On This Day: 1978, Trotsky's killer dies [Archive]

Ismail

18th October 2011, 16:31

Comments by our resident Stalinists and Maoists as to why the leader of one so-called revolutionary faction has to resort to the murder of another leader?Why not? The OGPU organized the assassination of various White elements in exile as well.

The Moscow Trials did try Trotsky in absentia, so Trotsky could have gone back to the USSR to stand trial. Obviously he didn't, so obviously he was seen as a threat abroad. As for the "factions" bit, Stalin noted (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1937/03/03.htm) in 1937 that, "Contemporary Trotskyism is not a political trend within the working class, but an unprincipled and intellectually devoid band of wreckers, diversionists, intelligence agents, spies, and killers; a band of sworn enemies of the working class in the hire of the intelligence service organs of foreign states. Such is the indisputable result of the evolution of Trotskyism in the past seven or eight years. Such is the difference between Trotskyism in the past and Trotskyism in the present."

RED DAVE

18th October 2011, 17:11

Comments by our resident Stalinists and Maoists as to why the leader of one so-called revolutionary faction has to resort to the murder of another leader?
Why not? The OGPU organized the assassination of various White elements in exile as well.So you shits consider Trotsky to be the equivalent of a White?

The Moscow Trials did try Trotsky in absentiaLike tjhe cowardly bstards that they were.

so Trotsky could have gone back to the USSR to stand trial.And I can stick my hand into a nest of live rattlesnakes, but I don't.

Obviously he didn't, so obviously he was seen as a threat abroad.He sure as shit was a revolutionary threat to Stalin and Co.

As for the "factions" bit, Stalin noted (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1937/03/03.htm) 1937 that,We now get to hear the deathless words of the Father of Nations. All bow!

"Contemporary Trotskyism is not a political trend within the working classStalin said it, so it must be true.

but an unprincipled and intellectually devoid band of wreckers, diversionists, intelligence agents, spies, and killers; a band of sworn enemies of the working class in the hire of the intelligence service organs of foreign states.And he isn't nice to puppies and kittens, either.

Such is the indisputable result of the evolution of Trotskyism in the past seven or eight years. Such is the difference between Trotskyism in the past and Trotskyism in the present."Yeah, Stalin was such an expert on political evolution. After all, he evolved from a Bolshevik to a buddy of Hitler. (It wasn't Trotsky who signed the Stalin-Hitler Pact.) As Molotov said, "Fascism is a matter of taste." So, apparently is murder of revolutionaries.

RED DAVE

Ismail

18th October 2011, 17:55

Of course we know via an overwhelming amount of sources that Stalin disliked Hitler very much and that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the result of the anti-communism of Britain and France and their refusal to sign a mutual defense pact between them and the USSR, but Trotskyists still side with the likes of the Glenn Becks of the world in asserting that both leaders became "buddies."

And since you like to quote Molotov out of context and under the conditions of the non-aggression pact, here's him in 1939 as well:

"The decision to conclude a non-aggression pact between the U.S.S.R. and Germany was adopted after military negotiations with France and Great Britain had reached an impasse... we could not but explore other possibilities of ensuring peace and eliminating the danger of war between Germany and the U.S.S.R. If the British and French Governments refused to reckon with this, that is their affair. It is our duty to think of the interests of the Soviet people, the interests of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. All the more because we are firmly convinced that the interests of the U.S.S.R. coincide with the fundamental interests of the peoples of other countries."
(V.M. Molotov. The Meaning of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact. New York: Workers Library Publishers, Inc. 1939. pp. 6-7.)

Like tjhe cowardly bstards that they were.Unfortunately Stalin lacked superpowers and thus could not grab Trotsky via a magical gravity beam to get him to partake in the Moscow Trials.

He sure as shit was a revolutionary threat to Stalin and Co.Sure, whatever, the point is that he was seen as a threat. He didn't need to meet with Hess as the Moscow Trials alleged, he was already seen as enough of one by the fact that, as Getty long ago pointed out, he sought the overthrow of Stalin not just in words but in deeds and the Soviets knew this.

"At the same time the Riutin group was forging its progammatic documents, Trotsky was attempting to activate his followers in the Soviet Union...

Sometime in 1932 Trotsky sent a series of secret personal letters to his former followers Karl Radek, G.I. Sokolnikov, and Ye. Preobrazhensky and others in the Soviet Union. And at about the same time he sent a letter to his oppositionist colleagues in the Soviet Union by way of an English traveler...

More concretely, in late 1932 Trotsky was actively trying to forge a new opposition coalition in which former oppositionists from both left and right would participate. From Berlin, Trotsky's son Lev Sedov maintained contact with veteran Trotskyist I. N. Smirnov in the Soviet Union... Shortly thereafter, Smirnov relayed word to Sedov that the bloc had been organized; Sedov wrote to his father that 'it embraces the Zinovievists, the Sten-Lominadze group, and the Trotskyists (old '—').' Trotsky promptly announced in his newspaper that the first steps toward an illegal organization of 'Bolshevik-Leninists' had been formed.

Back in the Soviet Union, the authorities smashed Trotsky's bloc before it got off the ground. In connection with their roundup of suspected participants in the Riutin group, nearly all the leaders of the new bloc were pulled in for questioning. Many of them were expelled from the party and sentenced to prison or exile. Sedov wrote to his father that although 'the arrest of the 'ancients' is a great blow, the lower workers are safe.'"
(J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov. The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1999. pp. 60-63.)

"Although held now on the small island of Prinkipo by agreement with the Turkish government, Trotsky remained a threat. He was publishing Byuleten Oppozitsii (The Bulletin of the Opposition), which showed that up-to-date information was reaching him through his agents inside Russia. The Bullentin's criticisms and proposals were similar to those set up in Ryutin's platform, but the emphasis was on changing the party leadership and carried all the force of Trotsky's bitter personal hatred."
(Grey, Ian. Stalin: Man of History. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1979., p. 267.)

I don't get why the assassination is such a huge deal. Sure for Trotskyists it's terrible but it isn't like Stalin committed some totally unexpected atrocity by ordering the assassination of a guy trying for a little over a decade to overthrow him and his government, especially under the conditions of an upcoming war with Germany.

tir1944

18th October 2011, 17:57

Why didn't Trotsky come to Moscow to explain and defend himself on the Trial?

Ismail

18th October 2011, 18:04

Why didn't Trotsky come to Moscow to explain and defend himself on the Trial?Because Trotsky valiantly exposed everything (and lied in the process) to the Dewey Commission, which RED DAVE two years ago tried and failed to present as something other than a bunch of liberals and non-Leninists lining up to defend Trotsky. See: http://www.revleft.com/vb/fewer-outsiders-better-t124508/index.html?p=1623222#post1623222 (and the post IsItJustMe made after RED DAVE's reply)

RED DAVE

18th October 2011, 18:05

Why didn't Trotsky come to Moscow to explain and defend himself on the Trial?Why don't you stick your hand into a nest of rattlesnakes to see if you'll get bitten?

And, by the way, Trotsky was exonerated by the Dewey Commission.

Do you really believe that he was guilty of active collaboration with the nazis? Do really believe that tir?

RED DAVE

Jose Gracchus

18th October 2011, 18:09

Trotsky did not return because there was nothing approximating judicial fairness or due process in the Soviet legal system (in fact, another ideological organism at the direct disposal of the political center), and he would have been certainly tortured and executed. Sympathy for Trotsky was a crime in the Great Purge.

Ismail

18th October 2011, 18:10

He was "exonerated" by a commission which was organized by a committee "for the defense of Leon Trotsky," which was very obviously a Trotskyist front with the goal of getting every possible liberal to sign up in defense of Trotsky.

See for instance: http://books.google.com/books?id=nEpe4DvOZSUC&pg=PA116&dq=Hallgren%20Trotsky&hl=en&ei=zyLlTaC1GqjW0QHWtamvBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFUQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=Hallgren%20Trotsky&f=false

As I noted above (or rather as IsItJustMe noted two years ago) the "Dewey Commission" was comprised of, essentially, anti-communists, and as noted in that same topic Carleton Beals (a participant who left because everyone was interested in praising Trotsky rather than sticking to what was meant to be an impartial counter-trial) showed how it was a joke.

"Not all were willing to endorse the inquiry as Dewey. Albert Einstein... agreed that 'every accused,' including Trotsky, deserved 'the opportunity to prove his innocence.' But he was concerned about the paucity of competent jurists, and he refused to endorse the commission's effort on the ground that the hearing would merely serve as a grandstand for Trotsky: 'The question is raised because Trotsky is an extremely active and adroit politician, who might well search for an effective platform for the presentation and promulgation of his political goals in the public sphere. . . . I'm afraid that the only result would be Trotsky's own self-promotion without the possibility of a well-ground judgment.'"
(Christopher Phelps. Young Sidney Hook: Marxist and Pragmatist. Michigan: University of Michigan Press. 2005. p. 153.)

And that's exactly what happened.

RED DAVE

18th October 2011, 18:12

I don't get why the assassination is such a huge deal.Of course you don't. You're a Stalinist. Christians, until the day before yesterday, didn't understand why pogroms against the Jews were such a huge deal.

Sure for Trotskyists it's terribleBut I guess it's cool if only Trots complain about the cowardly assassination of a revolutionary opponent.

but it isn't like Stalin committed some totally unexpected atrocity by ordering the assassination of a guy trying for a little over a decade to overthrow him and his government, especially under the conditions of an upcoming war with Germany.Well. Stalinist, it's this way, for many of us: Trotsky was a great revolutionary killed from behind by a man representing the leader of a so-called socialist country. And the reverberations continue today, when Stalinists like yourself justify it. Do you think for one minute I would trust a Stalinist like yourself in a united front?

In the class struggles that are to come, we'll see whether the political descendants of a mass murderer with a taste for assassination or the political descendants of a great revolutionary, play a greater role.

RED DAVE

Ismail

18th October 2011, 18:13

Of course you don't. You're a Stalinist. Christians, until the day before yesterday, didn't understand why pogroms against the Jews were such a huge deal.Apparently either Trotsky's assassination was accompanied by pogroms against Jews or both are morally and materially equivalent. Who knew?

thesadmafioso

18th October 2011, 18:14

Why don't you stick your hand into a nest of rattlesnakes to see if you'll get bitten?

And, by the way, Trotsky was exonerated by the Dewey Commission.

Do you really believe that he was guilty of active collaboration with the nazis? Do really believe that tir?

RED DAVE

I think Tir believes everything the Stalinist propaganda machine put out on the matter, I highly doubt he has given fair judgement to any verdict on Trotsky that didn't come out of Stalin's Moscow.

Ismail

18th October 2011, 18:16

I think Tir believes everything the Stalinist propaganda machine put out on the matter, I highly doubt he has given fair judgement to any verdict on Trotsky that didn't come out of Stalin's Moscow.Grover Furr's article (http://www.revleft.com/vb/clogic.eserver.org/2009/Furr.pdf) on the Moscow Trials didn't come out of Stalin's Moscow. Getty noting that Trotsky lied to the Dewey Commission in regards to organizing opposition in the USSR didn't come from there either.

thesadmafioso

18th October 2011, 18:18

Apparently either Trotsky's assassination was accompanied by pogroms against Jews or both are morally and materially equivalent. Who knew?

