Trotsky

[Pretty Flaco]

Who exactly was Trotsky and what is Trotskyism?

[Nachie]

Leon Trotsky was Lenin's right-hand man and general of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. After Lenin died and Stalin took over, he was kicked out of power and eventually assassinated in Mexico in 1940, probably by an agent of Stalin.

In terms of the book Animal Farm, Trotsky is represented by the character "Snowball".

"Trotskyism" officially doesn't exist according to Trotskyists, who say they're just the true inheritors of "Marxism-Leninism" or "Bolshevism", as opposed to the Stalinists ("Stalinism" also officially doesn't exist according to Stalinists). There are a bajillion different things you could say Trotskyism consists of, because its history has mostly been marked by all the groups claiming to represent Trotsky's legacy fracturing over sectarian rivalries and splitting into smaller and smaller grouplets.

A couple of the things Trotsky is historically responsible for is the idea that the Soviet Union was a "degenerated worker's state", which meant that it was still socialist in some respects but that the bureaucracy had taken over and prevented a full transition to socialism. He was opposed to Stalin's idea of "socialism in one country", saying that there needed to be a "permanent revolution" leap-frogging from one country to the next and taking over the whole world if socialism was ever to survive in an underdeveloped nation like Russia.

There's other stuff that Trotskyist groups will talk about but those are the main points as far as his major theoretical bullet points. He also had some pretty good writings about the Spanish Civil War, calling the anarchists out for joining the government. Trotskyist practice nowadays is kinda like union organizing with big emphasis on the role of the Leninist "vanguard" party. There are indications that Hugo Chavez in Venezuela has been influenced by the dude.

Anarchists hate him because he was responsible for crushing the Makhnovists and putting down the Kronstadt rebellion, as well as just being a Bolshevik in general.

Personally I think the only really good thing about Trotsky is this quote from shortly before he died, which proves that he was at least a real human being: "Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."

[S.Artesian]

Leon Trotsky was Lenin's right-hand man and general of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. After Lenin died and Stalin took over, he was kicked out of power and eventually assassinated in Mexico in 1940, probably by an agent of Stalin.




As a point of historical accuracy, Trotsky was not Lenin's "right hand man," even during the time of their closest collaboration. They were equals, outside the Bolsheviks. Trotsky was twice elected to the presidency of the Petrograd soviet, in 1905 and 1917. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1917. Lenin after his return, had immediately changed the Bolshevik policy regarding the provisional government, replacing the "qualified" support with direct opposition through the demand of "All power to the soviets."

Trotsky and Lenin had held differing views on the nature of the anticipated revolution prior to 1917, with Trotsky arguing that NO class other than the proletariat possessed the capability of taking power in a social revolution against the backward conditions of agriculture and general development prevalent in Czarist Russia; that the peasantry would differentiate along "wealth" lines- with the poor aligning itself with the proletariat, and the wealthier aligning with the bourgeoisie, a bourgeoisie that in any case could not assume and not discharge the tasks presented by the revolution, and thus doomed to collapse.

Lenin's position was much more opaque as indicated by his characterization of the forthcoming revolution as requiring a "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry."

When the revolution actually unfolded, Trotsky was right; Lenin recognized that and brought Trotsky and his supporters into the party, at least partly to battle the "conciliationists" in the Bolsheviks that were on the editorial board of the party paper-- Kamenev, Stalin, and [I think] Rykov.

Lenin certainly trusted Trotsky to handle the most complex, difficult and demanding tasks, as Trotsky was, as Lenin later described him, the most capable of all the party leaders. Trotsky was charged with handling negotiations for Russia's disengagement from WW1, and then, of course, Trotsky was designated as the Commissar of War to organized the Red Army and defeat the counterrevolution.

During that battle against counterrevolution, both Lenin and Trotsky became enamored with war communism-- an attempt to enforce a military discipline unto egalitarian socialism, itself based on dwindling resources and the tremendous destruction of the economy in the civil war-- and Lenin ensured that Trotsky was placed in charge of the railroads, to overcome the disorganization in that system, to execute this experiment in the militarization of labor. Lenin changed his views on the militarization of labor in mid-late 1920. Trotsky did not, which led to an intense, but brief dispute between the two.

Later on, Lenin proposed a "bloc" with Trotsky so that together they could combat the Russian national chauvinism and bureaucratization that was overtaking the party.

On the international arena, Trotsky's analysis of struggles in China, Germany, Spain, etc. from 1924 on are remarkable in their depth, precision, and accurate forecasting of the results that would follow attempts to force the proletariat into programs of class-collaboration with the bourgeoisie, whether it be in a colonized country like China, a "backward" capitalist country like Spain, or an "advanced" capitalist country like Germany.

[Adil3tr]

I'm a member of the ISO. We are trotskyists that believe that the USSR was a capitalist state as well, based on the core of its economic and political structure.

[tellyontellyon]

This is the CWI website, it will give you some idea of how modern Trotskyists are working.
http://www.socialistworld.net/

p.s. I'm happy to be described as a Trotskyist, socialist or bolshevik-leninist.

Try not to get too caught up in Trotsky the man; it is more important to look at the 'how' of how he analysed situations and apply those methods of analysis to the modern situation...

Here is a link to one of Trotsks speeches "In defence of October". I think you will be able to get some idea of what he was about from this:

http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/russia/r2frame.htm?october.html

Best wishes comrade. :)

[We Shall Rise Again]

Comrade,

Here is a short introduction to Trotsky and Trotskyite Politics.:D

http://www.marxists.org/archive/olgin/1935/trotskyism/index.htm

[Cyberwave]

And here is a guide to Anti-Trotskyism. (http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/against-trotskyism-a-reading-guide/)


Leon Trotsky was Lenin's right-hand man and general of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. After Lenin died and Stalin took over, he was kicked out of power and eventually assassinated in Mexico in 1940, probably by an agent of Stalin.

Lenin and Trotsky's relationship was always complicated and it was never as simple as Trotsky being the "right hand man," as bourgeois history books like to superficially portray. On numerous occasions it was Stalin whom Lenin spent the most time with and of course Trotsky could not handle this. But Lenin and Trotsky generally were bickering with one another a lot contrary to the popular belief.

"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." -Lenin.


"…What a swine this Trotsky is – Left, phrases, and a bloc with the Right against the Zimmerwald Left!! He ought to be exposed (by you) if only in a brief letter to Sotsial-Demokrat!" -Lenin.



Kicked out of power? Over 700,000 Bolsheviks voted in favor of Stalin over Trotsky, a mere 4000 voting for Trotsky, as a result of Trotsky's open opposition to Bolshevism and his factionalist behavior (e.g. the August-Bloc).




In terms of the book Animal Farm, Trotsky is represented by the character "Snowball".More useless sympathy based on lack of historical knowledge.


"Trotskyism" officially doesn't exist according to Trotskyists, who say they're just the true inheritors of "Marxism-Leninism" or "Bolshevism", as opposed to the Stalinists ("Stalinism" also officially doesn't exist according to Stalinists). There are a bajillion different things you could say Trotskyism consists of, because its history has mostly been marked by all the groups claiming to represent Trotsky's legacy fracturing over sectarian rivalries and splitting into smaller and smaller grouplets.“The entire edifice of Leninism at the present time is built on lies and falsification and bears within itself the poisonous elements of its own decay.” -Trotsky.

The notion that Trotskyism is somehow the true extension of Marxism-Leninism is a fallacy.


A couple of the things Trotsky is historically responsible for is the idea that the Soviet Union was a "degenerated worker's state", which meant that it was still socialist in some respects but that the bureaucracy had taken over and prevented a full transition to socialism. He was opposed to Stalin's idea of "socialism in one country", saying that there needed to be a "permanent revolution" leap-frogging from one country to the next and taking over the whole world if socialism was ever to survive in an underdeveloped nation like Russia.His claims of bureaucracy were false. When bureaucracy of Stalin did arise, Stalin combated against it. Stalin raised cultural levels of the people to do so, carrying out education campaigns among the masses and the Party about Marxism-Leninism. While Trotskyists were busy complaining, Stalin was actually doing something; Marxism-Leninism increased the number of schools from 52,000 to 200,000 between 1930 and 1933, raising the students from one million to 4,500,000. The literacy improved from about 65% to 90% at this time as well. Stalin also would always try to incorporate the people themselves in the Soviet system. In 1930 alone the number of working class citizens directly involved with the Party was over 65% as well, an increase from the previous years.

“Bureaucracy is one of the worst enemies of our progress. It exists in all our organizations.” – Stalin, Speech delivered at the Eighth Congress of the All-Union of the Leninist Young Communist League, 1927

“Bureaucracy in our organizations must not be regarded merely as routine and red tape. Bureaucracy is a manifestation of bourgeois influence on our organizations. With all the more persistence, therefore, must the struggle against bureaucracy in our organizations be waged, if we really want to develop self-criticism and rid ourselves of the maladies in our constructive work.” – Stalin, Against the Vulgarizing of the Slogan of Self-Criticism, 1928

“The surest remedy for bureaucracy is raising the cultural level of the workers and peasants. One can curse and denounce bureaucracy in the state apparatus, one can stigmatize and pillory bureaucracy in our practical work, but unless the masses of the workers reach a certain level of culture, which will create the possibility, the desire, the ability to control the state apparatus from below, by the masses of the workers themselves, bureaucracy will continue to exist in spite of everything. Therefore, the cultural development of the working class and of the masses of the working peasantry, not only the development of literacy, although literacy is the basis of all culture, but primarily the cultivation of the ability to take part in the administration of the country, is the chief lever for improving the state and every other apparatus. This is the sense and significance of Lenin’s slogan about the cultural revolution.” – Stalin

[danyboy27]

in b4 sectarian bullshit.

[mountainfire]

Trotsky's most important contribution to Marxism as far as theoretical development is concerned is his theory of permanent revolution. The starting-point of Trotsky's analysis was the recognition that there does not exist a uniform level of capitalist development throughout the entire world during the era of imperialism and that development is instead "uneven", with those countries which were not amongst the first to enter the capitalist stage of history exhibiting not merely backwardness but a combination of, on the one hand, archaic social formations, especially in the countryside, and, on the other, the most advanced technology and industry, due to those countries being the main destinations for investment from the imperialist states. Trotsky therefore described the condition of global capitalism during the era of imperialism as one of "combined and uneven development".

He further argued that in countries such as Russia and other relatively less developed societies the bourgeoisie was/is not able to play the same progressive role that it had in France and other societies where bourgeois-democratic revolutions had been carried to their full conclusion due to capitalists being dependent on or synonymous with the state, imperialism, and the remnants of pre-capitalist social classes, such as the landowning aristocracy. By situating the weakness of the bourgeoisie alongside the notion of combined and uneven development, Trotsky was able to conclude that, in countries where the bourgeois-democratic revolution has not been completed, it is only the proletariat that has the ability to carry out the tasks that comprise this revolution, and that the proletariat can do this in spite of its relatively small numerical weight as a result of the discipline and social power it gains from being concentrated in large units of production, these large units of production being derived from investment, originating in the most developed capitalist states.

He further argued that, having carried out the bourgeois-democratic revolution, the proletariat will find itself compelled to carry the revolution forward and transform it into a socialist revolution in order to safeguard the most elementary bourgeois-democratic gains, thereby making the revolution permanent, and that, having begun the task of socialist transformation, it will also be necessary for the revolution to spread geographically in order to overcome the conditions of scarcity that necessarily exist within the borders of one country - necessarily, because the age of imperialism involves the whole world being transformed into a single economic unit, with no single country having the resources and technology required to eliminate material scarcity. For Trotsky, then, the permanent revolution is permanent in a double sense - permanent in its seamless transition from bourgeois-democratic to socialist tasks, and permanent in the necessity of spreading beyond the confines of national boundaries.

It was on the basis of this theory that Trotsky challenged those within the Russian revolutionary movement who argued that Russia would have to undergo a lengthy period of capitalist development before socialism became possible, later showing that the theory was generally applicable to less developed capitalist societies, such as China, counterposing it to the class-collaborationist policies of the Comintern.

[el_chavista]

Who exactly was Trotsky and what is Trotskyism?
Trotsky was a true professional revolutionary. His Marxist wisdom and organizational skills are second only to Lenin's.
Trotskyists are Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries. The Trotskyist International Marxist Tendency is giving us a hand here in Venezuela.
The Trotsky-Stalin everlasting confrontation has only a historical interest. All Marxist-Leninists should unite against capitalist roaders.

[Weezer]

Leon Trotsky was an ex-Menshevik, but after joining the Bolsheviks, he gained high respect from Lenin. All pre-1917 criticisms of Trotsky by Lenin and other Bolsheviks is void.

Trotskyism is a form of Leninism promoting the theory of permanent revolution (as opposed to the failed theory of socialism in one country) and emphasis on democracy in democratic centralism, and I consider it Marxism-Leninism minus the degeneration of Marxist-Leninist practice.

[scarletghoul]

In the interests of informing the OP
All pre-1917 criticisms of Trotsky by Lenin and other Bolsheviks is void.That's not true at all. They are perfectly valid criticisms.


Trotskyism is a form of Leninism promoting the theory of permanent revolution (as opposed to the failed theory of socialism in one country)
When has permanent revolution worked ??
Also, SIOC has had at least a few successes

[Serge's Fist]

Also, SIOC has had at least a few successes

Hahaha like what the Soviet Union? the GDR?

[Weezer]

In the interests of informing the OPThat's not true at all. They are perfectly valid criticisms.

Perhaps all was too strong of a word. However, pulling out an essay discussing a pre-1917 Trotsky criticizing a post-1917 Trotsky does not make sense, as I would think.

[scarletghoul]

It's not llke Trotsky completely changed when he joined the Bolsheviks. For example he kept his theory of Permanant Revolution, which Lenin correctly criticised as 'absurdly left'.

[Crux]

It's not llke Trotsky completely changed when he joined the Bolsheviks. For example he kept his theory of Permanant Revolution, which Lenin correctly criticised as 'absurdly left'.
No, as has already been pointed out, on the theory of the permanent revolution events turned out to show trotsky right rather than lenin.

[scarletghoul]

Oh yeah when the revolution spread to Germany and Finland and all around the world in magical trotsky rainbow

wait

[Cyberwave]

Hahaha like what the Soviet Union? the GDR?

Yeah, you can shrug it off and laugh, but at the end of the day at least SIOC managed to accomplish something at all. When has "Trotskyism" ever liberated a country or improved literacy rates?

[The Ben G]

Jesus. Why must every thread on Trotsky/Stalin turn into "You idiot Trotskyites, where is your revolution?" or "Give me an example of Socialism in One Country that hasn't failed?". You guys that do this are childish.

[Kléber]

Yeah, you can shrug it off and laugh, but at the end of the day at least SIOC managed to accomplish something at all. When has "Trotskyism" ever liberated a country or improved literacy rates?
"All practical work in connection with the organization of the uprising was done under the immediate direction of Comrade Trotsky, the president of the Petrograd Soviet. It can be stated with certainty that the Party is indebted primarily and principally to Comrade Trotsky for the rapid going over of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the efficient manner in which the work of the Military-Revolutionary Committee was organized. The principal assistants of Comrade Trotsky were Comrades Antonov and Podvoisky."
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1918/11/06.htm

[Chambered Word]

His claims of bureaucracy were false. When bureaucracy of Stalin did arise, Stalin combated against it. Stalin raised cultural levels of the people to do so, carrying out education campaigns among the masses and the Party about Marxism-Leninism. While Trotskyists were busy complaining, Stalin was actually doing something; Marxism-Leninism increased the number of schools from 52,000 to 200,000 between 1930 and 1933, raising the students from one million to 4,500,000. The literacy improved from about 65% to 90% at this time as well. Stalin also would always try to incorporate the people themselves in the Soviet system. In 1930 alone the number of working class citizens directly involved with the Party was over 65% as well, an increase from the previous years.

“Bureaucracy is one of the worst enemies of our progress. It exists in all our organizations.” – Stalin, Speech delivered at the Eighth Congress of the All-Union of the Leninist Young Communist League, 1927

“Bureaucracy in our organizations must not be regarded merely as routine and red tape. Bureaucracy is a manifestation of bourgeois influence on our organizations. With all the more persistence, therefore, must the struggle against bureaucracy in our organizations be waged, if we really want to develop self-criticism and rid ourselves of the maladies in our constructive work.” – Stalin, Against the Vulgarizing of the Slogan of Self-Criticism, 1928

“The surest remedy for bureaucracy is raising the cultural level of the workers and peasants. One can curse and denounce bureaucracy in the state apparatus, one can stigmatize and pillory bureaucracy in our practical work, but unless the masses of the workers reach a certain level of culture, which will create the possibility, the desire, the ability to control the state apparatus from below, by the masses of the workers themselves, bureaucracy will continue to exist in spite of everything. Therefore, the cultural development of the working class and of the masses of the working peasantry, not only the development of literacy, although literacy is the basis of all culture, but primarily the cultivation of the ability to take part in the administration of the country, is the chief lever for improving the state and every other apparatus. This is the sense and significance of Lenin’s slogan about the cultural revolution.” – Stalin

Which obviously means the USSR under Stalin was socialist.

[AK]

Yeah, you can shrug it off and laugh, but at the end of the day at least SIOC managed to accomplish something at all. When has "Trotskyism" ever liberated a country or improved literacy rates?
Improving literacy rates does not make a country socialist. What does teaching kids how to read have to do with the workers seizing the means of production and placing them under democratic control?

[Serge's Fist]

Yeah, you can shrug it off and laugh, but at the end of the day at least SIOC managed to accomplish something at all. When has "Trotskyism" ever liberated a country or improved literacy rates?

Capitalism has improved literacy rates, countries have been liberated by non-stalinist regimes, you may have heard of the American revolution or the Greek war of independence. I would also question to what extent the Stalinists "liberated" a country, living in Poland post-1945 must have been well fun.

[Zanthorus]

But Lenin and Trotsky generally were bickering with one another a lot contrary to the popular belief.

