Yet another fucking useless Trotsky versus Stalin slugfest

[Q]

Trotsky never used the term "deformed workers state." This term was invented to describe the Eastern European countries that become socialist by Trotskyites. The USSR is "degenerated" because it was once good, and then Trotsky left, and it magically became bad. The other countries, being associated with the "degenerated" USSR, were born bad, hence they were "deformed."
It hardly "magically" became bad. You fail to understand that Trotsky explained the degeneration as part of a process of isolation of the revolution in a backward country, something which only had its logical conclusion at a regression towards capitalism. However, in Trotsky's opinion, when he wrote about the "degenerated workers state", he still thought it to be salvageable for the workers cause, by form of a political revolution, ousting the bureaucratic dictatorship.


Trotsky would do anything to hurt the USSR. Trotsky organized opposition within the country, spewed propaganda in the bourgeois press (which he was paid handsomely for), was willing to pass information to the US government about communists, etc.
Can you back any of this up? Or are you just trolling away?


His unrelenting anti-Stalinism could only drive him into the arms of the bourgeoisie, as it has many Trotskyists. There is no reason to believe whatsoever Trotsky would take a principled stance regarding Eastern Europe, Korea, Vietnam, etc.
Strange, as the bourgeoisie clearly thought of Trotsky as an enemy, not a friend. And those feelings were mutual.

[Intelligitimate]

It hardly "magically" became bad.

I don't know what you call thinking a country goes "State Capitalist" or "Bureaucratic Collectivist" or becomes a "Degenerated Workers State" as soon as Trotsky steps foot outside the country, but I call it magical.


Can you back any of this up?

Trotsky's willingness to testify to the Dies Committee is well known, as is the fact he was paid handsomely by the bourgeois press for his diatribes against the USSR, which started with his relationship with Lord Beaverbrook's media empire in 1929.

[Intelligitimate]

To quote Sayers and Khan:


Now, on a world-wide scale, Trotsky proceeded to develop the propaganda technique he had originally employed against Lenin and the Bolshevik Party. In innumerable ultra-leftist and violently radical-sounding articles, books, pamphlets and speeches, Trotsky began to attack the Soviet regime and call for its violent overthrow - not because it was revolutionary; but because it was, as he phrased it, "counterrevolutionary" and "reactionary."

Overnight, many of the older anti-Bolshevik crusaders abandoned their former pro-Czarist and openly counterrevolutionary propaganda line, and adopted the new, streamlined Trotskyite device of attacking the Russian Revolution "from the Left." In the following years, it became an accepted thing for a Lord Rothermere or a William Randolph Hearst to accuse Josef Stalin of "betraying the Revolution.". . .

Trotsky's first major propaganda work to introduce this new anti-Soviet line to the international counterrevolution was his melodramatic, semi-fictitious autobiography, My Life. First published as a series of anti-Soviet articles by Trotsky in European and American newspapers, its aim as a book was to vilify Stalin and the Soviet Union, increase the prestige of the Trotskyite movement and bolster the myth of Trotsky as the "world revolutionary." Trotsky depicted himself in My Life as the real inspirer and organizer of the Russian Revolution, who had been somehow tricked out of his rightful place as Russian leader by "crafty," "mediocre" and "Asiatic" opponents.

Anti-Soviet agents and publicists immediately ballyhooed Trotsky's book into a sensational world-wide best seller which was said to tell the "inside story" of the Russian Revolution. Adolf Hitler read Trotsky's autobiography as soon as it was published. Hitler's biographer, Konrad Heiden, tells in Der Fuehrer how the Nazi leader surprised a circle of his friends in 1930 by bursting into rapturous praises of Trotsky's book. "Brilliant!" cried Hitler, waving Trotsky's My Life at his followers. "I have learnt a great deal from it, and so can you!"

Trotsky's book rapidly became a textbook for the anti-Soviet Intelligence Services. It was accepted as a basic guide for propaganda against the Soviet regime. The Japanese secret police made it compulsory reading for imprisoned Japanese and Chinese Communists, in an effort to break down their morale and to convince them that Soviet Russia had betrayed the Chinese Revolution and the cause for which they were fighting. The Gestapo made similar use of the book . . .

My Life was only the opening gun of Trotsky's prodigious anti-Soviet propaganda campaign. It was followed by The Revolution Betrayed, Soviet Economy in Danger, The Failure of the Five-Year Plan, Stalin and the Chinese Revolution, The Stalin School of Falsification, and countless other anti-Soviet books, pamphlets and articles, many of which first appeared under flaring headlines in reactionary newspapers in Europe and America. Trotsky's "Bureau" supplied a continual stream of "revelations," "exposures" and "inside stories" about Russia for the anti-Soviet world press.

[Intelligitimate]

To quote Volkogonov's Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary:


"He received $10,000 for his first articles for the Daily Express, New York Herald Tribune, New York Times, and other newspapers. Soon he would receive an advance of $7,000 from an American publisher for his autobiography, and for a series of articles entitled 'The History of the Russian Revolution' the Saturday Evening Post paid him $45,000."When adjusted for inflation, this sum is about $800,000 in today's dollars. Trotsky made his living, bought his house in Mexico, paid his staff, and maintained his anti-Soviet network because the bourgeois, far-right, imperialist press allowed him. They benefited from Trotsky's anti-communist ravings, which were far more sophisticated than their own crude propaganda, and they in turn made sure Trotsky didn't have to do anything besides work tirelessly against the USSR.

To quote him again:


With the help of American friends, in the spring of 1939 Trotsky acquired a large but uncomfortable house on Vienna Street in Coyoacan, and at once assumed a financial burden beyond his means. He published whatever he could, received advances on for his unfinished book on Stalin and tried to reissue old books. He still needed to pay two or three secretaries, a bodyguard, a housekeeper and a typist. Under these circumstances, he felt compelled to sell his archives to the Houghton Library at Harvard University for the astonishingly small sum of $15,000.Adjusted for today, that is roughly the equivalent of $230,000.

Even the pro-Trotsky Isaac Deutscher talks frankly about his activities as a paid propagandist:


Financial difficulties led him to a strange quarrel with Life magazine. At the end of September 1939 ... one of Life's editors came to Coyoacan (Trotsky's Mexican fortress) and commissioned him to write an article on Lenin's death (Trotsky had just finished the Chapter in his book 'Stalin' suggesting that Stalin had poisoned Lenin, and this version was to be published in Life). His first article appeared in the magazine on 2nd October. Although it contained relatively inoffensive reminiscences, the article raised the ire of pro-Stalin 'liberals' who flooded Life with vituperative protests. Life printed some of these to the annoyance of Trotsky, who maintained that the protests had come from a 'GPU factory' in New York, and were defamatory of him. He nevertheless sent in his second article, the one on Lenin's death; but Life refused to publish it. Ironically, the objections of the editors were reasonable enough; they found Trotsky' surmise that Stalin had poisoned Lenin unconvincing and they demanded from him ' less conjecture and more unquestionable facts'. He threatened to sue Life for breach of contract, and in a huff submitted the article to Saturday Evening Post and Colliers, where he again met with refusals, until Liberty finally published it. It is sad to see how much time in his last year the irate and futile correspondence took. In the end Life paid him the fee for the rejected article.

[Intelligitimate]

What, no Trot wants to defend their cult icon being in the pay of the right-wing, Western imperialist press?

[Psy]

What, no Trot wants to defend their cult icon being in the pay of the right-wing, Western imperialist press?
You do know Marx also got paid for publishing Capital, it is just he was such a procrastinator he pissed off his publisher and didn't make much money off his writings. So if you going to bash Trotsky for getting paid to write you have to bash Marx for trying to do the same thing.

[Intelligitimate]

You do know Marx also got paid for publishing Capital, it is just he was such a procrastinator he pissed off his publisher and didn't make much money off his writings. So if you going to bash Trotsky for getting paid to write you have to bash Marx for trying to do the same thing.

Marx didn't whore himself out to the right-wing press in order to create propaganda against a socialist country. Publishing Capital =! publishing anti-Soviet propaganda.

[Psy]

Marx didn't whore himself out to the right-wing press in order to create propaganda against a socialist country. Publishing Capital =! publishing anti-Soviet propaganda.
What socialist country are we talking about, Stalin's? So where was the dictatorship of the proletariat under Stalin, all we got was the dictatorship of the state over the proletariat. Stalin purged all the revolutionaries involved in the 1917 October revolution and civil-war so why doesn't that make Stalin a counter-revolutionary and Trotsky a counter-counter-Revolutionary?

[Intelligitimate]

What socialist country are we talking about

The USSR.


So where was the dictatorship of the proletariat under Stalin, all we got was the dictatorship of the state over the proletariat.

This is meaningless gibberish. The government was in control of the communist party, which after the revolution, had hundreds of thousands of members, and by the 1930s, millions.


Stalin purged all the revolutionaries involved in the 1917 October revolution

This is demonstrably false. Budyonny, Dzerzhinsky, Frunze, Joffe, Kalinin, Kirov, Kollontai, Krasikov, Litvinov, Molotov, Shaumyan, Sverdlov, Voroshilov, Yurovsky, Ordzhonikidze, Zhdanov, etc, were all Old Bolsheviks, and none of them were executed in the purges.


so why doesn't that make Stalin a counter-revolutionary and Trotsky a counter-counter-Revolutionary?

Because this is a false, anti-communist view of what happened. In reality, Trotsky was always a Menshevik who struggled against the party, and was eventually expelled for refusing to follow democratic centralism. He then ran an anti-Soviet network, funded primarily by the ulra-Right press via Trotsky's propaganda.

[Psy]

This is meaningless gibberish. The government was in control of the communist party, which after the revolution, had hundreds of thousands of members, and by the 1930s, millions.

So? That is still a dictatorship of the state over the proletariat as the party was not made up of even the bulk of the Russian proletariat.



This is demonstrably false. Budyonny, Dzerzhinsky, Frunze, Joffe, Kalinin, Kirov, Kollontai, Krasikov, Litvinov, Molotov, Shaumyan, Sverdlov, Voroshilov, Yurovsky, Ordzhonikidze, Zhdanov, etc, were all Old Bolsheviks, and none of them were executed in the purges.

First of being kicked out of power also is purging the revolutionaries and you are talkinga bout a hand full of people.




Because this is a false, anti-communist view of what happened. In reality, Trotsky was always a Menshevik who struggled against the party, and was eventually expelled for refusing to follow democratic centralism. He then ran an anti-Soviet network, funded primarily by the ulra-Right press via Trotsky's propaganda.
You do know that Stalin also was also basically a Menshevik believing in the stages theory, a theory that Lenin had to purge from the Bolsheviks when he came back from exile. While Trotsky was Menshevik he was developing his own theories and eventually came up with the theory of perminenant revolution that was far closer to the theories of Lenin then Stalin's and the Mensheviks stages theory, this is why Trotsky was far more respected by Lenin.

Meaning you got it ass backwards it was Stalin who struggled against the Bolsheviks digging up Menshnevik arguments against Lenin and the rest of the Bolshviks while Trotsky was devloping new theories. Lenin had a much more hatred for Stalin then Trotsky, at the very least Trosky was civilized enough not to fight with Lenin's wife to get at Lenin like Stalin did.

[Intelligitimate]

So? That is still a dictatorship of the state over the proletariat as the party was not made up of even the bulk of the Russian proletariat.

The "bulk" of Russia was the peasantry. Care to explain how you think USSR under Lenin, which was ruled by a much smaller number of people in the party, was more representative of the dictatorship of the proletariat, than in the 1930s when it had millions more members?

Was does the "bulk" have to do with the class character of a country? Is it only socialism to you when even the most backwards of the peasants and workers have a say in government?



First of being kicked out of power also is purging the revolutionaries and you are talkinga bout a hand full of people.

Most of those people were never kicked out of power, and the original Bolsheviks amounts to little more than a "hand full of people."


You do know that Stalin also was also basically a Menshevik

This is, of course, bullshit. Stalin had joined the Bolsheviks since 1903, 14 years before Trotsky ever did.


believing in the stages theory, a theory that Lenin had to purge from the Bolsheviks when he came back from exile.

This is more bullshit. Stalin completely reaffirms Lenin's ideas on stages, which he set forth in his Two Tactics of the Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution.

"t was not without reason that Lenin, as far back as 1905, on the eve of the first Russian revolution, in his pamphlet Two Tactics depicted the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution as two links in the same chain, as a single and integral picture of the sweep of the Russian revolution: " - Foundations of Leninism

"There is no need to mention other, later works of Lenin's, in which the idea of the bourgeois revolution passing into the proletarian revolution stands out in greater relief than in Two Tactics as one of the cornerstones of the Leninist theory of revolution. " - Foundations of Leninism


While Trotsky was Menshevik he was developing his own theories and eventually came up with the theory of perminenant revolution that was far closer to the theories of Lenin

This is complete bullshit, yet again. To quote Lenin:

"The point is that people who have turned Marxism into a kind of stiffly bourgeois doctrine evade the specific issues posed by reality, which in Russia has in practice produced a combination of the syndicates in industry and the small- peasant farms in the countryside. They evade these specific issues by advancing pseudo-intellectual, and in fact utterly meaningless, arguments about a "permanent revolution", about “introducing” socialism, and other nonsense." - Economic Dislocation and the Proletariat’s Struggle Against It, 1917



this is why Trotsky was far more respected by Lenin.

Yet another lie.

"Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other. At the present moment he is in the company of the Bundists and the liquidators. And these gentlemen do not stand on ceremony where the Party is concerned" (Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20 p. 448, 1914).

Trotsky behaves like a despicable careerist and factionalist of the Ryazanov-and-co type. Either equality on the editorial board, subordination to the central committee and no one's transfer to Paris except Trotsky's (the scoundrel, he wants to 'fix up' the whole rascally crew of 'Pravda' at our expense!) – or a break with this swindler and an exposure of him in the CO. He pays lip-service to the Party and behaves worse than any other of the factionalists." (Collected Works, Vol. 34, p. 400).