This answer could not contain any content marked more greatly by the multitudes of intellectual dishonestly upon which the reactionary thought of Stalinism is based.

The point is that you are merely arguing from blind dogmatism and not any real devotion to the proletarian and their political aims, in much the same way a christian would blindly defend their faith from any falsely perceived threats and go to the wildest extends to justify their failings.

Ismail

18th October 2011, 18:19

Actually it seems pretty clear that he was basically comparing Trotsky being assassinated to pogroms against Jews.

Tim Cornelis

18th October 2011, 18:24

Why didn't Trotsky come to Moscow to explain and defend himself on the Trial?

It was a show trial.

thesadmafioso

18th October 2011, 18:26

Actually it seems pretty clear that he was basically comparing Trotsky being assassinated to pogroms against Jews.

Christians, until the day before yesterday, didn't understand why pogroms against the Jews were such a huge deal.

He said 'didn't understand', so I would say it's actually quite clear that he was referring to the nature of the apologists for such atrocities and comparing that to those who insist upon upholding Stalinism.

Ismail

18th October 2011, 18:31

It was a show trial.The trial in which Yagoda and others were in was held in front of a great many foreign journalists and diplomats in attendance. I rather doubt Trotsky would subject himself to a "show trial" under such conditions.

thesadmafioso

18th October 2011, 18:33

The trial in which Yagoda and others were in was held in front of a great many foreign journalists and diplomats in attendance. I rather doubt Trotsky would subject himself to a "show trial" under such conditions.

I imagine that Trotsky, like most any human being, was probably adverse to the concept of being brutally tortured by the GPU and forced to give a contrived confession to a slew of fictitious crimes.

Geiseric

18th October 2011, 18:34

Wow just ignore the rest of his post. Awesome.

Tim Cornelis

18th October 2011, 18:49

The trial in which Yagoda and others were in was held in front of a great many foreign journalists and diplomats in attendance. I rather doubt Trotsky would subject himself to a "show trial" under such conditions.

How naive. Even Lenin would've been executed by Stalin if he applied his criteria for execution consistently. Only a misguided fool could defend the atrocities, murders, and oppression by Stalin.

Nox

18th October 2011, 18:56

RIP Trotsky's killer, you will be missed! :crying:

Ismail

18th October 2011, 19:10

Even Lenin would've been executed by Stalin if he applied his criteria for execution consistently.Really? Apparently the Soviet courts would have charged Lenin with plotting to dismember the Ukraine, or plotting to direct the sabotaging of factories, or plotting assassinations.

Of course Stalin considered himself a pupil of Lenin and considered himself to be defending Lenin's legacy. Like it or not, he wasn't just laughing to himself as the Moscow Trials were ongoing. He considered the charges genuine as Erik Van Ree notes in The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin, and as Furr and others have pointed out.

La ComÃ©die Noire

18th October 2011, 19:13

R.I.P. Trotsky

Just ordered Permanent Revolution and Results and Prospects through the mail because I can't get halfway through his shit online without my eyes bleeding.

Kosakk

18th October 2011, 19:15

Why are people defending the assassination of a communist?

Ismail

18th October 2011, 19:17

Why are people defending the assassination of a communist?Do you really think Trotsky would have let Stalin go had he somehow taken power?

"Shortly before they left for Russia, Trotsky's emissaries, Konon Berman-Yurin and Fritz David, were summoned to special conferences with Trotsky himself. The meetings took place in Copenhagen toward the end of November 1932. Konon Berman-Yurin later stated:

'I had two meetings with him [Trotsky]. First of all he began to sound me on my work in the past. Then Trotsky passed to Soviet affairs. Trotsky said: 'The principal question is the question of Stalin. Stalin must be physically destroyed.' He said that other methods of struggle were now ineffective. He said that for this purpose people were needed who would dare anything, who would agree to sacrifice themselves for this, as he expressed it, historic task. . . .

In the evening we continued our conversation. I asked him how individual terrorism could be reconciled with Marxism. To this Trotsky replied: problems cannot be treated in a dogmatic way. He said that a situation had arisen in the Soviet Union which Marx could not have foreseen. Trotsky also said that in addition to Stalin it was necessary to assassinate Kaganovich and Voroshilov. . . .

During the conversation he nervously paced up and down the room and spoke of Stalin with exceptional hatred. . . . He said that the terrorist act should, if possible, be timed to take place at a plenum or at the congress of the Comintern, so that the shot at Stalin would ring out in a large assembly.'"
(Kahn, A. E., and M. Sayers. The Great Conspiracy: The Secret War Against Soviet Russia. 1st ed. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1946., pp. 248-49.)

Even if we disregard Moscow Trials testimony, it's pretty obvious that Stalin would have suffered the same fate as the Tsar in Trotsky's eyes.

molotovcocktail

18th October 2011, 19:23

Funny how the Stalinists claim that the court controlled by Stalin would be fair against one of Stalin's enemies. Trotsky was in a struggle for power, and lost. It is as simple as that.
PS: That Stalin was against Trotsky is not an argument. I know Stalinists don't want to acknowledge it, but Stalin's words are not automatically true. Trotsky was a revolutionary communist,.To call him a reactionary because Stalin said so, is ridiculous.

Kosakk

18th October 2011, 19:27

Ismail

18th October 2011, 19:29

It's not like I'm walking around praising Lavrenty Beria, is it?Well Beria was in charge of putting an end to the excesses conducted under Yezhov, who Stalin believed was a foreign agent who wanted to assassinate him. The Great Purges ended under Beria's watch.

As Thurston notes:
"According to a memorandum left by a delegate to the Eighteenth Party Congress, which opened in March 1939, Ezhov was still free then, though several of his top aides had been arrested. At a meeting of the Council of Elders, apparently an informal group of top delegates within the Central Committee, Stalin called Ezhov forward. The Gensec asked him who various arrested NKVDists were. Ezhov replied:

'Joseph Vissarionovich! You know that it was I—I myself!—who disclosed their conspiracy! I came to you and reported it. . . .'

Stalin didn't let him continue. 'Yes, yes, yes! When you felt you were about to be caught, then you came in a hurry. But what about before that? Were you organizing a conspiracy? Did you want to kill Stalin? Top officials of the NKVD are plotting, but you, supposedly, aren't involved. You think I don't see anything?! Do you remember who you sent on a certain date for duty with Stalin? Who? With revolvers? Why revolvers near Stalin? Why? To kill Stalin? And if I hadn't noticed? What then?!'

Stalin went on to accuse Yezhov of working too feverishly, arresting many people who were innocent and covering up for others.

Ezhov was arrested a few days later. Roy Medvedev reports that he was shot in July 1940, after being held in a prison for especially dangerous 'enemies of the people.' A recent Russian publication confirms that Ezhov was arrested in 1939 and shot in 1940, 'for groundless repressions against the Soviet people.'"
(Robert W. Thurston. Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1996. pp. 116-117.)

And:

"Speakers at the Eighteenth Party Congress, held in March 1939, consistently suggested that the struggle against internal enemies was largely over. Beria... spoke about this problem mostly in the past tense and pointedly stated that troubles in the economy could not be explained solely by reference to sabotage... Perhaps the most remarkable speech of the congress was Andrei Zhdanov's... The purges had allowed enemy elements inside the party to persecute honest members. Following his lead, the congress resolved to ban mass purges and to strengthen the rights of communists at all levels to criticize any party official....

Of course, Stalin's words on the subject were the most important. At the Eighteenth Party Congress he indicated that internal subversion was largely a thing of the past and specifically noted that the punitive organs had turned their attention 'not to the interior of the country, but outside it, against external enemies.' Between the end of the congress in March 1939 and the German invasion in June 1941, he offered no more comments on spies and saboteurs. The official slogans for the May Day holiday in 1939 contained not a word about the NKVD or enemies but dwelt on the glories and responsibilities of the army, fleet, and border guards."
(Ibid. pp. 130-131.)

Beria also put an end to the "Doctors Plot."

Vladimir Innit Lenin

18th October 2011, 19:31

And herein lies everything wrong with Stalinism.

Can they actually not just say, 'look, the execution of Trotsky was wrong, whatever we think of him'?

It's pathetic.

'Oh, you started it.' 'No you'.

Irrelevant idiots.:rolleyes:

Ismail

18th October 2011, 19:33

And herein lies everything wrong with Stalinism.

Can they actually not just say, 'look, the execution of Trotsky was wrong, whatever we think of him'?It wasn't wrong. If Trotsky wasn't doing anything and just sat around in Alma-Ata like he was originally supposed to be doing in 1928 then I doubt he'd wind up dead 12 years later. Instead he used his residence as a place for intrigue and was kicked out of the USSR. From there he continued to intrigue against the USSR and call for the overthrow of the government.

thesadmafioso

18th October 2011, 19:36

Do you really think Trotsky would have let Stalin go had he somehow taken power?

"Shortly before they left for Russia, Trotsky's emissaries, Konon Berman-Yurin and Fritz David, were summoned to special conferences with Trotsky himself. The meetings took place in Copenhagen toward the end of November 1932. Konon Berman-Yurin later stated:

'I had two meetings with him [Trotsky]. First of all he began to sound me on my work in the past. Then Trotsky passed to Soviet affairs. Trotsky said: 'The principal question is the question of Stalin. Stalin must be physically destroyed.' He said that other methods of struggle were now ineffective. He said that for this purpose people were needed who would dare anything, who would agree to sacrifice themselves for this, as he expressed it, historic task. . . .

In the evening we continued our conversation. I asked him how individual terrorism could be reconciled with Marxism. To this Trotsky replied: problems cannot be treated in a dogmatic way. He said that a situation had arisen in the Soviet Union which Marx could not have foreseen. Trotsky also said that in addition to Stalin it was necessary to assassinate Kaganovich and Voroshilov. . . .

During the conversation he nervously paced up and down the room and spoke of Stalin with exceptional hatred. . . . He said that the terrorist act should, if possible, be timed to take place at a plenum or at the congress of the Comintern, so that the shot at Stalin would ring out in a large assembly.'"
(Kahn, A. E., and M. Sayers. The Great Conspiracy: The Secret War Against Soviet Russia. 1st ed. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1946., pp. 248-49.)

Even if we disregard Moscow Trials testimony, it's pretty obvious that Stalin would have suffered the same fate as the Tsar in Trotsky's eyes.

Here is the thing about that, Trotsky wasn't actually plotting to 'take power' upon Lenin's death. He was dubious about even taking the post of vice chair on the Politburo, so please excuse me if I some issues with the idea that he was in all actuality manically manufacturing the downfall of Stalin and dreaming of bureaucratic autocracy.

Trotsky was more concerned with matters that involved the immediate tasks of the proletarian revolution in Russia and the efforts of world revolution to be bothered with such crude despotic aspirations. He would never of had the thought to underhandedly force Stalin into absence at Lenin's funeral and to develop purposeful ties to the bureaucracy for reactionary ends of deception, he would never of attempted to revise history to serve his own opportunistic political aims, and he never would of exiled a political opponent over a disagreements defended by the proper model of Democratic Centralism. More importantly, I do not by any measure think Trotsky to of been capable of hunting down and murdering another communist.

