Marxism-Leninism(in general)

[Lei Feng]

Hello Comrades.

I am back with another question. It is something that I have addressed in the past, but have not grasped a full understanding on.

Being a Maoist, I am on the side of the USSR(during Lenin and Stalin), Maoist China, and Hoxhaist Albania.(and DPRK during Kim Il-Sung, to a decent extent).

However, many(anti-communists as well as trotskyites) seem to call these pro-Marxist-Leninist views foolish. As if these societies/countries during the mentioned periods were not true Worker's States. Many claim that they were filled with corruption, and terrible living standards. My mother, however, had lived in Maoist China during the end of the Cultural Revolution and said that life wasn't as bad as people in the West made it out to be. Of course, the living standard wasn't close to the USA, but China wasn't an imperialist country, so that isn't to be expected.

The main question(s) is/are: In your opinion, what were successful Worker's States? How/why? Why did many end up becomming revisionist or full-fledged capitalist after the death of(in most cases) their first ruler?

EQ: It would be nice if you guys could refute some general lies about M-Lism, too. As I get a lot of flack from "social democrats" and trotskyites about common myths about M-Lism and Communism in general.

[Ostrinski]

However, many(anti-communists as well as trotskyites) seem to call these pro-Marxist-Leninist views foolish. As if these societies/countries during the mentioned periods were not true Worker's States. Many claim that they were filled with corruption, and terrible living standards. My mother, however, had lived in Maoist China during the end of the Cultural Revolution and said that life wasn't as bad as people in the West made it out to be. Of course, the living standard wasn't close to the USA, but China wasn't an imperialist country, so that isn't to be expected.They were not worker's states and the living conditions were pretty shit.


The main question(s) is/are: In your opinion, what were successful Worker's States? How/why? Why did many end up becomming revisionist or full-fledged capitalist after the death of(in most cases) their first ruler?Look around you today. Do you see any successful worker's states around? That answers your question. The return to market capitalism was a necessity because we do not live in an epoch where isolated economies can sustain themselves.

[Homo Songun]

They were not worker's states and the living conditions were pretty shit.

Look around you today. Do you see any successful worker's states around? That answers your question. The return to market capitalism was a necessity because we do not live in an epoch where isolated economies can sustain themselves.

This a logically consistent response if and only if one does not support the Paris commune, or actually any toilers' rebellion ever in history. Is this your actual position?

[Prometeo liberado]

Regardless of what this thread will yield one thing is for sure. Most if not all non MLst will tell you any variation of one of these.
1.There never was a socialist country.
2.ML as practiced stifles democracy and therefore killed socialism(yes the socialism that never existed)
3.ML is a deviation of or not Marxist
4.There never was a socialist country
Left alone the ultra-left will cannibalize themselves.

[dodger]

Left alone the ultra-left will cannibalize themselves.

JBEARD not for the 1st time has one of your comments had me laughing like a lune......when I should've been sobbing, silently. :crying:

[daft punk]

There has never been a socialist country. For socialism to work you have to have workers democracy, which means workers involved in decision making at all levels, with no bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is not socialism, it is a privileged elite, caste which rules as a dictatorship, with one man at the top surrounded by a personality cult.

In Russia there was a genuine workers state with minor deformities up to when Lenin died. They had a bureaucracy, inherited from the Tsar, and Lenin worried that it might take over. After he died unfortunately Stalin managed to get power against Lenin's wishes. Stalin fought Trotsky and based himself on the bureaucracy and the wealthy, the two groups Lenin had worried about. Between 1924 and 1928 the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, Stalin got more powerful and Trotsky was kicked out. The revolution was doomed. Stalin wrecked the 1925-7 Chinese revolution (probably not deliberately at the time, he didn't become consciously anti-socialist until a bit later). This defeat proved Trotsky right as he had warned against Stalin's policies in China (see my China thread). However it weakened Trotsky's position because it was a defeat for the workers and Trotsky stood for revolution whereas Stalin was sliding over to counter-revolution.

After that, Mao fought the KMT up to 1948. Stalin backed the KMT. Mao and Stalin both wanted China to be capitalist. They both stated this clearly. This is all detailed in my China thread.


I also did a thread on the period 1924-7 called Platform of the Opposition. You should read the OP, the Introduction to that document which describes how Stalin was going away from the policies of Lenin.

[Prometeo liberado]

"There has never been a socialist country"
See point 1 in my Original thread

"The revolution was doomed. Stalin wrecked the 1925-7 Chinese revolution "
See point 2 in my Original thread

[daft punk]

"There has never been a socialist country"
See point 1 in my OP

"The revolution was doomed. Stalin wrecked the 1925-7 Chinese revolution "
See point 2 in my OP

an OP is the first post in the whole thread, not your first post in it. Anyway, no the USSR was not socialist, it had a planned economy, that's all. Socialism is not an elite dictating to the masses.

Regarding point 2, Stalin wrecked the Chinese revolution by telling Mao to merge the CCP with the KMT. Also, workers were told not to form soviets. But I have a separate thread on that here. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=169176)Unfortunately nobody has posted on that yet. I will post more info once I get some replies.

I'm not really bothered about debating Stalinists these days, but I would like to get that thread moving.

I have several threads up but the Stalinists will not post on them because they cannot formulate a response to my OPs. Another one is the Moscow Trials thread.

I'm no expert, these are just beginners threads.

[Rooster]

Being a Maoist, I am on the side of the USSR(during Lenin and Stalin), Maoist China, and Hoxhaist Albania.(and DPRK during Kim Il-Sung, to a decent extent).

Odd. I was under the impression that Hoxha regarded Maoism as revisionism.


The main question(s) is/are: In your opinion, what were successful Worker's States? How/why? Why did many end up becomming revisionist or full-fledged capitalist after the death of(in most cases) their first ruler?

Yes, that is a strange coincidence. That every single socialist state has befallen to revisionism and then capitalist restoration. Weird how socialist states, which were supposedly more advance than capitalist ones seeing how that's the definition of socialism, could revert so easily to capitalism. Khrushchev (or Gorbachev?) must have been a great man because not even Napoleon could revert France back to feudalism.

So, it's either all just strange coincidence or it had something to do with the way those societies, all of them, were set up.


EQ: It would be nice if you guys could refute some general lies about M-Lism, too. As I get a lot of flack from "social democrats" and trotskyites about common myths about M-Lism and Communism in general.

And I think one of the main myths here is that there was socialism in any of these places. Typically, it's a myth that's actually propped along by bourgeois media. Gee, I wonder why they would do such a thing.... like, get everything else wrong, put out propaganda but they still call them socialist...

[seventeethdecember2016]

After he died unfortunately Stalin managed to get power against Lenin's wishes.

If I've read correctly, Lenin's only MAJOR critique of Stalin was that he was rude. Stalin worked with him side-by-side throughout their final years. It is true that Lenin's Testament denounced Stalin, but it also denounced Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Pyatakov.

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



Between 1924 and 1928 the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, Stalin got more powerful and Trotsky was kicked out.

Can you name a few profiteers? Did the Kulaks become richer? Also, don't forget that the NEP was in affect during this period
Stalin didn't have full control of the party during this period, so it is unlikely that he lead large scale conspiracies during a period of uncertainty.



However it weakened Trotsky's position because it was a defeat for the workers and Trotsky stood for revolution whereas Stalin was sliding over to counter-revolution.

So Trotsky testifying before the House on Un-American activities, which gave away Soviet tactics, was defending the Revolution? Trotsky was defending the revolution by supporting Japan during WW2 and even supplying them with information?
Trotsky was a traitor and a rat to the revolution, that's why he was taken out of his position.

"I cannot be called a Bolshevik... We must not be demanded to recognize Bolshevism."- Trotsky, Mezhrayontsi conference, May 1917



The main question(s) is/are: In your opinion, what were successful Worker's States? How/why? Why did many end up becomming revisionist or full-fledged capitalist after the death of(in most cases) their first ruler?

EQ: It would be nice if you guys could refute some general lies about M-Lism, too. As I get a lot of flack from "social democrats" and trotskyites about common myths about M-Lism and Communism in general.
It depends on your definition of successful. Do you consider a country that was running for a few years successful? Or do you consider one that is everlasting?
If the former, you could probably make a case for all the M-L countries of the 20th century.
If the latter, no there were no successful ones because success cannot be measured since you have to equate for an unpredictable future, which is impossible.

When taking the path of M-L, it can easily become corrupted and lose vision of what the original task was over time, due to new intrigues and fascinations we call revisionism, which makes M-L nearly impossible to sustain. Now if Human Government was abolished and replaced with a Computerized one, perhaps then it could work on the task at hand, which it to form Socialism, and ignore all of the revisionist intrigues that will come along over a period of time.

M-L won't work, at least not in our age, since politicians will run away from the ideology as soon as there is a problem or new ideas surface.

On the lies: I listed some earlier in this comment.
It should be known that Trotsky was a self-righteous traitor whose only ambition was to gain power. I'm sure that if Trotsky got his way, he would have turned Europe into an Imperial master to the entire world through intolerance. He would have also lead to the deaths of millions of Red Army soldiers, which he would have used to launch a large-scale World War. While Lenin called Stalin rude, in his testament, he called Trotsky arrogant.

[daft punk]

If I've read correctly, Lenin's only MAJOR critique of Stalin was that he was rude. Stalin worked with him side-by-side throughout their final years. It is true that Lenin's Testament denounced Stalin, but it also denounced Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Pyatakov.

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



Lenin also wrote
"Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution. Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. on the question of the People's Commissariat of Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by outstanding ability. He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work. These two qualities of the two outstanding leaders of the present C.C. can inadvertently lead to a split, and if our Party does not take steps to avert this, the split may come unexpectedly."


So, Lenin wanted Trotsky to lead the party and Stalin to be removed.

There was a lot more going on. In his last year Lenin was fighting several battles against Stalin, and was requesting Trotsky to do these fights for him, which he did.

One was on the state monopoly on trade. Lenin had got a resolution passed on this, but while he was ill and Trotsky was away, Stalin and some others overturned it. Lenin was furious and asked Trotsky to fight back:
http://www.marxist.com/lenins-last-struggle.htm

V. I. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/14.htm) Lenin (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/15c.htm)

807

LETTER TO J. V. STALIN FOR MEMBERS OF THE R.C.P.(B.) C.C.



