What is the Stalinist view of Trotsky was Trotsky trying to overthrow Stalin was Stal

[tradeunionsupporter]

What is the Stalinist view of Trotsky was Trotsky trying to overthrow Stalin was Stalin really Lenin's named named Succeeder did Lenin want Stalin to be his Succeeder and not Trotsky ?

[Imposter Marxist]

What is the Stalinist view of Trotsky was Trotsky trying to overthrow Stalin was Stalin really Lenin's named named Succeeder did Lenin want Stalin to be his Succeeder and not Trotsky ?

I think you purposly worded this to confuse me.

[#FF0000]

I'm pretty sure Lenin wasn't a big fan of Stalin towards the end of his life, but it's sort of irrelevant. Stalin was elected by the central committee.

[Bud Struggle]

I'm pretty sure Lenin wasn't a big fan of Stalin towards the end of his life, but it's sort of irrelevant. Stalin was elected by the central committee.

"Elected!!!"

I like that. :)

Kind of like me being "elected" to ownership of my factory. :D

[Victory]

The general view from Marxist-Leninists towards Trotsky is that Trotsky tried to overthrow the leadership of the Soviet Union by a coup. They hold the position that Trotsky wasn’t an authentic Leninist because Lenin supported building Socialism in one country and Trotsky radically opposed it. Another important reason why Leninists oppose Trotsky is because Trotsky repeatedly built factions to oppose the direction of the party, something which is against Democratic Centralism, a principled position Lenin held.

You can read a guide explaining the reasons at the following link;
marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/against-trotskyism-a-reading-guide/

[Blackscare]

Not to be a dick, you need to learn some punctuation if you're going to discuss things on this forum effectively. Honestly I gave up half way through that sentence.

[#FF0000]

"Elected!!!"

I like that. :)

Kind of like me being "elected" to ownership of my factory. :D

Uh, no. He was elected by the central committee. That's elected. Except, you know, by the central committee.

[Queercommie Girl]

Although I don't completely write-off the legacy of Stalin, I think the Trotskyists are largely correct to oppose him.

Socialism without democracy isn't socialism at all, and history has shown that the lack of proletarian democracy has inevitably led to the degeneration of socialism into bureaucratic capitalism, i.e. what happened the former Soviet Union and in China today.

With democratic centralism, democracy is the more important element, just as "red" is more important than "expert", and proletarian welfare is more important than "efficiency".

I am a strong sympathiser of Trotskyism, I have many Trot friends, but I don't want to formally identify as a Trot since I reject sectarianism and dogmatism. But I strongly oppose the use of brutal oppressive tactics against Trotskyists and Trotsky himself by Stalin, and I will defend the rights of Trotskyists to voice their political opinions through armed force if necessary.

[Queercommie Girl]

The general view from Marxist-Leninists towards Trotsky is that Trotsky tried to overthrow the leadership of the Soviet Union by a coup. They hold the position that Trotsky wasn’t an authentic Leninist because Lenin supported building Socialism in one country and Trotsky radically opposed it. Another important reason why Leninists oppose Trotsky is because Trotsky repeatedly built factions to oppose the direction of the party, something which is against Democratic Centralism, a principled position Lenin held.

You can read a guide explaining the reasons at the following link;
marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/against-trotskyism-a-reading-guide/

It is not the general view, since most Trotskyists do not think they are detractors from Lenin at all, but actually Trotskyism is the most correct continuation of Marxism-Leninism.

[RGacky3]

"Elected!!!"

I like that. :)

Kind of like me being "elected" to ownership of my factory. :D

If your going to criticise the Leninist form of government (which you should, I encourage it, and I do it as well), you gotta do it knowing how it worked.

Stalin was elected in a relatively free election, the problem is the democratic centrism, the parties power over the formal government, the centralized nature of the party and the lack of an opposition, so it was free in the sense that it followed their rules, but their rules made it unfree. There were many autoritarian elements of the USSR, but saying stalins election is the same as how you own your factory is'nt a good comparison.

I think the corporate system of the CEO choosing the boards, the board electing the CEO, and everything ust being rubber stamped by the shareholders as a good analysis, hell the USSR was pretty much one giant corporation.

[Queercommie Girl]

If your going to criticise the Leninist form of government (which you should, I encourage it, and I do it as well), you gotta do it knowing how it worked.

Stalin was elected in a relatively free election, the problem is the democratic centrism, the parties power over the formal government, the centralized nature of the party and the lack of an opposition, so it was free in the sense that it followed their rules, but their rules made it unfree. There were many autoritarian elements of the USSR, but saying stalins election is the same as how you own your factory is'nt a good comparison.

I think the corporate system of the CEO choosing the boards, the board electing the CEO, and everything ust being rubber stamped by the shareholders as a good analysis, hell the USSR was pretty much one giant corporation.

The USSR was in my opinion what is generally called "a deformed worker's state". That is to say, technically the economy of the USSR still had a proletarian basis, but the administrative layers of the working class degenerated into a power-holding bureaucratic caste.

In any kind of economic structure, as the founding member of the Chinese Communist Party, Li Dazhao, (this was long before Chinese Maoism and Chinese Trotskyism differentiated) correctly stated, there would always be a need for an administrative structure. Genuine proletarian democracy is structured, legalistic and collective democracy, not anarchic democracy. Proletarian democracy is not the rule of the mob.