"It is in this that the enormous difference lies between real partyism; which consists in purging the Party of liquidationism and otzovism, and the 'conciliation' of Trotsky and Co., which actually RENDERS THE MOST FAITHFUL SERVICE TO THE LIQUIDATORS AND OTZOVISTS, AND IS THEREFORE AN EVIL THAT IS ALL THE MORE DANGEROUS TO THE PARTY THE MORE CUNNINGLY, ARTFULLY AND RHETORICALLY IT CLOAKS ITSELF WITH PROFESSEDLY PRO-PARTY, PROFESSEDLY ANTI-FACTIONAL DECLAMATIONS." (Notes of a Publicist, Collected Works, Vol. 16, June 1910, p 211 – emphasis added).

"Trotsky distorts Bolshevism, because he has never been able to form any definite views on the role of the proletariat in the Russian bourgeois revolution."

"Therefore, when Trotsky tells the German comrades that he represents the 'general Party tendency" I am obliged to declare that Trotsky represents only his own faction and enjoys a certain amount of confidence exclusively among the otzovists and the liquidators." (The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia, Collected Works, Vol. 16 pp. 374-392).

"It is an adventure in the ideological sense. Trotsky groups all the enemies of Marxism, he unites Potresov and Maximov, who detest the 'Lenin-Plekhanov' bloc, as they like to call it. TROTSKY UNITES ALL THOSE TO WHOM IDEOLOGICAL DECAY IS DEAR; ALL WHO ARE NOT CONCERNED WITH THE DEFENCE OF MARXISM, all philistines who do not understand the reasons for the struggle and who do not wish to learn, think and discover the ideological roots of the divergence of views. At this time of confusion, disintegration, and wavering it is easy for Trotsky to become the 'hero of the hour' and gather all the shabby elements around himself. The more openly this attempt is made, the more spectacular will be the defeat."

I could go on and on, even past 1917. See Lenin's THE TRADE UNIONS, THE PRESENT SITUATION AND TROTSKY'S MISTAKES (http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/TUTM20.html) and his ONCE AGAIN ON THE TRADE UNIONS, THE CURRENT SITUATION AND THE MISTAKES OF TROTSKY AND BUHKARIN (http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/TUTB21.html).


Meaning you got it ass backwards it was Stalin who struggled against the Bolsheviks digging up Menshnevik arguments against Lenin and the rest of the Bolshviks while Trotsky was devloping new theories.

This is demonstrably a lie, as I have already done.


Lenin had a much more hatred for Stalin then Trotsky, at the very least Trosky was civilized enough not to fight with Lenin's wife to get at Lenin like Stalin did.

Stalin was rude to Lenin's wife on the phone because she was violating doctors orders. So what.

[Psy]

The "bulk" of Russia was the peasantry. Care to explain how you think USSR under Lenin, which was ruled by a much smaller number of people in the party, was more representative of the dictatorship of the proletariat, than in the 1930s when it had millions more members?

Lenin allowed more participation, the Bolshevik party had far more fractions under Lenin then under Stalin, Stalin purged everyone that wasn't a Stalinist from the party while Lenin even eventually let Trotsky into the party and even made him head of the Army (even though the split happened back in 1903).

So Lenin was fine with Trotsky not being a Leninist while Stalin demanded everyone be a Stalinst.



Was does the "bulk" have to do with the class character of a country? Is it only socialism to you when even the most backwards of the peasants and workers have a say in government?

Peasants are not proletariat they don't get paid a wage for their labor thus not wage slaves and instead bound to the land. I'm talking about the Russian proletariat being dictated by Stalin's state.




Most of those people were never kicked out of power, and the original Bolsheviks amounts to little more than a "hand full of people."

The purge list is basically a who's who's of the Russian revolution, everyone that every worked with Lenin was thrown out of the party by Stalin as Stalin rewritten history to write himself as a major player of the revolution even though he was a nobody that no one took seriously during the revolution at best and at worse was yelled at by Lenin and Trotsky for being a incompetent and opportunistic. Thus Stalin got rid of all the major revolutionaries so they couldn't contradict his fabricated history of the Russian revolution and only kept opportunists like him.




This is, of course, bullshit. Stalin had joined the Bolsheviks since 1903, 14 years before Trotsky ever did.

Yet Stalin's ideology was closet to the Mensheviks then Trotsky was during the time he was a Menshevik thus why Stalin wanted Russia to come first while Lenin made it clear Bolshivks had to be prepared to sacrifice their revolution for a world revolution (that is closer to Trotky's theory of permininant revolution).




This is more bullshit. Stalin completely reaffirms Lenin's ideas on stages, which he set forth in his Two Tactics of the Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution.

"t was not without reason that Lenin, as far back as 1905, on the eve of the first Russian revolution, in his pamphlet Two Tactics depicted the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution as two links in the same chain, as a single and integral picture of the sweep of the Russian revolution: " - Foundations of Leninism

"There is no need to mention other, later works of Lenin's, in which the idea of the bourgeois revolution passing into the proletarian revolution stands out in greater relief than in Two Tactics as one of the cornerstones of the Leninist theory of revolution. " - Foundations of Leninism

That Lenin changed his position on, this is why his return from exile sent shock waves through the Bolshik party because he was contradicting his older works. By 1917 Lenin no longer believed that a struggle for a bourgeois-democratic revolution and a socialist revolution was the same. Lenin wanted to overthrow the bourgeois-democracy in Russia from the February revolution while Stalin wanted to collaberate with them still beliving in the stages theory, Stalin also told Mao to collaberate with progerisive capitalists in China that didn't work, revolution only came to China when Mao instead of collaberating with progerisive capitalsits simply took over the state and means of production from the ruling classes.





This is complete bullshit, yet again. To quote Lenin:

"The point is that people who have turned Marxism into a kind of stiffly bourgeois doctrine evade the specific issues posed by reality, which in Russia has in practice produced a combination of the syndicates in industry and the small- peasant farms in the countryside. They evade these specific issues by advancing pseudo-intellectual, and in fact utterly meaningless, arguments about a "permanent revolution", about “introducing” socialism, and other nonsense." - Economic Dislocation and the Proletariat’s Struggle Against It, 1917

While Lenin argued against permanent revolution, permanent revolution is far closer to what Lenin argued in his later workers then socialism in one country and the stages theory.




Yet another lie.

"Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other. At the present moment he is in the company of the Bundists and the liquidators. And these gentlemen do not stand on ceremony where the Party is concerned" (Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20 p. 448, 1914).

1914 before Trotsky joined the party thus the writting is outdated as Lenin eventually made Trotsky the head of the army.




Trotsky behaves like a despicable careerist and factionalist of the Ryazanov-and-co type. Either equality on the editorial board, subordination to the central committee and no one's transfer to Paris except Trotsky's (the scoundrel, he wants to 'fix up' the whole rascally crew of 'Pravda' at our expense!) – or a break with this swindler and an exposure of him in the CO. He pays lip-service to the Party and behaves worse than any other of the factionalists." (Collected Works, Vol. 34, p. 400).

Which pretty much what Stalin did on a much larger scale, so you argument against Trotsky is Lenin didn't like him being a fractionalist while Stalin ending being the worse fractionalist.




"It is in this that the enormous difference lies between real partyism; which consists in purging the Party of liquidationism and otzovism, and the 'conciliation' of Trotsky and Co., which actually RENDERS THE MOST FAITHFUL SERVICE TO THE LIQUIDATORS AND OTZOVISTS, AND IS THEREFORE AN EVIL THAT IS ALL THE MORE DANGEROUS TO THE PARTY THE MORE CUNNINGLY, ARTFULLY AND RHETORICALLY IT CLOAKS ITSELF WITH PROFESSEDLY PRO-PARTY, PROFESSEDLY ANTI-FACTIONAL DECLAMATIONS." (Notes of a Publicist, Collected Works, Vol. 16, June 1910, p 211 – emphasis added).

1910 outdated



Stalin was rude to Lenin's wife on the phone because she was violating doctors orders. So what.
He also written her out his revised history, what a great Leninst that makes Stain, being rude to Lenin's wife then writing her written out of Stalin's revision of history and banning all her writings.

[Crux]

Marx didn't whore himself out to the right-wing press in order to create propaganda against a socialist country. Publishing Capital =! publishing anti-Soviet propaganda.
So you base your statement about Trotsky being a "paid propagandist for the bourguise press" on the fact that you think the USSR under Stalin's mismanagement and brutal dictatorship was a healthy socialist state? And you wonder why no trotskyistes have responded? *facepalm*

It's curious how almost all anti-trotsky quoetes from lenin are from long before Trotsky joined the Bolshevik party.
I could find you many statements of appraisal from Lenin on Trotsky, curiously these are strangely absent from soviet history books from after the purges. Nobody's claiming that either Trotsky or Lenin was never wrong on anything. Such "perfection" we leave to the slandourous lying propagandists of the Stalinist movement.
And you can lie and misrepresent all you want about Trotsky and Lenin. In the end it does not change the counterrevelutionary character that stalinism has had and continues to have on the worker's movement.
But I doubt an internet troll like yourself would have anything to do with the worker's movement in any case.

Just a passing comment, it's disgusting to see you mentioning Joffe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_Joffe#Opposition_and_suicide) as one of the Old Bolsheviks not murdered. I have not have time myself but I advice anyone interested in the actual history to carefully check out the other names in his rather brief list of old bolsheviks not murdered by the stalinist clique.

[red cat]

There have already been enough posts on these topics; including a recent one by Prairie Fire where many Trot claims where contradicted. The point to which I would like to draw everyone's attention is, there can be a valid debate only when the debaters agree on the premises, thereby following a line of logical deductions of their own. Trots do and will refer to articles by Trotsky and other counter-revolutionary elements as their "historical documents" etc. But a historical line is justified only when the revolutionary ideas resulting from it are practical. Those who slander Stalin would better atleast try to make a revolution to implement the brilliant ideas brought forth by their great revolutionary leader.

[Random Precision]

Split from the stupid alternate history thread... hope y'all enjoy the title I gave it.


...a historical line is justified only when the revolutionary ideas resulting from it are practical. Those who slander Stalin would better atleast try to make a revolution to implement the brilliant ideas brought forth by their great revolutionary leader.

It was called the Russian Revolution. :)

[Abc]

Its funny all the Stalinists who say Stalin was closer to Lenin then Trotsky because Lenin thought that Stalin was becoming too powerful and called for him to be removed.

[bailey_187]

Its funny all the Stalinists who say Stalin was closer to Lenin then Trotsky because Lenin thought that Stalin was becoming too powerful and called for him to be removed.

Lenin said he suggests the comrades look into it

Stalin tried to step down twice after the "will", both times he was not allowed by the party. Therefore showing the parties wish not to remove Stalin. Surely thats democracy?

[marxistcritic]

Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, And all those other guys were not communists. Please stop arguing.

[red cat]

Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, And all those other guys were not communists. Please stop arguing.

Defend your claim.. at least against Lenin.

[Intelligitimate]

Lenin allowed more participation In what sense? The actual number of people who took part in the decision making of government was far smaller under Lenin.



the Bolshevik party had far more fractions under Lenin then under Stalin lol, Lenin completely banned factions at the 10th party congress!



Stalin purged everyone that wasn't a Stalinist from the party This is blatantly false. Why do you insist on lying constantly?



Peasants are not proletariat they don't get paid a wage for their labor thus not wage slaves and instead bound to the land. So, do you think the peasantry was meaningless to the revolution?



I'm talking about the Russian proletariat being dictated by Stalin's state. You 'talk' in vague historical generalities that show your knowledge of Soviet history is fuzzy at best. You can't actually demonstrate this, in any shape, fashion, or form, otherwise you wouldn't need to respond with stupid blanket statements that are absolutely meaningless and devoid of any actual content.



The purge list is basically a who's who's of the Russian revolution, everyone that every worked with Lenin was thrown out of the party by Stalin Again, you don't even read. I already quoted you a list of people who were “Old Bolsheviks,” that is, they were Bolsheviks before the revolution, and the majority of them were not executed or removed from power. It is simply a lie, and you go on repeating it, as if your assertions had never even been challenged.



Stalin rewritten history to write himself as a major player of the revolution even though he was a nobody that no one took seriously during the revolution at best and at worse was yelled at by Lenin and Trotsky for being a incompetent and opportunistic. It's actually quite hysterical, as this is the historical narrative of events that tries to rewrite history with Trotsky being the only relevant figure. This Trotsky tried to do as far back as the 1920s, and it is something he vigorously promoted the rest of his life, and now cultist Trotskyites do today. To quote Stalin:


“Let us now pass to the legend about Trotsky's special role in the October uprising. The Trotskyites are vigorously spreading rumours that Trotsky inspired and was the sole leader of the October uprising. These rumours are being spread with exceptional zeal by the so-called editor of Trotsky's works, Lentsner. Trotsky himself, by consistently avoiding mention of the Party, the Central Committee and the Petrograd Committee of the Party, by saying nothing about the leading role of these organisations in the uprising and vigorously pushing himself forward as the central figure in the October uprising, voluntarily or involuntarily helps to spread the rumours about the special role he is supposed to have played in the uprising. I am far from denying Trotsky's undoubtedly important role in the uprising. I must say, however, that Trotsky did not play any special role in the October uprising, nor could he do so; being chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, he merely carried out the will of the appropriate Party bodies, which directed every step that Trotsky took. To philistines like Sukhanov, all this may seem strange, but the facts, the true facts, wholly and fully confirm what I say.”




Yet Stalin's ideology was closet to the Mensheviks then Trotsky was during the time he was a Menshevik Except you can't actually demonstrate this in any shape, fashion, or form. In fact, I showed exactly the opposite, that Stalin is in full agreed with Lenin's critique of “stagism” as laid out in Lenin's Two Tactics. Again, all you can do is repeat bullshit, like a broken record. It seems you're not even capable of responding with any originality or thought, as it doesn't appear you even read what you're responding to. You're like a chatbot, being prompted by a few words on the screen, to spew a pre-determined response, unable to say anything other than what your particular Trotskyite cult has programmed into you.




Stalin wanted Russia to come first while Lenin made it clear Bolshivks had to be prepared to sacrifice their revolution for a world revolution lol, you got even a shred of evidence to back this up?




That Lenin changed his position on Care to demonstrate where Lenin ever repudiated his earlier work, indeed, his principle work on the critique of stagism? Or is this just more of your garbage assertions, totally devoid of actual content?




