Revisionism

[Brosip Tito]

So, can a Stalinist please explain, in their own words, what makes Trotskyists, and other "ultra leftists", such as myself, revisionist?

I would suggest using the following format:

*Explanation of what Trotsky (and other ultra-leftists) theorized in contrast with what Marx theorized*.

[Bostana]

Necessary to do this?

We all know a revisionist is a Communist who tries to rewrite Marxism to justify a retreat from the revolutionary position right?

His actions and his theories made him a revisionist. Here's a good reading guide: http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com...reading-guide/

I heard the Trotskyism: Counter-Revolution in Disguise by M. J. Olgin is great.


Here's a link to it and two other good books that explain why Trotskyism is revisionist:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/olgin/1935/trotskyism/index.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/krupskaya/works/october.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/haywood/black-bolshevik/ch06.htm

[gorillafuck]

trotsky and ultraleftists aren't revisionists. revisionists are people who tried to revise marxist-leninism (according to anti-revisionists). trotsky and "ultra-lefts" aren't even ML's so how could they try to revise marxist-leninist theory?

[Kassad]

Okay, this is obviously a side-argument from the Albania thread which I just trashed. Stay on topic and answer the questions or I'm closing this shit too.

Also, if people continue to reply to threads only with meme pictures, I'm going to start passing out verbal warnings. Have a good night, children.

[Brosip Tito]

Necessary to do this?

We all know a revisionist is a Communist who tries to rewrite Marxism to justify a retreat from the revolutionary position right?

His actions and his theories made him a revisionist. Here's a good reading guide: http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com...reading-guide/

I heard the Trotskyism: Counter-Revolution in Disguise by M. J. Olgin is great.


Here's a link to it and two other good books that explain why Trotskyism is revisionist:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/olgin/1935/trotskyism/index.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/krupskaya/works/october.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/haywood/black-bolshevik/ch06.htm
In your own words and in the following format:

"Marx theorizes X whislt Trotsky disagrees and thus theorizes Y"

[Kassad]

And I do want to say one more thing: if you think that posting a link or a video is sufficient for a political discussion, you obviously have no idea how working class politics works. If you can't go out amongst the masses and put forward a coherent political program in your own words, you're not going to win people over. People are sick of dogmas.

[Ostrinski]

In all honesty the word really has no meaning, or at least has been robbed of any meaning. I have rarely seen the term "revisionist" used as anything other than a political buzzword. I too have been called a revisionist countless times but have yet to figure out what the hell it even means or how it relates to my position. It would seem as though Marxist-Leninists use it to attack anyone who they perceive as having bad politics (left communists, Trotskyists, anarchists, pretty much everything else besides Marxist-Leninists), so I guess I should take it as a.... compliment?

I can kind of respect Ismail's anti-revisionist position, as he doesn't use it as a buzzword, actually uses it to characterize some kind of theoretical content, and actually attacks Marxist-Leninist revisionists like Maoists as well. That's not to say that I agree with any of his politics, however, just that I respect his effort.

[Bostana]

In your own words and in the following format:

"Marx theorizes X whislt Trotsky disagrees and thus theorizes Y"

Okay that's fair

You see he views and principles of Trotskyism were formulated in opposition to those of Leninism on all fundamental questions concerning the strategy and tactics of the working-class movement. Trotskyism took as its point of departure thhe rejection of the Leninist doctrine of a new type of party. In the debate over the wording of the first paragraph of the party rules at the Second Congress of the RSDLP in 1903, Trotsky supported L. Martov’s wording, which opened the way for unstable elements to enter the party. On the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which was a most important thesis in the party program, Trotsky asserted, as did the leaders of the Second International, that the dictatorship would become possible only when the Social Democratic Party and the working class were virtually one and when the working class made up the majority of the population.

During the Revolution of 1905–07, the Trotskyists, distorting K. Marx’ idea of permanent revolution, propounded their own theory of permanent revolution, which they opposed to Lenin’s doctrine of the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois democratic revolution and the doctrine of the transformation of this revolution into a socialist reyvolution. The Trotskyists repudiated the revolutionary nature of the peasant masses as well as the proletariat’s ability to establish a firm alliance with the peasantry; they ignored the bourgeois democratic tasks of the first Russian revolution and put forth the voluntaristic idea of estabblishing a dictatorship of the proletariat as a result of the bourgeois democratic revolution. Their slogan was “No csar, but a workers’ government.c

Now answer me this .

Did at least read any of the links I sent you?

[Grenzer]

I think revisionism exists, but not in the same context as the doctrine of anti-revisionism, which I regard as idealistic. Revisionism is not something that can be combatted by ideological purity, I think it's essential to recognize that revisionism is theoretical degeneration which comes in direct response to the material conditions. In the context of the fSU, "revisionism" would simply be the result of the unavoidable slide towards liberal capitalism that was a result of the material conditions. DNZ seemed to have a novel conception of revisionism, but I don't think I have ever seem him elucidate it.

