Assasination of Trotsky, class struggle and stalinism

[Black Sheep]

Release and honors

Shortly after the assassination Stalin presented Ramón's mother Caridad with the Order of Lenin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Lenin) for her part in the plot.[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram%C3%B3n_Mercader#cite_note-9)
After the first few years in prison, he requested release on parole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parole), which was denied by Dr. Jesús Siordia (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jes%C3%BAs_Siordia&action=edit&redlink=1) and the criminologist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminologist) Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón. After almost 20 years in jail, he was eventually released from Mexico City's Palacio de Lecumberri (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palacio_de_Lecumberri) prison on May 6, 1960 and moved to Havana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana), Cuba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba), where Fidel Castro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro)'s new revolutionary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Revolution) government welcomed him.
In 1961, he moved to the Soviet Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union) and was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_the_Soviet_Union) medal from the then head of the KGB Alexander Shelepin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Shelepin). The order of Hero was the Soviet Union's highest decoration. He split his time between Cuba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba) and the Soviet Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union) for the rest of his life and died in Havana in 1978.
He is buried (under the name of 'Ramon Ivanovich Lopez' (Рамон Иванович Лопес)) in Moscow's Kuntsevo Cemetery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuntsevo_Cemetery) and has a place of honour in the KGB Museum of Security Service on Lubyanka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubyanka_%28KGB%29) in Moscow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow).[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram%C3%B3n_Mercader#cite_note-10)

questions:
1)One of the main elements of marxism and marxist morality, is that it focuses on masses' collective struggle.Marxism frowns on terrorism, due to its results and efficiency.
Regarding that , I'd like stalinists' comments on the assasination of trotsky, its use, and their moral verdict on it.Also, a comment on the praises and medals and honors the killer was awarded with.

2)I'd also like comments from everyone, about the hypocrisy that, when a non-Marxist political group performs acts of vandalism, terrorism etc they immediately condemn it as such - ignoring the assasination of Trotsky, a political opponent , outside the damn country.Double standard?
(and no,it's not a class related standard)

[Land Of Upright Men]

What i do not get is why all 50,000 trends of the trotskyite movement, slag Stalin off for his gulags and his murder and depletion of political and military figures, and implementation of a huge beauracracy.... When Trotsky would have done the exact same thing.

How about we forget about Stalinsky and Old leon and make marxism relavent in contemporary society, rather than argue about pedophile looking dear leaders from decades ago that have no significance or bearing on modern communist issues.

JAJAJAJAJAJA

[Cyberwave]

1. Trotsky had been collaborating with state authorities in Mexico claiming Mexican Communist groups to be "Soviet spies." He also attempted to apply for a visa to America in order to collaborate with the American authorities to further spread fallacious claims regarding the Soviet Union under Stain. He had likewise been demonstrating increasingly violent and provocative tendencies, even encouraging terrorism for the destruction of the Soviet Union.

"The people... have lived through three revolutions against the Tsarist monarchy, the nobility and the bourgeoisie. In a certain sense, the Soviet bureaucracy now incarnates the traits of all the overthrown classes, but without their social roots nor their traditions. It can only defend its monstrous privileges through organized terror..." (Trotsky, Les défaitistes totalitaires, pp. 165).

Even with Lenin in power Trotsky demonstrated his detrimental and pitiful views, and his sectarian opposition to his [Lenins] theories, policy, and so forth. He then used much of the same tactics to attack Stalin later in his "career." Much of his rhetoric was false, and much of his theory and policy [e.g. calling for a coup d'etat whilst Hitler was preparing his own troops] would have harmed the Soviet Union. His followers as well had been growing more active and more violent. His death was inherently necessary.

As for the medal, the assassin did put an end to such a prevalent problem, but I will agree that it is rather un-Marxist for a medal to be handed out in the first place, but there is only one source listed on your Wikipedia article [totally credible, by the way...] and there is not even a link, so unless you provide me with another source, then its somewhat invalid. It was not until the '60s when the assassin himself was awarded medals, and this was sheer irony given the fact that the Soviet Union had decayed into a revisionistic mess.

2. A double standard would be Trotskyists completely ignoring Trotsky's own acts of "terrorism" such as the Krondstadt Rebellion, the encouragement of terrorism, and so forth. At any rate, violence is not necessarily a double standard. There is no doubt that violence will be used in revolutionary society, but indeed the first and foremost goal is to use non-violence as much as humanly possible. Stalin himself noted on torture (http://marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/01/10.htm) that ALL bourgeois governments use violence to suppress the proletarian movement, so it is only logical that violence will be used to suppress the counter-revolutionary bourgeois movement and those who stubbornly and violently defend the bourgeoisie as well.

[Black Sheep]

He also attempted to apply for a visa to America =====> to collaborate with the American authorities
Proof is needed to validate this assumption.


"The people... have lived through three revolutions against the Tsarist monarchy, the nobility and the bourgeoisie. In a certain sense, the Soviet bureaucracy now incarnates the traits of all the overthrown classes, but without their social roots nor their traditions. It can only defend its monstrous privileges through organized terror..." (Trotsky, Les défaitistes totalitaires, pp. 165).
Organized terror.Lenin had said that the revolutionary class utilizes terror against his former oppressors to establish its rule.


Even with Lenin in power Trotsky demonstrated his detrimental and pitiful views, and his sectarian opposition to his [Lenins] theories
At first..Then many of Lenin's views were firstly proposed by trotsky.Or not?


Much of his rhetoric was false, and much of his theory and policy [e.g. calling for a coup d'etat whilst Hitler was preparing his own troops]
And much of his.. "rhetoric" was correct.e.g criticizing the popular front.


His followers as well had been growing more active and more violent. His death was inherently necessary.
Lol.Just lol.


A double standard would be Trotskyists completely ignoring Trotsky's own acts of "terrorism" such as the Krondstadt Rebellion
That is different,and i m an anarchist too...
The rebellion had direct material consequences to the soviet state.I do not justify it, but i can see the reasons why he did it. It is different to have a whole city rebel, and a guy in Mexico writing critiques about your goverment.


Stalin himself noted on torture (http://www.anonym.to/?http://marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/01/10.htm) that ALL bourgeois governments use violence to suppress the proletarian movement, so it is only logical that violence will be used to suppress the counter-revolutionary bourgeois movement and those who stubbornly and violently defend the bourgeoisie as well.
That is horribly wrong, and horribly fallacious.But there is a thread on that specifically somewhere.

[Kayser_Soso]

questions:
1)One of the main elements of marxism and marxist morality, is that it focuses on masses' collective struggle.Marxism frowns on terrorism, due to its results and efficiency.

This has nothing to do with morality. Effectiveness yes, but "terrorism" and insurgency tactics often overlap.



Regarding that , I'd like stalinists' comments on the assasination of trotsky, its use, and their moral verdict on it.Also, a comment on the praises and medals and honors the killer was awarded with.

It was REALLY funny.



2)I'd also like comments from everyone, about the hypocrisy that, when a non-Marxist political group performs acts of vandalism, terrorism etc they immediately condemn it as such - ignoring the assasination of Trotsky, a political opponent , outside the damn country.Double standard?
(and no,it's not a class related standard)

Who is they?

[DaringMehring]

You'll always find some Kool-Aid drinkers who uphold the Moscow sham trials etc., even many years later when the future the Old Bolsheviks et al. were supposedly murdered for, has shown nothing but the bankruptcy of Stalinism.

[pranabjyoti]

That is horribly wrong, and horribly fallacious.But there is a thread on that specifically somewhere.
I just imagine when people like you will understand that A CLASSBASED SOCIETY CAN NOT BE WITHOUT OPPRESSION. USSR during Stalin was a class based society and it can not stand without suppressing counterrevolutionary and reactionary elements, both bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie.

[Jazzhands]

I just imagine when people like you will understand that A CLASSBASED SOCIETY CAN NOT BE WITHOUT OPPRESSION. USSR during Stalin was a class based society and it can not stand without suppressing counterrevolutionary and reactionary elements, both bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie.

I love how you use ALLCAPS whenever you run across an inconvenient fact that totally discredits you. he did it in the purge thread too. but you have yet to make a single proof or argument. if we don't understand something, enlighten us with your...um...whatever you think you have. But please, refrain from using ALLCAPS because, as I've said before, it makes you look like a bloodthirsty lunatic.

[scarletghoul]

The killing of many old Bolshevik leaders is one thing I dislike a lot about Stalin. But I can certainly understand the reasons behind killing Trotsky, and think that however terrible it was, there is some truth in the Stalinist justification.

The Stalinist line is that he was objectively counter-revolutionary, despite being subjectively communist. What's meant by that is that his opportunist and ultra-leftist criticism and opposition, although maybe intended to help the revolution, in fact undermined the Soviet state itself and served the anticommunists. This was true both at the time as it split the communist movement and weakened the Soviet state at the time of impending fascist invasion, and today in the form of historical anticommunist narrative (No one could deny that in the western bourgeois ideology, Trotsky is used as a symbol of why Communism can't work, why the bad guys always get to power, etc,, see Animal Farm). It's ridiculous the idea that Trotsky was subjectively counter-revolutionary, and if we are going just by his good intentions then of course the assassination would be completely unjustified. However we must try to see what his role was/is objectively, and that's what the Soviet government had to deal with, because ultimately if someone's undermining and posing a danger to the workers' state, even if they mean well, they will have to be neutralised.

It's exactly the same as the Kronstadt uprising. Those workers were revolutionary socialists, but Trotsky had to suppress them because in the middle of a civil war the Bolshevik authority had to stay strong. The same is true of Stalin having Trotsky killed, as World War 2 was starting. If you support Trotsky's actions in Kronstadt, you should support Stalin's actions in Mexico.

[Crux]

He had likewise been demonstrating increasingly violent and provocative tendencies, even encouraging terrorism for the destruction of the Soviet Union.
Source. Although I doubt you could come up with one not from the stalinist school of falsifications.


"The people... have lived through three revolutions against the Tsarist monarchy, the nobility and the bourgeoisie. In a certain sense, the Soviet bureaucracy now incarnates the traits of all the overthrown classes, but without their social roots nor their traditions. It can only defend its monstrous privileges through organized terror..." (Trotsky, Les défaitistes totalitaires, pp. 165).
Which it did, apparently.


Even with Lenin in power Trotsky demonstrated his detrimental and pitiful views, and his sectarian opposition to his [Lenins] theories, policy, and so forth.
Only, lenin bloced with trotsky against Stalin. So, yeah. Nice try.


He then used much of the same tactics to attack Stalin later in his "career." Much of his rhetoric was false, and much of his theory and policy [e.g. calling for a coup d'etat whilst Hitler was preparing his own troops] would have harmed the Soviet Union. His followers as well had been growing more active and more violent. His death was inherently necessary.
Source the call for a "coup d'etat". For anyone actually interested in something else than lies and slander I would recommend In Defence of marxism by leon Trotsky in which he clearly shows just how decietful your claim is.


As for the medal, the assassin did put an end to such a prevalent problem, but I will agree that it is rather un-Marxist for a medal to be handed out in the first place, but there is only one source listed on your Wikipedia article [totally credible, by the way...]
Are you disputing Mercader recieved a medal? hahahahaha.


and there is not even a link, so unless you provide me with another source, then its somewhat invalid. It was not until the '60s when the assassin himself was awarded medals, and this was sheer irony given the fact that the Soviet Union had decayed into a revisionistic mess. So you're an enemy of the soviet union? pray tell, why shouldn't the bureacracy have picked off hoxha as well then? :laugh:


2. A double standard would be Trotskyists completely ignoring Trotsky's own acts of "terrorism" such as the Krondstadt Rebellion, the encouragement of terrorism, and so forth.
Hypocrisy is someone defending murder and terror against the trotskyist movement by the soviet regime and then bring up kronstadt.


At any rate, violence is not necessarily a double standard. There is no doubt that violence will be used in revolutionary society, but indeed the first and foremost goal is to use non-violence as much as humanly possible. Stalin himself noted on torture (http://marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/01/10.htm)that ALL bourgeois governments use violence to suppress the proletarian movement, so it is only logical that violence will be used to suppress the counter-revolutionary bourgeois movement and those who stubbornly and violently defend the bourgeoisie as well.
:rolleyes:

[RED DAVE]

1. Trotsky had been collaborating with state authorities in Mexico claiming Mexican Communist groups to be "Soviet spies." He also attempted to apply for a visa to America in order to collaborate with the American authorities to further spread fallacious claims regarding the Soviet Union under Stain. He had likewise been demonstrating increasingly violent and provocative tendencies, even encouraging terrorism for the destruction of the Soviet Union.Lies, except he did ask for a visa so he could testify to expose the Stalinists and the US bourgeoisie.


"The people... have lived through three revolutions against the Tsarist monarchy, the nobility and the bourgeoisie. In a certain sense, the Soviet bureaucracy now incarnates the traits of all the overthrown classes, but without their social roots nor their traditions. It can only defend its monstrous privileges through organized terror..." (Trotsky, Les défaitistes totalitaires, pp. 165).All true.


Even with Lenin in power Trotsky demonstrated his detrimental and pitiful views, and his sectarian opposition to his [Lenins] theories, policy, and so forth.How about some particulars so your bullshit lies can be exposed.


He then used much of the same tactics to attack Stalin later in his "career."I guess for you truth is a tactic.


Much of his rhetoric was false, and much of his theory and policy [e.g. calling for a coup d'etat whilst Hitler was preparing his own troops] would have harmed the Soviet Union.He called for the overthrow of Stalin, yes. Why the fuck not?


His followers as well had been growing more active and more violent. His death was inherently necessary.A vicious stalinist lie And remind me never to turn my back on you.


As for the medal, the assassin did put an end to such a prevalent problemYeah, truth is always a problem for stalinists.


but I will agree that it is rather un-Marxist for a medal to be handed out in the first place, but there is only one source listed on your Wikipedia article [totally credible, by the way...] and there is not even a link, so unless you provide me with another source, then its somewhat invalid.The truth is alwqys invalid for Stalinist.


It was not until the '60s when the assassin himself was awarded medals, and this was sheer irony given the fact that the Soviet Union had decayed into a revisionistic mess.Khruschev was just Stalin's logical successor.

2. A double standard would be Trotskyists completely ignoring Trotsky's own acts of "terrorism" such as the Krondstadt Rebellion, the encouragement of terrorism, and so forth. At any rate, violence is not necessarily a double standard. There is no doubt that violence will be used in revolutionary society, but indeed the first and foremost goal is to use non-violence as much as humanly possible.Okay.


Stalin himself noted on torture (http://marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/01/10.htm) that ALL bourgeois governments use violence to suppress the proletarian movement, so it is only logical that violence will be used to suppress the counter-revolutionary bourgeois movement and those who stubbornly and violently defend the bourgeoisie as well.And again we see the color of your drawers: stalinist shit brown.

RED DAVE

[Cyberwave]

Lies, except he did ask for a visa so he could testify to expose the Stalinists and the US bourgeoisie.

"...Diego Rivera, who provided information to the FBI on anyone that he suspected of being GPU (Soviet intelligence) agents. His allegations were directed against anyone working in such organisations as the Mexican Communist Party (PCM) to Mexican trade unions. This in itself is interesting because, officially Rivera and Trotsky broke personal relations on May 31, 1940. Trotsky wrote in a letter to the chief of the Federal District in Mexico, 'I have nothing in common with the political activities of Diego Rivera. We broke our personal relations fifteen months ago.' (US National State archives; Trotsky Archive.)


But many people were mutual friends of the two, both of them worked in the same organisations such as the American Committee for the Defence of Leon Trotsky (ACDLT). Charles Curtiss was such a friend who sent Trotsky several reports of his meetings with Rivera: 'During my visit in Mexico, from July 4, 1938 to approximately July 15, 1939, I was in close association with Diego Rivera and Leon Trotsky.... I served as an intermediary between them,' (Writings of Leon Trotsky, 1939-40)


Trotsky of course knew of this, thus helping Rivera in supplying information to the FBI.


According to the Professor, the information Trotsky provided to the FBI was a means to obtain a US visa. But as the Professor points out, 'By providing the US Consulate with information about common enemies, be they Mexican or American communists or Soviet agents,Trotsky hoped to prove his value to a government that had no desire to grant him a visa.'"


All true.I'm sure.


How about some particulars so your bullshit lies can be exposed.Well, there are statements from Trotsky's such as: "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's letter to Chkeidze, 1913).

And rebuttals from Lenin such as: "It is in this that the enormous difference lies between real partyism; which consists in purging the Party of liquidationism and otzovism, and the 'conciliation' of Trotsky and Co., which actually renders the most faithful service to the Liquidators and Otzovists, and therefore is an evil that is all the more dangerous to the party. The more cunningly, artfully and rhetorically it cloaks itself with professedly pro-party anti-faction declamations." (Notes of a Publicist, Collected Works, Vol. 16, June 1910, p 211).