Lenin wanted to overthrow the bourgeois-democracy in Russia from the February revolution while Stalin wanted to collaberate with them still beliving in the stages theory Again, this is simply a lie, and you will no doubt not even try to show otherwise, as you can't do anything but spew cultish propaganda. That's what Trotskyism is: a cult of personality around a dead reactionary that even the bourgeoisie can love.




Stalin also told Mao to collaberate with progerisive capitalists in China that didn't work, revolution only came to China when Mao instead of collaberating with progerisive capitalsits simply took over the state and means of production from the ruling classes. This is not only a gross distortion of what happened, but given the fact you actually reject what Lenin says in his Two Tactics, it is also anti-Leninist. Which is exactly what Trotsky's ravings about what the Chinese communists amounts to.




While Lenin argued against permanent revolution, permanent revolution is far closer to what Lenin argued in his later workers then socialism in one country and the stages theory. Feel free to quote Lenin on this, if you can. It's quite easy, here, I'll show you:



“Thirdly, the victory of socialism in one country does not at one stroke eliminate all wars in general. On the contrary, it presupposes wars. The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in different countries. It cannot be otherwise under commodity production. From this it follows irrefutably that socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will for some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois. This is bound to create not only friction, but a direct attempt on the part of the bourgeoisie of other countries to crush the socialist state’s victorious proletariat. In such cases, a war on our part would be a legitimate and just war. It would be a war for socialism, for the liberation of other nations from the bourgeoisie. Engels was perfectly right when, in his letter to Kautsky of September 12, 1882, he clearly stated that it was possible for already victorious socialism to wage “defensive wars”. What he had in mind was defense of the victorious proletariat against the bourgeoisie of other countries.” - The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution, 1916



And guess what? It looks pretty much like exactly what Stalin has to say on the subject:




Comrade Pokoyev,
I am late in replying, for which I apologise to you and your comrades.
Unfortunately, you have not understood our disagreements at the Fourteenth Congress. The point was not at all that the opposition asserted that we had not yet arrived at socialism, while the congress held that we had already arrived at socialism. That is not true. You will not find a single member in our Party who would say that we have already achieved socialism.
That was not at all the subject of the dispute at the congress. The subject of the dispute was this. The congress held that the working class, in alliance with the labouring peasantry, can deal the finishing blow to the capitalists of our country and build a socialist society, even if there is no victorious revolution in the West to come to its aid. The opposition, on the contrary, held that we cannot deal the finishing blow to our capitalists and build a socialist society until the workers are victorious in the West. Well, as the victory of the revolution in the West is rather late in coming, nothing remains for us to do, apparently, but to loaf around. The congress held, and said so in its resolution on the
page 102
report of the Central Committee,[46 (http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/PBS26.html#en46)] that these views of the opposition implied disbelief in victory over our capitalists.
That was the point at issue, dear comrades.
This, of course, does not mean that we do not need the help of the West-European workers. Suppose that. the West-European workers did not sympathise with us and did not render us moral support. Suppose that the West-European workers did not prevent their capitalists from launching an attack upon our Republic. What would be the outcome? The outcome would be that the capitalists would march against us and radically disrupt our constructive work, if not destroy us altogether. If the capitalists are not attempting this, it is because they are afraid that if they were to attack our Republic, the workers would strike at them from the rear. That is what we mean when we say that the West-European workers are supporting our revolution.
But from the support of the workers of the West to the victory of the revolution in the West is a long, long way. Without the support of the workers of the West we could scarcely have held out against the enemies surrounding us. If this support should later develop into a victorious revolution in the West, well and good. Then the victory of socialism in our country will be final. But what if this support does not develop into a victory of the revolution in the West? If there is no such victory in the West, can we build a socialist society and complete the building of it? The congress answered that we can. Otherwise, there would have been no point in our taking power in October 1917. If we had not counted on giving the finishing blow to

page 103
our capitalists, everyone will say that we had no business to take power in October 1917. The opposition, however, affirms that we cannot finish off our capitalists by our own efforts.
That is the difference between us.
There was also talk at the congress of the final victory of socialism. What does that mean? It means a full guarantee against the intervention of foreign capitalists and the restoration of the old order in our country as the result of an armed struggle by those capitalists against our country. Can we, by our own efforts ensure this guarantee, that is, render armed intervention on the part of international capital impossible? No, we cannot. That is something to be done jointly by ourselves and the proletarians of the entire West. International capital can be finally curbed only by the efforts of the working class of all countries, or at least of the major European countries. For that the victory of the revolution in several European countries is indispensable -- without it the final victory of socialism is impossible.
What follows then in conclusion?
It follows that we are capable of completely building a socialist society by our own efforts and without the victory of the revolution in the West, but that, by itself alone, our country cannot guarantee itself against encroachments by international capital -- for that the victory of the revolution in several Western countries is needed. The possibility of completely building socialism in our country is one thing, the possibility of guaranteeing our country against encroachments by international capital is another.
page 104
In my opinion, your mistake and that of your comrades is that you have not yet found your way in this matter and have confused these two questions.

With comradely greetings,

J. Stalin
P. S. You should get hold of the Bolshevik [47 (http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/PBS26.html#en47)] (of Moscow), No. 3, and read my article in it. It would make matters easier for you.

J. Stalin
February 10, 1926




1914 before Trotsky joined the party thus the writting is outdated as Lenin eventually made Trotsky the head of the army. lol, is this all you can say? Even as you typed this out, surely you realized how pathetic it sounds, no?




Which pretty much what Stalin did on a much larger scale, so you argument against Trotsky is Lenin didn't like him being a fractionalist while Stalin ending being the worse fractionalist. lol, Stalin, the factionalist! Now you are reduced to simply invention. It's hysterical.




He also written her out his revised history, what a great Leninst that makes Stain, being rude to Lenin's wife then writing her written out of Stalin's revision of history and banning all her writings. Being rude to someone on the phone doesn't make you the opposite of a “great Leninst [sic].” Even Lenin himself said Stalin embodies all the qualities a General Secretary should have, except he was too rude. Stalin offered his resignation at the next party Congress, and everyone, including Trotsky, refused it.



And your assertion she was written “out of his revised history” is just another lie. Hopefully any interested readers will get what is going on here: people like Psy will say anything, and don't even care their words having anything to do with reality. Anti-communists are almost never challenged on their lies, so they are not used to having to ever support them with evidence.

[Intelligitimate]

So you base your statement about Trotsky being a "paid propagandist for the bourguise press" on the fact that you think the USSR under Stalin's mismanagement and brutal dictatorship was a healthy socialist state?

No, I base it on the fact, acknowledged by all serious biographers of Trotsky, that he was actually paid quite handsomely for his anti-Soviet writings, primarily by the most reactionary of the bourgeois press. Regardless if the USSR under Stalin was good or bad, that is the role Trotsky played: a propagandist in the pay of the bourgeois media.


And you wonder why no trotskyistes have responded? *facepalm*

They don't respond because they can't do anything but make stupid analogies to Marx publishing books.


It's curious how almost all anti-trotsky quoetes from lenin are from long before Trotsky joined the Bolshevik party.

On the contrary, Lenin's longest criticisms of Trotsky come after 1917. Are we forgetting the trade union issue?


I could find you many statements of appraisal from Lenin on Trotsky

Do so.


curiously these are strangely absent from soviet history books from after the purges.

Why should the USSR praise a reactionary in the pay of the bourgeois press, organizing abroad to try and overthrow the government, as we now know from Trotsky's papers, the very same papers he sold to Harvard for $15,000 to help buy his fortress in Mexico?


Nobody's claiming that either Trotsky or Lenin was never wrong on anything.

Your point? I am claiming Trotsky was a paid propagandist for the bourgeois media. No one here can actually deny it, because it is acknowledged as a fact by all serious biographers of Trotsky that he was paid large, large amounts of money for his invaluable services in stirring up anti-communist sentiment, that today would amount to millions of dollars.


Such "perfection" we leave to the slandourous lying propagandists of the Stalinist movement.

lol, so says the Trotsky-cultists.


And you can lie and misrepresent all you want about Trotsky and Lenin.

I haven't lied at all. Lenin despised Trotsky and vice versa, and Lenin had to continually reign Trotsky in for his idiotic errors, like the disaster he caused at Brest-Litovsk and his anti-worker line on the trade unions. Trotsky was a paid propagandist for the bourgeoisie, as acknowledged by even his sympathetic biographers.


In the end it does not change the counterrevelutionary character that stalinism has had and continues to have on the worker's movement.

It's hysterical the Western, right-wing, reactionary bourgeois press gives the 'True' revolutionary Trotsky millions of dollars for his propaganga against the "counterrevolutionary" Stalin, eh?


But I doubt an internet troll like yourself would have anything to do with the worker's movement in any case.

More than you ever will. Trotskyism is a petty-bourgeois anti-communist ideology, and that is who it will always attract. The workers have never been won over to Trotskyism, and they never will. Trotskyists have never had any real ties to the labor movement, and they never will, because they don't actually understand you don't win a revolution by selling shitty newspapers.


Just a passing comment, it's disgusting to see you mentioning Joffe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_Joffe#Opposition_and_suicide) as one of the Old Bolsheviks not murdered.

Given that is completely true, I see no reason why you would be disgusted. He was a Trot sympathizer that died in 1927.


I have not have time myself but I advice anyone interested in the actual history to carefully check out the other names in his rather brief list of old bolsheviks not murdered by the stalinist clique.

I agree, check them all out.

[red cat]

It was called the Russian Revolution. :)

No. That is the first one attributed to Marxism-Leninism.:)

[Random Precision]

No. That is the first one attributed to Marxism-Leninism.:)

My remark wasn't meant to be taken seriously.

What should be taken seriously is the huge assumptions in your remark that "a historical line is justified only when the revolutionary ideas resulting from it are practical". In the first place, what makes you think that only a revolution shows the practicality of certain ideas? Also, revolutions themselves don't always produce practical results. The German revolution did not succeed, does that mean the ideas of Luxemburg and Liebkencht are also discredited for all time?

Secondly, what about ideas that never had the right chance to show their "practicality" because of outside circumstances? I could easily put it to you that the reason there has never been a "Trotskyist revolution" is because we never lasted long in the peoples' democracies, and I doubt you would have an answer. And this could easily be extended to your own line of thinking- what if Lenin had been run over by a truck as he exited Finland Station and Kornilov's plot had succeeded, due to the Bolsheviks' lack of coherent leadership? Would "Marxism-Leninism" still be the "practical historical line"? And in fact, wasn't "Marxism-Leninism" supposed to have been produced by the conditions that also produced the revolution, rather than having inspired it directly?

Just a few points you should consider before you next make the "we've made more revolutions than you!!1"/bigger dick argument.

[red cat]

My remark wasn't meant to be taken seriously.

What should be taken seriously is the huge assumptions in your remark that "a historical line is justified only when the revolutionary ideas resulting from it are practical". In the first place, what makes you think that only a revolution shows the practicality of certain ideas? Also, revolutions themselves don't always produce practical results. The German revolution did not succeed, does that mean the ideas of Luxemburg and Liebkencht are also discredited for all time?[\QUOTE]

Atleast they managed to start the revolution. They should be credited for that. And anyone who becomes a martyr for a revolution is upheld by communist revolutionaries for his sacrifice, regardless of the validity of his theory.

However, when a theory is upheld, we have to take into account its success in practice. I will assume that since the third world countries sport all brands of communist parties, and since the only significant advancements towards revolution have been made by Maoists, the others, e.g. the Trots are either stuck implementing an invalid theory or are counter-revolutionary by nature.

[QUOTE] Secondly, what about ideas that never had the right chance to show their "practicality" because of outside circumstances? I could easily put it to you that the reason there has never been a "Trotskyist revolution" is because we never lasted long in the peoples' democracies, and I doubt you would have an answer. And this could easily be extended to your own line of thinking- what if Lenin had been run over by a truck as he exited Finland Station and Kornilov's plot had succeeded, due to the Bolsheviks' lack of coherent leadership? Would "Marxism-Leninism" still be the "practical historical line"? And in fact, wasn't "Marxism-Leninism" supposed to have been produced by the conditions that also produced the revolution, rather than having inspired it directly?

Just a few points you should consider before you next make the "we've made more revolutions than you!!1"/bigger dick argument.

1) What outside circumstances are holding Trots back from organizing any revolutionary activities in t he third world countries?

2) Yes, I meant to associate Marxism-Leninism with the revolution. Both build each other. I will not comment on Lenin being run over by a truck, as one possibility could be other Bolsheviks defending the revolution successfully.

3) What exactly validates Trotskyism (except for Trotsky's own writings of course) ?

[Random Precision]

Atleast they managed to start the revolution. They should be credited for that. And anyone who becomes a martyr for a revolution is upheld by communist revolutionaries for his sacrifice, regardless of the validity of his theory.

Oh, so apparently you can be upheld regardless of whether your theory is successful, as long as there are certain other conditions, like martyrdom? Why, therefore, can't we uphold Trotsky, since he was martyred?


However, when a theory is upheld, we have to take into account its success in practice. I will assume that since the third world countries sport all brands of communist parties, and since the only significant advancements towards revolution have been made by Maoists, the others, e.g. the Trots are either stuck implementing an invalid theory or are counter-revolutionary by nature.

1) What outside circumstances are holding Trots back from organizing any revolutionary activities in t he third world countries?

First of all, why are we limiting the discussion to the "third world"? There have been revolutions outside of that.

Secondly, in fact Trotskyism has had success in third world countries. In Sri Lanka there was the LSSP, which was actually larger than the CPSL. Unfortunately it turned revisionist over the fifties and sixties. In Vietnam there was a very strong Trotskyist movement- whose leaders were kidnapped and executed by the Stalinists during World War 2. And there have been strong Trotskyist parties in Latin America especially.

And in other third world countries, you simply cannot underestimate what having the workers' movement dominated by other forces can do. In India, for example, the workers' movement has been dominated by the CPI and CPI(M), and the Maoists have had success because they orient towards peasants rather than workers. But when the workers' organizations are hegemonized by another movement, it can be very hard to break into them successfully.