I echo what Brospierre says. I differentiate between a vulgar Stalinism, which characterizes the position of most Marxist-Leninists on this site(IE "All anarchists must DIE!!!1" and "<3 Kronstaadt") and a more theoretically mature interpretation. The programme of the latter should not be a matter of much controversy for most Marxists, but rather their ability to maintain programmatic integrity as shown by their inability or unwillingness to recognize counter-revolutionary degeneration. There is of course also the matter of Socialism in One Country, which again, wouldn't manifest on a programmatic level unless the revolution was fucked anyway.

[Bostana]

Okay, this is obviously a side-argument from the Albania thread which I just trashed. Stay on topic and answer the questions or I'm closing this shit too.

Also, if people continue to reply to threads only with meme pictures, I'm going to start passing out verbal warnings. Have a good night, children.

How long will this meme ban last?

[Caj]

The idea of "revisionism" seems absurd and anti-Marxist to me. It changes Marxism from a science into a quasi-religious set of dogmas, divergence from which is blasphemy. Biologists don't refer to each other as "revisionists" when a widely accepted hypothesis is called into question. Science is based on the revision of hypotheses. This should be no different with Marxism.

[Grenzer]

Okay that's fair

You see he views and principles of Trotskyism were formulated in opposition to those of Leninism on all fundamental questions concerning the strategy and tactics of the working-class movement. Trotskyism took as its point of departure thhe rejection of the Leninist doctrine of a new type of party.

Leninism by itself has no revolutionary strategy for the working class movement(though Maoism does have a strategy for the mobilization of peasants, but we are talking about the proletariat). The theoretical foundation for Lenin's strategy for the working class movement has its foundations in the Second International, which Leninism has discarded. The Leninist assumptions begin with "After we've taken power..." while they have no coherent plan as to how they are actually going to get it first, other than minor rabble rousing at the likes of OWS.

[l'Enfermé]

1903, Martov...really? The Trotskyists couldn't have "repudiated" the revolutionary nature of the peasant masses because first of all, Trotskyists didn't exist until after Lenin died, and second of all, Troskyists didn't "repudiate" the revolutionary nature of the peasants simply because Marx and his follows have done so some time ago.

And really, when you use the 1905 Revolution to criticize Trotsky as an anti-Bolshevik, you're ignoring a very important thing. Namely, that the Bolsheviks and Trotsky, during the revolution, acted "hand-in-hand".

Is Lenin then a "revisionist" because of his theory of Imperialism? The Vanguard Party, a Leninist concept, like Trotsky's Permanent Revolution, is a revision of Marxism.

That's the whole joke of "anti-revisionism": Anti-revisionists are themselves revisionists that are criticizing someone else for the revisionism of revisionists. Does that make sense? No? Neither does "anti-revisionism".

[Bostana]

Leninism by itself has no revolutionary strategy for the working class movement(though Maoism does have a strategy for the mobilization of peasants, but we are talking about the proletariat). The theoretical foundation for Lenin's strategy for the working class movement has its foundations in the Second International, which Leninism has discarded. The Leninist assumptions begin with "After we've taken power..." while they have no coherent plan as to how they are actually going to get it first, other than minor rabble rousing at the likes of OWS.

Are you saying that Lenin had no plan for the mobilization of the Peasant?

Because Lenin talked about a Proletarian-Peasant Revolution. Proletariats and Peasants uniting for the Revolution. He said that he knew that the peasants would be involved and should be because of the Peasant Reform of 1861. Which forced peasants to give up their land.

Here's Lenin on it:

Let us call to mind the basic features of the Peasant Reform of 1861. The notorious “emancipation” meant the unscrupulous robbery of the peasants and their subjection to an endless succession of tyrannies and insults. “Emancipation” was seized upon as a pretext to cut off part of the peasants’ land. In the black-earth gubernias these cut-off lands amounted to more than one-fifth of the total held by peasants; in some gubernias the land that was cut off, taken away from the peasants, amounted to one-third or even two-fifths of all the peasants’ land. As a result of “emancipation” the peasants’ land was so divided from the landed estates as to compel the peasants to settle on “bad land”, and the landed estates were wedged into the peasants’ land to make it easier for the noble lords to enslave the peasants and to lease land to them on usurious terms. As a result of “emancipation”, the peasants were forced to “redeem” their own land, moreover, they were forced to pay double or treble its real price. The overall result of the whole “epoch of reforms” which marked the 1860s was that the peasants remained poverty-stricken, downtrodden, ignorant, and subject to the feudal landowners in the courts, in the organs of administration, in the schools, and in the Zemstvos.