Well they weren't bickering with each other when they jointly opposed Kamenev and Stalin's centrist rubbish in the runup to the October revolution. They certainly weren't bickering when Lenin offered Trotsky a position as head of the Soviet state!


What shook Lenin was Trotsky's refusal to fill the post he wanted to assign to him. Trotsky had desired to handle the policy on the press; perhaps his years as a journalist had given him an inclination towards operating in this sector for Sovnarkom. This was indisputably a function of importance, and Lenin issued a decree introducing censorship on 26 October. But he declined to waste his most valuable comrade on such work. He suggested at the Bolshevik Central Committee that Trotsky should head the entire government. Trotsky would have none of it:


I sprang to my feet in protest - so unexpected an innapropriate did this proposal seem. 'Why ever not?' Lenin insisted. 'It was you who stood at the head of the Petrograd Soviet that seized the power.' I moved to reject this proposal without debating it. And this was what was done.

This would also seem to counteract the suggestions that Trotsky was some kind of power hungry schemer.


Leon Trotsky was an ex-Menshevik,

This should probably be given some qualification. To begin with when Trotsky first joined the RSDLP he was a member of the Iskra faction along with Lenin and met Lenin personally in October 1902 coming under his personal tutelage. After the second congress of the RSDLP he did associate with the Mensheviks for a while, however when he went to Austria in 1904 to escape the factional struggles raging in the RSDLP he met Alexander Parvus, another Russian Social-Democrat who had been keeping alive the flame of Marx's slogan of "revolution in permanence" which he had used in the German revolution. Trotsky also adopted Parvus permanent revolution stance which involved breaking with the Mensheviks on the crucial question of the role of the proletariat in the forthcoming Russian revolution. What kept him seperated from the Bolsheviks was his belief that successful revolution in the West would allow the new workers government in Russia to go all the way to socialism (In the same way Marx and Engels had suggested in the 1882 preface to the Communist Manifesto), whereas the Bolsheviks thought that a "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry" would be set up which would fall short of the proletarian revolution when the peasantry began to assert it's own demands. The other issue was that Trotsky was sharply opposed to the sectarianism and factionalism within the RSDLP and wanted a united party whereas the Bolsheviks were highly sectarian eventually breaking from the RSDLP and forming their own central committee. During 1917 both barriers were wiped away as Lenin came closer to Trotsky's stance with his "steps towards socialism" in the April Thesis and Trotsky repudiated the Mensheviks after their various counter-revolutionary activities during the year and joined the Bolsheviks definitively.

[Cyberwave]

"All practical work in connection with the organization of the uprising was done under the immediate direction of Comrade Trotsky, the president of the Petrograd Soviet. It can be stated with certainty that the Party is indebted primarily and principally to Comrade Trotsky for the rapid going over of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the efficient manner in which the work of the Military-Revolutionary Committee was organized. The principal assistants of Comrade Trotsky were Comrades Antonov and Podvoisky."
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1918/11/06.htm

So? Trotsky helped in the revolution, but not so much as when the Soviet Union was actually established; once he was out of the majority he began to whine and complain rather than do anything. Trotsky’s role in the revolution and the 1919 civil war were essentially his 15 minutes of fame. But by the following years, particularly 1921 to ’23, Stalin was of far more importance and for that matter relevance, second only to Lenin.


Which obviously means the USSR under Stalin was socialist.

No, but it means that Trotskyists exaggerate greatly or believe every claim of "degenerated workers state" that Trotsky had asserted. Plus, whereas Stalin had people participate in democracy and Party organization, Trotsky was inherently anti-democratic in his own clique, wishing for his followers to be willful, obedient servants.


Improving literacy rates does not make a country socialist. What does teaching kids how to read have to do with the workers seizing the means of production and placing them under democratic control?

I'm saying that under the socialistic mode of development that did occur in the Soviet Union, through Marxist-Leninist methods applied by Stalin, things were actually achieved. Even if true socialism was never fully reached, it occurred more-so and proved that SIOC is possible (just needs time to develop and accomplish things without the interference of those such as Khrushchev). The children were also taught Marxism, and I have explained that the working class was indeed able to participate in political affairs to a great deal (and workers control, blah blah).


Well they weren't bickering with each other when they jointly opposed Kamenev and Stalin's centrist rubbish in the runup to the October revolution. They certainly weren't bickering when Lenin offered Trotsky a position as head of the Soviet state!

"We need a man to whom the representatives of any of these nations can go and discuss their difficulties in all detail .... I don't think Comrade Preobrazhensky could suggest any better comrade than Comrade Stalin." (Lenin, Closing Speech on the Political Report of the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.). (28 March 1922). Works, vol. 33, p. 315.)

"On April 23, 1922, on Lenin's suggestion, Stalin was also appointed to head the secretariat, as General Secretary." (Stalin: Man of History, by Ian Grey, p. 159.)

[Zanthorus]

So? Trotsky helped in the revolution, but not so much as when the Soviet Union was actually established; once he was out of the majority he began to whine and complain rather than do anything. Trotsky’s role in the revolution and the 1919 civil war were essentially his 15 minutes of fame. But by the following years, particularly 1921 to ’23, Stalin was of far more importance and for that matter relevance, second only to Lenin.

Trotsky was also a big player during the 1905 revolution. He made his way back to Russia out of exile as soon as he heard about bloody sunday and became vice-chairman and the chairman of the Petrograd soviet. By contrast Lenin only made his way back to Russia when the October manifesto had been issued and played nowhere near the role that Trotsky played.

And of course all he did was whine and complaing when he couldn't get a majority... that's all he could do. Where you expecting him to attempt a Bonapartist coup d'etat?


"We need a man to whom the representatives of any of these nations can go and discuss their difficulties in all detail .... I don't think Comrade Preobrazhensky could suggest any better comrade than Comrade Stalin." (Lenin, Closing Speech on the Political Report of the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.). (28 March 1922). Works, vol. 33, p. 315.)

"On April 23, 1922, on Lenin's suggestion, Stalin was also appointed to head the secretariat, as General Secretary." (Stalin: Man of History, by Ian Grey, p. 159.)

Jesus Christ on earth are you actually using Stalin's appointment as General Secretary as proof that Lenin was fond of Stalin?


Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution. Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. on the question of the People's Commissariat of Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by outstanding ability... Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/congress.htm

[Cyberwave]

Trotsky was also a big player during the 1905 revolution. He made his way back to Russia out of exile as soon as he heard about bloody sunday and became vice-chairman and the chairman of the Petrograd soviet. By contrast Lenin only made his way back to Russia when the October manifesto had been issued and played nowhere near the role that Trotsky played.

And yet Trotsky was still in a more favorable light by the majority, even despite of his criticisms of both Lenin and Stalin. It was around this time and just a few years later that Trotsky began denouncing Leninism and Stalin anyway, and become counter-productive and irrelevant. Furthermore, keep in mind that even despite of his contributions to the Party, Trotsky joined officially in 1917; Stalin had been with the Party since 1901.


And of course all he did was whine and complaing when he couldn't get a majority... that's all he could do. Where you expecting him to attempt a Bonapartist coup d'etat?

The fact is he could call for loyalty and partisanship to the Party while in the majority, and would go off on pathetic rantings and his usual ill-tempered arrogance while out of the majority. He would often use the same words for Stalin as he did with Lenin when Lenin himself was in opposition to Trotsky.


Jesus Christ on earth are you actually using Stalin's appointment as General Secretary as proof that Lenin was fond of Stalin?

Jesus Christ on Earth, are you actually using the "Lenin's will" argument here? Technically speaking, the sick Lenin called for neither Trotsky or Stalin in his last testament. But regardless, when Stalin was still voted in favor by the Bolsheviks he attempted to resign his position three times anyway.

Lenin's "Will." (http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Ludo%20Martens/node13.html#SECTION00400400000000000000)

[LaRiposte]

At exactly what point did workers' control exist in the USSR under Stalin?

Oh yeah.

[Cyberwave]

At exactly what point did workers' control exist in the USSR under Stalin?

Oh yeah.

Well, I already mentioned how a large majority of the Party was itself comprised of working class citizens, exceeding more than 60 percent on numerous occasions.

[Kléber]

Well, I already mentioned how a large majority of the Party was itself comprised of working class citizens, exceeding more than 60 percent on numerous occasions.
so every military dictatorship is actually democratic workers' state because the soldiers are mostly proletarian


The fact is he could call for loyalty and partisanship to the Party while in the majority, and would go off on pathetic rantings and his usual ill-tempered arrogance while out of the majority.
did you used to date trotsky or something? one thing he didn't do is disobey orders during a war like stalin, whose treasonous conduct bungled the defense of tsaritsyn and the invasion of poland


when Stalin was still voted in favor by the Bolsheviks he attempted to resign his position three times anyway.
just like julius caesar :D.. whatta guy

[Q]

Furthermore, keep in mind that even despite of his contributions to the Party, Trotsky joined officially in 1917; Stalin had been with the Party since 1901.
This is of course bull. Trotsky was a member of the inter-district group for a number of years which was effectively just another current in the RSDLP as the party remained intact on the ground until 1917, although it was mainly based in Petrograd.

[Cyberwave]

so every military dictatorship is actually democratic workers' state because the soldiers are mostly proletarian

Anti-Stalinism Hurts Workers. (http://clogic.eserver.org/1-2/furr.html) Yeah, yeah, the proper term is Marxism-Leninism and not Stalinism, but whatever.


did you used to date trotsky or something? one thing he didn't do is disobey orders during a war like stalin, whose treasonous conduct bungled the defense of tsaritsyn and the invasion of poland

Of course Trotsky never disobeyed, and never formed oppositions and was always seen as the hero of the Bolsheviks...

"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." (Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 34, p. 400).

"In brief – he is a Kautskyite, that is, he stands for unity with the Kautskyites in the International and with Chkheidze's parliamentary group in Russia. We are absolutely against such unity ... " (Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 43, pp. 515-516).

"...What a swine this Trotsky is – Left, phrases, and a bloc with the Right against the Zimmerwald Left!! He ought to be exposed (by you) if only in a brief letter to Sotsial-Demokrat!" (Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 35, p. 285).

Trotsky's role in the War. (http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Ludo%20Martens/node123.html#SECTION001100000000000000000)

As for Poland, Stalin had initially opposed the formation of a Soviet government in Poland, which was in actuality opposite of what even Lenin wished for. The whole situation with Poland was only created after Nazi Germany invaded and Stalin then realized that the British and French could care less of Poland's fate so long as the Nazis aided in the defeat of the Soviets. Would you rather have seen Hitler, backed by allied powers, take control of Poland or Stalin? Even so, Stalin still was reluctant of establishing a government in Poland given the nature of the situation and the nature of the Poles at the time.

The Katyn Massacre. (http://redbarricade.blogspot.com/2010/01/katyn-massacre.html)


just like julius caesar :D.. whatta guy

Except over 700,000 didn't vote in favor of Caesar...

[AK]

Except over 700,000 didn't vote in favor of Caesar...
So 700,000 people are truly representative of everyone in the Soviet Union?

[mountainfire]

When has permanent revolution worked ??

The theory of permanent revolution - and it is exactly that, a theory of society and politics, albeit with important strategic implications - has been proven throughout the twentieth century in a number of ways. The description of combined and uneven development remains the most effective way to characterize the social and technological conditions of underdeveloped countries and the world as a whole, due to the fact that neoliberalism has both failed to achieve a uniform level of development and has yielded the transfer of technology away from the heartlands of imperialism. Consider the presence of enormous automobile factories in China and India. The world is more integrated as an economic unit than ever before due to the same set of processes. The bourgeoisies of oppressed nations continue to exhibit their inability to complete the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, as indicated by the persistence of the national question, the conservative tendencies of capitalist classes in countries such as China, where capitalists constitute a primary source of loyalty for the current regime, as well as the continued existence of highly unequal forms of land ownership and rural exploitation in India and elsewhere. Where and when struggles around these bourgeois-democratic tasks emerge, their tendency to go beyond their narrow limits and to enter onto the terrain of socialist revolution also remains evident, as does the impossibility of preserving bourgeois-democratic gains without making the revolution permanent. The entire history of working-class struggles shows the danger of subordinating the proletariat to the class interests of the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie - this danger being one of the key strategic lessons of the theory - as demonstrated most importantly by the events in China during the period 1925-1927, which Trotsky took as evidence that the theory was applicable to oppressed and underdeveloped nations in general and not just Russia.

The "theory" of socialism in one country has, by any standard, been disproven as there remain no "socialist" countries, even if we somehow accept that the USSR was socialist up until 1991.

[infraxotl]

So 700,000 people are truly representative of everyone in the Soviet Union?

If they aren't, Trotksy's ~4000 votes certainly are!

[Q]

Oh dear, we got another fetish from the stalinoids to deal with: rigged election results. Yay.

[AK]

If they aren't, Trotksy's ~4000 votes certainly are!
Where in this thread have I claimed that?

[Zanthorus]

This argument about wether Stalin or Trotsky was personally moulded in the image of Marx himself or some agent provacateur attempting to sabotage the Bolsheviks is getting pretty boring.

If anyone has any materialist reasons why one of the basic tenents of Marxism, that socialism cannot be constructed in any single country, is false other than that glorious comrade Stalin proved that it wasn't by giving everyone healthcare and proper schooling then go right ahead.

Otherwise I'll take my "ultra-left utopianism" elsewhere.

[infraxotl]

This argument about wether Stalin or Trotsky was personally moulded in the image of Marx himself or some agent provacateur attempting to sabotage the Bolsheviks is getting pretty boring.

If anyone has any materialist reasons why one of the basic tenents of Marxism, that socialism cannot be constructed in any single country, is false other than that glorious comrade Stalin proved that it wasn't by giving everyone healthcare and proper schooling then go right ahead.

Otherwise I'll take my "ultra-left utopianism" elsewhere.

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/critiques/guardian/pt03.htm

[Cyberwave]

So 700,000 people are truly representative of everyone in the Soviet Union?

Again, there were large amounts of working class members within the Party. And the principles of democratic-centralism entail representation of the people as well by making all bodies be elected, including elections by lower bodies, which represent even more of the common folk. Even so, another program of Trotsky was defeated in 1924, so clearly the Party and the People had already expressed disdain for his positions. It was in 1927 when the Bolsheviks voted in favor against him by such a large amount. Through numerous attempts to undermine the Soviet Union, discredit Lenin and Stalin, and attempts of factionalizing the Party, I hardly think Trotsky represented the people himself anymore than his own "individualism."

[Crux]

Again, there were large amounts of working class members within the Party. And the principles of democratic-centralism entail representation of the people as well by making all bodies be elected, including elections by lower bodies, which represent even more of the common folk. Even so, another program of Trotsky was defeated in 1924, so clearly the Party and the People had already expressed disdain for his positions. It was in 1927 when the Bolsheviks voted in favor against him by such a large amount. Through numerous attempts to undermine the Soviet Union, discredit Lenin and Stalin, and attempts of factionalizing the Party, I hardly think Trotsky represented the people himself anymore than his own "individualism."
A stalnist talking about factionalism is pretty rich, you know. I am sure you do not believe the Great Leader rigged any elections. I don't really intend to convince you any otherwise, because in the end history has proven us right. Stalinism without a massive state propaganda machinery to back it up starts seeming rather pale doesn't it? Thankfully Trotsky porved this already long long time ago, one fo his greatest contributions to Marxism, just as Luxemburg's contribution when she exposed the borugeois nature of Bernsteins revisionism.

[infraxotl]

Where is the evidence that Stalin rigged elections?

[Cyberwave]

A stalnist talking about factionalism is pretty rich, you know. I am sure you do not believe the Great Leader rigged any elections. I don't really intend to convince you any otherwise, because in the end history has proven us right. Stalinism without a massive state propaganda machinery to back it up starts seeming rather pale doesn't it? Thankfully Trotsky porved this already long long time ago, one fo his greatest contributions to Marxism, just as Luxemburg's contribution when she exposed the borugeois nature of Bernsteins revisionism.

1. I do not label myself a Stalinist, end of discussion. And have you examined history at all? Who was the one calling for alliance with the Mensheviks, the liquidators, the Otzovists, and the Martovites? Who was the one calling for numerous factions to exist within the Bolshevik party? Trotsky and the Trotskyites. Marxist-Leninists may not wish for unprincipled unity, but at least we don't alliance ourselves with practically everybody we can in order to discredit our enemies.

2. He was a great leader, but I admit to his mistakes. I have never once seen a Trotskyist admit to any mistakes made by Trotsky.

3. History has proven that Trotskyism has never done anything.

4. He did? I thought Trotsky proved that spreading more propaganda and collaborating with state agencies to do so just makes one look like a hypocrite and an ass. Plus, its not as if Stalin himself was responsible for the propaganda all of the time. For example, he didn't truly favor his cult of personality.

5. So his greatest contribution was basically criticism of Leninism?

6. What does Luxemburg have to do with any of this, really.

[S.Artesian]

1. I do not label myself a Stalinist, end of discussion. And have you examined history at all? Who was the one calling for alliance with the Mensheviks, the liquidators, the Otzovists, and the Martovites? Who was the one calling for numerous factions to exist within the Bolshevik party? Trotsky and the Trotskyites. Marxist-Leninists may not wish for unprincipled unity, but at least we don't alliance ourselves with practically everybody we can in order to discredit our enemies.

You need to put those things into historical context. When was that? What years?


2. He was a great leader, but I admit to his mistakes. I have never once seen a Trotskyist admit to any mistakes made by Trotsky.

Hmmh... let's see. I've been called a Trotskyist, so let me offer the following: Trotsky was wrong in his call for labor armies, in his attempts at the militarization of labor; he was wrong in not taking the debate about the tasks of economic development outside the Bolshevik party and directly to the workers; he was wrong in maintaining his fidelity to the 3rd international until the defeat of the workers in Germany... I could go on and on, but I'm not really a Trotskyist no matter what those who flog Stalin as the second coming of Lenin believe.


