Trotsky/Stalin poll

[citizen of industry]

Does it matter?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Not really.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Prepare for quote-war.

[Ocean Seal]

Its useless really. They're both dead, it doesn't matter today if Trotsky was a Nazi informant or if Stalin was a red bourgeois. It won't affect us and we need to stop sniveling at their feet and rationalizing everything that they did. They weren't omnipotent or perfect. The important thing is that they left us their theories. We analyze and apply them as leftists and after looking at them they both seem to be lacking (imo).

[Zealot]

The trots keep cramping our style.

[Omsk]

Close this thread,its main purpose is obvious - a sectarian war.Any anti-revisionists who feel the 'need' to answer here,should simply ignore this.And all other users too.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Close this thread,its main purpose is obvious - a sectarian war.Any anti-revisionists who feel the 'need' to answer here,should simply ignore this.And all other users too.

I felt the need, Comrade. You broke my heart.:crying:



lolololol

[GoddessCleoLover]

No quotes here, not even Santayana, although I hope that some of you get my point. To put Santayana's quote in my own words refusing to learns lessons from history is almost a surefire way to repeat past errors. On a practical level, we can't discuss socialism with workers or other people without being able to provide coherent answers to questions about the Soviet experience. Frankly, IMO it would be somewhat patronizing to think that one could gloss over the Soviet experience with the explanation that it is detrimental or irrelevant. I would never dare say that to any person with whom I was discussing socialism, and I strongly advise others not to try it, rather be forthright and speak your mind.

[citizen of industry]

Close this thread,its main purpose is obvious - a sectarian war.Any anti-revisionists who feel the 'need' to answer here,should simply ignore this.And all other users too.

Wrong - its main purpose is not to provoke a tendency war between Trotkyists and Stalinists (though of course that will happen anyway, like it does in every single thread regardless of the topic), but to get a representation on how many people here think the theories of either are particularly relevant to the present labor movement. Personally, I'm more interested in the numbers than what anyone has to say or quote.

[Omsk]

Than the use of the thread should be restricted to voting,rather than aguing. (And it's not like Trotsky-Stalin debates don't happen every day in every thread where a chance it will happen exist.)

Could the moderators somehow prevent people from posting,but let the option for voting open?Is that even possible?

[GoddessCleoLover]

How about if posters exercise good faith and restraint and limit their post to the issue of whether the Stalin-Trotsky split is still relevant WITHOUT getting into the merits of the underlying issue?

[Brosip Tito]

The "Trotsky-Stalin" debate? No.

It is, however, detrimental to dismantle the idea that Marxism-Leninism is anything but a failure, and an ideology of totalitarian capitalists.

They claim to be anti-revisionists, yet their biggest theoretical addition to us is socialism in one country...an idea antithetical to Marxism and one of it's core tenets: INTERNATIONALISM.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

The topic could be closed, stickied, so that people could go to it and vote. Though I am interested to see how many people believe that theory is very much relevant to practice.

[citizen of industry]

No quotes here, not even Santayana, although I hope that some of you get my point. To put Santayana's quote in my own words refusing to learns lessons from history is almost a surefire way to repeat past errors. On a practical level, we can't discuss socialism with workers or other people without being able to provide coherent answers to questions about the Soviet experience. Frankly, IMO it would be somewhat patronizing to think that one could gloss over the Soviet experience with the explanation that it is detrimental or irrelevant. I would never dare say that to any person with whom I was discussing socialism, and I strongly advise others not to try it, rather be forthright and speak your mind.

But workers confront capital in the workplace and its effects on every aspect of their lives, so shouldn't a marxian analysis alone be sufficient to answer questions about socialism, without relying on the Russian experience? I'm tempted to agree with you, but then doesn't it turn into a Q&A session about the USSR and a defensive position rather than an analysis of capitalism and what can be done about it? It has been over 20 years since the Soviet Union collapsed. It lasted for about 75 years, whereas a material analysis of history has been around for 165 or so and is still just as relevant.

[Caj]

How about if posters exercise good faith and restraint and limit their post to the issue of whether the Stalin-Trotsky split is still relevant WITHOUT getting into the merits of the underlying issue?

Ha, like that'll ever happen! :laugh:

[Comrade Samuel]

And thus communist Armageddon has begun...:(

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

http://quotationsbook.com/assets/shared/img/4328/800px-Stalin-Lenin-Kalinin-1919.jpg

Lenin had to sit in between them because they were having the same argument we are having now everyday: "With commie biotch better?" lol

[Omsk]

That is Kalinin,not Trotsky.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Caj; It may be naive, but I am encouraging folks to show some self-restraint. Time will tell.

SiembraSocialismo; I understand your position, but my experience is that when folks talk about socialism, not always, but sometimes they want to discuss the Soviet experience in detail and I want to be as honest and well-informed as possible. That is just my personal experience, the experiences of others may be different.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Omsk is correct. That was not Trotsky, but Mikhail I. Kalinin.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

That is Kalinin,not Trotsky.

SHIT, I knew that didn't look like Trotsky, Trotsky had a weird ass head and this guy's head looks normal. :laugh::laugh::laugh:

[Omsk]

You should not be bothered by such a small oversight,people usually mistake Sverdlov for Trotsky,or Kalinin for Trotsky,or vice-versa.

[Zealot]

SHIT, I knew that didn't look like Trotsky, Trotsky had a weird ass head and this guy's head looks normal. :laugh::laugh::laugh:

Rofl, true that. Stalin was waaay better looking than Trotsky. How can you compare this:
http://arabic.rt.com/media/pics/2009.12/512/38479.jpg

To this:

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lgmxmrbsPb1qazntwo1_400.jpg

Sorry but there's no poll here.

Trotsky and Stalin are some of the most significant figures of our movement, it's basically impossible to ignore that.

[Brosip Tito]

Rofl, true that. Stalin was waaay better looking than Trotsky. How can you compare this:
http://arabic.rt.com/media/pics/2009.12/512/38479.jpg

To this:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lgmxmrbsPb1qazntwo1_400.jpg

Sorry but there's no poll here.

Trotsky and Stalin are some of the most significant figures of our movement, it's basically impossible to ignore that.
Jesus Christ, it's resorted to who's better looking? Fucking ML's, fetishists is all you are.

Stalin looks like Borat, and Trotsky looks like Col. Sanders.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Sverdlov vaguely resembled Trotsky with the dark hair, stash and goatee, and pince-nez, but Trotsky always struck a pose while Sverdlov's photos reveal him as indifferent, even shy, before the camera. Does a post like this indicate that I have no life?:D

[TheGodlessUtopian]

WOW @ young Stalin. :ohmy:

[GoddessCleoLover]

Borat and Colonel Sanders. That post ought to be enshrined in the RevLeft Hall of Fame. :cool:

[Brosip Tito]

https://totallylookslike.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/stalin.jpg

https://totallylookslike.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/leon-trotsky-totally-looks-like-colonel-sanders.jpg?w=401&h=271

[Ostrinski]

Irrelevant and detrimental. Although I do second the notion that Stalin was one hell of a stud.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Since what makes our schwanze stiff is on the table I would like to cast a vote for Anna Khrushchyenko (Chapman). Even though capitalism has been restored, I am confident that had the Union still been in existence that she would have been a loyal soldier of Communism.

From all reports by the late 1940s Iosif Vissarionovich would have been willing to belt out a rousing version of Throw the Jew Down the Well given what happened to Molotov's wife Polina, Solomon Losovsky etcetera.

[Ostrinski]

I think Trotsky looks more like Pauly, from Jersey Shore.
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTg8dA-7qdpRWICTKQ3-28efHTfG7HvdLFnbluzBHpfZHZpfG4Xhttp://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQw8mwAfZYkPeVHddw1amwFq8qzhFG-3E_uqc7893oP8lqEKBXcQA

That fucking hair.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

This is what this topic was naturally going to decompose into: Looks and pictures. What did the OP expect by posting the most age-old question in Leninism? Obviously Trots are mad because one of our leaders killed their god while he was hinding all the way in Mexico.

[Zealot]

Jesus Christ, it's resorted to who's better looking? Fucking ML's, fetishists is all you are.

A Comrade started talking about what Trotsky looked like and I made the same observation. Don't get mad.

[Ostrinski]

This is what this topic was naturally going to decompose into: Looks and pictures. What did the OP expect by posting the most age-old question in Leninism? Obviously Trots are mad because one of our leaders killed their god while he was hinding all the way in Mexico, in the house of this ugly girl artist with a unibrow. lolThat's a pretty good reason to be mad, actually.

[Brosip Tito]

This is what this topic was naturally going to decompose into: Looks and pictures. What did the OP expect by posting the most age-old question in Leninism? Obviously Trots are mad because one of our leaders killed their god while he was hinding all the way in Mexico, in the house of this ugly girl artist with a unibrow. lol
Nice misogyny. Very refreshing.

Not to mention this is a very classic example of the pot calling the kettle black.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Comrade Comistar; say what you want about Trotsky but don't put my girl Frida down; since I spent an afternoon in the Bellas Artes back in 1980 and cam away convinced that Frida was a Mexican artistic genius second only to Jose Clemente Orozco. With respect to her man, Diego, I agree with Earl Shorris that Diego was a talented artist but failed to capture the essence of Mexican culture as did Orozco and Kahlo.

[Zealot]

Nice misogyny. Very refreshing.

Not to mention this is a very classic example of the pot calling the kettle black.

How is that misogyny when we've just been talking about how ugly Trotsky was too.

[citizen of industry]

SiembraSocialismo; I understand your position, but my experience is that when folks talk about socialism, not always, but sometimes they want to discuss the Soviet experience in detail and I want to be as honest and well-informed as possible. That is just my personal experience, the experiences of others may be different.

It is true, and due in no small part to the mass of anti-soviet propaganda that was poured on people, which tends to make people equate socialism with the USSR. On the other hand, I don't remember the Soviet Union collapsing, I was probably playing with toys in the back yard. My first conscious historical recollection was the Gulf War. And I'm at an average or even older age than the the Revleft average I think. Many people here were born post-USSR. So when I talk to people about socialism, I want to talk to them about capitalism and how screwed up it makes our lives and society. I imagine those who want to discuss the intricacies of the Soviet union will become less and less as it falls back into history, though there are lessons to be learned there.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

I was kidding. O my god, what is it with some people on RevLeft getting mad at me today. It was just a good day for me and I was feeling a little adventuristic with my posts, please do not explode. I like Frida's work and she was a great woman. Some people need to chill. And the funny thing is that the people chastising me today are the same people who said on the censorship topic that I was wrong for believing in some censorship.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Frida's art was beautiful. El day-Effay is polluted and over-crowded, but it was worth it to check out the Frida Kahlo collection at the Bellas Artes. I won't flame war about Trotsky, but am willing to go DefCon Four with anyone who doesn't appreciate her talent.

CC; I know you were kidding. Just busting balls as they say in your neck of the woods. Since you have posted that you admire Frida, what if any opinion do you have about Orozco, Rivera, and/or David Alfaro Siqueiros?

[Ostrinski]

It is true, and due in no small part to the mass of anti-soviet propaganda that was poured on people, which tends to make people equate socialism with the USSR. On the other hand, I don't remember the Soviet Union collapsing, I was probably playing with toys in the back yard. My first conscious historical recollection was the Gulf War. And I'm at an average or even older age than the the Revleft average I think. Many people here were born post-USSR. So when I talk to people about socialism, I want to talk to them about capitalism and how screwed up it makes our lives and society. I imagine those who want to discuss the intricacies of the Soviet union will become less and less as it falls back into history, though there are lessons to be learned there.Indeed. In the practical sense, Stalin, Trotsky, and the USSR are irrelevant. But of course they are relevant in historical/theoretical discussion.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Just busting balls as they say in your neck of the woods.

Thank you, but I live in New Jersey, where people do talk like that.

[GoddessCleoLover]

My Dad lives near Pompano Beach, a wintering spot for many New Yorkers/New Jerseyans. The Italian-American food down there is much better than up here in Baltimore. Spoiled me to the extent that I won't go to Baltimore's second-rate "Little Italy" any more.