This is just absolute nonsense, driven by an obsessive devotion to the school of Stalinist revisionism and falsification. No historical fact or connection to reality can be found in these wild accusations whatsoever.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

18th October 2011, 19:37

It wasn't wrong. If Trotsky wasn't doing anything and just sat around in Alma-Ata like he was originally supposed to be doing in 1928 then I doubt he'd wind up dead 12 years later. Instead he used his residence as a place for intrigue and was kicked out of the USSR. From there he continued to intrigue against the USSR and call for the overthrow of the government.

That's your opinion.

As a matter of fact, I think you are severely harming the left movement, so i'm going to come and assassinate you. Is that fair?

(to be absolutely, explicitly clear, I am not going to assassinate this bloke and nor do I [obviously] advocate it, quite clearly).

Besides, the political system of the USSR did not allow political participation by anybody other than Marxist-Leninists, so in all seriousness, what was somebody like a Trotskyist or an anarchist meant to do?

Kosakk

18th October 2011, 19:37

Well Beria was in charge of putting an end to the excesses conducted under Yezhov, who Stalin believed was a foreign agent who wanted to assassinate him. The Great Purges ended under Beria's watch. (......) Beria also put an end to the "Doctors Plot."

I was refering to the fact that there's a high possibility that Beria assassinated Stalin.
That's what I meant, sorry if I wasn't clear.

(But thanks for the facts! :))

Ismail

18th October 2011, 19:40

As a matter of fact, I think you are severely harming the left movement, so i'm going to come and assassinate you. Is that fair?If you led a state and I called for your overthrow consistently for years and the threat of war with a major imperialist power was coming on then I wouldn't be surprised if I was going to be targeted by someone. Trotsky certainly wasn't surprised.

Besides, the political system of the USSR did not allow political participation by anybody other than Marxist-Leninists, so in all seriousness, what was somebody like a Trotskyist or an anarchist meant to do?Admit their errors, read up and embrace Marxism-Leninism like various ex-Mensheviks and Left SRs did after the October Revolution. Unlike Trots and Maoists, we MLs aren't fond of ideological pluralism anywhere within the state apparatus.

@Kosakk, I'm aware of that claim. I thought you were one of those "Beria was totally evil and literally raped and killed children" types.

thesadmafioso

18th October 2011, 19:42

Zealot

18th October 2011, 19:45

I would like to see these claims answered by Trotskyists rather than emotional pleading

Ismail

18th October 2011, 19:46

So disagreeing with Stalin is considered intrigue worthy of exile and murder, eh.http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Ludo%20Martens/node98.html#SECTION001031130000000000000

Kamos

18th October 2011, 19:47

Why are people defending the assassination of a communist?

Yeah, sometimes I don't know what's wrong with people. I used to think it's just reactionaries, but no, not quite.

Some of you guys argue Trotsky deserved to be executed for calling for the overthrow of the government, but who are we to judge that?

Vladimir Innit Lenin

18th October 2011, 19:54

Admit their errors, read up and embrace Marxism-Leninism like various ex-Mensheviks and Left SRs did after the October Revolution. Unlike Trots and Maoists, we MLs aren't fond of ideological pluralism anywhere within the state apparatus.

You really are a nasty piece of work, aren't you? :rolleyes:

That is a fucking vile thing to say. You really are a sectarian prick. I'm gonna stop here because i'll just verbally abuse you, but you should be ashamed of what you've just said.

We have a right to take part in the political process just as much as your dictatorial, oppressive, State Capitalist, anti-worker lot. Prick.

Zealot

18th October 2011, 19:54

So disagreeing with Stalin is considered intrigue worthy of exile and murder, eh?

That's certainly something worthy of note.

There's a big difference between disagreeing and plotting assassinations and the overthrow of a government.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

18th October 2011, 19:55

Oh, incidentally Ismail, what happens if the workers democratically reject Leninism in favour of another revolutionary current?

What you gonna do then, huh?

RED DAVE

18th October 2011, 19:59

It wasn't wrong.So the murder of a great revolutionary wasn't wrong.

If Trotsky wasn't doing anything and just sat around in Alma-Ata like he was originally supposed to be doing in 1928 then I doubt he'd wind up dead 12 years later.You are really an asshole. Trotsky was a revolutionary exiled by regressive (I'm being kind) forces in the USSR. What should he do, jerk off politically like you do? He was, as all revolutionaries should be, a person of action.

Instead he used his residence as a place for intrigue and was kicked out of the USSR. From there he continued to intrigue against the USSR and call for the overthrow of the government.As well he should have.

RED DAVE

Ismail

18th October 2011, 20:01

Oh, incidentally Ismail, what happens if the workers democratically reject Leninism in favour of another revolutionary current?

What you gonna do then, huh?Define "democratically." Marxism-Leninism is an objective science, not every worker will immediately side with it, nor can elections be used as a means to weaken the dictatorship of the proletariat. As Lenin pointed out (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/dec/16.htm), "The traitors, blockheads and pedants of the Second International could never understand such dialectics; the proletariat cannot achieve victory if it does not win the majority of the population to its side. But to limit that winning to polling a majority of votes in an election under the rule of the bourgeoisie, or to make it the condition for it, is crass stupidity, or else sheer deception of the workers. In order to win the majority of the population to its side the proletariat must, in the first place, overthrow the bourgeoisie and seize state power; secondly, it must introduce Soviet power and completely smash the old state apparatus, whereby it immediately undermines the rule, prestige and influence of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeois compromisers over the non-proletarian working people. Thirdly, it must entirely destroy the influence of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeois compromisers over the majority of the non-proletarian masses by satisfying their economic needs in a revolutionary way at the expense of the exploiters."

As an objective science and as the only force capable of bringing the world to communism, Marxism-Leninism proves its worth by demonstrating its commitment to the liberation of mankind, not by winning elections (and illusions about different social/"revolutionary" forces "winning" elections are just that) but by decisively assuming state power and constructing socialism. Mao also held the view that various "lines" needed to exist in the party, which was a negation of what Stalin called for and Hoxha upheld against Maoist revisionism.

eric922

18th October 2011, 20:04

Oh, incidentally Ismail, what happens if the workers democratically reject Leninism in favour of another revolutionary current?

What you gonna do then, huh?
I think that's why they tended to rig elections. I say if the workers democratically choose Trotskyism, Leninism, Maoism, Luexmburgism, etc. they should have it. The workers should hold power, not party leaders. Above me Ismail quoted Lenin, but Lenin seemed to have been talking about bourgeois elections and politics, not politics in a socialist state.

Ismail

18th October 2011, 20:12

but Lenin seemed to have been talking about bourgeois elections and politics, not politics in a socialist state.Under the dictatorship of the proletariat national elections have a different purpose. They aren't for rotating parties or coalitions or whatever. The way in which Soviet elections were conducted post-1920 had the full approval of Lenin. Lenin, in fact, rarely spoke of soviet (as in, the institution) elections. Focus was always put on elections within the Party, since the Party defended the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Rooster

18th October 2011, 20:24

Oh, incidentally Ismail, what happens if the workers democratically reject Leninism in favour of another revolutionary current?

What you gonna do then, huh?

Obviously invade with tanks because the current leadership hasn't followed the correct line.

Ismail

18th October 2011, 20:31

Obviously invade with tanks because the current leadership hasn't followed the correct line.Hoxha pointed out that the Soviet revisionists promoted Imre Nagy, just as they promoted Dubček. So no, there's no reason to invade with tanks.

Danielle Ni Dhighe

18th October 2011, 20:34

Under the dictatorship of the proletariat national elections have a different purpose. They aren't for rotating parties or coalitions or whatever. The way in which Soviet elections were conducted post-1920 had the full approval of Lenin. Lenin, in fact, rarely spoke of soviet (as in, the institution) elections. Focus was always put on elections within the Party, since the Party defended the dictatorship of the proletariat.
It's up to the proletariat to defend our own dictatorship, thank you very much. What you're talking about is a party defending its own party dictatorship over the proletariat. A very different thing.

Tim Cornelis

18th October 2011, 20:35

Really? Apparently the Soviet courts would have charged Lenin with plotting to dismember the Ukraine, or plotting to direct the sabotaging of factories, or plotting assassinations.

Seeing how the Soviet Courts were extensions of Stalin's fabrications yes.

Of course Stalin considered himself a pupil of Lenin and considered himself to be defending Lenin's legacy. Like it or not, he wasn't just laughing to himself as the Moscow Trials were ongoing. He considered the charges genuine as Erik Van Ree notes in The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin, and as Furr and others have pointed out.

And Trotsky also considered himself a pupil of Lenin, or a peer. Trotsky also considered himself to be defending Lenin's legacy. The difference being that Lenin wanted Trotsky as his successor and attempted to prevent Stalin's rise to power within the party. Lenin opposed Stalin, so indeed he would probably be tried and executed at the Moscow trials, for except maybe it would be bad for Stalin's image, so he would've probably died in an "accident".

Ismail

18th October 2011, 20:51

Lenin wanted Trotsky as his successor and attempted to prevent Stalin's rise to power within the party.No he didn't.

See: http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Ludo%20Martens/node13.html#SECTION00400400000000000000

Grover Furr also mentions it in his book on Khrushchev's claims at the 20th Party Congress.

Zealot

18th October 2011, 20:52

Lenin wanted Trotsky as his successor and attempted to prevent Stalin's rise to power within the party.

BS, you need to back that up.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

18th October 2011, 21:06

Define "democratically." Marxism-Leninism is an objective science, not every worker will immediately side with it, nor can elections be used as a means to weaken the dictatorship of the proletariat. As Lenin pointed out (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/dec/16.htm), "The traitors, blockheads and pedants of the Second International could never understand such dialectics; the proletariat cannot achieve victory if it does not win the majority of the population to its side. But to limit that winning to polling a majority of votes in an election under the rule of the bourgeoisie, or to make it the condition for it, is crass stupidity, or else sheer deception of the workers. In order to win the majority of the population to its side the proletariat must, in the first place, overthrow the bourgeoisie and seize state power; secondly, it must introduce Soviet power and completely smash the old state apparatus, whereby it immediately undermines the rule, prestige and influence of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeois compromisers over the non-proletarian working people. Thirdly, it must entirely destroy the influence of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeois compromisers over the majority of the non-proletarian masses by satisfying their economic needs in a revolutionary way at the expense of the exploiters."

As an objective science and as the only force capable of bringing the world to communism, Marxism-Leninism proves its worth by demonstrating its commitment to the liberation of mankind, not by winning elections (and illusions about different social/"revolutionary" forces "winning" elections are just that) but by decisively assuming state power and constructing socialism. Mao also held the view that various "lines" needed to exist in the party, which was a negation of what Stalin called for and Hoxha upheld against Maoist revisionism.

Leninism is an objective science? What bullshit. It's a partisan political philosophy, just as liberalism, conservatism, Trotskyism, anarchism, Maoism and anything else are. It may contain science and be based on a rigorous study of society, but to call it an objective science really is a blatant deviation from the truth.

So, just to clarify, even when workers democratically reject Leninism (under Socialism) for another left current, you believe that overriding democracy is okay, because Leninism is an objective science that will eventually liberate mankind and construct Socialism through the mighty sword of the state?