3. History has proven that Trotskyism has never done anything.

What history has proven is that upon consolidation of the bureaucracy in the fSU and in the 3rd International, the leadership of the Russian Communist Party was absolutely disastrous for the international proletariat-- that that leadership lead to defeat after defeat and enabled the bourgeoisie to launch the bloodiest carnage in history that restabilized capitalism, even if part of central Europe, and China were ceded, swapped, to the "Soviet sphere of influence" for that stability.

History has also shown that the Trotskyists in the colonized countries lead the fight against the re-institution of colonial rule at the end of WW2, and for that "crime," they were imprisoned, suppressed, and executed by the "official" Communist Parties who facilitated the return of French rule to Indochina, for example.



4. He did? I thought Trotsky proved that spreading more propaganda and collaborating with state agencies to do so just makes one look like a hypocrite and an ass. Plus, its not as if Stalin himself was responsible for the propaganda all of the time. For example, he didn't truly favor his cult of personality.

What state agencies? You mean that crap that Grover-Furr constructed out of thin air and speculation?


Get a grip comrade-- the fSU collapsed; the collapse was due to 1) the inability of the bureaucracy to overcome, in isolation, and in expanded isolation of the Comecon era, the low productivity of Russian agriculture and 2) the fact that the international revolution had been decapitated by the very organization supposedly responsible for leading that struggle.

What you have remaining of the great contributions of the October Revolution-- is a memory; no different than the memories of those who support Trotsky.

What you, what we all need to do is grasp the continuity of events, forces, relations, that flow one from the other, between 1928 and 1991.

[ContrarianLemming]

And here is a guide to Anti-Trotskyism. (http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/against-trotskyism-a-reading-guide/)



Lenin and Trotsky's relationship was always complicated and it was never as simple as Trotsky being the "right hand man," as bourgeois history books like to superficially portray. On numerous occasions it was Stalin whom Lenin spent the most time with and of course Trotsky could not handle this. But Lenin and Trotsky generally were bickering with one another a lot contrary to the popular belief.

"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." -Lenin.


"…What a swine this Trotsky is – Left, phrases, and a bloc with the Right against the Zimmerwald Left!! He ought to be exposed (by you) if only in a brief letter to Sotsial-Demokrat!" -Lenin.



Kicked out of power? Over 700,000 Bolsheviks voted in favor of Stalin over Trotsky, a mere 4000 voting for Trotsky, as a result of Trotsky's open opposition to Bolshevism and his factionalist behavior (e.g. the August-Bloc).



More useless sympathy based on lack of historical knowledge.

“The entire edifice of Leninism at the present time is built on lies and falsification and bears within itself the poisonous elements of its own decay.” -Trotsky.

The notion that Trotskyism is somehow the true extension of Marxism-Leninism is a fallacy.

His claims of bureaucracy were false. When bureaucracy of Stalin did arise, Stalin combated against it. Stalin raised cultural levels of the people to do so, carrying out education campaigns among the masses and the Party about Marxism-Leninism. While Trotskyists were busy complaining, Stalin was actually doing something; Marxism-Leninism increased the number of schools from 52,000 to 200,000 between 1930 and 1933, raising the students from one million to 4,500,000. The literacy improved from about 65% to 90% at this time as well. Stalin also would always try to incorporate the people themselves in the Soviet system. In 1930 alone the number of working class citizens directly involved with the Party was over 65% as well, an increase from the previous years.

“Bureaucracy is one of the worst enemies of our progress. It exists in all our organizations.” – Stalin, Speech delivered at the Eighth Congress of the All-Union of the Leninist Young Communist League, 1927

“Bureaucracy in our organizations must not be regarded merely as routine and red tape. Bureaucracy is a manifestation of bourgeois influence on our organizations. With all the more persistence, therefore, must the struggle against bureaucracy in our organizations be waged, if we really want to develop self-criticism and rid ourselves of the maladies in our constructive work.” – Stalin, Against the Vulgarizing of the Slogan of Self-Criticism, 1928

“The surest remedy for bureaucracy is raising the cultural level of the workers and peasants. One can curse and denounce bureaucracy in the state apparatus, one can stigmatize and pillory bureaucracy in our practical work, but unless the masses of the workers reach a certain level of culture, which will create the possibility, the desire, the ability to control the state apparatus from below, by the masses of the workers themselves, bureaucracy will continue to exist in spite of everything. Therefore, the cultural development of the working class and of the masses of the working peasantry, not only the development of literacy, although literacy is the basis of all culture, but primarily the cultivation of the ability to take part in the administration of the country, is the chief lever for improving the state and every other apparatus. This is the sense and significance of Lenin’s slogan about the cultural revolution.” – Stalin

Of FUCK I thanked his post before I started reading the stalinist bullshit.
nooooooooo

[ChrisK]

Of FUCK I thanked his post before I started reading the stalinist bullshit.
nooooooooo

You can remove your thanks.

[ContrarianLemming]

thank the gods..

[Cyberwave]

You need to put those things into historical context. When was that? What years?

Trotsky's distrust of Lenin and Bolshevism began as early as 1903, which even Lenin himself recognized and responded to numerously. It was in 1910 when the majority of the Bolsheviks and Lenin began to truly denounce Trotsky for his childishness and association with the Mensheviks. The same year Trotsky attempted to pass a resolution that would divide the Bolsheviks into factions. Lenin saw it as "...direct step towards a split" and "a clear violation of Party legality and the start of an adventure."
"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 near; all those who are not concerned with the defense 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."




Hmmh... let's see. I've been called a Trotskyist, so let me offer the following: Trotsky was wrong in his call for labor armies, in his attempts at the militarization of labor; he was wrong in not taking the debate about the tasks of economic development outside the Bolshevik party and directly to the workers; he was wrong in maintaining his fidelity to the 3rd international until the defeat of the workers in Germany... I could go on and on, but I'm not really a Trotskyist no matter what those who flog Stalin as the second coming of Lenin believe.

Well, its good that you're criticizing Trotsky as a more Trotskyist-leaning person. You're literally the first person I've seen to have done so, and I mean that literally. We do not see Stalin as the "second coming of Lenin," but we do see Stalin as further providing expansion of Lenin's theoretical and political work, and properly defending it from slanderous lies.


What history has proven is that upon consolidation of the bureaucracy in the fSU and in the 3rd International, the leadership of the Russian Communist Party was absolutely disastrous for the international proletariat-- that that leadership lead to defeat after defeat and enabled the bourgeoisie to launch the bloodiest carnage in history that restabilized capitalism, even if part of central Europe, and China were ceded, swapped, to the "Soviet sphere of influence" for that stability.

It is one mistake of Stalin that international relations were not strengthened to the extent they could or should have been, but the results were not disastrous I believe. And it is not to say that Stalin rejected internationalism, or that the theory of socialism in one country equates to isolationism either. Stalin merely attempted to build socialism in one country and once it was strong enough begin internationalizing. Given the conditions of Russia and the other Republics of the SU, it was always going to be a challenge to build socialism, national or international. Stalin did make great progress however and would have continued doing so if not for the likes of those such as Khrushchev, Beria, and others.


History has also shown that the Trotskyists in the colonized countries lead the fight against the re-institution of colonial rule at the end of WW2, and for that "crime," they were imprisoned, suppressed, and executed by the "official" Communist Parties who facilitated the return of French rule to Indochina, for example.

I have unfortunately not heard this. But regardless, even non-Trotskyists and non-Communists can fight against colonialism. And the point I was trying to make is that while Trotskyists have done good in such instances they still never have managed to emancipate an entire country or do anything on a major scale when compared to Marxist-Leninists.


What state agencies? You mean that crap that Grover-Furr constructed out of thin air and speculation?

When Trotsky was in Mexico he collaborated with pro-Western state officials, the FBI, and the like in order to denounce Communist groups he suspected as "Soviet spies." Trotsky and the FBI. (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv3n2/trotsky.htm)


Get a grip comrade-- the fSU collapsed; the collapse was due to 1) the inability of the bureaucracy to overcome, in isolation, and in expanded isolation of the Comecon era, the low productivity of Russian agriculture and 2) the fact that the international revolution had been decapitated by the very organization supposedly responsible for leading that struggle.

What you have remaining of the great contributions of the October Revolution-- is a memory; no different than the memories of those who support Trotsky.

What you, what we all need to do is grasp the continuity of events, forces, relations, that flow one from the other, between 1928 and 1991.

The Soviet Union never collapsed, it dissolved. And Stalin's decisions did not truly factor in with the overall dissolution of the Soviet Union either, it was members of the Party that were inherently dissidents of Leninism, revisionists, increasing pressures and failed policies such as Perestroika, and so forth. After Stalin died capitalism began it's restoration. The problems of bureaucracy truly began under the post-Stalin Soviet Union; but bureaucracy itself is necessary to an extent and even Lenin acknowledge this. I never see Trotskyists blasting Lenin for what bureaucracy he created, and Stalin always attempted to combat against excessive bureaucracy as well.


Of FUCK I thanked his post before I started reading the stalinist bullshit.
nooooooooo

So one, you didn't actually read anything, and two, you're calling it "bullshit." How mature.

[LaRiposte]

As for Poland, Stalin had initially opposed the formation of a Soviet government in Poland, which was in actuality opposite of what even Lenin wished for. The whole situation with Poland was only created after Nazi Germany invaded and Stalin then realized that the British and French could care less of Poland's fate so long as the Nazis aided in the defeat of the Soviets. Would you rather have seen Hitler, backed by allied powers, take control of Poland or Stalin? Even so, Stalin still was reluctant of establishing a government in Poland given the nature of the situation and the nature of the Poles at the time.


We're not talking about the 1939 invasion of Poland; we're talking about the first invasion of Poland, when Stalin was in command of an army and disobeyed orders which led to his command being encircled and destroyed, which eventually cost the Red Army the war in Poland. Had Stalin not been a fuck-up of epic proportions, the Polish bourgeoisie would have been crushed and the way would have been open for the Red Army to intervene in the German Revolution, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

[LaRiposte]

Well, I already mentioned how a large majority of the Party was itself comprised of working class citizens, exceeding more than 60 percent on numerous occasions.

The party was far more proletarian before Stalin came to power (actually even before the revolution). Former Czarist bureaucrats joined the party en-masse after it had become clear that the Bolsheviks were winning the civil war so they could get a cushy job running the country.

But back to the question of workers' power. Under Stalin, workers in the USSR participated in exactly none of the administration of industry, its planning, its distribution, nothing. There was no democratic process that allowed for it. The important decisions were made by bureaucrats who towed Stalin's party line.

This has absolutely nothing in common with Lenin's vision for the dictatorship of the proletariat or socialism. That any supporter of Stalin can claim to stand in the tradition of Marx, Engels, or Lenin is embarrassing for all of us. Its actually painful to be associated with you.

[AK]

Again, there were large amounts of working class members within the Party. And the principles of democratic-centralism entail representation of the people as well by making all bodies be elected, including elections by lower bodies, which represent even more of the common folk. Even so, another program of Trotsky was defeated in 1924, so clearly the Party and the People had already expressed disdain for his positions. It was in 1927 when the Bolsheviks voted in favor against him by such a large amount. Through numerous attempts to undermine the Soviet Union, discredit Lenin and Stalin, and attempts of factionalizing the Party, I hardly think Trotsky represented the people himself anymore than his own "individualism."
I'm not even going to tell you how any form of "representative democracy" is utter bullshit and one massive contradiction, but you still haven't shown me how 700,000 party members are representative of everyone in the USSR. The infantile ultra-leftist anarchist in me is also thinking about how the hierarchical nature of a party leads to dictatorship of a few individuals even in - what some would consider to be - a relatively friendlier, party dictatorship. So take your "democratic" centralism bullshit out of here. It is anything but.

[Weezer]

When Trotsky was in Mexico he collaborated with pro-Western state officials, the FBI, and the like in order to denounce Communist groups he suspected as "Soviet spies." Trotsky and the FBI. (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv3n2/trotsky.htm)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/MolotovRibbentropStalin.jpg/478px-MolotovRibbentropStalin.jpg

Some mistakes Trotsky made:

He was a brutal military leader and made some unnecessary executions.

He rejected leadership of the Soviet Union offered to him by Lenin.

[Cyberwave]

We're not talking about the 1939 invasion of Poland; we're talking about the first invasion of Poland, when Stalin was in command of an army and disobeyed orders which led to his command being encircled and destroyed, which eventually cost the Red Army the war in Poland. Had Stalin not been a fuck-up of epic proportions, the Polish bourgeoisie would have been crushed and the way would have been open for the Red Army to intervene in the German Revolution, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Stalin was still critical of the invasion.

In May 1920, Stalin was sent to the Southwestern Front, where the Polish armies were threatening the city of Lvov, in Ukraine, and Wrangel's troops Crimea. The Poles occupied a large part of Ukraine, including Kiev. On the Western Front, Tukhachevsky counter-attacked, pushing back the aggressors to the limits of Warsaw. Lenin hoped to win the war with reactionary Poland and a temporary Polish Soviet government was formed. Stalin warned against such an act: "The class conflicts have not reached the strength to break through the sense of national unity." (Ian Grey, op. cit. , pp. 128--129.)

The orders were received by both Trotsky and Stalin as you know, and Lenin himself believed that Stalin's military abilities were equal to Trotsky as well. What really makes you think Trotsky was somehow a greater military leader?


The party was far more proletarian before Stalin came to power (actually even before the revolution). Former Czarist bureaucrats joined the party en-masse after it had become clear that the Bolsheviks were winning the civil war so they could get a cushy job running the country.

But back to the question of workers' power. Under Stalin, workers in the USSR participated in exactly none of the administration of industry, its planning, its distribution, nothing. There was no democratic process that allowed for it. The important decisions were made by bureaucrats who towed Stalin's party line.

This has absolutely nothing in common with Lenin's vision for the dictatorship of the proletariat or socialism. That any supporter of Stalin can claim to stand in the tradition of Marx, Engels, or Lenin is embarrassing for all of us. Its actually painful to be associated with you.

The Struggle Against Bureaucracy. (http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Ludo%20Martens/node79.html#SECTION00900000000000000000)
The Organization of Collectivization. (http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Ludo%20Martens/node35.html#SECTION00730000000000000000)

"Bureaucracy is one of the worst enemies of our progress. It exists in all our organizations.” - Stalin, Speech delivered at the Eighth Congress of the All-Union of the Leninist Young Communist League, 1927

“Bureaucracy in our organizations must not be regarded merely as routine and red tape. Bureaucracy is a manifestation of bourgeois influence on our organizations. With all the more persistence, therefore, must the struggle against bureaucracy in our organizations be waged, if we really want to develop self-criticism and rid ourselves of the maladies in our constructive work.” - Stalin, Against the Vulgarizing of the Slogan of Self-Criticism, 1928

"The surest remedy for bureaucracy is raising the cultural level of the workers and peasants. One can curse and denounce bureaucracy in the state apparatus, one can stigmatize and pillory bureaucracy in our practical work, but unless the masses of the workers reach a certain level of culture, which will create the possibility, the desire, the ability to control the state apparatus from below, by the masses of the workers themselves, bureaucracy will continue to exist in spite of everything. Therefore, the cultural development of the working class and of the masses of the working peasantry, not only the development of literacy, although literacy is the basis of all culture, but primarily the cultivation of the ability to take part in the administration of the country, is the chief lever for improving the state and every other apparatus. This is the sense and significance of Lenin's slogan about the cultural revolution.” - Stalin (THE FIFTEENTH CONGRESS OF THE C.P.S.U. (B.), December 2-19, 1927.)

"Precisely in order to develop self-criticism and not extinguish it, we must listen attentively to all criticism coming from Soviet people, even if sometimes it may not be correct to the full and in all details. Only then can the masses have the assurance that they will not get into "hot water" if their criticism is not perfect, that they will not be made a "laughing-stock" if there should be errors in their criticism. Only then can self-criticism acquire a truly mass character and meet with a truly mass response." (J. V. Stalin, REPORT TO THE SEVENTEENTH PARTY CONGRESS ON THE WORK OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE C.P.S.U. (B.) Pravda, No. 27, January 28, 1934


I'm not even going to tell you how any form of "representative democracy" is utter bullshit and one massive contradiction, but you still haven't shown me how 700,000 party members are representative of everyone in the USSR. The infantile ultra-leftist anarchist in me is also thinking about how the hierarchical nature of a party leads to dictatorship of a few individuals even in - what some would consider to be - a relatively friendlier, party dictatorship. So take your "democratic" centralism bullshit out of here. It is anything but.

I told you numerous times that the majority of Party members were literally regular, working class citizens. And that through democratic-centralism, even the decisions made by high-class officials are still voted upon by lower-class.


The Sixth Party Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../wiki/Russian_Social_Democratic_Labour_Party) held at Petrograd (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../wiki/Saint_Petersburg) between July 26 and August 3 1917 defined democratic centralism as follows:

That all directing bodies of the Party, from top to bottom, shall be elected;
That Party bodies shall give periodical accounts of their activities to their respective Party organizations;
That there shall be strict Party discipline and the subordination of the minority to the majority;
That all decisions of higher bodies shall be absolutely binding on lower bodies and on all Party members.

[AK]

I told you numerous times that the majority of Party members were literally regular, working class citizens. And that through democratic-centralism, even the decisions made by high-class officials are still voted upon by lower-class.
Yet, you still fail to tell me how 700,000 party members are representative of everyone in the Soviet Union.

[Cyberwave]

Yet, you still fail to tell me how 700,000 party members are representative of everyone in the Soviet Union.

You fail to tell me how Trotsky's prioritizing factionalism and individualism over doing anything is any "less" representative. And clearly this is far more democratic than anything the Western governments have done. I fail to understand why you're still so critical of the fact that over 740,000 were able to participate. Excuse me for not believing in the idealism that every single person should be able to participate in direct democracy in the historical context of the Soviet Union and that somehow there should be less emphasis on an organized Party.

[AK]

You fail to tell me how Trotsky's prioritizing factionalism and individualism over doing anything is any "less" representative.
I'm not on this thread to defend Trotsky.