[citizen of industry]

Indeed. In the practical sense, Stalin, Trotsky, and the USSR are irrelevant. But of course they are relevant in historical/theoretical discussion.

And yet, in the practical sense, we have parties that follow these tendencies, because of theory as a guide to practice.

[GoddessCleoLover]

I am not so much interested in dissecting the different sectarian tendencies, but my experience is that workers have serious and honest questions about the Soviet experience and therefore I try to be able to answer their questions.

[Ocean Seal]

https://totallylookslike.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/stalin.jpg

https://totallylookslike.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/leon-trotsky-totally-looks-like-colonel-sanders.jpg?w=401&h=271
This is the best post ever made in a Trotsky Stalin thread.

[Q]

This poll is exactly what this forum needed...

[Zulu]

It's irrelevant, detrimental, and ... unavoidable.


Such is the motherfucking dialectics of our time, guys.

[Dark Matter]

The trots keep cramping our style.

lamer go to your stalin worshiping group, i totally agree with TITO when he send-et every single stalinist to Goli Otok stalinist are idiots anyway,just look at nazibowls they look up to stalin this shows everything what stalinist are some freaking fascist with an different name.
And Trotsky was right that lamer with the mustache was an opposition of revolutin





and another question for all you lamers-stalinist

When that idiotic fucker died in 1954 why did her daughter have to leave russia was it
a) cuz stalin was so popular
b) cuz stalin was an fucking idiot
c) just for fun

and also that idiot stalin is guilty for such lose in 2 world war,he god an specific information from tokio that the nazis are going to invade russia,time,date,everything was included and that idiot still didnt be leave it.
He was still holding that agreement paper with the nazis and jacking off to it.


There is nothing in stalin that is so great to worship. Only teenage rebels use him as an symbol of stupidity and ignorance

And another message to all stalinist you suck

[Omsk]

lamer go to your stalin worshiping group, i totally agree with TITO when he send-et every single stalinist to Goli Otok stalinist are idiots anyway,just look at nazibowls they look up to stalin this shows everything what stalinist are some freaking fascist with an different name.
And Trotsky was right that lamer with the mustache was an opposition of revolutin




You are accusing Marxists-Leninist of being fascists?Those are some quite serious accusations.

And it is quite wrong to say that Tito was great for sending a number of internationalist Marxists-Leninists to a prison camp.



When that idiotic fucker died in 1954 why did her daughter have to leave russia was it



Stalin died in 1953.His daughter left the USSR in 1967,a lot of time after the death of her father.

The rest (Of your post) is not really...adequate.

[Zulu]

lamer go to your stalin worshiping group, i totally agree with TITO when he send-et every single stalinist to Goli Otok stalinist are idiots anyway,just look at nazibowls they look up to stalin this shows everything what stalinist are some freaking fascist with an different name.
And Trotsky was right that lamer with the mustache was an opposition of revolutin





and another question for all you lamers-stalinist

When that idiotic fucker died in 1954 why did her daughter have to leave russia was it
a) cuz stalin was so popular
b) cuz stalin was an fucking idiot
c) just for fun

and also that idiot stalin is guilty for such lose in 2 world war,he god an specific information from tokio that the nazis are going to invade russia,time,date,everything was included and that idiot still didnt be leave it.
He was still holding that agreement paper with the nazis and jacking off to it.


There is nothing in stalin that is so great to worship. Only teenage rebels use him as an symbol of stupidity and ignorance

And another message to all stalinist you suck

Trololo!!!

[Zulu]

@OP,

You should have created a 4-option poll:

I like Stalin more and this Stalin vs. Trotsky thing is crucial to theory and practice
I like Stalin more but this Stalin vs. Trotsky thing is irrelevant and detrimental
I like Trotsky more and this Stalin vs. Trotsky thing is crucial to theory and practice
I like Trotsky more but this Stalin vs. Trotsky thing is irrelevant and detrimental

This way we maybe could see some correlation there...

[Caj]

@OP,

You should have created a 4-option poll:

I like Stalin more and this Stalin vs. Trotsky thing is crucial to theory and practice
I like Stalin more but this Stalin vs. Trotsky thing is irrelevant and detrimental
I like Trotsky more and this Stalin vs. Trotsky thing is crucial to theory and practice
I like Trotsky more but this Stalin vs. Trotsky thing is irrelevant and detrimental

This way we maybe could see some correlation there...

What if one isn't particularly fond of either of them?

[Dark Matter]

You are accusing Marxists-Leninist of being fascists?Those are some quite serious accusations.

And it is quite wrong to say that Tito was great for sending a number of internationalist Marxists-Leninists to a prison camp.



Stalin died in 1953.His daughter left the USSR in 1967,a lot of time after the death of her father.

The rest (Of your post) is not really...adequate.

sorry i dont look everything on wikipedia we learned this in school so i messed up one year big wup

and what wrong with you i dont hate marxist-leninist I ONLY HATE STALINIST is this so hard to understand?

AND WHEN THE YEAR 1948 TITO AND STALIN BROKE UP HE ONLY SEND ET STALINIST TO GOLI OTOK and some other political prisoners

now stop this i HATE STALINIST NOT MARXSIST-LENINIST
i freaking look up to lenin i read almost all of his books and im going to hate my fellow thinkers then?

[Omsk]

What if one isn't particularly fond of either of them?


Get out.



and what wrong with you i dont hate marxist-leninist I ONLY HATE STALINIST is this so hard to understand?


Stalinism is an empty phrase.And your general post was against Marxism-Leninism.


AND WHEN THE YEAR 1948 TITO AND STALIN BROKE UP HE ONLY SEND ET STALINIST TO GOLI OTOK

No,the UDBA sent many people to Goli Otok,many of them not being politically active at all.

[Caj]

and what wrong with you i dont hate marxist-leninist I ONLY HATE STALINIST is this so hard to understand?

Marxism-Leninism and Stalinism are synonymous. You say the latter if you want to annoy them.

If you're going to criticize M-Ls at least do a good job about it without referring to them as "fascists." :rolleyes:

[l'Enfermé]

Similiar poll;

Who do you like more:
1)Marx
or
2)Hitler

[Q]

So...

Why is this in /History again?

[OnlyCommunistYouKnow]

I'm only posting because some sign told me too... Stalin FTW (superior mustache)

[citizen of industry]

So...

Why is this in /History again?

In our present circumstances, should it be confined to the dustbin of history, or not?

So far, 70% vote "yes."

[Zulu]

What if one isn't particularly fond of either of them?

They still must be able to chose which one they like more (= dislike less). Toss a coin if need be.

[citizen of industry]

They still must be able to chose which one they like more (= dislike less). Toss a coin if need be.

Why? 70% of respondants feel that the debate is detrimental and irrelevant, so why would any of them be compelled to choose?

[Ocean Seal]

lamer go to your stalin worshiping group, i totally agree with TITO when he send-et every single stalinist to Goli Otok stalinist are idiots anyway,just look at nazibowls they look up to stalin this shows everything what stalinist are some freaking fascist with an different name.
And Trotsky was right that lamer with the mustache was an opposition of revolutin





and another question for all you lamers-stalinist

When that idiotic fucker died in 1954 why did her daughter have to leave russia was it
a) cuz stalin was so popular
b) cuz stalin was an fucking idiot
c) just for fun

and also that idiot stalin is guilty for such lose in 2 world war,he god an specific information from tokio that the nazis are going to invade russia,time,date,everything was included and that idiot still didnt be leave it.
He was still holding that agreement paper with the nazis and jacking off to it.


There is nothing in stalin that is so great to worship. Only teenage rebels use him as an symbol of stupidity and ignorance

And another message to all stalinist you suck
The middle part which is italicized is ironically sandwiched between the top two bolded remarks.

[Crux]

What is this the "Stalin-Trotsky" debate? And yeah this thread is pretty much shit and yes I think a serious discussion is both possible and necessary. But uh...this is the internet.

[Zulu]

Why? 70% of respondants feel that the debate is detrimental and irrelevant, so why would any of them be compelled to choose?

Because the poll would demand them.

I, for one, voted that the debate is detrimental, but I like Stalin hands down. Which says that not everybody who votes for the "detrimental" option does so because he dislikes both Stalin and Trotsky as you seem to suggest. I would gladly avoid debating over it and concentrate on more constructive and relevant issues. I just wish the Trotskyists and other leftists just shut up about it too, but they just can't let it go, so I feel compelled to partake in the discussion, because I think giving in to their slander of Stalin would be even more detrimental.

[Nicolai]

http://quotationsbook.com/assets/shared/img/4328/800px-Stalin-Lenin-Kalinin-1919.jpg

Lenin had to sit in between them because they were having the same argument we are having now everyday: "With commie biotch better?" lol

It isn't Trotsky. It is some other guy who looked like him.

On-topic: Not really.

[Deicide]

http://images.t-nation.com/forum_images/a/f/af4bd_ORIG-Oh_Look_This_thread_again.jpg

http://t.qkme.me/39a4.jpg
http://t.qkme.me/35mhgp.jpg
http://www.interbutt.org/plog-content/images/sfwmaybe/general-coolfunny/1207432682294.jpg
http://pictures.mastermarf.com/blog/2009/090912-stalin-cat.jpg

[Nicolai]

Also, spite me being a Trotskyist, I have to agree: The young Josef was hot as heck :wub:

But that doesn't change the fact about what went through his head...

[ColonelCossack]

Jesus Christ, it's resorted to who's better looking? Fucking ML's, fetishists is all you are.


He joking, jeez.

Also I think this thread should be moved to non-poli or even chit chat.

[Zulu]

http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/1021/stalinbookeng.jpg (http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/1021/stalinbookeng.jpg)

[Bostana]

I'd rather have ML's and Trots than Democrats and Republicans.

[Drosophila]

o deicide u so silly

[Rooster]

I don't mind having a debate on it now and again but can we please ban people who just post quotes like it's some sort of argument? It just clutters up the forum.

[Azraella]

Meh, I think Trotsky had some interesting ideas, but I never really read any of Stalin's works. It's ultimately irrelevant. I'd rather talk about the best way to attack capitalism now.

[Philosopher Jay]

Hi Exoprism,

Tastes in aesthetics change. Trotsky was considered quite handsome when he was young in the 19th century.

This is a picture of an 18 year old Lev Davidovich Bronshtein. Compare it to 18 year old Warren Beatty.


http://jayraskin.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/leon-trotsky-and-warren-beatty-circa-age-18.png



Rofl, true that. Stalin was waaay better looking than Trotsky. How can you compare this:
http://arabic.rt.com/media/pics/2009.12/512/38479.jpg

To this:

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lgmxmrbsPb1qazntwo1_400.jpg

Sorry but there's no poll here.

Trotsky and Stalin are some of the most significant figures of our movement, it's basically impossible to ignore that.

[Zealot]

lamer go to your stalin worshiping group,

Unfortunately I don't have one.


i totally agree with TITO when he send-et every single stalinist to Goli Otok stalinist are idiots anyway,

Well that was intelligent.


just look at nazibowls they look up to stalin this shows everything what stalinist are some freaking fascist with an different name.

So just because some Nazikids like Stalin that makes all Marxist-Leninists fascists? Troll.


And Trotsky was right that lamer with the mustache was an opposition of revolutin

Is that why he sponsored revolutions over the world?


and another question for all you lamers-stalinist

When that idiotic fucker died in 1954 why did her daughter have to leave russia was it
a) cuz stalin was so popular
b) cuz stalin was an fucking idiot
c) just for fun

None of those and it wasn't 1954 it was 1967. And after slandering the Soviet Union she was granted citizenship when she moved back in 1984.


and also that idiot stalin is guilty for such lose in 2 world war,he god an specific information from tokio that the nazis are going to invade russia,time,date,everything was included and that idiot still didnt be leave it.

"guilty for such lose in 2 world war"? He only led during the second world war and in that time he completely liquidated the Nazi menace. The rest of your post doesn't take into account material conditions and is thus an idealist rant.