"It is an adventure in the ideological sense. Trotsky groups all the enemies of Marxism, he unites Potresov and Maximov, who detest the 'Lenin-Plekhanov' bloc, as they like to call it. Trotsky unites all those to whom ideological decay is dear; all who are not concerned with the 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." (V.I. Lenin)


I guess for you truth is a tactic.I guess for you, everything Trotsky says is truth.


He called for the overthrow of Stalin, yes. Why the fuck not?Because his wishes for destruction of the Soviet system were based on his own inaccuracy and inability to comprehend anything ["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."]. It is inherently ironic because he did at one point himself admit the USSR was socialist in his 1936 work, but of course the real nature of himself was from then on exposed.


A vicious stalinist lie And remind me never to turn my back on you. "In October 1932, the former Trotskyist Goltsman clandestinely met Trotsky's son, Sedov, in Berlin. They discussed a proposal by Smirnov to create a United Opposition Block, including Trotskyists, Zinovievites and Lominadze's followers. Trotsky insisted on `anonynimity and clandestinity'. Soon after, Sedov wrote to his father that the Bloc was officially created and that the Safarov--Tarkhanov group was being courted." (Getty).


Yeah, truth is always a problem for stalinists.Yup.


Khruschev was just Stalin's logical successor.Probably the same type of logic that assumes Trotsky was the "logical successor" of Lenin...


And again we see the color of your drawers: stalinist shit brown.Well, at least I haven't used vulgar language and hateful remarks to get my points across. How childish, you are certainly doing wonders for the Trotskyist movement.

[Cyberwave]

Source. Although I doubt you could come up with one not from the stalinist school of falsifications.

"...In Russia, we led an armed revolution in 1905, another one in February 1917 and a third one in October 1917. We are now preparing a fourth revolution against the Stalinists. If they should dare resist, we will treat them as we treated the Tsarists and the bourgeois in 1905 and 1917."


Only, lenin bloced with trotsky against Stalin. So, yeah. Nice try.

"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.

The same thing applies to the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection. This is a vast business; but to be able to handle investigations we must have at the head of it a man who enjoys high prestige, otherwise we shall become submerged in and overwhelmed by petty intrigue." (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." (Ian Grey, p. 159)



Not to mention the scores of quotes Lenin said against Trotsky.



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


Source the call for a "coup d'etat". For anyone actually interested in something else than lies and slander I would recommend In Defence of marxism by leon Trotsky in which he clearly shows just how decietful your claim is.

"Trotsky was insinuating that in the case of imperialist attack, he would implement a Clémenceau-like coup d'état." (Edward Hallett Carr. Foundations of a Planned Economy, 1926--1929, Volume 2 (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1971), pp. 28-29).


"The next citation is a good example of duplicity. In 1933, Trotsky claimed that one of the `principal crimes' of the German Stalinists was to have refused the united front with social democracy against fascism. But, until Hitler took power in 1933, social democracy did its utmost to defend the capitalist régime and repeatedly refused unity proposals made by the German Communist Party. In May 1940, eight months after the European part of World War II had started, the great specialist of the `united front', Trotsky, proposed that the Red Army start an insurrection against the Bolshevik régime! He wrote in his Open Letter to the Soviet Workers:


"The purpose of the Fourth International ... is to regenerate the USSR by purging it of its parasitic bureaucracy. This can be only be done in one manner: by the workers, the peasants, the soldiers of the Red Army and the sailors of the Red Fleet who will rise up against the new caste of oppressors and parasites. To prepare this uprising of the masses, a new party is needed .... the Fourth International." (Trotsky, Lettres aux travailleurs d'URSS, p. 303)


At the time that Hitler was preparing war against the Soviet Union, the provocateur Trotsky was calling on the Red Army to effect a coup d'état. Such an event would have been a monstrous disaster, opening up the entire country to the fascist tanks!" (Martens, Ludo Another View of Stalin).



Are you disputing Mercader recieved a medal? hahahahaha.

Given that it's merely a Wikipedia article and I can't find a link to the actual source.


So you're an enemy of the soviet union? pray tell, why shouldn't the bureacracy have picked off hoxha as well then? :laugh:

Because I don't agree with the revisionists of the post-Stalin Soviet Union I should be picked off? I thought Trotskyists don't agree with Khrushchev either? It's not like Hoxha supported the Soviets at that point...

[Weezer]

Well, there are statements from Trotsky's such as: "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's letter to Chkeidze, 1913).

It never surprises me when Stalinists forget that Trotsky became a Bolshevik in 1917, and still use pre-1917 criticisms of Leninism against him, as if they are still relevant.

[Cyberwave]

It never surprises me when Stalinists forget that Trotsky became a Bolshevik in 1917, and still use pre-1917 criticisms of Leninism against him, as if they are still relevant.

And yet from previous experience with other Trots, when I brought up the fact that Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks in 1917 [whereas Stalin had been with Lenin for much longer], they themselves find it irrelevant because Trotsky had still been involved in other work, so your point is null according to Trotskyists themselves using their logic. It is not as though his criticism of Lenin simply stopped either, nor did Lenin's criticism of Trotsky stop either.

Writing to Alexandra Kollontai on 17 February, 1917, Lenin says:


"...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!" (Collected Works, Vol. 35, p. 285).
Finally, in this letter of 19 Feb, 1917, to Inessa Armand, Lenin writes, inter alia:


"There is also a letter from Kollontai who... has returned to Norway from America. N. Iv. and Pavlov... had won Novy Mir, she says,... but ... Trotsky arrived, and this scoundrel at once ganged up with the Right wing of Novy Mir against the Left Zimmerwaldists!! That's it!! That's Trotsky for you!! Always true to himself, twists, swindles, poses as a Left, helps the Right, so long as he can... "(Collected Works, Vol. 35, p. 288).


Especially in the 20s was his factionalism argued against by the Bolsheviks leading him to be voted against by the majority of the Party.

[The Hong Se Sun]

It never surprises me when Stalinists forget that Trotsky became a Bolshevik in 1917, and still use pre-1917 criticisms of Leninism against him, as if they are still relevant.

They say that because as Lenin had called him out before, Trotsky was an opportunist who jumped parties when he thought they were winning. Lenin once called him "Judas Trotsky"

read: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/may/x01.htm

Lenin didn't respect Trotsky as much as trots would claim.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

I just imagine when people like you will understand that A CLASSBASED SOCIETY CAN NOT BE WITHOUT OPPRESSION. USSR during Stalin was a class based society and it can not stand without suppressing counterrevolutionary and reactionary elements, both bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie.

If the USSR under Stalin was "class-based" how the hell do you explain ethnic cleansing against Turks, Germans, Asians, etc. and Russification of the schools and political system in non-Russian soviet republics?

Do you enjoy deceiving yourself? :rolleyes:

[Comrade Marxist Bro]

They say that because as Lenin had called him out before, Trotsky was an opportunist who jumped parties when he thought they were winning. Lenin once called him "Judas Trotsky"

read: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/may/x01.htm

Yes, people jumped parties before the revolution, because they wanted to be doing the most effective thing. Just as some people on RevLeft "jump parties" in search of a correct approach in our day.

At any rate, your polemic is from 1914 -- that's years before the revolutionary uprising. (And he compared Trotsky to Judas Golovyov, a character in Saltykov-Shchedrin's book -- that isn't the dude who betrayed Savior Jesus.)

You do know what happened with Lenin and Trotsky afterward, don't you? You should go over why Lenin made Trotsky a People's Commissar and had him organizing the Petrograd uprising during the 1917 Revolution -- because they seem to have reconciled and got on quite well.


Lenin didn't respect Trotsky as much as trots would claim.

He may not have had respect for Trotsky before 1917, but he clearly had more than enough respect for him afterward. For fairness' sake, you might also want to read some of the things that Lenin had to say about Stalin years after the revolution -- and his words would be quite the opposite of "flattering."

[RED DAVE]

Here is the official celebration of the murderer of Trotsky (Babelfish translation)
http://www.warheroes.ru/main.asp


To Ramon [Merkader] Dale of Rio Hernandez (Ramon Ivanovich Lopez) - professional revolutionary, the agent of Soviet external reconnaissance

It was born on February 7, 1913 in the city Barcelona (Spain). [Katalonets]. Member of the Communist Party of Spain.

Is recruited by the NKVD of the USSR with the aid of its mother of Maria [Karidad], been agent Soviet reconnaissance, and under the management [N].[I]. Of [eytingona] it prepared the attempt on one of the organizers and the leaders of the Great October Socialist Revolution of Trotsky [L].[D]., sent in 1929 from the USSR, and the in 1932 [lishennogo] Soviet citizenship, which came forward in 1938 by the initiator of the creation of the 4th “international”, and which was being considered management the AUCP(B) and the Soviet State, by the bitten enemy of the USSR and the Soviet regime.

In September 1939 Ramon [Merkader] crosses to the USA, into New York city with the passport to the name of Canadian businessman, and he converges with The [silviey] Of [ageloff], which entered into the environment of Trotsky. In October the same year Of [merkader] moves in Mexico City, where Trotsky lived with his family, explaining this allegedly by the affairs of firm (in reality - [prekrytiem], created for it [Eytingonom]) it convinces [Ageloff] to move to it.

In March 1940 it by the name Jacques [Mornar], and not without the aid Of [ageloff], for the first time it falls on the villa [L].[D]. of Trotsky. To Trotsky was pleased young person, who skillfully issued himself for the convinced Trotskyite.

On August 20, 1940 [Merkader] arrives to the villa under the pretext to show Trotsky its article.

[Merkader] planned to quietly produce attempt on the life of Trotsky, to leave and to leave in the machine. But quietly it did not come out. The instrument of murder - ice-axe on 7 cm entered into the head of Trotsky, but Leo [Davidovich] even consciousness did not lose, he jumped and began to shout. Protection ran into and [Merkadera] began to beat, and Trotsky ran all around and it shouted: “Only do not kill, it is necessary to at first interrogate.”

Injury proved to be fatal for Trotsky, who died on the second day after attempt.

[Merkader] after arrest explained its act as the act of retaliation of champion- lone person, it rejects to give indications. “Attempted named himself Jean Morgan [Vandendrayn], and he is among of followers and nearest people of Trotsky”, it communicated in the newspaper “Pravda” dated August 22, 1940.

Mexican law court sentences its to 20 years of the deprivation of freedom.

Ramon [Merkader] completely departed the period of conclusion, was [osvobozhden] on May 6, 1960 and delivered in Cuba, and then it is secretly crossed by steamship in the USSR.

By the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated May 31, 1960 Ramon [Merkader] (Lopez Ramon Ivanovich) is honored the Title of Hero of the Soviet Union, with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and medal “gold star” (№ 11089).

He was the colleague of the institute of Marxism-Leninism with the CC CPSU. To the middle of the 70's of the 20th century it moved in Cuba, where he worked at its leader Fidel Castro's (http://66.196.80.202/babelfish/translate_url_content?.intl=us&lp=ru_en&trurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.warheroes.ru%2fhero%2fhero. asp%3fHero_id%3d1794) invitation as the adviser of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It lived in the Cuban capital - city Havana, where it passed away on October 18, 1978 from the sarcoma.

Ramon [Merkader]'s dust was [perevezen] into Moscow hero-city and was buried on The [kuntsevskom] cemetery as Lopez Ramon Ivanovich. On the grave is established the monument (section 10).

[Nagrazhden] by the Order of Lenin (on May 31, 1960).RED DAVE

[Kayser_Soso]

If the USSR under Stalin was "class-based" how the hell do you explain ethnic cleansing against Turks, Germans, Asians, etc. and Russification of the schools and political system in non-Russian soviet republics?

Do you enjoy deceiving yourself? :rolleyes:

Actually it was under Stalin that nationalization of schools took place, in other words the opposite.

[Comrade Marxist Bro]

Here is the website for the Hero of the Soviet Union with two pages devoted to the murderer Mercader:

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?lp=ru_en&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.warheroes.ru%2Fmain.asp%3Fp ages%3D3

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?lp=ru_en&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.warheroes.ru%2Fmain.asp%3Fp ages%3D3


RED DAVE

Those links don't work for me, but it's pretty well-known that he was awarded the title, so it's hilarious that some people are incredulous.

Here is a photo of an aged Comrade Mercader ("Ramon Ivanovich Lopez") proudly wearing his prestigious Hero of the USSR medal (it's from Russian Wikipedia):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/8/82/%D0%9B%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%81%2C_%D0%A0%D0%B0%D0% BC%D0%BE%D0%BD_%D0%98%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B 2%D0%B8%D1%87.jpg

[Imposter Marxist]

Im not a fan of Trotskyists, but that was just distastful.:crying:

[Black Sheep]

LOL @ people trying to prove Lenin liked/disliked trotsky, AS IF THAT'S AN ARGUMENT

FFS.

[Black Sheep]

I just imagine when people like you will understand that A CLASSBASED SOCIETY CAN NOT BE WITHOUT OPPRESSION. USSR during Stalin was a class based society and it can not stand without suppressing counterrevolutionary and reactionary elements, both bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie.
LOL OK KOMRAD THEN LETS TORTURE WORKERS WHO SCREW AROUND OR FAIL TO FULFILL THE PLAN TOO LOLOL

Is that a fucking argument for torture?Are you fucking trolling?
I suggest a read of Trotsky , "our morality and theirs".

[Tenka]

LOL OK KOMRAD THEN LETS TORTURE WORKERS WHO SCREW AROUND OR FAIL TO FULFILL THE PLAN TOO LOLOL

Yes, let's assume violence in a socialist-oriented state is necessarily against the proletariat. A fine lubricant to the ousting of those evil Stalinists.

[Kléber]

Yes, let's assume violence in a socialist-oriented state is necessarily against the proletariat. A fine lubricant to the ousting of those evil Stalinists.
Except that according to those evil Stalinists, there are no enemy classes in the "socialist" society to direct violence against.


Unlike bourgeois constitutions, the draft of the new Constitution of the U.S.S.R. proceeds from the fact that there are no longer any antagonistic classes in society; that society consists of two friendly classes, of workers and peasants; that it is these classes, the labouring classes, that are in power; that the guidance of society by the state (the dictatorship) is in the hands of the working class, the most advanced class in society, that a constitution is needed for the purpose of consolidating a social order desired by, and beneficial to, the working people.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/11/25.htm


For, during this period, we succeeded in liquidating our bourgeoisie, in establishing fraternal collaboration with our peasantry and in building, in the main, Socialist society, notwithstanding the fact that the Socialist revolution has not yet been victorious in other countries. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/01/18.htm

2 other points:

1) Trotsky was far away from Kronstadt when the mutiny occurred, and was no more involved in suppressing it than the CNT/FAI was involved in suppressing the Barcelona workers in 1937, but he took responsibility for it after the fact because he was commander of the Red Army - rather unlike Joseph "blame everything on my underlings" Stalin.

2) The Stalin-Trotsky dispute was over political programs representing different social elements, with Trotsky and the Left of the party advocating industrialization, collectivization and democratization, while the Stalin-Bukharin Right/Center bloc supported a continuation of NEP and the dictatorship of the CC; this represented a struggle between Soviet revolutionary workers and the reactionary bureaucratic ruling caste. It was not a minor personal dispute between two identical politicians or it would not have ended in blood with a mass purge of suspected Trotskyists and assassinations of the Fourth International leadership by the bureaucratic apparatus.

[Cyberwave]

LOL @ people trying to prove Lenin liked/disliked trotsky, AS IF THAT'S AN ARGUMENT

FFS.

Lenin's word is absolute, don't you know?

[The Hong Se Sun]

It is messed up there was a celebration for his assassination. Is it just me or does it seem like there is endless bull shit created by both sides about both sides. I don't like one over the other really.

[Barry Lyndon]

Lenin's word is absolute, don't you know?

Lenin's is dispensible to Hoxhaists like you. Stalin and Hoxha's is holy scripture.

[Cyberwave]

Lenin's is dispensible to Hoxhaists like you. Stalin and Hoxha's is holy scripture.

Calm down, don't get such a hard dick, I was just being silly. Jeez.

[Weezer]

It is messed up there was a celebration for his assassination. Is it just me or does it seem like there is endless bull shit created by both sides about both sides. I don't like one over the other really.

Welcome to sectarianism. :thumbup1: Enjoy your stay, we'll be here for awhile.

[Crux]

"...In Russia, we led an armed revolution in 1905, another one in February 1917 and a third one in October 1917. We are now preparing a fourth revolution against the Stalinists. If they should dare resist, we will treat them as we treated the Tsarists and the bourgeois in 1905 and 1917."
And correctly so. But I don't suppose you think the russian revolution was won through terrorism?





Not to mention the scores of quotes Lenin said against Trotsky. Post 1917? I doubt it. And yes, what a monumental mistake assigning stalin to any postion of power was, but everyone makes mistakes, I suppose.




"Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other. At the present moment he is in the company of the Bundists and the liquidators. And these gentlemen do not stand on ceremony where the Party is concerned" (Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20 p. 448, 1914).
Where *present* is referring to 1914. Unlike you we do not use lenin quotations as religious dogma. Although the august bloc was a mistake. So?



