Crux
22nd August 2010, 23:26
Springtime for Trotsky? (http://www.mn.ru/news/20100820/187994246.html)
by Anna Arutunyan at 20/08/2010 00:23
Seventy years after getting bludgeoned to death by an ice pick-wielding Stalinist assassin, Leon Trotsky, the original Che Guevara, still adorns the T-shirts and bedroom posters of Western revolutionary youth.
Left-wing intellectuals still uphold him as one of the most intriguing what-ifs in communist history, rueing Josef Stalins betrayal of the internationalist cause.
Even Hollywood cant lay him to rest, with a recent film comedy called The Trotsky featuring a Canadian high-school student who thinks hes the Russian revolutionary reincarnated and organises a class walkout.
Trotsky as bogeyman
The irony is that in Russia, Trotsky remains a curse word among the established left with the Communists still throwing the name around against party renegades who have fallen out of favour with the leadership.
It is in the image of most people here that Trotsky was an evil genius who destroyed everything, said Rob Jones, a supporter of the Committee for a Workers International who has lived in Russia for the last two decades. Trotsky has become a swear-word from both sides people who support capitalism against Trotsky and people who support Stalinism against Trotsky.
While Trotskys supporters enjoy a constituency in the thousands in European countries such as Britain, France, Ireland and Greece, and farther afield in Brazil, Nigeria and Pakistan, internationalist socialist groups in Russia are rare and number just a few hundred, activists here say.
Split over internationalism
Many of Russias more vocal leftists still insist that Trotsky made a fatal mistake when he insisted on socialist revolution abroad. Trotsky thus parted ways with the ruthless bureaucrat that Stalin was already becoming by 1924, the year of Lenins death when Stalin first advocated his controversial theory of Socialism in One Country.
Trotsky was important until the mid 1920s, said Sergei Malinkovich, the leader of the Communists of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, a left-wing faction that split away from Gennady Zyuganovs Communist Party. Then he lost touch with the general masses, who were more interested in strengthening the national state.
Time for a revival?
Malinkovich concedes, however, that Trotskys ideas had a delayed effect today, they are once more in demand.
Of course we understand that he was not a German agent, and we can give a more balanced assessment now. Trotskyism as a label is a very dangerous thing, he said, urging rank-and-file communists to stop throwing the name around like an insult.
Among left-minded activists, could it be springtime for Trotsky? Could Soviet Russias most reviled traitor enjoy a revival?
The Russian Communist Youth possibly the largest internationalist-leaning organisation in the country has certain reservations, but is ready for a posthumous reconciliation between Trotsky and Stalin.
It is my dream to once see a memorial in a quiet part of Moscow, depicting Trotsky and Stalin sitting across from each other, Darya Mitina, one of the leaders of the Russian Communist Youth and a former State Duma deputy, told The Moscow News.
Trotsky was unlucky twice first from 1924, when he was defeated, then killed and subsequently damned by Stalins supporters. And then once again now, because we live in a capitalist state.
Stalins legacy
Amid a massive rethinking of Stalins legacy from widespread criticism in the 1990s, when the atrocities of his terror were uncovered, to the partial rehabilitation today, Mitina believes that Trotskys absence is a glaring omission in the conversation. Historically, she says, its not fair, and its time to move on.
But even Mitina believes that Trotsky made a mistake that cost him his life. He insisted on socialist revolution abroad, but history was making completely different demands at that time, she said. Before World War II, we needed to rally together against fascism, and we needed to raise the economy. It turned out that you could build socialism in one country. The question was what kind of socialism it would become.
So, why the reservation? After the falsifications of the Moscow show trials against the Trotskyist left opposition were uncovered, why isnt there more support for Vladimir Lenins second-in-command?
Precisely because there was so little post-Soviet debate, experts and historians say.
Trotsky not rehabilitated
Trotsky was the most high-profile figure not to undergo a public moral rehabilitation, Boris Kagarlitsky, director of the Institute for Globalisation, told The Moscow News. Old Bolsheviks such as Nikolai Bukharin were rehabilitated, but in the case of Trotsky who was never technically named as a defendant in the show trials there was essentially nothing to formally rehabilitate. Others were tried. He was just killed, said Kagarlitsky.
The reason is ideological, according to Kagarlitsky. During the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was room to criticise the Soviet system from the right, but not from the left, he said. And that left no room for Trotskys supporters.
Bukharin was in demand as a transition figure who argued in favor of a market system, Kagarlitsky said.
Debate suppressed
As for socialism, post-Soviet Russia didnt really see a strong enough revival of left-wing movements to rally behind Trotsky. Russias left wing movements are very weak, Kagarlitsky believes.
As an anathema to the official Soviet doctrine, Trotsky is struggling to get back into the picture because in Russia there was simply nothing to read by him or about him.
That may start to change as some of the debate seeps back into Russia, and as the Trotskyist movement starts to grow again internationally, say activists.