He was still holding that agreement paper with the nazis and jacking off to it.

Troll harder.


There is nothing in stalin that is so great to worship.

Maybe that's why we don't worship him.


Only teenage rebels use him as an symbol of stupidity and ignorance

I think that speaks for itself.


And another message to all stalinist you suck

I just shed a tear.....wait, no I didn't.


and what wrong with you i dont hate marxist-leninist I ONLY HATE STALINIST is this so hard to understand?

Marxism-Leninism is "Stalinism".


i freaking look up to lenin i read almost all of his books and im going to hate my fellow thinkers then?

Better keep reading because your cretinous, idealist, trollish, idiotic rant is not the way a Leninist, in fact any Marxist, would think.

[NorwegianCommunist]

Stalin controlled the USSR and we don't know how it would be with Trotsky, so it's not much we can do now other then argue with eachother :/

[Grenzer]

Meh, I think Trotsky had some interesting ideas, but I never really read any of Stalin's works. It's ultimately irrelevant. I'd rather talk about the best way to attack capitalism now.

Well you're not missing out on much. I've read some of Stalin's works, primarily out of antiquarian interest. He's not a terrible writer, as some people say but there is nothing particularly interesting in his writings either. What they do reveal though is that he was not insane or a sociopath, at least from what I can tell.

[blake 3:17]

I'm really not sure what some of the relevance to it is since the collapse of the USSR, given the hundreds of forms Trotskyism and Stalinism have taken.

On a literary level, I'd rank Trotsky as a major prose stylist of the 20th century.

[Bostana]

Stalin is way better looking than Trotsky.:D

http://llco.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/stalin_1902.jpg

Trotsky looks like he has a deformed head.

http://home.igc.org/~itofi/trotsky_mugshot.jpg

[Per Levy]

Stalin is way better looking than Trotsky.:D


Trotsky looks like he has a deformed head.

this is such a stupid comment...

will someone close this thread now, this was bs from the beginning.

[Ocean Seal]

I'm not sure why people insist that this debate is necessary. You don't have to uphold the holy tenets of Stalin or Trotsky, instead have a debate on their positions, their failures and how to build up from what they left us. Socialism didn't magically end because of either of them, one has to assess the material conditions surrounding Russia and the rest of the world.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Stalin is way better looking than Trotsky.:D

http://llco.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/stalin_1902.jpg

Trotsky looks like he has a deformed head.

http://home.igc.org/~itofi/trotsky_mugshot.jpg

How the hell do people keep glasses like that on their faces?

[Thirsty Crow]

Than the use of the thread should be restricted to voting,rather than aguing. (And it's not like Trotsky-Stalin debates don't happen every day in every thread where a chance it will happen exist.)

Could the moderators somehow prevent people from posting,but let the option for voting open?Is that even possible?
I don't think you realized that this isn't a Trotsky-Stalin debate, but rather a kind of a metadebate, debating the merits and purposes of a particular kind of debate.

To answer the question clearly, I think that the usual way this issue is framed is a sign of a degeneration of sorts, or of political immaturity, in that it reeks of the so called great men view of history. For that, and other reasons such as the fact that this implicitly reduces Marxism to its variations which have been formed respectively as the expression and reinforcment of counter-revolution and at least and inconsistent opposition which didn't really break with the underlying principles of its opponent, I think that it is irrelevant.


They still must be able to chose which one they like more (= dislike less). Toss a coin if need be.
...'Cause this whole shit is just another popularity contest.

[Deicide]

Stalin is way better looking than Trotsky.:D

http://llco.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/stalin_1902.jpg

Trotsky looks like he has a deformed head.

http://home.igc.org/~itofi/trotsky_mugshot.jpg

Hey, asshole, stop discriminating against people with deformed heads!

The history of all hitherto existing society, is the history of head-shape struggle!
Small head and huge head, normal shaped head and square shaped head, in a word, opressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of head shape acceptance, or in the common ruin of contending head shapes. DEFORMED HEADS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!

On a more relevant note.. Trotsky and Stalin can't be compared intellectually.

[Ostrinski]

I want to run my hands through that head of hair.

[Omsk]

I don't think you realized that this isn't a Trotsky-Stalin debate, but rather a kind of a metadebate, debating the merits and purposes of a particular kind of debate.



You didn't quite understand what my post was about,i understand the purpose of this specific thread,but i thought that a Stalin-Trotsky debate was inevitable,however,my assumption turned out partially true - as this thread degenrated into a flaming/unserious dicussion.

And as such should be ended.

[Collectorgeneral]

I am going to hide in Lenin's mausoleum until this bickering ends.

[l'Enfermé]

If only Stalin stayed thin in his later life, I would totally be a Stalinist.

[Blake's Baby]

Why are there only two options in the poll?

I don't believe that the Stalin/Trotsky debate is crucial.

I don't believe it's irrelevant either.

It's relevant, but not crucial, because there are frankly more important things, but on the other hand there are some relatively important aspects to it, along with much stupidity.

So; 'neither crucial nor irrelevant', thanks.

[l'Enfermé]

It isn't Trotsky. It is some other guy who looked like him.

On-topic: Not really.
It's Mikhail Kalinin, joined the RSDLP the year it was created, one of the earliest Bolsheviks. After Sverdlov died he took over his post. Stalin renamed Konigsberg to Kaliningrad in his honour, it's one of the few cities in the Russian Federation that didn't have it's Soviet name changed, because Kaliningrad was annex from Eastern Prussia and giving the city it's German name back would imply Germany has claims to the region.

[Goblin]

They were both HAWT:wub:

[citizen of industry]

Why are there only two options in the poll?

I don't believe that the Stalin/Trotsky debate is crucial.

I don't believe it's irrelevant either.

It's relevant, but not crucial, because there are frankly more important things, but on the other hand there are some relatively important aspects to it, along with much stupidity.

So; 'neither crucial nor irrelevant', thanks.

So start another poll with "relevant but not crucial. Frankly neither crucial nor irrelevant, with some relatively important aspects to it, along with much stupidity" option. But IMO, that falls under the option "irrelevant and detrimental."

[Dabrowski]

Considering the level at which the "debate" is often conducted here at RevLeft, the widespread and vociferous aversion to the topic is understandable.

But the "Trotsky vs. Stalin" question is really the most important thing in revolutionary politics, because it is the question of how the first, and so far only successful workers revolution conquered in 1917, and then was isolated, betrayed, degenerated and ultimately defeated with the Yeltsin-Bush counterrevolution of 1991-92. It's a question of life or death for the workers movement, mostly proved to us in the negative: how the Stalinist and Mao-Stalinist policies of Menshevik class collaboration led to bloody defeats for the working class from Spain in 1936-37 to Indonesia in 1965, and Chile in 1973 among many others.

The programmatic questions that are subsumed under the title of "Trotsky vs. Stalin" are the key to workers revolution in the countries of belated capitalist development, where Permanent Revolution, the program of the victorious October revolution in Russia, is the key to workers revolution in the "Third World" today.

Another factor that distorts and obscures the central issues in the debate here is that most "Trotskyists" on Rev-Left (dot com and real life) are not Trotskyists at all but anticommunist social democrats with a skin-deep "socialist" affiliation. So while they debate each other over who was more "democratic," who had the handsomer mugshot, or other such irrelevancies, "Trotskyists" and Stalinist "Marxist-Leninists" march together in popular fronts, national chauvinism, reformism, and all other sorts of anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist crap.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I'm sick of seeing mugshots... no matter how handsome the person in question is.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Considering the level at which the "debate" is often conducted here at RevLeft, the widespread and vociferous aversion to the topic is understandable.

But the "Trotsky vs. Stalin" question is really the most important thing in revolutionary politics, because it is the question of how the first, and so far only successful workers revolution conquered in 1917, and then was isolated, betrayed, degenerated and ultimately defeated with the Yeltsin-Bush counterrevolution of 1991-92. It's a question of life or death for the workers movement, mostly proved to us in the negative: how the Stalinist and Mao-Stalinist policies of Menshevik class collaboration led to bloody defeats for the working class from Spain in 1936-37 to Indonesia in 1965, and Chile in 1973 among many others.

The programmatic questions that are subsumed under the title of "Trotsky vs. Stalin" are the key to workers revolution in the countries of belated capitalist development, where Permanent Revolution, the program of the victorious October revolution in Russia, is the key to workers revolution in the "Third World" today.

Another factor that distorts and obscures the central issues in the debate here is that most "Trotskyists" on Rev-Left (dot com and real life) are not Trotskyists at all but anticommunist social democrats with a skin-deep "socialist" affiliation. So while they debate each other over who was more "democratic," who had the handsomer mugshot, or other such irrelevancies, "Trotskyists" and Stalinist "Marxist-Leninists" march together in popular fronts, national chauvinism, reformism, and all other sorts of anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist crap.
I was with you until the last paragraph. I don't think most of the ostensible Trotskyists on Revleft are anti-communists. That's a somewhat stupid and incredibly arrogant thing to say. Of course, I don't count Cliffites as Trotskyists -- I mean, how can you call followers of a man that wound up on the wrong side of Trotsky's last major political fight, a Trotskyist?

[Dabrowski]

I was with you until the last paragraph. I don't think most of the ostensible Trotskyists on Revleft are anti-communists. That's a somewhat stupid and incredibly arrogant thing to say. Of course, I don't count Cliffites as Trotskyists -- I mean, how can you call followers of a man that wound up on the wrong side of Trotsky's last major political fight, a Trotskyist?

Obviously agree with you on Cliff. But what else can one say after the record of ostensible Trotskyism over Afghanistan or Solidarność, or China today? What to make of the near-universal "Trotskyist" enthusiasm for the Libyan NATO "revolution"?

Sure there's contradictions there, which can be resolved in a healthy revolutionary direction. Leftists aren't right wingers, after all. But based on both the record of the ostensible Trotskyist organizations, and the attitude of their supporters that I've met (from various countries), anticommunism fits, and many wear it, their "democratic" bonafides in bourgeois society, with pride.

[Krano]

I'm sick of seeing mugshots... no matter how handsome the person in question is.
http://localhostr.com/file/yIvH8VP/staaaaaaaaaaaaalin.jpg

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Obviously agree with you on Cliff. But what else can one say after the record of ostensible Trotskyism over Afghanistan or Solidarność, or China today? What to make of the near-universal "Trotskyist" enthusiasm for the Libyan NATO "revolution"?

Sure there's contradictions there, which can be resolved in a healthy revolutionary direction. Leftists aren't right wingers, after all. But based on both the record of the ostensible Trotskyist organizations, and the attitude of their supporters that I've met (from various countries), anticommunism fits, and many wear it, their "democratic" bonafides in bourgeois society, with pride.
Look, I'm fine with the polemical edge, but the attitude of the SL and IG sometimes borders on the edge of delusional. Program wise, both groups are by and large good. But the snarky, arrogant, attitude toward other leftists is historically misplaced. I say this because I have been around the left for almost 40 years. Fight for your program -- but don't you think a little organizational humility might be in order? I mean Your org's combined world membership is probably a bunch less than one hundred, the ICL's maybe three hundred. I know it has a lot to do with current level of political consciousness, but as political organizations, as potential vehicles to lead the working class, and as the nuclei of the revolutionary vanguard, you have been rather unsuccessful, to put it mildly.

The program is powerful. The organizations have had some very minimal successes. Sadly, they are grossly inadequate to the tasks they would like to achieve. So, a little fucking humility would go a long way. Pound the program, can the self-satisfied bullshit.

[Igor]

Come on now, use thumbnails or resize or something. Or at least do something about your quotes. I want to browse threads without giant Stalin faces popping up and filling my screen all the time dammit!

[Ocean Seal]

Considering the level at which the "debate" is often conducted here at RevLeft, the widespread and vociferous aversion to the topic is understandable.
Someone's pretentious.