I mean, sometimes I disagree with Leninists on points of principle, but am I the only one who looks at what you've written in this thread especially and think that it is just ridiculous to the point of being quasi-occultist?

Ismail

18th October 2011, 21:10

Lenin certainly considered the Marxist doctrine to have been an objective science, and he work Lenin was undertaking to have been more or less objective in how it was being carried out.

It's not "occultist," every socialist in the USSR (until the 1960's when every country friendly to the USSR was suddenly deemed to be pursuing "non-capitalist development" and "polycentrism," a precursor to Eurocommunism, was promoted to call forth supposedly "different roads to socialism") and Albania shared the same conception.

GatesofLenin

18th October 2011, 21:15

Is there any truth that Lenin, on his death bed, wished for Leon Trotsky to take over the Bolshevik party after his death in 1924? I remember seeing that in the Stalin movie on HBO.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

18th October 2011, 21:17

Aside from all the Socialists that were purged, exiled or executed, right? Or did you get an order for 'non-leninism doubleplusungood unrefs soviet history'?

Marxism is perhaps scientific, though more of a social science (in the sense of combining history, economics and sociology with political philosophy, as no other political philosophy hitherto has done), but Leninism as a separate political philosophy does not share this. Leninism in many ways was only (poorly) applicable to the countries that it was practically applied in, I don't really see any of Lenin's writings being particularly relevant to the crises in Western Europe and the US, or the Arab Spring, for example.

Tim Cornelis

18th October 2011, 21:17

No he didn't.

See: http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Ludo%20Martens/node13.html#SECTION00400400000000000000

Grover Furr also mentions it in his book on Khrushchev's claims at the 20th Party Congress.

Martens makes several various dubious interpretations of Lenin's meaning. It becomes clear from this that Lenin did not want Stalin as his successor, it becomes less clear who he did want. What also is dubious is basically arguing Lenin went deranged as a result of a stroke in order to make a case that Lenin was out of his mind when he suggested Stalin should not be appointed as successor. Typical Stalinist historical revisionism.

Tim Cornelis

18th October 2011, 21:20

Lenin certainly considered the Marxist doctrine to have been an objective science

Lenin was not God. An appeal to authority is still not a valid argument by the way.

Ismail

18th October 2011, 21:21

Is there any truth that Lenin, on his death bed, wished for Leon Trotsky to take over the Bolshevik party after his death in 1924? I remember seeing that in the Stalin movie on HBO.It's not true. Lenin called Trotsky the "most capable man" in the Central Committee, but also noted that his non-Bolshevik past wasn't an accident.

In the end Stalin summed up (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1927/10/23.htm) the situation concerning Lenin's critique of his "rudeness" in 1927:

It is said that in that "will" Comrade Lenin suggested to the congress that in view of Stalin's "rudeness" it should consider the question of putting another comrade in Stalin's place as General Secretary. That is quite true. Yes, comrades, I am rude to those who grossly and perfidiously wreck and split the Party. I have never concealed this and do not conceal it now. Perhaps some mildness is needed in the treatment of splitters, but I am a bad hand at that. At the very first meeting of the plenum of the Central Committee after the Thirteenth Congress I asked the plenum of the Central Committee to release me from my duties as General Secretary. The congress itself discussed this question. It was discussed by each delegation separately, and all the delegations unanimously, including Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev, obliged Stalin to remain at his post.

What could I do? Desert my post? That is not in my nature; I have never deserted any post, and I have no right to do so, for that would be desertion. As I have already said before, I am not a free agent, and when the Party imposes an obligation upon me, I must obey.

A year later I again put in a request to the plenum to release me, but I was again obliged to remain at my post.

What else could I do?
Martens makes several various dubious interpretations of Lenin's meaning.Here is Furr's take: http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=4808

Also keep in mind that Stalin couldn't have been Lenin's successor. Lenin wasn't General Secretary, Stalin was. Stalin had no intention of being Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, which was Lenin's title. The question was if Stalin could hold the position of General Secretary on account of his "rudeness" towards others, because his wife noted that Stalin yelled at her.

Marxism is perhaps scientific, though more of a social science (in the sense of combining history, economics and sociology with political philosophy, as no other political philosophy hitherto has done),It is scientific. Engels specifically noted the scientific nature of socialism, it's why he contrasted "scientific socialism" (Marxism) with utopian socialism (Owenites, Fourier, etc.)

Kosakk

18th October 2011, 21:22

Yeah, sometimes I don't know what's wrong with people. I used to think it's just reactionaries, but no, not quite.

Some of you guys argue Trotsky deserved to be executed for calling for the overthrow of the government, but who are we to judge that?

THANK YOU, SIR!

(Guess I needed to hear that :))

Per Levy

18th October 2011, 21:27

Addition to the above letter

Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from the standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky it is not a [minor] detail, but it is a detail which can assume decisive importance.
Lenin
Taken down by L.F.
January 4, 1923

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

Personal Copy to Comrades Kamenev and Zinoviev
Dear Comrade Stalin:
You have been so rude as to summon my wife to the telephone and use bad language. Although she had told you that she was prepared to forget this, the fact nevertheless became known through her to Zinoviev and Kamenev. I have no intention of forgetting so easily what has been done against me, and it goes without saying that what has been done against my wife I consider having been done against me as well. I ask you, therefore, to think it over whether you are prepared to withdraw what you have said and to make your apologies, or whether you prefer that relations between us should be broken off.[1] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/05.htm#fwV45E767)
Respectfully yours,
Lenin
March 5, 1923

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/05.htm

Ismail

18th October 2011, 21:30

Per Levy we've been discussing the "will," as have Trots and "Stalinists" forever. What's your point? Lenin calls for the replacement of Stalin with a guy who is just like Stalin (Lenin did, after all, personally suggest that Stalin become General Secretary) only less abrasive, and said this because he got upset at Stalin yelling at his wife. Truly a stern rebuke to "Stalinism" itself, no doubt.

Per Levy

18th October 2011, 21:30

It's not true. Lenin called Trotsky the "most capable man" in the Central Committee, but also noted that his non-Bolshevik past wasn't an accident.

ah ja lets see what lenin though about that:

I shall not give any further appraisals of the personal qualities of other members of the C.C. I shall just recall that the October episode with Zinoviev and Kamenev [See Vol. 26, pp. 216-19] was, of course, no accident, but neither can the blame for it be laid upon them personally, any more than non-Bolshevism can upon Trotsky.

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

thesadmafioso

18th October 2011, 21:36

Per Levy we've been discussing the "will," as have Trots and "Stalinists" forever. What's your point? Lenin calls for the replacement of Stalin with a guy who is just like Stalin only less abrasive, and said this because he got upset at Stalin yelling at his wife. Truly a stern rebuke to "Stalinism" itself, no doubt.

His point is that, in true Stalinist fashion, you're making up quotes and falsely attributing them to Lenin for the sake of your own factually inconsistent argument.

And you cannot honestly say that Trotsky was 'just like Stalin only less abrasive', that has to be most glaring historical understatement that I've ever witnessed, simply calling Stalin's character 'abrasive' while at the same time ignoring a multitude of diametrically opposed positions on analysis, theory, and ideology shared by the two.

Per Levy

18th October 2011, 21:39

how can anyone, today, defend this terrible act i wonder? how can certain people still claim that trotsky was a "spy, foreign agent, terrorist" none of this is true none of this was ever proven. the only "evidence" these people have are tortured confessons and nothing else. because there is nothing else. no matter how mr furr wants to rewrite history, it doesnt change facts.

the problem with people who still defend this murder and the great purges is, besides being human beings who are very guilable, they are useless in a revolution. their will to purge other tendencies and destroy worker power/democracy in order to create a party dictatorship will clash ultimatly with the revlutionary proletariat.

Art Vandelay

18th October 2011, 21:39

This thread is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with Stalinism. I cannot even be bothered to respond, anyone stupid enough to believe those lies are fucking idiots and will have nothing to do with the political movement in the future. Good to know that come time for revolution you'll be hoping to line me up against the wall and blow my brains out you fucking scum. While maybe there is a part of the world where Stalins name is not on par with Hitlers but try dropping uncle joe quotes on the majority of the world and see where that get you. God stalinism is a colossal fuck up.

Ismail

18th October 2011, 21:49

And you cannot honestly say that Trotsky was 'just like Stalin only less abrasive',I don't, since Lenin didn't call for Trotsky to succeed Stalin.

thesadmafioso

18th October 2011, 21:53

I don't, since Lenin didn't call for Trotsky to succeed Stalin.

He implied it heavily that Stalin should be restricted in his access to bureaucratic clout.

When taken in the context of his other comments towards the leading politicians of the time (or rather lack thereof), he more or less did call for Trotsky to play an expanded role in the party leadership. It is exceedingly clear that he disapproved as Stalin's political performance in the role of General Secretary and in his various other positions leading up to this point and that he desired a counterweight to what he rightfully recognized as a menacing threat to the revolution.

I wouldn't say he had any one person in mind to head the party in his wake, but it can be said without any lingering doubt that he sure as fuck didn't want Stalin butchering and purging his way to power at the head of the bureaucracy.

Belleraphone

18th October 2011, 21:59

I'm surprised nobody's said it, but you can't go around killing people you disagree with, no matter what their political ideology. Trotsky was not raising an army against Stalin, he was writing political theory in Mexico.

Ismail

18th October 2011, 22:04

Trotsky was not raising an army against Stalin, he was writing political theory in Mexico.Except I've pointed out this is wrong. He wasn't raising an army, but he did want Stalin overthrown, publicly called for him to be overthrown, and did his best to organize opposition inside the USSR to achieve this goal.

If he merely did indeed write political theory then sure, assassinating him would be a bad move. But he didn't.

blake 3:17

18th October 2011, 22:05

Originally Posted by tir1944
Why didn't Trotsky come to Moscow to explain and defend himself on the Trial?

Look where it got Bukharin.

Ismail

18th October 2011, 22:09

Look where it got Bukharin.The bourgeois press praises Bukharin and claims that he was defiantly engaging in a sly psychological game of accepting guilt while heroically dismantling all the horrid lies of the evil Stalinist voodoo madmen Moscow Trials in his ultra-sleek, subtle and enlightened manner.

So yeah, evidently because he was willing to quarrel with the Prosecutor a bit he's seen as taking some sort of heroic stand and magically exposing the Trials as all fraudulent. Something tells me Trotsky would be a bit more argumentative than Bukharin.

thesadmafioso

18th October 2011, 22:10

Except I've pointed out this is wrong. He wasn't raising an army, but he did want Stalin overthrown, publicly called for him to be overthrown, and did his best to organize opposition inside the USSR to achieve this goal.

If he merely did indeed write political theory then sure, assassinating him would be a bad move. But he didn't.

Oh, so the Stalinist GPU would of been fine with his writing then, so long as it didn't say anything mean about Stalin.

That's a perfectly reasonable standard of censorship to uphold, yes. Say whatever you would like, but just make sure that Stalin's flimsy political house of the bureaucracy isn't so much as mentioned in an off light. Because, you know, Stalin's idea of the open forum made greater use of the ice pick than it did the ink well.

Ismail

18th October 2011, 22:13

He could say whatever he wanted about Stalin, every other hostile commentator from across the political spectrum certainly did. They did not, however, serve as former Central Committee members and did not actually actively organize opposition with the express purpose of overthrowing the government. Trotsky near the end was also willing to divulge info on covert Comintern activities.