"I am resolutely opposed to any delay on the question of the foreign trade monopoly. If the idea should arise, for whatever reason (including the proposition that my participation in the question is desirable), to postpone it until the next plenum, I should most resolutely object to this, because I am sure that Trotsky will be able to stand up for my views just as well as I myself. That is the first thing. The second is that your statement and Zinoviev’s and, according to rumour, Kamenev’s as well, confirm that some members of the C.C. have already altered their earlier opinion; third, and most important: any further hesitation on this highly important question is absolutely intolerable and will tend to frustrate any work."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/15b.htm

Three days earlier he had asked Trotsky to stand up for his views.

The CC backed down without a fight. Lenin wrote to Trotsky:

"It looks as though it has been possible to take the position without a single shot, by a simple manoeuvre. I suggest that we should not stop and should continue the offensive, and for that purpose put through a motion to raise at the Party congress the question of consolidating our foreign trade, and the measures to improve its implementation. This to be announced in the group of the Congress of Soviets. I hope that you will not object to this, and will not refuse to give a report in the group."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/21.htm

There were other battles too:

"Top secret
Personal
Dear Comrade Trotsky:
It is my earnest request that you should undertake the defence of the Georgian case in the Party C.C. This case is now under “persecution” by Stalin and Dzerzhinsky, and I cannot rely on their impartiality. Quite to the contrary. I would feel at ease if you agreed to undertake its defence. If you should refuse to do so for any reason, return the whole case to me. I shall consider it a sign that you do not accept.[3] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/05b.htm#fwV45E766)
With best comradely greetings
Lenin[1] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/05b.htm#fwV45P607F01)"
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/05b.htm


Then there was the devastating letter in which Lenin more or less told Stalin he wanted nothing more to do with him:


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


Unfortunately Stalin managed to suppress Lenin's last testament.





Originally Posted by daft punk http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2389491#post2389491)
"Between 1924 and 1928 the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, Stalin got more powerful and Trotsky was kicked out. "

Can you name a few profiteers? Did the Kulaks become richer? Also, don't forget that the NEP was in affect during this period
Stalin didn't have full control of the party during this period, so it is unlikely that he lead large scale conspiracies during a period of uncertainty.

Yes, see Platform of the Opposition
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1927/opposition/index.htm

"The role of the indirect taxes in our budget is growing alarmingly at the expense of the direct. By that alone the tax-burden automatically shifts from the wealthier to the poorer levels. The taxation of the workers in 1925-1926 was twice as high as in the preceding year, while the taxation of the rest of the urban population diminished by 6 per cent. [1] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1927/opposition/ch01.htm#n1) The liquor tax falls, with more and more unbearable heaviness, precisely upon the industrial regions. The growth of income per person for 1926 as compared with 1925 – according to certain approximate calculations – constituted, for the peasants, 19 per cent; for the workers, 26 per cent; for the merchants and the industrialists, 46 per cent. If you divide the “peasants’ into three fundamental groups, it will appear beyond a doubt that the income of the kulak increased incomparably more than that of the worker. The income of the merchants and industrialists, calculated on the basis of the tax data, is undoubtedly represented as less than it is. However, even these somewhat coloured figures clearly testify to a growth of class differences. The “scissors”, representing the disparity of agricultural and industrial prices, have drawn still farther apart during the last year and a half. The peasant received for his produce not more than one and a quarter times the pre-war price, and he paid for industrial products not less than two and one-fifth times as much as before the war. This over-payment by the peasants, and again predominantly by the lower level of the peasants, constituting in the past year a sum of about a milliard rubles, not only increases the conflict between agriculture and industry, but greatly sharpens the differentiation in the country.
On the disparity between wholesale and retail prices, the state industry loses, and also the consumer, which means that there is a third party who gains. It is the private capitalist who gains, and consequently capitalism.
Real wages in 1927 stand, at the best, at the same level as in the autumn of 1925. Yet it is indubitable that during the two years intervening the country has grown richer, the total national income has increased, the kulak levels in the country have increased their reserves with enormous rapidity, and the accumulations of the private capitalist, the merchant, the speculator have grown by leaps and bounds. It is clear that the share of the working class in the total income of the country has fallen, while the share of other classes has grown. This fact is of supreme importance in appraising our whole situation."


read the link for more detail. Stalin did have control by 1926-7, and even in 1924 he more or less did.



Trotsky:
"The nearer drew the time for the fifteenth congress, set for the end of 1927, the more the party felt that it had reached a crossroads in history. Alarm was rife in the ranks. In spite of a monstrous terror, the desire to hear the opposition awoke in the party. This could be achieved only by illegal means. Secret meetings were held in various parts of Moscow and Leningrad, attended by workers and students of both sexes, who gathered in groups of from twenty to one hundred and two hundred to hear some representative of the opposition. In one day I would visit two, three, and sometimes four of such meetings. They were usually held in some worker’s apartment. Two small rooms would be packed with people, and the speaker would stand at the door between the two rooms. Sometimes every one would sit on the floor; more often the discussion had to be carried on stand big, for lack of space. Occasionally representatives of the Control Commission would appear at such meetings and demand that everyone leave. They were invited to take part in the discussion. If they caused any disturbance they were put out. In all, about 20,000 people attended such meetings in Moscow and Leningrad. The number was growing. The opposition cleverly prepared a huge meeting in the hall of the High Technical School, which had been occupied from within. The hall was crammed with two thousand people, while a huge crowd remained outside in the street. The attempts of the administration to stop the meeting proved ineffectual. Kamenev and I spoke for about two hours. Finally the Central Committee issued an appeal to the workers to break up the meetings of the opposition by force. This appeal was merely a screen for carefully prepared attacks on the opposition by military units under the guidance of the GPU. Stalin wanted a bloody settlement of the conflict. We gave the signal for a temporary discontinuance of the large meetings. But this was not until after the demonstration of November 7."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/mylife/ch42.htm




So Trotsky testifying before the House on Un-American activities, which gave away Soviet tactics, was defending the Revolution?
Trotsky was a traitor and a rat to the revolution, that's why he was taken out of his position.

"I cannot be called a Bolshevik... We must not be demanded to recognize Bolshevism."- Trotsky, Mezhrayontsi conference, May 1917

Re the "I cannot describe myself as a Bolshevik" quote. The reason Trotsky said that was he was proposing a name change to the party when his party and the Bolsheviks merged. "It is undesirable to stick to old labels". However Lenin wasn't having that. The statement was made verbally in a meeting between Trotsky, Lenin, Zinoviev and Kamenev as they planned a merger.

Regarding testifying before the Dies Commission. Trotsky agreed to make a public statement there, he wanted it to be a platform for revolutionary ideas. When the Dies Commission realised what he was gonna talk about they refused to let him speak and refused him a visa to the USA.

I think you have been fed a few lies and distortions by the Stalinists, you need to research these things to uncover the facts. The lies were pedalled in the 1930s when Stalin killed thousands of the best communists in Russia in the purges.

Read this for a quick glimpse

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/1009

The bloke it quotes, Trepper, was a hero who worked underground in Nazi-occupied areas sending back info vital for the defence of the USSR.

It's a fascinating story in itself actually. Trepper was recalled by Stalin who didnt want to annoy Hitler, but he refused to go back. They passed info on about the German invasion, but Stalin ignored it! Before he knew what had happened the Germans had advanced over 1000km into Russia and were threatening to take Moscow. Anyway, the link contains a description of the fear that the young communists had of Stalin's regime.

"Trepper was enrolled at the Marchlevski University, alongside the future leaders of the world’s communist parties, including Tito, where the students were lectured by Old Bolsheviks, like Radek, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin, the future victims of Stalin, who were already too well aware of their impending fate. Trepper remarks “When he (Bukharin) finished a lecture, he regularly received a veritable ovation – which he always greeted with a blank stare…One day, looking sadly over a roomful of students acclaiming him, he muttered, “Each time they applaud it brings me closer to my death.”
Trepper had arrived in the USSR in his own words “carrying the dreams of a neophyte. I was a young and an ardent communist…” but as he witnessed the rise of Stalin’s cult of the personality, the fake trials of “conspirators,” how “many militants publicly supported Stalin’s positions although they did not approve of them. This terrible hypocrisy accelerated the inner demoralisation of the party,” Trepper began to question the old certainties.
Lenin’s Testament, which had called for Stalin’s removal was being circulated amongst the students, but the completion of Stalin’s coup at the 17th Party Congress with the election of Kirov and Stalin, meant the pace of the incipient bureaucratism rapidly accelerated. The assassination of Kirov in 1934, probably the work of Stalin, was “Stalin’s Reichstag fire”, was the excuse for a general purge. The Old Bolsheviks were slaughtered on mass, Burkharin’s prophecy was fulfilled, forced to make tortured confessions, in mass show trials, before being dispatched with a bullet to the back of the head. No one felt safe.
No one was immune from the reach of the NKVD, Stalin’s secret police. Trepper describes how; “at night in our university…headlights would pierce the darkness… “They’re here! They’re here! When we heard that cry a wave of anxiety would run through the dormitories…stomachs knotted in insane terror, we would watch for the cars of the KNVD to stop… “They’re coming.” The noise got louder…shouts doors slamming. They went by without stopping. But what about tomorrow?”
Trepper was not alone in enduring the terror; “yet we went along sick at heart, but passive, caught up in machinery we had set in motion…all those who did not rise up against the Stalinist machine are responsible, collectively responsible. I am no exception to this verdict.”
Like most he was too lost to counter Stalin's assault on the party. A member from only the late 1920s onwards, he had neither the training, or experience to understand the political root of the degeneration of the revolution; “But who did protest…The Trotskyites can lay claim to that honour…let them not forget, however, that they had the enormous advantage over us of having a coherent political system capable of replacing Stalinism….they did not “confess,” for they knew that their confession would serve neither the party nor socialism.”"

[Per Levy]

As if these societies/countries during the mentioned periods were not true Worker's States.

how can you call something a workers state if the workers had no controll over the state?

[Ismail]

Odd. I was under the impression that Hoxha regarded Maoism as revisionism.Correct.


Khrushchev (or Gorbachev?) must have been a great man because not even Napoleon could revert France back to feudalism.There's a fairly obvious difference between feudalism and capitalism on one hand, and capitalism and socialism on the other.

Also no one claims that Khrushchev personally restored capitalism in the USSR. Of course he presided over capitalist restoration, but any "great man" stuff is a strawman.

[Zulu]

Also no one claims that Khrushchev personally restored capitalism in the USSR. Of course he presided over capitalist restoration, but any "great man" stuff is a strawman.

