Trotsky or Stalin

[Richard Nixon]

Who was correct?

[Die Rote Fahne]

I think the neither option defeats the purpose of the poll.

However, Stalin was wrong in what he did.

Trotsky, prior to 1917, was the best option to lead.

[Comrade B]

Ugh... Christ... I try not to even touch these discussions...
Trotsky...
let us repeat the cycle!

[danyboy27]

my own version of rock paper scisor.

trotsky beat stalin, stalin beat icepick, icepick beat trotsky!

[Richard Nixon]

my own version of rock paper scisor.

trotsky beat stalin, stalin beat icepick, icepick beat trotsky!

And Lenin beats all. :)

[New Tet]

Stalin for his peppery cooking; Trotsky for having correctly described it before tasting it.

[Radical]

Stalin. Why else would you even consider dwelling on this? Choosing Trotsky is taking a guess at what you "think" he would be like.

Stalin proved to be one of the most effective leaders of the world in the last century.
He fullfilled his historic mission, his policies changed a Feudal Peasent Society into an Industrial Super power, Saved millions from Nazi Occupation and played a huge role in spreading Socialism across Eastern Europe.

However evil you think he may of been, you cannot denie that he was a great leader.

[danyboy27]

Stalin. Why else would you even consider dwelling on this? Choosing Trotsky is taking a guess at what you "think" he would be like.

Stalin proved to be one of the most effective leaders of the world in the last century.
He fullfilled his historic mission, his policies changed a Feudal Peasent Society into an Industrial Super power, Saved millions from Nazi Occupation and played a huge role in spreading Socialism across Eastern Europe.

However evil you think he may of been, you cannot denie that he was a great leader.

you forgot to hand over the flyers son!

[Comrade B]

However evil you think he may of been, you cannot denie that he was a great leader.
Yeah. Hitler united the masses too. So did Obama.

[RHIZOMES]

Few things on this issue:
*I don't think the Trotsky vs. Stalin divide is as black and white as a lot of people seem to make it.
*I think both Stalin and Trotsky did a lot of great things and a lot of fucked up things.
*I think the majority of the "crimes" Stalin committed in the process of attempting to build socialism pales extremely in comparison to the crimes of capitalism from 19th century-present.
*I think winning a Trotsky vs. Stalin argument depends more on how much reading/research you've done of the sources which fit your preconceptions (Another View of Stalin vs. Revolution Betrayed).
*I think the Trotsky-Stalin debate is completely irrelevant to the modern Leninist left, since there is no guarantee a movement is going to be "authoritarian" or not (whatever the hell that means) just because they have a positive opinion on Stalin and Mao. It's an incredibly deterministic and naive line to take. Especially when the positive opinion tends to arise out of tactical reasons rather than "man as soon as we get into power we're gonna destroy all the workers councils and create a famine" and they have the exact same opinions of capitalism and emancipating the working class as you do. There is a group in NZ, which refused to merge with the Workers Party because there are a few quasi-Maoists in it and because we don't have a specific line on "state capitalism", ffs. If people spent less time wanking over a power conflict which happened over 60 years ago and more time trying to figure out newer and more effective ways of building a revolutionary mass movement in their own areas, I think our movement would be a lot stronger.

Now I'm out of this topic before it turns into another fucking stupid sectarian slingfest (Which I know for sure it will).

[h0m0revolutionary]

*I think the majority of the "crimes" Stalin committed in the process of attempting to build socialism pales extremely in comparison to the crimes of capitalism from 19th century-present.


I think you should substantiate that claim. Not in defence of capitalism, but because if you feel Stalin's purges were justified, I worry what sort of society you envisage.

[scarletghoul]

Wtf h0m0, are you really suggesting that capitalism has been better for society than Stalin? In every measure (death toll, standard of life, equality, etc) capitalism comes out much worse.

It gets quite ridiculous, the way certain trotwanks and anarcholiberals thoughtlessly condemn Stalin as an evil one-dimensional mass murderer, which just happens to also be the bourgeois line :lol:

To answer the question, I think Stalin was better. Of course, Trotsky never ruled the USSR so its hard to compare them in that respect. However as a person I find Trotsky to be an irritating self-righteous nob, whereas Stalin, despite his flaws, was very cool.

