pivot toward reformist strategies via established labor bureaucracies, questioning revolutionary socialism's immediate feasibility.^[41] By the late 1940s and 1950s, internal fissures emerged, exemplified by Shachtman's 1946-1948 tilt toward figures like Walter Reuther and David Dubinsky for a labor party, which critics within the group saw as diluting revolutionary commitment.^[41] A key 1971 exchange with Michael Harrington highlighted tensions: Shachtman emphasized unions' centrality, citing Communist manipulations in Chicago's labor federation as evidence that socialism falters without independent worker organizations to counter authoritarian drift, while Harrington advocated a "new class" of educated activists, reflecting doubts about proletarian-led revolution's practicality.^[29] Irving Howe, another Third Camper, critiqued the position by 1952 as a "fetish" lacking real historical momentum, arguing that Stalinist horrors and capitalist resilience rendered abstract anti-campism detached from viable paths to socialism.^[3] These debates underscored causal realism: undemocratic structures inevitably bred inefficiency, as seen in Soviet revolts (1956 Hungary, 1968 Prague) exposing planning's rigidity without polycentric decision-making.^[3] A faction retained optimism for "socialism from below," insisting viability hinged on global worker democracy to harness capitalism's technological base while avoiding bureaucratic ossification, as articulated in Workers Party documents rejecting socialism's impossibility.^[63] Yet Shachtman's trajectory—dissolving the ISL in 1958, endorsing U.S. actions like the 1961 Bay of Pigs and 1965 Vietnam escalation—signaled to detractors his implicit concession that socialist revolution was unworkable amid Cold War realities, prioritizing anti-Stalinism over utopian reconstruction.^[41] This evolution, appalling to former allies, empirically validated skeptics who linked socialism's historical defeats to inherent incentive misalignments, where state monopolies stifled productivity absent competitive pressures, prefiguring the USSR's 1989-1991 collapse from unresolvable contradictions.^[3]^[41]

Evolution Toward Neoconservatism and Rightward Shifts

In the post-World War II era, Max Shachtman, a central figure in Third Camp socialism, increasingly prioritized opposition to Soviet totalitarianism over strict independence from Western capitalism, marking an early departure from pure Third Camp principles. By the early 1950s, Shachtman advised AFL-CIO leaders like George Meany on countering communist influence within organized labor, framing such efforts as essential to preserving democratic freedoms against Stalinist expansion.^[64] This alignment reflected a pragmatic assessment that the USSR's bureaucratic collectivism posed a uniquely aggressive threat, warranting tactical support for U.S.-led anti-communist initiatives despite their imperialist elements.^[7] The shift accelerated during the 1960s amid escalating Cold War tensions and disillusionment with the New Left's perceived anti-Americanism. Shachtman refused to denounce the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and endorsed U.S. military involvement in Vietnam by 1965, viewing these as bulwarks against communist domination rather than equivalent imperial ventures.^[41] Such positions fractured Third Camp groups, with Shachtmanites diverging from anti-war socialists who maintained equidistance between camps. By 1972, as Shachtman campaigned against George McGovern's foreign policy—deeming it a "monstrosity"—and backed hawkish Democrat Henry "Scoop" Jackson, the movement's socialist core eroded further.^[65] This trajectory culminated in the 1972 formation of Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA), a Shachtman-influenced splinter from the Socialist Party that jettisoned revolutionary aims for social-democratic anti-communism and bipartisan support for U.S. global leadership.^[66] SDUSA endorsed Jackson's presidential bids and, by the late 1970s, Ronald Reagan's candidacy, prioritizing containment of Soviet influence over domestic redistribution.^[7] Key intellectuals from Shachtmanite circles, including Irving Kristol—who had engaged with Shachtman's democratic socialism in the 1930s-1940s—transitioned to neoconservatism, advocating interventionist policies to promote democracy against totalitarian regimes.^[67] Figures like Kristol and Norman Podhoretz critiqued welfare-state excesses and dovish liberalism, influencing Reagan-era doctrines that echoed Third Camp anti-Stalinism but subordinated it to American exceptionalism.^[64] Not all Third Camp adherents followed this path; remnants preserved independent socialist critiques. However, the rightward drift among Shachtmanites—driven by empirical observations of Soviet invasions (e.g., Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968) and the left's internal divisions—substantially seeded neoconservative thought, with its emphasis on moral clarity in foreign policy and skepticism toward neutralism.^[41] This evolution highlighted tensions in Third Camp realism: while causal analysis of power dynamics justified anti-Soviet prioritization, it risked conflating tactical necessities with ideological abandonment.^[7]