But the "Trotsky vs. Stalin" question is really the most important thing in revolutionary politics, because it is the question of how the first, and so far only successful workers revolution conquered in 1917, and then was isolated, betrayed, degenerated and ultimately defeated with the Yeltsin-Bush counterrevolution of 1991-92. It's a question of life or death for the workers movement, mostly proved to us in the negative: how the Stalinist and Mao-Stalinist policies of Menshevik class collaboration led to bloody defeats for the working class from Spain in 1936-37 to Indonesia in 1965, and Chile in 1973 among many others.

Stalinists, Stalnists everywhere.
Chile and Indonesia bro, seriously?



The programmatic questions that are subsumed under the title of "Trotsky vs. Stalin" are the key to workers revolution in the countries of belated capitalist development, where Permanent Revolution, the program of the victorious October revolution in Russia, is the key to workers revolution in the "Third World" today.
?



Another factor that distorts and obscures the central issues in the debate here is that most "Trotskyists" on Rev-Left (dot com and real life) are not Trotskyists at all but anticommunist social democrats with a skin-deep "socialist" affiliation. So while they debate each other over who was more "democratic," who had the handsomer mugshot, or other such irrelevancies, "Trotskyists" and Stalinist "Marxist-Leninists" march together in popular fronts, national chauvinism, reformism, and all other sorts of anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist crap.
Unless you are part of my sect you are a popular front supporting, reformist national chauvinist, anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist.

[blake 3:17]

To be fair Indonesia was one of the greatest disasters the radical Left has faced and has gotten the least attention in the Western hemisphere. Does anyone know a good history of it?

Other than arming popular militias, and the Left provoking a split in the military, I'm not sure what could have been done to defend the Chilean revolution. Allende was naive on many points -- Chavez is incapable of making the same mistakes -- but the filth came down so hard and fast.

[Zealot]

I want to browse threads without giant Stalin faces

Fair enough.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46837000/jpg/_46837293_000132825.jpg

Someone should have bought the guy a comb or a pair of scissors.

The debate (between who looked better) is still relevant to the 21st century because Trotskyists keep sabotaging our shit.

[∞]

Yes it is. Some people here truly believe a one party state is a viable way of achieving communism.

[∞]

Fair enough.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46837000/jpg/_46837293_000132825.jpg

Someone should have bought the guy a comb or a pair of scissors.

The debate (between who looked better) is still relevant to the 21st century because Trotskyists keep sabotaging our shit.

Spam.

[Grenzer]

The debate (between who looked better) is still relevant to the 21st century because Trotskyists keep sabotaging our shit.

The Trotskyists aren't sabotaging shit. Stalinist theory is more than capable of crippling itself without any outside help. If you haven't noticed, the Trotskyists are completely irrelevant and powerless today(just like every other portion of the left, I might add. None of us are an exception.)

[Zealot]

The Trotskyists aren't sabotaging shit.

Spain and the attempted sabotaging in Viet Nam and the Soviet Union come to mind.


Stalinist theory is more than capable of crippling itself without any outside help.

I'm totally convinced.


If you haven't noticed, the Trotskyists are completely irrelevant and powerless today(just like every other portion of the left, I might add. None of us are an exception.)

That's the problem; they try to make themselves relevant by attempting to take over the Marxist-Leninist advance.

[citizen of industry]

the Marxist-Leninist advance.

Where?

[Zealot]

Spam.

A) Your post is spam itself.
B) This is basically a spam thread.
C) My post wasn't spam. I gave a reason why the Trotsky-Stalin debate is still relevant.

[daft punk]

Skipped though the first coupla pages of this thread, so far, pathetic. Just a buch of Stalinists wailing for the thread to be closed.

I am willing to bet that virtually all Trots voted for 'crucial', and most Stalinists and others voted for 'detrimental'. Am I right? Any exceptions?

In other words, non-Trots dont want debate.

Not that they have anything to fear from open debate of course! :laugh:

However honest debate is almost impossible with most Stalinists, and is a bit of a waste of time.

[daft punk]

Originally Posted by Dabrowski http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2379650#post2379650)
"But the "Trotsky vs. Stalin" question is really the most important thing in revolutionary politics, because it is the question of how the first, and so far only successful workers revolution conquered in 1917, and then was isolated, betrayed, degenerated and ultimately defeated with the Yeltsin-Bush counterrevolution of 1991-92. It's a question of life or death for the workers movement, mostly proved to us in the negative: how the Stalinist and Mao-Stalinist policies of Menshevik class collaboration led to bloody defeats for the working class from Spain in 1936-37 to Indonesia in 1965, and Chile in 1973 among many others. "


Stalinists, Stalnists everywhere.
Chile and Indonesia bro, seriously?


Stalinism got a million people killed in Indonesia. Why don't you google before posting? Why don't you go to a credible source and learn stuff? In Chile it wasn't exactly Stalinists, but it was exactly the same policies - trust the army leaders, dont provoke them, dont rely on the masses, dont arm the masses, put a brake on the revolution. In Spain of course it was deliberate sabotage of a revolution.

[daft punk]

Considering the level at which the "debate" is often conducted here at RevLeft, the widespread and vociferous aversion to the topic is understandable.

But the "Trotsky vs. Stalin" question is really the most important thing in revolutionary politics, because it is the question of how the first, and so far only successful workers revolution conquered in 1917, and then was isolated, betrayed, degenerated and ultimately defeated with the Yeltsin-Bush counterrevolution of 1991-92. It's a question of life or death for the workers movement, mostly proved to us in the negative: how the Stalinist and Mao-Stalinist policies of Menshevik class collaboration led to bloody defeats for the working class from Spain in 1936-37 to Indonesia in 1965, and Chile in 1973 among many others.

The programmatic questions that are subsumed under the title of "Trotsky vs. Stalin" are the key to workers revolution in the countries of belated capitalist development, where Permanent Revolution, the program of the victorious October revolution in Russia, is the key to workers revolution in the "Third World" today.

Another factor that distorts and obscures the central issues in the debate here is that most "Trotskyists" on Rev-Left (dot com and real life) are not Trotskyists at all but anticommunist social democrats with a skin-deep "socialist" affiliation. So while they debate each other over who was more "democratic," who had the handsomer mugshot, or other such irrelevancies, "Trotskyists" and Stalinist "Marxist-Leninists" march together in popular fronts, national chauvinism, reformism, and all other sorts of anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist crap.

I nearly gave you a rep til I read the last bit. Seems a bit harsh. In fact it sounds like bollocks, shame really.

[Bolshevik_Guerilla_1917]

Cant we all just, get along ????

[Krano]

Skipped though the first coupla pages of this thread, so far, pathetic. Just a buch of Stalinists wailing for the thread to be closed.

I am willing to bet that virtually all Trots voted for 'crucial', and most Stalinists and others voted for 'detrimental'. Am I right? Any exceptions?

In other words, non-Trots dont want debate.

Not that they have anything to fear from open debate of course! :laugh:

However honest debate is almost impossible with most Stalinists, and is a bit of a waste of time.
No one else in this forum except Marxist-Leninists get shit thrown at there face daily just for having these views, i can tell you were all sick and tired of it. We won't change our views simply because of daily cheap shots you see on this forum every day directed at Marxist-Leninists.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

No one else in this forum except Marxist-Leninists get shit thrown at there face daily just for having these views, i can tell you were all sick and tired of it. We won't change our views simply because of daily cheap shots you see on this forum every day directed at Marxist-Leninists.
Yeah, it makes me weepy to think how you M-L folks suffer! Man up, comrade. If you are going to be involved in a political forum, you will necessarily take hits. So what. If your ideas are worthy, it shouldn't be a big deal. I try to avoid the ad hominem attacks. But if you are going to spout views that I disagree with, well, I will attack the views. And if they are illogical, unfounded and backed up by little or nothing, I will object.

[Comrade Jandar]

The debate is absolutely useless. First of all, if Trotsky had taken power, I don't believe things would have been significantly different in the USSR. For better or worse, the roots of Stalinism were always present in Bolshevism and Leninism. I won't deny that Lenin was a brilliant theorist, but as far as implementing actual revolution, he failed miserably.

[Grenzer]

No one else in this forum except Marxist-Leninists get shit thrown at there face daily just for having these views, i can tell you were all sick and tired of it. We won't change our views simply because of daily cheap shots you see on this forum every day directed at Marxist-Leninists.

And you won't change your views after having your entire theoretical worldview systematically demolished, which also occurs with a near daily frequency; so it's not a surprise that some people will settle for "cheap shots" as you put it. Stalinism has proven time and time again that its intellectual and practical foundations lie in sand: it's only expected that people are going to contest it. Either start making persuasive arguments backed up by compelling, incontestable facts, or stop complaining that people find Stalinism a laughably pitiful doctrine. We both know that neither of that is going to happen, so might as well learn to live with it. After all, we aren't complaining when potentially meaningful discussions on matters such as the USSR are derailed constantly by a small minority making the absurd claim that the USSR was socialist(a claim which literally everyone else rejects). There are some Stalinists I can respect, but it's in spite of their Stalinism.

It was this way years ago, it's the way it is now, and it's probably the way it will be for years to come.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

The debate is absolutely useless. First of all, if Trotsky had taken power, I don't believe things would have been significantly different in the USSR. For better or worse, the roots of Stalinism were always present in Bolshevism and Leninism. I won't deny that Lenin was brilliant theorist, but as far as implementing actual revolution, he failed miserably.

If such was the case than wouldn't your reply say that Bolshevism and Leninism were always Stalinism? I don't think one can say something was always a part of something else if it was separate (Stalinism as an ideology) to begin with.

[Blake's Baby]

If such was the case than wouldn't your reply say that Bolshevism and Leninism were always Stalinism? I don't think one can say something was always a part of something else if it was separate (Stalinism as an ideology) to begin with.

No he said 'the roots'. I am the child of my parents, I'm not the same as my parents. But without them, no me.

I agree that things would be unlikely to have been massively different if Trotsky had been in charge.

However, having said that, Comrade Jandar is very very wrong in implying that the failure of the Russian Revolution is a failure of Lenin or anyone else. The failure of the Russian Revolution is the failure of the revolution to spread. Even if no nasty Bolsheviks had taken over the Soviet Republic, even if it had been a totally Maurice Brintonesque paradise of perfectly-functioning and autonomous factory committees, the Russian Revolution would still have ended in catastrophe without the revolution successfully spreading.

[A Marxist Historian]

But workers confront capital in the workplace and its effects on every aspect of their lives, so shouldn't a marxian analysis alone be sufficient to answer questions about socialism, without relying on the Russian experience? I'm tempted to agree with you, but then doesn't it turn into a Q&A session about the USSR and a defensive position rather than an analysis of capitalism and what can be done about it? It has been over 20 years since the Soviet Union collapsed. It lasted for about 75 years, whereas a material analysis of history has been around for 165 or so and is still just as relevant.

Yeah, but if you want to create a socialist society, it isn't enough just to dislike capitalism, you have to have an alternative and a model.

There has been exactly one attempt at a workers revolution to establish socialism in human history that was more than just a flash in the pan. That's the October Revolution in 1917.

So, until there is another one, no workers are going to be seriously interested in socialist revolution without a clear understanding of what went either wrong or right or somewhere in between with the Bolshevik Revolution.

At the moment, the general reaction of people universally to the idea of communism is, well, they tried that in Russia and it didn't work. So, without a serious answer for that, socialist movements of any variety simply can't get off the ground.

So yes, it's not accidental that the Stalin/Trotsky/anarchist debate is where all arguments on Revleft tend to end up. Because it's the question of questions, more important than anything else. You can't accomplish anything without settling it first. And, politically speaking, where you stand on that is where you are and what you represent.

Trying to avoid it is like ostriches putting their heads in the sand. Pointless and useless.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

Someone's pretentious.

Stalinists, Stalnists everywhere.
Chile and Indonesia bro, seriously?
?

Unless you are part of my sect you are a popular front supporting, reformist national chauvinist, anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist.

I do find Dabrowski rather pretentious, but that is likely because I support the Spartacists not his IG, so there you are.