[revolution inaction]

Who was correct?

they where both counter revolutionaries who repressed really revolutionaries and supported capitalism.

[Искра]

Wtf h0m0, are you really suggesting that capitalism has been better for society than Stalin? In every measure (death toll, standard of life, equality, etc) capitalism comes out much worse.

It gets quite ridiculous, the way certain trotwanks and anarcholiberals thoughtlessly condemn Stalin as an evil one-dimensional mass murderer, which just happens to also be the bourgeois line :lol:

To answer the question, I think Stalin was better. Of course, Trotsky never ruled the USSR so its hard to compare them in that respect. However as a person I find Trotsky to be an irritating self-righteous nob, whereas Stalin, despite his flaws, was very cool.
1st of all you are from UK, so you have never experienced life in any kind of Stalinist or "socialist" regime. That makes you "irritating self-righteous nob", also. No offense. Most of people who lived and live in this kind of societies don't fell much difference. Instead of waiting in the line for the bread now they are waiting in the line for credit.
2nd reprising regimes can't be socialist. Or do you think that only bourgeois and contra-revolutionarist ended up in Siberia or under the Mother Russia's ground?

I voted for "neither", because they both were the same thing - enemies of the working class.

Stalinists you can now start with your red marks ;)

[h0m0revolutionary]

I think you should substantiate that claim. Not in defence of capitalism ...


Wtf h0m0, are you really suggesting that capitalism has been better for society than Stalin?

read.

[revolution inaction]

Wtf h0m0, are you really suggesting that capitalism has been better for society than Stalin? In every measure (death toll, standard of life, equality, etc) capitalism comes out much worse.

when starlin was in power it was capitalist too, just because the state owned everything didn't make it not capitalist.




It gets quite ridiculous, the way certain trotwanks and anarcholiberals thoughtlessly condemn Stalin as an evil one-dimensional mass murderer, which just happens to also be the bourgeois line :lol:


yes the bourgeoisie is always telling us how stalin was a counter revolutionary capitalist, who imprisoned and murder really revolutionaries

[RGacky3]

trotsky beat stalin, stalin beat icepick, icepick beat trotsky!

HAHAHAH, good one.

Neither is my pick clearly, by the time they were fighting for power, socialism had been killed and buried through the Bolshevik coup like takeover of the revolution.

Calling it Capitalist is'nt accurate though, it clearly was'nt Capitalist, it was totalitarianist, state controlled, whatever you want to call it, nominally socialist.

[Искра]

Capitalist, or better defined "state capitalist", which means that the State is the only capitalist in society. You can clearly see that in the way that all capitalist institutions were kept, but nationalized.

[Richard Nixon]

Stalin. Why else would you even consider dwelling on this? Choosing Trotsky is taking a guess at what you "think" he would be like.

Stalin proved to be one of the most effective leaders of the world in the last century.
He fullfilled his historic mission, his policies changed a Feudal Peasent Society into an Industrial Super power, Saved millions from Nazi Occupation and played a huge role in spreading Socialism across Eastern Europe.

However evil you think he may of been, you cannot denie that he was a great leader.

He also killed far more people then any dictator save for Mao.

[danyboy27]

He also killed far more people then any dictator save for Mao.

damnit, i was affraid someone might post something like this.

meanwhile in the marxist-leninist group section:

damn nixon desecrating stalin and mao! we cant let him get away with it! lets spam his topic with stastistics showing that stalin was a good guy and that capitalism was far worst!

stalineehhhhhH!!! lets PaWnZ NiXoNS FuR Da MotherLand!

that pretty much how this thread will look like in a fews hours or so.
damn i like that when i can preditct futur events, i feel like some kind of warlock.

ps: it was a carricature, dont take it seriously.

[RHIZOMES]

I think you should substantiate that claim. Not in defence of capitalism, but because if you feel Stalin's purges were justified, I worry what sort of society you envisage.