Belleraphone

18th October 2011, 22:18

Except I've pointed out this is wrong. He wasn't raising an army, but he did want Stalin overthrown, publicly called for him to be overthrown, and did his best to organize opposition inside the USSR to achieve this goal.

If he merely did indeed write political theory then sure, assassinating him would be a bad move. But he didn't.
Your two sources are Fritz David, a known Stalinist (http://www.marxists.org/archive/shachtma/1936/xx/trial.htm#n32) and Konon Berman-Yurin, who has no record in the Trotskyist movement at all. Very suspicious. In any case, he wanted Stalin overthrown, alright, I want capitalism to be overthrown, does that mean capitalists have a right to stab me with an Ice Pick? I don't see where he called for him to be publicly overthrown either, but in any case this does not justify a cold-blooded murder. We call for the overthrow of political leaders all the time. And as I pointed out with the sources, there is really no evidence that he is trying to overthrow Stalin.

Ismail

18th October 2011, 22:21

What on earth do you think he organized opposition within the USSR for? Even fanatical Trot RED DAVE pointed it out.

Three sources, BTW, detailing Trotsky's increasingly anti-communist activities:

1. http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv3n2/trotsky.htm

2. "A second, very serious blow to Mexico's left came when Trotsky and his Mexican followers disseminated the rumor that communists and Nazis had formed a coalition in Mexico to prepare a coup against the Cárdenas administration in the context of the approaching presidential elections. This rumor had first emerged in the U.S. Congress's Dies Investigative Committee, and it gained widespread popular attention on October 2, 1939, through a Ultimas Noticias newspaper article with the title 'Ofensiva Contra los Stali-Nazis.' It created a pro-Allied propaganda monster that, in the end, almost convinced Allied governments that its own propaganda were fact. In November 1939, the artist and sometimes Communist party member Diego Rivera reinforced existing fears when he stated that Mexico was already in the hands of the 'Communazis.' Right away, conservative Mexican anticommunist senators of Mexico's Congress jumped on Rivera's bandwagon and demanded the dissolution of the Mexican Communist Party and the denunciation of its members as traitors to the country. Against the background of the Soviet invasion of Finland, they argued 'that taking orders from Stalin and to agitate in such a manner as to be subversive in character and to undermine the framework of Mexican Governmental procedure' was un-Mexican!

The debate received new fuel on April 13, 1940, this time during the German invasions of the Benelux countries and France. Again, Ultimas Noticias published an article about 'outstanding members of the Comintern in Mexico.' Quoting Diego Rivera, a German exile, and other confidential agents as sources, the article claimed that the Comintern's goal in Mexico was to foment a civil war through agitation, with the intention of distracting U.S. attention from Europe and, subsequently, preventing the United States from entering the European conflict. Most importantly, it claimed again that Russian and German agents were working together to start a revolt in Mexico."
(Schuler, Friedrich. Mexico between Hitler and Roosevelt: Mexican Foreign Relations in the Age of Lázaro Cárdenas, 1934-1940. 1st ed. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998., p. 144.)

3. http://books.google.com/books?id=mVpWH51F7toC&pg=PA340&dq=%22Infuriated+by+the+assassination+attempt,+Tro tsky+became%22&hl=en&ei=v-2dTqyqDseAOrP_scwJ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Infuriated%20by%20the%20assassination%20attem pt%2C%20Trotsky%20became%22&f=false

Tim Cornelis

18th October 2011, 22:47

It's not true. Lenin called Trotsky the "most capable man" in the Central Committee, but also noted that his non-Bolshevik past wasn't an accident.

If Lenin considered Trotsky the most capable man despite his non-Bolshevik past, does that not merely reinforce and emphasize how Stalin was incapable in comparison?

It is scientific. Engels specifically noted the scientific nature of socialism, it's why he contrasted "scientific socialism" (Marxism) with utopian socialism (Owenites, Fourier, etc.)

Engels was not God. An appeal to authority is still not a valid argument by the way.

The Man

18th October 2011, 23:13

May Ramon Mercader rest in peace.

manic expression

18th October 2011, 23:17

I can only offer my own opinions as they are. Although I of course have no inclination to Trotskyism, I think Trotsky proved himself a valuable asset to the October Revolution and to the Bolsheviks. He was a strong revolutionary, that much was made clear. At the same time, I think he was prone to egotism, sometimes I feel his conflict with Stalin to be almost as personal as it was political. While he claimed to support the USSR as a deformed worker state, it wouldn't shock me to discover that he was attempting to contribute to its overthrow. If it was true, then it goes a long way to explaining (though not necessarily justifying) the attempt on Trotsky's life. And if one says "of course, and he should have tried to overthrow the Soviet leadership!", then there's no moral ground to stand on...Trotsky was trying to take out Stalin and Stalin was trying to take out Trotsky. But then again, it's hard to say what the situation was.

What we can say for sure is that the assassination certainly wasn't over mere political disagreement. I think it's safe to say that countless thinkers and politicos disagreed with Stalin and were never threatened. Could the assassination have been personal? Stalin did, IIRC, go after the rest of Trotsky's family, and I can see little justification for that. Still, would Stalin jeopardize international relations over a grudge? Seems doubtful.

Some claims by anti-Stalin posters are a bit thin. I understand them and they aren't invalid, but here they don't convince. For instance, saying that Stalin suppressed democracy is suspect when Trotsky too presided over basically the same electoral system for years. This, in turn, casts doubt on the appeal to Lenin's last letter (which criticized both Trotsky and Stalin), as if Lenin was supposed to choose a successor himself. It's also important to remember that Trotsky was isolated and exiled principally by Zinoviev and Bukharin. It wasn't all Stalin's doing.

I, for one, regret the splitting of the movement that led to the assassination. Thinking of his exploits against the Whites, I regret the loss of a revolutionary leader like Trotsky, even if he had gone down the wrong path. Like the French Revolution before it, I imagine the Russian Revolution was so full of personalities that given external pressure its leaders were bound to turn on themselves sooner or later; however, I can't help but think that it was an avoidable circumstance that two revolutionary leaders would find themselves irreconcilably enemies with one another, and enemies in such a fashion.

Commissar Rykov

18th October 2011, 23:26

"The Georgian [Stalin] who is neglectful of this aspect of the question, or who carelessly flings about accusations of "nationalist-socialism" (whereas he himself is a real and true "nationalist-socialist", and even a vulgar Great-Russian bully), violates, in substance, the interests of proletarian class solidarity, for nothing holds up the development and strengthening of proletarian class solidarity so much as national injustice; "offended" nationals are not sensitive to anything so much as to the feeling of equality and the violation of this equality, if only through negligence or jest- to the violation of that equality by their proletarian comrades."
-Lenin The Question of Nationalities or "Autonomisation"
http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/autonomy.htm

Any MLs want to address that? It seems pretty damning to me.

Ismail

19th October 2011, 00:10

Any MLs want to address that? It seems pretty damning to me.http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv1n2/bolnatq.htm

If Lenin considered Trotsky the most capable man despite his non-Bolshevik past, does that not merely reinforce and emphasize how Stalin was incapable in comparison?Only if we're assuming Lenin said "Comrade Trotsky should replace Comrade Stalin as General Secretary." Lenin was doing an overview of the main Central Committee members.

RED DAVE

19th October 2011, 04:46

Only if we're assuming Lenin said "Comrade Trotsky should replace Comrade Stalin as General Secretary." Lenin was doing an overview of the main Central Committee members.Yeah. Little did Lenin know that he was keeping a political murderer and his victim on the Central Committee. I wonder if he knew that which comrade he would have sided with.

And of course you'll deny it, but Stalin once publicly slapped Krupskaya and some time after Lenin's death, indirectly threatened her life.

What a guy!

RED DAVE

o well this is ok I guess

19th October 2011, 05:10

http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Ludo%20Martens/node98.html#SECTION001031130000000000000 How on earth am I supposed to take these ridiculous claims seriously?

Os Cangaceiros

19th October 2011, 05:23

^yeah, I don't really have a horse in this race, but it seems pretty clear to me that Trotsky was saying that the failed Stalinist system would make people act in desperate ways, not advocating "individualist terror". :rolleyes: In fact didn't he write some tract against that very concept, which inevitably gets posted whenever a car is set on fire or a window smashed?

Os Cangaceiros

19th October 2011, 05:42

Also, just on a general note, I think that the only the most delusional of Stalinists think that the persecution of Trots sanctioned during Stalin's tenure was purely because they were socialist wreckers or something. From Vietnam and the rounding up & executing of militants there, to Spain and the disgusting persecution of supposed "fascist agents" like Andres Nin, to Raya Dunayevskaya getting thrown down some stairs cuz she dared question why Trotsky was expelled from the soviet communist party, etc. If you identified as an opponent of Stalin, you were getting dealt with, not through dialogue or the demonstrable superiority of ideas, but through brute force.

blake 3:17

19th October 2011, 09:03

The bourgeois press praises Bukharin and claims that he was defiantly engaging in a sly psychological game of accepting guilt while heroically dismantling all the horrid lies of the evil Stalinist voodoo madmen Moscow Trials in his ultra-sleek, subtle and enlightened manner.

So yeah, evidently because he was willing to quarrel with the Prosecutor a bit he's seen as taking some sort of heroic stand and magically exposing the Trials as all fraudulent. Something tells me Trotsky would be a bit more argumentative than Bukharin.

Yeah, Bukharin went to his death willingly, Trotsky was on the lam. So wtf?

GatesofLenin

19th October 2011, 21:44

It's not true. Lenin called Trotsky the "most capable man" in the Central Committee, but also noted that his non-Bolshevik past wasn't an accident.

In the end Stalin summed up (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1927/10/23.htm) the situation concerning Lenin's critique of his "rudeness" in 1927:
Here is Furr's take: http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=4808

Also keep in mind that Stalin couldn't have been Lenin's successor. Lenin wasn't General Secretary, Stalin was. Stalin had no intention of being Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, which was Lenin's title. The question was if Stalin could hold the position of General Secretary on account of his "rudeness" towards others, because his wife noted that Stalin yelled at her.

It is scientific. Engels specifically noted the scientific nature of socialism, it's why he contrasted "scientific socialism" (Marxism) with utopian socialism (Owenites, Fourier, etc.)

Great to know, thanks.

tachanka

19th October 2011, 23:52

Trotsky was a scoundrel, who functioned as an agent provocateur on behalf of the class enemy His followers pose a big a threat to the health of the revolutionary labor movement. Everything they have promoted has been theoretically false or strategically foolish.

Throughout the political career of Lenin, Trotskyists advanced tactics that turned out to be wrong. Trotsky in 1903 sided with Martov concerning the Party rules, which would have the result of opening the way for unstable elements to penetrate and destroy the Party. Trotsky and his cohorts denied the possibility of the development of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia, advancing the revisionist deviation that this stage would only be possible when the working-class made up the majority. During the imperialist war, Trotsky supported the "Neither victory nor defeat" line, and went against Lenin's strategy of transforming the war into a civil war against the bourgeoisie. Between 1918-21, his actions served to compromise the very existence of the Russian Republic. After 1921, he tried to sabotage the unity of the Party and the construction of socialism. When in exile, the traitor Trotsky disseminated vicious propaganda against the Socialist Republic. During WW2, Trotskyists refused to accept the fact that the Allied forces were engaged in an antifascist war of liberation and they absurdly regarded both sides as imperialist.