Jones, of the Committee for a Workers International, believes Trotskys ideas will be more in demand as the effects of the global crisis are more strongly felt. When people start to understand what they are fighting for, internationalist groups here will start getting more support, he says.
by Anna Arutunyan at 20/08/2010 00:23
Seventy years after getting bludgeoned to death by an ice pick-wielding Stalinist assassin, Leon Trotsky, the original Che Guevara, still adorns the T-shirts and bedroom posters of Western revolutionary youth.
Left-wing intellectuals still uphold him as one of the most intriguing what-ifs in communist history, rueing Josef Stalins betrayal of the internationalist cause.
Even Hollywood cant lay him to rest, with a recent film comedy called The Trotsky featuring a Canadian high-school student who thinks hes the Russian revolutionary reincarnated and organises a class walkout.
Trotsky as bogeyman
The irony is that in Russia, Trotsky remains a curse word among the established left with the Communists still throwing the name around against party renegades who have fallen out of favour with the leadership.
It is in the image of most people here that Trotsky was an evil genius who destroyed everything, said Rob Jones, a supporter of the Committee for a Workers International who has lived in Russia for the last two decades. Trotsky has become a swear-word from both sides people who support capitalism against Trotsky and people who support Stalinism against Trotsky.
While Trotskys supporters enjoy a constituency in the thousands in European countries such as Britain, France, Ireland and Greece, and farther afield in Brazil, Nigeria and Pakistan, internationalist socialist groups in Russia are rare and number just a few hundred, activists here say.
Split over internationalism
Many of Russias more vocal leftists still insist that Trotsky made a fatal mistake when he insisted on socialist revolution abroad. Trotsky thus parted ways with the ruthless bureaucrat that Stalin was already becoming by 1924, the year of Lenins death when Stalin first advocated his controversial theory of Socialism in One Country.
Trotsky was important until the mid 1920s, said Sergei Malinkovich, the leader of the Communists of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, a left-wing faction that split away from Gennady Zyuganovs Communist Party. Then he lost touch with the general masses, who were more interested in strengthening the national state.
Time for a revival?
Malinkovich concedes, however, that Trotskys ideas had a delayed effect today, they are once more in demand.
Of course we understand that he was not a German agent, and we can give a more balanced assessment now. Trotskyism as a label is a very dangerous thing, he said, urging rank-and-file communists to stop throwing the name around like an insult.
Among left-minded activists, could it be springtime for Trotsky? Could Soviet Russias most reviled traitor enjoy a revival?
The Russian Communist Youth possibly the largest internationalist-leaning organisation in the country has certain reservations, but is ready for a posthumous reconciliation between Trotsky and Stalin.
It is my dream to once see a memorial in a quiet part of Moscow, depicting Trotsky and Stalin sitting across from each other, Darya Mitina, one of the leaders of the Russian Communist Youth and a former State Duma deputy, told The Moscow News.
Trotsky was unlucky twice first from 1924, when he was defeated, then killed and subsequently damned by Stalins supporters. And then once again now, because we live in a capitalist state.
Stalins legacy
Amid a massive rethinking of Stalins legacy from widespread criticism in the 1990s, when the atrocities of his terror were uncovered, to the partial rehabilitation today, Mitina believes that Trotskys absence is a glaring omission in the conversation. Historically, she says, its not fair, and its time to move on.
But even Mitina believes that Trotsky made a mistake that cost him his life. He insisted on socialist revolution abroad, but history was making completely different demands at that time, she said. Before World War II, we needed to rally together against fascism, and we needed to raise the economy. It turned out that you could build socialism in one country. The question was what kind of socialism it would become.
So, why the reservation? After the falsifications of the Moscow show trials against the Trotskyist left opposition were uncovered, why isnt there more support for Vladimir Lenins second-in-command?
Precisely because there was so little post-Soviet debate, experts and historians say.
Trotsky not rehabilitated
Trotsky was the most high-profile figure not to undergo a public moral rehabilitation, Boris Kagarlitsky, director of the Institute for Globalisation, told The Moscow News. Old Bolsheviks such as Nikolai Bukharin were rehabilitated, but in the case of Trotsky who was never technically named as a defendant in the show trials there was essentially nothing to formally rehabilitate. Others were tried. He was just killed, said Kagarlitsky.
The reason is ideological, according to Kagarlitsky. During the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was room to criticise the Soviet system from the right, but not from the left, he said. And that left no room for Trotskys supporters.
Bukharin was in demand as a transition figure who argued in favor of a market system, Kagarlitsky said.
Debate suppressed
As for socialism, post-Soviet Russia didnt really see a strong enough revival of left-wing movements to rally behind Trotsky. Russias left wing movements are very weak, Kagarlitsky believes.
As an anathema to the official Soviet doctrine, Trotsky is struggling to get back into the picture because in Russia there was simply nothing to read by him or about him.
That may start to change as some of the debate seeps back into Russia, and as the Trotskyist movement starts to grow again internationally, say activists.
Jones, of the Committee for a Workers International, believes Trotskys ideas will be more in demand as the effects of the global crisis are more strongly felt. When people start to understand what they are fighting for, internationalist groups here will start getting more support, he says.