What Khrushchev presided over could not be called capitalist restoration yet. He and his clique were just doing one political and economic mistake after another, wrecking the whole socialist system. Oddly enough, he had to be removed (and his "voluntarism" in planning denounced), to pave the way to downgrading the role of central planning altogether and proclaim profitability as the main parameter for the Soviet enterprises, which was done in 1965.

[seventeethdecember2016]

Lenin also wrote
There were other battles too:

"Top secret
Personal
Dear Comrade Trotsky:
It is my earnest request that you should undertake the defence of the Georgian case in the Party C.C. This case is now under “persecution” by Stalin and Dzerzhinsky, and I cannot rely on their impartiality. Quite to the contrary. I would feel at ease if you agreed to undertake its defence. If you should refuse to do so for any reason, return the whole case to me. I shall consider it a sign that you do not accept.[3] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/05b.htm#fwV45E766)
With best comradely greetings
Lenin[1] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/05b.htm#fwV45P607F01)"
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/05b.htm


Then there was the devastating letter in which Lenin more or less told Stalin he wanted nothing more to do with him:


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

Those must have been some intense battles, seeing that they were in the form of letters. I have listed several comments above about Lenin's denouncifications of Trotsky, while you have shown their relationship in a different light. I am sure that all of our comments are Authentic, which makes neither of our comments very compelling. Lenin seems to have changed his opinions on Trotsky and Stalin often, and perhaps it depended on a certain mood he was in, which makes it hard to tell if either of our comments really have any effect.


Lenin also wrote
"Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution. Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. on the question of the People's Commissariat of Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by outstanding ability. He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work. These two qualities of the two outstanding leaders of the present C.C. can inadvertently lead to a split, and if our Party does not take steps to avert this, the split may come unexpectedly."
This wasn't a hint that he personally favored Trotsky, rather he was saying Trotsky was the most qualified for the position.

“We resume our freedom of struggle against the liberals and anarchists, who are being encouraged by the leader of the conciliators, Trotsky. The question of the money is for us a secondary matter, although of course we do not intend to hand over the money of the faction to the bloc of liquidators plus anarchists plus Trotsky, while in no way renouncing our right to expose before the international Social-Democratic movement this bloc, its financial basis.”
-Lenin 1909

“As for Trotsky, whom Comrade Martov has involved in the controversy of third parties which he has organized...we positively cannot go into a full examination of his views here. A separate article of considerable length would be needed for this. By just touching upon Trotsky’s mistaken views, and quoting scraps of them, Comrade Martov only sows confusion in the mind of the reader.... Trotsky’s major mistake is that he ignores the bourgeois character of the revolution and has no clear conception of the transition from this revolution to the socialist revolution. This major mistake leads to those mistakes on side issues which Comrade Martov repeats when he quotes a couple of them with sympathy and approval. Not to leave matters in the confused state to which Comrade Martov has reduced them by his exposition, we shall at least expose the fallacy of those arguments of Trotsky which have won approval of Comrade Martov.”
-Lenin- The Aim of the Proletarian Struggle in our Revolution







I think you have been fed a few lies and distortions by the Trotskyists, you need to research these things to uncover the facts. The lies were pedalled in the 1930s when Trotsky, and the Social Democrats, spread anti-Stalin propaganda. They simply looked at struggling times in the Soviet Union, and made simple critiques.

You currently support a man who would have lead to the deaths of millions of Russians to boster his own international positions. Trotsky was a mass murderer in the making; it is a miracle that he was stopped before destroying the Revolution and the Russian, Chinese, Spanish, etc. peoples. World Revolution is bad! It is a blanket term for European Imperialism!
I feel bad for all of those soldiers that died under the manipulative lead of Trotsky.

[Ostrinski]

This a logically consistent response if and only if one does not support the Paris commune, or actually any toilers' rebellion ever in history. Is this your actual position?sure bro

[Ocean Seal]

As if these societies/countries during the mentioned periods were not true Worker's States./QUOTE]
They weren't workers states if you want evidence you can see the fact that most of them didn't even have many 'workers' to start with.

[QUOTE=Lei Feng;2389419]
Many claim that they were filled with corruption,
This is partially true. Zhukov stole a lot of shit, in Vietnam a party member used state funds to fuel his gambling addiction, but not any more corrupt than your average upstanding capitalist country.



and terrible living standards.
That claim is false and silly. Compare the average degenerate workers state to the average capitalist state and the workers states were far wealthier.
Cuba-Haiti
China-India
Obviously if you compare them to the US, Western Europe they appear poor, but honestly if you consider the fact that only a small fraction of the world's population lives in the first world, you'll see the lie fall through.




My mother, however, had lived in Maoist China during the end of the Cultural Revolution and said that life wasn't as bad as people in the West made it out to be. Of course, the living standard wasn't close to the USA, but China wasn't an imperialist country, so that isn't to be expected.

This is true.



The main question(s) is/are: In your opinion, what were successful Worker's States? How/why? Why did many end up becomming revisionist or full-fledged capitalist after the death of(in most cases) their first ruler?

Soviet Russia
Lack of Internationalism, degeneration of the party, integration with the capitalist economy, national determination on principle, imperialist encirclement, failure to revert to workers power before the degeneration of the party.



EQ: It would be nice if you guys could refute some general lies about M-Lism, too. As I get a lot of flack from "social democrats" and trotskyites about common myths about M-Lism and Communism in general.

Stalin/Mao killed...This one can be disproven by asking them to back their shit up. Also point out how Stalin/Mao didn't have the organs to kill 10+million people each. How the 27 million people that Hitler killed in Germany are never added to his death toll because the bourgeoisie are fash sympathizers when necessary, and how it doesn't make sense for Stalin to have killed 40 mln people when 27 mln already died, as that would make the population incredibly low etc.

[Zukunftsmusik]

Khrushchev (or Gorbachev?) must have been a great man because not even Napoleon could revert France back to feudalism

This probably goes way off topic, but didn't Napoleon manifest many of the ideas from the french revolution? Didn't Code Napoleon implement private property, religious freedom, other personal freedoms, the right to divorce etc. (bourgeois rights)? I thought it was Napoleon III who tried to reestablish feudalism (in name or on paper of course, because as you say, it was impossible)

[daft punk]

“We resume our freedom of struggle against the liberals and anarchists, who are being encouraged by the leader of the conciliators, Trotsky. The question of the money is for us a secondary matter, although of course we do not intend to hand over the money of the faction to the bloc of liquidators plus anarchists plus Trotsky, while in no way renouncing our right to expose before the international Social-Democratic movement this bloc, its financial basis.”
-Lenin 1909

look at the date



“As for Trotsky, whom Comrade Martov has involved in the controversy of third parties which he has organized...we positively cannot go into a full examination of his views here. A separate article of considerable length would be needed for this. By just touching upon Trotsky’s mistaken views, and quoting scraps of them, Comrade Martov only sows confusion in the mind of the reader.... Trotsky’s major mistake is that he ignores the bourgeois character of the revolution and has no clear conception of the transition from this revolution to the socialist revolution. This major mistake leads to those mistakes on side issues which Comrade Martov repeats when he quotes a couple of them with sympathy and approval. Not to leave matters in the confused state to which Comrade Martov has reduced them by his exposition, we shall at least expose the fallacy of those arguments of Trotsky which have won approval of Comrade Martov.”
-Lenin- The Aim of the Proletarian Struggle in our Revolution


again 1909. Lenin and Trotsky were the top 2 revolutionaries. They had some disagreements, they argued a lot.

In 1917 they reached agreement on all the points they had disagreed on. Lenin came round to Trotsky's view on some things and vice versa. The main one was Lenin coming round to Trotsky's view that the revolution should be a proletarian one.

[daft punk]

"I think you have been fed a few lies and distortions by the Trotskyists, you need to research these things to uncover the facts. The lies were pedalled in the 1930s when Trotsky, and the Social Democrats, spread anti-Stalin propaganda. They simply looked at struggling times in the Soviet Union, and made simple critiques."

You currently support a man who would have lead to the deaths of millions of Russians to boster his own international positions. Trotsky was a mass murderer in the making; it is a miracle that he was stopped before destroying the Revolution and the Russian, Chinese, Spanish, etc. peoples. World Revolution is bad! It is a blanket term for European Imperialism!
I feel bad for all of those soldiers that died under the manipulative lead of Trotsky.

Deranged nonsense

[Brosip Tito]

No, neither were workers' states.

Why? Because the bureaucracy (party elite who filled the role of bourgeoisie) held political power, and owned the means of production, NOT the working class.

They were always capitalist. They didn't become capitalist or "revisionist", if you even know what that word means in the Marxian (not Stalinist) sense.

Marxism-Leninism is the failed ideology of revisionist bureaucrats. It is neither Marxism, nor Leninism.

[daft punk]

No, neither were workers' states.

Why? Because the bureaucracy (party elite who filled the role of bourgeoisie) held political power, and owned the means of production, NOT the working class.

wrong




Marxism-Leninism is the failed ideology of revisionist bureaucrats. It is neither Marxism, nor Leninism.
right

[Brosip Tito]

wrongNo.

Trotsky, is wrong. He even contradicts his definition of Workers' state from the Bolshevik revolution when he theorizes the "degenerated workers' state".

[Lei Feng]

Thank you for your responses. However, I would like this thread to not become a huge tendency war between the M-Ls and Trotskyites(as well as any non-Leninist types of communist ideology). I hear the same things from the Trotsky supporters as I do from the Capitalists. I'm not saying that you guys are totally wrong with everything you are saying, but please, can we keep things on topic and not turn this into another huge tendency war with the "Marxism-Leninism was neither Marxism, nor Leninism" and the "Stalin=evil" remarks. I would like to hear more from the Maoists and M-L's(cough, Ismail). Thank you.

[Geiseric]

there was a planned economy from a state that arose and thrives on acceptance from the workers, the beuracracy doesn't own production, they are just the "intellectual labour" that developed a petit bourgeois attitude towards the workers, but still the relation to production with the beurecrats wasn't the same as a bourgeois to his capital.

[daft punk]

No.

Trotsky, is wrong. He even contradicts his definition of Workers' state from the Bolshevik revolution when he theorizes the "degenerated workers' state".
why is he wrong and where is the contradiction? If Russia was not a degenerated workers state what was it?


I hear the same things from the Trotsky supporters as I do from the Capitalists.
Such as? The capitalists said the same thing as the Stalinists, that Russia was socialist or communist, that Stalinism was a natural continuation of Bolshevism.