RED DAVE

20th October 2011, 02:35

Second post and so sure of him/herself!

Trotsky was a scoundrelAh, a graduate of the Joseph Stalin Memorial Daycare Center.

[1]who functioned as an agent provocateur [2] on behalf of the class enemy [3] His followers pose a big a threat to the health of the revolutionary labor movement. [4] Everything they have promoted has been theoretically false or strategically foolish.Wow! Four lies in 39 words!

Throughout the political career of Lenin, Trotskyists advanced tactics that turned out to be wrong.Yeah, like Permanent Revolution.

Trotsky in 1903 sided with Martov concerning the Party rules, which would have the result of opening the way for unstable elements to penetrate and destroy the Party.And in 1917 he was selected by Lenin and the Bolshevik Central Committee to lead the actual seizure of power.

Trotsky and his cohorts denied the possibility of the development of the dictatorship of the proletariat in RussiaNot true.

advancing the revisionist deviation that this stage would only be possible when the working-class made up the majority.I think you're confusing Trotsky with our poster Die Neue Zeit.

During the imperialist war, Trotsky supported the "Neither victory nor defeat" line, and went against Lenin's strategy of transforming the war into a civil war against the bourgeoisie.The line of "Neither victory nor defeat" was not Trotsky's but the Mensheviks'. Trotsky's position, while somewhat different from Lenin's, called for revolutionary victory of the working class.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1953/defeat/chap4.htm

By the way, of course, in 1917, the founder of the daycare center that tachanka attended sided with the Mensheviks and the SRs and suppoted the bourgeois government.

Between 1918-21, his actions served to compromise the very existence of the Russian Republic.Uhh, he was commander-n-chief and organizer of the Red Army.

After 1921, he tried to sabotage the unity of the Party and the construction of socialism.Tranlation: he opposed Stalin.

When in exile, the traitor Trotsky disseminated vicious propaganda against the Socialist Republic.Translation: He polemicized against and opposed Stalin.

During WW2, Trotskyists refused to accept the fact that the Allied forces were engaged in an antifascist war of liberation and they absurdly regarded both sides as imperialist.The Trotskyist movement was divided. One camp, the Orthodox Trotskyists, called for defense of the Soviet Union. Another camp, most closely associated with Max Shactman, did call the USSR imperialist.

All in all, a sterling performance that would have been admired by the founder of the daycenter from which this poster graduated.

RED DAVE

PhoenixAsh

20th October 2011, 03:10

promethean

20th October 2011, 03:37

http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv1n2/bolnatq.htm

Only if we're assuming Lenin said "Comrade Trotsky should replace Comrade Stalin as General Secretary." Lenin was doing an overview of the main Central Committee members.
I agree that Stalin was a good follower of Lenin in continuing Lenin's policy of appeasement of the international bourgeoisie up to the point where he signed a treaty with the biggest enemy of the working class, the Nazi party of Germany. Lenin, while apparently supporting the striking workers carrying out the ultimately failed German revolution, was busy in the background signing the Treaty of Rapallo with the German bourgeoisie, which ensured the continuation of peaceful relations of the Russian and German states, while allowing the German military to conduct testing operations inside the Russian state to strengthen their military prowess needed to crush the burgeoning workers uprising in their country. Lenin died as the head of a bourgeois state. Stalin was his faithful follower. Trotsky was Lenin's ultimately mistaken disciple.

RHIZOMES

20th October 2011, 03:53

There's a big difference between disagreeing and plotting assassinations and the overthrow of a government.

You sound like a liberal democrat complaining about violent revolutions, why can't everyone just peacefully disagree??

:lol:

Marxism-Leninism is an objective science

It really isn't. The failure to realise the subjectivity of revolutionary ideology by dogmatic leftists is one of the biggest flaws of existing left-wing organisations. This failure means stifled dialogue and thus the ability for revolutionary theory to appropriately respond to unexpected situations in ways that are not counter-productive for the liberation of the international proletariat. Liberal democracy doesn't work, but neither does total leftist dictatorship. Both are based on false premises and strawman arguments.

The unquestioned 'a priori' liberal presumptions of many anarchists and Trotskyists, and the dogmatic cultishness of many Stalinists with their 'objective science' blather, piss me off equally. Sometimes I just think 'fuck the far left'.

Ismail

20th October 2011, 05:15

Here is something to think about...if Stalin was so great and wonderful and always ideologically rigt....how come the revisionists won after his death?

How come that he allowed so many people who would ultimately supposedly lead to the destruction the USSR in positions of leadership and power? How some that under his leadership the party was positively buzzing with revisionism in waiting?Because they did not openly pose as revisionists. Those who advanced openly revisionist positions, such as Varga and Voznesensky, were denounced and the latter was executed. Kaganovich noted (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv1n2/chuyev.htm) to Stalin in the 1930's that Khrushchev had dabbled in Trotskyism, but then noted that Khrushchev was fighting "genuinely, actively" against them.

The thing is, Stalin could have personally ordered for Khrushchev to be shot, it wouldn't have made much of a difference. Revisionism didn't appear because a bunch of right-wingers weren't shot, although had Stalin lived longer its rise would have been delayed due to Stalin's proposed government reorganization and his increasing interest in combating revisionism by the time of his death. But it's very likely it would have appeared sooner or later.

In Albania Hoxha initiated tons of purges (not among the populace, just within the Party and state.) Into the 1980's Albania was the only East European country in which a Central Committee member could easily lose his life, whereas that had stopped for every other state in the region after 1956. Not a single ministry was spared from being purged at one point or another. By 1956 Hoxha was the only member of the Central Committee still standing from the founding of the Party in 1941. As late as 1982 there was another major purge which, according to a French doctor who treated Hoxha at the time and conversed with him, was meant to ensure that Hoxha's policies would survive his death, that Marxism-Leninism would continue. Hoxha was succeeded by Ramiz Alia, who at the age of 19 was leading soldiers in the National Liberation War and who was a protégé of Nexhmije Hoxha, Hoxha's wife who to this day is an avowed communist and a defender of Stalin. As late as April 1990 Alia said that "Those who speak of democracy and pluralism are exerting a form of political terrorism on Marxism-Leninism." He attributed the fall of the USSR to its revisionist policies.

But it didn't matter by that point. Revisionism was well within the apparatus, just as it was in the USSR. Alia himself was already initiating Khrushchevite economic reforms and was speedily reeling in any rhetoric about the class struggle or the defense of the purity of Marxism-Leninism. He recently died, but in his memoirs written only a year ago he generally defends Hoxha's legacy yet says that class struggle "hurt" the Albanian people. After 1991 he was a social-democrat, not much more to the left of Gorbachev.

The problem of revisionism originating in the USSR and Albania wasn't due to Stalin or Hoxha, it was due to that which was effectively outside of their control. In both cases the population itself was a huge factor, being largely disinterested in Marxist-Leninist theory and approving of revisionist economic and social policies that would raise their living standards and make them "freer" at the cost of the advancing of socialist construction. Deng did it, calling on the Party to "increase the productive forces" and saying that "poverty is not socialism, to be rich is glorious." Khrushchev did it as well (albeit not as blunt), bemoaning the lack of consumer goods and Soviet indifference to American technology and management skills, with the Soviet press strongly attacking the Maoist and Albanian lines that socialism does not automatically equal constantly rising living standards, which the revisionists used to essentially buy off the workers.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

20th October 2011, 11:12

Stalin having the ability to shoot people at will for supporting other leftist ideologies, Hoxha initiating 'tons of purges'.

Ah, the sweet smell of Socialist Democracy.

Is it not plainly obvious to anyone that the rule of Stalin, Hoxha et al., clearly did not represent the Dictatorship of the Proletariat?:rolleyes:

thesadmafioso

20th October 2011, 13:16

I love how it's treated as a positive trait when your favorite Marxist Leninist leader maintained the power to murder anyone on his CC upon being met with the first whiff of 'revisionism' until his death. Because perpetual murderous political witch hunts are communistic, right?

Die Rote Fahne

20th October 2011, 13:22

Zealot

20th October 2011, 14:43

You sound like a liberal democrat complaining about violent revolutions, why can't everyone just peacefully disagree?

Except Trotsky wasn't trying to start a revolution but an overthrow because he was sour about losing the "power-struggle". Inciting assassinations is not a peaceful disagreement.

RED DAVE

20th October 2011, 14:58

Except Trotsky wasn't trying to start a revolution but an overthrow because he was sour about losing the "power-struggle". Inciting assassinations is not a peaceful disagreement.Trotsky sat around with comrades talking about killing a tyrant. Stalin had an ice pick put in the brain of a great revolutionary.

RED DAVE

PhoenixAsh

20th October 2011, 15:24

I would like it noted in this debate.

Today in Greece PAME/KKE betrayed the revolution.

They took up the role of cops and protected the police and parliament from attacks by Anarchists, left-communists and other militant groups. The Stalinists collaborated with the burgeoisie. Attacking revolutionaries from one side while the riot cops attacked from the other side. They even let riot police pass through their ranks in order to get to Anarchists and other militant communists and socialists. They even handed over demonstrators.

On the other hand.

The EEK, a Trotskyist group, did their best to protect the anarchists and other militants by blocking the riot cops and providing a shelter for them when they needed it. At soem points even engaging the police on behalve of anarchists and militants.

THIS settles the debate about who is revolutionary and who isn't,

According to PAME/KKE's own slogan: You are either with capital or with the people.

Well...that was clear today. Any accusation of Trotskyist being counterrevolutionary and Stalinists somehow being the virtue of revolution....well...pretty much that is an argument which didn't hold credibility....but after today we have seen if definatively disproven.

Personally I don't care for either ideological tendency. But I think it is only fair taht all the facts are mentioned.

Ismail

20th October 2011, 15:37

The pro-Hoxha group in Greece (http://anasintaxi.blogspot.com/) denounces the KKE as "fascist," for what it's worth. They also called for support for anarchist demonstrations.

I love how it's treated as a positive trait when your favorite Marxist Leninist leader maintained the power to murder anyone on his CC upon being met with the first whiff of 'revisionism' until his death. Because perpetual murderous political witch hunts are communistic, right?Yeah, well, that's the way it goes. Hoxha denounced Mao's "two-line struggle" justifications for allowing revisionists within the Party and giving them a pat on the head. E.g. in his diaries, as noted by Jon Halliday in The Artful Albanian: The Memoirs of Enver Hoxha, "When senior figures, like Mao's secretary Chen Po-ta (Chen Boda), are purged in China and denounced as foreign agents, Hoxha explodes about the fact that they were allowed to remain so long in positions of authority." (p. 10.)