And this of course brings up issues of what we make of "success" of Stalinist groups. Success at doing what? The Nepali Maoists, for example, have not succeeded at all if succeeding means making a revolution. Similarly for the Maoists in India and the Philipines, who have only succeeded in creating fragile "liberated zones". And of course they have failed just as much as they have succeeded. Look at the PKI in Indonesia, for example.


2) Yes, I meant to associate Marxism-Leninism with the revolution. Both build each other. I will not comment on Lenin being run over by a truck, as one possibility could be other Bolsheviks defending the revolution successfully.

My point, which you seem to have dodged somehow, was that you can't set up "Marxism-Leninism" as some abstract idea that "made the revolution", and was hence proved true. Just like you can't set up "Trotskyism" as an abstract idea, and invalidate it by saying it didn't make any revolutions on its own.


3) What exactly validates Trotskyism (except for Trotsky's own writings of course) ?

We think it is validated by the organization and revolutionary practice of the Bolshevik Party before its bureaucratic degeneration, and by the Russian Revolution.

[red cat]

Oh, so apparently you can be upheld regardless of whether your theory is successful, as long as there are certain other conditions, like martyrdom? Why, therefore, can't we uphold Trotsky, since he was martyred?

If someone who got assassinated while living at the expense of the bourgeois press is called a martyr, then I will have to reconsider my claim a bit.



First of all, why are we limiting the discussion to the "third world"? There have been revolutions outside of that.

Like?



Secondly, in fact Trotskyism has had success in third world countries. In Sri Lanka there was the LSSP, which was actually larger than the CPSL. Unfortunately it turned revisionist over the fifties and sixties. In Vietnam there was a very strong Trotskyist movement- whose leaders were kidnapped and executed by the Stalinists during World War 2. And there have been strong Trotskyist parties in Latin America especially.

Until you clearly state its achievements, "strength" of a party cannot be judged. For example, one could claim that the CPI(M) is very strong in India now, where in fact, it is a very strong revisionist party.

And as for Vietnam, as far as I know, pro-Stalin elements were the ones who made the revolution.



And in other third world countries, you simply cannot underestimate what having the workers' movement dominated by other forces can do. In India, for example, the workers' movement has been dominated by the CPI and CPI(M), and the Maoists have had success because they orient towards peasants rather than workers. But when the workers' organizations are hegemonized by another movement, it can be very hard to break into them successfully.

And this of course brings up issues of what we make of "success" of Stalinist groups. Success at doing what? The Nepali Maoists, for example, have not succeeded at all if succeeding means making a revolution. Similarly for the Maoists in India and the Philipines, who have only succeeded in creating fragile "liberated zones". And of course they have failed just as much as they have succeeded. Look at the PKI in Indonesia, for example.


In India there was no worker movement led by the CPI or CPI(M) since the early sixties.
Maoists in both these countries have a very strong base among workers.
When a liberated zone can successfully fight government forces and establish people's governments, I wouldn't call them fragile.
Surely, the Maoists have suffered many failures. But they still continued their movements successfully, and decades after those failures they are being able to lead the masses to revolution. And they are the only people(except the Clandestine Communist Party of Colombia) who are doing so.



My point, which you seem to have dodged somehow, was that you can't set up "Marxism-Leninism" as some abstract idea that "made the revolution", and was hence proved true. Just like you can't set up "Trotskyism" as an abstract idea, and invalidate it by saying it didn't make any revolutions on its own.

Until you can defend your ideas with practical examples, they do remain abstract ones.




We think it is validated by the organization and revolutionary practice of the Bolshevik Party before its bureaucratic degeneration, and by the Russian Revolution.

Please explain which aspects of Trotskyist theory came into practice during the Russian Revolution.

[Crux]

If someone who got assassinated while living at the expense of the bourgeois press is called a martyr, then I will have to reconsider my claim a bit.
Not to mention leading the Petrograd soviet in 1905, setting up the Red Army and bieng on of the leaders, second only to Lenin, of the October revolution. Clearly a "counter-revolutionary". *cough*


Please explain which aspects of Trotskyist theory came into practice during the Russian Revolution.
Permanent revolution, in the overthrow of the Provisional Government. A two-satge stalinist line would have sided with the elements taht were opposed to the amred uprising claiming it was "too soon", for identical reasons that stalnists have backstabbed revolutions ever since.
The aim of the october revolution was always explicitly internationalist and ha dnothing whatsoever to do with "socialism in one country" which came much later. the Bolsehvik party was democratic, even after what was supposed to have been a temporary banning of fractions during teh civil war democracy continued to exist until the stalinist fraction seized control through violence, fraud and intimidation. No one seriously studying history can claim taht the post-1927 bolshevik party was democratic, indeed after this stalinists began to murder bolsheviks, something absolutly unthinkable in the early bolsheviks. Indeed it took the civil war to make the conflict between bolsheviks and mesnheviks an armed one. The murdeirng of political opponents is not a bolhsveik tradition. indeed that was why the stalinist regime denied having murdered Trotsky for quite a long time.

[Crux]

As for Vietnam the trotskyists always had a stronger base among the urban workingclass than the stalnists, especially in Saigon. Unsuprisingly, due to both stalinist bourguise lies this is not common knowledge. I recommend (http://chatquipeche.free.fr/Revolutionaries.html)
Revolutionaries they could not break by Ngo Van (http://chatquipeche.free.fr/Revolutionaries.html)

[red cat]

Not to mention leading the Petrograd soviet in 1905, setting up the Red Army and bieng on of the leaders, second only to Lenin, of the October revolution. Clearly a "counter-revolutionary". *cough*

Trotsky did a good job there. His military successes are certainly to be upheld. But his counter-revolutionary activities largely overshadow his revolutionary ones. And do you deny that he lived his last days at the expense of the bourgeois press and wrote bullshit, like about Stalin poisoning Lenin, for example?



Permanent revolution, in the overthrow of the Provisional Government. A two-satge stalinist line would have sided with the elements taht were opposed to the amred uprising claiming it was "too soon", for identical reasons that stalnists have backstabbed revolutions ever since.

So now Bolsheviks(Stalinists) are supposed to be blamed for what they "would" do? And I think that the theory of the incomplete revolution by the bourgeoisie, and subsequently the proletariat seizing power was developed by Lenin.



The aim of the october revolution was always explicitly internationalist and ha dnothing whatsoever to do with "socialism in one country" which came much later. the Bolsehvik party was democratic, even after what was supposed to have been a temporary banning of fractions during teh civil war democracy continued to exist until the stalinist fraction seized control through violence, fraud and intimidation. No one seriously studying history can claim taht the post-1927 bolshevik party was democratic, indeed after this stalinists began to murder bolsheviks, something absolutly unthinkable in the early bolsheviks.

More Trot lies.

[red cat]

As for Vietnam the trotskyists always had a stronger base among the urban workingclass than the stalnists, especially in Saigon. Unsuprisingly, due to both stalinist bourguise lies this is not common knowledge. I recommend (http://chatquipeche.free.fr/Revolutionaries.html)
Revolutionaries they could not break by Ngo Van (http://chatquipeche.free.fr/Revolutionaries.html)

These nice books always keep coming up after the counter-revolution succeeds. However, if I assume that these fascist Stalinists/Maoists succeed in culling you every time, how are you ever going to make a revolution?
:lol:

[bailey_187]

The aim of the october revolution was always explicitly internationalist and ha dnothing whatsoever to do with "socialism in one country" which came much later.

I agree, the Bolsheviks (including Leon the newcomer) thought that the revolution would spread. that was what was wished for and wanted. however, wishing and wanting for something does not make it so. the revolution DID NOT SPREAD. WHAT WERE THEY TO DO? GIVE UP? ignore the millions who died in the civil war and hand state power back to the bourgeoisie?

You can call for WORLD REVVOOLUTION all you fucking want. if it doesn't happen it doesnt fucking happen.

Do you not realise how illogical this whole world revolution nonsense sounds?

[Random Precision]

Trotsky did a good job there. His military successes are certainly to be upheld. But his counter-revolutionary activities largely overshadow his revolutionary ones. And do you deny that he lived his last days at the expense of the bourgeois press

Well, you make a living any way you can.


and wrote bullshit, like about Stalin poisoning Lenin, for example?

Next time someone is giving commands to have you assassinated, you can let me know how fair what you're writing about him is.


And I think that the theory of the incomplete revolution by the bourgeoisie, and subsequently the proletariat seizing power was developed by Lenin.

Both Lenin and Trotsky had their own notions about it, which turned out not to be so different when it came to application. But then, who said you guys owned what Lenin wrote?


More Trot lies.

Bravo. I'm going to go off and cry now, your arguments have so completely demolished me.


These nice books always keep coming up after the counter-revolution succeeds. However, if I assume that these fascist Stalinists/Maoists succeed in culling you every time, how are you ever going to make a revolution?

That makes absolutely no sense.


I agree, the Bolsheviks (including Leon the newcomer) thought that the revolution would spread. that was what was wished for and wanted. however, wishing and wanting for something does not make it so. the revolution DID NOT SPREAD. WHAT WERE THEY TO DO? GIVE UP? ignore the millions who died in the civil war and hand state power back to the bourgeoisie?

Strawman. Provide quotes where Trotsky suggests that the Bolsheviks "give up", or take that back.

[red cat]

Well, you make a living any way you can.

So do the cappies. Well... can we all now perceive what the essence of Trotskyism is ?




Next time someone is giving commands to have you assassinated, you can let me know how fair what you're writing about him is.

Then admit that all Trot propaganda against the USSR, Stalin and Stalinists is mostly unfair based on the personal emotion of Trotsky?



Both Lenin and Trotsky had their own notions about it, which turned out not to be so different when it came to application. But then, who said you guys owned what Lenin wrote?


Upholding Lenin(at least in words) is a good thing. Thank you for that.




That makes absolutely no sense.


Really...I am asking you people seriously this time, what are you going to do about the Maoist problem? The oppressed masses of the third world seem to be having a genetic trait for following Maoists despite your true revolutionary intentions. Not to mention that your tactics fail before the Maoists everytime .

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

They were both shit.

[Crux]

Trotsky did a good job there. His military successes are certainly to be upheld. But his counter-revolutionary activities largely overshadow his revolutionary ones. And do you deny that he lived his last days at the expense of the bourgeois press and wrote bullshit, like about Stalin poisoning Lenin, for example?
Well, given that Lenin was about to go into an alliance with the opposition against the stalinist clique I could see why. I would love you to source that claim though. Yes, where many other capitulated Trotsky defended the traditions of bolshevism. At the "expense of bourguise press" is a non-argument. or would you similary condemn any author or journalist as "counter-revolutionary"? Nice try at smearing though.
Bullshit? Well, at least he didn't have to revise history every couple years like the Stalinist clique in Moscow. I doubt you have even read Trotsky at all. like quite a few of his critics actually.


So now Bolsheviks(Stalinists) are supposed to be blamed for what they "would" do? And I think that the theory of the incomplete revolution by the bourgeoisie, and subsequently the proletariat seizing power was developed by Lenin.

if the Bolsheviks were "stalinist" why did they have to die? Why did Stalin murder almost all of the members of the original politbereau? Why were thousands of bolsheviks sent to the gulags?
Well actually I don't even need to say "would". Stalin, while in his only significant position around the revolution, was in favour of reconciliation with the mensheviks. You can find the Pravda articles yourself. Good thing lenin came back from Switzerland eh?




More Trot lies.
Given what is common knowledge about how the stalinist regime handled truth this is hilarious.

[Crux]

Really...I am asking you people seriously this time, what are you going to do about the Maoist problem? The oppressed masses of the third world seem to be having a genetic trait for following Maoists despite your true revolutionary intentions. Not to mention that your tactics fail before the Maoists everytime .
"genetic trait"? How *marxist* of you. Well, trotskyism didn't have a beaurucratic dictatorship to back it up. please point me to sucessfull current day maoism. Prachandaism, while with it's contradictions, have come out in favour of market reforms. I guess I don't even need to mention China. Or Zimbabwe. Sure there might be good maoists but maoism is fundamentally flawed.

Oh and trostskyism *has* had, and continue to have, a presence in the third world. But this has already been explained before.

[Crux]

Strawman. Provide quotes where Trotsky suggests that the Bolsheviks "give up", or take that back.
red cat, it seems you *forgot* to answer this.

[red cat]

Well, given that Lenin was about to go into an alliance with the opposition against the stalinist clique I could see why. I would love you to source that claim though. Yes, where many other capitulated Trotsky defended the traditions of bolshevism. At the "expense of bourguise press" is a non-argument. or would you similary condemn any author or journalist as "counter-revolutionary"? Nice try at smearing though.
Bullshit? Well, at least he didn't have to revise history every couple years like the Stalinist clique in Moscow. I doubt you have even read Trotsky at all. like quite a few of his critics actually.


if the Bolsheviks were "stalinist" why did they have to die? Why did Stalin murder almost all of the members of the original politbereau? Why were thousands of bolsheviks sent to the gulags?
Well actually I don't even need to say "would". Stalin, while in his only significant position around the revolution, was in favour of reconciliation with the mensheviks. You can find the Pravda articles yourself. Good thing lenin came back from Switzerland eh?

Given what is common knowledge about how the stalinist regime handled truth this is hilarious.

Of course, "common knowledge" spread by the bourgeoisie is what Trots must refer to. I am again pointing out, that when one purposefully assumes the wrong axioms, there can be no logical discussion. However, any such falsehood will repeatedly fail and cease to exist in practice, just like the present Trot movements have nowhere taken a single step forward in any revolution.

[red cat]

"genetic trait"? How *marxist* of you. Well, trotskyism didn't have a beaurucratic dictatorship to back it up. please point me to sucessfull current day maoism. Prachandaism, while with it's contradictions, have come out in favour of market reforms. I guess I don't even need to mention China. Or Zimbabwe. Sure there might be good maoists but maoism is fundamentally flawed.

Oh and trostskyism *has* had, and continue to have, a presence in the third world. But this has already been explained before.

Given the fundamental flawed characteristics of Maoism, what else could you blame but genetic constitution of the people for following Maoists and accidentally forming the peoples' governments ?

Look at Philippines, India etc.