He's right about Chile and Indonesia however. The Chilean CP played a key role in the great Allende disaster, though Allende himself was not a CP'er. And popular frontism, just like Dabrowski said, was what that was all about. When Allende appointed Pinochet the head of the Chilean army, the Chilean CP, probably bigger and better organized than Allende's own SP, was all in favor. As was Castro.

And the Mao-supported Indonesian CP, the largest Communist Party in the entire world outside of the Sino-Soviet bloc until 1965, committed suicide on Stalinist/Maoist principles, leading to the Great Slaughter of 1965, with something like a million people murdered by the CIA and their military and Islamic tools in Indonesia. The country has never recovered from that to this day, which is why you rarely hear about it in the news, even though it's one of the largest and most important countries in the world.

Is he right to say that just about all of the left groups and parties, whether self-described "Marxist Leninists" or "Trotskyists," are crap, supported the NATO-directed "Libyan Revolution," etc. etc.? Sad but true.

-M.H.-

[∞]

A) Your post is spam itself.
B) This is basically a spam thread.
C) My post wasn't spam. I gave a reason why the Trotsky-Stalin debate is still relevant.

A) No it wasn't. It was an indicator.
B)Well don't make it even more so.
C)Seriously? C'mon thats not even true and you know it.

[Krano]

And you won't change your views after having your entire theoretical worldview systematically demolished, which also occurs with a near daily frequency; so it's not a surprise that some people will settle for "cheap shots" as you put it. Stalinism has proven time and time again that its intellectual and practical foundations lie in sand: it's only expected that people are going to contest it. Either start making persuasive arguments backed up by compelling, incontestable facts, or stop complaining that people find Stalinism a laughably pitiful doctrine. We both know that neither of that is going to happen, so might as well learn to live with it. After all, we aren't complaining when potentially meaningful discussions on matters such as the USSR are derailed constantly by a small minority making the absurd claim that the USSR was socialist(a claim which literally everyone else rejects). There are some Stalinists I can respect, but it's in spite of their Stalinism.

It was this way years ago, it's the way it is now, and it's probably the way it will be for years to come.
Years? well it doesn't seem like your propaganda is working as we are still the second largest tendency here. Right im the crazy utopian stalinist for thinking that there should be a state for a while after the revolution and that socialism in one country is possible, yet when you spout around your idea of worldwide sudden communist revolution that is considered to be a realistic tendency, but it isn't my friend it's a laughable and pitiful doctrine.

[Comrade Jandar]

No he said 'the roots'. I am the child of my parents, I'm not the same as my parents. But without them, no me.

I agree that things would be unlikely to have been massively different if Trotsky had been in charge.

However, having said that, Comrade Jandar is very very wrong in implying that the failure of the Russian Revolution is a failure of Lenin or anyone else. The failure of the Russian Revolution is the failure of the revolution to spread. Even if no nasty Bolsheviks had taken over the Soviet Republic, even if it had been a totally Maurice Brintonesque paradise of perfectly-functioning and autonomous factory committees, the Russian Revolution would still have ended in catastrophe without the revolution successfully spreading.

I definitely do not believe that any one individual ruined the Russian Revolution. I even believe that the Bolsheviks actually had the best of intentions. The material conditions were simply not there.

[Blake's Baby]

I definitely do not believe that any one individual ruined the Russian Revolution. I even believe that the Bolsheviks actually had the best of intentions. The material conditions were simply not there.

OK; I agree. But I think we disagree about exactly what those lacking 'material conditions' were.

For me, it's the lack of world revolution that led to Russia's isolation.

For you, at least on previous occassions, it has been Russia's 'lack of development'. Implying that had Russia been more developed it could have achieved a different result (which unfortunately is Stalinism - success or failure here merely depends on local levels of industrialisation which means that socialism in one country is possible in the right conditions).

[Comrade Jandar]

OK; I agree. But I think we disagree about exactly what those lacking 'material conditions' were.

For me, it's the lack of world revolution that led to Russia's isolation.

For you, at least on previous occassions, it has been Russia's 'lack of development'. Implying that had Russia been more developed it could have achieved a different result (which unfortunately is Stalinism - success or failure here merely depends on local levels of industrialisation which means that socialism in one country is possible in the right conditions).

That most definitely was a contributing factor. The failure of the German Revolution was simply the nail in already closing casket. I hope I'm not being to mechanical in saying this, but the proletariat was also a minority class in Russia. This was true of Spain during its revolution, but the peasantry had a high level of class consciousness, which made up for the less than perfect material conditions.

[Blake's Baby]

So you believe that given the right conditions, a country can become socialist on its own - so socialism in one country is possible.

Congratulations, you're now a Marxist-Leninist.

[Comrade Jandar]

I don't see where I said I support socialism in one country. Firstly that would imply that I support the formation of a workers state or (I hate to use this term) state socialism. Now, do I consider that there have been working examples of what (anarchist) communism looks like, at least in its early stages? I most definitely do. Anarchist Catalonia and the Free Territory in Ukraine examples. I very much recognize the necessity for the internationalization of the revolution, but such a thing does not happen immediately. Stalin came up with the idea for "socialism in one country," not because he genuinely believed it was the best policy for the Russian proletariat, but because he wanted to start soothing relations with the western countries.

[Blake's Baby]

You believe that given the right conditions (the right conditions being a sufficient level of development, which was not present in Russia but somehow was in Spain) the revolution in one country does not degenerate but can advance towards socialism, do you not?

So stripping out the ifs and buts, you believe that the revolution in one country can advance towards socialism. This is 'socialism in one country'.

[daft punk]

No one else in this forum except Marxist-Leninists get shit thrown at there face daily just for having these views, i can tell you were all sick and tired of it. We won't change our views simply because of daily cheap shots you see on this forum every day directed at Marxist-Leninists.
The only people throwing shit are the Stalinists. You should change your views because they are wrong, based on lies, dangerous and anti-socialist.

[daft punk]

The debate is absolutely useless. First of all, if Trotsky had taken power, I don't believe things would have been significantly different in the USSR. For better or worse, the roots of Stalinism were always present in Bolshevism and Leninism. I won't deny that Lenin was a brilliant theorist, but as far as implementing actual revolution, he failed miserably.

So how come Trotsky argued for different policies from 1924-8? Of course he would have done things differently. He said what he thought should be done, see my thread on the Left Opposition. I'm not saying he could have built socialism in a backward isolated country, but at least he would have tried, unlike Stalin who quickly evolved from an idiot to a counter-revolutionary.

Now, demonstrate that the roots of Stalinism were in Bolshevism. In fact, why don't you start a thread? It would be a good topic.

No, Lenin was battling the embryonic Stalinism before it even existed, and Trotsky battled it as it formed and took over.

Lenin 1922

"If we take Moscow with its 4,700 Communists in responsible positions, and if we take that huge bureaucratic machine, that gigantic heap, we must ask: who is directing whom? I doubt very much whether it can truthfully be said that the Communists are directing that heap. To tell the truth they are not directing, they are being directed."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/27.htm

[daft punk]

And you won't change your views after having your entire theoretical worldview systematically demolished, which also occurs with a near daily frequency; so it's not a surprise that some people will settle for "cheap shots" as you put it. Stalinism has proven time and time again that its intellectual and practical foundations lie in sand: it's only expected that people are going to contest it. Either start making persuasive arguments backed up by compelling, incontestable facts, or stop complaining that people find Stalinism a laughably pitiful doctrine. We both know that neither of that is going to happen, so might as well learn to live with it. After all, we aren't complaining when potentially meaningful discussions on matters such as the USSR are derailed constantly by a small minority making the absurd claim that the USSR was socialist(a claim which literally everyone else rejects). There are some Stalinists I can respect, but it's in spite of their Stalinism.

It was this way years ago, it's the way it is now, and it's probably the way it will be for years to come.

I started a thread on the Moscow Trials. Not one Stalinist has had a go yet. And I don't think any said much on my Left Opposition thread.


Yeah, but if you want to create a socialist society, it isn't enough just to dislike capitalism, you have to have an alternative and a model.

There has been exactly one attempt at a workers revolution to establish socialism in human history that was more than just a flash in the pan. That's the October Revolution in 1917.

So, until there is another one, no workers are going to be seriously interested in socialist revolution without a clear understanding of what went either wrong or right or somewhere in between with the Bolshevik Revolution.

At the moment, the general reaction of people universally to the idea of communism is, well, they tried that in Russia and it didn't work. So, without a serious answer for that, socialist movements of any variety simply can't get off the ground.

So yes, it's not accidental that the Stalin/Trotsky/anarchist debate is where all arguments on Revleft tend to end up. Because it's the question of questions, more important than anything else. You can't accomplish anything without settling it first. And, politically speaking, where you stand on that is where you are and what you represent.

Trying to avoid it is like ostriches putting their heads in the sand. Pointless and useless.

-M.H.-

Exactly, well put. Couldnt have said it better.

[daft punk]

I do find Dabrowski rather pretentious, but that is likely because I support the Spartacists not his IG, so there you are.

He's right about Chile and Indonesia however. The Chilean CP played a key role in the great Allende disaster, though Allende himself was not a CP'er. And popular frontism, just like Dabrowski said, was what that was all about. When Allende appointed Pinochet the head of the Chilean army, the Chilean CP, probably bigger and better organized than Allende's own SP, was all in favor. As was Castro.

And the Mao-supported Indonesian CP, the largest Communist Party in the entire world outside of the Sino-Soviet bloc until 1965, committed suicide on Stalinist/Maoist principles, leading to the Great Slaughter of 1965, with something like a million people murdered by the CIA and their military and Islamic tools in Indonesia. The country has never recovered from that to this day, which is why you rarely hear about it in the news, even though it's one of the largest and most important countries in the world.

True


Is he right to say that just about all of the left groups and parties, whether self-described "Marxist Leninists" or "Trotskyists," are crap, supported the NATO-directed "Libyan Revolution," etc. etc.? Sad but true.

-M.H.-
what is your opinion, did you not support the rebels in Libya? They didnt start out Nato led.


You believe that given the right conditions (the right conditions being a sufficient level of development, which was not present in Russia but somehow was in Spain) the revolution in one country does not degenerate but can advance towards socialism, do you not?

So stripping out the ifs and buts, you believe that the revolution in one country can advance towards socialism. This is 'socialism in one country'.

You seem confused. Stalin crushed the revolution in Spain at the same time as wiping out almost every living socialist in the USSR. That's not conducive to socialism is it? If He had not done that, Spain and Russia could have been moving in the direction of socialism, could have been a beacon to other countries. France had a general strike at the same time. The Communists called it off. Add that to the equation. Russia, Spain and maybe France all together. Stalin also poured cold water on the German revolution of 1923. Maybe that could have succeeded, instead of going fascist thanks the the terrible policies of Stalin, the Comintern, and the KPD from 1928-33. Maybe the British general strike could have had a better outcome in 1926 without Stalinist involvement. Stalin wrecked the 1925-7 Chinese revolution and supported the KMT right up to 1948. Even Mao, who was fighting the capitalist KMT, only wanted China to be capitalist. The world was ripe for revolution in 1945. Communists everywhere had their hopes dashed as they were told not to attempt moving towards socialism. The French communist leaders joined a bourgeois government, which thanked them for helping maintain French rule in Vietnam. But the Stalinists plan for capitalism everywhere outside Russia failed and so America started the cold war.

[Blake's Baby]

...
You seem confused...(some stuff)...

You seem confused.

You seem to believe that you're arguing against me, when in fact you're arguing against the positions of Comrade Jandar, which I was also arguing against.

You know what DP? If you weren't such a total sectarian tool and actually bothered to read people's posts and try to understand them (yeah, I know, 'if' eh?) you would realise that the Left Communist position on the world revolution is identical to Trotsky's position on the world revolution.

Of course, we don't accept Trotskyism's later theoretical capitulations to Stalinism any more than we accept the Council Communists' warmed-up Menshevism (and the two share more commonality than either likes to admit) but on the question of the Russian revolution's relationship to the world revolution, Trotsky's position was the same as the Communist Left position (and Luxemburg's, and Lenin's...)