It's also worth quoting myself from another post made recently:

There was also the case, only a few days after the Hungarian Uprising, of Khrushchev approaching Hoxha over a pro-Yugoslav/Soviet official who had fled Albania. (Hoxha, Selected Works Vol. III, p. 33):

Nikita Khrushchev had received a long letter from the traitor Panajot Plaku, who wrote to him about his great 'patriotism', the 'ardent love' he had for the Soviet Union and the Party of Labour of Albania, and asked that Khrushchev, with his authority, intervene to liquidate the leadership of our Party with Enver Hoxha at the head, because we were allegedly 'anti-Marxists', 'Stalinists'. He wrote that he had gone to Yugoslavia because a plot had been organized to kill him. As soon as Khrushchev received the letter, he said to us: 'What if this Plaku returns to Albania, or we accept him in the Soviet Union?' We answered, 'If he comes to Albania, we shall hang him on twenty different counts, while if he goes to the Soviet Union, you will be committing an act that will be fatal to our friendship.' At that he backed down.

Not to mention:

"Khrushchev remarked [at the International Meeting of Communist Parties in Moscow, 1960] that he 'could reach a better understanding with Harold Macmillan than with the Albanians.' To which Hoxha retorted: 'That you can come to terms with Macmillan, Eisenhower, Kennedy and their stooge, Tito, is a personal talent of yours which no one envies.' ... And Mehmet Shehu to Khrushchev's question as to whether they had any criticisms at all to make of Stalin announced: 'Yes, not getting rid of you!'" (William Ash, Pickaxe and Rifle: The Story of the Albanian People, p. 201.)

"Shehu later told Mikoyan with brutal frankness: 'Stalin made two mistakes. First, he died too early and second, he failed to liquidate the entire present Soviet leadership.'" (Paul Lendvai, Eagles in Cobwebs: Nationalism and Communism in the Balkans, p. 194.)

Not every official was lethally purged though. Koço Tashko and Liri Belishova were obviously pro-Soviet but were simply expelled from the Party. Belishova, for what it's worth, is still alive and is an anti-communist.

Die Rote Fahne

20th October 2011, 17:30

The pro-Hoxha group in Greece (http://anasintaxi.blogspot.com/) denounces the KKE as "fascist," for what it's worth. They also called for support for anarchist demonstrations.

Yeah, well, that's the way it goes. Hoxha denounced Mao's "two-line struggle" justifications for allowing revisionists within the Party and giving them a pat on the head. E.g. in his diaries, as noted by Jon Halliday in The Artful Albanian: The Memoirs of Enver Hoxha, "When senior figures, like Mao's secretary Chen Po-ta (Chen Boda), are purged in China and denounced as foreign agents, Hoxha explodes about the fact that they were allowed to remain so long in positions of authority." (p. 10.)
Because murdering them is the only way to remove "revisionists" from the party...

Ismail

20th October 2011, 18:17

Again, various revisionists were expelled. Usually only ones which were seen as having a strong backing and occupied high positions were executed since they represented an actual threat, e.g. in the 1970's Hoxha alleged an attempt by the Chinese to initiate a coup d'état in Albania through sections of the military discontented with the "People's War" strategy adopted by the government and the subsequent abolition of military ranks. In the early 70's there was also a fairly non-violent purging of the mass organizations of persons which advocated bourgeois liberalism, particularly amongst the groups affiliated with writers and the youth. There was a 1956 party conference in which some bureaucrats and military men denounced the "cult of the individual," "Stalinism," and called for better relations with Yugoslavia. They were expelled, generally without any executions.

RED DAVE

20th October 2011, 18:44

There was a 1956 party conference in which some bureaucrats and military men denounced the "cult of the individual," "Stalinism," and called for better relations with Yugoslavia. They were expelled, generally without any executions.(emph added)

So for either: (a) denouncing the cult of the individual, (b) denouncing stalinism or (c) calling for relationship with Yugoslavia, you could get killed.

Socialist democracy in action in a country with a population, at the time, of 1.5 million people. Result of all this Marxist militance: capitalism in 2011.

RED DAVE

Rafiq

24th October 2011, 22:50

Admit their errors, read up and embrace Marxism-Leninism like various ex-Mensheviks and Left SRs did after the October Revolution. Unlike Trots and Maoists, we MLs aren't fond of ideological pluralism anywhere within the state apparatus.

@Kosakk, I'm aware of that claim. I thought you were one of those "Beria was totally evil and literally raped and killed children" types.

I mean what the fuck, you sound like a religious bigot right now.

So either become an ML or die? Kill people because they don't adhere to your shit Idealist AntiMarxist ideology? No wonder you have to force them to become ML's, no right minded person would label himself that.

Rafiq

24th October 2011, 23:03

Ismail

25th October 2011, 00:13

Had Stalin lived longer, he probably would have done the same thing Khrushchev did. Khrushchev and friends were only addressing the material conditions generated by the USSR, which was part of a larger degeneration that started around 1919-1922.Stalin explicitly denounced the idea of ending the machine-tractor stations. Malenkov criticized those who advocated such a thing as well after Stalin died. Khrushchev disbanded them.

There was no economic reason to disband them. Khrushchev said that Stalin "distrusted the peasantry" to justify their disbanding.

And no, non-Marxist-Leninists can peacefully live in a country provided they do not seek to undermine the dictatorship of the proletariat. Such was the case in Albania, where plenty of non-communists worked through the Democratic Front (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Front_of_Albania).

RED DAVE

25th October 2011, 01:25

And no, non-Marxist-Leninists can peacefully live in a country provided they do not seek to undermine the dictatorship of the party. fify

RED DAVE

DaringMehring

25th October 2011, 03:53

And no, non-Marxist-Leninists can peacefully live in a country provided they do not seek to undermine the dictatorship of the proletariat. Such was the case in Albania, where plenty of non-communists worked through the Democratic Front (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Front_of_Albania).

This is simply not true.

No one can live peacefully in a "Marxist-Leninist" aka Stalinist country.

Look at the purges of ethnic groups done by Stalin. Jews, Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Chelyabinsk Finns, and others were displaced and/or killed simply for their ethnic background.

Eg: " In the decades after the Finnish Civil War in 1918, some 15,000 "Red" Finns defected into the Soviet Union. Most of them were transferred to Chelyabinsk via railway. In 1938, during the great purges, most of them were executed. Their mass grave is located near the Zolonyi Gora's former gold mine, and today bears a small memorial."

The Stalinist regime killed who-ever it pleased. Even after Stalin was gone, his epigones continued the killing, just in a more low-key way. Jews were killed for feared Israel sympathies long after Stalin was gone.

The socialist country of the future, should unequivocably hold to the call: "down with the death penalty!" Or as Mao put it, "heads are not leeks, they don't grow back."

A great article, which presaged far worse to come, is Martov's "down with the death penalty!" -- http://www.marxists.org/archive/martov/1918/07/death-penalty.htm

Ismail

25th October 2011, 04:24

The socialist country of the future, should unequivocably hold to the call: "down with the death penalty!" Or as Mao put it, "heads are not leeks, they don't grow back."Enver Hoxha examined the article in which Mao said that and, on the same point, explained Mao's anti-communist words in his diary in 1976: "In doing this Mao tries to attack Stalin. He says that 'Stalin shot people for the most trifling mistake'. This is a slander. Stalin did not shoot people for making mistakes. On the contrary, he struggled to correct those who made mistakes and there are documents which show this is true. Stalin directed that evildoers should be put in prison or concentration camps, and that counterrevolutionaries, traitors, spies, and the other enemies of the people should be shot for especially dangerous crimes. If he had not done this, socialism could not have been built in the Soviet Union, and Stalin would not have been on the Leninist road. Mao Tsetung is opposed to this line. He generalizes the issue and treats both those who have committed not very dangerous crimes, who certainly should not be shot, and counter-revolutionaries, in the same way. Who says that we should shoot those who have not committed grave crimes? Nobody. On the contrary, we are for correcting such people, and this is what we have done." - Reflections on China Vol. II, p. 383.

Hoxha notes shortly thereafter that, "Mao Tsetung accuses Stalin of left adventurism, of having exerted great pressure on China and the Communist Party of China. Stalin must have had no faith in the leadership of the Communist Party of China. When China was liberated, Stalin expressed his doubt that the Chinese leadership might follow the Titoite course. Glancing over all the main principles of Mao Tsetung's revisionist line, in regard to all those things which he raises against Stalin, we can say without reservation that Stalin was truly a great Marxist-Leninist who foresaw correctly where China was going, who long ago realized what the views of Mao Tsetung were, and saw that, in many directions, they were Titoite revisionist views, both on international policy and on internal policy, on the class struggle, on the dictatorship of the proletariat, on peaceful coexistence between countries with different social systems, etc." - Ibid. p. 385.

DaringMehring

25th October 2011, 05:18

Enver Hoxha examined the article in which Mao said that and, on the same point, explained Mao's anti-communist words in his diary in 1976: "In doing this Mao tries to attack Stalin. He says that 'Stalin shot people for the most trifling mistake'. This is a slander. Stalin did not shoot people for making mistakes. On the contrary, he struggled to correct those who made mistakes and there are documents which show this is true. Stalin directed that evildoers should be put in prison or concentration camps, and that counterrevolutionaries, traitors, spies, and the other enemies of the people should be shot for especially dangerous crimes. If he had not done this, socialism could not have been built in the Soviet Union, and Stalin would not have been on the Leninist road. Mao Tsetung is opposed to this line. He generalizes the issue and treats both those who have committed not very dangerous crimes, who certainly should not be shot, and counter-revolutionaries, in the same way. Who says that we should shoot those who have not committed grave crimes? Nobody. On the contrary, we are for correcting such people, and this is what we have done." - Reflections on China Vol. II, p. 383.

Hoxha notes shortly thereafter that, "Mao Tsetung accuses Stalin of left adventurism, of having exerted great pressure on China and the Communist Party of China. Stalin must have had no faith in the leadership of the Communist Party of China. When China was liberated, Stalin expressed his doubt that the Chinese leadership might follow the Titoite course. Glancing over all the main principles of Mao Tsetung's revisionist line, in regard to all those things which he raises against Stalin, we can say without reservation that Stalin was truly a great Marxist-Leninist who foresaw correctly where China was going, who long ago realized what the views of Mao Tsetung were, and saw that, in many directions, they were Titoite revisionist views, both on international policy and on internal policy, on the class struggle, on the dictatorship of the proletariat, on peaceful coexistence between countries with different social systems, etc." - Ibid. p. 385.

Basically, a religious argument.

And the huge flaw in the religion -- that the mass killings were not just horrific, but did not lead to socialism. " If he had not done this, socialism could not have been built in the Soviet Union" --- socialism was not built in the USSR. The means of production were socialized by the revolution, but socialist relations of production were never achieved, and Stalin and the bureaucracy played their obvious role in this failure.

The killings themselves, have to be one of the greatest blows ever dealt to socialism.

They destroyed the moral authority of socialism, which was a material force.

They killed thousands on thousands of the best socialist militants, everyone outside the narrow spectrum of Stalin's clique of fakers who led the way to capitalism.

They demoralized many Communists - big C members of the Party -- with disasterous results. For instance Whittaker Chambers, who was a great cultural worker and a spy for the USSR, turned thanks to the Purges, and then sold out whoever he could and propagandized against communism, because of the horror it inflicted on humanity in general and some of his comrades in particular. How many stories are there like this.

In the face of this, all you have are some quotes regarding a controversy with Mao, that convince nobody outside of the idolizers of Hoxha, who wielded the executioner's gun to preside over yet another failure of so-called socialism.