Third world revolutionary Trots must be invisible. We never see them.

[red cat]

I agree, the Bolsheviks (including Leon the newcomer) thought that the revolution would spread. that was what was wished for and wanted. however, wishing and wanting for something does not make it so. the revolution DID NOT SPREAD. WHAT WERE THEY TO DO? GIVE UP? ignore the millions who died in the civil war and hand state power back to the bourgeoisie?






Strawman. Provide quotes where Trotsky suggests that the Bolsheviks "give up", or take that back.


red cat, it seems you *forgot* to answer this.

If you insist...

I think that bailey_187 is referring to Trotsky's counter-revolutionary propaganda on the USSR and his deceiving words about conducting the world revolution. His actions were typically aimed at the destruction of socialism even at that one country.

[black magick hustla]

its a difficult situation. trotsky was a confederate general and he was the culprit of the so called assassination of thomas jefferson in the 60s. I guess Stalin was not a very good guy when he single handly killed booker t washington accidentally when he had that duel with president jackson. i guess both of you stalinists and trotskyists have a lot to explain....:glare:

[black magick hustla]

*cites a bunch of papers i didnt read*

*says trotsky was a dumbass because he didnt take showers*

[Tzadikim]

You know, if the Trots and Stalinists spent as much time criticizing capitalism in public as they do each other under our own roof, we might actually get somewhere. As it stands I am convinced that neither one of you are in the right, and, what's more, you're both in the wrong.

[chegitz guevara]

Marx didn't whore himself out to the right-wing press in order to create propaganda against a socialist country. Publishing Capital =! publishing anti-Soviet propaganda.

Marx wrote for the New York Daily Tribune, which Marx viewed as a filthy rag. Try again.

BTW, I'm not a Trotskyist.

[Intelligitimate]

You apparently didn't read what I wrote either, Trotskyist or not. Try again.

[Crux]

You apparently didn't read what I wrote either, Trotskyist or not. Try again.
So when will you admit that is a circle argument?

[Crux]

Given the fundamental flawed characteristics of Maoism, what else could you blame but genetic constitution of the people for following Maoists and accidentally forming the peoples' governments ?

Look at Philippines, India etc.

Third world revolutionary Trots must be invisible. We never see them.
You can't be serious.

Who's "we"?

[red cat]

You can't be serious.

Who's "we"?

I am serious. Find out a revolutionary Trotskyist organization in the third world for me.

[Crux]

I am serious. Find out a revolutionary Trotskyist organization in the third world for me.
So you think politics is genetical? oh well nice to know where you stand.

I think COB, the Bolivian miner's union qualifies. Other examples like the Trotskyist movement in Vietnam, Sri Lanka etc

Speaking only for my own organisation we have sections in Nigeria, South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Malyasia, Bolivia, Venezuela.

[Intelligitimate]

Trotskyists are nearly all petty-bourgeois white people. They are idealists, and their organizational techniques lead them to complete failure. The same type of reasoning that leads them to reject Marxism-Leninism leads them to reject the masses, and thus they have always failed at revolution. Only 'Trotskyist' organizations that basically reject everything about Trotskyism, as some groups have, will ever potentially be successful.

[Random Precision]

I feel that this "discussion" has moved beyond History, so I'm moving it out of that forum.

[chegitz guevara]

Trotskyists are nearly all petty-bourgeois white people. They are idealists, and their organizational techniques lead them to complete failure. The same type of reasoning that leads them to reject Marxism-Leninism leads them to reject the masses, and thus they have always failed at revolution. Only 'Trotskyist' organizations that basically reject everything about Trotskyism, as some groups have, will ever potentially be successful.

Well, let's see. There was a very large Trotskyist movement in Vietnam, before the North Vietnamese slaughtered them. There's a large Trotskyist movement in Sri Lanka. There's a large (relatively speaking) Trotskyist movement in Latin America, where Maoism is practically non-existent. Also, many, many Trots are workers.

If they overthrow the bourgeoisie, they can call themselves Fred for all I care. The incorrect reasoning is thinking that the same kind of tactics and strategies will work in all countries in all ages.

[chegitz guevara]

You apparently didn't read what I wrote either, Trotskyist or not. Try again.

Trotsky didn't write anti-soviet propaganda. He supported the USSR, just not the leadership. Hell, he supported the USSR in its completely unjustified invasion of Finland. WTF do you want, him to stick an ice pick in his own head?

[Crux]

If they overthrow the bourgeoisie, they can call themselves Fred for all I care. The incorrect reasoning is thinking that the same kind of tactics and strategies will work in all countries in all ages.
Since intelligamate is a troll I will leave him be to his delusions
So what exactly do you mean?

[red cat]

So you think politics is genetical? oh well nice to know where you stand.


So you think it's non-genetic ? Nice to know that you recognize the achievements of the Maoists then.



I think COB, the Bolivian miner's union qualifies. Other examples like the Trotskyist movement in Vietnam, Sri Lanka etc

Speaking only for my own organisation we have sections in Nigeria, South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Malyasia, Bolivia, Venezuela.

Please state the achievements of these organizations in their respective countries.

Among the countries you mentioned, India is practically facing a civil war among the government and the Maoists. What exactly has your organization done so far in India?

[redasheville]

So you think it's non-genetic ? Nice to know that you recognize the achievements of the Maoists then.



Please state the achievements of these organizations in their respective countries.

Among the countries you mentioned, India is practically facing a civil war among the government and the Maoists. What exactly has your organization done so far in India?

What exactly have YOU done?

[chegitz guevara]

So what exactly do you mean?

What I mean is, "can't we all just get along?" ;)

Kidding aside, In think that our movements have been reduced to the point that we are no longer capable of testing our hypotheses. Various groups present various politics as true, but they cannot prove it in reality. The can only interpret and reinterpret facts and "facts." This reduces the various discussions between all socialists to basically religious squabbles.

We need to use the scientific method. We need to treat revolution as a science. We make a hypothesis, "the Leninist party is the best way to build a revolutionary organization." We test the hypothesis by experimenting. We analyze the results. If we don't get the expected results, we analyze the test to see if we did something wrong. We check our "controls" and parameters, and see if that affected the outcome. Then we go back to our hypothesis and reset the experiment with the new data. If the results tell us our hypothesis is wrong, we change our understanding and create a new hypothesis.

We need to look at the history of the socialist movement like this.

And frankly, all of our experiments are failing. Maybe it's time to stop engaging in metaphysical debates about how many Trotskyists can dance on the head of a pin or whether Stalinists have souls, and see if we can figure out something that works, together.

Just a thought.

[Tzadikim]

Are we still going to be arguing about the Trotsky-Stalin split in 2017?

If the revolution fails, mindless and self-serving sectionalism like this will be the cause of it. Your debates are unimportant; your histories all one-sided; your lack of clarity astonishing. If you agree on your goals, then it ought to be possible to fully embrace each other and use your methods as complimentary.

Frankly, I don't care about either Trotsky or Stalin, because I (mostly) reject Leninism and its faith in the peasantry. That doesn't mean I'm opposed to working with any of them.

[chegitz guevara]

Among the countries you mentioned, India is practically facing a civil war among the government and the Maoists. What exactly has your organization done so far in India?

I think the situation in India may be overstated. None of my Indian coworkers ever mentioned the Naxalites once. Some do, however, talk about the Islamic threat. If you look up India in Wikipedia, there's no mention of the Naxalites or civil war. I do remember an Indian woman at my school, back in the 80s, telling me her state, Assam, was in civil war, but that was 20 years ago.

Only about 6,000 people have died in the war, and it's lasted for over a decade. If they really held sway in 40% of the country, it wouldn't be necessary to sneak journalists in and out of rebel territory.

Which isn't to say that the movement isn't growing and that we shouldn't support them. It is and we should.

[red cat]

What exactly have YOU done?
Go to the wikipedia pages under category Maoism. These contain links to sites with a lot of information. Find the answer to your question yourself.

[chegitz guevara]

Are we still going to be arguing about the Trotsky-Stalin split in 2017?

Our decedents will still be arguing about it two hundred years after world communism.

[chegitz guevara]

Go to the wikipedia pages under category Maoism. These contain links to sites with a lot of information. Find the answer to your question yourself.

Not a valid answer, comrade.

[red cat]

I think the situation in India may be overstated. None of my Indian coworkers ever mentioned the Naxalites once. Some do, however, talk about the Islamic threat. If you look up India in Wikipedia, there's no mention of the Naxalites or civil war. I do remember an Indian woman at my school, back in the 80s, telling me her state, Assam, was in civil war, but that was 20 years ago.

Only about 6,000 people have died in the war, and it's lasted for over a decade. If they really held sway in 40% of the country, it wouldn't be necessary to sneak journalists in and out of rebel territory.

Which isn't to say that the movement isn't growing and that we shouldn't support them. It is and we should.

It is quite natural that wikipedia won't mention it in the page for India. Go to the relevant pages.

As for Assam and other places undergoing nationalist movements, many of them had suffered a temporary setback due to the lack of correct policies. But many are reviving. You are probably referring to the Bodo movement. That one has surrendered now, except possibly a few factions, and takes part in parliamentary politics.

[red cat]

Not a valid answer, comrade.
You want the links?

[Zeus the Moose]

Our decedents will still be arguing about it two hundred years after world communism.

Until the Fast Folk return, that is.

[chegitz guevara]

You want the links?

The question was what you've done, not what Maoism has done. It's a fair question, since you threw it at another comrade.

That's why I avoid it, even though I can point to what I've done. The political arguments should never be about individual comrades, unless they are acting in an unprincipled manner.

[chegitz guevara]

It is quite natural that wikipedia won't mention it in the page for India. Go to the relevant pages.

Actually, it's not natural that a movement that is that widespread would not be mentioned in the wiki page. The page on Colombia mentions the civil war.

And, I did go to the relevant pages. How do you think I found the figure on how many have died since the mid 90s? I'm not a newbie, comrade. ;)

[Crux]

Please state the achievements of these organizations in their respective countries.
Plenty, http://www.socialistworld.net holds an archive going back to 1998, if you have any more specific questions, shoot.

[Crux]

Are we still going to be arguing about the Trotsky-Stalin split in 2017?

If the revolution fails, mindless and self-serving sectionalism like this will be the cause of it. Your debates are unimportant; your histories all one-sided; your lack of clarity astonishing. If you agree on your goals, then it ought to be possible to fully embrace each other and use your methods as complimentary.

Frankly, I don't care about either Trotsky or Stalin, because I (mostly) reject Leninism and its faith in the peasantry. That doesn't mean I'm opposed to working with any of them.
Unfortunatly, the revolution is not a wait-and-see project, discussion like these (well, maybe not this particular slugfest) are important. Given the affinity some stalinists have had and still have about murdering revolutionaries I am witholding my embrace for a bit just yet.
And this is all about tactics by the way, and these are relevant today not just when the revolution comes. The trick is however to make them relevant for today. If the discussion of Trotskyism and the failurte and betrayals of stalinism took place in front of an audince of millions, rather then on this internet forum, then I would be more than happy.

[Crux]

In regards to the naxalites I too have heard they have picked up some pace recently. It's not that you can't win support while still having the wrong ideas, popular support is not a carte blanche. The point is if you do not have the right ideas you will ultimatly fail, as would most likely be the case of the naxalites if they were to have any significant success.
While I don't think it is as black and white as socialist puts it forward, he does have a point.

[Dimentio]

It is my firm belief that Alí, the nephew of his Holiness the Prophet Muhammed should have become the Caliph...

[Wanted Man]

Maoists are not advancing working class interests in any way. Nepal's Prachanda-led movement showed their free market capitalist colors and banned strikes (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200604/12/eng20060412_257829.html) as soon as they came to power.

Err, did you read the date of that article? This was done when the Maoists did not even have power yet. In fact, this happened just 2 days after a period of massive Maoist-organised protests and a general strike against the Gyanendra monarchy. You are blaming the Maoists for anti-Maoist repression by the King. Fail.

[Leo]

This is what socialist was referring to: http://libcom.org/news/nepal-victory-turns-sour-22012009 and http://libcom.org/news/nepal-maoists-restate-intention-ban-strikes-other-news-10042009

He must have posted the wrong link, it happens sometimes you know.

[red cat]

All the Maoists in India are achieving is having thousands of workers and peasants slaughtered in this "people's war", all to advance their so-called New Democracy, which any way is no different from the present neoliberal regime, being a class collaborationist vision.


Thousands over four decades, eh? At a single place called Vidarbh in India almost two hundred thousand farmers have committed suicide in the last decade, because they could not stand up to the economic violence unleashed by the state. At another place called Lalgarh the cops "made sure" that tribal girls were really girls by forcing them to strip. When people stand up to such inhuman torture and conduct the revolution, they will naturally have to pay the price. If you are so worried about it, provide an alternative solution.

The blood of martyrs does not drown the revolution, but waters it.



So what exactly have Maoists achieved? State capitalism, mass slaughter of workers and peasants, neoliberalism: impressive indeed. All this Blanquist posturing and fighting "people's wars" in the woods is in no way "doing anything", but a way of obstructing communist revolution through class unity and mass action.

Excellent! ....not to mention your source's stand on the Russian Revolution.

http://en.internationalism.org/node/2514

http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2008/june/1918-errors-02

[red cat]

The question was what you've done, not what Maoism has done. It's a fair question, since you threw it at another comrade.
I never asked anyone for his individual contributions. Of course when someone boasts of his organization being spread at such and such places, he might receive some queries regarding the achievements of his organization.

Personally I will NOT mention whatever I have done, or whether I have really done anything or not, and anyone is at full liberty to mock me for this.



That's why I avoid it, even though I can point to what I've done. The political arguments should never be about individual comrades, unless they are acting in an unprincipled manner.

Actually, there is a certain revolutionary norm that prevents queries about individual contribution among people outside organizational discussions.

[red cat]

In regards to the naxalites I too have heard they have picked up some pace recently. It's not that you can't win support while still having the wrong ideas, popular support is not a carte blanche. The point is if you do not have the right ideas you will ultimatly fail, as would most likely be the case of the naxalites if they were to have any significant success.
While I don't think it is as black and white as socialist puts it forward, he does have a point.