[daft punk]

You seem confused.

You seem to believe that you're arguing against me, when in fact you're arguing against the positions of Comrade Jandar, which I was also arguing against.

You know what DP? If you weren't such a total sectarian tool and actually bothered to read people's posts and try to understand them (yeah, I know, 'if' eh?) you would realise that the Left Communist position on the world revolution is identical to Trotsky's position on the world revolution.

Of course, we don't accept Trotskyism's later theoretical capitulations to Stalinism any more than we accept the Council Communists' warmed-up Menshevism (and the two share more commonality than either likes to admit) but on the question of the Russian revolution's relationship to the world revolution, Trotsky's position was the same as the Communist Left position (and Luxemburg's, and Lenin's...)

Sorry, I only skip read your posts :D

Er, capitulations? To Stalinism? And what might these be, pray tell.

also, you say Trotsky was = left com but I just answered a long left com paste saying that socialism shouldnt have been attempted in Russia because it was premature. I guess not all left coms are the same.

[Blake's Baby]

Sorry, I only skip read your posts :D

Because you're an arrogant arsehole, and ignorant enough to think that it's a virtue.


Er, capitulations? To Stalinism? And what might these be, pray tell...

The idea that htere was anything to be defended in the USSR and the CI after 1927.


also, you say Trotsky was = left com but I just answered a long left com paste saying that socialism shouldnt have been attempted in Russia because it was premature. I guess not all left coms are the same.

Wow, are you seriously claiming that you, or Trotsky, thought that socialism should be attempted in Russia? You coming out as a 'Socialism in One Country'-ist now?

Read all about it! Daft Punk admits Stalin was right, says Trotsky thought so too!

[daft punk]

you're an arrogant arsehole

I thank you



The idea that htere was anything to be defended in the USSR and the CI after 1927.

er, the workers state as in planned economy. The economy of Russia shot forward faster than any country in the world except Japan which was being aided by America. This DESPITE the burden bureaucratic dictatorship. Thus the advantages of the planned economy, for a while outweighed the disadvantages of the bureaucracy, but inevitably that balance shifted the other way and the economy of the USSR ground to a halt.

This is not capitulation ffs. How can Trots capitulate to Stalinists? The Stalinists were killing the Trots. But still the Trots stuck to their guns, to their deaths in the gulag. Trotsky stuck to his line and it got him an ice axe through his skull. hardly capitulation!

Capitulation is when you go grovelling to Stalin for forgiveness, not that most of the false confessers had much choice in their eyes, being placed in a massive moral dilemma.






Wow, are you seriously claiming that you, or Trotsky, thought that socialism should be attempted in Russia? You coming out as a 'Socialism in One Country'-ist now?

Read all about it! Daft Punk admits Stalin was right, says Trotsky thought so too!

Of course the Bolsheviks were attempting socialism, starting in April 1917 when Lenin came to the same conclusion as Trotsky. And they said right from the start they could not do it in one country, especially a backward one.

They said this hundreds of times. Have you never read any Marxist literature?

"But we have not finished building even the foundations of socialist economy and the hostile power of moribund capitalism can still deprive us of that. We must clearly appreciate this and frankly admit it; for there is nothing more dangerous than illusions (and vertigo, particularly at high altitudes). And there is absolutely nothing terrible, nothing that should give legitimate grounds for the slightest despondency, in admitting this bitter truth; we have always urged and reiterated the elementary truth of Marxism - that the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries are needed for the victory of socialism."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/feb/x01.htm

Are you unaware of this? I did a thread specifically on Socialism In One Country. Maybe have a read.

[Blake's Baby]

...
This is not capitulation ffs. How can Trots capitulate to Stalinists? The Stalinists were killing the Trots. But still the Trots stuck to their guns, to their deaths in the gulag. Trotsky stuck to his line and it got him an ice axe through his skull. hardly capitulation! ...

Ah bless, there you go again thinking you're Trotsky!

We've told you this many times: 'Trotskyism' is not the same as 'Trotsky'.



...
Of course the Bolsheviks were attempting socialism, starting in April 1917 when Lenin came to the same conclusion as Trotsky. And they said right from the start they could not do it in one country, especially a backward one...



Run it by me again... because what you're saying is
1 - 'Trotsky and Lenin didn't support socialism in one country';
2 - 'but they were building socialism in one country';
3 - 'but it was a backward country';
4 - 'so it wouldn't have worked';
5 - 'but even in a developed country it wouldn't have worked';
6 - 'because socialism in one country is impossible';
7 - 'but just to be clear they were doing it anyway'.

So, not just impossible, but impossibly impossible? And yet they were going to do it anyway, you reckon? Wow. Did they have superpowers?

I say again... the state of economic development in Russia was not important.

'Socialism in one country is impossible, even in a developed country'.

Therefore, it would have been impossible in Russia, even if Russia had been developed (actually in 1913 Russia was the 5th biggest economy in the world, had 40 years of capitalist development, the world's biggest factories yadda yadda).

Q: Can undeveloped Russia become socialist? A: No.

Q: Can developed Russia become socialist? A: No.

Q: Why not? A: Because socialism in one country is impossible.

Therefore the development of Russia is not an issue.

[Grenzer]

Years? well it doesn't seem like your propaganda is working as we are still the second largest tendency here. Right im the crazy utopian stalinist for thinking that there should be a state for a while after the revolution and that socialism in one country is possible, yet when you spout around your idea of worldwide sudden communist revolution that is considered to be a realistic tendency, but it isn't my friend it's a laughable and pitiful doctrine.

What propaganda? I'm not advocating my own political positions, I'm just saying yours are wrong. I don't think anyone that bashes Stalinism does it with the expectation that Stalinists will suddenly realize that it's full of shit. If the collapse of the literally dozens of countries that have called themselves Marxist-Leninist isn't enough to spark the realization that it is a fatally flawed ideology, what good is further evidence and logic? According to the logic of your own Marxist-Leninist ideology and the theory of socialism in one country, the conditions for the success of socialism existed, but it failed anyway. Either there is something fundamentally incorrect about Marxism-Leninism, or the Marxist-Leninist leaders like Stalin and their cronies have just been widely incompetent(or both, perhaps).

And what's that about the theory of global revolutionary spontaneity? Oh, it doesn't exist, and no one other than the Stalinists have claimed that it does. Just another example of the straw men and historical falsifications that are the only tools left to the adherents of such an intellectually bankrupt tradition. Rejection of the practical necessity of internationalism is a characteristic of national socialists and other third positionists. No one claims that a worldwide revolution would spontaneously erupt, such a view is absurd. Rather it is claimed that a Revolution isolated in one country doomed to fail, as empirical evidence has proven time and time again, and that momentum must be built towards revolution spreading across the world to replace capitalism as the dominant mode of production. If the momentum of world revolution is reversed or halted, then capitalism reasserts itself as the dominant economic current and inevitably compels the global economy as a whole back towards capitalism. Needless to say, revolution must spread organically; not by force of arms to workers who do not desire it as the Stalinists did in Eastern Europe. This is a moot point anyway since Russia had long ceased to be socialist by then.

[daft punk]

Ah bless, there you go again thinking you're Trotsky!

We've told you this many times: 'Trotskyism' is not the same as 'Trotsky'.

Who is 'we'? Is it the royal we? And dont patronise me. Of course Trotskyism is not the same as Trotsky, but it should be close in views, or what's the fucking point? You accused Trotskyism of capitulating to Stalinism by defending the workers state in the USSR. This was Trotsky's view, so you accuse him as well. This was the view of most Trotskyists, naturally.

Why are you saying Trotskyism is not Trotsky? I cant see any point in you saying it. Why make this obvious stupid point?

No, back to this capitulation. I think you dont seem to know what the word means. Try looking it up in a dictionary:



capitulate


Pronunciation: /kəˈpɪtjʊleɪt/
verb

[no object]

cease to resist an opponent or an unwelcome demand; yield:

Trotsky never yielded, neither did most Trotskyists. They stuck to their guns, and the ones in Russia were shot for it.



Please dont belittle these heroes with you childish vague remarks and lack of comprehension. You may not agree that the USSR was a degenerated workers state, feel free to hold your wrong views, but dont throw words like capitulate around to tarnish the heroes of the revolution, who went unrepentant to their deaths.


10,000 Trotskyists went on hunger strike in the Gulag for recognition as political prisoners, and you have the front to label them capitulators.


SICKENING.












Originally Posted by daft punk http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2384497#post2384497)
...
"Of course the Bolsheviks were attempting socialism, starting in April 1917 when Lenin came to the same conclusion as Trotsky. And they said right from the start they could not do it in one country, especially a backward one... "




Run it by me again... because what you're saying is
1 - 'Trotsky and Lenin didn't support socialism in one country';

I'm saying they thought it was impossible to do that. WTF is 'support' supposed to mean in this context?



2 - 'but they were building socialism in one country';

No, I have never said that. I said they wanted to build socialism, but understood that it would need the help of several advanced countries to succeed.



3 - 'but it was a backward country';

It was, and this is an important fact



4 - 'so it wouldn't have worked';

In isolation, no.



5 - 'but even in a developed country it wouldn't have worked';

You are being very black and white about this, very simplistic, as if you can apply a simple mathematical formula. Try thinking dialectically. Try thinking shades of grey. An advanced country would have the material basis for socialism, and the level of education needed. It's only main worry would be sabotage from other capitalist countries. So it might get closer, or be able to hold on longer. Maybe, maybe not. But at least it had the material and cultural basis, which Russia did not. And Russia was attacked by other countries. So it had that problem plus the lack of material and cultural basis, and this point is basic ABC Marxism.

At this point I have no idea if you even claim to be a Maxist, I hope not!



6 - 'because socialism in one country is impossible';
7 - 'but just to be clear they were doing it anyway'.


See the above. Try to understand the subject instead of witing silly posts. They were not attempting socialism in one country, they were attempting socialism, on the full understanding that it would need several advanced countries.

This was clearly expressed in my quote from Lenin, so why are you asking these stupid and excruciatingly cringeworthy questions?




So, not just impossible, but impossibly impossible? And yet they were going to do it anyway, you reckon? Wow. Did they have superpowers?


I throw titbits like that to people like you to watch you go hysterical. Cracks me up. Yes, doubly impossible, if you will, so why the fuck ask me if that's what they were attempting?

Listen. Pin your ears open. They were attempting to initiate global revolution.






I say again... the state of economic development in Russia was not important.



I say again, I hope to god you dont claim to be Marxist, because that was dismissed on page 1 of the Communist Manifesto, and thousands of times more. This is the most elementary mistake imaginable. In fact I am almost convinced I must be dreaming that you said it. If you are unwilling to try to grasp this basic concept you are not even out of the starting blocks.





'Socialism in one country is impossible, even in a developed country'.

Therefore, it would have been impossible in Russia, even if Russia had been developed (actually in 1913 Russia was the 5th biggest economy in the world, had 40 years of capitalist development, the world's biggest factories yadda yadda).

Q: Can undeveloped Russia become socialist? A: No.

Q: Can developed Russia become socialist? A: No.

Q: Why not? A: Because socialism in one country is impossible.

Therefore the development of Russia is not an issue.

No, you see you have just played a little word game with yourself, convinced yourself that it makes sense, and given yourself a pat on the back.

The above is a really rubbish attempt at formal logic, but Marxism uses dialectics, considering things changing through time, their interconnections and complexity, and the contrasting sides which all things have.


The fact is that basic Marxism hardly even gives a thought to revolutions in backward countries, because the conditions are so much more difficult. Marx said peasants are reactionary, and most Russians were peasants.

Marx:

"this development of productive forces (which itself implies the actual empirical existence of men in their world-historical, instead of local, being) is an absolutely necessary practical premise because without it want is merely made general, and with destitution the struggle for necessities and all the old filthy business would necessarily be reproduced"

The revolution would have had more chance of getting closer to socialism and lasting longer while isolated, if it had been an advanced country. It would have had more chance of spreading too. The problems the Bolsheviks faced after the civil war were more to do with Russia's backwardness than with their isolation. The economy was in ruins. People were hungry. The old filthy business revived.

