Consolidation of the revolution (USSR/PRC)

[ReVoLuTiOnArYbUtGaNgStEr]

Socialism as we know can only survive if it spreads and this is what Lenin, Trotsky and all the bolsheviks believed. However most advocates of Trotstky act as though Stalin did not want the Revolution to spread and seem to think he preempted Juche with some crazy Russian Nationalism and abandoned Marxism.

However is it not true that the revolution needed to be consolidated, Stalin vs Trotsky aside, nothing is perfect and it seems to me that in a future revolution say in a Latin America, where workers struggles become strong and class warfare rages, say Peru Ecuador and Colombia, but the ecuadorian and peruvian revolutions are squashed, what should revolutionaries in Colombia do, pointlessly try to keep spreading the revolution despite the collapse of the movements in other territories, or consolidate the revolution in Colombia and defend the gains the workers there have made?

Would it not be opportunist to then call this a deviation from Marxism and keep hollowly screaming to spread the revolution despite the fact the conditions and situation is not right or have been destroyed?

I am off to work again now, would love to see some replies for when I finish.

[Tommy4ever]

Yay, another thread about Stalin vs Trotsky. :sleep:

[Martin Blank]

Long live the Stalin-Trotsky circlejerk!

Moved to History.

[ReVoLuTiOnArYbUtGaNgStEr]

As i made clear this is not a Stalin V Trotsky thread it is a discussion on revolution and pragmatism, realism and wether or not consolidating socialism in one country is right, in conditions where it cannot spread.

[Rooster]

consolidating socialism in one country is right, in conditions where it cannot spread.

You do realise that this is contradictory, right?

[ReVoLuTiOnArYbUtGaNgStEr]

So what should have been done then, if for example the Anarchists in greece find themselves in a revolution, should they consolidate their revolution and implement workers control or just say fuck it, if it cannot spread out of greece we might aswell not bother?

[A Marxist Historian]

So what should have been done then, if for example the Anarchists in greece find themselves in a revolution, should they consolidate their revolution and implement workers control or just say fuck it, if it cannot spread out of greece we might aswell not bother?

A very good question. The answer is that you do the best you can until the revolution is spread, even if that means you have to cut some corners here and there.

Thus in 1921 the Bolsheviks had to crack down on the Mensheviks and the SRs and the anarchists, suppress a mutiny in Kronstadt, and make huge concessions to capitalism through the NEP policy. And even banned factions, probably going too far. All seen as temporary measures--until Stalin and Bukharin set about making them permanent. And then Stalin changed his mind about the NEP, and therefore *really* had to throw all forms of democracy in the Revolution right out the window.

That's probably about what would end up happening in an isolated revolution in a decent-sized Third World country like Colombia or South Africa, if the revolution did not spread right away.

Greece? Well, on the one hand Greece is really too small and too economically dependent on others to be the next Cuba. If it happened and survived at all, it'd probably look more like North Korea.

But on the other hand, a revolution in Greece *would* spread like lightning. Everybody in Europe knows that all this stuff is tied together. Despite all the Greek nationalism running around, what started off the latest explosion in Greece was -- Spain.

Even if a Greek workers' revolution collapsed and went down fighting, it would be a great example for the rest of the world, and totally turn the situation we are in around.

-M.H.-

[scarletghoul]

The best way to strengthen socialism is to spread revolution, and the best way to spread revolution is to strengthen socialism. We should do both wherever possible, just making sure to only fight battles that we can win. The Bolsheviks were correct to spread the revolution to central asia, eastern europe, etc, and they were also correct to focus on building up the strength of the USSR when the revolutionary movements in the rest of Europe had been definitely crushed.

Spread where possible, consolidate where possible.. basic PPW ...

[KC]

Socialism as we know can only survive if it spreads and this is what Lenin, Trotsky and all the bolsheviks believed. However most advocates of Trotstky act as though Stalin did not want the Revolution to spread and seem to think he preempted Juche with some crazy Russian Nationalism and abandoned Marxism.

It doesn't matter what Stalin did or did not want. All that matters in the course of history is how people acted. This is why it's silly for Trotskyists on the one hand to champion his "heroic struggle against Stalinism" and on the other for Stalinists to claim that he was anything more than a bureaucrat.

[Geiseric]

There's evidence though of the USSR beuracracy and channels of its influence actively suppressing other socialist revolutions or acting in an oppurtunist fashion in places like China, Catalonia, the little small pact molotov signed with ribbentrop, the CPUSA lines in supporting the democrats during the depression, things like that which in my eyes make the USSR beuracracy seem increadibly anti revolutionary. if you look at what most marxist leninist or maoist parties, especially maoists, did during revolutionary situations they weren't revolutionary at all. Overall the same mistakes were made over and over without realising how the entire ideology and every country which were started by people who followed that ideology was going to collapse.