"Trotsky was insinuating that in the case of imperialist attack, he would implement a Clémenceau-like coup d'état." (Edward Hallett Carr. Foundations of a Planned Economy, 1926--1929, Volume 2 (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1971), pp. 28-29).
Whos is this Edward Hallett Carr and why should I trust his claim?



"The next citation is a good example of duplicity. In 1933, Trotsky claimed that one of the `principal crimes' of the German Stalinists was to have refused the united front with social democracy against fascism. But, until Hitler took power in 1933, social democracy did its utmost to defend the capitalist régime and repeatedly refused unity proposals made by the German Communist Party. In May 1940, eight months after the European part of World War II had started, the great specialist of the `united front', Trotsky, proposed that the Red Army start an insurrection against the Bolshevik régime! He wrote in his Open Letter to the Soviet Workers:


"The purpose of the Fourth International ... is to regenerate the USSR by purging it of its parasitic bureaucracy. This can be only be done in one manner: by the workers, the peasants, the soldiers of the Red Army and the sailors of the Red Fleet who will rise up against the new caste of oppressors and parasites. To prepare this uprising of the masses, a new party is needed .... the Fourth International." (Trotsky, Lettres aux travailleurs d'URSS, p. 303)
I assume you are familar with the conecpt fo politcial revolution against a parastic buerucracy. You don't feel like a hypocrite?


At the time that Hitler was preparing war against the Soviet Union, the provocateur Trotsky was calling on the Red Army to effect a coup d'état. Such an event would have been a monstrous disaster, opening up the entire country to the fascist tanks!" (Martens, Ludo Another View of Stalin).
Ludo Martens is not a credible source, but just an echo of stalinist lies. What was lies in the 1930's does not cease to be lies just because it is uttered by some latter day disciple of stalin.




Given that it's merely a Wikipedia article and I can't find a link to the actual source.
:laugh:




Because I don't agree with the revisionists of the post-Stalin Soviet Union I should be picked off? I thought Trotskyists don't agree with Khrushchev either? It's not like Hoxha supported the Soviets at that point...
So you admit Hoxha was a traitor to the soviet union and vocally calling for it's overthrow?

[Cyberwave]

Post 1917? I doubt it.

Throughout 1903 to 1917 was when Lenin and Trotsky were particularly in disagreement [e.g. Lenin denouncing Trotsky for Menshevism, careerism, and the like]. In these regards during this time period, Trotsky was merely a Menshevik like figure. It may be true that Trotsky began to decline his criticism of Lenin and to extent vice-versa, but nonetheless his criticism of Bolsheviks did remain, even post-1917: "[Lenin is] a professional exploiter of every kind of backwardness in the Russian working-class movement." Then during the Bret-Litvosk treaty, Lenin is noted for saying this to Trotsky: "If you are unable to adapt yourself, if you are not inclined to crawl on your belly in the mud you are not a revolutionary but a chatterbox; and I propose this, not because I like it, but because we have no other road, because history has not been kind enough to bring the revolution to maturity everywhere simultaneously." This shows the relation between the two post-1917. But honestly, what makes you think that just because he joined the Bolsheviks [many Mensheviks did so unwillingly and still kept their opportunistic habits] he suddenly stopped his criticism of Lenin and the Bolsheviks?

Lenin denounces Trotsky. (http://users.ameritech.net/klomckin/LeninDenouncesTrotsky.html)

Thread on the same "quotes" debate anyway. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/trotsky-vs-lenin-t90714/index.html?t=90714)


Whos is this Edward Hallett Carr and why should I trust his claim?

Educated at Cambridge, Carr began his career as a diplomat in 1916. Becoming increasingly preoccupied with the study of international relations and of the Soviet Union, he resigned from the Foreign Office in 1936 to begin an academic career. From 1941 to 1946, Carr worked as an assistant editor at The Times, where he was noted for his leaders (editorials) urging a socialist system and an Anglo-Soviet alliance as the basis of a post-war order. Afterwards, Carr worked on a massive 14-volume work on Soviet history entitled A History of Soviet Russia, a project that he was still engaged on at the time of his death in 1982. In 1961, he delivered the G. M. Trevelyan lectures at the University of Cambridge that became the basis of his book, What is History? Moving increasingly towards the left throughout his career, Carr saw his role as the theorist who would work out the basis of a new international order.


I assume you are familar with the conecpt fo politcial revolution against a parastic buerucracy. You don't feel like a hypocrite?

When there is a parasitic bureaucracy, then sure. But there was not a parasitic bureaucracy.


Ludo Martens is not a credible source, but just an echo of stalinist lies. What was lies in the 1930's does not cease to be lies just because it is uttered by some latter day disciple of stalin.

Martens used a wide variety of sources himself, even ones that were leaning toward the right, or where anti-socialist in nature. Martens furthermore merely provided a book on disproving the accusations about Stalin, but his theoretical stances were ultimately flawed. He leaned toward Maoism.

At any rate, enough of the "Stalinist" label. It's been overused and likewise over-answered [e.g. Marxism-Leninism being the proper term] already.


So you admit Hoxha was a traitor to the soviet union and vocally calling for it's overthrow?

This was in the 60s, when Stalin was dead. If it makes on a "traitor" not to support people who are in fact traitors [e.g. Khrushchev] and social imperialists, then I suppose so. At any rate, are you making the assumption that every "Stalinist" always supported the Soviet Union? Sounds like the same thing Glenn Beck said on a recent episode of his show.

[Crux]

Throughout 1903 to 1917 was when Lenin and Trotsky were particularly in disagreement [e.g. Lenin denouncing Trotsky for Menshevism, careerism, and the like]. In these regards during this time period, Trotsky was merely a Menshevik like figure. It may be true that Trotsky began to decline his criticism of Lenin and to extent vice-versa, but nonetheless his criticism of Bolsheviks did remain, even post-1917: "[Lenin is] a professional exploiter of every kind of backwardness in the Russian working-class movement." Then during the Bret-Litvosk treaty, Lenin is noted for saying this to Trotsky: "If you are unable to adapt yourself, if you are not inclined to crawl on your belly in the mud you are not a revolutionary but a chatterbox; and I propose this, not because I like it, but because we have no other road, because history has not been kind enough to bring the revolution to maturity everywhere simultaneously." This shows the relation between the two post-1917. But honestly, what makes you think that just because he joined the Bolsheviks [many Mensheviks did so unwillingly and still kept their opportunistic habits] he suddenly stopped his criticism of Lenin and the Bolsheviks?

Lenin denounces Trotsky. (http://users.ameritech.net/klomckin/LeninDenouncesTrotsky.html)

Thread on the same "quotes" debate anyway. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/trotsky-vs-lenin-t90714/index.html?t=90714)

Unfortuantly for you the "Lenin denounces Trotsky" collection of selectiev quatation is about as useless as your post.
You must be quite ignorant of Trotskij's influence to claim himto be anothe "menshevik" joining the bolshviks. For the majority of the time up until 1917 when he joine dthe bolsheviks he held an independent postion between the mesnheviks and the bolsheviks.




Educated at Cambridge, Carr began his career as a diplomat in 1916. Becoming increasingly preoccupied with the study of international relations and of the Soviet Union, he resigned from the Foreign Office in 1936 to begin an academic career. From 1941 to 1946, Carr worked as an assistant editor at The Times, where he was noted for his leaders (editorials) urging a socialist system and an Anglo-Soviet alliance as the basis of a post-war order. Afterwards, Carr worked on a massive 14-volume work on Soviet history entitled A History of Soviet Russia, a project that he was still engaged on at the time of his death in 1982. In 1961, he delivered the G. M. Trevelyan lectures at the University of Cambridge that became the basis of his book, What is History? Moving increasingly towards the left throughout his career, Carr saw his role as the theorist who would work out the basis of a new international order.
A "fellow traveler" of the stalnists? How unsuprising.




When there is a parasitic bureaucracy, then sure. But there was not a parasitic bureaucracy.
There was, and it placed a chokehold on the international revolution and drenched the russian revolution in the blood of the bolsheviks. Or are you goign to dispute the stalnist's murder of virtually all the old bolsheviks?


Martens used a wide variety of sources himself, even ones that were leaning toward the right, or where anti-socialist in nature. Martens furthermore merely provided a book on disproving the accusations about Stalin, but his theoretical stances were ultimately flawed. He leaned toward Maoism.
Flawed is not quite strong enough.


At any rate, enough of the "Stalinist" label. It's been overused and likewise over-answered [e.g. Marxism-Leninism being the proper term] already.
Why call and ideology that has nothing to do with either Marx or Lenin "marxism-leninism"?




This was in the 60s, when Stalin was dead. If it makes on a "traitor" not to support people who are in fact traitors [e.g. Khrushchev] and social imperialists, then I suppose so. At any rate, are you making the assumption that every "Stalinist" always supported the Soviet Union? Sounds like the same thing Glenn Beck said on a recent episode of his show.
When stalin was dead? Ah I suppose socialism in the soviet union died with the man of steel. how amusingly idealist of you. No I am not, I am well aware of sects such as the one you yourself belong to.

[Cyberwave]

Unfortuantly for you the "Lenin denounces Trotsky" collection of selectiev quatation is about as useless as your post.
You must be quite ignorant of Trotskij's influence to claim himto be anothe "menshevik" joining the bolshviks. For the majority of the time up until 1917 when he joine dthe bolsheviks he held an independent postion between the mesnheviks and the bolsheviks.

His "independence" more or less lingered around Menshevism. There was no disagreement between the Mensheviks and Trotsky on issues such as socialism in one country and the like. Much like the Mensheviks, he furthermore ignored economic contexts, and developed a sense of mere liberalism as Lenin noted. Looking at the period of time between 1903 to 1917, Trotskyists generally attempt to "excuse" Trotsky for his Menshevik, liquidator-like behavior, or those who go so far as to remain silent, uncritical of such actions. Likewise there are indeed those who do criticize Trotsky for this, but they are merely a small sect of Trotskyism. Trotsky always remained in the minority of the Party, and was always attempting to create his own factions. He was even in the minority of those in favor for when a mere 4000 voted for him compared to the 740,000 who acknowledged Stalin and Lenin as far more legitimate than Trotsky.


There was, and it placed a chokehold on the international revolution and drenched the russian revolution in the blood of the bolsheviks. Or are you goign to dispute the stalnist's murder of virtually all the old bolsheviks?

"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)

"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.” (J.V. Stalin (December 2-19, 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.” (J.V. Stalin, Against the Vulgarizing of the Slogan of Self-Criticism, 1928)

"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, Pravda, No. 27, January 28, 1934)

Stalin was against excessive bureaucracy, clearly. This showed when through his efforts in raising cultural and educative levels; over 200,000 schools were created between 1930 and 1933, and the literacy rates improved from 70% to 90%. The Party itself was by 1933 comprised of 60% working class citizens, and throughout its existence the working class always comprised a large section of the Party. People were also free to criticize the Soviet government.

A Soviet émigré, interviewed by J. K. Zawodny in the early 1950s, as saying: "Honestly, I have to say that the People’s Court usually rendered just sentences favoring the workers, particularly with regard to housing cases". Another interviewee said: "anyone could complain in a formal way, especially when he had the law behind him. He could even write to a paper, and in this way let the higher officials know about his complaint."


Why call and ideology that has nothing to do with either Marx or Lenin "marxism-leninism"?

Where in Stalin's work does he call for "totalitarianism?" Where does he call for an ideology named off of himself? He rejected the label of "Stalinism" as mere pejorative based on misunderstanding. If you have read any of Stalin's work, you'd realize the entire foundation of his work is formed on the basis of defending Leninism.


When stalin was dead? Ah I suppose socialism in the soviet union died with the man of steel. how amusingly idealist of you. No I am not, I am well aware of sects such as the one you yourself belong to.

I am not saying that suddenly the Soviet Union just "destroyed socialism" all in one step, and that is the assumption countless Trots seem to make whenever someone mentions revisionism as being the cause for collapse in the Soviet Union. It took more than 30 years for socialism to finally collapse; more than 40 years for a superpower to collapse. It was not an overnight transition, but Khrushchev made sure to speed up the process.

I suggest examining The Restoration of Capitalism in the Soviet Union (http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/PS-USSR.html) for more information. Or examining Trotskyism or Leninism? (http://www.mediafire.com/?ixhhnalyhc1xkl7) by Harpal Brar. There is also 'Trotskyism or Leninism' by Stalin himself [which just the title alone proves Stalin was acting in defense of Leninism].

[DaringMehring]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFB9G1HINXI&feature=related

The fat Menshevik Vyshinsky recites lies about the October revolutionaries.

They're called a rightist bloc, while being convicted of an ultra-left plot to assassinate Lenin, Stalin, and Sverdlov in 1918 and "form a new government" (lol)

Supposedly, they had no real politics and were intellectually void (lol)

If you read the transcripts of the trials and see all the factual holes and ridiculous accusations (eg Zinoviev, Kamenev et al supposedly intentionally poisoning workers in Siberian factories, etc.), its even more comical.

What's not comical is that they were all tortured into confessions then executed. Even less funny is that people still support it today. Luckily they're already knee deep in the rubbish bin of history. I doubt they ever step out.

[Crux]

Y
At any rate, your polemic is from 1914 -- that's years before the revolutionary uprising. (And he compared Trotsky to Judas Golovyov, a character in Saltykov-Shchedrin's book -- that isn't the dude who betrayed Savior Jesus.)
A stalinist using Lenin quotes in an dishonest way to attack Trotsky? Who would have thought?

[Crux]

There was no disagreement between the Mensheviks and Trotsky on issues such as socialism in one country and the like.
Another bold faced lie.





I am not saying that suddenly the Soviet Union just "destroyed socialism" all in one step, and that is the assumption countless Trots seem to make whenever someone mentions revisionism as being the cause for collapse in the Soviet Union. It took more than 30 years for socialism to finally collapse; more than 40 years for a superpower to collapse. It was not an overnight transition, but Khrushchev made sure to speed up the process. Why hello there mr. strawman.


I suggest examining The Restoration of Capitalism in the Soviet Union (http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/PS-USSR.html) for more information. Or examining Trotskyism or Leninism? (http://www.mediafire.com/?ixhhnalyhc1xkl7) by Harpal Brar. There is also 'Trotskyism or Leninism' by Stalin himself [which just the title alone proves Stalin was acting in defense of Leninism].:laugh:

[Cyberwave]

Another bold faced lie.

"In the absence of direct state support on the part of the European proletariat, the Russian working class will not be able to keep itself in power and transform its temporary rule into a stable socialist dictatorship. No doubt as the truth of this is possible." (Leon Trotsky, Our Revolution, 1906)

"The assertion repeated several times in the Programme of Peace that the proletarian revolution cannot be carried through to a victorious end within the national framework will perhaps appear to many readers to have been refuted by the experience of our Soviet Republic for almost five years. Any such conclusion would be utterly without foundation... a steady rise in socialist economy in Russia will not be possible until after the victory of the proletariat in the leading countries of Europe." (Leon Trotsky, Postscript to the Programme of Peace, 1922).

The Menshevks stated: "Russia is a backward country, and therefore the sole possibility is a bourgeois revolution which will give an impetus to the development of capitalism in Russia."

Trotsky did believe that a proletarian revolution was possible in Russia, however, but both he and the Mensheviks did not believe socialism in one country was possible at all [although he hypocritically admitted Russia achieved socialism in 1936 in his writing]. In these regards, Trotsky may not have been "entirely" Menshevik, but the basics are still fundamentally the same, and at most Trotsky's positions were merely a new brand of Menshevism.


Why hello there mr. strawman.

Right, well, maybe come up with a better argument then "u dont support teh post stalin soviet union so ur gunna get killed wtf??"

[RED DAVE]

The Menshevks stated: "Russia is a backward country, and therefore the sole possibility is a bourgeois revolution which will give an impetus to the development of capitalism in Russia."

Trotsky did believe that a proletarian revolution was possible in Russia, however, but both he and the Mensheviks did not believe socialism in one country was possible at all [although he hypocritically admitted Russia achieved socialism in 1936 in his writing].(emph added)


In these regards, Trotsky may not have been "entirely" Menshevik, but the basics are still fundamentally the same, and at most Trotsky's positions were merely a new brand of Menshevism.In-fucking-credible!

You can't tell the difference between "a bourgeois revolution" (the Mensheviks) and "a proletarian revolution" (Trotsky). There's a job waiting for you in the US State Department., Department of Newspeak.

RED DAVE

[Cyberwave]

In-fucking-credible!

You can't tell the difference between "a bourgeois revolution" (the Mensheviks) and "a proletarian revolution" (Trotsky). There's a job waiting for you in the US State Department., Department of Newspeak.

In these regards, Trotsky may not have been "entirely" Menshevik, but the basics are still fundamentally the same, and at most Trotsky's positions were merely a new brand of Menshevism.

Both did not believe socialism could be built in one country, both argued against the Bolsheviks, both were childish, both were incapable of understanding Bolshevism, both were oppurtunistic, both were idealistic, but because one believe in proletarian revolution, I guess they were complete opposites. Even when Trotsky did "change his views" after joining the Bolsheviks, he still remained Menshevik-like in his nature.