And clearly this is far more democratic than anything the Western governments have done.
Perhaps so, but I hate them pretty much the same.


I fail to understand why you're still so critical of the fact that over 740,000 were able to participate. Excuse me for not believing in the idealism that every single person should be able to participate in direct democracy in the historical context of the Soviet Union and that somehow there should be less emphasis on an organized Party.
Calling something "idealistic" or "utopian" is a good way to troll, settle for second best and ignore any real arguments. Calling direct democracy "idealistic" is also a good way to reveal your opposition to actual workers' democracy.

[Cyberwave]

I'm not on this thread to defend Trotsky.

Well then tell me how he was more representative and how he would have been a "better leader?"


Perhaps so, but I hate them pretty much the same.Right...



Calling something "idealistic" or "utopian" is a good way to troll, settle for second best and ignore any real arguments. Calling direct democracy "idealistic" is also a good way to reveal your opposition to actual workers' democracy.I am not calling direct democracy idealistic, but when you have such a large population, numerous conditions to consider, a chaotic historical context, and so forth, pure direct democracy is bound to collapse. Wherever is necessary the party must assert firm control; it still applies proletarian democracy and democratic-centralism, but in balance.

Marx and Engels argued against Utopian socialism too. I guess that makes them trolls.

[AK]

Well then tell me how he was more representative and how he would have been a "better leader?"
I don't have to because I am not defending Trotsky. Fuck leaders. Fuck representatives.


I am not calling direct democracy idealistic, but when you have such a large population, numerous conditions to consider, a chaotic historical context, and so forth, pure direct democracy is bound to collapse. Wherever is necessary the party must assert firm control; it still applies proletarian democracy and democratic-centralism, but in balance.
Having a large population makes a ruling class OK? Who the fuck applies democracy "in balance" with something else. Democracy is all or nothing. You don't get it.

Marx and Engels argued against Utopian socialism too. I guess that makes them trolls.
Sure, why not.

[Cyberwave]

Having a large population makes a ruling class OK? Who the fuck applies democracy "in balance" with something else. Democracy is all or nothing. You don't get it.

I understand what you are saying, but how is a society with direct democracy reached and sustained? How are the people themselves educated in Marxist theory? How are they armed, organized, and mobilized to spread against the bourgeoisie? A vanguard party is an absolute necessity, and so long as it balances democracy with centralism there is no reason for complaints. Direct democracy is "all or nothing", but it was too idealistic to be absolute direct-democratic in the Soviet Union.

[AK]

I understand what you are saying, but how is a society with direct democracy reached and sustained?
With communes and workers' councils set up before and during revolution as the institutions of self-government and self-management.


How are the people themselves educated in Marxist theory?
There's not much in the way of Marxist theory that the workers need to know to overthrow capitalism and sustain the post-revolutionary society. All they really need to know is to take over management of their workplaces and the whole economy and to not obey orders from the current state and instead govern themselves primarily on a community and then co-operate with other communes/councils. If you need to educate them in theory, a top-down structure for an organisation is not a necessity - the ability for an organisation's message to reach the working class is.


How are they armed, organized, and mobilized to spread against the bourgeoisie?
All we need is co-ordination and co-operation - a top-down structure is not necessary.


A vanguard party is an absolute necessity, and so long as it balances democracy with centralism there is no reason for complaints.
You can't balance one polar opposite with another.
Direct democracy is "all or nothing", but it was too idealistic to be absolute direct-democratic in the Soviet Union.
Direct democracy is the only democracy. Democracy is peoples' rule. Anything that is not the absolute rule of the people is not democracy.

All claims of idealism are bullshit and you know it.

[Cyberwave]

You can't balance one polar opposite with another.
Direct democracy is the only democracy. Democracy is peoples' rule. Anything that is not the absolute rule of the people is not democracy.

All claims of idealism are bullshit and you know it.

To call them polar opposites is pushing it. Polar opposites would be the likes of fascism and so forth, not direct democracy versus democratic-centralism.

But regardless, I still retain absolute democracy is too chaotic. I still support balance according to circumstances. Ideally, democracy would be as direct as possible in as many situations as possible, but it isn't likely that would happen unless on a small scale or in small-scale matters. Excessive attempts at democracy inevitably lead to lack of organization, and thus a confused society. But likewise, too much centralism leads to excessive bureaucracy and not enough emphasis on the people themselves. But there were indeed councils and communes in the Soviet Union as well; Soviet means council after all.

[chegitz guevara]

IWhen has permanent revolution worked ??

Russia, 1917


Also, SIOC has had at least a few successes

This is true, but in very limited, historical situations which are unlikely to be repeated. In the long run, however, SIOC, has proven to be a failure.

[AK]

To call them polar opposites is pushing it. Polar opposites would be the likes of fascism and so forth, not direct democracy versus democratic-centralism.
Does every single individual have the same power and authority in democratic centralism? No. They are polar opposites. Peoples' rule vs. minority rule.


But regardless, I still retain absolute democracy is too chaotic. I still support balance according to circumstances. Ideally, democracy would be as direct as possible in as many situations as possible, but it isn't likely that would happen unless on a small scale or in small-scale matters. Excessive attempts at democracy inevitably lead to lack of organization, and thus a confused society.
Oh please. Democracy is chaos and confusion? It's little wonder people are turned off by communism when they meet the likes of you.


But likewise, too much centralism leads to excessive bureaucracy and not enough emphasis on the people themselves. But there were indeed councils and communes in the Soviet Union as well; Soviet means council after all.
But they were hierarchical and subordinate to the highest level. You can't possibly tell me that all the ordinary Soviet citizens had complete control of the economy and decided what laws should be passed, etc.

[S.Artesian]

Trotsky's distrust of Lenin and Bolshevism began as early as 1903, which even Lenin himself recognized and responded to numerously. It was in 1910 when the majority of the Bolsheviks and Lenin began to truly denounce Trotsky for his childishness and association with the Mensheviks.

1903-1910. Got it. And what about the years 1917-1924? What about the years when Lenin signed a piece of paper on which he had written that he was so utterly convinced of the correctness of comrade Trotsky's orders that he hereby endorses them unreservedly without even knowing what orders Trotsky intended to give?

What about the years when Lenin, faced with the economic collapse of Russia made certain Trotsky was appointed to head the reorganization of the Russian railways, on top of his other duties as Commissar of War, as Lenin was convinced that only someone of Trotsky's abilities was equal to the task.-- Let me just add that I know a bit about running railroads, having run railroad operations in both passenger and freight service in the US [and I'm real good at it] and I don't know how, given the decimated state of the railway's rolling stock, anyone could keep that system operating. I mean anyone other than myself, but then I'm pretty special in this business. Apparently Trotsky was too.






It is one mistake of Stalin that international relations were not strengthened to the extent they could or should have been, but the results were not disastrous I believe.

We're not talking about "mistakes" in "international relations," comrade. We're talking about the defeat of the proletariat in revolutionary conflict after revolutionary conflict. Germany, Spain, China, France...leading up to, and enabling the bourgeoisie to initiate the greatest carnage in history WW2. If that doesn't amount to a disaster, then there are 2 planet earths, the one where millions upon millions were slaughtered in order to purchase the restabilization of capital, and the other one where "mistakes" were made but no "disasters" occurred.


And it is not to say that Stalin rejected internationalism, or that the theory of socialism in one country equates to isolationism either. Stalin merely attempted to build socialism in one country and once it was strong enough begin internationalizing. Given the conditions of Russia and the other Republics of the SU, it was always going to be a challenge to build socialism, national or international.

What the Soviet leadership did do was subordinate internationalism, subordinate the prospects for proletarian revolution anywhere to its view of what was essential for the preservation of the Soviet state. Internationalism, the emancipation of the proletariat globally, and the preservation of the Soviet state were not always, immediately, linearly in correspondence. Nor could they be.


Stalin did make great progress however and would have continued doing so if not for the likes of those such as Khrushchev, Beria, and others. .

Amazing. First all that great progress evaporated in that minor mistake we call WW2, a "mistake" the effects of which the fSU never recovered from prior to its collapse. Secondly, those trusted lieutenants of Stalin, at least trusted by him longer than he trusted a lot of others, were the obstacles to Stalin's great progress? Wonder why he didn't have them shot along with all the "old" Bolsheviks-- right, because all the old Bolsheviks were secretly fascists, and Khrushchev, Beria etc were just revisionists.




I have unfortunately not heard this.. Well, it's historical fact. Trotskyists participated, organized, and led battles in Saigon and elsewhere against the reimposition of French colonial rule at the end of WW2.


But regardless, even non-Trotskyists and non-Communists can fight against colonialism.

True, but that's not the point. The point is that the big C Communists fought for the reimposition of colonial rule as the PCF wanted to prove to DeGaulle and the bourgeoisie what reliable, and patriotic, partners they would be in a popular front government.


And the point I was trying to make is that while Trotskyists have done good in such instances they still never have managed to emancipate an entire country or do anything on a major scale when compared to Marxist-Leninists.

Well they certainly helped emancipate that country called Russia, didn't they? Somebody in that Bolshevik hierarchy, the name escapes me at the moment referred to Trotsky as "the organizer of victory." That's not a bad reference to carry on one's CV, is it?




The Soviet Union never collapsed, it dissolved.

No comrade, it collapsed. It's economy collapsed. The economy could not sustain itself, could not maintain relations between city and countryside.



And Stalin's decisions did not truly factor in with the overall dissolution of the Soviet Union either, it was members of the Party that were inherently dissidents of Leninism, revisionists, increasing pressures and failed policies such as Perestroika, and so forth. After Stalin died capitalism began it's restoration. The problems of bureaucracy truly began under the post-Stalin Soviet Union; but bureaucracy itself is necessary to an extent and even Lenin acknowledge this. I never see Trotskyists blasting Lenin for what bureaucracy he created, and Stalin always attempted to combat against excessive bureaucracy as well.

That is not a Marxist analysis. For an economic transformation of such depth to occur, as the above suggests, it takes a bit more than dissidents, revisionists, and failed policies. It takes a revolution, or a counterrevolution. It takes creation, imposition of different property forms, different organization of labor. To say this was all the work of dissidents,revisionists, coming out of the woodwork like termites after the death of Stalin [who then must be the Great Exterminator], ignores the fact that unlike termites, bureaucrats, revisionists are not products of nature, but rather of social reproduction-- so the very forms of the "great socialism" constructed under the leadership of Stalin must have been either very rotten, or not quite socialism to yield these revisionists, capitalist roaders, bureaucrats, etc.

Somewhere along the line, you have to get off the "great leader" train, and actually look at how the railroad is being run if you want to avoid the train wrecking.

[Chambered Word]

That is not a Marxist analysis. For an economic transformation of such depth to occur, as the above suggests, it takes a bit more than dissidents, revisionists, and failed policies. It takes a revolution, or a counterrevolution. It takes creation, imposition of different property forms, different organization of labor. To say this was all the work of dissidents,revisionists, coming out of the woodwork like termites after the death of Stalin [who then must be the Great Exterminator], ignores the fact that unlike termites, bureaucrats, revisionists are not products of nature, but rather of social reproduction-- so the very forms of the "great socialism" constructed under the leadership of Stalin must have been either very rotten, or not quite socialism to yield these revisionists, capitalist roaders, bureaucrats, etc.

Somewhere along the line, you have to get off the "great leader" train, and actually look at how the railroad is being run if you want to avoid the train wrecking.

And this is why Marxism-Leninism is not Marxism nor Leninism. I'd like to see a direct response to this part of Artesian's post.

[Zanthorus]

Marx and Engels argued against Utopian socialism too. I guess that makes them trolls.

Yes, Marx and Engels correctly argued against trying to impose a set of sectarian principles on the world and instead based themselves on the understanding of the dialectic of capitalism and the real movement, the workers movement, which is the movement of the class which by it's very conditions of life is forced to struggle against the rule of capital.

To the extent that anarchists base themselves on the workers movement they are also "scientific" as opposed to "utopian" socialists.

[Iskalla]

Did Trotsky not oversee Stalin methodically executing supposed opposition, crafting stories of his closeness to Lenin, exhibiting his body without Lenin's permission and destroying documents that could threaten his rise to leadership? And when he challenged Stalin, Trotsky to was executed? Did Stalin not immediately feel inferiority towards Trotsky's eloquence and background upon early meetings, something he may later of responded to by driving him out and reacting with violence? Although I have friends that are vehemently anti-Trotsky, loathe George Orwell and hold Stalin in high regards I can't look past the conflicting opinions I've also taken notice of.

[Cyberwave]

Does every single individual have the same power and authority in democratic centralism? No. They are polar opposites. Peoples' rule vs. minority rule.

No, but they are still not polar opposites. Get that through your head.



Oh please. Democracy is chaos and confusion? It's little wonder people are turned off by communism when they meet the likes of you.

Too much democracy in the socialist stage of development is. There needs to be a balance in order to truly keep an organized society. I am not saying democracy is chaos and confusion, I am saying excessive, "ultra-leftist" democracy is.



But they were hierarchical and subordinate to the highest level. You can't possibly tell me that all the ordinary Soviet citizens had complete control of the economy and decided what laws should be passed, etc.

No, but many did, and that's far more than we can say for any Western government. The highest numbers ordinary Soviet citizens were always at least attempted to join the ranks of democratic-centralism, even if not all over one hundred million didn't end up doing so. And either way, it is merely transitional.


1903-1910. Got it. And what about the years 1917-1924? What about the years when Lenin signed a piece of paper on which he had written that he was so utterly convinced of the correctness of comrade Trotsky's orders that he hereby endorses them unreservedly without even knowing what orders Trotsky intended to give?

Especially by 1923 Trotsky had began to more openly, and more violently denounce Bolshevism. But as for Lenin supposedly taking such a pro-Trotsky stance I don't know what specifically you're referring to, and I would doubt it had much to do with Lenin favoring Trotsky or Trotskyism. And anyway, around 1917, both Stalin and Lenin wished to accept concessions imposed by Germany (unfortunately enough, it was a reality), whereas Trotsky's line was to continue fighting a "revolutionary war," which completely ignored the fact that the Army was not capable under these circumstances. Then because Trotsky wouldn't adhere to Lenin and Stalin's line, and refused to sign a peace treaty with Germany, the Germans continued their attack on Russia. The following year, ironically enough Trotsky was placed at the head of War and was assigned organization of the new army. However, when Stalin was sent to Tsaritsyn he only saw disorder where Trotsky was supposed to have organized. Stalin was then assigned to lead the army of the time himself. Then by 1919, both Trotsky and Stalin received their orders from the Central Committee. The orders, and the Committee placed Trotsky and Stalin on near equal levels; Trotsky was incapable of believing he was "equal" to anybody. Later that year Trotsky wished for mobilization of the working class and a militarized economy, and as a result, Lenin openly claimed that Trotsky's actions and theory was riddled with errors that would harm the dictatorship of the proletariat.


What about the years when Lenin, faced with the economic collapse of Russia made certain Trotsky was appointed to head the reorganization of the Russian railways, on top of his other duties as Commissar of War, as Lenin was convinced that only someone of Trotsky's abilities was equal to the task.-- Let me just add that I know a bit about running railroads, having run railroad operations in both passenger and freight service in the US [and I'm real good at it] and I don't know how, given the decimated state of the railway's rolling stock, anyone could keep that system operating. I mean anyone other than myself, but then I'm pretty special in this business. Apparently Trotsky was too.

But Trotsky attempted to mobilize the railroad workers with strict, strict military discipline. He literally attempted to mobilize the workers using the same methods he had in the Army. There then began numerous protests by labor unions against such action, and as mentioned, Lenin denounced these actions taken by Trotsky as inherently separating the people from the Party. Trotsky also inherently condemned the labor unions of the time, which Lenin further noted and denounced. And as mentioned, the Commissar of War turned out negative and Stalin ended up taking over for him.


We're not talking about "mistakes" in "international relations," comrade. We're talking about the defeat of the proletariat in revolutionary conflict after revolutionary conflict. Germany, Spain, China, France...leading up to, and enabling the bourgeoisie to initiate the greatest carnage in history WW2. If that doesn't amount to a disaster, then there are 2 planet earths, the one where millions upon millions were slaughtered in order to purchase the restabilization of capital, and the other one where "mistakes" were made but no "disasters" occurred.

However, had it not been for the Soviet Union under Stalin's leadership there would have been many more casualties and for all we know, large portions of the world could have been speaking German by now. This is especially miraculous given the fact that it wasn't even until even 1921 in which military production became apparent to the Soviets; they started with practically nothing to defend anyway. At any rate, keep in mind even when the revolutions clearly failed in those European states, Trotsky was still wasting time trying to keep going with his "revolutionary war" which would have essentially done nothing but damage. These European countries were just not ready for a real revolution themselves. Keep in mind that internationalism is a reflection of world economy, and therefore, countries do not develop on the same routes as one another; constant internationalism or permanent revolution ignores this fact and ultimately attempts to lump countries in the same development.


What the Soviet leadership did do was subordinate internationalism, subordinate the prospects for proletarian revolution anywhere to its view of what was essential for the preservation of the Soviet state. Internationalism, the emancipation of the proletariat globally, and the preservation of the Soviet state were not always, immediately, linearly in correspondence. Nor could they be.

That is not entirely true. You are correct that internationalism was not truly as important as building socialism in one country, but had socialism been built of course internationalism would have become a big focus of the agenda. It was the fact that internationalism was highly unlikely to succeed at the time anyway, and that in order for socialism to built on the basis of SIOC, it must first be strongly established in order to survive and thrive on a national and international level.


Amazing. First all that great progress evaporated in that minor mistake we call WW2, a "mistake" the effects of which the fSU never recovered from prior to its collapse. Secondly, those trusted lieutenants of Stalin, at least trusted by him longer than he trusted a lot of others, were the obstacles to Stalin's great progress? Wonder why he didn't have them shot along with all the "old" Bolsheviks-- right, because all the old Bolsheviks were secretly fascists, and Khrushchev, Beria etc were just revisionists.