[seventeethdecember2016]

The main one was Lenin coming round to Trotsky's view that the revolution should be a proletarian one.
We cannot get out of the bourgeois-democratic boundaries of the Russian revolution, but we can vastly extend these boundaries, and within these boundaries we can and must fight for the interests of the proletariat, for its immediate needs and for conditions that will make it possible to prepare its forces for the future complete victory.
-Lenin

Trotsky's major mistake was that he ignored the bourgeois character of the revolution and had no clear conception of the transition from this revolution to the socialist revolution.
-Lenin

But are we not in danger of falling into subjectivism, of wanting to arrive at the socialist revolution by skipping the bourgeois-democratic revolution which is not yet completed and has not yet exhausted the peasant movement? I might be incurring this danger if I said: 'No Tsar, but a workers' government.'
-Lenin

Trotsky... has never been able to form any definite views on the role of the proletariat in the Russian bourgeois revolution.
-Lenin



Deranged nonsense
Gee, thanks for incriminating yourself. This 'deranged nonsense' was actually based on what you said earlier. I simply copied what you said, and replaced Stalin's name with Trotsky while also adding a few things you must have overlooked while reading Trotsky. Surely no one would respect a man like Trotsky who gave away Soviet secrets for his own self righteous purposes. What kind of 'defender of the revolution' does something like that?

[Grenzer]

Odd. I was under the impression that Hoxha regarded Maoism as revisionism.

Didn't you get the memo? Due to their extreme marginalization, they have little recourse but to work with each other for the same reason you get two groups like Nazbols and neo-nazis(not that I wish to create a false dichotomy, Hoxhaism/Maoism have absolutely nothing to do with those ideologies), two groups which on the surface appear to have irreconcilable gulf between them; but in reality have the same intellectual foundation. For this reason, despite the seeming hostility between the two, they are more than capable of being reconciled to each other. Their foundations, which as you have pointed out, seem to be substitution of material analysis with political example.




Yes, that is a strange coincidence. That every single socialist state has befallen to revisionism and then capitalist restoration. Weird how socialist states, which were supposedly more advance than capitalist ones seeing how that's the definition of socialism, could revert so easily to capitalism. Khrushchev (or Gorbachev?) must have been a great man because not even Napoleon could revert France back to feudalism.

So, it's either all just strange coincidence or it had something to do with the way those societies, all of them, were set up.

Yeah, that is pretty weird. It starts making a lot more sense when you consider the possibility that none of these countries having been able to surpass capital, were wholly unable to escape its determinations. There is also the possibility that the leadership of these countries didn't have enough "ideological purity" or as it seems to be called "revisionism" but that seems like a lot of idealistic nonsense to me.




And I think one of the main myths here is that there was socialism in any of these places. Typically, it's a myth that's actually propped along by bourgeois media. Gee, I wonder why they would do such a thing.... like, get everything else wrong, put out propaganda but they still call them socialist...

Yeah, it is kind of weird that the Stalinists tend to use the same definitions for terms that the bourgeois media does from which states were actually communist, to the conflation of socialization with nationalization. Who could have known? Who needs Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin when you have good old Fox news?

[Brosip Tito]

why is he wrong and where is the contradiction?

Read this:


In Trotsky’s works we find two different and quite contradictory definitions of a workers’ state. According to one, the criterion of workers’ state is whether the proletariat has direct or indirect control, no matter how restricted, over the state power: that is, whether the proletariat cant get rid of the bureaucracy by reform alone, without the need for revolution. In 1931 he wrote:
The recognition of the present Soviet State as a workers’ state not only signifies that the bourgeoisie can conquer power in no other way than by armed uprising but also that the proletariat of the USSR has not forfeited the possibility of submitting the bureaucracy to it, or reviving the Party again and of mending the regime of the dictatorship – without a new revolution, wit the methods and on the road of reform. [1] (https://epress.anu.edu.au/archive/cliff/works/1955/statecap/appendix.htm#n1)
In a letter to Borodai, a member of the Opposition group called Democratic Centralists, he expresses this idea even more clearly. The letter is undated, but all indications show that it was written at the end of 1928. He writes:
“Is the degeneration of the apparatus and of the Soviet power a fact? That is the second question,” you write.
There is no doubt that the degeneration of the Soviet apparatus is considerably more advanced than the same process in the Party apparatus. Nevertheless, it is the Party that decides. At present, this means: the Party apparatus. The question thus comes down to the same thing: is the proletarian kernel of the Party, assisted by the working class, capable of triumphing over the autocracy of the Party apparatus which is fusing with the state apparatus? Whoever replies in advance that it is incapable, thereby speaks not only of the necessity of a new party on a new foundation, but also of the necessity of a second and new proletarian revolution. [2] (https://epress.anu.edu.au/archive/cliff/works/1955/statecap/appendix.htm#n2)
Later in the same letter he says:
If the Party is a corpse, a new party must be built on a new spot, and the working class must be told about it openly. If Thermidor is completed, and if the dictatorship of the proletariat is liquidated, the banner of the second proletarian revolution must be unfurled. That is how we would act if the road of reform, for which we stand, proved hopeless. [3] (https://epress.anu.edu.au/archive/cliff/works/1955/statecap/appendix.htm#n3)
Trotsky’s second definition has a fundamentally different criterion. No matter how independent the state machine be from the masses, and even if the only way of getting rid of the bureaucracy be by revolution, so long as the means of production are statified the state remains a workers’ state with the proletariat the ruling class. Thus, in The Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky writes:
The nationalisation of the land, the means of industrial production, transport, and exchange, together with the monopoly of foreign trade, constitutes the basis of the Soviet social structure. Through these relations, established by the proletarian revolution, the nature of the Soviet Union as a proletarian state is for us basically defined. [4] (https://epress.anu.edu.au/archive/cliff/works/1955/statecap/appendix.htm#n4)
Three conclusions are to be drawn from this:


Trotsky’s second definition of the workers’ state negates the first.
If the second definition is correct, the Communist Manifesto was incorrect in saying: “The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the state ...”; and it was incorrect in saying: “the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class.” Furthermore, in this case, neither the Paris Commune nor the Bolshevik dictatorship were workers’ states as the former did not statify the means of production at all, and the latter did not do so for some time.
If the state is the repository of the means of production and the workers do not control it, they do not own the means of production, i.e. they are not the ruling class. The first definition admits this. The second avoids it, but does not disprove it.


- Ygael Gluckstein, State Capitalism in Russia.




If Russia was not a degenerated workers state what was it?Capitalist.

[daft punk]

Originally Posted by daft punk http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2389865#post2389865)
"The main one was Lenin coming round to Trotsky's view that the revolution should be a proletarian one."

We cannot get out of the bourgeois-democratic boundaries of the Russian revolution, but we can vastly extend these boundaries, and within these boundaries we can and must fight for the interests of the proletariat, for its immediate needs and for conditions that will make it possible to prepare its forces for the future complete victory.
-Lenin

These quotes are worthless without dates and links. This one however proves my point, Lenin says it is a bourgeois revolution. From the same article:

"Marxists are absolutely convinced of the bourgeois character of the Russian revolution. What does this mean? It means that the democratic reforms in the political system and the social and economic reforms, which have become a necessity for Russia, do not in themselves imply the undermining of capitalism, the undermining of bourgeois rule; on the contrary, they will, for the first time, really clear the ground for a wide and rapid, European, and not Asiatic, development of capitalism; they will, for the first time, make it possible for the bourgeoisie to rule as a class. "
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/tactics/ch06.htm



Trotsky's major mistake was that he ignored the bourgeois character of the revolution and had no clear conception of the transition from this revolution to the socialist revolution.
-Lenin

Again you quote proves my point, this is 1909 and Lenin says it is a bourgeois revolution.




But are we not in danger of falling into subjectivism, of wanting to arrive at the socialist revolution by skipping the bourgeois-democratic revolution which is not yet completed and has not yet exhausted the peasant movement? I might be incurring this danger if I said: 'No Tsar, but a workers' government.'
-Lenin

Ok this is Letters on tactics, April 1917. This is Lenin attacking Kamenev. Lenin has changed position now, to the same as Trotsky, and is having a go at Kamenev who was calling Lenin a Trotskyist. He says:

"But at this point we hear a clamour of protest from people who readily call themselves “old Bolsheviks”. Didn’t we always maintain, they say, that the bourgeois-democratic revolution is completed only by the “revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry”? Is the agrarian revolution, which is also a bourgeois-democratic revolution, completed? Is it not a fact, on the contrary, that it has not even started? My answer is: The Bolshevik slogans and ideas on the whole have been confirmed by history; but concretely things have worked out diflerently; they are more original, more peculiar, more variated than anyone could have expected."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/x01.htm


In September he shifted even further to Trotsky's position, simply calling for the dictatorship of the proletariat.


there is an article that discusses all this here
http://www.marxist.com/LeninAndTrotsky/chapter04.html


"The very day after the publication of Lenin's theses Kamenev wrote an editorial in Pravda under the heading "Our Differences", in which it was emphasised that the theses represented only Lenin's "personal opinion". The article ended with the following words:

"Insofar as concerns Lenin's general scheme, it appears to be unacceptable, since it starts from the assumption that the bourgeois revolution is finished and counts on the immediate transformation of the revolution into a socialist revolution.''
Note these words well, reader: this is not Lenin arguing against Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, but the "Old Bolshevik" Kamenev indicting Lenin for the heinous crime of Trotskyism! "

this general history site explains:

"When Lenin returned to Russia on 3rd April, 1917, he announced what became known as the April Theses (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSapril.htm). Lenin attacked Bolsheviks (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSbolsheviks.htm) for supporting the Provisional Government (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSprovisional.htm). Instead, he argued, revolutionaries should be telling the people of Russia that they should take over the control of the country. In his speech, Lenin urged the peasants to take the land from the rich landlords and the industrial workers to seize the factories. Albert Rhys Williams (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSwilliamsR.htm) got to know Lenin during this period. He later argued: "He was the most thoroughly civilized and humane man I ever have known, as nice a one as I ever knew, in addition to being a great man." Williams was convinced that the Bolsheviks would become the new rulers: "The Bolsheviks understood the people. They were strong among the more literate strata, like the sailors, and comprised largely the artisans and labourers of the cities. Sprung directly from the people's lions they spoke the people's language, shared their sorrows and thought their thoughts. They were the people. So they were trusted."
Lenin accused those Bolsheviks (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSbolsheviks.htm) who were still supporting the Provisional Government (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSprovisional.htm) of betraying socialism and suggested that they should leave the party. Some took Lenin's advice, arguing that any attempt at revolution at this stage was bound to fail and would lead to another repressive, authoritarian Russian government.
Joseph Stalin (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSstalin.htm) was in a difficult position. As one of the editors of Pravda (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSpravda.htm), he was aware that he was being held partly responsible for what Lenin had described as "betraying socialism". Stalin had two main options open to him: he could oppose Lenin and challenge him for the leadership of the party, or he could change his mind about supporting the Provisional Government (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSprovisional.htm) and remain loyal to Lenin.
After ten days of silence, Stalin made his move. In Pravda (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSpravda.htm) he wrote an article dismissing the idea of working with the Provisional Government (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSprovisional.htm). He condemned left-wing members of the government such as Alexander Kerensky (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSkerensky.htm) and Victor Chernov (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSchernov.htm) as counter-revolutionaries, and urged the peasants (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSpeasants.htm) to form committees to prepare to takeover the land for themselves."
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSlenin.htm




Trotsky... has never been able to form any definite views on the role of the proletariat in the Russian bourgeois revolution.
-Lenin


1910 again irrelevant
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1910/hmipsir/ii.htm

It was Lenin who changed his mind, not Trotsky, as even your mined quotes show.