[Zanthorus]

Trotsky... Mensheviks

Trotsky was somewhat more comfortable with the Mensheviks than with the Bolsheviks, mainly because he was not actually a "Menshevik" or a "Bolshevik" but prior to 1917 held a vague kind of "anti-sectarian" politics and the Mensheviks as a less "disciplined" group than the Bolsheviks fitted in more with this viewpoint. However it should be noted that during the second RSDLP congress when the Bolshevik/Menshevik split occured Lenin made several attempts to win Trotsky over to his side, sending his brother Dimitri Ulyanov to attempt to persuade him. Prior to this when Iskra was still a united group, Trotsky had held to all of Lenin's ideas on party organisation. Isaac Deutscher notes that one of the articles which Trotsky wrote while he was imprisoned after he was captured with Franz Shigovski for engaging in illegal political activity with the Southern-Russian Workers Union was essentially on the same lines as Lenin's Whats is to be Done? before Trotsky had really even heard of Lenin. It was What is to be Done? and the news about the formation of Iskra that convinced Trotsky to attempt escape from his Siberian exile and make his way to London to collobarate with Lenin. During the period between Trotsky's arrival in London and the RSDLP second congress he held to the same basic ideas as Lenin. Lenin and Martov even attempted to get Trotsky on the Iskra editorial board although the move was opposed by Plekhanov. There were also plans to get Trotsky back on the editorial board after the Mensheviks came to dominate it after the second congress, however Plekhanov opposed the move again (It would seem he was never all that fond of Trotsky).

Also, the time period which Trotsky could reasonably be said to hold to some form of "Menshevism" was relatively short and during this period he also published criticisms of the Menshevik leadership. In 1904 he made his way to Munich while attempting to escape the factional squabbles raging in the RSDLP and met Alexander Helphand Parvus, from whom he first picked up the idea of a "revolution in permanence". At this point in time he and Parvus were the only two major figures in the Russian Marxist movement who believed that the upcoming Russian revolution would be able to achieve socialism. Even the Bolsheviks thought that the social power of the peasantry would be too great and would force the revolution to come to a halt at the achievment of a bourgeois-democratic republic. The attack on "socialism in one country" was not in the forefront at this point in time, and only really became so in the mid-20's, in spite of your lame attempt to push that debate into a context where it was never really prominent. In fact, before Stalin used it as a stick to beat the Left Opposition with, practically all of the Marxist movement agreed that "socialism in one country" was impossible, even Stalin himself, so at that time the debate would have been somewhat redundant. In retrospect it would be nice if someone had briefly raised the point, since we wouldn't have to deal with the whole edifice of lies and calumniation which Stalinists have used since then to support their ridiculous thesis.

The idea that socialism could be achieved in Russia was of course finally acknowledged by Lenin in the April Theses, and Trotsky joined the Bolshevik party when he realised that the Mensheviks had become objectively counter-revolutionary. Together they formed a bloc against the Bolshevik-Centre of Kamenev, Zinoviev and Stalin and pushed for immediate insurrection against the provisional government. Trotsky personally led the Military-Revolutionary Committee which overthrew the provisional government during the Red October, and for this Lenin offered him a position as the leader of Sovnarkom (Which he rejected).

[el_chavista]

Was this a quotation from Trotsky when he was a menshevik?: "...the Central Committee substitutes the party and the leader substitutes the CC" (I can't remember the whole thing, but some people attribute (wrongly?) that quotation to Rosa Luxemburg).

About Trotsky's death I can't but bring about this other quotation from Nikolay Ostrovsky:


“Man's dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying, he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world – the fight for the Liberation of Mankind”

[Zanthorus]

Both did not believe socialism could be built in one country

The rest of your "criticisms" of Trotsky are just meaningless slurs. In fact I would've taken the opposite line and said that the "French Turn" proved that Trotsky still had somewhat vague rightist politics. That aside, if this reasoning is to be followed, Stalin would have to be considered "Menshevik-like in his nature" when he wrote the original edition of Foundations of Leninism:


The overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of a proletarian government in one country does not yet guarantee the complete victory of socialism. The main task of socialism - the organisation of socialist production - remains ahead. Can this task be accomplished, can the final victory of socialism in one country be attained, without the joint efforts of the proletariat of several advanced countries? No, this is impossible. To overthrow the bourgeoisie the efforts of one country are sufficient - the history of our revolution bears this out. For the final victory of Socialism, for the organisation of socialist production, the efforts of one country, particularly of such a peasant country as Russia, are insufficient. For this the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries are necessary.

[Cyberwave]

The rest of your "criticisms" of Trotsky are just meaningless slurs. In fact I would've taken the opposite line and said that the "French Turn" proved that Trotsky still had somewhat vague rightist politics. That aside, if this reasoning is to be followed, Stalin would have to be considered "Menshevik-like in his nature" when he wrote the original edition of Foundations of Leninism.

Well, I will grant you that I did not entirely consider context of the quotes, that much is true. But nonetheless, whereas Stalin had been consistent with the Bolsheviks and defending Lenin's line, Trotsky had always called for a less disciplined party and once involved with the Bolsheviks when the issue of socialism in one country did come up, he continued to generally oppose such a notion [where others accepted the possibility of socialism in one country]. When the debates on the subject became more prevalent in the 20s, Trotsky republished his 1905 work "The Year" and added a new preface that still reaffirmed his disdain for socialism in one country and Leninism.

"It was precisely during the interval between January 9 and the October strike of 1905 that the views on the character of the revolutionary development of Russia which came to be known as the theory of permanent revolution crystallized in the author's mind .... precisely in order to ensure its victory, the proletarian vanguard would be forced in the very early stages of its rule to make deep inroads not only into feudal property but into bourgeois property as well. In this it would come into hostile collision not only with all the bourgeois groupings which supported the proletariat during the first stages of its revolutionary struggle, but also with the broad masses of the peasantry with whose assistance it came into power. The contradictions in the position of a workers' government in a backward country with an overwhelmingly peasant population could be solved only on an international scale, in the arena of world proletarian revolution." (Leon Trotsky, The Year, 1922 edition).



"The fact that the workers' state has maintained itself against the entire world in a single and, moreover, backward country testifies to the colossal power of the proletariat which in other more advanced, more civilised countries, will truly be able to achieve miracles. But having defended ourselves as a state in the political and military sense, we have not arrived at, nor even approached socialist society .... Trade negotiations with bourgeois states, concessions, the Geneva Conference and so on are far too graphic evidence of the impossibility of isolated socialist construction within a national state-framework .... the genuine rise of socialist economy in Russia will become possible only after the victory of the proletariat in the most important countries of Europe." (Leon Trotsky, What is A Peace Programme?, 1922).



Essentially, Trotsky merely repeated himself from those previous years which I have mentioned. In 1919 he claimed once again that the working class could not remain in power without exporting revolution and the support of European countries. In these regards he did remain "Menshevik-like" more so than Stalin. In 1923 Trotsky attempted to replace current Bolshevik members with younger ones whom he could manipulate, and he attacked the Bolshevik leadership in Menshevik fashion. Generally speaking he merely took much of his attacks on Lenin and the Bolsheviks from 1904 and "updated" them, now moreover directed against Stalin. And after years of debate, once the debate was ended in 1927 [by vote] only a tiny fraction of the Party supported Trotsky, who by then was behaving childishly, and by the 30s and up until his death, then he behaved just moronically [e.g. collaboration with the FBI, opposition bloc].

[Zanthorus]

Trotsky had always called for a less disciplined party

This is false, as I pointed out above:


Prior to this when Iskra was still a united group, Trotsky had held to all of Lenin's ideas on party organisation. Isaac Deutscher notes that one of the articles which Trotsky wrote while he was imprisoned after he was captured with Franz Shigovski for engaging in illegal political activity with the Southern-Russian Workers Union was essentially on the same lines as Lenin's Whats is to be Done? before Trotsky had really even heard of Lenin. It was What is to be Done? and the news about the formation of Iskra that convinced Trotsky to attempt escape from his Siberian exile and make his way to London to collobarate with Lenin. During the period between Trotsky's arrival in London and the RSDLP second congress he held to the same basic ideas as Lenin.

Here is Robert Service on Trotsky's early adherence to Lenin's ideas on political organisation:


Although Trotsky had little to say in internal party disputes he supported the Iskra tenet that it would not do to trail along behind working-class opinion. The duty of Marxists, he stressed, was to work out what needed to be done and win the 'proletariat' over to their side... Echoing Lenin's What is to be Done?, Trotsky advocated a centralised, disciplined, clandestine party for Russia.

The evidence that Trotsky supported disciplined party organisation before he had even heard of Lenin can be found in Isaac Deutscher's biography of the man which I don't have to hand at the moment, but which I reccomend you have a read through so that you get at least one source which isn't a tissue of fabrication.


blah blah blah socialism in one country

Look, calling people "childish" isn't an argument. Do you actually have any reasons why Trotsky's position was as such, or are you just saying so because Trotsky was in a minority in the always-prescient CPSU (As were the revolutionary-internationalists in the second international, for that matter)?

[Kléber]

Essentially, Trotsky merely repeated himself from those previous years which I have mentioned. In 1919 he claimed once again that the working class could not remain in power without exporting revolution and the support of European countries.
And Trotsky was proven wrong, because the working class is still in power in the Soviet Union.. (or still in our hearts at least, where evil Trotsky can never take Soviet Union away)


In these regards he did remain "Menshevik-like" more so than Stalin. You mean he remained more Lenin-like than Stalin.


he behaved just moronically [e.g. collaboration with the FBI, opposition bloc]. The only thing moronic is recycling those lies. Especially when you are an apologist for the Hitler-Stalin alliance.

[Obs]

This thread makes me a bit uncomfortable... Am I seriously the only one who likes both Trotsky and Stalin?

[Cyberwave]

The only thing moronic is recycling those lies. Especially when you are an apologist for the Hitler-Stalin alliance.

Apologist? Not particularly...

"He met uncertainty with ambiguity. He staked out the middle ground without indicating the direction in which he might move. Events would dictate... The one certainty remained his belief, rooted in Leninism, of the inevitability of war.

[....]

In the parallel negotiations with the Anglo-French and the Germans during the summer of 1939, Stalin's dual aim was to avoid being drawn into a war that he believed inevitable, and to ensure that if and when he became involved it would be under the most favourable political and military circumstances....

The Nazi-Soviet Pact did not, by contrast, involve a military alliance, and Stalin refused to conclude one with Germany over the following months. Its main advantages in Stalin's mind were to keep the Soviet Union out of the coming 'imperialist war' ... Given his assumption that the war in the West would be prolonged... Stalin envisaged gaining a necessary breathing space because 'only by 1943 could we meet the Germans on an equal footing.' ....

The fall of France shattered his illusions of a stalemate...

That Stalin was stupefied by the German attack in June 1941... [made him] the victim of self-deception based on a set of perfectly rational, if faulty, calculations. He was convinced that Hitler would never risk repeating the error of the Germans in the First World War of fighting on two fronts." (Alfred J. Rieber, "Stalin as foreign policy-maker: avoiding war, 1927-1953" in Stalin: A New History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. pp. 143, 146-147.)

More information. (http://leninist.biz/en/0000/ALS00000/SE128.06-The.Fight.For.Peace.Fails)

[Blackscare]

Both did not believe socialism could be built in one country, both argued against the Bolsheviks, both were childish, both were incapable of understanding Bolshevism, both were oppurtunistic, both were idealistic, but because one believe in proletarian revolution, I guess they were complete opposites. Even when Trotsky did "change his views" after joining the Bolsheviks, he still remained Menshevik-like in his nature.

Wow, care to make one verifiable statement that isn't just an infantile insult?

[chegitz guevara]

Stalin may have sided with Lenin from pretty much 1903 onward, but for the vast majority of that time, he was a minor party member in Georgia or in Siberian exile. His rise to prominence was because he showed up in Petersburg after the revolution and said he was in charge.

Stalin was pretty much a continual fuck up through the civil war, pro-longing the war through his mishandling of both the Tsaritsyn front and his shenanigans in Poland. Stalin was Lenin's greatest mistake, and the world might well be communist today were it not for him. That, more than anything else, is his real crime.

[Cyberwave]

Stalin may have sided with Lenin from pretty much 1903 onward, but for the vast majority of that time, he was a minor party member in Georgia or in Siberian exile. His rise to prominence was because he showed up in Petersburg after the revolution and said he was in charge.

Stalin was pretty much a continual fuck up through the civil war, pro-longing the war through his mishandling of both the Tsaritsyn front and his shenanigans in Poland. Stalin was Lenin's greatest mistake, and the world might well be communist today were it not for him. That, more than anything else, is his real crime.

He was not particularly a minor party member and he stood by Lenin in near perfect consistency from the getgo. He organized numerous protests and other events. In February of 1902, more than 6000 workers responded to his calls for protest and such actions soon led to his meeting with Lenin. Even while in exile [he escaped numerous times anyway] he continued to write letters in efforts to organize protests and so forth as well. Then between 1905 and 1908, Stalin played a large role in the revolutionary activity that had occurred in Caucasus; he led more than 50,000 workers in Baku as well, and they then gained numerous rights and agreements from their employers. Lenin himself commended Stalin for his efforts. After the authorities once again sent Stalin to exile for his actions, he managed to return once again to Baku where unfortunately authorities managed to shutdown newspaper publications of all revolutionary content. But Stalin still continued to insist on the publication, showing his strong principality which again Lenin admired, and it was he who published the first edition of Pravda in I believe in 1912, which under his guidance, managed to circulate more than 70,000 copies.

After the revolution of February 1917 when Stalin returned to St. Petersburg, he was then elected to lead the Russian Bureau and lead Pravda's publication. He received high levels of approval and votes from many Party members during this time period. At one point Lenin was forced to hide from authorities somewhere in Europe and Stalin was given many of the tasks that Lenin himself had to complete, which he did quite well. Other things occurred as well that would refute the notion that Stalin was merely a second rate figure, or that he didn't do anything between 1903-1917. It is true that he gained prominence after returning to St. Petersburg, but do not forgot about all that he had done beforehand.

As for the civil war, this is not true. In 1917, the CC established some smaller committees to handle urgent business, and its members included Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky. Stalin was noted for constantly spending time with Lenin, who personally requested his assistance and aid. From 1918 to 1920 Stalin was one of the main leaders of the Party and he was likewise one of the main leaders of the military contrary to the claims that Trotsky, or others such as Bukharin were leaders [in fact Bukharin played little to no role]. Then comparing Stalin and Trotsky's policies, one would see Stalin held the better of the two. Lenin denounced the nationalistic policy of Trotsky as idealistic, as did Stalin, who realized that such policy [i.e. his refusal to sign the treaty with Germany and continue fighting] would be detrimental to Russia. Especially during this period, Trotsky failed at organization tasks that were assigned to him and Stalin was then handed over the tasks and managed to complete them. Many flaws can be traced back to Trotsky, Tukhachevsky, and so forth rather than solely Stalin. At any rate, much of the committee seemed to hold Stalin and Trotsky in equal admiration on occasions, but Trotsky tired to make himself out to be the better of the two in every possible way.

[S.Artesian]

Trotsky's position regarding the breaking off of talks with Germany re WW1 was not a unilateral unauthorized action. Lenin was in a distinct minority within the party, and indeed, when polled on whether to submit to the original German demands, 200 of the country's soviets voted for breaking off negotiations [Petrograd was in favor of signing the treaty].

Trotsky and Lenin had reached an agreement that although Lenin wanted to agree to the original demands and Trotsky did not, that if in fact Germany renewed its offensive, Trotsky would endorse Lenin's position regarding immediate acceptance of Germany's demands.

This in fact is was took place, with Trotsky's shift giving Lenin the majority he needed in the CC, and defeating the "ultra-left" advocates of "revolutionary war" grouped around Bukharin.

[RED DAVE]

In these regards, Trotsky may not have been "entirely" Menshevik, but the basics are still fundamentally the same, and at most Trotsky's positions were merely a new brand of Menshevism.Stuff and nonsense. Trotsky was a revolutionary Marxist. The Mensheviks were social democrats.


Both did not believe socialism could be built in one countryFor completely different reasons. The Mensheviks believed, mechanistically, that Russia had to go through a bourgeois revolution before it could experience a proletarian revolution. Trotsky believed, correctly, that a proletarian revolution in backward Russia would soon be isolated and defeated; nevertheless, he was the military leader of the seizure of power by the working class.


The both argued against the BolsheviksAhem, Trotsky was a member of the Bolsheviks, welcomed into the party and the leader of the actual seizure of power. The Mensheviks ended up as counter-revolutionaries. Does that make them the same?


[They] both were childishStop projecting.


both were incapable of understanding BolshevismTrotky's theory of the permanent revolution was the only complete theory of the Russian Revolution.


both were oppurtunistic [sic]Trotsky was critical of Lenin and principled, not idealistic.


both were idealistic, but because one believe in proletarian revolution, I guess they were complete opposites.Trotksy was a much a materialist as Lenin.