All progress did not evaporate. As for the trusted lieutenants and military officials, of course he had those who were traitors taken care of. Numerous members of the NKVD involved in military conspiracy were purged from the party, and as a result, the war's results were actually less devastating because there were no longer Nazi collaborates within the army. Yezhov was a prime example of someone whom Stalin openly denounced and literally shot.

"The aircraft designer Yakovlev recorded a conversation with him in 1940, in which Stalin exclaimed: 'Ezhov was a rat; in 1938 he killed many innocent people. We shot him for that!'" (Ian Gray)

"The completely unacceptable defects observed in the work of the NKVD and prosecutors were only possible because enemies of the people had infiltrated themselves in the NKVD and prosecutor offices, used every possible method to separate the work of the NKVD and prosecutors from the Party organs, to avoid Party control and leadership and to facilitate for themselves and for their acolytes the continuation of their anti-Soviet activities." (Joseph Stalin)


Well, it's historical fact. Trotskyists participated, organized, and led battles in Saigon and elsewhere against the reimposition of French colonial rule at the end of WW2.

Well in Saigon, Marxist-Leninists (or "Stalinists") participated as well, as mentioned. And likewise both the Trotsykists and the "Stalinists" were arrested or worse.


True, but that's not the point. The point is that the big C Communists fought for the reimposition of colonial rule as the PCF wanted to prove to DeGaulle and the bourgeoisie what reliable, and patriotic, partners they would be in a popular front government.

Do you have any links for more reading on this all? Just curious.


Well they certainly helped emancipate that country called Russia, didn't they? Somebody in that Bolshevik hierarchy, the name escapes me at the moment referred to Trotsky as "the organizer of victory." That's not a bad reference to carry on one's CV, is it?

I find it all irrelevant given the entire nature of Trotsky and his supporters anyway. Sure they played a role in the formation of the Soviet Union, but it had nothing to do with Trotskyism itself, and initially the views of SIOC were viewed in a more favorable light by Trotsky and his supporters anyway.


No comrade, it collapsed. It's economy collapsed. The economy could not sustain itself, could not maintain relations between city and countryside.

True enough, I suppose.


That is not a Marxist analysis. For an economic transformation of such depth to occur, as the above suggests, it takes a bit more than dissidents, revisionists, and failed policies. It takes a revolution, or a counterrevolution. It takes creation, imposition of different property forms, different organization of labor. To say this was all the work of dissidents,revisionists, coming out of the woodwork like termites after the death of Stalin [who then must be the Great Exterminator], ignores the fact that unlike termites, bureaucrats, revisionists are not products of nature, but rather of social reproduction-- so the very forms of the "great socialism" constructed under the leadership of Stalin must have been either very rotten, or not quite socialism to yield these revisionists, capitalist roaders, bureaucrats, etc.

It was not quite socialism, that much is true. But socialism is not immediately established, and especially in Russia's case, it would have taken a good deal of time to slowly but surely build upon socialism. The issue of revisionism and dissidents was still the main reason for the problems, but let me assure you that I do not mean that as literally as an immediate transition from Stalin to Khrushchev; it wasn't as though as soon as Khrushchev became leader "poof" and socialistic bases were gone, certainly not. And it was never truly clear whether or not Khrushchev himself had always been a revisionist or was just a master of disguise. The restoration of capitalism was indeed a process, and not such a simple matter of an explanation.


Somewhere along the line, you have to get off the "great leader" train, and actually look at how the railroad is being run if you want to avoid the train wrecking.

Stalin, Lenin, Hoxha, even Marx and Engels made mistakes. I see them as great leaders, but not "Great Leaders." I am not prone to hero worship, I am however prone to defending against fallacies.

[Zanthorus]

Especially by 1923 Trotsky had began to more openly, and more violently denounce Bolshevism. But as for Lenin supposedly taking such a pro-Trotsky stance I don't know what specifically you're referring to, and I would doubt it had much to do with Lenin favoring Trotsky or Trotskyism. And anyway, around 1917, both Stalin and Lenin wished to accept concessions imposed by Germany (unfortunately enough, it was a reality), whereas Trotsky's line was to continue fighting a "revolutionary war," which completely ignored the fact that the Army was not capable under these circumstances. Then because Trotsky wouldn't adhere to Lenin and Stalin's line, and refused to sign a peace treaty with Germany, the Germans continued their attack on Russia.

This is a lie, embarassingly enough it was actually Bukharin and the Left-Communist fraction who argued in favour of fighting a "revolutionary war" against Germany. Trotsky took the middle ground of "neither peace nor war", which involved stalling the negotiations, and was originally the line accepted by the majority. Also Stalin and Lenin's positions differed in one crucial respect. Lenin regarded the peace as a way for Russia to recuperate from it's losses but he never gave up an internationalist position:


Some of the distortions of the views of both sides have become notorious. Lenin and Trotsky, who took essentially the same view after the Seventh Party Congress, continued to stress the united nature of the world revolution, arguing not in terms of the needs of Russia, but on the necessity of securing the proletarian base for further advances when the other parts of the world were ready. Indeed in his attack on the Left Communists on May 15 1918, Lenin argued that the Western proletariat now had the possibility of understanding the nature of the Bolsheviks and pointed out the agitational importance of this. In other words the argument was tactical. As E. H. Carr suggests, the differences between Lenin and Trotsky were concerned with questions of emphasis.

"The popular picture of Trotsky, the advocate of world revolution, clashing with Lenin, the champion of national security or socialism in one country, is so distorted to be almost entirely false .... In the Brest-Litovsk controversy, though Trotsky was the most eloquent and ingenious advocate of world revolution, he was also the champion of the policy of playing off one group of capitalists against the other; he was at the opposite pole to those who stood on the ground of pure revolutionary principle unsullied by compromise or expediency... On the other hand, Lenin, while insisting on the needs of national defence, was so far from abandoning world revolution that he constantly stressed it as the supreme goal of his policy."http://libcom.org/library/theses-left-communists-russia-1918


The standpoint he [Trotsky] took lay midway between Lenin and the Bolshevik Left. Bukharin favoured all-out war against Imperial Germany. He and the so-called Left-Communists would rather go down fighting than abandon their internationalist commitment - and they were unhappy that Lenin, the leader who had cajoled them into seizing power in Petrograd, was proposing an intolerable compromise. Trotsky's tactic of playing for time was the next most desirable option for them, and the vote went in his favour. Lenin had few supporters. One was Stalin, who argued that there was no genuine evidence of the the imminence of revolution in the West... The contributions from Stalin and Zinoviev gave little comfort to Lenin. He distanced himself from Stalin's scepticism about European socialist revolution.

Which is not to mention the fact that the Brest-Litvosk debate was a significant break from the previous three months in Sovnarkom where Lenin and Trotsky had co-operated "cheek by jowl", to use Service's phraseology.

[Os Cangaceiros]

If only the OP had used the search function that this website has (or the who's who of the Revolutionary Left thread)! He would have been inundated with the other 10,000 threads about "Trotsky: To Love Or Not To Love?", and we wouldn't have to endure another session of the Revleft historical re-enactment society.

[Zanthorus]

Well to begin with you don't actually need to click on the thread. Or once you do you don't have to start reading it.

And second of all there is no historical re-enactment in here, just trying to get the facts straight.

[S.Artesian]

Especially by 1923 Trotsky had began to more openly, and more violently denounce Bolshevism. But as for Lenin supposedly taking such a pro-Trotsky stance I don't know what specifically you're referring to, and I would doubt it had much to do with Lenin favoring Trotsky or Trotskyism. And anyway, around 1917, both Stalin and Lenin wished to accept concessions imposed by Germany (unfortunately enough, it was a reality), whereas Trotsky's line was to continue fighting a "revolutionary war," which completely ignored the fact that the Army was not capable under these circumstances. Then because Trotsky wouldn't adhere to Lenin and Stalin's line, and refused to sign a peace treaty with Germany, the Germans continued their attack on Russia. The following year, ironically enough Trotsky was placed at the head of War and was assigned organization of the new army. However, when Stalin was sent to Tsaritsyn he only saw disorder where Trotsky was supposed to have organized. Stalin was then assigned to lead the army of the time himself. Then by 1919, both Trotsky and Stalin received their orders from the Central Committee. The orders, and the Committee placed Trotsky and Stalin on near equal levels; Trotsky was incapable of believing he was "equal" to anybody. Later that year Trotsky wished for mobilization of the working class and a militarized economy, and as a result, Lenin openly claimed that Trotsky's actions and theory was riddled with errors that would harm the dictatorship of the proletariat.

That, above, is a terrible mish-mash of dates and events. It wasn't around 1917--, negotiations began at the end of December 1917 and broke off in February 1918. Lenin was not unanimously supported in his [correct] insistence that the new soviet government had to exit the war no matter what the terms. There was a considerable left wing in the party, and in the soviets that believed in waging a revolutionary war if Germany insisted on unacceptable territorial concessions.

But yes, Trotsky made a mistake in his "no war, no peace" gesture, and gesture it was as he was counting on the German proletariat rising to stop the advance of the German military.

You also ignore the common front Lenin and Trotsky formed in favor of the militarization of labor. Lenin changed his position in late 1920-- Trotsky was appointed with Lenin's insistence to reorganize the railroads in 1919.

And as stated earlier, Trotsky's and Lenin's position in favor of the militarization of labor was a mistake.

And you know what else? After Trotsky's positions and plans for "shaking up" the trade unions were rejected by the party, guess what happened? Shortly thereafter, the trade unions were "shaken up" and subordinated to party control.

See Richard B. Day's Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation.

As for Stalin and Trotsky being on equal levels-- that is simply not true. Trotsky was the Commissar of War, Stalin was given responsibility for a front, and he fucked that up royally.



However, had it not been for the Soviet Union under Stalin's leadership there would have been many more casualties and for all we know, large portions of the world could have been speaking German by now.

I'll keep that in mind, if you keep in mind that had it not been for the policies of the 3rd International in Germany, "social democracy and fascism are twins" "nach Hitler, uns," fascism would not have triumphed, a revolution would have been successful and world war would have been averted.


These European countries were just not ready for a real revolution themselves. Keep in mind that internationalism is a reflection of world economy, and therefore, countries do not develop on the same routes as one another; constant internationalism or permanent revolution ignores this fact and ultimately attempts to lump countries in the same development. .

Keep in mind that there were real revolutionary struggles in Spain, Germany, France... how do we know that there were real revolutionary struggles? Because the bourgeoisie mobilized the counterrevolution, that's how, so the this philosophizing about lumping countries etc. is just so much disavowal of the concrete reality of actual revolutionary situations.




You are correct that internationalism was not truly as important as building socialism in one country, but had socialism been built of course internationalism would have become a big focus of the agenda. It was the fact that internationalism was highly unlikely to succeed at the time anyway, and that in order for socialism to built on the basis of SIOC, it must first be strongly established in order to survive and thrive on a national and international level.

So... are you arguing that it is necessary to sacrifice the revolutions in some countries in order to preserve socialism in one country? And that's the only way to actually create internationalism? I'm sure the bourgeoisie would be gratified to hear that, as defeating the revolution whenever it appears is the surest way they know of defeating it in any single country.




All progress did not evaporate. As for the trusted lieutenants and military officials, of course he had those who were traitors taken care of. Numerous members of the NKVD involved in military conspiracy were purged from the party, and as a result, the war's results were actually less devastating because there were no longer Nazi collaborates within the army. Yezhov was a prime example of someone whom Stalin openly denounced and literally shot.

Not true. The purging of the officers via falsified charges of treason weakened the Red Army tremendously.



Well in Saigon, Marxist-Leninists (or "Stalinists") participated as well, as mentioned. And likewise both the Trotsykists and the "Stalinists" were arrested or worse.

Again you're ignoring the issue. The official big C Communists suppressed the rebellion and acquiesced to the restoration of colonial rule. When I get back to my library, I'll send you a link or the title of a book about this.

[Cyberwave]

This is a lie, embarassingly enough it was actually Bukharin and the Left-Communist fraction who argued in favour of fighting a "revolutionary war" against Germany. Trotsky took the middle ground of "neither peace nor war", which involved stalling the negotiations, and was originally the line accepted by the majority. Also Stalin and Lenin's positions differed in one crucial respect. Lenin regarded the peace as a way for Russia to recuperate from it's losses but he never gave up an internationalist position:

http://libcom.org/library/theses-left-communists-russia-1918



Which is not to mention the fact that the Brest-Litvosk debate was a significant break from the previous three months in Sovnarkom where Lenin and Trotsky had co-operated "cheek by jowl", to use Service's phraseology.

“Trotsky threw up his hands, telling the Germans that he would never agree to what they wanted [in the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty] and urging Lenin to adopt a 'no war, no peace' policy in which Russia would neither continue to fight nor agree to Germany's terms […]The Ukrainian capital of Kiev fell to the Germans on March 1. Trotsky, furious, said that Russia should rejoin the Entente and resume the war. Lenin, fearing the capture of Petrograd and the destruction of his fledgling regime, moved his government to Moscow and said no” (Meyer 619-620).

My previous source, though, came from Ian Grey.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Well to begin with you don't actually need to click on the thread. Or once you do you don't have to start reading it.

I actually haven't read all of it...whenever I click on these threads about Trotsky and see massive walls of text coming from the usual suspects, my eyes glaze over like a donut. I used to read them when I first joined this site, but now I realize that it's all the same re-hashed crap (Molotov-Ribbentrop! Socialism in one country! Degenerated worker's state! Et cetera!) At least in most other discussions there is at least one or two original points to be found amoungst the dung.


And second of all there is no historical re-enactment in here, just trying to get the facts straight.

I doubt that very much. No one is ever convinced by these threads...all they ever do is ram their fingers deeper into their ears and rant with great intensity about a subject that 99.99% of people in the real world couldn't care less about. I'm sure that the international communist movement can't even take one step foward until we finally sort out this incredibly pressing matter, though.

*whew*. All right, I'm finished...I won't be disturbing this discussion any more. Carry on.

[S.Artesian]

I actually haven't read all of it...whenever I click on these threads about Trotsky and see massive walls of text coming from the usual suspects, my eyes glaze over like a donut. I used to read them when I first joined this site, but now I realize that it's all the same re-hashed crap (Molotov-Ribbentrop! Socialism in one country! Degenerated worker's state! Et cetera!) At least in most other discussions there is at least one or two original points to be found amoungst the dung.



I doubt that very much. No one is ever convinced by these threads...all they ever do is ram their fingers deeper into their ears and rant with great intensity about a subject that 99.99% of people in the real world couldn't care less about. I'm sure that the international communist movement can't even take one step foward until we finally sort out this incredibly pressing matter, though.

*whew*. All right, I'm finished...I won't be disturbing this discussion any more. Carry on.


Tell, you what, why don't take your one step forward out of here?

[LaRiposte]

I actually haven't read all of it...whenever I click on these threads about Trotsky and see massive walls of text coming from the usual suspects, my eyes glaze over like a donut. I used to read them when I first joined this site, but now I realize that it's all the same re-hashed crap (Molotov-Ribbentrop! Socialism in one country! Degenerated worker's state! Et cetera!) At least in most other discussions there is at least one or two original points to be found amoungst the dung.



I doubt that very much. No one is ever convinced by these threads...all they ever do is ram their fingers deeper into their ears and rant with great intensity about a subject that 99.99% of people in the real world couldn't care less about. I'm sure that the international communist movement can't even take one step foward until we finally sort out this incredibly pressing matter, though.

*whew*. All right, I'm finished...I won't be disturbing this discussion any more. Carry on.

I'm not prepared to give an inch to the Stalinists in the struggle for the leadership of the proletariat. Handing the reigns over to such blatant counter-revolutionaries on any account is treason to the working class and the proletarian revolution.

So fuck off ^_^

[Zanthorus]

“Trotsky threw up his hands, telling the Germans that he would never agree to what they wanted [in the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty] and urging Lenin to adopt a 'no war, no peace' policy in which Russia would neither continue to fight nor agree to Germany's terms […]The Ukrainian capital of Kiev fell to the Germans on March 1. Trotsky, furious, said that Russia should rejoin the Entente and resume the war. Lenin, fearing the capture of Petrograd and the destruction of his fledgling regime, moved his government to Moscow and said no” (Meyer 619-620).

My previous source, though, came from Ian Grey.

And I already ackonwledged that Trotsky took a stance against Lenin, "neither war nor peace" (Which is still not the same as "revolutionary war", no matter how you try to spin it), which I will now admit was stupid in retrospect. The fact remains however that although Stalin and Lenin superficially took the same side their basis for taking that side was entirely different, Lenin still believed in the possibility of international revolution and it was from that position which he argued for a peace treaty. The fact also remains that this was a break between the united front which Lenin and Trotsky had previously presented in Sovnarkom as well as against the Kamenev-Stalin fraction of the party in the runup to the October revolution.

Trotsky also eventually gave up his opposition to the peace policy, and was welcomed by none other than Stalin:


On 24 February he [Trotsky] renounced further struggle and was helpful in discussions about the composition of a fresh diplomatic team. Party policy had been decided and he would not seek to play the distrupter. Stalin welcomed this accomodation, asking Trotsky to stay in post for a few more days. Trotsky agreed; he resisted the temptation to carry on the struggle.

[S.Artesian]

“Trotsky threw up his hands, telling the Germans that he would never agree to what they wanted [in the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty] and urging Lenin to adopt a 'no war, no peace' policy in which Russia would neither continue to fight nor agree to Germany's terms […]The Ukrainian capital of Kiev fell to the Germans on March 1. Trotsky, furious, said that Russia should rejoin the Entente and resume the war.Lenin, fearing the capture of Petrograd and the destruction of his fledgling regime, moved his government to Moscow and said no” (Meyer 619-620).

My previous source, though, came from Ian Grey.

Comrade, EH Carr is the hands-down, no contest, acknowledged authority on the history of the Bolshevik government's early days. The above by Meyer is more drama but less history than what Carr has provided.