[Omsk]

The Trotskyites did not capitulate,no by no means,they were just crushed.And their pathetic attempts to undermine and destroy the unrelentless Bolshevik party utterly failed.

[Blake's Baby]

Who is 'we'? Is it the royal we? And dont patronise me...

But it's so easy, it feels wrong not to. It's like trying not to float when the water's holding you up.


... Of course Trotskyism is not the same as Trotsky, but it should be close in views, or what's the fucking point?...

Something I've often wondered. But it seems you have no knowlwdge of a current called 'Marxism-Leninism' which isn't exactly what it says on the tin either. Or Christianity, which bears only the slightest resemblance to the teachings recorded in the book of rules. Shock horror, people can call themselves followers of something and then, do whatever the hell they please.


...
You accused Trotskyism of capitulating to Stalinism by defending the workers state in the USSR. This was Trotsky's view, so you accuse him as well. This was the view of most Trotskyists, naturally...

Trotsky's errors can I think be understood. He was making it up - there was no revolutionary handbook, literally nothing to go on. The only attempts at the working class imposing its own perspective on society had been the revolutions of 1848 and the Paris Commune. So Lenin and Trotsky were exploring completely unknown territory. And making mistakes. That's the first reason Trosky's errors are understandable.

Sadly, Trotsky was also too personally involved in many of those errors to make a clear critique of them. This includes but is not limited to the suppression of Kronstadt, the militarisation of labour, his position on the trade union debate, the question of the class nature of the USSR, the 'French Turn'.

A massively fundamental problem was that he failed to correctly guage the state of the world revolution. A very human problem, I think he mistook his desire for reality, but frankly who can blame him? Not me. But he was wrong. The world revolution wasn't about to break out. By 1922 it was in retreat; by 1927 it was dead.

That meant all his little schemes and nostrums in the '30s were so much shadow-play on the face of the abyss. The counter-revolution had triumphed and the working class wouldn't seriously challenge their defeat until the 1960s. He was wrong. Dead wrong.




... some drivel about dialectics...

Don't come the peeled Hegelian with me pal. You either believe that Trotsky and Lenin were attempting to build socialism in Russia or you believe that Trotsky and Lenin thought socialism in one country is impossible. You've claimed both. You can't ride two horses at once, or you fall on your arse. So which is it?

But most often you've said that Lenin and Trotsky supported world revolution and I agree with that position. I think they did, and I do; what Trotsky was unable to see was that the Soviet Union was not only acting as a brake on the revolution it had become counter-revolutionary - first against the revolution in Russia itself, and then against the world revolution. It was the Bolsheviks that became the 'right wing' of the CI. Lenin and Trotsky. Not Stalin, this was long before Stalin rose to prominence. Lenin and Trotsky, once thy had become the leaders of the Soviet state, became a conservative force.

Anyway, that's somewhat by-the-by. Trotsky lived and died a revolutionary, albeit one who made some massive errors. However, the majority of his latter-day descendents have taken those errors and elevated them into dogma.

At least the Stalinists have a view of the changing nature of history with their endless arguments about whether Hoxha or Mao or Tito or whoever correctly applied the proper formula. They recognise things change. Trotskyism (not all Trotskyists) have a fixed view: 'a workers' state in which the means of production are publically owned even if soviet democracy has been a sham for 70 years is still a deformed workers' state and a gain for the working class because nothing can ever change the status our Lord and Master bestowed on it before that Stalinist assassin done him in'.

My favourite Trotskyist: Natalia. Because she had the guts to tell your political ancestors they were talking shit.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/sedova-natalia/1951/05/09.htm

[Deicide]

My favourite Trotskyist: Natalia. Because she had the guts to tell your political ancestors they were talking shit.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/sedo...1951/05/09.htm

Wow, that was an explosive read!

[Grenzer]

Sadly, Trotsky was also too personally involved in many of those errors to make a clear critique of them. This includes but is not limited to the suppression of Kronstadt, the militarisation of labour, his position on the trade union debate, the question of the class nature of the USSR, the 'French Turn'.


This is how I've always looked at Trotsky. I think he is a great revolutionary, and clearly a man of towering intellect which has made it all the more frustrating that he never clearly recognized the USSR for what it was, and furthermore refused to admit to his mistakes, which are exactly what you have listed here.

In this regard, I've always thought Lenin was better, but even he was not immune to this clouding of judgement.



State capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic. If in approximately six months’ time state capitalism became established in our Republic, this would be a great success and a sure guarantee that within a year socialism will have gained a permanently firm hold and will have become invincible in this country.


One the one hand, he is admitting that the Soviet Union was in actuality not socialist and recognized the terrible reality of the material conditions, but on the other it almost seems like it's a delusional acceptance of the theory of Socialism in One Country. Don't mean to derail the topic, but it is an interesting thing to note which you never see either side(Trotskyist or Stalinist) bring up in the SiOC debate, and understandably so. Some of the more knowledgeable Stalinists will claim this as being true, yet claim that Stalin's reversal of the NEP ended the period of capitalism in the USSR, and ushered in socialism. As the rest of us know, this is nonsense. The damage was already done, and capitalism firmly established to the point where nothing short of a new revolution could dislodge it.

[Ismail]

Wow, that was an explosive read!She apparently became involved with the Shachtmanites and other right-wing Trot-to-capitalist tendencies.

@Grenzer, "state capitalism" the way Lenin and the Bolsheviks used it has absolutely nothing to do with the way Left-Communists and anti-revisionists use it.

I will quote:
"The picture which Lenin drew was of... no less than five different types of economy existing side by side in [Russia in 1918]... There was State capitalism - the State monopoly of the grain trade, the State regulation of privately-owned industry and commerce, the petty-bourgeois co-operative trading now passing under Government direction. And there was a small and still weak section of economy which had been nationalized without compensation to the large shareholders."
(Andrew Rothstein. A History of the U.S.S.R. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. 1951. p. 72.)

State-capitalism was a transitional stage. It signified control by the state and the proletarian dictatorship, not the state as a collective capitalist entity.

[electro_fan]

stalin was a twat, discussion over.

[electro_fan]

how can anyone think that stalinism is relevant today? most stalinists in the west and outside russia are just saying they are as a joke. and its not coming back.

[Ismail]

how can anyone think that stalinism is relevant today? most stalinists in the west and outside russia are just saying they are as a joke. and its not coming back.As opposed to the great mass of Trotskyist groups which are clearly making great gains worldwide?

Also I do agree that people calling themselves "Stalinists" outside of Russia are probably doing it as a joke. Good thing that doesn't apply to Marxist-Leninists.

[Comrade Samuel]

stalin was a twat, discussion over.

You make a very compelling argument I concede.

Anyone else find it interesting that 65% of us will SAY arguing about it is a horrible idea but proceed to do it anyway?

[Grenzer]

State-capitalism was a transitional stage. It signified control by the state and the proletarian dictatorship, not the state as a collective capitalist entity.

Thanks for the clarification, and for the record I don't really accept the idea of of "state capitalism" as defined as the state itself being a capitalist entity either. However, I do stand by my assertion that overall, the NEP was an unavoidable capitulation given the circumstances back towards capitalism.

This makes it a little more interesting, if you are correct and the limited "capitalism that was allowed was under the strict supervision and auspices of the dictatorship of the proletariat, then it could have been a temporary setup for the advancement of socialism as Lenin asserted. However, this is only true if one accepts the proposition that what existed at the time was indeed the dictatorship of the proletariat. Personally, I do not, and if one did believe that at the time the dictatorship of the proletariat did exist, it's basis was rapidly being eroded through the consolidation of power into the hands of party bureaucrats and the atrophy of organs for worker's democracy. In other words, its irrelevant whether "state capitalism" was the correct policy because of the workers weren't in charge, and the stalinist bureaucracy was quickly on its ascent as the new ruling "class" of the USSR which made inevitable the return to capitalism.

Obviously our politics differ greatly, but I do have to say it's good to be able to have a discussion with a Marxist-Leninist who knows what they're talking about and does not feel compelled to advocate the murder of members of the forum!

[Grenzer]

You make a very compelling argument I concede.

Anyone else find it interesting that 65% of us will SAY arguing about it is a horrible idea but proceed to do it anyway?

Yup, but we all essentially agree on matters pertaining to capitalism so that doesn't leave us with much else to talk about other than our (sometimes minute) differences.

[electro_fan]

most stalinist groups also really need to redesign their websites which mostly look like they were produced in 1995. and trotskyism may also be irrelevant but that's completely incidental to what i said.

[A Marxist Historian]

True
...
what is your opinion, did you not support the rebels in Libya? They didnt start out Nato led.
...


Initially, it was a civil war between equally reactionary factions for control of Libya, one in the eastern half of the country, the other in the west. The "Libyan revolution" even in its very first days was a middle class affair, with "revolutionary committees" made up of lawyers, doctors and chiropractors, and workers nowhere to be seen, except literally in the first day or two, when you had a few photo ops of workers waving red flags in Benghazi.

By the second week, CIA backed exiles, disaffected Qaddafi torturers, tribal leaders and reactionary Islamics had taken control, and the "revolutionaries" had already started calling for Kurdistan-style aerial interdiction of Qaddafi's forces by the imperialists.

And the racist assaults on African workers had started. Foreign workers are (or should I say were?) the great bulk of the Libyan working class, Libya being essentially a Persian Gulf style oilocracy with a lot of desert in between the oil wells. So the Arab foreigners were persecuted by Qaddafi, and the black Africans by the rebels.

When the NATO bombs started falling and the missiles started hitting Libya, it was time to come out in defense of Libya (not Qaddafi, Libya) vs. imperialism.

-M.H.-

[andyx1205]

I don't see how Leninism or Trotskyism are relevant to the advanced capitalist West. Perhaps relevant to developing countries but not to the West.

[A Marxist Historian]

I don't see how Leninism or Trotskyism are relevant to the advanced capitalist West. Perhaps relevant to developing countries but not to the West.

Because capitalism is doing so well these days there?

If anything, if capitalism has a future anywhere it's in the Third World, where all remnants of pre-capitalist society have not yet been cleared away, and so you can have some economic progress occasionally, at least while the imperialist centers are in the kind of extreme crisis they're in right now.

And anyone who thinks capitalism can be overthrown by any methods other than those pioneered in Russia is dreaming. It's only been done once successfully, and all those trying to come up with other methods have fallen flat on their faces.

-M.H.-

[citizen of industry]

And anyone who thinks capitalism can be overthrown by any methods other than those pioneered in Russia is dreaming. It's only been done once successfully, and all those trying to come up with other methods have fallen flat on their faces.

-M.H.-

It was done in China and Cuba, among others, using methods completely different than those pionered in Russia, none of them in advanced capitalist nations. And all of them have fallen flat on their faces, especially Russia. Marxian economics and philosophy is reality - an analysis of capitalism. Organizing must be flexible.

Look at photos of Bolsheviks distributing bundles of their papers wrapped in twine circa 1920 and the attempts to emulate them 2012. Look at the mass labor movement they worked in then compared to the labor movement now. Dogmatism. I have much greater respect for someone who risks their job striking and isn't anti-capitalist than someone who accepts crumbs in the workplace and pushes a paper in their off time.

[Blake's Baby]

Some of us would argue that Cuba and China are striking examples not of the successful application of Marxism but of the application of bureacratic and autarchic capitalism.

I'm not sure what you think bundles of paper have to do with anything, but if you mean something along the lines of 'in the early 20th century newspapers were the means of mass communication and debate and now they're not', sure. But I don't think MH was actually suggesting that because the Bolsheviks had mass newspapers we should (or could). More that the Bolsheviks were a working class party that positioned themselves in the forefront of the workers' movement of their day and provided political leadership for working people. Not, for instance, lived in the hills and conducted a guerrilla war against the government. The revolution will be the work of the working class based in the cities, and what's more the main battles will be fought in the centres of capitalism; not some bandits in caves, be they ever so well versed in the speeches of Comrades Castro and Mao.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

My favourite Trotskyist: Natalia. Because she had the guts to tell your political ancestors they were talking shit.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/sedova-natalia/1951/05/09.htm

Link is broken. I haven't been keeping up with this discussion but I am interested in hearing about this Natalia; do you have anymore links?