I know it's a big paragraph but I didn't know where to stop. Red more if you want to:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1911/mar/19.htm

[l'Enfermé]

Leninism by itself has no revolutionary strategy for the working class movement(though Maoism does have a strategy for the mobilization of peasants, but we are talking about the proletariat). The theoretical foundation for Lenin's strategy for the working class movement has its foundations in the Second International, which Leninism has discarded. The Leninist assumptions begin with "After we've taken power..." while they have no coherent plan as to how they are actually going to get it first, other than minor rabble rousing at the likes of OWS.
The Bolsheviks seemed to have a pretty coherent plan of how to gain power, which they executed rather well, and they had a pretty coherent plan of how to stay in power, which they also executed rather well.

[Revolutionair]

These 2 paragraphs contain almost no real information at all. It's just a bunch of 'Trotsky was not a real revolutionary, what follows was that he was not a real socialist. Trotskyist socialism is therefore not Marxist, as Marxism is revolutionary. Also he dared to disagree on the wording of something, paving the way for bourgeois capitalist revisionism anarchism conservatism Obama!'

Please try to find a very precise example of revisionism, instead of this void bullshit.

Example:


You see he views and principles of Trotskyism were formulated in opposition to those of Leninism on all fundamental questions concerning the strategy and tactics of the working-class movement. Trotskyism took as its point of departure thhe rejection of the Leninist doctrine of a new type of party.

Nowhere he explains what those principles were and how they were formulated in opposition to Leninism on 'all fundemental questions'. I mean, really? So they both opposed revolution? I think revolution is pretty fundamental to Leninism.



In the debate over the wording of the first paragraph of the party rules at the Second Congress of the RSDLP in 1903, Trotsky supported L. Martov’s wording, which opened the way for unstable elements to enter the party.

What does this even mean? They disagreed on semantics? Is that a way to open a party up for 'unstable elements' (whatever the fuck that means)?





During the Revolution of 1905–07, the Trotskyists, distorting K. Marx’ idea of permanent revolution, propounded their own theory of permanent revolution, which they opposed to Lenin’s doctrine of the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois democratic revolution and the doctrine of the transformation of this revolution into a socialist reyvolution. The Trotskyists repudiated the revolutionary nature of the peasant masses as well as the proletariat’s ability to establish a firm alliance with the peasantry; they ignored the bourgeois democratic tasks of the first Russian revolution and put forth the voluntaristic idea of estabblishing a dictatorship of the proletariat as a result of the bourgeois democratic revolution. Their slogan was “No csar, but a workers’ government.c

Except for the last sentence, this piece is void of falsifiable facts. You're wasting hard drive space.

[Bostana]

Except for the last sentence, this piece is void of falsifiable facts. You're wasting hard drive space.

Thanks,

As long as you are open and listening to facts about it.

[Revolutionair]

The Bolsheviks seemed to have a pretty coherent plan of how to gain power, which they executed rather well, and they had a pretty coherent plan of how to stay in power, which they also executed rather well.

Don't be so shy and expand on what you're saying.

What was their plan, in details?
How well was it executed? What went wrong, what went well, where were they lucky, where did fortune work against them?
What was their plan for staying in power, in details?
Did they foresee Kronstadt and Tambov, if yes, what was their plan in 1917 on dealing with those things?

[Revolutionair]

Thanks,

As long as you are open and listening to facts about it.

I was very open to the fact that you posted, although I would have loved a source to go with it.

[Revolutionair]

Is Lenin then a "revisionist" because of his theory of Imperialism? The Vanguard Party, a Leninist concept, like Trotsky's Permanent Revolution, is a revision of Marxism.

That's the whole joke of "anti-revisionism": Anti-revisionists are themselves revisionists that are criticizing someone else for the revisionism of revisionists. Does that make sense? No? Neither does "anti-revisionism".

A well constructed argument. First one in the thread. :thumbup1:

[Bostana]

I was very open to the fact that you posted, although I would have loved a source to go with it.

OKay,

Who am I to tell you no.

Here's the link:
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Trotskyism

[l'Enfermé]

Don't be so shy and expand on what you're saying.

What was their plan, in details?
How well was it executed? What went wrong, what went well, where were they lucky, where did fortune work against them?
What was their plan for staying in power, in details?
Did they foresee Kronstadt and Tambov, if yes, what was their plan in 1917 on dealing with those things?
These subjects have been touched upon countless times before, but sure, let's elaborate on what I said. Their plan was single, the overthrow of bourgeoisie through revolutionary means by the proletariat. In this, the Bolsheviks were successful. What went wrong is obvious: The Socialist Revolution was isolated in a backwards, primitive country. The revolution was unable to gain foothold outside, from there came it's demise. This meant the inevitable success of the counter-revolution, in the case of the Soviet Union symbolized by the "Stalinist" bureaucracy.

When it comes to Kronstadt and Tamboy, I like to compare them and other similar incidents to the Vendee 1793-1796.