Gee, thanks for incriminating yourself. This 'deranged nonsense' was actually based on what you said earlier. I simply copied what you said, and replaced Stalin's name with Trotsky while also adding a few things you must have overlooked while reading Trotsky.

wtf. You copied something I wrote, changed Stalin to Trotsky, added a few things, stirred, blended, baked at gas mark 10, and expected what else apart from deranged nonsense?





Surely no one would respect a man like Trotsky who gave away Soviet secrets for his own self righteous purposes. What kind of 'defender of the revolution' does something like that?

support or retract

[Bostana]

Actually a lot of what we believe is in the ML group's bio:


A Marxist-Leninist is one who upholds the theories of Marx, Engels and Lenin alongside various other Revolutionaries. As a result they show direct opposition to the path of Trotskyist, Ultra-Leftist and Revisionist trends of Socialism.

Most Marxist-Leninists claim that the Soviet Union under Stalin's leadership represented a correct and successful practical implementation of the ideas of the scientific socialist ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). That does not mean; however, that Marxist-Leninists are completely uncritical of Stalin.

Marxism-Leninism is seen by its followers as a healthy, solid, scientific ideological road, devoid of both the alleged corruption and elitism of Trotskyism, and the perceived idealism of Left Communism.

Anti-revisionism is based on the view that the Soviet Union successfully implemented Marxism-Leninism during approximately the first thirty years of its existence — from the time of the October Revolution until the Secret Speech and peaceful coexistence of 1956. Anti-revisionists point out that Stalin's policies not only achieved impressive rates of economic growth and argue that such growth could have been sustained and a prosperous communism could have been achieved if the Soviet Union had remained on this same course (see also the article Theory of Productive Forces); they also typically further allege that the worldwide ideological impact and leadership of the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940s world labor movement represent a superior ideological and social model of real "workers' power".

According to Marxist-Leninists, later attempts to 'fix' or revise the socialist system represented a shift onto the road to capitalism and ultimately led to the downfall of the Soviet Union and the betrayal of communist principles in all self-proclaimed communist countries. Thus, revisionism is seen as the cause of the fall of the Soviet Union and the East European socialist republics.

For more reading this is a great source of information on an anti-revisionist outlook on the Soviet Union:

http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc9912/lies.htm

P.S. The link is actually a good read.

Also read the MLM's bio:

Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, as based mainly on the teachings of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Iosef Stalin and Mao Zedong, is the highest qualitative stage of Marxism so far and is the guiding ideology of revolutionaries the world over who carry forward the fight for a world free of all class distinctions, all exploitative production relations, all oppressive social relations, and all corresponding, reactionary ideas - the communist world of the future. Basic Marxist-Leninist principles were implemented successfully, though with shortcomings, in the Soviet Union during the leadership of Lenin and Stalin, but it was the experience of socialist construction and the 'Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution' in the People's Republic of China under Mao however that heralded 'Mao Tse-Tung Thought' and later 'Maoism' as a new qualitative advancement of Marxism-Leninism. Key principles of Maoism include:

1. The people's war strategy, i.e. a strategy of mass-based guerilla war principally relying on the exploited social base leading to the encirclement of the more developed areas that profit from the exploitation of that social base.

2. The mass line, which encompasses four main points: a) learn from the people while leading them, b) serve the people while leading them, c) rely on the people while leading them, and d) practice leadership mainly in the form of guidance rather than commands.

3. The philosophical, strategic, and tactical approach of identifying the contextual principal contradiction and attacking the contextual main enemy. (Divide and conquer, in other words.)

4. New democratic revolution and the corresponding strategic block of four classes as the path to sustainable socialism for countries with pre-capitalist modes of production.

5. Political and cultural revolutions within the proletarian revolution as occasionally necessary.

Unfortunately, following the lead of the Khrushchovite revisionists who destroyed socialism in the USSR after Stalin's death, after Mao's death the PRC was also taken over by revisionists who revise and betray fundamental principles of Marxism in the interests of capitalism and, like the USSR before it, a once great proletarian state was taken down the path of capitalist restoration and social-imperialism. Because of this, we put particular emphasis on the dangers of revisionism. Despite the defeats of the 20th century, the flame of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is still being kept alive and advanced by the experiences of the countless CPs in the third world waging or preparing for people's war. Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!

[daft punk]

Read this:

- Ygael Gluckstein, State Capitalism in Russia.



Capitalist.

Yes, he used the phrase 'workers state' in 2 ways

1. A country where the workers control the state, or at least a workers party does so genuinely on their behalf, as best it can. This applied to 1917-28.

2. A country where the means of production have been taken into public ownership in a planned economy. This applied to the period 1928 (or a bit later) onward.

If both occurred at the same time you would be very close to establishing socialism. Unfortunately in the period 1924-8 Stalin neglected the second one, concentrated on undoing the first one, and then was forced to do the second one and completely undo the first one to save his ass.

Degenerated workers state means the second one more or less exists but the first one has unravelled.

[daft punk]

Actually a lot of what we believe is in the ML group's bio:



P.S. The link is actually a good read.

You still get the top marks for entertainment, I'll give you that.

[Franz Fanonipants]

check out this communist battle over anti-popes and heresy itt

[Bostana]

You still get the top marks for entertainment, I'll give you that.

Because I entered the group bio?

[daft punk]

Because I entered the group bio?

"P.S. The link is actually a good read."

my emphasis obviously.

sounded funny to me anyway. No offence, but is English your native language? Maybe it's just the American English thing, I once offered my Canadian girlfriend a cup of tea and she thought I meant alcohol, this was about 9am!

[Bostana]

"P.S. The link is actually a good read."

my emphasis obviously.

sounded funny to me anyway. No offence, but is English your native language? Maybe it's just the American English thing, I once offered my Canadian girlfriend a cup of tea and she thought I meant alcohol, this was about 9am!

So what you're telling me is, That you're a grammar Nazi

[daft punk]

No, I said I thought it was funny. I sorta half assumed it was supposed to. I don't criticise people's grammar on here, fuck me it would take all day.

They way you phrased it sounded as if it would be surprising if it was a good read, with the word actually in it.

And of course from my point of view it would indeed be surprising if it was a good read.

Hence the word actually made it funny, to me anyway.

Oh, ps, I'm desperately skint. Anyone wanting some private English lessons feel free to mail me. 10 euros per hour.

[Bostana]

Oh, ps, I'm desperately skint. Anyone wanting some private English lessons feel free to mail me. 10 euros per hour.
Euros?

You live in the UK.

[seventeethdecember2016]

wtf. You copied something I wrote, changed Stalin to Trotsky, added a few things, stirred, blended, baked at gas mark 10, and expected what else apart from deranged nonsense?
I was simply looking to show the irony of your comment. Personal attacks have little to no value to me, and your claims that I've been 'fed lies from Stalinists' was out of taste. To further show how little value it had to me, as stated earlier, I revised your comment and made it an attack against you and your messiah.
Your claims that it was deranged nonsense, simply because I didn't create an Authentic attack against your person, is childish at best.


These quotes are worthless without dates and links. This one however proves my point, Lenin says it is a bourgeois revolution.
In what ways does it being a Bourgeois revolution, in Lenin's words, support your points?

You want more critiques from Lenin?
Lenin disagreed with Trotsky's plan to Bureaucratize the Trade Unions, which would punish workers who didn't complete their tasks as deserters in armies(they get shot). Trotsky undermined Lenin's authority on this issue, and luckily he was defeated.
Lenin disagreed with Trotsky and Stalin's rivalry, but did not formally take any sides.
It is true that Lenin wanted Stalin to step down, but his comments against Stalin, calling him 'rude,' were not due to his quickly expanding power or Federalization of the USSR, rather it was because he insulted his wife. You call this a good reason to have Stalin removed?



support or retract
What do you mean support or retract? Wasn't the evidence provided earlier enough? I am not going to repeat myself.

[daft punk]

I was simply looking to show the irony of your comment. Personal attacks have little to no value to me, and your claims that I've been 'fed lies from Stalinists' was out of taste. To further show how little value it had to me, as stated earlier, I revised your comment and made it an attack against you and your messiah.
Your claims that it was deranged nonsense, simply because I didn't create an Authentic attack against your person, is childish at best.

90% of what Stalinists write are lies. This has been proved a million times. It's not personal. Personal is sticking an axe through the skull. In fact even that wasnt completely personal, it was just Stalin trying to preserve his dictatorship.





"Marxists are absolutely convinced of the bourgeois character of the Russian revolution. "



In what ways does it being a Bourgeois revolution, in Lenin's words, support your points?


What? Lenin said it would be a bourgeois revolution up to 1917 and then he changed his mind to agree with Trotsky.



You want more critiques from Lenin?
Lenin disagreed with Trotsky's plan to Bureaucratize the Trade Unions, which would punish workers who didn't complete their tasks as deserters in armies(they get shot). Trotsky undermined Lenin's authority on this issue, and luckily he was defeated.

sorry, I have answered this so many times on this forum in the short time since I joined. search the forum.