The naxalites have been fighting since 1967. In the 70's their movement was almost destroyed, but they have been gaining power since the 80's. The amount of economic development in one of the areas they took very recently was telecast by the mass media, and it was amazing. From all this, and from the fact that there are no other parallel communist tendencies in the third world except for the Maoists, is it very illogical to deduce that their ideas are correct?

[chegitz guevara]

from the fact that there are no other parallel communist tendencies in the third world except for the Maoists, is it very illogical to deduce that their ideas are correct?

That depends on what you mean by parallel. If by that you mean only groups engaging in people's war, then, of course, you are correct. If you mean large communist movements, then you are wrong, as I pointed out to you before.

The war in the Philippines has been going on for over 110 years. Let's not act as if it's going to win anytime soon. In Nepal, some amazing things are happening, despite the incorrect information posted by anarchists and Trotskyists. This is a place to watch.

In India, a country of a billion people, I'm not really sure that a guerrilla army of 16,000 is terribly significant. I think it's rather likely that First World Maoists are overstating the case.

[chegitz guevara]

This is what socialist was referring to: http://libcom.org/news/nepal-victory-turns-sour-22012009 and http://libcom.org/news/nepal-maoists-restate-intention-ban-strikes-other-news-10042009

He must have posted the wrong link, it happens sometimes you know.

As I recall, those reports were premature. The Maobadi did not actually ban strikes. Some in the Party discussed banning strikes. Just because you can strike doesn't mean it's a good idea to do so at this time or place. And just because some people in your organization discuss something, doesn't mean your party does it.

The Maobadi are not an organization with a single line, where the orders come from the top and everyone speaks with one voice. There are currents, and different ideas, and yes, some of them may be wrong.

[chegitz guevara]

And this is all about tactics by the way, and these are relevant today not just when the revolution comes. The trick is however to make them relevant for today.

I'm sure they are all relevant, but let me ask you, which ones are relevant? Which ones have worked in the past three decades to build a mass revolutionary party? I can listen to the Maoists tell me why their strategy is better and the Trotskyists on why their strategy is better, but as Engels said, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and neither of you have any pudding.

[Intelligitimate]

Well, let's see. There was a very large Trotskyist movement in Vietnam, before the North Vietnamese slaughtered them.

This is, of course, a joke. Not only was Vietnamese Trotskyism completely insignificant by 1939, it was extinguished as a political force by French colonialism. The Indochinese Communist Party had long been the largest force leading the national liberation struggle in Vietnam. To even bring up this insignificant crap is to spit on the real liberation struggle that actually took place, which many Trotskyists did in the 1960s and apparently are still doing today. Such is the anti-communist nature of Trotskyism.


There's a large Trotskyist movement in Sri Lanka.

Like the Trotskyist movement everywhere, they also have decided to split and re-split with each other over and over again. There are at least a dozen Trotskyist parties in the nation of 20 million, and even the largest one is electorally insignificant. They all appear to not have much to say about the oppression of the Tamil people and their attempts to stop it.


There's a large (relatively speaking) Trotskyist movement in Latin America

lol, what a joke.


where Maoism is practically non-existent.

Latin American Maoists are much, much more visible than their Trotskyist counterparts (Shining Path, anyone?). I would say Latin American Hoxhaists are more visible than the Trotskyists.


Also, many, many Trots are workers.

I've never met one. I've met lots of Trotskyist students and the paid organizers they sustain.


If they overthrow the bourgeoisie, they can call themselves Fred for all I care.

I agree. If Trotskyists ever manager to start a revolution, I will give them my full support. They never have, and probably never will.

[red cat]

That depends on what you mean by parallel. If by that you mean only groups engaging in people's war, then, of course, you are correct. If you mean large communist movements, then you are wrong, as I pointed out to you before.

Yes, I always refer to the people's wars. As for the other groups, they either always talk of peaceful solutions, or at most shout out radical slogans only.



The war in the Philippines has been going on for over 110 years. Let's not act as if it's going to win anytime soon. In Nepal, some amazing things are happening, despite the incorrect information posted by anarchists and Trotskyists. This is a place to watch.


The present PKP has been leading only since 1968.



In India, a country of a billion people, I'm not really sure that a guerrilla army of 16,000 is terribly significant. I think it's rather likely that First World Maoists are overstating the case.

I remember a government estimate lower bounding the Maoist army at 22,000 about a year ago. This was before the Lalgarh incident, and therefore, excluding the thousands of recruits from there. Also, the Maoist militia is said to be above a hundred thousand strong.

[chegitz guevara]

Yes, I always refer to the people's wars. As for the other groups, they either always talk of peaceful solutions, or at most shout out radical slogans only.

Oh that Lenin was a social democrat for not advocating people's war. You, in your own way, are as dogmatic as the Trotskyists. You apply a "universal" solution to unique situations. People's war only works in limited circumstances.


The present PKP has been leading only since 1968.

They are reformulation of the Huk insurgency, who themselves are the decedents of the Philippine "insurrection."


I remember a government estimate lower bounding the Maoist army at 22,000 about a year ago. This was before the Lalgarh incident, and therefore, excluding the thousands of recruits from there. Also, the Maoist militia is said to be above a hundred thousand strong.

If there was an army 100,000 strong fighting the Indian army, it would be major news. The Maoists in India are not, at this point, an existential threat to India. They are a security threat. It does not help our cause to overstate reality. I've been around long enough to know that my comrades can be dishonest that way.


This is, of course, a joke. Not only was Vietnamese Trotskyism completely insignificant by 1939, it was extinguished as a political force by French colonialism.

As was the Communist Party of Indiochina, but they reconstituted themselves. As of 1945, the Vietnamese Trotskyists were a significant force in Indochina again, but when the Vietminh took power, they were exterminated.


The Indochinese Communist Party had long been the largest force leading the national liberation struggle in Vietnam. To even bring up this insignificant crap is to spit on the real liberation struggle that actually took place, which many Trotskyists did in the 1960s and apparently are still doing today. Such is the anti-communist nature of Trotskyism.

Real history is important. Inconvenient facts cannot be removed from the picture like old communists from Soviet pictures. If you fail to understand what really happened, you will never understand fully what went wrong, and how we can prevent it in the future. The Stalinists had 1/3rd of the world, and they lost it. You can't poo poo that away and throw blame on the Trots. Your side lost the struggle against imperialism. Maybe its time to try something different.


lol, what a joke.

Yeah, all those Argentinian Trotskyists are a joke. Haha


Latin American Maoists are much, much more visible than their Trotskyist counterparts (Shining Path, anyone?).

What ever happened to the Shining Path? Didn't they used to exist?


I would say Latin American Hoxhaists are more visible than the Trotskyists.

This is one of the major problems with communists, is they don't learn about anyone outside of their own immediate struggles. Back when I was a Trot, I never learned a thing about the New Communist Movement. Most Maoists and Stalinists I know don't know a damn thing about Trotskyists. Y'all could learn a lot from each others struggles.


I've never met one. I've met lots of Trotskyist students and the paid organizers they sustain.

Oh noes! Paid organizers! What would Lenin say about groups with professional revolutionaries? Oh right, he said to do it.

As for the student smear, Maoism in the West is based largely on white students as well. What do you think the Revolutionary Youth Movement was? Yes, DRUM and the Panthers were different, but those groups are gone.

And I'll wager you don't know that many Trotskyists. The ISO isn't the be all and end all of Trotskyism. Most of the Trots I knew who weren't in the ISO were recruited out of factories.


I agree. If Trotskyists ever manager to start a revolution, I will give them my full support. They never have, and probably never will.

Russia, 1917, was led by Trotsky. That's one of those inconvenient facts Stalinists try to forget.

[red cat]

Indeed. But there has to be a revolution in the first place. The neoliberal, class collaborationist vision of New Democracy does not seem in any way a revolutionary change at all.
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

LOL !!

[red cat]

Oh that Lenin was a social democrat for not advocating people's war. You, in your own way, are as dogmatic as the Trotskyists. You apply a "universal" solution to unique situations. People's war only works in limited circumstances.

For semi feudal - semi colonial countries, by people's war, we refer to protracted people's war. For capitalist countries, we refer to insurrection by the same.




They are reformulation of the Huk insurgency, who themselves are the decedents of the Philippine "insurrection."


That way you can trace the Bolsheviks back to the Narodniks.



If there was an army 100,000 strong fighting the Indian army, it would be major news. The Maoists in India are not, at this point, an existential threat to India. They are a security threat. It does not help our cause to overstate reality. I've been around long enough to know that my comrades can be dishonest that way.


That is the militia, not the PLGA. It does take part in actual fighting and the recruitment for the PLGA is done from there. Presently at Lalgarh they are engaging 50 companies of central forces. You can estimate the numbers for the whole country, given that Lalgarh is only one of their strongholds. Also, recall that the Indian Prime Minister has repeatedly mentioned the Maoists as the single biggest security threat to the country.





What ever happened to the Shining Path? Didn't they used to exist?


Of course! The Shining Path is Maoist and has been reviving since 2005.





Russia, 1917, was led by Trotsky. That's one of those inconvenient facts Stalinists try to forget.

No. "Led" should be reserved for Lenin. However, we do uphold Trotsky's revolutionary activities in that period.

[chegitz guevara]

That way you can trace the Bolsheviks back to the Narodniks.

Not in the same way. There is a direct continuation from one to the next. It's the same group of people, over generations.


Also, recall that the Indian Prime Minister has repeatedly mentioned the Maoists as the single biggest security threat to the country.

Al Qaeda is the singles biggest threat to the United States. That doesn't mean that they are going to be toppling the government anytime in the next few decades. The Naxalites could, and I hope will, grow into an existential threat, but right now, they are not.


Of course! The Shining Path is Maoist and has been reviving since 2005.

Not so much. When you're rah rahing because you ambushed a police patrol in the jungle, you're pretty much reduced to a group of bandits. It's possible the PCP might become a force in Peru again, but that this point, they are effectively out of the picture.


No. "Led" should be reserved for Lenin. However, we do uphold Trotsky's revolutionary activities in that period.

Lenin did not lead the revolution by himself. Enormous prestige was won for the Bolsheviks when Trotsky got over his sectarian BS and joined the Bolsheviks. He was the President of the Petrograd soviet, in 1905 and 1917! That carries some weight. Lenin, and even Stalin, acknowledged they couldn't have pulled off the October Revolution without Trotsky, although that may have been overstatement on both their parts.

[Die Neue Zeit]

"His sectarian BS" - that's something to reflect upon, in spite of the usual cover story that Trotsky was a conciliator between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.

[Q]

I'm sad to appear to be the topicstarter of such a sectarian pile of shit :(

[Intelligitimate]

As was the Communist Party of Indiochina, but they reconstituted themselves. As of 1945, the Vietnamese Trotskyists were a significant force in Indochina again Both of these statements are completely false. The Trotskyites were never significant, and never became significant again, nor was the Indochinese Communist Party ever stamped out by French colonialism.


but when the Vietminh took power, they were exterminated.

As would be expected with groups dedicated to undermining a national liberation struggle.


Real history is important. Inconvenient facts cannot be removed from the picture like old communists from Soviet pictures. If you fail to understand what really happened, you will never understand fully what went wrong, and how we can prevent it in the future.

Real history and Trotskyite propaganda created for the right-wing bourgeois press are not the samething.


The Stalinists had 1/3rd of the world, and they lost it.

The use of the term “Stalinist” by Trotskyites is incoherent.


You can't poo poo that away and throw blame on the Trots.

No one “blames” Trotskyites for anything, as they have always been an insignificant anti-communist cult dedicated to a dead counterrevolutionary Menshevik.


Yeah, all those Argentinian Trotskyists are a joke. Haha

Need I go on about Posadism, or should I copy and paste this Trotskyite nutjob's ramblings about UFOs proving socialism planets, the benefits of nuclear war, and dolphin communication?




What ever happened to the Shining Path? Didn't they used to exist?

They still do.




This is one of the major problems with communists, is they don't learn about anyone outside of their own immediate struggles.

I know more than I need to about Trotskyism.




Oh noes! Paid organizers! What would Lenin say about groups with professional revolutionaries?

Professional revolutionaries doesn't equal paid cult spreaders.




Russia, 1917, was led by Trotsky. That's one of those inconvenient facts Stalinists try to forget.

This is simply a lie, based on a selective reading of the book of a single reporter, to which Trotsky used to shamelessly promote himself.

[Leo]

Not only was Vietnamese Trotskyism completely insignificant by 1939, it was extinguished as a political force by French colonialism. The Indochinese Communist Party had long been the largest force leading the national liberation struggle in Vietnam.

And they did not hesitate to offer the heads of the Vietnamese Left Opposition to French colonialism themselves. The Indochinese Communist Party was a party of despicable bourgeois politicians and thugs with no integrity, who cared only about their own interests. What they did was utterly disgusting.

Most Stalinists are like that. So are most national liberation movements.


As would be expected with groups dedicated to undermining a national liberation struggle.

Of course, being good nationalists, Stalinists always and everywhere attacked revolutionaries calling for actual proletarian revolution - Vietnam obviously was no exception.



Russia, 1917, was led by Trotsky. That's one of those inconvenient facts Stalinists try to forget.

This is simply a lie, based on a selective reading of the book of a single reporter, to which Trotsky used to shamelessly promote himself.

Russia 1917 was started and conducted by the working class. Marxists know that actual revolutions, as opposed to coup d'etats are not made by political tendencies or individuals but classes.

Trotsky's role, as the Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet and the leading Bolshevik in the Military Revolutionary Committee, was of course undeniably significant in the revolution, but this nevertheles was Trotsky's revolution only as much as it was any individual workers' revolution. History is made by classes, not individuals.

People who are obsessed with their tendencies and historical figures they associate themselves might brag about how many revolutions their tendency made. We have only one thing to say to them: none of the "revolutions" your tendencies or leaders made were revolutions at all but mere coup d'etats staged by power-hungry bourgeois politicians.

Luckily the October Revolution was as far away from being such a caricature of a "revolution" as possible.