Even when Trotsky did "change his views" after joining the Bolsheviks, he still remained Menshevik-like in his nature.You have not given one substantial fact to support your argument. I suggest you read Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/hrr/), available online. You might learn something.

RED DAVE

[Queercommie Girl]

Too much sectarianism.

For the record, the new Maoist party in mainland China today, the MCPC, told me that they are not anti-Trotskyist and are willing to co-operate with Trotskyists. Also if the Maoists in China ever get into power, they will allow Trotskyists to operate, provided they obey certain basic principles and are not explicitly anti-Maoist. But most Chinese Trots don't want to work with the Maoists. Indeed, at the moment I can't even join the CWI because I'm still partially Maoist.

Also, my contact in the Maoist MCPC told me that he disagrees with the "brutal suppression of Trotskyists by Stalin" (his own words). When I asked him to comment on Mao locking Chinese Trotskyists into prison (but he didn't kill them unlike Stalin), he said Mao had no choice at the time. Many left Maoists in China today are generally very critical of Stalin, but they don't write him off completely, unlike the Trots.

Everyone makes mistakes. Including people like Lenin, Trotsky and Mao. Would Trotskyists ever "forgive" the Maoists if Trotsky and Chinese Trotskyists like Chen Duxiu are re-habilitated politically, and Maoists admit to Mao being wrong in the past for locking up some (but not all) of the Chinese Trotskyists? If Trots get into power, would you allow Maoist parties to freely operate, provided that they are not anti-Trotsky? If not, then I indeed wonder who is the more democratic here, Trotskyists or Maoists?

Books about Trotsky and famous Chinese Trotskyists like Chen Duxiu and Li Lisan are in open print in China today. China never denounced its Trotskyist elements to the same extent as the Soviet Union did. Chen Duxiu has always been widely respected as one of the two founding members of the Chinese Communist Party and the first General Secretary of the CCP from 1921 to 1927, even during the Maoist era. (It was Stalin who forced him to resign in 1927) There isn't the same kind of antagonism between Chinese Trotskyism and Maoism as there is between Western Trotskyism and Stalinism.

This is partly why I disagree with third-campist Trotskyists. The "Stalinist" bureaucracy is not an independent class in its own right, but a caste of the working class itself. Every worker can potentially degenerate into a bureaucrat. Consequently the political antagonism between the proletariat and the Stalinist bureaucracy is not irreconcilable like the antagonism between the proletariat and the capitalist class. I hope Western Trotskyists can potentially join up with Maoists again if Maoists openly politically re-habilitate Trotsky and Chen Duxiu and agree to the central Trotskyist doctrines such as proletarian democracy. After all, Trotskyism, in its original orthodox form, is simply a defence of the purest form of Marxism-Leninism, rather than starting something new. To use Maoist terminology, both Maoism and Trotskyism are anti-revisionist, but Trotskyists are even more anti-revisionist than Maoists, claiming that revisionism already occurred under Stalin.

Also, I don't know why people bring in the Kronstadt rebellion and Trotsky's role in that. I don't see the suppression in Kronstadt as essentially wrong. It is also illogical to compare that with the murder of Trotsky by Stalin. The suppression in Kronstadt was in defence of the democratic proletarian state, and worker's democracy does not equate with disorganised anarchist armed mob-rule. But by the time Trotsky was murdered, the USSR was already significantly deformed so it's not the same thing.

Personally, I come from a semi-working-class semi-petit-bureaucrat background in mainland China, so my political loyalties are naturally divided between Trotskyism and Maoism. However, I am quite fond of Trotsky but I only like the original orthodox form of Trotskyism, not the later "third-campist" state-capitalist Trotskyism that sees the Soviet Union and Mao's China as bad as US imperialism. With respect to capitalism I'm essentially a revolutionary, but with respect to Stalinism I am a "Trotskyite reformist".

But there are also elements in Trotskyism I do not like. One of these is the Western-centric idea that a socialist revolution can only be successful if a successful revolution happens in the more "advanced" West. It's like saying that Western workers are worth more than workers in the Third World. Such an idea may have some justification in the early 20th century, when only in the West does one find a large industrial working class, but not anymore, since much of the Third World has already been industrialised, and indeed much of the West is de-industrialising and shifting to the service sector. In some sense it is almost like the other way around today, as industrial workers do have a more significant role to play than workers in the service industry, due to their higher level of organisation and the more important role industry plays in the overall economy.

Generally speaking, I'm a pragmatist and I don't really care much for abstract theoretical and historical debates. All I want to see is results on the ground now, that's all I really care about. I call for all genuine Marxist-Leninists to unite and a combination of the best elements of each Marxist-Leninist tendency, such as proletarian democracy and internationalism in Trotskyism, anti-revisionism and Third Worldism in Maoism etc.

Ideology is like a hammer a worker uses, I have no ideological loyalties, I use whatever works best and discard whatever does not work. "It does not matter if it's a white cat or a black cat, if it can catch mice it is a good cat." As a saying of Chinese pragmatism goes.

[Cyberwave]

Stuff and nonsense. Trotsky was a revolutionary Marxist. The Mensheviks were social democrats.

Until 1917 Trotsky generally reffed to himself as a social democrat anyway [although yes, he did technically leave the Mensheviks at one point]. Given his repetition of capitalist lies about the Soviets, he ought to be perceived as similar to social democrats in those regards, eh? And likewise, a social democrat will probably be the same type of person to highly admire Trotsky.

“The Social Democratic Labour movement has no reason to fear the political activity of Trotsky. On the contrary the present-day Trotsky, torn by inner contradictions, is more likely to deal a death-blow to the Communist movement outside Russia and induce Communist workers to return to social democracy, than to strengthen any Communist Party or cause any injury to social democracy"



For completely different reasons. The Mensheviks believed, mechanistically, that Russia had to go through a bourgeois revolution before it could experience a proletarian revolution. Trotsky believed, correctly, that a proletarian revolution in backward Russia would soon be isolated and defeated; nevertheless, he was the military leader of the seizure of power by the working class.

Both the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks believed that a bourgeois revolution was necessary, but only the Bolsheviks [and Trotsky] believed that it could be carried out through the proletariat. Considering the European countries with revolutionary potential were already waning in their revolutionary activity, it was up to the Russian proletariat and peasantry to build socialism. And contrary to Trotsky's claim, they were not isolated or defeated. And neveretheless, where Trotsky did accomplish military victories, Stalin accomplished plenty himself, and as mentioned, Trotsky was upset that the spotlight was not constantly on him.


Trotky's theory of the permanent revolution was the only complete theory of the Russian Revolution.

Granted that the goal of socialism in one country is eventually to "spread," one could argue that inevitably socialist revolution will take place on international scale without the need of "permanent revolution." At any rate, given Trotsky's inherently anti-peasant approach, it is hardly plausible to say his was the most "complete" theory. For Trotsky, socialism was only "complete" the day that the Germans and the like would rise up, but therefore he completely downplayed the role of the Russians themselves, and was essentially behaving as a defeatist, taking what he wrote prior to joining the Bolsheviks, and repeating it starting especially in 1919.


Trotsky was critical of Lenin and principled, not idealistic.

Permanent revolution is idealistic. The idealism of theory manifests itself when Trots who consistently insist that the Soviets should have supported every "revolution" (whether imagined or real) in every possible country. These Trots often forget their own theory, that the USSR was supposed to be "hopeless" and backwards, dependent on the support of advanced capitalist countries, which then were supposedly the very countries where the Soviets where supposed to support "revolution." How, then, was a backward and supposedly helpless country supposed to support revolution? With soldiers that were not trained? With tanks and bombers that would have crippled the already weak economy? The Soviets supposedly "need" Western nations to have supported socialism, which we would assume would produce what would be necessary for defense, but those Western nations need the arms and the power of the Soviets to effect their own revolutions so they can assist the USSR. And yet Trots don't see this.

Plus the theory, and Trotskyists have trouble explaining why a revolution in a country wouldn't lead to bureaucracy. Using Germany as an example, say that the proletariat of the nation is more educated than those of the Soviets. But do they have the requisites for running a socialist economy? No. And then what would the state support to the Soviets exactly entail, and why would it somehow help them anymore then they were already capable of helping themselves? Wasn't the USSR supposed to spread revolution in the first place? How could they have done that as representatives of socialism when they themselves supposedly couldn't build socialism without the support of those they're bringing the revolution to [e.g. Germany]? And so when the Soviets arrive in Germany and say "We're here to bring you socialism, because we can't build socialism and need your help..."

[DaringMehring]

blah

"The Communists must exert every effort to direct the working-class movement and social development in general along the straightest and shortest road to the victory of Soviet power and the dictatorship of the proletariat on a world-wide scale. That is an incontestable truth." - Lenin, Left-Wing Communism, 1920

Have you read the classics?

Your post is filled with muddling (but how can revolution *not* degenerate into bureaucracy? --- how can a backward country ever hope to aid revolutions in more advanced countries? etc.). There are answers to these questions. You might want to consider further study to clarify your own thinking, before condemning veteran revolutionary leaders who actually managed to lead a successful working class revolution based on the ideas of Marxism.

[Cyberwave]

"The Communists must exert every effort to direct the working-class movement and social development in general along the straightest and shortest road to the victory of Soviet power and the dictatorship of the proletariat on a world-wide scale. That is an incontestable truth." - Lenin, Left-Wing Communism, 1920

Have you read the classics?

Your post is filled with muddling (but how can revolution *not* degenerate into bureaucracy? --- how can a backward country ever hope to aid revolutions in more advanced countries? etc.). There are answers to these questions. You might want to consider further study to clarify your own thinking, before condemning veteran revolutionary leaders who actually managed to lead a successful working class revolution based on the ideas of Marxism.


Lenin would not have been Lenin, that is, he would not have been the practical leader of millions in class war, if he had really taken over Trotsky’s equipment, for Trotsky’s theory would have inevitably led to the breakdown of the proletariat, and of the peasantry as well. In its pure form, the line taken by Trotsky is simply the ignoring of the peasantry, the ignoring of that transition stage during which the peasantry still places its confidence in the ruling bourgeoisie at first, is disappointed and turns against the bourgeoisie, but still does not join the proletariat; this transitional stage which ends by the proletariat taking over the leadership of the peasantry in the form of peasant’s risings, realising the dictatorship, and endeavouring to bring about an alliance between workers and peasants in various and changing forms.

Lenin, in the same pamphlet in which he wrote against the old Bolsheviki, states:


“In my theses I have secured myself against any leaps over agrarian or petty bourgeois movements which have not yet been overcome, against any playing with ‘seizure of power’ by a labour government . . . ‘Trotskyism, down with the Tsar, up with the labour government’—is wrong. The petty bourgeoisie (that is, the peasantry—L.K.) exists, and cannot be ignored.”



[...]


It is possible to omit some of these facts of the October revolution; but their we do not arrive at any scientific analysis of Lenin’s policy. And what abort, the transition from war Communism to the new economic policy, from the committees for the impoverished peasantry to Lenin’s speech on the “medium farmers?” How can this be brought into harmony with that theory of permanent revolution which has proved so “perfectly correct?”



[...]



It is with great regret that I state this, and the whole Party will echo this regret, but it has to be said: Comrade Trotsky has become the channel through which the elementary forces of the petty bourgeoisie find their way into our Party. The whole character of his advances, and his whole historical past, show this to be the case. In his contentions against the Party he leas already become a symbol, all over the country, for everything directed against our Party. This is a fact which it is most important for Comrade Trotsky to grasp. If he will grasp this and draw the necessary conclusions, then everything can be made good again. Whether he wants it or not (and assuredly he does not want it) he has become, for all who regard Communism as their greatest enemy, a symbol for emancipation from the thrall of the Communist Party. This is the regrettable but perfectly inevitable conclusion of all who are accustomed to judge political events from the standpoint of actual analysis of class relations, and not from the standpoint of mere words.


I was getting at the problem with Trotskyists themselves, that many can't seem to answer them, even if Trotskyism itself can. As for Lenin himself and the quote:

"At the present moment in history, however, it is the Russian model that reveals to all countries something—and something highly significant—of their near and inevitable future. Advanced workers in all lands have long realised this; more often than not, they have grasped it with their revolutionary class instinct rather than realised it. Herein lies the international "significance" (in the narrow sense of the word) of Soviet power, and of the fundamentals of Bolshevik theory and tactics. The "revolutionary" leaders of the Second International, such as Kautsky in Germany and Otto Bauer and Friedrich Adler in Austria, have failed to understand this, which is why they have proved to be reactionaries and advocates of the worst kind of opportunism and social treachery. Incidentally, the anonymous pamphlet entitled The World Revolution (Weltrevolution), which appeared in Vienna in 1919 (Sozialistische Bucherei, Heft 11; Ignaz Brand), very clearly reveals their entire thinking and their entire range of ideas, or, rather, the full extent of their stupidity, pedantry, baseness and betrayal of working-class interests—and that, moreover, under the guise of "defending" the idea of "world revolution". (Left Wing Communism, 1920, Lenin).

Plus, I noticed you cut the quote short. The final part of the quote is: "But it is enough to take one little step farther—a step that might seem to be in the same direction—and truth turns into error." In these regards, Lenin is not calling for "world revolution." And it is important to recognize that SIOC does not mean anti-internationalism either for that matter.

[chegitz guevara]

Until 1917 Trotsky generally reffed to himself as a social democrat anyway

Just like every other Marxist in the world!!!!! ... including Lenin and Stalin.


Both the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks believed that a bourgeois revolution was necessary, but only the Bolsheviks [and Trotsky] believed that it could be carried out through the proletariat. Considering the European countries with revolutionary potential were already waning in their revolutionary activity, it was up to the Russian proletariat and peasantry to build socialism. And contrary to Trotsky's claim, they were not isolated or defeated.

Really? My mistake. I seemed to remember that the USSR ceased to exist 19 years ago.


And neveretheless, where Trotsky did accomplish military victories, Stalin accomplished plenty himself, and as mentioned, Trotsky was upset that the spotlight was not constantly on him.

No, he did not. He needed Trotsky to pull his ass out of the fire in Tsaritsyn and he caused the defeat of the Russians in Poland. Stalin only managed to win WWII by letting his generals do the winning.


Permanent revolution is idealistic.

Permanent revolution is what happened. The workers made a bourgeois revolution in Russia, then carried it over into a proletarian revolution. That, and that alone, is the permanent revolution.

The rest of what you wrote has nothing to do with the TPR.

[Queercommie Girl]

Plus, I noticed you cut the quote short. The final part of the quote is: "But it is enough to take one little step farther—a step that might seem to be in the same direction—and truth turns into error."In these regards, Lenin is not calling for "world revolution." And it is important to recognize that SIOC does not mean anti-internationalism either for that matter.


Or as a Chinese dialectical saying goes: "When a thing goes to its extreme, it will shift to its opposite".

Ultra-leftism under certain conditions may shift to ultra-rightism.

To be fair to Trotsky though, people mis-interpreting Trotsky and misusing his ideas, sometimes to ridiculous extremes, isn't primarily Trotsky's fault and he can't be held responsible for it. Maoism has also been misused by many people. Even the corrupt bureaucratic capitalists in China today quote Mao to support their own regime.

There is a difference between Trotsky the person and what many people today consider as "Trotskyism".

[Adi Shankara]

I love the people who bash Trotsky for many reasons, esp. the ones who call him "reactionary", considering he did more to advance communism than Stalin ever did; Trotsky believed in Marxism; Stalin believed in Stalin.

[Cyberwave]

Just like every other Marxist in the world!!!!! ... including Lenin and Stalin.

I was comparing to "modern" social democrats inherently. The RSDLP and the CPSU for that matter were historically different from today's social democrats, but I suppose one could examine international context [e.g. the term seemingly meaning different things depending on one's position in the world].


eally? My mistake. I seemed to remember that the USSR ceased to exist 19 years ago.No shit, but the collapse had nothing to do with Stalin, Lenin, or even socialism for that matter, but again, it took 35 years for the USSR to cease it's existence, whereas it had built socialism for nearly 40.


No, he did not. He needed Trotsky to pull his ass out of the fire in Tsaritsyn and he caused the defeat of the Russians in Poland. Stalin only managed to win WWII by letting his generals do the winning.but i thout stalin purged all his generalz cuz he was so paranoid??? which is it??//?


Permanent revolution is what happened. The workers made a bourgeois revolution in Russia, then carried it over into a proletarian revolution. That, and that alone, is the permanent revolution.That is not the entire theory, not at all. Trotsky himself specifically stated numerous times, where mentioning the theory, that one of the most important parts was to gain the aid of the proletariat in the West, or else the proletarian revolution would fail.


I love the people who bash Trotsky for many reasons, esp. the ones who call him "reactionary", considering he did more to advance communism than Stalin ever did; Trotsky believed in Marxism; Stalin believed in Stalin.

Based on? If anything it was the other away around, especially when one looks at Trotsky's quotes to portray Stalin as a "third rate" figure.