I never said if they were justified or not justified. I stopped caring about that ages ago. I'm just saying Stalin's purges of the CPSU during a period of rule that spanned 30 odd years doesn't really amount to much if you compare that to the exploitation of the vast majority of the world on a grand, systematic scale for the past 200 years to present. I'm saying I find it laughable when a pro-capitalist brings up fucked up things Stalin may have done as proof against communism, when last time I checked capitalism is millions of miles ahead when it comes to mass suffering and death. Think Belgian Congo, think sweatshops, think slavery, think imperialist war. Think of the trade unionists being murdered every day. And those are just the first few I can think of from the top of my head.

And again, the debate over if Stalin's actions were justified, if they were exaggerated by bourgeois historians or not, or if he was even responsible for them, seems to depend entirely on how much time you've pissed away reading from historians who take your side on the Trotsky vs. Stalin argument. I have better things to do, as a full-time student I don't have much free reading time (ironically) and I'd prefer to devote it to things that are happening in the modern-day, or things which happened in the past which I can learn from for the present situation I find myself in, such as labor history or radical movements in the industrialized first world that gained some momentum, such as May 68 and the Black Panthers.

I'm REALLY fucking disillusioned with the Trotsky vs. Stalin paradigm. Now, you're an anarchist so it isn't so much Trotsky vs. Stalin you're worried about, as much anarchist "libertarianism" vs. Leninist "statism". Now while I disagree, that is actually relevant to your present-day ideology, so I can respect that. I just fucking hate this petty bickering culture us Leninists cling onto, despite the fact the USSR collapsed before I was even a year old. The Trotsky vs. Stalin argument stopped being relevant to the Leninist left decades ago.


1st of all you are from UK, so you have never experienced life in any kind of Stalinist or "socialist" regime. That makes you "irritating self-righteous nob", also. No offense. Most of people who lived and live in this kind of societies don't fell much difference. Instead of waiting in the line for the bread now they are waiting in the line for credit.

Oh wow, the hypocrisy here is astounding. You chastise scarletghoul for "never experiencing life" in a "Stalinist" regime... then right after that you say that "Most of people who lived and live in this kind of societies [can't tell] much difference". Yeah, try saying that to one of the millions plunged into abject poverty with the restoration of capitalism in the USSR. I think under the definition you gave, you count as an "irritating self-righteous nob" too. :rolleyes:

[khad]

1st of all you are from UK, so you have never experienced life in any kind of Stalinist or "socialist" regime. That makes you "irritating self-righteous nob", also. No offense. Most of people who lived and live in this kind of societies don't fell much difference. Instead of waiting in the line for the bread now they are waiting in the line for credit.
2nd reprising regimes can't be socialist. Or do you think that only bourgeois and contra-revolutionarist ended up in Siberia or under the Mother Russia's ground?
Jugoslavia was touted as paradise in the Third World shitholes a number of people grew up in, so that makes you the self-righteous nob. You don't have the monopoly on hardship, you stupid asshole.

If anything, being from the UK makes SG more qualified to speak on this matter. Do you know what the life expectancy was in England when they had their big industrial revolution? 35 or 40 years, trending lower in the cities and slightly higher in the countryside. As far as the historical record shows, Stalin increased living conditions dramatically and pushed Russia's feudal health metrics to first world standards. It was by no means as rapacious and destructive as what happened under 19th century capitalism.

[Olerud]

It gets quite ridiculous, the way certain trotwanks and anarcholiberals thoughtlessly condemn Stalin as an evil one-dimensional mass murderer, which just happens to also be the bourgeois line :lol:

To answer the question, I think Stalin was better. Of course, Trotsky never ruled the USSR so its hard to compare them in that respect. However as a person I find Trotsky to be an irritating self-righteous nob, whereas Stalin, despite his flaws, was very cool.

I cannot agree with this more.

[Jazzratt]

We have exactly the same discussion every week in the politics forum. If you're a determined enough masochist you can look them up yourself. Frankly they're boring as fuck though.

Closed.