In an actual, genuine revolution, certainly proletarian forces gain strength but they don't substitute themselves in the place of the class, they don't take the historical tasks which the class has to fulfill onto themselves, simply because they can't, they aren't able to. They participate in the workers' struggles, and intervene from within with the power of their arguements, their line, their communist perspective. This is what Trotsky did in the Petrograd Soviet and the Military Revolutionary Committee. This is what the Bolshevik Party did in general in October 1917, and this is why their legacy is of value to the proletariat. This is what the Stalinist gravediggers of the revolution and the Trotskyist movement which degenerated into bourgeois politics betrayed and will never do.

[Intelligitimate]

And they did not hesitate to offer the heads of the Vietnamese Left Opposition to French colonialism themselves
And where did they do this? Yet again, anti-communists pull assertions out of their ass, devoid of any actual historical content.

The Indochinese Communist Party was a party of despicable bourgeois politicians and thugs with no integrity
This is hysterical, considering the role of helpmate that Trotskyism has always played to Western imperialism, as far back as Trotsky's own role as propagandist against the USSR in the bourgeois press.

What they did was utterly disgusting.
Trotskyism is a disgusting, pseudo-Left ideology of raving anti-communists. That's why so many of your rank turn into total reactionaries, as they realize they have a lot in common with the Right.

Most Stalinists are like that. So are most national liberation movements.
It's great that you don't side with national liberation struggles. This only goes further to show just how utterly opportunistic and reactionary Trotskyism is.

People who are obsessed with their tendencies and historical figures they associate themselves might brag about how many revolutions their tendency made. We have only one thing to say to them: none of the "revolutions" your tendencies or leaders made were revolutions at all but mere coup d'etats staged by power-hungry bourgeois politicians.
Who cares what your despicable anti-communist 'tendency' that allies itself with Western imperialism and competes only with neo-Nazis and fascists in their denunciations of socialism thinks?

[Crux]

Leo, don't feed the troll.

[Leo]

And where did they do this? Yet again, anti-communists pull assertions out of their ass, devoid of any actual historical content."When a French expeditionary force arrived, the LCI organised a workers' militia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia), but its appeal for workers to arm themselves was not widely taken up. Ho Chi Minh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh) of the PCI signed an agreement with the French, and the most of the leaders of the LCI were executed or had disappeared by early 1946 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Communist_League_(Vietnam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Communist_League_%28Vietnam))


This is hysterical, considering the role of helpmate that Trotskyism has always played to Western imperialism, as far back as Trotsky's own role as propagandist against the USSR in the bourgeois press.There is quite a lot of evidence that this is nothing but a lie. It is of course true that Trotsky had a few articles published in the bourgeois press, but there is a difference between that and making numerous secret or not secret deals with other imperialist countries. If anyone actually played the role of the helpmate of Western imperialism, it was the Russian imperialism of the time.

Here's a quote showing how the French bourgeoisie saw it at the time: “Robert Coulondre(French ambassador to Moscow, then to Berlin), French ambassador to the Third Reich, gives a striking testimony in the description of his last meeting with Hitler, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. Hitler had boasted of the advantages he had obtained from his pact with Stalin, just concluded; and he drew a grandiose vista of his future military triumph. In reply the French ambassador appealed to his ‘reason’ and spoke of the social turmoil and the revolutions that might follow a long and terrible war and engulf all belligerent governments. ‘You are thinking of yourself as a victor...’, the ambassador said, ‘but have you given thought to another possibility - that the victor might be Trotsky?’ At this Hitler jumped up (as if he ‘had been hit in the pit of the stomach’) and screamed that this possibility, the threat of Trotsky’s victory, was one more reason why France and Britain should not go to war against the Third Reich” ( The Prophet Outcast, Isaac Deutscher, Oxford Paperbacks, p515.)

As for Trotskyism aiding Western imperialism later, some of them certainly did it, but most of them supported Russian imperialism more with their slogan of of the degenerated workers' state. It is as much of a problem.


Trotskyism is a disgusting, pseudo-Left ideology of raving anti-communists. That's why so many of your rank turn into total reactionaries, as they realize they have a lot in common with the Right.Meh, I am no Trotskyist, but this is rich coming from an adherent of an anti-communist tradition that almost murdered the entire Bolshevik Party of 1917 and it's leaders.


It's great that you don't side with national liberation struggles. Yeah, I think so also - those "struggles" tends to get lots of workers' killed.


Who cares what your despicable anti-communist 'tendency' that allies itself with Western imperialism and competes only with neo-Nazis and fascists in their denunciations of socialism thinks?You do, obviously, since you have taken the effort to spit lots of lies and slanders about something you don't even know of.

[Intelligitimate]

I sometimes forget that RevLeft is haven to a lot of moronic people who like to call themselves Leftists, such as the ICC, which is a little "Left Communist" group that maintains completely reactionary lines on pretty much all issues, up to and including involvement with the trade unions. These groups always reveal themselves as counterrevolutionary Right-opportunists with 'Ultra-Left' phraseology to disguise it. It should be telling such trash readily comes the defense of the darling of the bourgeoisie, Leon Trotsky.


"When a French expeditionary force arrived, the LCI organised a workers' militia (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia), but its appeal for workers to arm themselves was not widely taken up. Ho Chi Minh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh) of the PCI signed an agreement with the French, and the most of the leaders of the LCI were executed or had disappeared by early 1946 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Communist_League_(Vietnam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Communist_League_%28Vietnam))This in no way proves anything. First of all, wikipedia is a terrible source, and this particularly wikipedia article is a stub with no references to anything it claims. It most certainly in no way substantiates your idiotic assertion that they "did not hesitate to offer the heads of the Vietnamese Left Opposition to French colonialism." If anything, this particular quote only shows how insigificant Trotskyism in Vietnam was, and how the only thing it could do was offer empty slogans.


There is quite a lot of evidence that this is nothing but a lie.Except you will never produce anything to counter in it. In fact, I've already shown have Trotsky was paid the equivalent of over a million dollars just for a handful of his articles and papers. No one has done anything except try to justify it with retarded comments about Marx making money publishing books. No shit. Michael Parenti makes money publishing books too, but his books aren't giant screeds attacking socialism, are they?


It is of course true that Trotsky had a few articles published in the bourgeois pressMore like hundreds. The amount of articles directly authored by Trotsky in the New York Times alone is 21.


but there is a difference between that and making numerous secret or not secret deals with other imperialist countries.Given that we know Trotsky lied to the Dewey Commission about organizing groups in Russia to overthrow the government, why would anyone be surprised if this were indeed the case?


If anyone actually played the role of the helpmate of Western imperialism, it was the Russian imperialism of the time.There was no Russian imperialism. Imperialism has a very specific meaning, and it certainly doesn't have anything to do with this idiotic quote.


Robert Coulondre(French ambassador to Moscow, then to Berlin), French ambassador to the Third Reich, gives a striking testimony in the description of his last meeting with Hitler, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. Hitler had boasted of the advantages he had obtained from his pact with Stalin, just concluded; and he drew a grandiose vista of his future military triumph. In reply the French ambassador appealed to his ‘reason’ and spoke of the social turmoil and the revolutions that might follow a long and terrible war and engulf all belligerent governments. ‘You are thinking of yourself as a victor...’, the ambassador said, ‘but have you given thought to another possibility - that the victor might be Trotsky?’ At this Hitler jumped up (as if he ‘had been hit in the pit of the stomach’) and screamed that this possibility, the threat of Trotsky’s victory, was one more reason why France and Britain should not go to war against the Third Reich”This is hysterical for a few reasons, the least of which is Hitler actually being afraid of a Trotskyist revolution. This is believable to me, as Hitler did in fact read Trotsky's writings. To quote Sayers and Khan:

"Anti-Soviet agents and publicists immediately ballyhooed Trotsky's book into a sensational world-wide best seller which was said to tell the "inside story" of the Russian Revolution. Adolf Hitler read Trotsky's autobiography as soon as it was published. Hitler's biographer, Konrad Heiden, tells in Der Fuehrer how the Nazi leader surprised a circle of his friends in 1930 by bursting into rapturous praises of Trotsky's book. "Brilliant!" cried Hitler, waving Trotsky's My Life at his followers. "I have learnt a great deal from it, and so can you!"

Trotsky's book rapidly became a textbook for the anti-Soviet Intelligence Services. It was accepted as a basic guide for propaganda against the Soviet regime. The Japanese secret police made it compulsory reading for imprisoned Japanese and Chinese Communists, in an effort to break down their morale and to convince them that Soviet Russia had betrayed the Chinese Revolution and the cause for which they were fighting. The Gestapo made similar use of the book . . ."

I assume though you quoted it as just more retarded shit about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, as if that hasn't been refuted a thousand times.


Meh, I am no Trotskyist, but this is rich coming from an adherent of an anti-communist tradition that almost murdered the entire Bolshevik Party of 1917 and it's leaders.This is simply a lie, as already demonstrated in this very thread.


Yeah, I think so also - those "struggles" tends to get lots of workers' killed.LOL! Are you seriously advocating that people should remain under the yoke of Western imperialism simply become some workers are gonna die fighting it?


You do, obviously, since you have taken the effort to spit lots of lies and slanders about something you don't even know ofI know more about it than I need to, as already stated, and probably more than you ever will.

[Leo]

This in no proves anything. Such levels of denial is a clinical problem, I suggest you see a shrink.


First of all, wikipedia is a terrible source:rolleyes:


and this particularly wikipedia article is a stub with no references to anything it claims. Two articles are referenced for the wikipedia article.


It most certainly in no way substantiates your idiotic assertion that they "did not hesitate to offer the heads of the Vietnamese Left Opposition to French colonialism."It shows that they made a deal with the French colonialists and killed the militants of the Vietnamese Left Opposition, in the meanwhile destroying all the workers' activity also.


Except you will never produce anything to counter in it. I already did.


In fact, I've already shown have Trotsky was paid the equivalent of over a million dollars just for a handful of his articles and papers. No one has done anything except try to justify it with retarded comments about Marx making money publishing books. No shit. Michael Parenti makes money publishing books too, but his books aren't giant screeds attacking socialism, are they?Attacking Stalinism is not attacking socialism - it is attacking the capitalist counter-revolution.


Given that we know Trotsky lied to the Dewey Commission about organizing groups in Russia to overthrow the government, why would anyone be surprised if this were indeed the case?What I was referring to was the USSR making numerous secret or not secret deals with other imperialist countries. Trotsky, being a political exile, obviously was not in any position to do this.

Trotsky obviously did not deny his prominent role in the Left Opposition. The Russian Left Opposition, on the other hand was not monolithic, it had a left wing, revolutionary faction which did rightly defend that the Stalinist counter-revolutionary regime was capitalist and had to be overthrown by the working class, it had a right wing which intended conciliating with and reforming the regime, and a center which did not call for overthrowing the counter-revolutionary regime, but did not aim to conciliate either. Trotsky himself was closest to the center.

What Trotsky did deny were the insane accusations of conspiracy, assassination plots and individualistic-terrorism.


"Anti-Soviet agents and publicists immediately ballyhooed Trotsky's book into a sensational world-wide best seller which was said to tell the "inside story" of the Russian Revolution. Adolf Hitler read Trotsky's autobiography as soon as it was published. Hitler's biographer, Konrad Heiden, tells in Der Fuehrer how the Nazi leader surprised a circle of his friends in 1930 by bursting into rapturous praises of Trotsky's book. "Brilliant!" cried Hitler, waving Trotsky's My Life at his followers. "I have learnt a great deal from it, and so can you!"If he learned anything, he learned that the call for world revolution was something to be afraid of.


Trotsky's book rapidly became a textbook for the anti-Soviet Intelligence Services. It was accepted as a basic guide for propaganda against the Soviet regime. The Japanese secret police made it compulsory reading for imprisoned Japanese and Chinese Communists, in an effort to break down their morale and to convince them that Soviet Russia had betrayed the Chinese Revolution and the cause for which they were fighting. The Gestapo made similar use of the book . . .This is not only very speculate but doesn't really make any sense either. In any case, the only way to say there is a similarity between what Trotsky was saying and what the Axis states were saying is lying, which Stalinists are rarely are above doing.


I assume though you quoted it as just more retarded shit about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, as if that hasn't been refuted a thousand times.Not just. There is nothing surprising about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, although it's funny how the Stalinists accuse people of making deals with fascism while they are the ones doing it. Of course, Russia wasn't the only imperialist power that did it.


This is simply a lie, as already demonstrated in this very thread.While I don't care about your or other Stalinists' expected denials enough to look back in the thread to see what you said, I think it is important to establish the facts here:

Here's a graphic demonstration of what happened to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party of 1917:

http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/events/terror/cc-1917.jpg

Now, as it can be seen here, only three members of the Central Committee survived the Stalinist terror. Two of them, Kollontai and Stassova had retired from active politics completely before the purges (Kollontai had also recanted her political opinions while Stassove had retired from active politics in the early twenties when Lenin was alive). This leaves only one other person - Muranov, who was involved in politics as a Stalinist who survived. All the rest of the Bolshevik Part Central Committee that was alive at the time of the Stalinist purges were murdered by the regime. Out of six members of the original Politburo during the 1917 Revolution who lived until the Purges, only Stalin wasn't murdered. None from the first Council of People's Commissars formed in 1917 except Stalin who was alive at the time of his counter-revolutionary terror survived from it.

Other prominent Bolshevik leaders who weren't in the Central Committee at the time of the revolution and militant workers were also victims of the counter revolution, such as Karl Radek, Yuri Pyatakov, Alexander Shliapnikov, Yevgeny Preoprazhensky, David Riazanov, Christian Rakovsky, Ivan Smirnov, Varvara Yakovleva, Grigori Safarov, Gabriel Myasnikov, Timotei Sapranov, Vladimir Smirnov, Vyacheslav Zof, Georgy Oppokov, Mikhail Borodin, Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko, Lenin's one time personal secretary Nikolai Gorbunov, Sergei Medvedev, Vladimir Milyutin, Ivan Teodorovich, Nikolai Glebov-Avilov. There were many many others.