Lenin disagreed with Trotsky and Stalin's rivalry, but did not formally take any sides.
It is true that Lenin wanted Stalin to step down, but his comments against Stalin, calling him 'rude,' were not due to his quickly expanding power or Federalization of the USSR, rather it was because he insulted his wife. You call this a good reason to have Stalin removed?

what is shows is that it was the straw that broke the camels back.



What do you mean support or retract? Wasn't the evidence provided earlier enough? I am not going to repeat myself.

what evidence? What are you talking about? You made some wild claims that Trotsky could have cost millions of lives, and something about giving away secrets. You mentioned Trotsky testifying to the Dies commission and I thoroughly debunked that claim. You have provided no evidence to any of your claims which are all untrue.

[seventeethdecember2016]

90% of what Stalinists write are lies. This has been proved a million times. It's not personal. Personal is sticking an axe through the skull. In fact even that wasnt completely personal, it was just Stalin trying to preserve his dictatorship.
This is your simply opinion. I have a similar opinion, that I just invented, that 90% of Trotskyists lie. Trotsky was killed because he was a traitor who was giving away sensitive information to the SU's enemies. Stalin had nothing to worry about in Trotsky by the 1940s, he was just a powerless kook half a world away.


What? Lenin said it would be a bourgeois revolution up to 1917 and then he changed his mind to agree with Trotsky.
Thanks for elaborating this, but that has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Did Lenin not have the free mind to realize that himself? Your basing Lenin's decisions, in the heat of a Revolution, on a small disagreement they had a few years earlier?



sorry, I have answered this so many times on this forum in the short time since I joined. search the forum.
Perhaps I will some time in the future. I feel as though it'll have an apologetic fervor to it.



what is shows is that it was the straw that broke the camels back.

Lenin's testament was nothing more than a troll. I hate to degrade Lenin to the level of a troll, but, again, who the hell makes decisions that affect an entire state based on how his wife is treated.



what evidence? What are you talking about? You made some wild claims that Trotsky could have cost millions of lives, and something about giving away secrets. You mentioned Trotsky testifying to the Dies commission and I thoroughly debunked that claim. You have provided no evidence to any of your claims which are all untrue.
When I referred to him possibly costing millions of lives, I am referring to the world revolution that he wanted which would have cost millions of lives-especially those in the Red Army that he deluded. You earlier admitted that Trotsky wanted to give Soviet secrets to the House of Un-American activities, so how can you deny that he wasn't an active traitor? Your simple opinions on this matter don't change a thing, and it is the ACT of him TRYING to give away these secrets is what matters. Him agreeing to testify makes him a traitor.

[Tim Cornelis]

Very briefly.

Socialism is a society based on associated labour as opposed to wage labour. Wage labour existed in all Marxist-Leninist states. Ergo, they could logically not have been socialist.

A dictatorship of the proletariat and parliamentarianism are diametrically opposed. A party-system, be it a multi-party or one-party system, are parliamentarianist. Any party-system cannot be a dictatorship of the proletariat.

(Ironically many MLs decry a multi-party system as "bourgeois" without realising any party-system is "bourgeois").

Not one Marxist-Leninist state was a dictatorship of the proletariat, nor socialist in nature.

Lao People's Democratic
People's Republic of China
Republic of Cuba
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of
Albania, Socialist Republic of
Angola, People's Republic of
Benin, People's Republic of
Bulgaria, People's Republic of
Byelorussia, Socialist Soviet Republic of
Congo, People's Republic of the
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
Ethiopia, People's Democratic
German Democratic Republic
Greece, Provisional Government
Grenada, People's Revolutionary Government
Hungary, People's Republic of
Kampuchea, People's Republic of
Korea, Democratic People's Republic
Mongolian People's Republic
Mozambique, People's Republic of
Poland, People's Republic of
Romania, Socialist Republic of
Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic
Somali Democratic Republic
Soviet Union
Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic
Tuvan People's Republic
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
Vietnam, Democratic Republic of
Yemen, People's Democratic Republic of
Yugoslavia, Federal Republic of

Nope, not one of these was socialist or a DOTP, and I used the basis of the basis of Marxism to prove it.

[dodger]

Goti123......I have a cheek asking you this...my own ideas are not fully formed. But do you or your comrades have any picture of what form the DoTP might take. In your country, how might it look like?..No crystal ball!

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Goti123......I have a cheek asking you this...my own ideas are not fully formed. But do you or your comrades have any picture of what form the DoTP might take. In your country, how might it look like?..No crystal ball!

I would say that a society like the Paris Commune would be a DOTP, just like Marx did. I see the DOTP as a small state run by the local communities through direct democratic institutions and the workplace run through direct democratic councils. The state would be small enough to be very libertarian and democratic while strong enough to fight off counter-revolution.

[Tim Cornelis]

Goti123......I have a cheek asking you this...my own ideas are not fully formed. But do you or your comrades have any picture of what form the DoTP might take. In your country, how might it look like?..No crystal ball!

I don't advocate a DOTP myself, and merely repeat Marx.

He advocated a DOTP modeled after the Paris Commune (though not identical to it). It would be a more or less "centralised" body controlled from below through mandated and recallable delegates. Public officials would be paid a workers' wage. Wage labour would begin to be replaced by associated labour.

[daft punk]

This is your simply opinion. I have a similar opinion, that I just invented, that 90% of Trotskyists lie. Trotsky was killed because he was a traitor who was giving away sensitive information to the SU's enemies. Stalin had nothing to worry about in Trotsky by the 1940s, he was just a powerless kook half a world away.

Yes, but when we get down to the nitty gritty, you are just taking rubbish and I have history to prove me right.

Now, please support your allegation that Trotsky was giving away sensitive information to the SU's enemies.

You tried once and failed. Support or retract.



Originally Posted by daft punk http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2391677#post2391677)
"What? Lenin said it would be a bourgeois revolution up to 1917 and then he changed his mind to agree with Trotsky"
Thanks for elaborating this, but that has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Did Lenin not have the free mind to realize that himself? Your basing Lenin's decisions, in the heat of a Revolution, on a small disagreement they had a few years earlier?

Yes, I'm not saying he was necessarily persuaded by Trotsky. He may well have arrived at the same conclusion via his own analysis, in fact I'm sure he did. Bear in mind the February revolution had just happened and most of the Bolshevik CC in Russia were supporting the Provisional Government. Lenin moved with events I guess, Trotsky sorta worked it out in 1906 by pure genius.



Perhaps I will some time in the future. I feel as though it'll have an apologetic fervor to it.

No, Trotsky admitted he was wrong. This was the Trade Union debates, right? Just read Trotsky in My Life, take 5 minutes to google and get a quick overview. He was wrong, but not in the absurd way the ultralefts and stalinists try to portray, his view was not particularly extreme in the circumstances. In fact his original idea was to end war communism, but that didnt get done til a year later.




Lenin's testament was nothing more than a troll. I hate to degrade Lenin to the level of a troll, but, again, who the hell makes decisions that affect an entire state based on how his wife is treated.


As I say, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Lenin had all sorts of doubts and battles with Stalin. He didnt really like the idea of Stalin being gen sec, even though it was a nonpolitical job.




When I referred to him possibly costing millions of lives, I am referring to the world revolution that he wanted which would have cost millions of lives-especially those in the Red Army that he deluded. You earlier admitted that Trotsky wanted to give Soviet secrets to the House of Un-American activities, so how can you deny that he wasn't an active traitor? Your simple opinions on this matter don't change a thing, and it is the ACT of him TRYING to give away these secrets is what matters. Him agreeing to testify makes him a traitor.
No I didnt admit that ffs. I said he was gonna use it as a political platform, to talk revolution to the masses. He didnt agree to testify, you are wrong. look it up. What secrets do you think he knew anyway, he was kicked out in 1927. Everything Trotsky was gonna say was already in the public domain. he was gonna talk about Stalinism yeah, so?

The fucking CIA have their spies, they hardly need a Marxist, and they wouldnt get one.

In actual fact the CIA were quite shocked at Trotsky's apparent naivete re the GPU infiltration into his organisation and so on.

Consider the facts - he was banned from speaking in the end. Is it likely, on that alone, that he was gonna give away secrets, or preach revolution?

[manic expression]

As I say, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Lenin had all sorts of doubts and battles with Stalin. He didnt really like the idea of Stalin being gen sec, even though it was a nonpolitical job.
Lenin was hardly complimentary of Trotsky, either. But are you saying that rudeness is grounds for denouncing a fellow party member in such a manner? It would be exceedingly hard for you to make that case, especially seeing as Trotskyist circles are facing no shortage of rude members.

IIRC, Stalin offered his resignation after the letter came out, but just about everyone, including Trotsky, refused to accept it.

[daft punk]

Lenin was hardly complimentary of Trotsky, either.

You mean before 1917, and also on the Trade Union debate in 1921.



But are you saying that rudeness is grounds for denouncing a fellow party member in such a manner? It would be exceedingly hard for you to make that case, especially seeing as Trotskyist circles are facing no shortage of rude members.

All the more reason to think Lenin was looking for an excuse almost, to break off relations with Stalin. He was sick to death of him.




IIRC, Stalin offered his resignation after the letter came out, but just about everyone, including Trotsky, refused to accept it.

Have you read up on this?