I have never read of anything indicating that Trotsky urged Lenin to rejoin the war on the side of the Entente.

[Cyberwave]

And you know what else? After Trotsky's positions and plans for "shaking up" the trade unions were rejected by the party, guess what happened? Shortly thereafter, the trade unions were "shaken up" and subordinated to party control.

Not to the extent that is greatly exaggerated anyway. And it still was an issue among the Bolsheviks to my understanding. Lenin still himself noted upon the militarization problem, but he realized that Trotsky's errors extended to blatant non-Bolshevism and his own bureaucracy.


As for Stalin and Trotsky being on equal levels-- that is simply not true. Trotsky was the Commissar of War, Stalin was given responsibility for a front, and he fucked that up royally.Yes, Trotsky took the position as Commissar of War, I don't deny that. But he was supposed to organize a new army of workers and peasants and failed and where Stalin took over, Lenin acknowledged Stalin's skill. Stalin was appointed on the Ukrainian front with the intention of defeating the regime set up by Germany, and he was given full power to do so. Trotsky's failures were then criticized not only by Stalin and Lenin, but by many Bolsheviks as well. Stalin also is to be noted for defeating the White Army in their attempts to march toward Moscow in 1919, as well as for being the first Commissar of National Affairs, and so forth. Maybe it is a stretch to call Trotsky and Stalin both literally equal but often times where Stalin was viewed in a more positive light, Trotsky just couldn't handle the fact. I suppose where Trotsky had succeed in organization of the new army, Stalin had been more important on the actual fronts.

Keep in mind that there were real revolutionary struggles in Spain, Germany, France... how do we know that there were real revolutionary struggles? Because the bourgeoisie mobilized the counterrevolution, that's how, so the this philosophizing about lumping countries etc. is just so much disavowal of the concrete reality of actual revolutionary situations.What I said about "lumping countries together" relates to the assumption that countries develop revolutionary movements in the same manner, let alone economic and social development.


So... are you arguing that it is necessary to sacrifice the revolutions in some countries in order to preserve socialism in one country? And that's the only way to actually create internationalism? I'm sure the bourgeoisie would be gratified to hear that, as defeating the revolution whenever it appears is the surest way they know of defeating it in any single country.
That wasn’t what I had in mind, but if the conditions are not right, and if it’s quite obvious that the revolution will not succeed then there is no reason to waste time sitting around hoping for international revolution instead of building socialism in one country. The very fact that the bourgeoisie did not manage to defeat socialism in the USSR and Albania should be proof enough that socialism in one country, as an advanced stage of society greater than capitalism is possible. Revolutions in lesser developed “third world countries” weaken imperialism of the advanced-capitalist nations as well, which means the bourgeoisie loose links in their chains… That sounds like a Maoist Third Worldist Line, but to extents Lenin and Stalin argued the same thing. I am not a MTW, of course.


Not true. The purging of the officers via falsified charges of treason weakened the Red Army tremendously. How do you figure they were falsified charges? Bukharin admitted to his own plots and collaborations, as did many others. It is true that the purging of officers weakened the Red Army, but better a little shaky than an army full of Nazi collaborators and those who abused their powers that would have been able to weaken the army far more than Stalin could have.


Again you're ignoring the issue. The official big C Communists suppressed the rebellion and acquiesced to the restoration of colonial rule. When I get back to my library, I'll send you a link or the title of a book about this.

Well, again I'm a bit unfamiliar with this. But at any rate I don't see what the "Stalinists" would gain from the restoration of colonialism. There has to be more to this story than that. And plus, what of the fact that the Trotsyksits themselves, wishing for the collapse of the Soviet Union, collaborated with Japan and China? What of the state agencies Trotsky informed of "Communist activity" in which numerous groups were then repressed as a result. At any rate I feel obliged to not give much of a damn about Saigon, not only because I don't particularly know the incidents, but because the "Stalinists" still have succeeded elsewhere to far greater levels than Trotskyists. I believe the Trotskyists were not even particularly popular among the workers, however.

[S.Artesian]

No sense continuing this. You're "information" is simply repeated propaganda from the Stalin cult.

RE: Bukharin admitted his crimes-- first Bukharin wasn't an officer in the military. Secondly how do you account for the fact that almost all the old Bolsheviks were secret fascists? You actually believe that Tukhachevsky was working for the German high command when in fact he was the most forthright in warning about the danger fascist Germany posed to the fSU?

Right, Trotsky failed at organizing the Red Army, which is why of course Lenin referred to him as the "organizer of victory."

This is what's so fucked up in these discussions-- the disavowal of real history.

All those Nazi collaborators, all around Stalin, and still he singlehandedly was able to defeat them all? Tell me again how you don't believe in hero worship. How you're really not a member of a Stalin cult.

And then when Stalin dies-- whammo, the rest of the leadership is... revisionists, capitalist roaders, and somehow the working class that was so strengthened by Stalin, that was made so much stronger by the purging of "Nazi" collaborators, that was so much better off due to the Great Man's leadership... somehow that empowered working class in a a socialist one country couldn't stop the revisionists from turning that "socialism" into state capitalism.

Think about it comrade, think about the logic, the absolute lack of logic, to such arguments.

[Cyberwave]

No sense continuing this. You're "information" is simply repeated propaganda from the Stalin cult.

And where does the cult of Trotsky get their "information?" From the likes of Orwell and the CIA? Or from the same, pathetic bourgeois historians such as Robert Conquest? Trotsky himself made plenty propaganda to discredit Lenin and then recycled the same words for Stalin, so I hardly feel threatened by your claims that I'm the one referencing repeated propaganda.


RE: Bukharin admitted his crimes-- first Bukharin wasn't an officer in the military. Secondly how do you account for the fact that almost all the old Bolsheviks were secret fascists? You actually believe that Tukhachevsky was working for the German high command when in fact he was the most forthright in warning about the danger fascist Germany posed to the fSU?

Bukharin still nevertheless had detrimental positions regarding policy and military affairs, including the inherently ultra-leftist position he took during the "revolutionary war," and his more rightist stances taken afterward. But aside from his opportunism and the like, Bukharin and his political lines were in fact involved in military conspiracy. Tokaev's supporters supported Bukharin and vice-versa, and their positions would have undermined socialism. As for the "secret fascists," so what? Its never a black and white, and it was never truly clear to Stalin let alone other members of the Bolsheviks who weren't "fascists." Stalin did his best to expose them and defend against them, however.


Right, Trotsky failed at organizing the Red Army, which is why of course Lenin referred to him as the "organizer of victory."

So? Lenin refereed to Trotsky as a lot of "other things" as well... "Swine, careerist, factionalist, childish, etc. etc." Yes, many Bolsheviks including Stalin saw that Trotsky was a decent military leader, but he had plenty of problems as well. Lenin acknowledged this too...


All those Nazi collaborators, all around Stalin, and still he singlehandedly was able to defeat them all? Tell me again how you don't believe in hero worship. How you're really not a member of a Stalin cult.

Did I ever say he singlehandedly defeated them all?

[AK]

No, but they are still not polar opposites. Get that through your head.
Democracy is all or nothing. Get that through your thick fucking skull.


Too much democracy in the socialist stage of development is. There needs to be a balance in order to truly keep an organized society. I am not saying democracy is chaos and confusion, I am saying excessive, "ultra-leftist" democracy is.
What the hell is wrong with you? You say that there is such a thing as too much democracy... and you even denounce it as "ultra-leftist".

Let me tell you this: democracy is fucking absolute. You either have everyone having an equal say in running society, or you don't. You can't measure fucking democracy. It doesn't come in quantities, idiot.

You know who else thinks there should be hierarchy and classes in society? Fascists. You have more in common with them than me. Your revolution will only succeed in a new ruling class subjugating the working class.


No, but many did, and that's far more than we can say for any Western government. The highest numbers ordinary Soviet citizens were always at least attempted to join the ranks of democratic-centralism, even if not all over one hundred million didn't end up doing so. And either way, it is merely transitional.
Ah, joining the ranks. Oh how the workers love to be at the bottom ranks of society :rolleyes:

[S.Artesian]

Only thing I've ever read by Orwell is 1984, comrade. Let's try EH Carr's volumes on the Russian Revolution. Have you ever read those?

But a fine job evading the core of the issue-- all those great things, all that strengthening of the Russian working class, of socialism, of revolutionary power, accomplished by Stalin and co.-- despite the 30 million deaths in WW2; despite the accumulation through reduced consumption of the first 5 year plans; despite failure to achieve a productivity of labor equivalent to the advanced capitalist countries; despite the failure to advance agricultural productivity--- all that strengthening of the working class undone by deviationists, revisionists etc, more than undone but converted into capitalism, within a decade of Stalin's death, and without mass, organized resistance on the part of that very same working class.

If that's a materialist interpretation of history, we need a different materialism.

[mountainfire]

You either have everyone having an equal say in running society, or you don't.

What? This seems to indicate a fundamental confusion concerning what socialism is about and how revolutionaries think that capitalist relations of production will be overthrown. We recognize that the working class is the only social force with the ability to overthrow capitalism due to its role as the producer of society's wealth and its strategic position in relation to the means of production, even whilst, by taking power, the working class opens up the possibility of emancipating humanity as a whole (hence its role as the "universal class" - which Hegel believed to be the bureaucracy) and what this means is that the institutions which emerge during the course of the revolutionary process must be geared towards the interests of the working class, especially the preservation of working-class rule, and not any perceived moral obligation to meet the requirements of democracy - in practice this entails the institutional attributes that comprise the dictatorship of the proletariat, including the dispossession of the former members of the exploiting classes, not to mention fascists, the over-representation of workers' Soviets compared to other types of Soviet body, especially in those countries where the working class is a numerical minority, the removal of certain rights such as free assembly from classes other than the working class, and so on. Revolutionaries do not stand for equal representation or participation because we do not allocate any special moral importance to political equality, instead, we stand for whatever allows the working class to exercise its dictatorship over the rest of society. The only morality worth considering is that which upholds working-class power, and recognizes it as synonymous with the emancipation of working humanity...which is why, Marx, when considering the events of the Paris Commune, did not criticize the Communards for their failure to realize an idealist conception of democracy, but for their failure to exert an even more rigorous dictatorship over the bourgeoisie, by failing to expropriate the banks, for example.

[AK]

What? This seems to indicate a fundamental confusion concerning what socialism is about and how revolutionaries think that capitalist relations of production will be overthrown. We recognize that the working class is the only social force with the ability to overthrow capitalism due to its role as the producer of society's wealth and its strategic position in relation to the means of production, even whilst, by taking power, the working class opens up the possibility of emancipating humanity as a whole (hence its role as the "universal class" - which Hegel believed to be the bureaucracy) and what this means is that the institutions which emerge during the course of the revolutionary process must be geared towards the interests of the working class, especially the preservation of working-class rule, and not any perceived moral obligation to meet the requirements of democracy - in practice this entails the institutional attributes that comprise the dictatorship of the proletariat, including the dispossession of the former members of the exploiting classes, not to mention fascists, the over-representation of workers' Soviets compared to other types of Soviet body, especially in those countries where the working class is a numerical minority, the removal of certain rights such as free assembly from classes other than the working class, and so on. Revolutionaries do not stand for equal representation or participation because we do not allocate any special moral importance to political equality, instead, we stand for whatever allows the working class to exercise its dictatorship over the rest of society. The only morality worth considering is that which upholds working-class power, and recognizes it as synonymous with the emancipation of working humanity...which is why, Marx, when considering the events of the Paris Commune, did not criticize the Communards for their failure to realize an idealist conception of democracy, but for their failure to exert an even more rigorous dictatorship over the bourgeoisie, by failing to expropriate the banks, for example.
So you hate democracy? I find it very funny when people like you only perpetuate the stereotype of freedom-destroyin', democracy-hatin' commies.

[Wanted Man]

And since when do anarchists support democracy? Don't they consider it "tyranny of the majority" and strive for consensus instead?

[Serge's Fist]

What? This seems to indicate a fundamental confusion concerning what socialism is about and how revolutionaries think that capitalist relations of production will be overthrown. We recognize that the working class is the only social force with the ability to overthrow capitalism due to its role as the producer of society's wealth and its strategic position in relation to the means of production, even whilst, by taking power, the working class opens up the possibility of emancipating humanity as a whole (hence its role as the "universal class" - which Hegel believed to be the bureaucracy) and what this means is that the institutions which emerge during the course of the revolutionary process must be geared towards the interests of the working class, especially the preservation of working-class rule, and not any perceived moral obligation to meet the requirements of democracy - in practice this entails the institutional attributes that comprise the dictatorship of the proletariat, including the dispossession of the former members of the exploiting classes, not to mention fascists, the over-representation of workers' Soviets compared to other types of Soviet body, especially in those countries where the working class is a numerical minority, the removal of certain rights such as free assembly from classes other than the working class, and so on. Revolutionaries do not stand for equal representation or participation because we do not allocate any special moral importance to political equality, instead, we stand for whatever allows the working class to exercise its dictatorship over the rest of society. The only morality worth considering is that which upholds working-class power, and recognizes it as synonymous with the emancipation of working humanity...which is why, Marx, when considering the events of the Paris Commune, did not criticize the Communards for their failure to realize an idealist conception of democracy, but for their failure to exert an even more rigorous dictatorship over the bourgeoisie, by failing to expropriate the banks, for example.

The obvious thing you are getting wrong here is presenting the historical retreats of the Bolsheviks as a viable political approach today. It is not absolute that the working class would deprieve the rights of assembly to hostile political organisations, that is something that depends on the balance of forces and the form of political struggle those hostile organisations use. If they use arms and terror then we crush them, if they are simply opposition delegates in the councils or assembly then what do we have to fear?

It is also a very one-sided view of Marx's understanding of the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Marx considered the democratic republic, as understood in 'The Civil War in France', as the form of the dictatorship of proletariat which conveys many of the rights you would wipe out without thinking.

[AK]

And since when do anarchists support democracy? Don't they consider it "tyranny of the majority" and strive for consensus instead?
You're thinking of "anarcho"-capitalists.

[Wanted Man]

I'm not prepared to give an inch to the Stalinists in the struggle for the leadership of the proletariat. Handing the reigns over to such blatant counter-revolutionaries on any account is treason to the working class and the proletarian revolution.

So fuck off ^_^

Of course, even if you type 20,000 more posts as part of this "struggle", you still won't be able to stop this inevitability.

[Wanted Man]

You're thinking of "anarcho"-capitalists.

I dunno. I always had the idea that this is a pretty hotly-contested issue among real anarchists as well. Maybe the anarchists I know tend more towards "individualist anarchism", but I don't know any anarchists who believe that a simple 50% + 1 majority vote is sufficient to make decisions. Neither in an anarchist organisation today, under capitalism, nor in an anarchist society. I have the impression that most anarchist organisations today use consensus-based decision-making, rather than a majority voting system. Are you active in an anarchist organisation? Maybe you can explain how this works.

If you do support majority voting in an anarchist organisation, what would happen to the minority? Say the majority decides to do some kind of action that 49% of the members are strongly against, but to execute the action, the strength of the entire group is needed. Should the minority also participate in the action that they strongly disagree with? Should they defend the action to the outer world?

As an aside, I have the impression that anarcho-capitalists support neither democracy nor consensus, but pure individualism and the invisible hand of the free market.

[mountainfire]

So you hate democracy?

Don't be so immature. I deny that terms like "democracy" can or should be considered in an abstract way, divorced from different forms of class rule, including the dictatorship of the proletariat. We should both be able to agree that all forms of capitalist society are ultimately different forms of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie even when it appears that working people are afforded more rights and opportunities for political participation in some societies rather than others, and in that sense all talk of democracy within the constraints of capitalism is fairly meaningless because it ignores the inevitable disempowerment experienced by those who lack access to the means of production - and by the same token it should be apparent that a socialist society is also a form of dictatorship and is only democratic from the viewpoint of a particular segment of that society, namely the working class, in that the basic function of socialism or the dictatorship of the proletariat is for the working class to defend its class rule and set about eliminating all forms of class antagonism. Those tasks necessarily require the removal of democratic rights from a significant section of society because the equal distribution of these rights would inhibit the ability of the working class to maintain and further its own interests, and mean that, in countries where the working class is a minority, socialism involves the exercise of dictatorship over the majority of the population, which cannot be reconciled with any abstract conception of what democracy is about. Your liberal fetish for democracy and political equality has nothing to do with the revolutionary socialist tradition, which recognizes the working class as the only class that can emancipate both itself and the whole of working humanity from drudgery.


The obvious thing you are getting wrong here is presenting the historical retreats of the Bolsheviks as a viable political approach today.

I don't think the Bolsheviks regarded the removal of political rights from former exploiters as "retreats", but as practical necessities, and if you think that the formation of alternative bodies of power such as Soviets, which after all constitute the basis of working-class power, will not also be met with violence and terror from the beneficiaries of capitalist society you are frankly deluded, given the experience of working-class struggle since the Russian Revolution. In every instance of dual power, and even in cases where the working class exhibited a high level of militancy but did not go so far as to challenge the authority of the bourgeois state, the response of the bourgeoisie has been white terror, primarily but not exclusively in the form of fascism. The defeat of the working class in these circumstances has frequently been aided by the failure of revolutionaries to call for action against the bourgeoisie and its organizations, and that is why it is imperative that the working class deprive its opponents of all rights that can be used to threaten the interests of working people.


if they are simply opposition delegates in the councils or assembly then what do we have to fear?

When would bourgeois parties ever be represented in a Soviet? What political institutions would the dictatorship of the proletariat embody apart from those which arise directly out of units of production and reject territorial representation, which is after all one of the defining characteristics of representation under the bourgeois state?


Marx considered the democratic republic....

Marx never gave any indication that the democratic republic would involve representation and political equality for the bourgeoisie.

[Serge's Fist]

The "practical necessities" were retreats from their programme, they were a step away from the society they had envisaged taking shape under the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is why we do not take these measures as absolutes, they are possibilities used in a period of crisis and threat against the working class and the revolution it was making.