A very small amount of Old Bolsheviks survived the purges. The most significant one was Krupskaya who had said that had Lenin been alive, he'd be the first to be shot by Stalin's regime - she was being closely wathed of course. There were very few Old Bolsheviks who became Stalinists, and they were ones that did not have prominent roles during the revolution. The most well known Bolsheviks who became Stalinists were Kalinin and Voroshilov. The most prominent role played by Kalinin was the rather sinister role in the supression of Kronstadt, openly lying in order to get it suppressed before Lenin's death, as for Voroshilov he became a member of the Central Committee in 1921 and that was the most significant thing he had done. There were a few other old Bolsheviks who supported Stalin, such as Molotov, Kaganovich and Mikoyan - although none of them had any distinctive qualities or specific influence as opposed to the Bolshevik leaders murdered during the purges.

Communist leaders from Central Asia such as Sahipgirai Saidgaliev, Sherif Manatov, Sagidullin, Shamilgulov and Atnagulov, from Georgia such as Polikarp Mdivani, people like Afandiyev and Huseynov from Azerbaijan, people like Gayk Bzhishkyan, Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan and Aghasi Khanchian from Amerina were not spared from the counter-revolutionary terror either.

Neither were communist leaders of workers' revolutions in different countries who resided in the USSR at the time, such as Bela Kun and Joseph Pogany of the Hungarian Revolution, Jaan Anvelt from the Estonian Revolution, Avetis Sultanzade from the Persian Soviet Socialist Republic, Salih Hacioglu who was one of the leaders of the communist struggle against the national liberation movement in Turkey among lots and lots of other communist revolutionaries from different parts of the world. Lots of communist leaders who played a significant role in the formation of Communist Parties in different parties were toppled and replaced with loyal Stalinists who in most cases had been rather insignificant in the parties before. Such events happened in places like Italy, Germany, France, England, Spain, Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, the US, Canada, China, Turkey and Iran, among lots of other places.

In total, about 100,000 members of the Bolshevik Party were arrested, many of whom were tortured and murdered (http://www.answers.com/topic/the-great-purges). In 1922 there were only 44,148 Old Bolsheviks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Bolsheviks).

As for the attitude of the West, when, from 1936, Stalin organized the wretched ‘Moscow Trials', when the old comrades of Lenin, broken by torture, were accused of the most abject crimes and themselves ended up asking for exemplary punishment, this same democratic press in the pay of capital let it be known that ‘there was no smoke without fire' (even if some newspapers made some timid criticisms of Stalin's policies, affirming that they were ‘exaggerated'). It was with the complicity of the bourgeoisies of the great powers that Stalin accomplished his monstrous crimes, that he exterminated, in his prisons and concentration camps, hundreds of thousands of communists, more than ten million workers and peasants. And the bourgeois sectors that showed the greatest zeal in this complicity were the democratic sectors (and particularly Social-Democracy); the same sectors that today virulently denounce the crimes of Stalinism and present themselves as models of virtue. It's only because the regime that consolidated itself in Russia after the death of Lenin and the final crushing of the German revolution was a variant of capitalism, and even the spearhead of the counter-revolution, that it received such warm support from all the bourgeoisies that only a few years earlier had ferociously fought the power of the Soviets. In 1934, in fact, these same ‘democratic' bourgeoisies accepted the USSR into the League of Nations, an institution that Lenin had called a "den of thieves" at the time of its foundation. This was the sign that Stalin had become a ‘respectable Bolshevik' in the eyes of the ruling class of every country, the same rulers who had once presented the Bolsheviks of 1917 as barbarians with knives between their teeth. The imperialist brigands recognized Stalin as one of their own. The communists who opposed Stalin submitted to the persecutions of the entire world bourgeoisie.


Are you seriously advocating that people should remain under the yoke of Western imperialism simply become some workers are gonna die fighting it?I am rather saying that national liberation wars do not get people out of the yoke of imperialism since such struggles have to be funded and supported by an imperialist force to begin with anyway, and only results in workers dying for the interests of their national bourgeoisie.

I am not surprised though in you seing those of us from "oppressed nationalities" as creatures who don't mind dying.

Most first-world Stalinists are like that.

[red cat]

Not in the same way. There is a direct continuation from one to the next. It's the same group of people, over generations.

No. Associating the Philippine Communist Party with the Philippine Insurrection is wrong. Even if some people had joined the communist party from the latter, the class character of the communist party was qualitatively different from that of any other organization.



Al Qaeda is the singles biggest threat to the United States. That doesn't mean that they are going to be toppling the government anytime in the next few decades. The Naxalites could, and I hope will, grow into an existential threat, but right now, they are not.

Given the amount of force the government is employing to counter them, it does seem that they are.



Not so much. When you're rah rahing because you ambushed a police patrol in the jungle, you're pretty much reduced to a group of bandits. It's possible the PCP might become a force in Peru again, but that this point, they are effectively out of the picture.

Not necessarily. The communist party must operate in legal, semi-legal and illegal fronts. Since setting up even very few guerilla units requires a huge mass base, it is wrong to assume that the PCP is not leading popular mass movements. Even if such mass movements are huge, the communist party cannot boast about its involvement, as that would lead to the imprisonment of the non-clandestine portion of the party. Therefore, all they can do in their official party periodical is "rah rahing" about their ambushes.




Lenin did not lead the revolution by himself. Enormous prestige was won for the Bolsheviks when Trotsky got over his sectarian BS and joined the Bolsheviks. He was the President of the Petrograd soviet, in 1905 and 1917! That carries some weight. Lenin, and even Stalin, acknowledged they couldn't have pulled off the October Revolution without Trotsky, although that may have been overstatement on both their parts.

I wanted to say that Trotsky was one of the leaders, not the only one. Among the leaders, the greatest contribution was that of Lenin.

[red cat]

Neither were communist leaders of workers' revolutions in different countries who resided in the USSR at the time, such as Bela Kun and Joseph Pogany of the Hungarian Revolution, Jaan Anvelt from the Estonian Revolution, Avetis Sultanzade from the Persian Soviet Socialist Republic, Salih Hacioglu who was one of the leaders of the communist struggle against the national liberation movement in Turkey among lots and lots of other communist revolutionaries from different parts of the world. Lots of communist leaders who played a significant role in the formation of Communist Parties in different parties were toppled and replaced with loyal Stalinists who in most cases had been rather insignificant in the parties before. Such events happened in places like Italy, Germany, France, England, Spain, Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, the US, Canada, China, Turkey and Iran, among lots of other places.

In total, about 100,000 members of the Bolshevik Party were arrested, many of whom were tortured and murdered (http://www.answers.com/topic/the-great-purges). In 1922 there were only 44,148 Old Bolsheviks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Bolsheviks).



I don't get it. Do you mean to say that the old Bolsheviks were purged before 1922?

[chegitz guevara]

The Naxalites could, and I hope will, grow into an existential threat, but right now, they are not.

I was wrong! (http://www.revleft.com/vb/india-losing-maoist-t117578/index.html) :thumbup1:

[chegitz guevara]

I don't get it. Do you mean to say that the old Bolsheviks were purged before 1922?

No, that's just how many there were in 1922. It's meaningless, however, to point out how many there were in 1922 without also pointing out many many suffered at Stalin's hands. It doesn't really give us any information.

Consider what happened to the 1917 Central Committee and the fact that 2/3rds of the delegates to the 1932(?) Party Congress were executed before the end of the decades, I'd not be surprised to find out that a similarly large percentage of the Old Bolsheviks were slaughtered.

[pranabjyoti]

If nearly the whole Bolshevik party have been executed by Stalin, even when Lenin is alive, how does the econonic boom and scientific and technological progress had been done in the later USSR.
The way some anarchists and trotskytes want to represent Stalin is that he is just a blunt headed monster. But, actually they forgot that Trotsky himself was a part of the party and the party central committee had elected Stalin as the head of the party after the death of Lenin. They are just unable to observe that while denouncing Stalin, they are actually denouncng the whole revolutionary working class and they just act like a puppet in the hand of imperialist forces.
Dear trotskyte comrades, as far as I know, you have never tried to find the scientific reasons (if there is any) of the betrayal(!) of the revolution. Instead of denouncing Stalin and Stalinists, why aren't you trying to make a revolution anywhere in the world that can not be betrayed "Stalinists". I think by that way, you can serve world proletariat in a far more better way than denouncing Stalinists. How long would you take to understand that by saying USSR under Stalin and China under Mao was a capitalist country like farces, you are not serving the proletariat by strenghtening the hands of imperialists. If USSR under Stalin and China under Mao was capitalist countries, please tell me the PRACTICAL way to establish socialism. I will feel more interest in that than the rubbishes like "USSR and China was capitalist countries", "revolution was betrayed by Stalin and Stalinists" etc.

[LOLseph Stalin]

What a stupid sectarian thread. :rolleyes:

[pranabjyoti]

What a stupid sectarian thread. :rolleyes:

Then kind kindly try to say something positive and innovative, so that all will feel interest in you.

[Zolken]

What a stupid sectarian thread. :rolleyes: Only to those belonging to a stupid sect.

[Die Neue Zeit]

For what it's worth, who between Trotsky and Stalin wrote this personally (albeit crediting the wrong person)?


But this does not exhaust the significance of Lenin's What Is To Be Done?

The historic significance of this celebrated book lies in the fact that in it Lenin:

1) For the first time in the history of Marxist thought, laid bare the ideological roots of opportunism, showing that they principally consisted in worshipping the spontaneous working-class movement and belittling the role of Socialist consciousness in the working-class movement;
2) Brought out the great importance of theory, of consciousness, and of the Party as a revolutionizing and guiding force of the spontaneous working-class movement;
3) Brilliantly substantiated the fundamental Marxist thesis that a Marxist party is a union of the working-class movement with Socialism;
4) Gave a brilliant exposition of the ideological foundations of a Marxist party.

[Louis Pio]

I would say Latin American Hoxhaists are more visible than the Trotskyists.


Venezuelas Bandera Roja? They certainly are visible, although not in the way I think you are aiming at.

[pranabjyoti]

Trotskytes, like your founder, can you stop making personnal remarks? I think you are not. PROVE ME WRONG, IF YOU CAN.

[Dimentio]

If nearly the whole Bolshevik party have been executed by Stalin, even when Lenin is alive, how does the econonic boom and scientific and technological progress had been done in the later USSR.
The way some anarchists and trotskytes want to represent Stalin is that he is just a blunt headed monster. But, actually they forgot that Trotsky himself was a part of the party and the party central committee had elected Stalin as the head of the party after the death of Lenin. They are just unable to observe that while denouncing Stalin, they are actually denouncng the whole revolutionary working class and they just act like a puppet in the hand of imperialist forces.
Dear trotskyte comrades, as far as I know, you have never tried to find the scientific reasons (if there is any) of the betrayal(!) of the revolution. Instead of denouncing Stalin and Stalinists, why aren't you trying to make a revolution anywhere in the world that can not be betrayed "Stalinists". I think by that way, you can serve world proletariat in a far more better way than denouncing Stalinists. How long would you take to understand that by saying USSR under Stalin and China under Mao was a capitalist country like farces, you are not serving the proletariat by strenghtening the hands of imperialists. If USSR under Stalin and China under Mao was capitalist countries, please tell me the PRACTICAL way to establish socialism. I will feel more interest in that than the rubbishes like "USSR and China was capitalist countries", "revolution was betrayed by Stalin and Stalinists" etc.

I would claim that by calling USSR and China socialist, you are doing the world proletariat and all genuine socialists a huge disfavour.

[pranabjyoti]

Well, then kindly show me the way to a socialist society. At least I can say that they (USSR and China) had started to march towards socialism. I am really curious to know what "socialist" are doing to at present for progress towards a socialist society.

[bailey_187]

I would claim that by calling USSR and China socialist, you are doing the world proletariat and all genuine socialists a huge disfavour.

By denouncing and ignoring the achievements of Socialism and the Proletariat in the PRC and USSR you are doing the world proletariat and all genuine socialists a huge disfavour.

[Zolken]

At least I can say that they (USSR and China) had started to march towards socialism. Do you honestly expect any sensible person to believe such a statement?

[pranabjyoti]

Any person, who lives in the real world and is searching for REAL ways to go to socialism would certainly believe that. At least, the way capitalist-imperialist forces are ferrociously turned against them, there are very few reasons to disbelief.

[chegitz guevara]

If nearly the whole Bolshevik party have been executed by Stalin, even when Lenin is alive, how does the econonic boom and scientific and technological progress had been done in the later USSR.

I'm not aware that the Communist Party furnished the majority of engineers and scientists in Russia/the USSR. The slaughter of the Old Bolsheviks wouldn't terribly impact the economic growth of the USSR. It would, however, point out that something had gone terribly awry in the revolution.

I don't think anyone can seriously deny that the USSR and the PRC started the march towards socialism. Where many comrades disagree is where they ended. As both countries are now capitalist, I think it's safe to say our comrades got lost. At least they tried, though.

Better a hundred mistakes of a genuine revolution than the perfection of an armchair revolutionary!

[pranabjyoti]

I'm not aware that the Communist Party furnished the majority of engineers and scientists in Russia/the USSR. The slaughter of the Old Bolsheviks wouldn't terribly impact the economic growth of the USSR. It would, however, point out that something had gone terribly awry in the revolution.
At least we can say that they have been able to organize scientist/enginerrs in the right way to take a semi-feudal country to the level of an industrialised one. In that case, in my opinion, even establishing capitalism is also progressive because feudalism is worse than capitalism. At least, Bolsheviks, by turing Soviety Union into a capitalist country served mankind by detstryoing a very big outpost of moribund feudalism. Which is still surviving in parts of Asia.

I don't think anyone can seriously deny that the USSR and the PRC started the march towards socialism. Where many comrades disagree is where they ended. As both countries are now capitalist, I think it's safe to say our comrades got lost. At least they tried, though.!
What is the objective reason behind that? No trotskyte, no anarchist has been able to answer that yet. Instead they subjectively attacked Stalin and Lenin. I want an objective analysis from Marxist viewpoint. Blaming Stalinists and Leninist is not "Marxist" way at all to study on such matters.

Better a hundred mistakes of a genuine revolution than the perfection of an armchair revolutionary!
Sighhhhhhh, at least in the RevLeft website, there are too much of that kind of armchair revolutionaries. Who are very efficient in saying "it is not", I am now hoping for somebody who will say "it is that".