"During the days when the testament was dictated, Lenin was still trying to give to his critical appraisal of Stalin as restrained an expression as possible. In the coming weeks his tone would become sharper and sharper right up to the last hour when his voice ceased forever. But even in the testament enough is said to motivate the demand for a change of General Secretary: along with rudeness and capriciousness, Stalin is accused of lack of loyalty. At this point the characterization becomes a heavy indictment. As will appear later, the testament could not have been a surprise to Stalin. But this did not soften the blow. Upon his first acquaintance with the document, in the Secretariat, in the circle of his closest associates, Stalin let fly a phrase which gave quite unconcealed expression to his real feelings toward the author of the testament. The conditions under which this phrase spread to wide circles, and above all the inimitable quality of the reaction itself, is in my eyes an unqualified guarantee of the authenticity of the episode. Unfortunately this winged phrase cannot be quoted in print.
The concluding sentence of the testament shows unequivocally on which side, in Lenin’s opinion, the danger lay. To remove Stalin – just him and him only – meant to cut him off from the apparatus, to withdraw from him the possibility of pressing on the long arm of the lever, to deprive him of all that power which he had concentrated in his hands in this office. Who, then, should be named General Secretary? Someone who, having the positive qualities of Stalin, should be more patient, more loyal, less capricious. This was the phrase which struck home most sharply to Stalin. Lenin obviously did not consider him irreplaceable, since he proposed that we seek a more suitable person for his post. In tendering his resignation, as a matter of form, the General Secretary capriciously kept repeating: “Well, I really am rude ... Ilyich suggested that you find another who would differ from me only in greater politeness. Well, try to find him.” “Never mind,” answered the voice of one of Stalin’s then friends. “We are not afraid of rudeness. Our whole party is rude, proletarian.” A drawing-room conception of politeness is here indirectly attributed to Lenin. As to the accusation of inadequate loyalty, neither Stalin nor his friends had a word to say. It is perhaps not without interest that the supporting voice came from A.P. Smirnov, then People’s Commissar of Agriculture, but now under the ban as a Right Oppositionist. Politics knows no gratitude.
Radek, who was then still a member of the Central Committee, sat beside me during the reading of the testament. Yielding with abandon to the influence of the moment and lacking inner discipline, Radek took instant fire from the testament and leaned to me with the words, “Now they won’t dare go against you.” I answered him, “On the contrary, they will have to go the limit, and moreover as quickly as possible.” The very next days of that Thirteenth Congress demonstrated that my judgment was the more sober. The troika were compelled to forestall the possible effect of the testament by placing the party as soon as possible before a fait accompli. The very reading of the document to the local delegations with “outsiders” not admitted, was converted into a downright struggle against me. The leaders of the delegations in their reading would swallow some words, emphasize others, and offer commentaries to the effect that the letter had been written by a man seriously ill and under the influence of trickery and intrigue. The machine was already in complete control. The mere fact that the troika was able to transgress the will of Lenin, refusing to read his letter at the Congress, sufficiently characterizes the composition of the Congress and its atmosphere. The testament did not weaken or put a stop to the inner struggle, but on the contrary lent it a disastrous tempo.


Lenin’s Attitude Toward Stalin

Politics is persistent. It can press into its service even those who demonstratively turn their backs to it. Ludwig writes: “Stalin followed Lenin fervently up to his death.” If this phrase expressed merely the mighty influence of Lenin upon his pupils, including Stalin, there could be no argument. But Ludwig means something more. He wants to suggest an exceptional closeness to the teacher of this particular pupil. As an especially precious testimony Ludwig cites upon this point the words of Stalin himself: “I am only a pupil of Lenin, and my aim is to be his worthy pupil.” It is too bad when a professional psychologist operates uncritically with a trite phrase, the conventional modesty of which contains not one atom of intimate content. Ludwig becomes here a mere transmitter of the official legend manufactured during these recent years. I doubt if he has the remotest idea of the contradictions into which his indifference to facts has brought him. If Stalin actually was following Lenin up to his death, how then explain the fact that the last document dictated by Lenin, on the eve of his second stroke, was a curt letter to Stalin, a few lines in all, breaking off all personal and comradely relations? This single event of its kind in the life of Lenin, a sharp break with one of his close associates, must have had very serious psychological causes, and would be, to say the least, incomprehensible in relation to a pupil who “fervently” followed his teacher up to the end. Yet we hear not a word about this from Ludwig.
When Lenin’s letter breaking with Stalin became widely known among the leaders of the party, the troika having by that time fallen to pieces, Stalin and his close friends found no other way out but to revive that same old story about the incompetent condition of Lenin. As a matter of fact the testament, as also the letter breaking off relations, was written in those months (December 1922 to the beginning of March 1923) during which Lenin in a series of programmatic articles gave the party the most mature fruits of his thinking. That break with Stalin did not drop out of a clear sky. It flowed from a long series of preceding conflicts, upon matters of principle and upon practical matters alike, and it sets forth the whole bitterness of these conflicts in a tragic light.
Lenin undoubtedly valued highly certain of Stalin’s traits: his firmness of character, tenacity, stubbornness, even ruthlessness and craftiness – qualities necessary in a war and consequently in its general staff. But Lenin was far from thinking that these gifts, even on an extraordinary scale, were sufficient for the leadership of the party and the state. Lenin saw in Stalin a revolutionist, but not a statesman in the grand style. Theory had too high an importance for Lenin in a political struggle. Nobody considered Stalin a theoretician, and he himself up to 1924 never made any pretense to this vocation. On the contrary, his weak theoretical grounding was too well known in a small circle. Stalin is not acquainted with the West; he does not know any foreign language. He was never brought into the discussion of problems of the international workers’ movement. And finally Stalin was not – this is less important, but not without significance – either a writer or an orator in the strict sense of the word. His articles, in spite of all the author’s caution, are loaded not only with theoretical blunders and naivetes, but also with crude sins against the Russian language. In the eyes of Lenin, Stalin’s value was wholly in the sphere of party administration and machine maneuvering. But even here Lenin made substantial reservations, and these increased during the last period."
Trotsky
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/12/lenin.htm


read the link for the full story.

[manic expression]

You mean before 1917, and also on the Trade Union debate in 1921.
No, I mean in that same letter, when he basically said Trotsky was capable of acting like an arrogant jerk.


All the more reason to think Lenin was looking for an excuse almost, to break off relations with Stalin. He was sick to death of him.
Lenin wasn't so petty as to look for such a marginal excuse. Lenin, the man who never backed down from a confrontation in the whole of his political career, was far above that. He was sick to death of something but not of Stalin.


Have you read up on this?
So basically Stalin did offer his resignation and no one took him up on it, and a decade later Trotsky decided to write his version of the story. Wow, how incisive.

[seventeethdecember2016]

Yes, but when we get down to the nitty gritty, you are just taking rubbish and I have history to prove me right.

Now, please support your allegation that Trotsky was giving away sensitive information to the SU's enemies.

You tried once and failed. Support or retract.
I've given more than enough information on this topic. I can care less if these arguments have met your satisfaction or not. I am also disdained from finding more information on this seeing that your just going to take the role of a Trotskyist apologist and deny or rationalize what he has done.



Trotsky sorta worked it out in 1906 by pure genius.
Pure genius? Trotsky was nothing more than an impatient pseudo-intellectual who wanted to skip stages of economic development. Anyone could come to his conclusions.



This was the Trade Union debates, right? Just read Trotsky in My Life, take 5 minutes to google and get a quick overview.
I've done more than enough research on this subject.




As I say, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Lenin had all sorts of doubts and battles with Stalin. He didnt really like the idea of Stalin being gen sec, even though it was a nonpolitical job.
If Lenin was in such disagreement with Stalin, why didn't he write something more thoughtful than 'Stalin was rude'.



No I didnt admit that ffs. I said he was gonna use it as a political platform, to talk revolution to the masses.
So your claiming he was trying to troll the dies commission? I suppose that makes perfect sense if you don't think about it.

[daft punk]

No, I mean in that same letter, when he basically said Trotsky was capable of acting like an arrogant jerk.

He said what he said:
"Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. on the question of the People's Commissariat of Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by outstanding ability. He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work. "



Lenin wasn't so petty as to look for such a marginal excuse. Lenin, the man who never backed down from a confrontation in the whole of his political career, was far above that. He was sick to death of something but not of Stalin.

The fact is that Lenin threatened to break off all relations with Stalin. This is very unusual, unheard of probably. It is not something be be ignored.

Also Lenin, with Trotsky as his ally, had been fighting several battles against Stalin, these are all documented in Lenin's last writings.




So basically Stalin did offer his resignation and no one took him up on it, and a decade later Trotsky decided to write his version of the story. Wow, how incisive.

In you desperation to cling to your simplistic twisted version of events you are incapable of taking in what you just read. You need to do some reading if you want to understand it. Lenin's testament said Trotsky was the most capable and Stalin should be removed. But this was written a year before he died. After that Lenin had more battles with Stalin:

eg
Esteemed Comrade Trotsky,

I earnestly ask you to undertake the defense of the Georgian affair at the Central Committee of the party. That affair is now under “prosecution” at the hands of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky and I cannot rely on their impartiality. Indeed, quite the contrary! If you would agree to undertake its defense, I could be at rest. If for some reason you do not agree, send me back all the papers. I will consider that a sign of your disagreement.

With the very best comradely greetings,
Lenin
March 5, 1923

As soon as he died Stalin was plotting and scheming, fearing his career was over. His main opposition was Trotsky so he stuck the boot in.

The delegates to did get to know about the testament were read it verbally. As Trotsky points out, when reading something aloud you can emphasise certain points, mumble others, add bits of commentary, make excuses and twist things. Nobody was allowed to make notes. It was read separately to each delegation. It was a compromise, as Stalin did not dare openly suppress it so soon after Lenin's death. Lenin's wife was far from happy though.

The party was already controlled by the troika at the time Lenin died. The testament was not read to congress.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/12/lenin.htm

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by Stalin offered his resignation and Trotsky did not vote against it. Do you mean to the CC before the Congress? Stalin already had his majority, via Bukharin, Kamenev and Zinoviev, plus his cronies. Was it even done formally?

"From the time Stalin consolidated his position as the unquestioned leader of the Communist Party and the Soviet Union in the late 1920s on, all references to Lenin's testament were considered anti-Soviet agitation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Soviet_agitation) and punishable as such. The denial of the existence of Lenin's testament remained one of the cornerstones of Soviet historiography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_historiography) until Stalin's death on March 5, 1953. After Nikita Khrushchev (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev)'s denunciation of Stalin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Personality_Cult_and_its_Consequences) at the Twentieth Party Congress (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Party_Congress) in 1956, the document was finally published officially by the Soviet government."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin%27s_Testament

[daft punk]

I've given more than enough information on this topic. I can care less if these arguments have met your satisfaction or not. I am also disdained from finding more information on this seeing that your just going to take the role of a Trotskyist apologist and deny or rationalize what he has done.

You have given nothing. You alleged that Trotsky had given away secrets at the Dies Commission. The fact his he never even spoke there, and what he was going to say was all in the public domain. He was going to make a political speech to the American workers about the nature of Stalin's regime, and so the authorities silenced him.



Pure genius? Trotsky was nothing more than an impatient pseudo-intellectual who wanted to skip stages of economic development. Anyone could come to his conclusions.

Lenin abandoned stagism in 1917.



If Lenin was in such disagreement with Stalin, why didn't he write something more thoughtful than 'Stalin was rude'.

He did. He wrote quite a bit. In the same sentence he accused Stalin of being disloyal, but you don't repeat that do you?