Where did I say the revolution could take place peacefully? It can't, but you equate armed struggle against capitalist reaction and the destruction of political rights as something uniformly applicable, based on the history of the Bolsheviks in retreat. I think their retreats and mistakes during this period contributed to the loss of support for the Bolsheviks and did begin the process of degeneration. Leaving the defense of the revolution in a broad sense to higher political bodies and stripping away the rights and democratic leverages of the masses is a recipe for disaster and bureaucratic tyranny.

I think the soviet system is not one which is a ready-made fit for all revolutions or all situations. The formation of working class centres of public authority may take the form of councils, but may also be through an assembly or other bodies. There is a danger, and a somewhat syndicalist deviation to base democratic organisations on economic units, many millions of workers do not work, where do their voices get heard? Where do they choose their delegates? If you are for councils then these councils must be assemblies representative of all of the working class not just those in work. The way that you temper political opposition with the safety of the dictatorship of the proletariat is not to stamp all over democratic rights but to allow opposition within the confines of a socialist constitution where oppositionists whether republican, social democrat, fabian etc have the space to put forward their views in public and be beaten in public by the revolutionary party.

[S.Artesian]

The obvious thing you are getting wrong here is presenting the historical retreats of the Bolsheviks as a viable political approach today. It is not absolute that the working class would deprieve the rights of assembly to hostile political organisations, that is something that depends on the balance of forces and the form of political struggle those hostile organisations use. If they use arms and terror then we crush them, if they are simply opposition delegates in the councils or assembly then what do we have to fear?

It is also a very one-sided view of Marx's understanding of the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Marx considered the democratic republic, as understood in 'The Civil War in France', as the form of the dictatorship of proletariat which conveys many of the rights you would wipe out without thinking.

Except the two-- the use of force and terror, and the fielding of opposition delegates are never separated by the bourgeoisie. They use both. Always. and everywhere. Look at the actions of the bourgeoisie in every revolutionary, or threatened revolutionary struggle. Look at the bourgeoisie in their day to day activities where they already hold power. Where and when have they every used one without masking it with the other?

Look at the Mexican revolution of 1910-1940, look at Allende's Chile of 1970-1973, look at Spain 1936-1939, look at Brazil today-- where has the power of capital every relied solely upon "democratic representatives" and not required death squads?

Hell, look at the US-- what would you call the incarceration rates of black males except the use of force and terror?

And if they act this way when in power, why or how could anyone believe they won't act that way, only moreso, more viciously and desperately when they feel power slipping from their grasp?

If you want to line yourself up to be a hot lunch for this class of ghouls, be my guest, but spare us the moral critique that says everybody must line up with you.

[Serge's Fist]

Except the two-- the use of force and terror, and the fielding of opposition delegates are never separated by the bourgeoisie. They use both. Always. and everywhere. Look at the actions of the bourgeoisie in every revolutionary, or threatened revolutionary struggle. Look at the bourgeoisie in their day to day activities where they already hold power. Where and when have they every used one without masking it with the other?

Look at the Mexican revolution of 1910-1940, look at Allende's Chile of 1970-1973, look at Spain 1936-1939, look at Brazil today-- where has the power of capital every relied solely upon "democratic representatives" and not required death squads?

Hell, look at the US-- what would you call the incarceration rates of black males except the use of force and terror?

And if they act this way when in power, why or how could anyone believe they won't act that way, only moreso, more viciously and desperately when they feel power slipping from their grasp?

If you want to line yourself up to be a hot lunch for this class of ghouls, be my guest, but spare us the moral critique that says everybody must line up with you.

You are mistaking what I meant by opposition, there will be opposition to the dictatorship of the proletariat that will take different forms, of course the capitalists on the whole will use violence and terror as they are swept away but there are other parties and organisations within the working class that will be in political opposition to the programme of the communists. How do you deal with that, deny them rights and a chance for them to be beaten before the class? No, you meet violence with violence and you politically struggle against those who present a programme against the dictatorship of the proletariat within the confines of a socialist constitution.

[AK]

Maybe the anarchists I know tend more towards "individualist anarchism"
It's a possibility.


Are you active in an anarchist organisation?
Sorry, not at the moment, no.


If you do support majority voting in an anarchist organisation, what would happen to the minority? Say the majority decides to do some kind of action that 49% of the members are strongly against, but to execute the action, the strength of the entire group is needed. Should the minority also participate in the action that they strongly disagree with? Should they defend the action to the outer world?
Maybe there could be a second round of voting if the margin is so close, maybe the opposition could form their own commune. Who knows? The concepts of the "tyranny of the majority" and consensus decision making are things I have to research further.


As an aside, I have the impression that anarcho-capitalists support neither democracy nor consensus, but pure individualism and the invisible hand of the free market.
Indeed, and when I said you were thinking of anarcho-cappies, I meant that they were the ones who claim that democracy leads to the tyranny of the majority.

[AK]

Don't be so immature. I deny that terms like "democracy" can or should be considered in an abstract way, divorced from different forms of class rule, including the dictatorship of the proletariat. We should both be able to agree that all forms of capitalist society are ultimately different forms of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie even when it appears that working people are afforded more rights and opportunities for political participation in some societies rather than others, and in that sense all talk of democracy within the constraints of capitalism is fairly meaningless because it ignores the inevitable disempowerment experienced by those who lack access to the means of production - and by the same token it should be apparent that a socialist society is also a form of dictatorship and is only democratic from the viewpoint of a particular segment of that society, namely the working class, in that the basic function of socialism or the dictatorship of the proletariat is for the working class to defend its class rule and set about eliminating all forms of class antagonism. Those tasks necessarily require the removal of democratic rights from a significant section of society because the equal distribution of these rights would inhibit the ability of the working class to maintain and further its own interests, and mean that, in countries where the working class is a minority, socialism involves the exercise of dictatorship over the majority of the population, which cannot be reconciled with any abstract conception of what democracy is about.
Authority fettttttiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhh. Personally, I wonder why there would even be classes in your own hypothetical socialist society. No other classes = no class antagonism = no need to remove any democratic rights.


Your liberal fetish for democracy and political equality has nothing to do with the revolutionary socialist tradition, which recognizes the working class as the only class that can emancipate both itself and the whole of working humanity from drudgery.
I have a fetish for democracy. Wow. You have a fetish for being an authoritarian. Oh, I went there. And where in my posts do you see me wanting only political equality?

And besides, if I'm a liberal, surely you are a conservative? Let's just investigate your baseless claims:

Liberalism:


a political orientation that favors social progress by reform and by changing laws rather than by revolution
an economic theory advocating free competition and a self-regulating market

Anarchism: political and socio-economical ideology which advocates the destruction of hierarchical social relations (including - but not limited to - class-based society and the state) and the monetary system by means of revolution in favour of a system of co-operative democratic horizontal organisations and voluntary labour.

[S.Artesian]

You are mistaking what I meant by opposition, there will be opposition to the dictatorship of the proletariat that will take different forms, of course the capitalists on the whole will use violence and terror as they are swept away but there are other parties and organisations within the working class that will be in political opposition to the programme of the communists. How do you deal with that, deny them rights and a chance for them to be beaten before the class? No, you meet violence with violence and you politically struggle against those who present a programme against the dictatorship of the proletariat within the confines of a socialist constitution.


Again, look at the actual revolutionary struggles-- look at the functioning of the CP in Allende's UP government, it's consistent right wing functioning, opposition to the revolutionary struggles of the workers, the urban and rural poor for fear of "antagonizing" the "small and middle" property holders; look at the support the pro-CP organization in Bolivia gave to the MNR's suppression of the miners, look at this group's own physical assaults on the miners.

Can anyone doubt that a mobilized working class in Chile after defeating the attempted military coup would have faced the task of turning out of the power the UP government and suppressing, yes suppressing the CP?

Is it a difficult and very fine line to walk? Absolutely, and for just that reason, we can't disavow the need to suppress "political activity." Yes, how do we deal with those organizations? It's not a question of "beating them before the class" but of the class itself doing the beating.

[Serge's Fist]

So we agree? Suppression of rights and violence is dependent on the circumstances, balance of class forces and what form opposition takes. Neither democracy or suppression are absolutes.

[S.Artesian]

So we agree? Suppression of rights and violence is dependent on the circumstances, balance of class forces and what form opposition takes. Neither democracy or suppression are absolutes.


Completely agree.

[Chambered Word]

Don't be so immature. I deny that terms like "democracy" can or should be considered in an abstract way, divorced from different forms of class rule, including the dictatorship of the proletariat. We should both be able to agree that all forms of capitalist society are ultimately different forms of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie even when it appears that working people are afforded more rights and opportunities for political participation in some societies rather than others, and in that sense all talk of democracy within the constraints of capitalism is fairly meaningless because it ignores the inevitable disempowerment experienced by those who lack access to the means of production - and by the same token it should be apparent that a socialist society is also a form of dictatorship and is only democratic from the viewpoint of a particular segment of that society, namely the working class, in that the basic function of socialism or the dictatorship of the proletariat is for the working class to defend its class rule and set about eliminating all forms of class antagonism. Those tasks necessarily require the removal of democratic rights from a significant section of society because the equal distribution of these rights would inhibit the ability of the working class to maintain and further its own interests, and mean that, in countries where the working class is a minority, socialism involves the exercise of dictatorship over the majority of the population, which cannot be reconciled with any abstract conception of what democracy is about. Your liberal fetish for democracy and political equality has nothing to do with the revolutionary socialist tradition, which recognizes the working class as the only class that can emancipate both itself and the whole of working humanity from drudgery.


You are just waffling here and no one is even saying the expropriated haute-bourgeoisie should be allowed full rights after a proletarian revolution.



No, but many did, and that's far more than we can say for any Western government. The highest numbers ordinary Soviet citizens were always at least attempted to join the ranks of democratic-centralism, even if not all over one hundred million didn't end up doing so. And either way, it is merely transitional.

Thanks for being clear about that. I don't consider any country that is merely 'better than the West' to be socialist.

[mountainfire]

Personally, I wonder why there would even be classes in your own hypothetical socialist society. No other classes = no class antagonism = no need to remove any democratic rights.

I never suggested that there would be classes in "my" socialist society, which is not really "mine" because I'm not interested in dreaming up detailed plans of how socialist societies should be constructed - I suggested that a socialist revolution would be a lengthy process in the sense that there would be a period of time between the outbreak of revolution in one country and the completion of the world revolution and that it would be absurd to deny that there will/would be resistance on the part of those whose property has been expropriated by the organized working class or who otherwise seek to restore capitalism. In those conditions, the working class will/would need to defend itself, and one of the ways it will/would do so is by denying political rights to a significant segment of society, which in practice means that reactionaries should not be able to organize freely.

The real question here seems to be: do you understand socialism to mean the political rule of the organized working class? If so, do you accept that political institutions should be geared towards the rule of the working class, and that the working class can and should rule over other social groups, including not only the remnants of the ruling classes but also the peasantry, and that this may entail the rule of a minority, in societies such as Russia, where the working class was a numerical minority? From what you've said so far it seems you don't have any notion of the working class being the only class that can overthrow capitalism and build socialism and that you view politics under socialism as being about society as a whole governing itself, rather than the dictatorship of one class over another, which excludes any possibility of resistance on the part of the expropriated classes, despite the inevitability of such resistance being one of the central lessons of the Russian Revolution and other revolutionary struggles, and glosses over what it is that makes the working class a progressive force, compared not only to the bourgeoisie but also other non-worker social forces such as the peasantry and the ranks of the unemployed.


Let's just investigate your baseless claims:

I don't know where you got that definition of liberalism from, which is wrong even from the standpoint of bourgeois political theory (a quick look at Locke, for example, will show that liberals do not universally reject the right to revolution) but the reason I referred to you as a liberal is that you seem to regard politics from an abstract and idealist standpoint rather than in terms of class antagonisms. You haven't yet specified what you mean by democracy, and why you think that having a fetish for democracy is admirable, given that this would seemingly involve giving political rights to social groups whose interests conflict with those of the working class - which, it cannot be emphasized enough, is the only class that can open up the possibility of universal emancipation.


The formation of working class centres of public authority may take the form of councils, but may also be through an assembly or other bodies.

It's not that bodies of working-class power may take the form of Soviets, it's that this has been the consistent course of working-class struggle throughout the whole of the history of capitalism - Soviets or other bodies that have fulfilled broadly the same functions and exhibited the same institutional features have been almost a universal feature of all militant struggles because they are bodies that emerge organically from the working class in order to meet immediate needs in narrow contexts (for example, the distribution of food) but which then raise the possibility of an entirely new and different system of government. At no point have workers ever opted for the preservation of the bourgeois political institutions that you favour such as bourgeois assemblies and this is because these bodies, as institutions that are based on territorial representation, and which therefore consider workers as atomized citizens rather than as members of a class with the same interests, are incompatible with the requirements of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and are, by contrast, the preferred institutions of bourgeois political rule. It is precisely because they are rooted in economic units and thereby give open expression to the reality of class antagonisms (which is why I find no problem with the fact that they do not given permanent representation to the unemployed) that Soviet bodies are the institutions that comprise the dictatorship of the proletariat and that your preference for the maintenance of the structure of the bourgeois state is nothing more than an idealist fantasy.

I would add to the above that attempts to divert workers away from Soviets have often preceded the outright repression of working-class struggles, the most immediate example being the CPC's decision, following the Comintern, to advocate the formation of citizens' assemblies in Shanghai in 1927 rather than Soviets shortly before the crushing of the party by Chiang Kai-Shek.

[AK]

I never suggested that there would be classes in "my" socialist society, which is not really "mine" because I'm not interested in dreaming up detailed plans of how socialist societies should be constructed - I suggested that a socialist revolution would be a lengthy process in the sense that there would be a period of time between the outbreak of revolution in one country and the completion of the world revolution and that it would be absurd to deny that there will/would be resistance on the part of those whose property has been expropriated by the organized working class or who otherwise seek to restore capitalism. In those conditions, the working class will/would need to defend itself, and one of the ways it will/would do so is by denying political rights to a significant segment of society, which in practice means that reactionaries should not be able to organize freely.

The real question here seems to be: do you understand socialism to mean the political rule of the organized working class? If so, do you accept that political institutions should be geared towards the rule of the working class, and that the working class can and should rule over other social groups, including not only the remnants of the ruling classes but also the peasantry, and that this may entail the rule of a minority, in societies such as Russia, where the working class was a numerical minority? From what you've said so far it seems you don't have any notion of the working class being the only class that can overthrow capitalism and build socialism and that you view politics under socialism as being about society as a whole governing itself, rather than the dictatorship of one class over another, which excludes any possibility of resistance on the part of the expropriated classes, despite the inevitability of such resistance being one of the central lessons of the Russian Revolution and other revolutionary struggles, and glosses over what it is that makes the working class a progressive force, compared not only to the bourgeoisie but also other non-worker social forces such as the peasantry and the ranks of the unemployed.

I don't know where you got that definition of liberalism from, which is wrong even from the standpoint of bourgeois political theory (a quick look at Locke, for example, will show that liberals do not universally reject the right to revolution) but the reason I referred to you as a liberal is that you seem to regard politics from an abstract and idealist standpoint rather than in terms of class antagonisms. You haven't yet specified what you mean by democracy, and why you think that having a fetish for democracy is admirable, given that this would seemingly involve giving political rights to social groups whose interests conflict with those of the working class - which, it cannot be emphasized enough, is the only class that can open up the possibility of universal emancipation.
Hear that? This stupid fuck thinks I ignore social classes.

And I'm really not sure how you think I should specify democracy. Rule of the chicken people? It's the rule of everyone, get it through your fucking head. Democracy isn't idealist - the concept that the working class could become a ruling class in a class society that seeks to both destroy class divisions as well as infringe upon the rights of other classes is. I'm done with you, asshole.

[mountainfire]

Hear that? This stupid fuck thinks I ignore social classes.

You've just said yourself that you think having a fetish for democracy is a great thing, and that you understand democracy to mean the rule of everyone - when you say things like that it's hard not to suggest that you ignore social classes because you evidently think that everyone should participate in decision-making immediately after the establishment of working-class power and that this should include those who, as former members of the ruling class, are committed to the restoration of capitalism, as well as other classes such as the peasantry which are, at best, partial allies of the working class, due to their distinct class interests. The overthrow of capitalism does represent the end to class division insofar as the working class establishes control over the means of production and brings private property to an end but the overthrow of capitalism is itself a protracted process, due to the time intervals between the outbreak of revolution in different countries and the various measures that need to be taken in order to convert an entire productive apparatus into a socialist economy, and during that time it will inevitably be necessary for the working class to defend its conquests by disempowering those classes and individuals which seek to restore capitalism. In doing so, it departs from the rule of everyone, and establishes itself as the ruling class. In Russia alone, the Bolsheviks faced 14 foreign armies and various internal forces - and if you think that the Soviet government should have offered full rights to the expropriated capitalists and landowners in those conditions in the name of democracy it doesn't seem worth arguing with you.

I don't think there's any need to continue our discussion.

[Serge's Fist]

It's not that bodies of working-class power may take the form of Soviets, it's that this has been the consistent course of working-class struggle throughout the whole of the history of capitalism - Soviets or other bodies that have fulfilled broadly the same functions and exhibited the same institutional features have been almost a universal feature of all militant struggles because they are bodies that emerge organically from the working class in order to meet immediate needs in narrow contexts (for example, the distribution of food) but which then raise the possibility of an entirely new and different system of government. At no point have workers ever opted for the preservation of the bourgeois political institutions that you favour such as bourgeois assemblies and this is because these bodies, as institutions that are based on territorial representation, and which therefore consider workers as atomized citizens rather than as members of a class with the same interests, are incompatible with the requirements of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and are, by contrast, the preferred institutions of bourgeois political rule. It is precisely because they are rooted in economic units and thereby give open expression to the reality of class antagonisms (which is why I find no problem with the fact that they do not given permanent representation to the unemployed) that Soviet bodies are the institutions that comprise the dictatorship of the proletariat and that your preference for the maintenance of the structure of the bourgeois state is nothing more than an idealist fantasy.