Trotskyism is anti-Marxism. (http://home.flash.net/~comvoice/30cTrotsky.html)

[ComradeOm]

They say that because as Lenin had called him out before, Trotsky was an opportunist who jumped parties when he thought they were winning. Lenin once called him "Judas Trotsky"

read: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/may/x01.htmAre you aware that at no point in this work the term "Judas Trotsky" appears? Lenin uses a comparison to 'Little Judas Golovlyov' from a 19th C Russian literally work. Not a particularly flattering comparison, but one that entirely lacks any connotations of treachery or similar behaviour that we associate with Judas figures

[Cyberwave]

Are you aware that at no point in this work the term "Judas Trotsky" appears? Lenin uses a comparison to 'Little Judas Golovlyov' from a 19th C Russian literally work. Not a particularly flattering comparison, but one that entirely lacks any connotations of treachery or similar behaviour that we associate with Judas figures

The term "Judas Trotsky" does not appear, but nonetheless:

Trotsky’s “non-factionalism” is, actually, splitting tactics, in that it shamelessly flouts the will of the majority of the workers.

If you are a uniter, my dear Trotsky, if you say that it is possible to unite with the liquidators, if you and they stand by the “fundamental ideas formulated in August 1912” (Borba No. 1, p. 43, Editorial Note), why did not you yourself unite with the liquidators in Nasha Zarya and Luch?

By concealing this break-up from his readers, Trotsky is deceiving them.

[ETC].

There is plenty of criticism of Trotsky otherwise in the work.

Judas Trotsky. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1911/jan/02.htm)

[RED DAVE]

That is not the entire theory, not at all. Trotsky himself specifically stated numerous times, where mentioning the theory, that one of the most important parts was to gain the aid of the proletariat in the West, or else the proletarian revolution would fail.And he was right.

RED DAVE

[Crux]

I was comparing to "modern" social democrats inherently. The RSDLP and the CPSU for that matter were historically different from today's social democrats, but I suppose one could examine international context [e.g. the term seemingly meaning different things depending on one's position in the world].
How incredible dishonest, ahistorical and trollish of you. Lenin, for the most of his political career was a social democrat, by the same token. As was Marx when the term came into fashion. But I see facts and history are things you have not even the faintest grasp of.

[Cyberwave]

How incredible dishonest, ahistorical and trollish of you. Lenin, for the most of his political career was a social democrat, by the same token. As was Marx when the term came into fashion. But I see facts and history are things you have not even the faintest grasp of.

I know he was a social democrat and I know that the term was far more broad during this period of time, but I was making a comparison between more modernized social-democrats [e.g. non-Communists] to Trotsky. Historically speaking, there were two main examples of social democrats, the more legitimately Marxist or Communist leaning, and the more Utopian leaning, and if we want to analyze Trotsky solely in these regards, he would occasionally present himself in the latter of two. But I'm just a Stalinist who knows nothing of anything, so I'm probably wrong.

[DaringMehring]

blah

Like most anti-Trotsky "Marxist-Leninists" the sources given here are from pre-1917 Lenin v. Trotsky polemics, and from enemies of Trotsky after the death of Lenin (when Kamenev wrote that piece he was in the troika with Zinoviev and Stalin --- how quickly he changed his tune!).

Everybody knows that Lenin and Trotsky had several feuds (there were also some periods of relative peace) pre-1917. In 1917 they came together, each admitting some wrong, mainly Trotsky admitting wrong on the theory of the Party and Lenin on the possibility of a socialist revolution rather than just a bourgeois one.

Lenin's famous quote is "since 1917 there has been no better Bolshevik than Trotsky." But if you want to pull words from some 1912 polemic, go ahead, just don't pretend it isn't something other than fodder for the simpleminded.

Its also a bit comical that you would refer to Kamenev, who was sentenced to death as a rightist, wrecker, traitor by the glorious Stalin.

Also bears mentioning in the discussion of who was or was not a Menshevik, that the prosecutor of the Moscow trials Vyshinsky was a Menshevik *during the civil war*.

Or you could look at the history of the big Stalinist parties, at their spinelessness and reformism, but lets not get too heavy and intellectual here...

[Cyberwave]

Like most anti-Trotsky "Marxist-Leninists" the sources given here are from pre-1917 Lenin v. Trotsky polemics, and from enemies of Trotsky after the death of Lenin (when Kamenev wrote that piece he was in the troika with Zinoviev and Stalin --- how quickly he changed his tune!).

Yes, he changed his views [numerously] but nonetheless the text was interesting and in all actuality it was a less "harsh" attack against Trotsky so I hardly see problem with referencing it. Even Zinoviev, someone who confessed to numerous plans of killing Stalin, later admired Stalin as one of the most genuine leaders.


Everybody knows that Lenin and Trotsky had several feuds (there were also some periods of relative peace) pre-1917. In 1917 they came together, each admitting some wrong, mainly Trotsky admitting wrong on the theory of the Party and Lenin on the possibility of a socialist revolution rather than just a bourgeois one.

Lenin's famous quote is "since 1917 there has been no better Bolshevik than Trotsky." But if you want to pull words from some 1912 polemic, go ahead, just don't pretend it isn't something other than fodder for the simpleminded.


Not everybody knows that, as many textbooks and the like portray the two as constantly in companionship. But where did Lenin say that? I have not heard him say such a thing. I do of course admit that Lenin and Trotsky both would compliment each other plenty of times, but as far as I'm concerned their relationship was always shifting, always ambivalent, bordering disdain. There were still numerous criticisms of Trotsky during and after 1917 for that matter, and numerous criticisms of Lenin and the Bolsheviks by Trotsky as well.

[Crux]

I know he was a social democrat and I know that the term was far more broad during this period of time, but I was making a comparison between more modernized social-democrats [e.g. non-Communists] to Trotsky. [...] I'm probably wrong.
You did no such thing you just twisted words. And yes you are. As I said, if you want to pin Trotsky as a social democrat, you'd have to include Lenin, Marx and Luxemburg as well. Saying you're just ill-informed is giving you a benefit of the doubt you do not deserve.

[Crux]

Yes, he changed his views [numerously] but nonetheless the text was interesting and in all actuality it was a less "harsh" attack against Trotsky so I hardly see problem with referencing it. Even Zinoviev, someone who confessed to numerous plans of killing Stalin, later admired Stalin as one of the most genuine leaders.



Not everybody knows that, as many textbooks[...]
Which? Stop using weasel phrases.

And I would laugh at that if it wasn't so horribly fucking tragic. You're defending a murderer while referring to one of his victims? Classy.

Zinoviev And Kamenev (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1937/xx/kamzinov.htm)

[The Hong Se Sun]

I love Stalin/Trotsky shit storms

[S.Artesian]

I know he was a social democrat and I know that the term was far more broad during this period of time, but I was making a comparison between more modernized social-democrats [e.g. non-Communists] to Trotsky. Historically speaking, there were two main examples of social democrats, the more legitimately Marxist or Communist leaning, and the more Utopian leaning, and if we want to analyze Trotsky solely in these regards, he would occasionally present himself in the latter of two. But I'm just a Stalinist who knows nothing of anything, so I'm probably wrong.


What you are is a peddler of mis-information, a shopkeeper of historical inaccuracy. An uncharitable sort would call you a liar.

[Queercommie Girl]

And he was right.

RED DAVE

In the early 20th century perhaps, but not necessarily in the 21st century.

The Trotskyist analysis is simply that the West had a more powerful and organised industrial working class, which has more potential revolutionary power than backward peasant-dominated countries like Russia and China. This analysis is correct to a significant extent, but Trotsky never meant to suggest anything like "there is something special about Western workers or Western culture" in any kind of ridiculous cultural essentialist sense.

If anything, in the 21st century it might be the other way around, as many developing countries like China are rapidly industrialising and the West is actually de-industrialising and switching to the service sector. The key word here is "industrial workers rule", not the semi-racist bullshit of "Western workers rule". Industrialisation is fundamentally internationalist in character and knows no West or East.

Frankly, it's fucking annoyingly patronising for workers in the West to have some kind of bullshit superiority complex, as if they are the "big brother" of workers in the Third World.

[DaringMehring]

In the early 20th century perhaps, but not necessarily in the 21st century.

The Trotskyist analysis is simply that the West had a more powerful and organised industrial working class, which has more potential revolutionary power than backward peasant-dominated countries like Russia and China. This analysis is correct to a significant extent, but Trotsky never meant to suggest anything like "there is something special about Western workers or Western culture" in any kind of ridiculous cultural essentialist sense.

If anything, in the 21st century it might be the other way around, as many developing countries like China are rapidly industrialising and the West is actually de-industrialising and switching to the service sector. The key word here is "industrial workers rule", not the semi-racist bullshit of "Western workers rule". Industrialisation is fundamentally internationalist in character and knows no West or East.

Frankly, it's fucking annoyingly patronising for workers in the West to have some kind of bullshit superiority complex, as if they are the "big brother" of workers in the Third World.

You are partially correct in that there is nothing essentially superior about "western culture" etc. and the prognosis is entirely based on material culture. But, it is not just about industrialization --- it is about the development of the forces of production.

Forces of production have to be advanced enough to create general abundance. You can't make socialism out of straw huts, subsistence agriculture, and small-time sweatshops.

But these are just material preconditions --- Trotskyism, in the theory of permanent revolution, says that, like Russia, a backward country can go to socialist relations of production without first establishing capitalist relations, as the "two-stage" theory of the Mensheviks and Marxist-Leninist(-Maoists) says. Therefore, Trotskyism is more third-world friendly and less condescending than these ideologies, in a certain sense.

[Queercommie Girl]

You are partially correct in that there is nothing essentially superior about "western culture" etc. and the prognosis is entirely based on material culture. But, it is not just about industrialization --- it is about the development of the forces of production.

Forces of production have to be advanced enough to create general abundance. You can't make socialism out of straw huts, subsistence agriculture, and small-time sweatshops.

But these are just material preconditions --- Trotskyism, in the theory of permanent revolution, says that, like Russia, a backward country can go to socialist relations of production without first establishing capitalist relations, as the "two-stage" theory of the Mensheviks and Marxist-Leninist(-Maoists) says. Therefore, Trotskyism is more third-world friendly and less condescending than these ideologies, in a certain sense.

You have some point.

Trotskyists, being political under-dogs who are persecuted by almost everyone - Stalinists, Maoists, neo-liberals, Labourites, religious groups etc, do tend to be more LGBT-friendly. (There is a common feeling of "being the under-dog") This I give credit to Trotskyists. Of course, not all Trots are pro-LGBT, some Trots have called LGBT issues a kind of "petit-bourgeois nonsense", though it is debatable how serious they meant it, as they called feminism and black rights also a kind of "petit-bourgeois nonsense", so it wasn't just singling out LGBT people.

As one can see here on RevLeft, most of those people who are borderline homophobic and transphobic (you don't really get hardcore homophobes/transphobes here) tend to be M-L "tankies" and Stalinists, not Trots. Trots don't always consider LGBT to be a major issue, which is fair enough to some extent given the extremely limited political resources Trots have, but most Trots explicitly support LGBT rights at least in principle. Most serious Marxist analysis of LGBT issues are produced by Trots, like the books by the British SWP. The anarchists may also be pro-LGBT in theory, but as always they don't have much of a real theoretical analysis on anything.

[RED DAVE]

The Trotskyist analysis is simply that the West had a more powerful and organised industrial working class, which has more potential revolutionary power than backward peasant-dominated countries like Russia and China. This analysis is correct to a significant extent, but Trotsky never meant to suggest anything like "there is something special about Western workers or Western culture" in any kind of ridiculous cultural essentialist sense.Correct.


If anything, in the 21st century it might be the other way around, as many developing countries like China are rapidly industrialising and the West is actually de-industrialising and switching to the service sector. The key word here is "industrial workers rule", not the semi-racist bullshit of "Western workers rule". Industrialisation is fundamentally internationalist in character and knows no West or East.Absolutely.


Frankly, it's fucking annoyingly patronising for workers in the West to have some kind of bullshit superiority complex, as if they are the "big brother" of workers in the Third World.You hear it less and less these days, except from the Right, who are fulminating against the Mexicans and other "ignorant, backward" foreigners.

Interestingly, I just had occasion to go over the minutes of the Socialist Party convention of 1908. And, back then, there was a whole racist debate about Chinese exclusion. The only black delegate, George Woodbey, spoke out eloquently against this shit.

RED DAVE

[Kayser_Soso]

As one can see here on RevLeft, most of those people who are borderline homophobic and transphobic (you don't really get hardcore homophobes/transphobes here) tend to be M-L "tankies" and Stalinists, not Trots.


What the hell are you basing this bizarre claim on? Tankies maybe, but we have plenty of LGBT supporters amongst us evil Stalinists.

[Kayser_Soso]

I'd just like to see a Trot actually explain their theories in detail some time. Yes we all know what Permanent revolution means. Yes we all know that the organization of the working class in the industrialized West was stronger at the time. Ok great- now explain to us exactly what SHOULD have happened so we can analyze this detailed plan and see how feasible it was at the time.

[Queercommie Girl]

What the hell are you basing this bizarre claim on? Tankies maybe, but we have plenty of LGBT supporters amongst us evil Stalinists.

For the record, you should know that I'm not a sectarianist and I don't completely write-off Stalin as "evil". Stalin was a product of his times, but he was still subjectively a genuine socialist, despite making many mistakes, and he led a rather frugal lifestyle, not like the bureaucratic capitalists in China today. Stalin also played a positive role in WWII against Nazi Germany, that was his most significant contribution in my opinion.

Also, I'm a supporter of the MCPC, the new Maoist party in China. No Maoist, even left Maoists, would ever completely reject Stalin.

However, as for LGBT issues, I can't directly speak for Stalinists on a personal level, but take the MCPC for example, I can't even tell them I'm queer. I assume Maoists and Stalinists have similar views on this kind of thing. Also, didn't Stalin explicitly outlaw homosexuality in 1931 with the introduction of Article 131, thus reversing the progressive gain made by the 1917 Bolshevik revolution?

[RED DAVE]

I'd just like to see a Trot actually explain their theories in detail some time. Yes we all know what Permanent revolution means. Yes we all know that the organization of the working class in the industrialized West was stronger at the time.Both of which were denied, politically by stalinists at the time.


Ok great- now explain to us exactly what SHOULD have happened so we can analyze this detailed plan and see how feasible it was at the time.Keep the working class in charge of production; eliminate bureaucratic control; permit a multiparty system of all parties that accept the revolution.

Most important would have been: (1) Engage in a revolutionary alliance with the Social Democrats in Germany against the nazis. (2) Don't push the Chinese CP into an alliance with the KMT. (3) Give maximum, not piddling, support to the Spanish Civil War.

These three mistakes alone were enough to fuck up the history of the world.

RED DAVE

[Queercommie Girl]

Personally, I think one-party vs. multi-party isn't essential.

If it's a single party, it needs to be thoroughly democratic within the party with direct democracy, and potential membership open to all adults.

If it's a multi-party system, then only socialist parties and those that agree with the basic socialist constitution (e.g. collective ownership, proletarian democracy) should be allowed.

[Kayser_Soso]

Keep the working class in charge of production; eliminate bureaucratic control; permit a multiparty system of all parties that accept the revolution.

First of all, was this even possible at the time(about the working class in control)? Experience showed it wasn't. As for the rest of this, why would this work?



Most important would have been: (1) Engage in a revolutionary alliance with the Social Democrats in Germany against the nazis.

Blame the Social Democrats for that.



(2) Don't push the Chinese CP into an alliance with the KMT.

This is arguable but we cannot say what would have come of it.



(3) Give maximum, not piddling, support to the Spanish Civil War.

That's hilarious. How was such a backward country that was supposedly unable to construct socialism able to give more support than it did?

[Barry Lyndon]

a) This is arguable but we cannot say what would have come of it.

b) That's hilarious. How was such a backward country that was supposedly unable to construct socialism able to give more support than it did?

a) Perhaps, but it didn't take a genius to see that ordering the Communists to hand over their membership lists to a blood-soaked reactionary like Chiang Kai-Shek was not going to end well.

b) Maybe not give more support then it did, but refraining from armed attacks on the anarchists in Barcelona during the 1937 'May Days' would have helped.

[Queercommie Girl]

a) Perhaps, but it didn't take a genius to see that ordering the Communists to hand over their membership lists to a blood-soaked reactionary like Chiang Kai-Shek was not going to end well.


Very well said. :thumbup1:

[Queercommie Girl]

Permanent revolution is idealistic. The idealism of theory manifests itself when Trots who consistently insist that the Soviets should have supported every "revolution" (whether imagined or real) in every possible country. These Trots often forget their own theory, that the USSR was supposed to be "hopeless" and backwards, dependent on the support of advanced capitalist countries, which then were supposedly the very countries where the Soviets where supposed to support "revolution." How, then, was a backward and supposedly helpless country supposed to support revolution? With soldiers that were not trained? With tanks and bombers that would have crippled the already weak economy? The Soviets supposedly "need" Western nations to have supported socialism, which we would assume would produce what would be necessary for defense, but those Western nations need the arms and the power of the Soviets to effect their own revolutions so they can assist the USSR. And yet Trots don't see this.