However, in a socialist system with genuine proletarian democracy, the administrators are not a distinct bureaucratic caste. Essentially, in real socialism everyone is not just a worker, but a worker-administrator or worker-manager. Everyone in principle shares in the responsibility and privileges of administration work. Mao Zedong, who was a fan of classical Chinese literature (not all "old stuff" is reactionary as Lenin calls for people to study the positive aspects of feudal and capitalist civilisation), had an interesting way to describe this: "all 600 million Chinese people are Yao and Shun". Yao and Shun were sage-kings of Chinese antiquity, who ruled at a time when early class society was still partially progressive. What Mao meant is that in a genuine socialist society, every worker is also a manager in principle. In a sense, everyone is a ruler. A post-class classless society is not the absolute negation of class society, but its dialectical negation. It doesn't just abolish the "ruling class", it also abolishes the "ruled class", and any fundamental distinction between the two.

Due to both external (civil war, economic backwardness) and internal (traitors in the party) factors, the early Soviet Union gradually degenerated from a relatively healthy democratic system to a deformed form of bureaucratic socialism. This is the first step of political degeneration.

At the stage of bureaucratic socialism, the fundamental economic base is still a socialist one, but bureaucrats could acquire economic interests for themselves at the expense of other people through their political power. However, at this stage, the economy is still in principle owned by the socialist state, the abuse of power by the bureaucrats is an indirect one, as they do not directly own the means of production, unlike in a capitalist corporation in the West. So it is not correct to state that Stalinism or bureaucratic socialism is just like American corporatism. There is still a fundamental difference between the two.

However, as the bureaucratic deformation becomes more entrenched, the degeneration of the proletarian state reaches its second stage: the transition from bureaucratic socialism to bureaucratic capitalism. The ruling bureaucrats, having acquired personal gains indirectly through their abuse of power at the expense of the proletarian state, now seeks to further consolidate that power and wealth through directly owning the means of production. In other words, Stalinist bureaucrats transform themselves into bureaucratic capitalists. This is the stage that the USSR has already gone through before its dissolution and the stage China is in at the moment. At this second stage of bureaucratic deformation, it becomes essentially correct to directly compare this kind of bureaucratic capitalism with American-style corporatism, because by now the bureaucrats already to a significant extent directly own the means of production. The economic basis of the state is no longer really socialist and based on collective ownership.

If the second stage of bureaucratic deformation carries on towards its logical conclusion, then inevitably the entire superstructure of the old deformed proletarian state will completely crumble. This already happened in the former USSR and in Eastern Europe. This will happen in China too in the future if the current trend of privatisation etc is not reversed seriously. On the other hand, since China has not formally dissolved yet like the former USSR did, China is technically still a deformed worker's state, though obviously a very deformed one, and not a completely capitalist state. As Marx taught us, all superstructure is fundamentally dependent on the economic base, which means that when the economic base becomes completely capitalist, it cannot even support a superficial edifice of socialist superstructure.

It is unfair to think that Leninism is similar to Stalinism. To be sure, Lenin also endorsed certain "dictatorial" political measures etc, and I don't necessarily support all of them. But the fundamental difference is that Leninist dictatorship acts in the interests of genuine proletarian democracy, while Stalinist dictatorship acts opposed to the interests of genuine proletarian democracy. I believe that Stalinism is wrong not primarily due to its repressive measures, but due to the ends for which these repressive measures were used for.

[S.Artesian]

The general view from Marxist-Leninists towards Trotsky is that Trotsky tried to overthrow the leadership of the Soviet Union by a coup. They hold the position that Trotsky wasn’t an authentic Leninist because Lenin supported building Socialism in one country and Trotsky radically opposed it. Another important reason why Leninists oppose Trotsky is because Trotsky repeatedly built factions to oppose the direction of the party, something which is against Democratic Centralism, a principled position Lenin held.

You can read a guide explaining the reasons at the following link;
marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/against-trotskyism-a-reading-guide/


That's the general pro-Stalin view. Plenty of those, groups and individuals who consider themselves Marxists and subscribe to what is considered to be "Leninism"-- the necessity for a "vanguard" party-- disagree with every "generality" you offer.

The entire argument of "socialism is one country" is a stalking horse, designed to obscure the real issues of what social relations were being developed and strengthened by the various economic policies adopted by the Bolsheviks.

So you get various alliances, say Bukharin, Zinoviev, Stalin at one moment, and then you get Zinoviev "cast out," and then the split between Bukharin and Stalin. You get Trotsky in opposition to the notion that the "West" will be willing to invest in the RSFR and with Stalin, and Lenin entranced by the possibility, and then after the collapse of that dream in 1922, you get socialism at a snail's pace, peasant enrichment, blah blah blah, with the faction around Trotsky arguing for the priority of "heavy industry" over consumer, light industry, with agricultural exports being used as the currency for import purchase.

"SOIC" was an ideological campaign that represented a retreat from the commitment to international revolution, and at various times was used to justify everything from Bukharin's peasant schemes to the forced collectivization of the peasantry.

As far as building factions... exactly how is a revolutionary organization supposed to conduct its debate if not by programmatic, organized, arguments by those who are in agreement on points of principle?

The problem isn't factions in the party, the problem is restricting arguments over policy to party organs, to there not being organizations of the working class independent of the party where real debate, real decisions, real power, and real socialist social relations of production can develop.

Of course, that makes me not a "Leninist" according to the official definition, a definition that never prevented Lenin from organizing his own factions-- like the one he organized including Trotsky to change the conciliationist course of the Bolshevik editorial board of Stalin and Kamenev towar the Kerensky government.

Nor did the supposed heresy of "factionalism" seem to motivate Lenin to such draconian disciplinary measures, for example when Kamenev et al spilled the beans on the plans of the MRC to take power. I mean if you're not going to expel somebody for that, I don't see how you could ever expel anyone for what Trotsky et al did and advocated completely within the party councils.

But hey, that's just real history; don't let it get in the way of the all important task of "Marxism-Leninism" which is the propagation of ideology, and ideological myth.