Legacy and Contemporary Relevance

Influence on Modern Left Anti-Campism

The Third Camp tradition has shaped segments of the contemporary left that reject alignment with either Western geopolitical power or authoritarian states claiming socialist credentials, advocating instead for independent working-class internationalism. This anti-campist stance, which critiques "campism" as the reflexive defense of one bloc against the other, draws directly from Third Camp Marxism's historical opposition to both U.S. imperialism and Stalinist bureaucracy. For instance, organizations like the British-based Alliance for Workers' Liberty (AWL) explicitly uphold Third Camp principles, positioning themselves against both NATO expansionism and Russian aggression in Ukraine, while emphasizing socialist alternatives over bloc loyalty. Similarly, U.S.-based groups such as Solidarity and publications like New Politics perpetuate this legacy by analyzing conflicts like the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine through a lens that condemns imperialism from all quarters without conceding ground to authoritarian apologists.^[68] In the post-Cold War era, Third Camp influence manifests in critiques of regimes in China, Russia, and Venezuela, where modern anti-campists argue that defending such states as "anti-imperialist" perpetuates bureaucratic capitalism rather than advancing socialism. This perspective informed the dissolved International Socialist Organization (ISO), which, emerging from Shachtmanite Third Camp roots, opposed both U.S. interventions and uncritical support for Castroite or Maoist models, influencing debates on workers' self-emancipation over state-centric "socialism."^[8] Recent analyses, such as those in Tempest magazine, reflect this continuity by calling for a "third camp" revival amid the Ukraine conflict, urging the left to prioritize anti-authoritarian solidarity with oppressed peoples over geopolitical realpolitik.^[69] Such positions contrast with dominant campist tendencies in parts of the left, which prioritize opposition to U.S. hegemony even at the cost of ignoring democratic deficits in rival powers.^[70] The tradition's emphasis on democratic socialism as a third path has also impacted broader anti-totalitarian currents, including factory-based militants in the 1960s British New Left who fused Third Camp anti-Stalinism with demands for workers' control, prefiguring today's advocacy for horizontal organizing against both corporate and state capitalism.^[57] Critics within the left, however, contend that Third Campism risks isolationism or unwitting alignment with liberal interventionism, as seen in historical debates over Yugoslavia in the 1990s, where adherents supported democratic opposition to Milošević without endorsing NATO bombing.^[3] Despite these tensions, the framework persists in fostering rigorous, evidence-based opposition to authoritarianism, evidenced by its role in post-2022 reassessments of left foreign policy that prioritize class independence over bloc fidelity.^[71]

Assessments of Successes and Failures

The Third Camp position achieved theoretical successes by articulating a critique of the Soviet Union as a bureaucratic collectivist or state capitalist system rather than a degenerated workers' state, enabling consistent opposition to Stalinist totalitarianism without defaulting to uncritical support for Western capitalism. This framework, developed in the 1940s by figures like Max Shachtman, anticipated the internal contradictions that led to the Soviet bloc's collapse in 1989–1991, as evidenced by mass revolts in East Germany (1953), Hungary (1956), and the eventual dissolution of the USSR.^[3] It also emphasized the inseparability of socialism and democracy, influencing anti-Stalinist intellectuals and providing a basis for independent working-class politics that rejected alignment with either Cold War camp.^[41] Practically, Third Camp adherents contributed to early civil rights activism, including desegregation campaigns in U.S. auto plants during the 1940s and strategic involvement in organizing the 1963 March on Washington.^[41] However, these efforts were limited in scale, as organizations like the Workers Party (1940–1949) and Independent Socialist League (1949–1958) remained small propaganda groups with memberships in the low thousands at peak, failing to build a mass base amid the broader left's polarization.^[72] Failures were pronounced in sustaining revolutionary coherence and organizational viability; the Independent Socialist League dissolved into the reformist Socialist Party in 1958, marking a liquidation of independent structures.^[41] Many leaders, including Shachtman, abandoned strict Third Camp independence by the 1960s, endorsing U.S. interventions such as the Bay of Pigs invasion (1961) and aspects of the Vietnam War as lesser evils against communism, which critics viewed as capitulation to imperialism and a drift toward social democracy or neoconservatism.^[72] This ideological erosion, coupled with misjudgments of labor bureaucracy's conservatism and inability to counter pro-Soviet influences in the wider left, rendered the position marginal, often dismissed as unrealistic or detached from working-class realities during the Cold War.^[3] Overall, while preserving a Marxist critique of totalitarianism, the Third Camp's practical impact was negligible in altering leftist alignments or fostering viable alternatives to the bipolar world order.^[41]

Applications to Current Geopolitics (Post-Cold War)