[A Marxist Historian]

It was done in China and Cuba, among others, using methods completely different than those pionered in Russia, none of them in advanced capitalist nations. And all of them have fallen flat on their faces, especially Russia. Marxian economics and philosophy is reality - an analysis of capitalism. Organizing must be flexible.

Look at photos of Bolsheviks distributing bundles of their papers wrapped in twine circa 1920 and the attempts to emulate them 2012. Look at the mass labor movement they worked in then compared to the labor movement now. Dogmatism. I have much greater respect for someone who risks their job striking and isn't anti-capitalist than someone who accepts crumbs in the workplace and pushes a paper in their off time.

The Chinese and Cuban Revolutions were not workers revolutions, but peasant and guerilla affairs. It was only possible for them to break with capitalism because of the Russian example, which they imitated. And the results were anti-capitalist states not ruled by the workers, but by petty-bourgeois bureaucracies acting in the name of the workers, in imitation of the Stalin model.

Without the Russian example, the Chinese and Cuban Revolutions would not have been possible, would have sputtered out into the same old capitalism like all revolutions have since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Obviously. the *technical* methods change now that we have the Internet, telephones, copy machines, etc. etc. But the basic concept of a vanguard party of the working class organized in Leninist fashion, fighting to win the mass organizations of the working class over to revolutionary programs, and so forth, remains totally valid.

Selling a radical newspaper is still a hell of a lot more of a solid basis for organization than trying to create radical movements in cyberspace. Sure, use the Internet for all it's worth, but cyberspace is still cyberspace, virtual politics not the real thing. Which is why Revleft ain't exactly conquering the world.

The basic difference between the labor movement now and the labor movement then is political-in Europe at any rate, in the USA not so much. In the 1920s, you had about the same percentage of the workforce in unions in the US as you have now--and equally rotten politics of the labor leaders too.

And in the Third World, the labor movement is vastly stronger and better organized now than it was then.

If you don't have total focus on the imperial centers, and look at the world as a whole, you realize that there has never before been as large a percentage of the human race in the working class as now, and never before has the social power of the world working class been greater. The peasantry and even the urban middle classes have been rapidly disappearing everywhere.

-M.H.-

[daft punk]

Something I've often wondered. But it seems you have no knowlwdge of a current called 'Marxism-Leninism' which isn't exactly what it says on the tin either. Or Christianity, which bears only the slightest resemblance to the teachings recorded in the book of rules. Shock horror, people can call themselves followers of something and then, do whatever the hell they please.

wft are you babbling on about?




Trotsky's errors can I think be understood. He was making it up - there was no revolutionary handbook, literally nothing to go on. The only attempts at the working class imposing its own perspective on society had been the revolutions of 1848 and the Paris Commune. So Lenin and Trotsky were exploring completely unknown territory. And making mistakes. That's the first reason Trosky's errors are understandable.

Sadly, Trotsky was also too personally involved in many of those errors to make a clear critique of them. This includes but is not limited to the suppression of Kronstadt, the militarisation of labour, his position on the trade union debate, the question of the class nature of the USSR, the 'French Turn'.

A massively fundamental problem was that he failed to correctly guage the state of the world revolution. A very human problem, I think he mistook his desire for reality, but frankly who can blame him? Not me. But he was wrong. The world revolution wasn't about to break out. By 1922 it was in retreat; by 1927 it was dead.

So many mistakes in such a short piece. I'm just gonna reveal one. In 1927 the world revolution was dead, you are right. But you are wrong in saying Trotsky thought otherwise. Trotsky knew it. Perhaps dead it too strong a word, there is always a chance, but more or less. Unfortunately Stalin went the other way, for his own reasons, and pretended that the world revolution was just perking up. This was the Third Period, and led to the rise of fascism, as Trotsky predicted.

No Trotsky didnt give up. He didnt get every single thing right. But he got most stuff right, far more than anyone else I can think of. It was remarkable how many things he accurately predicted.

Later he said WW2 could lead to world revolution. It easily could have, but the Stalinists snuffed it out.






That meant all his little schemes and nostrums in the '30s were so much shadow-play on the face of the abyss. The counter-revolution had triumphed and the working class wouldn't seriously challenge their defeat until the 1960s. He was wrong. Dead wrong.

Nah, bollocks. There was a revolution in Spain in 1936, a general strike in France. Stalin killed tens of thousands of socialists in Russia because he feared revolution from below, and crushed the Spanish revolution. Stalin had wrecked the Chinese revolution in 1927. The Stalinists didnt help the British general strike in 1926 either.

In the 30s, Trotsky was playing the long game. He was hoping things might gradually pick up in Russia but the purges put paid to that.





Don't come the peeled Hegelian with me pal. You either believe that Trotsky and Lenin were attempting to build socialism in Russia or you believe that Trotsky and Lenin thought socialism in one country is impossible. You've claimed both. You can't ride two horses at once, or you fall on your arse. So which is it?


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8z7mNSOdWs0/S-kUX1R0pzI/AAAAAAAAAP8/Ttlvnu4XrFA/s1600/Riding+2+horses.jpg

Both. They were hoping for help from other countries. Things did tail off in 1928 after Stalin wrecked the Chinese revolution. Things in Germany went bad after the 1923 revolution which Stalin opposed and was then called off. There was the 1926 British general strike. The Chinese revolution, the general strike in France, revolution in Spain, all sorts of stuff.

What do you expect them to do, just give up? Ok so they would have been attempting the almost impossible, socialism is not a walk in the park. Only those who try have a chance of succeeding, and Trotsky never stopped trying.








But most often you've said that Lenin and Trotsky supported world revolution and I agree with that position. I think they did, and I do; what Trotsky was unable to see was that the Soviet Union was not only acting as a brake on the revolution it had become counter-revolutionary - first against the revolution in Russia itself, and then against the world revolution.

wtf? Of course he could see it was acting as counter-revolutionary. But it was a planned economy and as such was a beacon of 'socialism' to millions around the world.




It was the Bolsheviks that became the 'right wing' of the CI. Lenin and Trotsky. Not Stalin, this was long before Stalin rose to prominence. Lenin and Trotsky, once thy had become the leaders of the Soviet state, became a conservative force.


support this bullshit statement



Anyway, that's somewhat by-the-by. Trotsky lived and died a revolutionary, albeit one who made some massive errors. However, the majority of his latter-day descendents have taken those errors and elevated them into dogma.

support




At least the Stalinists have a view of the changing nature of history with their endless arguments about whether Hoxha or Mao or Tito or whoever correctly applied the proper formula. They recognise things change. Trotskyism (not all Trotskyists) have a fixed view: 'a workers' state in which the means of production are publically owned even if soviet democracy has been a sham for 70 years is still a deformed workers' state and a gain for the working class because nothing can ever change the status our Lord and Master bestowed on it before that Stalinist assassin done him in'.

Tell me, how has the workers movement around the world been since 1989, better or worse? Please think about that and what it might imply.

Also bear this in mind - a political revolution is easier than a social one. The USSR had its social one intact. All it needed was a regime change.





My favourite Trotskyist: Natalia. Because she had the guts to tell your political ancestors they were talking shit.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/sedova-natalia/1951/05/09.htm

Well, it sounds like she is criticising them for being soft on Tito and Eastern Europe generally. I dont know exactly what the 4th Int were saying at the time. It was all very fluid. Stalin tried to set up capitalists states in Eastern Europe but that didnt last long and they were absorbed into the Eastern block. Bit of a tricky one. I disagree with her saying Russia was not a workers state but was capitalist, I think she got that wrong.

Here is a shot paste from a CWI Peter Taaffe article on the 4th Int at the time:

"After Trotsky

As with all Trotskyists, we trace our roots back to Trotsky himself. We in Britain, however, came from the Workers International League (WIL), set up in 1937, and the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), formed in 1944. We believe that the analysis of this party and its leaders, like Ted Grant, Jock Haston and others, was more accurate than the perspectives of others. They anticipated the development of deformed workers’ states in Eastern Europe and China, in particular. The leadership of the "Fourth International", Ernest Mandel, Michael Raptis (Pablo), Pierre Frank and others, believed that this phenomenon - the creation of deformed workersÕ states - was an impossibility. Faced with reality, however, they did a somersault. Then they went to the other extreme and Tito, in Yugoslavia, became an "unconscious Trotskyist" as did Mao Zedong.
Of course, the leaders of the RCP made mistakes. There is no such a thing as an infallible leadership. Ted Grant, for instance, originally characterised the regimes in Eastern Europe, such as Poland or Czechoslovakia, as "state capitalist". But he checked himself, re-examined the works of the great teachers, such as Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, and came out with a correct evaluation of the situation of these states. Tony Cliff, on the other hand, maintained, and still maintains, the doctrine of state capitalism.
The leaders of the RCP also made the mistake, in our opinion, of entering the Labour Party in 1949-50. The majority, led by Grant and Haston, correctly argued that the conditions were not there for successful entry into the Labour Party. The Labour government of 1945 was actually carrying out reforms, the creation of the welfare state, etc, and there was the beginnings of the world economic upswing. It would have been more correct to have remained as an independent party with the majority of the efforts of the Trotskyists, at that stage, directed towards industry. But the capitulation of Jock Haston led to the disintegration of the majority and, in effect, the capitulation of Ted Grant to the wrong policy of Gerry Healy for entry into the Labour Party. However, because of the beginning of the post war boom, even a powerful Marxist organisation would have been undermined. The objective situation in this period and for the foreseeable future, was favourable both for reformism and Stalinism.
USFI Congress 1965

My generation entered the scene at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s. I joined our organisation in 1960. "

http://www.socialistworld.net/pubs/history/00.html

The Militant split from the 4th Int in 1974. I'm sure there were plenty of different opinions in 1945-50 and these new states appeared in Eastern Europe. I cannt say what people like Grant wrote without looking it all up.

[Blake's Baby]

Link is broken. I haven't been keeping up with this discussion but I am interested in hearing about this Natalia; do you have anymore links?

Seriously? I'm getting it OK:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/sedova-natalia/1951/05/09.htm

Does that work? If not google Natalia Sedova Trotsky (Leon's second wife).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalia_Sedova

[Aussie Trotskyist]

Despite my Trotskyist tendencies, I believe that the ongoing Trotsky-Stalin debate is only hindering our cause.

We should unite, overthrow capitalism, establish a soviet democracy and let the people decide what party should administer their local area.

[Geiseric]

It's important in the same way that the disputes between Marx and Bakunin were, the actions they took and the problems they faced (or at least a skewed look) inside the country will inevitably be repeated in some backwards countries, however what's more important is to look at Comintern and see the mistakes it made, so we can do it right next time.

But trying to sweep under the mattress the failure of Stalinism is counter revolutionary, as is any attempt to ignore any "controversial issue," that "divides the movement," as occupy folks might say. There's a reason it "divides the movement," and just because a few hundred people are dillusional about a thermidorian psychopath, who killed most of the bolshevik party, which by extension means your adherance to him is more important than your adherance to the larger groups of revolutionaries people who made bolshevism possible, doesn't mean that we have to ignore anything. Besides, based on what is your support for him? His failure to start industrialisation in time, the disasterous policies comintern undertook while he was in charge, and what came close to being allied with Fascism for about 9 years. That is what Stalin did, alongside with strengthening the Kulak class for as long as he could, which lead to the later famines.

[znk666]

Trotsky wins,end of discussion.
Anyhow as long as the discussions are friendly and civilized they don't necessarily divide us.

[Bostana]

This thread is nothing but flame wear

[wsg1991]

i could never understand this revisionist shit

[Permanent Revolutionary]

i could never understand this revisionist shit

I'm sorry, but what exactly are you referring to when you say "revisionist shit"?