Your arguments are obviously lacking and your political position is historically irrelevant, except for the lingering effects of the harm it has done to the cause of socialism.

Vanguard1917

25th October 2011, 21:15

And no, non-Marxist-Leninists can peacefully live in a country provided they do not seek to undermine the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Well yeah, i guess it was a lot safer to be a non-political individual under Stalin than a communist. Those who took their Marxism somewhat seriously, e.g. those who actually led the October revolution, tended to be arrested and killed.

Ismail

25th October 2011, 23:26

Well yeah, i guess it was a lot safer to be a non-political individual under Stalin than a communist. Those who took their Marxism somewhat seriously, e.g. those who actually led the October revolution, tended to be arrested and killed.Probably because they objectively advanced anti-communism in the 20's and 30's. It wasn't much different in Albania. Being a "veteran communist" like Koço Tashko or Sejfulla Malëshova didn't prevent your expulsion from the party, nor did being a hero of the national liberation war like Mehmet Shehu save you from execution. If you were objectively advancing anti-communism, and especially if you had as an aim the overthrow of the government, then you should expect retribution.

Acting as if Zinoviev, Bukharin, etc. were some sort of paragons of principled stands is of course ridiculous. In addition Stalin played a notable role in the events of 1917 just as they did. It was Stalin who shaved off Lenin's facial hair and got him smuggled out of Petrograd. Trotsky later approvingly quoted Krupskaya's words that, "In the evening Stalin and others persuaded Ilyich not to appear in court and thereby saved his life."

RED DAVE

26th October 2011, 00:06

Probably because they objectively advanced anti-communism in the 20's and 30's. It wasn't much different in Albania. Being a "veteran communist" like Koço Tashko or Sejfulla Malëshova didn't prevent your expulsion from the party, nor did being a hero of the national liberation war like Mehmet Shehu save you from execution. If you were objectively advancing anti-communism, and especially if you had as an aim the overthrow of the government, then you should expect retribution.The greatest anti-communist in Albania was Enver Hoxha.

Acting as if Zinoviev, Bukharin, etc. were some sort of paragons of principled stands is of course ridiculous. In addition Stalin played a notable role in the events of 1917 just as they did. It was Stalin who shaved off Lenin's facial hair and got him smuggled out of Petrograd. Trotsky later approvingly quoted Krupskaya's words that, "In the evening Stalin and others persuaded Ilyich not to appear in court and thereby saved his life."[/QUOTE]Yeah, old Joe was just such a hero of socialism.

Going back to the OP, here's Stalinism in action.

http://neurosurgerycns.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/the_death_of_leon_trotsky.jpg

RED DAVE

Ismail

26th October 2011, 01:26

The greatest anti-communist in Albania was Enver Hoxha.Except for the avowed anti-communists in the 1940's that he fought against, I suppose. Or Liri Belishova, another "veteran communist" who was expelled in 1960 for her pro-Soviet stands and who is today an anti-communist.

Shortly before the Hungarian uprising became serious, Hoxha noted his attempts to warn the Hungarian leadership:

In the evening they put on a dinner for us in the Parliament Building, in a room where a big portrait of Attila hanging on the wall struck the eye. We talked again about the grave situation that was simmering in Hungary. But it seemed that they had lost their sense of direction. I said to them:

“Why are you acting like this? How can you sit idle in the face of this counter-revolution which is rising, why are you simply looking on and not taking measures?”

“What measures could we take?” one of them asked.

“You should close the ‘Petöfi’ Club immediately, arrest the main trouble-makers, bring the armed working class out in the boulevards and encircle the Esztergom. If you can’t jail Mindszenty, what about Imre Nagy, can’t you arrest him? Have some of the leaders of these counter-revolutionaries shot to teach them what the dictatorship of the proletariat is.”

The Hungarian comrades opened their eyes wide with surprise as if they wanted to say to me: “Have you gone mad?” One of them told me:

“We cannot act as you suggest, Comrade Enver, because we do not consider the situation so alarming. We have the situation in hand. What they are shouting about at the ‘Petöfi’ Club is childish foolishness and if some members of the Central Committee went to congratulate Imre Nagy, they did this because they had long been comrades of his and not because they disagree with the Central Committee which expelled Imre from its ranks.”

“It seems to me you are taking the matter lightly,” I said. “You don’t appreciate the great danger hanging over you. Believe us, we know the Titoites well and know what they are after as the anti-communists and agents of imperialism they are.”

Mine was a voice in the wilderness. We ate that ill-omened dinner and during the conversation which lasted for several hours, the Hungarian comrades continued to pour into my ears that “they had the situation in hand” and other tales.See: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/1976/khruschevites/10.htm

Hoxha had an uncanny ability to be quite accurate. He noted how Khrushchev and Co. (alongside Tito) promoted the same super-revisionists that they later had to suppress.

The Dark Side of the Moon

26th October 2011, 01:44

your doing great, ismail, keep up the good work

RED DAVE

26th October 2011, 02:12

Dzerzhinsky's Ghost

26th October 2011, 02:41

A toast to Mercader; heres to you comrade!

Ismail

26th October 2011, 04:19

One of the features of the Stalinist mind is the inability to appreciate irony.I don't see the "irony" anywhere.

RED DAVE

26th October 2011, 10:13

The greatest anti-communist in Albania was Enver Hoxha
Except for the avowed anti-communists in the 1940's that he fought against, I suppose. Or Liri Belishova, another "veteran communist" who was expelled in 1960 for her pro-Soviet stands and who is today an anti-communist.
One of the features of the Stalinist mind is the inability to appreciate irony.
I don't see the "irony" anywhere.You've made my point. :D

RED DAVE

Grenzer

26th October 2011, 11:54

A toast to Mercader; heres to you comrade!

Amen to that, Comrade!

In all seriousness, I'm not really sure what the OP intended with this thread, surely he knew it would devolve into a tendency war.

Also, stating that Hoxha was an anti-communist is complete bullshit really. As much as I disagree with Trotsky and believed he worked to dismantle the Soviet Union, working in the interests of the bourgeoisie, I would never claim he was an anti-communist. Red Dave is really coming off as a highly partisan, biased trot.

RED DAVE

26th October 2011, 12:23

toast to Mercader; heres to you comrade!
Amen to that, Comrade!I presume that a bloody mary you're drinking.

In all seriousness, I'm not really sure what the OP intended with this thread, surely he knew it would devolve into a tendency war.You Stalinists need to be exposed about once a week.

Also, stating that Hoxha was an anti-communist is complete bullshit really.Notice how successful his efforts were in bringing socialism to Albania and how the reputation of socialism has prospered because of his acts.

As much as I disagree with Trotsky and believed he worked to dismantle the Soviet Union, working in the interests of the bourgeoisie, I would never claim he was an anti-communist.That's because unlike Hoxha, who was a state capitalist, Trotsky, for all his flasws, was a revolutioay Marxist to the day the man you just toasted murdered him, shit head.

Red Dave is really coming off as a highly partisan, biased trot.RED DAVE is highly partisan against political assassins and those who toast them.

RED DAVE

Leo

26th October 2011, 13:05

I piss on Ramón Mercader's grave.

Grenzer

26th October 2011, 13:06

I presume that a bloody mary you're drinking.

Pinot noir, actually.

RED DAVE is highly partisan against political assassins and those who toast them.

Except when it comes to advocating Stalin's death, right?

The main problem I've noticed is that people seem to think that Marxism-Leninism, or "stalinism" as some people call it, is about replicating Stalin's policies in the event of a revolution. This is completely untrue. Marxist-Leninists simply believe that Stalin made some correct choices given the material realities faced by the Soviet Union. Personally, I see the purges as being excessive; and the assassination of Trotsky as being completely unnecessary.

I think some of Trotsky's work is quite excellent, and in general he was a good revolutionary. Though I disagree with Trotskyists on some theoretical levels and strategic levels, I think they have the right intentions; and it's unfortunate that such animosity must exist between us.

Where Trotsky went really wrong was when he openly advocated the destruction of the Soviet Union, though done with good intentions, it served the interests of the bourgeoisie and fascists.

Also, I'm not sure what relevancy Hoxha's popularity has regarding the credibility of his ideas. The most important thing is that they are intellectually sound.

Sir Comradical

26th October 2011, 13:44

Jaime Ramón Mercader del Río Hernández (7 February 1913 — 18 October 1978) was a Spanish-catalan communst who became famous as the murderer of Leon Trotsky in 1940, in Mexico.
He served 20 years in Mexican prison for the murder; Stalin presented him with an Order of Lenin in absentia and the KGB awarded him a Hero of the Soviet Union medal after his release in 1961.

You get medals for murdering the hero of the Russian revolution. No surprises here.

Stalin noted (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1937/03/03.htm) in 1937 that, "Contemporary Trotskyism is not a political trend within the working class, but an unprincipled and intellectually devoid band of wreckers, diversionists, intelligence agents, spies, and killers; a band of sworn enemies of the working class in the hire of the intelligence service organs of foreign states. Such is the indisputable result of the evolution of Trotskyism in the past seven or eight years. Such is the difference between Trotskyism in the past and Trotskyism in the present."

Yep, if Stalin said it then it must be completely true.

RED DAVE

26th October 2011, 15:06

RED DAVE is highly partisan against political assassins and those who toast them.[QUOTE=Cicero;2276335]Except when it comes to advocating Stalin's death, right?If you are talking about a story that has circulated that at one point in the early 1930s Trotsky participated in a discussion about assassinating Stalin, let me inform you that participating in a discussion and actually committing murder are two very different things.

You Stalinists can't get away from the fact that your tendency committed cold-blooded political murder.

The main problem I've noticed is that people seem to think that Marxism-Leninism, or "stalinism" as some people call it, is about replicating Stalin's policies in the event of a revolution.Yes, that's what we think. It's your responsibility to disabuse us of this if it's a mistake.

This is completely untrue. Marxist-Leninists simply believe that Stalin made some correct choices given the material realities faced by the Soviet Union. Personally, I see the purges as being excessive; and the assassination of Trotsky as being completely unnecessary.That's really big of you. Now, what are you going to do about current tendencies within Stalinism to replicate Stalin's crimes? There are plenty of M-L's around who think that the murder of Trotsky was cool and would employ the same tactic if necessary.

As to Stalin and "material realities faced the the Soviet Union," we can discuss that later, but his policies are intimately connected to his penchant for political murder.

I think some of Trotsky's work is quite excellent. That's big of you.

and in general he was a good revolutionary.Lenin thought so too.

Though I disagree with Trotskyists on some theoretical levels and strategic levels, I think they have the right intentions; and it's unfortunate that such animosity must exist between us.The animosity will continue until you reassess your beliefs and become genuine revolutionaries.

Where Trotsky went really wrong was when he openly advocated the destruction of the Soviet Union, though done with good intentions, it served the interests of the bourgeoisie and fascists.Actually, it was Stalin's murderous policies that did that, not Trotsky's. This is what I mean about reassessing your beliefs.

Also, I'm not sure what relevancy Hoxha's popularity has regarding the credibility of his ideas. The most important thing is that they are intellectually sound.He's one more Stalinist hack who supervised a state capitalist regime that became capitalist.

RED DAVE