I would add to the above that attempts to divert workers away from Soviets have often preceded the outright repression of working-class struggles, the most immediate example being the CPC's decision, following the Comintern, to advocate the formation of citizens' assemblies in Shanghai in 1927 rather than Soviets shortly before the crushing of the party by Chiang Kai-Shek.

Where did I call for the maintaining of bourgeois institutions or assemblies? I did not realise that only the bourgeois state can have an assembly. Different forms will arise out of different situations, this should be self-evident by the vast differences we have seen throughout the 20th century, the German rates were different to those in Russia, in Iran the Shoras were popular assemblies not simply based on economic units, in Britain the councils of action were largely just based on trades councils and in France the Bourse du Travail have also took the space where councils could have arisen.

It is blatant economism to simply see councils or other bodies as an economic nexus and not a political body. You completely misread history if this is what you believe the councils in Russia and Germany were about, they are political bodies that make decision on the direction of the revolution where contending factions in the workers movement place their programme to the scrutiny and action of the working class. You do not take power by taking the factory.

The CPC example is useful in the discussion in highlighting what happens when you shut down bodies like Soviets and the betrayals of stalinism full stop, but does not make the case for councils and nothing else any less ridiculous.

[mountainfire]

I did not realise that only the bourgeois state can have an assembly

You seem to be disregarding the fact that the proletarian state differs from the bourgeois state not only in the class which controls it and the class interests that the state seeks to protect but also in its institutional framework - or to be more precise, the fact that the proletarian state is geared towards the interests of the proletariat means that it necessarily embodies an institutional framework that allows the proletariat to assert its control over society and the productive apparatus and excludes those institutions which favour the rule of the bourgeoisie. A national assembly is one such bourgeois institution because it is based on territorial representation, such that the individual relates to it in an atomized way as an individual citizen, without there being significant scope for deliberation amongst those elect representatives, whereas, because they are rooted primarily in economic units, Soviets draw their strength from the collective organization of the working class, and openly recognize the social forces and conflicts that underpin politics in any society. In this sense, a national assembly can only be bourgeois. The fact that Soviets have existed in slightly different forms does not change their importance as the building-blocks of proletarian rule because they have always maintained certain basic features in common including their origin in the organic struggles of the working class and the fact that they enable the dissolution of the illusory division between politics and economics by serving both as units of industrial management and of decision-making on a wider basis - which, by the way, is an additional reason why national assemblies are incompatible with the dictatorship of the proletariat in that they perpetuate the notion that politics and economics exist as separate spheres.

It is noteworthy, also, that the key "Marxist" theorist who advocated something resembling your view, Poulantzas, eventually turned to the parliamentary road to socialism and a liberal critique of Bolshevism, such was his desire to retain the institutions of the bourgeois state and conviction that these institutions are the only way to protect political liberty.


It is blatant economism to simply see councils or other bodies as an economic nexus and not a political body

I've been arguing for the past few posts that Soviets are the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is the political rule of the working class, so I hardly think this is a sensible criticism.


You do not take power by taking the factory.

This is a crass oversimplification of how Soviets have historically evolved, in that workers have always sought to move beyond Soviets limited to individual workplaces or districts by organically forming higher bodies that can represent larger territories such as entire cities whilst maintaining their roots in the ranks of the working class rather than adopting the forms of territorial representation you prefer and which lie at the heart of assemblies and other bourgeois institutions. The Petrograd Soviet, for example, was also an organic body, formed as an evolution of factory Soviets, not the creation of any political party. The taking of the factory or factories must nonetheless be the starting-point and ultimate basis of working-class power because it is ultimately through the expropriation of the means of production that the working class eliminates the bourgeoisie and raises itself to the position of the ruling class.


The CPC example is useful in the discussion in highlighting what happens when you shut down bodies like Soviets and the betrayals of stalinism full stop, but does not make the case for councils and nothing else any less ridiculous.

It is not just a useful fact, it is a warning against people such as yourself who think that Soviets need not be the core of the dictatorship of the proletariat and that you can reconcile proletarian dictatorship with bourgeois institutions like national assemblies.

[Wanted Man]

It's a possibility.


Sorry, not at the moment, no.


Maybe there could be a second round of voting if the margin is so close, maybe the opposition could form their own commune. Who knows? The concepts of the "tyranny of the majority" and consensus decision making are things I have to research further.


Indeed, and when I said you were thinking of anarcho-cappies, I meant that they were the ones who claim that democracy leads to the tyranny of the majority.

Well, good luck with your research then. :)

Why aren't you active, if I may ask?

[Lyev]

Authority fettttttiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhh. Personally, I wonder why there would even be classes in your own hypothetical socialist society. No other classes = no class antagonism = no need to remove any democratic rights.


I have a fetish for democracy. Wow. You have a fetish for being an authoritarian. Oh, I went there. And where in my posts do you see me wanting only political equality?

And besides, if I'm a liberal, surely you are a conservative? Let's just investigate your baseless claims:

Liberalism:


a political orientation that favors social progress by reform and by changing laws rather than by revolution
an economic theory advocating free competition and a self-regulating market

Anarchism: political and socio-economical ideology which advocates the destruction of hierarchical social relations (including - but not limited to - class-based society and the state) and the monetary system by means of revolution in favour of a system of co-operative democratic horizontal organisations and voluntary labour.If you're going to debate here, do it properly and at least half-politely. Don't act like an 8-year-old. Typing "authority fetish" whilst hammering your head on the keyboard doesn't actually constitute a cogent or coherent rebuttal. Have you addressed directly any of mountainfire's points? Can we not get so irate as well, especially in learning? Calling each other "stupid fucks" doesn't help anyone, least of all you. If there's truly an issue that stops you in your tracks, don't defend it for the sake of ideological dogma, question it and see where it takes you.

[Wanted Man]

If you're going to debate here, do it properly and at least half-politely. Don't act like an 8-year-old. Typing "authority fetish" whilst hammering your head on the keyboard doesn't actually constitute a cogent or coherent rebuttal. Have you addressed directly any of mountainfire's points? Can we not get so irate as well, especially in learning? Calling each other "stupid fucks" doesn't help anyone, least of all you. If there's truly an issue that stops you in tracks, don't defend for the sake of ideological dogma, question it and see where it takes you.

Urgh, this, seriously. I mean, we all display a bit of irritation from time to time, and everyone gets snappy or sarcastic at times. I'm definitely not an exception on this. I tend to provoke or attack people as much as the next guy. I'd say that's inevitable when dealing with strong political persuasions.

But recently, we've constantly been seeing users like Alpha Kappa and Sankara who add phrases like "you stupid fuck", "you worthless piece of shit", "you scumbag", "you anti-working class prick", etc. to every paragraph that they make. It gets old very quickly. It's like some people have some kind of constant pent-up rage that they need to vent on-line. There seem to be lots of angry teenagers on Revleft. I used to make dozens of posts like that as well, but everyone can grow out of it eventually.

The thing is that this is encouraged because nobody does anything about it consistently (sometimes a verbal warning is given), and mods and admins make posts like that as well. There doesn't need to be a ban on naughty words or anything, but it gets a bit ridiculous when you can insult people in every paragraph with little to no punishment. It happens so much because it's the norm. On other forums, people either learn to communicate normally, or they get banned. Yet this is impossible on Revleft for some reason. The only exception to this was this Intelligitimate guy who seemed to call people "anarcho-trotskyite cocksuckers" in every other sentence, but that was an extreme case.

Anyway, sorry to take this thread off-topic so much, but it's really a matter of irritation lately. I mean, there have been incredibly mean and spiteful discussions before, especially for those of us who were in the CC, but it always had some kind of function beyond simply reminding someone that they are "stupid fucks". Perhaps this can be changed somehow.

[Cyberwave]

Hear that? This stupid fuck thinks I ignore social classes.

And I'm really not sure how you think I should specify democracy. Rule of the chicken people? It's the rule of everyone, get it through your fucking head. Democracy isn't idealist - the concept that the working class could become a ruling class in a class society that seeks to both destroy class divisions as well as infringe upon the rights of other classes is. I'm done with you, asshole.

What the hell is with you and your attitude? You're really just proving how moronic and impatient you are, acting like a fool. And about your "omg direct democracy is teh best and democratic-centralism is total polar bear opposite wtf"


One cannot help smiling at Kautsky’s effort to make it appear that there are people who preach “contempt for democracy” (p. IA) and so forth. That is the sort of twaddle Kautsky uses to befog and confuse the issue, for he talks like the liberals, speaking of democracy in general, and not of bourgeois democracy; he even avoids using this precise, class term, and, instead, tries to speak about “presocialist” democracy. This windbag devotes almost one-third of his pamphlet, twenty pages out of sixty-three, to this twaddle, which is so agreeable to the bourgeoisie, for it is tantamount to embellishing bourgeois democracy, and obscures the question of the proletarian revolution.

It is natural for a liberal to speak of “democracy” in general; but a Marxist will never forget to ask: “for what class?” Everyone knows, for instance (and Kautskythe “historian” knows it too), that rebellions, or even strong ferment, among the slaves in ancient times at once revealed the fact that the ancient state was essentially a dictatorship of the slave owners. Did this dictatorship abolish democracy among, and for, the slaveowners? Everybody knows that it did not.

Kautsky the “Marxist” made this monstrously absurd and untrue statement because he “forgot“ the class struggle...

To transform Kautsky’s liberal and false assertion into a Marxist and true one, one must say: dictatorship does not necessarily mean the abolition of democracy for the class that exercises the dictatorship over other classes; but it does mean the abolition (or very material restriction, which is also a form of abolition) of democracy for the class over which, or against which, the dictatorship is exercised.

Democratic-centralism. (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/e.htm#democratic-centralism)

From Marxist Internet Archive: Communism (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/o.htm#communism) means, in the first place, a step far above the limited democracy found under capitalism, by the most thoroughgoing proletarian democracy (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/r.htm#proletarian-democracy); and after that, the withering away of democracy as the majority less and less finds it necessary to overrule the will of any minority, because the majority is neither threatened nor damaged by the minority; in other words, without classes, conflict will be on a personal level not on a social level.

At any rate: "I'm done with you, asshole."

[RATM-Eubie]

Fuck Stalin.
Long live Trotsky

[AK]

If you're going to debate here, do it properly and at least half-politely. Don't act like an 8-year-old. Typing "authority fetish" whilst hammering your head on the keyboard doesn't actually constitute a cogent or coherent rebuttal. Have you addressed directly any of mountainfire's points? Can we not get so irate as well, especially in learning? Calling each other "stupid fucks" doesn't help anyone, least of all you. If there's truly an issue that stops you your in tracks, don't defend it for the sake of ideological dogma, question it and see where it takes you.
Listen, when someone says I have a democracy fetish and they even denounce democracy as ultra-leftist, that's the point where I give up on making any real arguments.

[Wanted Man]

Listen, when someone says I have a democracy fetish and they even denounce democracy as ultra-leftist, that's the point where I give up on making any real arguments.

That's not what they said at all. They only said that "democracy" is not some perfect concept that stands isolated from the rest of society, something to be "fetishised" (sorry) in every situation.

For example, the bourgeoisie would find it very undemocratic if they were expropriated and suppressed by the proletariat, if the representative system with liberal, conservative, "socialist" and other bourgeois parties is replaced by direct democracy, etc. They would say: you can't do that! It's not democratic to deny us our say in how society is run! You can't just take our property without a parliamentary vote! Without all these different parties of ours, there is no pluralism, and therefore no democracy!

That's why we talk about the dictatorship of the proletariat, because the proletariat the proletariat exerts its class dictatorship. Yet in reality, this is infinitely more democratic than bourgeois democracy, no matter how many parties are allowed to exist, no matter how many human rights are enshrined in the constitution, etc., because it realises the class interests of the workers and gives them direct say over their own situation.

Dictatorship and democracy are nice words, but what is their class content? We currently have representative, bourgeois democracy, but at the same time, the bourgeoisie is exercising its class dictatorship over us. Hence the Lenin quote in Cyberwave's post about the need to always ask: "for what class?" Or to put it even more simply:


The Dude: It's like what Lenin said... you look for the person who will benefit, and, uh, uh...
Donny: I am the walrus.
The Dude: You know what I'm trying to say...
Donny: I am the walrus.
Walter Sobchak: That fucking *****...
The Dude: Oh yeah!
Donny: I am the walrus.
Walter Sobchak: Shut the fuck up, Donny! V.I. Lenin. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov!
Donny: What the fuck is he talking about, Dude?

See also:

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/r.htm#proletarian-democracy
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/i.htm#dictatorship-proletariat

[AK]

That's not what they said at all. They only said that "democracy" is not some perfect concept that stands isolated from the rest of society, something to be "fetishised" (sorry) in every situation.

For example, the bourgeoisie would find it very undemocratic if they were expropriated and suppressed by the proletariat, if the representative system with liberal, conservative, "socialist" and other bourgeois parties is replaced by direct democracy, etc. They would say: you can't do that! It's not democratic to deny us our say in how society is run! You can't just take our property without a parliamentary vote! Without all these different parties of ours, there is no pluralism, and therefore no democracy!
Alright, revolution is authoritarian. The stable society afterwards should not be. I've already figured that part out. Besides, that is Bourgeois democracy. They know damn well it's not democratic in the least.


That's why we talk about the dictatorship of the proletariat, because the proletariat the proletariat exerts its class dictatorship. Yet in reality, this is infinitely more democratic than bourgeois democracy, no matter how many parties are allowed to exist, no matter how many human rights are enshrined in the constitution, etc., because it realises the class interests of the workers and gives them direct say over their own situation.
See, we destroy all classes during revolution. If we still have classes, we haven't done our job. Therefore, our envisioned society will not be a class dictatorship at all. Society should be classless. Let the ex-Bourgeoisie have a say in our post-revolutionary society if they want. It's not like their voice will ever be significant after they are expropriated in the revolution. They're outnumbered anyway. Besides, who is the Proletariat ruling over in the DoP? I think if it were ever to be realised, it would not be considered a ruling class in a certain society if it were not ruling over any other class. Your terms are confusing.


Or to put it even more simply:
<a quote I don't get, possibly a reference to something... that I don't know>
The fuck?

[Wanted Man]

Alright, revolution is authoritarian. The stable society afterwards should not be. I've already figured that part out. Besides, that is Bourgeois democracy. They know damn well it's not democratic in the least.

Why would they know this "damn well"? I don't think that's the case at all. You won't find find many capitalists who are fully convinced that they constitute a class dictatorship that is holding back all of humanity, and are fully aware that bourgeois democracy benefits them alone.

It's not like they sit in a corner, twirling their moustaches, going: "And next, we'll allow multiple parties and support human rights. That will stop the proles from revolting!" They find no fault with the current political system, because it works in their interests. If they do have problems in a particular country, they can always move offshore.


See, we destroy all classes during revolution. If we still have classes, we haven't done our job. Therefore, our envisioned society will not be a class dictatorship at all. Society should be classless. Let the ex-Bourgeoisie have a say in our post-revolutionary society if they want. It's not like their voice will ever be significant after they are expropriated in the revolution. They're outnumbered anyway. Besides, who is the Proletariat ruling over in the DoP? I think if it were ever to be realised, it would not be considered a ruling class in a certain society if it were not ruling over any other class. Your terms are confusing.

(bold mine)

This seems to assume that revolution will spontaneously take place everywhere, that the class rule of the bourgeoisie will essentially be broken in one go, and statelessness and classlessness will instantly replace it. The reality is that this does not happen within one go, therefore they need suppressing. It is naïve to think that they won't try to reclaim their own. In Russia, they came with 14 foreign armies, a rebellion, and in the form of several "left" parties who demanded the continuation of the imperialist war against Germany.


<a quote I don't get, possibly a reference to something... that I don't know>

The fuck?

It truly saddens me that you don't know that quote. :(

[Serge's Fist]

mountainfire,

You really do need to take on what I am saying and not what you perceive I am arguing. Maybe this is my fault and should be more clear in what I am arguing here.

You are correct that the proletarian state both in content and in its structures are different than the capitalist state but these structures are not set in stone. It is not their form that has been historically more or less uniform but the political content within communist programmes, the soviets and other such bodies. I think Trotsky on Spain is useful here, whilst saying ultimately he wanted a Soviet Spanish republic recognised that working class power can be expressed in alternative forms, in the case of Spain, he talked about factory committees. There was also the regional defence committees which acted as the centres of anti-fascist and revolutionary agency in the early part of the civil war.

Whilst you are right that power in a revolution will be expressed differently than under capitalism. There is nothing I can see that would stop an assembly drawing representatives from economic units and community bodies of the working class. Or in fact a party becoming the centre of authority as happened in the Russian revolution as the soviets could not cohere a political centre and force necessary to carry out the defence of the revolution and in large parts the Soviets were action assemblies that did not sit in constant session (which was needed) and left political authority after the first few months largely to the Bolsheviks and their allies in the government.

Poulantzas did not share what the CPGB is putting forward today, we are and have continually carried out a sharp struggle against those in our movement who do not advocate the breaking up of the capitalist state and its replacement with a semi-state to defend the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is also funny that you put us with the eurocommunist Poulantzas considering it was my older comrades who were in the Leninist Faction of the CPGB that were an organised opposition to the eurocommunist leadership of the CPGB.

On Soviets, you had previously, to my reading, designated them an economic and action body as opposed to political centres of authority. I do think my "crass" oversimplification is fitting, you only partly take power by controlling the factories, the working class exists beyond its place of work and through the party is not organised on economic units. You have historical situations where the class has seized key areas of production yet did not take power, the Italian factory occupations and the revolutionary wave in Italy 1918-1921 gives us some good lessons in this regard.

The history of the Chinese revolution is a lesson to us all, not only to those of us who question the absolute application of Sovietism but those of us who would like to stick with the Leninist dictum of firm in principle, flexible in tactics.

[AK]

It truly saddens me that you don't know that quote. :(
What's it from?