In the post-Cold War era, following the Soviet Union's dissolution on December 25, 1991, third camp proponents shifted focus from bipolar confrontation to critiquing U.S.-led unipolarity while rejecting any rehabilitation of Stalinist models or alignment with emergent authoritarian powers like Russia and China. They opposed Western military interventions, such as the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which resulted in over 4.5 million excess deaths by 2023 according to some estimates, framing it as imperialist resource grabs and regime change operations that exacerbated regional instability without advancing working-class interests.^[73] Yet, third camp analysis refused to defend targeted dictators like Saddam Hussein, whose regime had suppressed Iraqi leftists and committed atrocities including the 1988 Anfal genocide against Kurds, emphasizing instead the need for independent socialist organizing against all capitalist states.^[68] Applied to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, launched on February 24, third camp positions condemn Moscow's aggression as a reactionary imperialist venture aimed at subjugating a smaller neighbor, drawing parallels to historical great-power annexations, while supporting Ukrainian workers' right to self-defense without subordinating it to NATO's strategic aims. Organizations adhering to third camp principles, such as the UK's Workers' Liberty, have called for trade union solidarity campaigns with Ukrainian labor movements, including aid for strikes and anti-oligarch organizing, but critiqued both Putin's revanchism—which involved annexing Crimea in 2014 and claiming four regions in 2022—and Western escalation risks that could prolong the conflict without empowering class struggle. This stance contrasts with campist tendencies on the left that downplay Russian imperialism by prioritizing anti-NATO rhetoric, insisting instead on building transnational workers' councils to transcend national bourgeois frameworks.^[71] In the intensifying U.S.-China rivalry, evident in trade wars escalating since 2018 with tariffs on $360 billion in Chinese goods by 2019, third camp adherents view Beijing not as a socialist alternative but as a bureaucratic state-capitalist power, where private firms contribute over 60% of GDP and the Communist Party enforces labor repression, including the internment of over 1 million Uyghurs in Xinjiang since 2017.^[8] They oppose U.S. policies like technology export bans as protectionist imperialism but equally reject framing China as an anti-imperialist pole, citing its assertive claims over 90% of the South China Sea via artificial islands built since 2013, which encroach on smaller nations' sovereignty.^[74] This dual critique underscores a commitment to fostering global working-class internationalism, supporting dissident movements in China—such as the 2022 white paper protests against zero-COVID lockdowns—alongside resistance to Western hegemony, without endorsing either bloc's dominance. Third camp applications extend to Middle Eastern conflicts, where post-2011 Arab Spring dynamics revealed tensions between opposing dictators like Bashar al-Assad, whose forces killed over 300,000 civilians by 2020 per UN estimates, and Western-backed proxies, advocating instead for revolutionary councils independent of both Syrian regime Stalinism and U.S./Gulf state interventions.^[75] In a multipolar world marked by inter-state rivalries, this orientation prioritizes empirical assessment of power dynamics over ideological allegiance, aiming to cultivate anti-authoritarian forces capable of transcending geopolitical camps through direct action and international solidarity.^[39]

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[PDF] Defend the Palestinians Against U.S./Israel Genocidal War on Gaza!
Oct 20, 2023 · “Third camp” leftists act as shock troops for the. “NATO socialists” against those who oppose the imperialist war on Russia. Kommunistische ...
[63]
The pilots who weathered the storm | Workers' Liberty
Feb 8, 2021 · Those who reject this as “visionary” are saying not only that socialism is impossible but that democracy is impossible.” In the WP-ISL ...
[64]
The historical roots of neoconservatism: a reply to a slanderous ...
May 23, 2003 · In Shachtman's political evolution—a descent into reaction by someone who had played a leading role in the building of the socialist movement ...
[65]
[PDF] Max Shachtman: His Ideas and His Movement * - Dissent Magazine
Max's views on the interrelationship of socialism and democracy also led him to certain conclusions regarding the developing nations of the so-called Third ...
[66]
Social Democrats USA - Powerbase.info
May 10, 2022 · Its philosophical forefather was the intellectual Trotskyite, Max Shachtman. Shachtman, initially a Communist, became increasinging ...
[67]
Archive: Democracy as the Guiding Star - Democratiya
Editor's Note: Max Shachtman (1904-72) [1] was one of the great platform orators. Irving Kristol recalled he could 'argue at a high pitch of moral and ...
[68]
Internationalism, Anti-Imperialism, And the Origins of Campism
Jan 31, 2022 · Third Worldism became an ideology. It was the idea that these peoples' anti-imperialist, anti-colonial movements would continue the process of ...
[69]
Reflections on building the third camp - Tempest Collective
May 15, 2022 · Kent Worcester interviews Sam Farber about his political development, his experiences—and his reflections on people, movements, ...
[70]
Against Campism, for International Working-Class Solidarity
Mar 21, 2025 · The leading nation of the new anti-imperialist camp was thus a reactionary and authoritarian state. Nevertheless, in the United States and ...
[71]
Breaking Camp: The US Left and Foreign Policy after the War in ...
In the following years he became one of the pioneers of the “Third Camp ... influence politics outside of the US than we do within it. Instead, it means ...
[72]
The fate of Max Shachtman: a critical assessment | Workers' Liberty
Sep 25, 2007 · Shachtman broke with Trotsky in April 1940. In December 1940 he argued that the USSR was in fact a new form of class society, what he would ...
[73]
The new world divide - Brookings Institution
Jul 12, 2017 · In the third camp are the Populists. They want to do less to uphold the international order and focus on a far narrower set of national ...
[74]
The left must resolutely oppose the US-led New Cold War on China
Jun 24, 2021 · Neither Washington nor Beijing? It seems that every Cold War must have its own 'third camp' in the Western left. During the original Cold War, ...
[75]
American Leftists and Solidarity with Ukraine - New Politics
Aug 17, 2025 · If Russia were to stop fighting in this war, the war would be over. ... Third Camp socialism, and Marxist theory and history. The issue ...