Plus the theory, and Trotskyists have trouble explaining why a revolution in a country wouldn't lead to bureaucracy. Using Germany as an example, say that the proletariat of the nation is more educated than those of the Soviets. But do they have the requisites for running a socialist economy? No. And then what would the state support to the Soviets exactly entail, and why would it somehow help them anymore then they were already capable of helping themselves? Wasn't the USSR supposed to spread revolution in the first place? How could they have done that as representatives of socialism when they themselves supposedly couldn't build socialism without the support of those they're bringing the revolution to [e.g. Germany]? And so when the Soviets arrive in Germany and say "We're here to bring you socialism, because we can't build socialism and need your help..."

Now I am a Trot sympathiser and certainly I'm not anti-Trot. But it has to be said there is an element of truth is his logic here.

Contemporary Maoists in China, who are not anti-Trot, explicitly label Trotskyism as subjective-idealist.

One consistent problem of Trotskyism is this: Trotskyists always mean well, they are always courageous, they are perhaps the most loyal and most dedicated Marxist-Leninists of all the different M-L tendencies. They continue to struggle on when everyone else falters, even in the most difficult of conditions, even against the mostly unlikeliest of odds.

For this I genuinely applaud Trotskyism.

But Trots are not pragmatic enough. They are too much principle and too little strategy.

Trots need to study the Art of War more. They need to realise that the real world is a harsh place. Sometimes one have no choice but to abandon his/her most cherished principles, even to the extent of hurting completely innocent people, in order to acquire a strategic advantage.

In short, Trots need to know more about realpolitik.

Also the subjective-idealist element in Trotskyism means that Trots have the tendency to see themselves as "always right". Trots are egoistical, they rarely genuinely admit "I am wrong". This is partly why Trot parties and organisations keep on splitting more and more, but you never see two Trot parties really joining up like Maoist parties do.

[Ghost Hound]

Now I am a Trot sympathiser and certainly I'm not anti-Trot. But it has to be said there is an element of truth is his logic here.

Contemporary Maoists in China, who are not anti-Trot, explicitly label Trotskyism as subjective-idealist.

[...]

Trotskyists always mean well

[etc.]

Ironically, I have heard the term "subjective-idealist" used to refer to nihilism. At any rate, I am assuming the sympathy for Trotskyists depends on the movement of Maoists, much like the variations among Trotskyist groups [e.g. Cliffites versus 'pure Trots']. But as for Trotskyists meaning well, I agree, but likewise that is one of the problems with Trotskyists. They wish for as little bureaucracy as possible, and they wish for anti-authoritarianism, but so much of their views are inherently based on misunderstanding history, or as you said, idealism.

[Queercommie Girl]

Ironically, I have heard the term "subjective-idealist" used to refer to nihilism. At any rate, I am assuming the sympathy for Trotskyists depends on the movement of Maoists, much like the variations among Trotskyist groups [e.g. Cliffites versus 'pure Trots'].

Yes, you are right. Left Maoists are more sympathetic to Trots than orthodox M-L-Ms.

[Barry Lyndon]

Now I am a Trot sympathiser and certainly I'm not anti-Trot. But it has to be said there is an element of truth is his logic here.

Contemporary Maoists in China, who are not anti-Trot, explicitly label Trotskyism as subjective-idealist.

One consistent problem of Trotskyism is this: Trotskyists always mean well, they are always courageous, they are perhaps the most loyal and most dedicated Marxist-Leninists of all the different M-L tendencies. They continue to struggle on when everyone else falters, even in the most difficult of conditions, even against the mostly unlikeliest of odds.

For this I genuinely applaud Trotskyism.

But Trots are not pragmatic enough. They are too much principle and too little strategy.

Trots need to study the Art of War more. They need to realise that the real world is a harsh place. Sometimes one have no choice but to abandon his/her most cherished principles, even to the extent of hurting completely innocent people, in order to acquire a strategic advantage.

In short, Trots need to know more about realpolitik.

Also the subjective-idealist element in Trotskyism means that Trots have the tendency to see themselves as "always right". Trots are egoistical, they rarely genuinely admit "I am wrong". This is partly why Trot parties and organisations keep on splitting more and more, but you never see two Trot parties really joining up like Maoist parties do.

This. It's exactly the reason that I no longer identify as a Trotskyist, even though I have enormous respect and admiration for Trotsky the man and for his ideas. I see Trotsky as one of the greatest revolutionaries of the 20th century, but Trotskyism as being an outdated dead end.

I would add that Stalinism has the exact opposite problem that Trotskyism does- too much strategy and too little principle(sometimes, none at all).

[Kayser_Soso]

b) Maybe not give more support then it did, but refraining from armed attacks on the anarchists in Barcelona during the 1937 'May Days' would have helped.

Maybe the anarchists should have supported the democratically elected republic(apparently anarchists are all about the democratic will of the people until it goes against them) instead of dicking around in the rear of the government while they were at war. Since when did Trots take anarchists' side anyway? Oh right, I forgot that Trots will basically attack tenaciously any real progress made by socialists anywhere.

[Zanthorus]

Maybe the anarchists should have supported the democratically elected republic (apparently anarchists are all about the democratic will of the people until it goes against them) instead of dicking around in the rear of the government while they were at war.

I suppose you also believe the Bolsheviks should've given up power when they came second in the elections to the constituent assembly?

What was it Engels said again about the role of "pure democracy" in the future revolution...

[RED DAVE]

Sometimes one have no choice but to abandon his/her most cherished principles, even to the extent of hurting completely innocent people, in order to acquire a strategic advantage.There is on "principle" that Marxists can never abandon if they wish to consider themselves to be Marxists: the principle of the leading role of the working class in modern revolution.

Once this principle is abandoned, in favor of the bloc of four classes Marxism goes out the window and, rhetoric aside, we have a revolution lead by another class, which will lead to a different revolutionary outcome. This is clear from the histories of China and Vietnam and, I am afraid, is happening in Nepal in front of our eyes.

It is not a formula for socialism but for state capitalism. Now, if that's acceptable for you, cool. But don't call yourself a Marxist. As Marxists we rise and fall with the working class. That, hopefully, is the heart of Trotskyism. It is why Maoists and Stalinists must reject it. Historically, the represent the interests of another class: the petit-bourgeoisie, especially as entrenched in the state bureaucracy.

RED DAVE

[Kayser_Soso]

There is on "principle" that Marxists can never abandon if they wish to consider themselves to be Marxists: the principle of the leading role of the working class in modern revolution.

Once this principle is abandoned, in favor of the bloc of four classes Marxism goes out the window and, rhetoric aside, we have a revolution lead by another class, which will lead to a different revolutionary outcome. This is clear from the histories of China and Vietnam and, I am afraid, is happening in Nepal in front of our eyes.

It is not a formula for socialism but for state capitalism. Now, if that's acceptable for you, cool. But don't call yourself a Marxist. As Marxists we rise and fall with the working class. That, hopefully, is the heart of Trotskyism. It is why Maoists and Stalinists must reject it. Historically, the represent the interests of another class: the petit-bourgeoisie, especially as entrenched in the state bureaucracy.

RED DAVE


Apparently the working class has consistently rejected your kind thus far.

[Queercommie Girl]

It is not a formula for socialism but for state capitalism. Now, if that's acceptable for you, cool. But don't call yourself a Marxist. As Marxists we rise and fall with the working class. That, hopefully, is the heart of Trotskyism. It is why Maoists and Stalinists must reject it. Historically, the represent the interests of another class: the petit-bourgeoisie, especially as entrenched in the state bureaucracy.

RED DAVE


Actually it was Tony Cliff who came up with the doctrine of state-capitalism, not Trotsky himself.

To have a temporary alliance with another class isn't necessarily the same as losing the crucial leadership role of the working class. Didn't Lenin say the workers should unite with the peasantry?

Frankly objectively speaking some elements of Left Maoism is even more to the left than orthodox Trotskyism is, so it is rather excessively simplistic to portray Maoism as "a single slab of concrete" anyhow.

Also, it's funny how "petit-bourgeois" has become a kind of "cuss word" among the left, it is just used as a generic label to be pinned onto anything that one happens to disagree with:

Some old fashioned Stalinists and Maoists call LGBT issues a kind of "petit-bourgeois degeneration"...

Maoists in China call Trotskyists "petit-bourgeois" and "subjective idealist"...

Old-fashioned Trots who are skeptical of gay rights in the West call it "petit-bourgeois nonsense"...

Trotskyists consider Stalinists and Maoists to represent the interests of the petit-bourgeois...

But actually if you read the Communist Manifesto, Marx certainly did not label the petit-bourgeois as the most reactionary class at all, in fact he said that proletarian political forces can ally with petit-bourgeois democrats to a significant extent on many issues. One example from Trotskyism is the transitional programme itself, supporting all genuine positive reforms within the capitalist structure (which is technically "petit-bourgeois reformism") while at the same time planning for revolution.

Now it's interesting that some (not all) Trots in the West apply a double-standard to Stalinism and Social Democracy. Both are supposed to be "petit-bourgeois", but Trots find it more acceptable to ally with the latter than with the former. True, partly this is due to the historical persecution of Trots by Stalinists, which don't happen with Social Democracy, at least not to the same extent.

[Zanthorus]

Actually it was Tony Cliff who came up with the doctrine of state-capitalism, not Trotsky himself.

No, the first person to talk about state-capitalism was Willhelm Liebknecht:


First, the democratic elements of the bourgeoisie, which find no political satisfaction in their own class, flow to us in greater numbers than in countries with a normally developed bourgeoisie; second, the bureaucratic, though capitalistic, spirit of our governments tends towards a state socialism which, in fact, is only state capitalism, but which is dazzling and misleading for those who are easily deceived by external similarities and catch words.http://www.marxists.org/archive/liebknecht-w/1899/nocomp/nocomp.htm#s03


A propos, talking of misunderstandings, whoever put it into comrade Keir Hardie’s head that the German Socialists were State Socialists, and our French friends, Guesde, Devine, Lafargue, Jaurès, a kind of French Fabians? Nobody has combatted State Socialism more than we German Socialists, nobody has shown more distinctively than I, that State Socialism is really State capitalism!http://www.marxists.org/archive/liebknecht-w/1896/08/our-congress.htm

The term also appears in the earliest debates on Imperialism as a term interchangeable with "state-monopoly capitalism". See, for example, Bukharin:


A further cause is the growing interference of the power of the state in every realm of social life, beginning with production and ending with the highest forms of ideological creativity. The pre-imperialist period was that of liberalism, which was the political expression of industrial capitalism and was characterized by non-intervention on the part of state power. The formula of laissez-faire was a symbol of faith within the leading circles of the bourgeoisie, who left everything to the “free play of economic forces.” Our own time, by contrast, is characterized by exactly the opposite tendency, the logical limit of which is state capitalism, or the inclusion of absolutely everything within the sphere of state regulation.http://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1915/state.htm

The first to use state-capitalism as a way of describing the kind of economy which was emerging in the Soviet Union were the Left-Communist faction of the Bolshevik party (Of which Bukharin was a member):


In the event of a rejection of active proletarian politics, the conquests of the workers' and peasants' revolution will start to coagulate into a system of state capitalism and petty bourgeois economic relations. 'The defence of the socialist fatherland' will then prove in actual fact to be defence of a petty bourgeois motherland subject to the influence of international capital.

[...]

In place of a transition from partial nationalisations to general socialisation of big industry, agreements with 'captains of industry' must lead to the formation of large trusts led by them and embracing the basic branches of industry, which may with external help take the form of state enterprises. Such a system of organisation of production gives a social base for evolution in the direction of state capitalism and is a transitional stage in it.http://libcom.org/library/theses-left-communists-russia-1918

And Lenin himself took on board their characterisation of Russia as evolving in the direction of state-capitalism:


...the following discovery made by the “Left Communists” will provoke nothing short of Homeric laughter. According to them, under the “Bolshevik deviation to the right” the Soviet Republic is threatened with “evolution towards state capitalism”. They have really frightened us this time! And with what gusto these “Left Communists” repeat this threatening revelation in their theses and articles.

It has not occurred to them that state capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic.http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm

Trotsky also talked about Russia as being state-capitalist, although echoing Lenin he talks about state-capitalism existing under a workers state:


But whoever told him that the task of the new course consists of the restoration of a capitalist economy? He regards this task as unconditional; this is explicable in part by an incomprehension of an expression frequently used by us, that we now have state capitalism. I shall not enter into an evaluation of this term; for in any case we need only to qualify what we understand by it. By state capitalism we all understood property belonging to the state which itself was in the hands of the bourgeoisie, which exploited the working class. Our state undertakings operate along commercial lines based on the market. But who stands in power here? The working class. Herein lies the principled distinction of our state ‘capitalism’ in inverted commas from state capitalism without inverted commas.http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1922/youth/youth.htm

There are also quotes out there from Stalin and such talking about state-capitalism during the NEP period. It wasn't really a controversial designation back then.

The first group outside Russia to describe it as state-capitalism was, as far as I know, the German council-communist movement. There were also some factions of the left-opposition like the "irreconcilables" who believed that Russia needed not just a political but a social revolution. The Johnson-Forest tendency began using the designation in the early forties, about a decade before Cliff began talking about state-capitalism.

The idea that there is a single homogenous doctrine of "state-capitalism" which is attributable to Tony Cliff is, any way, a strawman mostly used by orthodox-trots to discredit all theories of state-capitalism off the bat by attacking Cliff's weak analysis. Since Cliff's theory is a lame attempt to hold the line of the creation of state-capitalism at 1928 so as not to indict Lenin or Trotsky in it's creation it's pretty easy to knock down. The theories of Ruhle, Dunayevskyaya, Amadeo Bordiga and such have little relation to Cliff's theories, apart from the designation.

[Queercommie Girl]

Short reply: Even Mao Zedong used the phrase "state-capitalism". The MCPC currently labels contemporary China as "state-capitalist".

Obviously I am aware of the use of this term in many different contexts.

I was only referring to the "state-capitalism" in the sense of fundamentally labelling the so-called "Stalinist states" as a kind of intrinsically capitalist society. That is Tony Cliff's invention.

[Zanthorus]

I was only referring to the "state-capitalism" in the sense of fundamentally labelling the so-called "Stalinist states" as a kind of intrinsically capitalist society.

Again, this was first done by the German council communist movement in the early 20's. They were followed by the "irreconcilables" of the Left-Opposition in the late 20's and early 30's who believed that Russia had become wholly bourgeois. The Johnson-Forest tendency of Raya Dunayevskyaya and C.L.R James developed a theory of state-capitalism in the early 40's.

Even Trotsky himself began to have doubts about the "degenerated workers' state" formula towards the end of his life. He says in several places that if the USSR survives the second world war it would be necessary to reconsider the whole question of it's class nature.

There are also post-Cliff writers like Amadeo Bordiga who developed theories of state-capitalism which were quite different from Cliff's.

[S.Artesian]

Apparently the working class has consistently rejected your kind thus far.

While your kind has consistently rejected the working class' revolution... thus far.

[BLACKPLATES]

I can agree with accusations made about Trotsky which may have some factual basis, such as he was collaborating with imperialists to protect his own skin (well he had reason to want to protect his own skin didnt he?). But to defend Stalin, by way of attacking Trotsky for what he "would have" done, in some alternate reality, is ridiculous.Especially when what Trotsky "would have done" is said to be the same things Stalin actually DID, in reality, in this dimension.

[Queercommie Girl]

I can agree with accusations made about Trotsky which may have some factual basis, such as he was collaborating with imperialists to protect his own skin (well he had reason to want to protect his own skin didnt he?). But to defend Stalin, by way of attacking Trotsky for what he "would have" done, in some alternate reality, is ridiculous.Especially when what Trotsky "would have done" is said to be the same things Stalin actually DID, in reality, in this dimension.

I don't think Trotsky himself or the Orthodox Trotskyists ever intentionally or directly collaborated with the imperialists.

The same can't be said about third-campist Trotskyists though, which is why I am slightly wary of them. Because by their logic, since the USSR and the PRC are just another kind of capitalism fundamentally, it's not even against ideological principle to collaborate with Western capitalists under certain circumstances anyhow.

[Zanthorus]

Because by their logic, since the USSR and the PRC are just another kind of capitalism fundamentally, it's not even against ideological principle to collaborate with Western capitalists under certain circumstances anyhow.

Collaborating with western imperialists against the USSR or the PRC would sort of defeat the point of being part of the third-camp.

Just a side note: Not all third-campers are state-cappies. The Shactmanite "bueracratic collectivism" theorists were also third-campers.

[RED DAVE]

I can agree with accusations made about Trotsky which may have some factual basis, such as he was collaborating with imperialists to protect his own skin (well he had reason to want to protect his own skin didnt he?).you can agree with it all you want, but it never happened. If you want to see collaboration with imperialism, look at, say, the line of the CPUSA after 1936. Basically, the CPUSA was the left wing of the New Deal.


But to defend Stalin, by way of attacking Trotsky for what he "would have" done, in some alternate reality, is ridiculous.Especially when what Trotsky "would have done" is said to be the same things Stalin actually DID, in reality, in this dimension.RED DAVE

[Ghost Hound]

you can agree with it all you want, but it never happened. If you want to see collaboration with imperialism, look at, say, the line of the CPUSA after 1936. Basically, the CPUSA was the left wing of the New Deal.

RED DAVE

And legitimate Marxist-Leninists as myself have numerously stated that the CPUSA was inherently a failure, and this holds especially true today. The "communists" of the CPUSA who praised the New Deal policies are similar to the "communists" of today's CPUSA who praise Obama and the democratic agenda, or at least hardly ever say anything negative about them.

As for Trotsky:



'In June [1940], Robert McGregor of the [US] Consulate met with Trotsky in his home... he met again with Trotsky on 13 July... Trotsky told McGregor in detail of the allegations and evidence he had compiled... He gave to McGregor the names of Mexican publications, political and labour leaders, and government officials allegedly associated with the PCM [Mexico and the USSR were the only countries in the world to materially support the fight against Franco's Fascism in the Spanish Civil War 1936-39].

He charged that one of the Comintern's [the Communist international's] leading agents, Carlos Contreras served on the PCM Directing Committee. He also discussed the alleged efforts of Narciso Bassols, former Mexican Ambassador to France, whom Trotsky claimed was a Soviet agent, to get him deported from Mexico.'
'Upon receipt, the State Department transmitted McGregor's memo to the FBI.

'...The Information, while not new, responded to both bodies' concerns.'



Mao Zedong, the Secretary of the Communist Party of China, states about the cooperation of the Japanese with the Trotskyists: 'only a short while ago in one of the divisions of the Eighth Revolutionary Peoples' Army, a man by the name of Yu Shih was exposed as a member of the Shanghai Trotskyist organisation. The Japanese had sent him there from Shanghai so that he could do espionage work in the Eighth Army and carry out sabotage work.


'In the central districts of Hebei the Trotskyists organised a 'Partisan-Company' on the direct instructions of the Japanese headquarters and called it a 'Second Section of the Eighth Army'. In March the two battalions of this company organised a mutiny but these bandits were surrounded by the Eighth Army and disarmed. In the Border Region such people are arrested by the peasant self-defence units which carry out a bitter struggle against traitors and spies.
'Trotskyist agents are being sent to the Border Regions where they systematically apply all methods in their sabotage work against the cooperation of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. They try to destroy the morale of the soldiers of the Eighth Army, the students and the people of the Border Regions. They try to incite people against the United Front, against the Central Government, against the war of independence, against Marshal Chiang Kaishek.'


In an interview with the Soviet journalist, R. Carmen who is at present in China, Mao, who is recognized by the Japanese as the best strategist in China, declared that the attempts of the reactionary English and other politicians to convince China to renounce its plans are destined to be shattered. 'China is not only determined to beat the Japanese but also to strengthen the National and United Front and to extend it. Only very few people want to have an understanding with the Japanese and fight against the Central Anti-Japanese Government and the United Front... If we do not destroy these people then it will be difficult to be victorious against the Japanese. But the Chinese people - and with them the Communists, the progressive elements in the Kuomintang and the other parties - are determined to carry out the struggle to a victorious conclusion.'
Translated from the German by V.P. Sharma. Rundschau (Basel), No. 41, 3rd August, 1939, p. 1169.

[Queercommie Girl]

And legitimate Marxist-Leninists as myself have numerously stated that the CPUSA was inherently a failure, and this holds especially true today. The "communists" of the CPUSA who praised the New Deal policies are similar to the "communists" of today's CPUSA who praise Obama and the democratic agenda, or at least hardly ever say anything negative about them.

As for Trotsky:



Mao Zedong did not treat all the Trots equally. Only some were locked up post-1949.

Chinese Trotskyism has a tradition for being right-leaning, so no surprise in their attitudes towards the Japs during WWII. However, most Trots in Europe supported the war against Nazi Germany during WWII so I wouldn't say it is an universal Trot trait to refuse to fight against the fascists.

Interestingly, a left Maoist contact in the MCPC told me he thinks the attitudes of the Trots in China during WWII and their refusal to co-operate with the KMT in any manner, even as an united front against fascism, are actually correct.

[Chambered Word]

I don't think Trotsky himself or the Orthodox Trotskyists ever intentionally or directly collaborated with the imperialists.

The same can't be said about third-campist Trotskyists though, which is why I am slightly wary of them. Because by their logic, since the USSR and the PRC are just another kind of capitalism fundamentally, it's not even against ideological principle to collaborate with Western capitalists under certain circumstances anyhow.

What are these 'certain circumstances' and why hasn't my party told me about them?

[Barry Lyndon]

What are these 'certain circumstances' and why hasn't my party told me about them?

Because many 'third-camp' or 'state-capitalist' 'Trotskyists' became anti-communist social democrats or even neoconservatives, while traditional Trotskyists went to their graves as revolutionaries. This is a rather embarassing history.

[RED DAVE]

Because many 'third-camp' or 'state-capitalist' 'Trotskyists' became anti-communist social democrats or even neoconservatives, while traditional Trotskyists went to their graves as revolutionaries. This is a rather embarassing history.From my experience as a t-c or s-c Trot, the number of ortho-Trots who sold out is about as high as with the other groups. The difference in that there is/was one particular stream of Schactmanism that morphed into neocons.

But as to numbers, where are the Pabloites and Cannonites of yesteryear? Same place as most of the ex-Schactmanites and Cliffites.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

As for Trotsky:

I took it upon myself to contact Professor William Chambers who is the author of the article quoted above about Trotsky's "collaboration with imperialism." Here is a summary of what he emailed to me.

(a) Trotsky had been internally exiled within the USSR, expelled from Turkey and from Norway. Mexico had been the only country that was willing to give him refuge.

(b) Mexico was on the verge of national elections, and both major candidates had pledged to expel Trotsky, which would have left him stateless again.

(c) The Nazi-Soviet Pact was in effect. In effect, the USSR was then aligned with nazi Germany.

(d) An assassination attempt had already been made on Trotsky's life and the life of his wife and entourage, led by members of the Mexican Communist Party, including the famous painter David Alfred Siquieros. His son had probably been murdered by GPU in France.

(e) Under these circumstances, in an attempt to get a visa to enter the USA, which he had been trying to get for years, Trotsky gave information about Russian foreign agents to the US Consulate.

(f) Trotsky also offered to testify in front of the Dies Committee about Russian control of the CPUSA. Given the fact that the CP was (1) for US war preparation and then, after the N-S Pact, was (2) against US war preparation and (3) after the invasion of the USSR was for US war preparation, his testimony would have been damaging.

And so Trotsky had to be murdered.

[B]RED DAVE[/B

[Queercommie Girl]

Technically it is still betrayal.

But betraying a worker's state that is already significantly deformed at the level of the political superstructure (not yet then at the level of the economic base like China is today) is fundamentally different from betraying a genuinely democratic worker's state.

It's like I personally still consider China today as a "deformed worker's state", though of course much more deformed than the USSR was under Stalin. (Yes, trust me, the bureaucratic capitalists in China now are far far worse than Stalin could ever be - Stalin at least still led a frugal lifestyle despite his dictatorship, today's bureaucrats in China live like fucking multi-billionnaires that would put America's big capitalists to shame) In principle I still say I defend the Chinese deformed worker's state externally against imperialism. But in practice I do not rule out the potential possibility that I could literally betray the Chinese state in a similar way to how Trotsky did it, if it was solely for the purpose of pursuing a genuine socialist program. (Of course, in reality since I'm essentially a nobody it's extremely unlikely that I would become another Trotsky, but I'm just raising the potential possibilities here)

[Kléber]

(e) Under these circumstances, in an attempt to get a visa to enter the USA, which he had been trying to get for years, Trotsky gave information about Russian foreign agents to the US Consulate.
AFAIK there is no evidence to prove that happened.


(f) Trotsky also offered to testify in front of the Dies Committee about Russian control of the CPUSA. Given the fact that the CP was (1) for US war preparation and then, after the N-S Pact, was (2) against US war preparation and (3) after the invasion of the USSR was for US war preparation, his testimony would have been damaging.He didn't offer, he was invited and accepted, then the invitation (and any chance for a US visa) was revoked when he wrote an article defying HUAC, in which he criticized legal repressive measures against the CPUSA and said he would be an uncooperative witness merely refuting the slanders against his person and the Fourth International.


And so Trotsky had to be murdered.It was more because the Fourth International was making political gains from the treacherous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, although paranoiac lies about Trotsky snitching on Mexican Communists encouraged fanatics to do the deed.


Because many 'third-camp' or 'state-capitalist' 'Trotskyists' became anti-communist social democrats or even neoconservatives, while traditional Trotskyists went to their graves as revolutionaries. This is a rather embarassing history.
As often does, "many" here really means a "a few," especially compared with virtually all Stalinist parties which entirely became reformist or national-chauvinist as parties.


Mao Zedong did not treat all the Trots equally. Only some were locked up post-1949.
Some were locked up for long periods, some were executed as GMD spies, and some were released when they repudiated their beliefs. Trotskyism had virtually ceased to exist in China, aside from Hong Kong, after 1952.


Chinese Trotskyism has a tradition for being right-leaning, so no surprise in their attitudes towards the Japs during WWII. However, most Trots in Europe supported the war against Nazi Germany during WWII so I wouldn't say it is an universal Trot trait to refuse to fight against the fascists."Right-Trotskyist" is a slanderous make-believe term made up by Chinese Stalinist propaganda, analogous to "Trotsky-fascism." It has no real meaning except to mislabel leftists as rightists, a common tactic of Mao's repressions, as in the "Anti-Rightist Campaign" which actually targeted leftist authors.

It is definitely a ridiculous term when you consider that Chinese Trotskyists were consistently to the left of Mao's party and the CPC Party-State.

You are also regurgitating another Stalinist slander, ie. that the Chinese Trotskyists were universally defeatist in their line on the Sino-Japanese War. Actually, only a small minority held this position. The majority wanted to form a united front and contacted the CPC for this purpose (Chen Duxiu was rebuked by his former student Mao Zedong who told him that Chen would have to abjure Trotskyism in order to join a united front with CPC). There were also Chinese Trotskyists who formed several partisan units to resist the Japanese invasion.

Trotsky himself called for defencism of the USSR, China, and their allies against fascist imperialist invasions. So anyone who would take a defeatist line in regards to a state being attacked by imperialism is not a Trotskyist.


Technically it is still betrayal.No, because "it" didn't happen.


But betraying a worker's state that is already significantly deformed at the level of the political superstructure (not yet then at the level of the economic base like China is today) is fundamentally different from betraying a genuinely democratic worker's state.Trotsky never collaborated with imperialists or betrayed workers, quite the opposite, he tried to overthrow the bureaucratic caste to save the revolution from the traitors, restore Soviet democracy and the proletarian internationalist struggle.


Stalin at least still led a frugal lifestyle despite his dictatorshipThat's disputed. For every myth that Stalin wore a hairshirt and flagellated himself, there are ten accounts that he threw lavish feasts and enjoyed all the luxuries he could get his hands on.

[RED DAVE]

Under these circumstances, in an attempt to get a visa to enter the USA, which he had been trying to get for years, Trotsky gave information about Russian foreign agents to the US Consulate.
AFAIK there is no evidence to prove that happened.Comrade, this is the point of my post. According to Professor Chambers, there is such information in the US Consular Reports from the spring of 1940.

Now, Chambers could be lying or distorting; the information could be a plant by the US Government, etc., but it is more likely that what Trotsky did was along the lines of what he would have done in front of the Dies Committee. And you are right: he was invited to testify and later uninvited.

RED DAVE

[Queercommie Girl]

Some were locked up for long periods, some were executed as GMD spies, and some were released when they repudiated their beliefs. Trotskyism had virtually ceased to exist in China, aside from Hong Kong, after 1952.


Yes, and some were KMT spies.

I know Trotsky himself would never have agreed to that, but you are hopelessly utopian if you think everyone who uses the banner of Trotsky are actually genuine Trotskyists, even in the subjective sense.

The CCP today still uses the banner of Mao, so I guess that makes them genuine Maoists or socialists too? :rolleyes:

The fact of the matter is, I don't know about Europe, but in China there were certainly people who used Trotsky's banner to engage in counter-revolutionary activity. Of course, I do not blame Trotsky or the genuine Trotskyists for this at all, and I actually think Mao made a mistake in locking the Chinese Trots up.

Still, people like Chen Duxiu and Li Lisan were still partially respected even during the Maoist era. And today Chen Duxiu and Li Lisan are still widely read by Chinese Trotskyists.

Li Lisan indeed died due to somewhat suspicious causes (apparently "suicide") during the Cultural Revolution but he was re-habilitated afterwards.



"Right-Trotskyist" is a slanderous make-believe term made up by Chinese Stalinist propaganda, analogous to "Trotsky-fascism." It has no real meaning except to mislabel leftists as rightists, a common tactic of Mao's repressions, as in the "Anti-Rightist Campaign" which actually targeted leftist authors.

It is definitely a ridiculous term when you consider that Chinese Trotskyists were consistently to the left of Mao's party and the CPC Party-State.
It is utopian to think that everyone in China those days who held up the banner of Trotsky were genuine Trotskyists.

Of course, I also recognise that innocent people were harmed as well and Mao made a mistake in that. But it is not all "black-and-white" as you seem to like to suggest. That's a common problem with Trots: for you guys everything in the world is "black-and-white": "you are either with us or against us".



You are also regurgitating another Stalinist slander, ie. that the Chinese Trotskyists were universally defeatist in their line on the Sino-Japanese War. Actually, only a small minority held this position. The majority wanted to form a united front and contacted the CPC for this purpose (Chen Duxiu was rebuked by his former student Mao Zedong who told him that Chen would have to abjure Trotskyism in order to join a united front with CPC). There were also Chinese Trotskyists who formed several partisan units to resist the Japanese invasion.
You have failed to read my position accurately. I told you I've spoken with a left Maoist who actually believes the "defeatist" political position was actually correct. Personally I don't think you can automatically just assume that line must be wrong anyway.

So it cannot be slander simply because personally I don't even consider the defeatist line as necessarily automatically wrong.

Again, as you can see, it's not all "black-and-white", there are Trots who fought the Japs, and there are Maoists who support "defeatism".



Trotsky himself called for defencism of the USSR, China, and their allies against fascist imperialist invasions. So anyone who would take a defeatist line in regards to a state being attacked by imperialism is not a Trotskyist.
Yes, I know, did you even read my post? I said most Trots in the West supported fighting against the Nazis.

Maybe not in Europe, but in China there were some nominally Trot groups who were not real Trots.

But on the other hand it's rather excessively dogmatic of you to suggest that even to raise the possibility that "defeatism" might actually be correct must be "un-Trotskyist". What happened to intra-party democracy? What are you going to do then, purge people like my left Maoist friend who actually supports "defeatism"? Even if such a line is objectively wrong, people should still have the right to have their own opinion. Isn't that an important principle in worker's democracy which you Trots care so much about?

I thought purges were an uniquely Stalinist thing...or am I wrong in assuming that the Trotskyists are always more democratic than the Maoists?



No, because "it" didn't happen.

Trotsky never collaborated with imperialists or betrayed workers, quite the opposite, he tried to overthrow the bureaucratic caste to save the revolution from the traitors, restore Soviet democracy and the proletarian internationalist struggle.
Doesn't matter, it is meaningless for you to argue against me here, because even if Trotsky did what he supposedly did, I wouldn't hold it against him, because frankly I might have done the same thing.

I am a pragmatist, which means I don't hold onto useless dogmas fixatedly. Potentially I am personally prepared to literally betray my own country and my own family if I really believe such things are in the strategic interests of socialism and the working class in general, and I will do such things with an absolutely clear conscience.

As Mao said, sometimes a genuine revolutionary socialist must be prepared to go against his/her own parents. Revolutionaries should not dogmatically hold onto feudal Confucian values like "filial piety" and "patriotism".

So even if Trotsky did collaborate with the US indirectly against the USSR, why should I see that as necessarily wrong? I don't believe in "absolute loyalty", that is a right-wing idea. The fact of the matter is that the USSR by this time was already quite deformed anyway, and betraying a deformed worker's state is fundamentally different from betraying a healthy worker's state because objectively it may not be in the real class interests of the international working class to always defend a deformed worker's state anyway. The ultimate political loyalty of a socialist is not with any particular worker's state, but with the working class in general. This is why it is stupid to worship dead dogmas as if they are like the Ten Commandments rather than responding flexibly to the changing strategic situation on the ground.

Either way, whatever the evidence shows, I will never blame Trotsky for what he did.



That's disputed. For every myth that Stalin wore a hairshirt and flagellated himself, there are ten accounts that he threw lavish feasts and enjoyed all the luxuries he could get his hands on.
Most of the "evidence" in the latter category have about the same amount of credibility as Jung Chang's Mao stories.