"Top secret Comrades Mdivani, Makharadze and others
Copy to Comrades Trotsky and Kamenev
Dear Comrades:
I am following your case with all my heart. I am indignant over Orjonikidze’s rudeness and the connivance of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky. I am preparing for you notes and a speech.[1] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/06b.htm#fwV45E768)
Respectfully yours,
Lenin
March 6, 1923"


There are loads like this from the last period of Lenin's life. In the end Lenin threatened to break off relations with Stalin altogether, an unheard of thing to do.




So your claiming he was trying to troll the dies commission? I suppose that makes perfect sense if you don't think about it. __________________

Troll is a childish term used by bedroom internet debaters. Trotsky was just doing what he always did, trying to spread Marxist ideas at every opportunity. Just do a bit of research and stop repeating stupid lies for fuck's sake.

[manic expression]

He said what he said:
Which is that Trotsky can be a jerk.


The fact is that Lenin threatened to break off all relations with Stalin. This is very unusual, unheard of probably. It is not something be be ignored.
Yet he didn't, which you ignore.


Also Lenin, with Trotsky as his ally, had been fighting several battles against Stalin, these are all documented in Lenin's last writings.
Hahahaha Trotsky was no more an ally of Lenin than anyone else.


Lenin's testament said Trotsky was the most capable and Stalin should be removed.
So why did this "most capable" figure not vote for the removal of Stalin?


As soon as he died Stalin was plotting and scheming, fearing his career was over. His main opposition was Trotsky so he stuck the boot in.
Everyone in the party was "plotting and scheming". Stalin wasn't the main force behind Trotsky's expulsion, though, so your idea is wrong as usual.


The delegates to did get to know about the testament were read it verbally. As Trotsky points out, when reading something aloud you can emphasise certain points, mumble others, add bits of commentary, make excuses and twist things.
ahahahahahahaha yeah that's it...it was read aloud and so no one understood it. Perhaps if they rolled their R's more then they would have accepted Stalin's offer of resignation. :lol:


The party was already controlled by the troika at the time Lenin died. The testament was not read to congress.
And that matters how?


I'm not exactly sure what you mean by Stalin offered his resignation and Trotsky did not vote against it. Do you mean to the CC before the Congress? Stalin already had his majority, via Bukharin, Kamenev and Zinoviev, plus his cronies. Was it even done formally?
Oh, so Stalin already had allies...how criminal of him.

[seventeethdecember2016]

You have given nothing. You alleged that Trotsky had given away secrets at the Dies Commission. The fact his he never even spoke there, and what he was going to say was all in the public domain. He was going to make a political speech to the American workers about the nature of Stalin's regime, and so the authorities silenced him.
Given nothing? As stated earlier, I have given more than enough. You simply sharing your opinions has neither proved nor disproved anything. I'd love to write more, but that would be useless seeing you wouldn't accept anything I write. Trust me, I've dealt with people like you.



He did. He wrote quite a bit. In the same sentence he accused Stalin of being disloyal, but you don't repeat that do you?

Simply stating that Stalin needs to be replaced with someone more loyal doesn't mean that he thought Stalin was disloyal. You are jumping to false conclusions.




Troll is a childish term used by bedroom internet debaters. Trotsky was just doing what he always did, trying to spread Marxist ideas at every opportunity. Just do a bit of research and stop repeating stupid lies for fuck's sake.
I have done my research, and it has all come to the conclusing that you've been lying this whole time. You base your entire argument on your own self righteous speculations on you Messiah, and you'll critize anyone that isn't as like minded as you are.

By the way, I can't imagine someone trying to go to an American Commission(of all places) to spread Marxism. These lies of yours clearly show how deluded you'll make facts in order to get some kind of strategic bonus in an argument. Really, this has to be one of the stupidest claims I've ever heard.

[Ismail]

There are loads like this from the last period of Lenin's life. In the end Lenin threatened to break off relations with Stalin altogether, an unheard of thing to do.Is that why, as Volkogonov notes, he asked Stalin shortly after to give him cyanide so that he could end his own life (which Stalin refused to do)?

Also Stalin was operating in the "Georgian Affair" originally with Lenin's approval and with the mistaken belief that he was acting in accordance with Lenin's will. Molotov noted that the positions Stalin took were akin to those Lenin had taken originally, and that only later Lenin changed his mind without Stalin knowing until the end.

[daft punk]

Which is that Trotsky can be a jerk.

No he didn't, you're fantasising again



"The fact is that Lenin threatened to break off all relations with Stalin. This is very unusual, unheard of probably. It is not something be be ignored. "
Yet he didn't, which you ignore.


"On March 5, 1923, Lenin broke off personal relations with Stalin. He attempted to enlist Leon Trotsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky) to take over the Georgian problem, and began preparing three notes and a speech, where he would announce to the Party Congress that Stalin would be removed as Secretary General.[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Affair#cite_note-7) However, on March 9, 1923 Lenin suffered a third stroke, which would eventually lead to his death."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Affair

"Lenin’s Last Testament Written in late December 1922 to early January 1923, Lenin’s last testament was an outline for the reorganisation of the Soviet government. The testament contains three parts: on increasing the size of the Central Committee (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/congress.htm); on granting legislative functions to the State Planning Commission (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/state.htm); and on the Question of Nationalities (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/autonomy.htm).
Lenin intended his letters to be published in Pravda (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/periodicals/p/r.htm#pravda), read at the upcoming Congress of Soviets, the Congress of the Communist party and (the Question on Nationalities) at the First Congress of Soviets of the U.S.S.R. Lenin’s letters were withheld from all. In May, 1924, some 16 months after Lenin had written these letters, they were first read (note taking was not allowed) post-mortem to the Council of Elders of the Thirteenth Communist party congress."
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/l/e.htm#last-testament



"Also Lenin, with Trotsky as his ally, had been fighting several battles against Stalin, these are all documented in Lenin's last writings. "
Hahahaha Trotsky was no more an ally of Lenin than anyone else.

Why dont you try reading the last stuff Lenin wrote instead of typing rubbish?

V. I. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/14.htm) Lenin (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/15c.htm)

807

LETTER TO J. V. STALIN FOR MEMBERS OF THE R.C.P.(B.) C.C.



"I am now through with putting my business in order, and am in a position to leave without worry.[1] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/15b.htm#fwV45E758) I have also come to an arrangement with Trotsky to stand up for my views of the foreign trade monopoly. There is only one thing that is worrying me extremely—it is that I am unable to speak at the Congress of Soviets.[2] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/15b.htm#fwV45E759) On Tuesday, I shall have the doctors in to see me and we shall discuss whether there is any chance at all of my doing so. I would regard my missing it as a great inconvenience, to put it no stronger. I have had the outline of my speech written several days ago.[3] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/15b.htm#fwV45E760) I propose, therefore, without suspending preparations by some other speaker in my place, to keep open until Wednesday the possibility that I will perhaps personally make a speech, much shorter than the usual one, say, lasting 45 minutes. Such a speech would in no way prevent a substitute (whomsoever you would authorise for that purpose) from making a speech, but I think it would be useful both in the political and in the personal sense, because it would remove any cause for great agitation. Please have this in mind, and if the opening of the congress should be further delayed, inform me in good time through my secretary.[4] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/15b.htm#fwV45E761)
Lenin
15.XII.1922
I am resolutely opposed to any delay on the question of the foreign trade monopoly. If the idea should arise, for whatever reason (including the proposition that my participation in the question is desirable), to postpone it until the next plenum, I should most resolutely object to this, because I am sure that Trotsky will be able to stand up for my views just as well as I myself. That is the first thing. The second is that your statement and Zinoviev’s and, according to rumour, Kamenev’s as well, confirm that some members of the C.C. have already altered their earlier opinion; third, and most important: any further hesitation on this highly important question is absolutely intolerable and will tend to frustrate any work.
Lenin
15.XII.22
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/15b.htm

just one example of many there




"Lenin's testament said Trotsky was the most capable and Stalin should be removed"


So why did this "most capable" figure not vote for the removal of Stalin?


Is that even true? Show me evidence.



Everyone in the party was "plotting and scheming". Stalin wasn't the main force behind Trotsky's expulsion, though, so your idea is wrong as usual.

Stalin wasnt the main force behind Trotsky's expulsion? Who was then? Zinoviev and Kamenev were in the Left Opposition by then. Who was it?

"Stalin promptly engineered the expulsion of Trotsky and Zinoviev from the Central Committee."

http://www.johndclare.net/Rempel_Stalin10.htm
(a general history site)



ahahahahahahaha yeah that's it...it was read aloud and so no one understood it. Perhaps if they rolled their R's more then they would have accepted Stalin's offer of resignation. :lol:


this just sounds childish a stupid. It was read out to small groups, no note-taking allowed, for good reason, why you cannot see this simple thing is beyond me.



"The party was already controlled by the troika at the time Lenin died. The testament was not read to congress. "
And that matters how?

Oh, it doesnt matter that Lenin's last wish was hidden from the party?




Oh, so Stalin already had allies...how criminal of him.
Yes it was, and you support this anti-socialist criminal, so if you consider yourself to be a socialist, you only damage your own cause parroting lies debunked decades ago.

[daft punk]

Is that why, as Volkogonov notes, he asked Stalin shortly after to give him cyanide so that he could end his own life (which Stalin refused to do)?

Or did Stalin give Lenin poison against Lenin's wishes, because Lenin was about to destroy Stalin's career?

Not sure on this one. But I'm more interested in this next one...



Also Stalin was operating in the "Georgian Affair" originally with Lenin's approval and with the mistaken belief that he was acting in accordance with Lenin's will. Molotov noted that the positions Stalin took were akin to those Lenin had taken originally, and that only later Lenin changed his mind without Stalin knowing until the end.

Ok, let's look at this in a bit of detail. You claim that Stalin was unclear as to what Lenin wanted. I smell Stalinist lies being repeated like a stinking turd hidden behind my computer screen.

So, what was it all about? Did Lenin change his mind and not bother to tell Stalin?

Georgia was sort of independent and had a Menshevik government. Stalin wanted it sovietized. Trotsky favoured some delays, Lenin went for intervention but then according to Suny, Ronald Grigor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Grigor_Suny) (1994), The Making of the Georgian Nation: 2nd edition, pp. 210-212, Lenin complained about lack of information. Someone was keeping him in the dark, not vice versa. Lenin favoured a flexible, compromising approach. Stalin sought to establish one party Soviet rule and eliminate opposition. Confilct broke out between Georgian Bolshevik leaders. Stalin really pissed off a lot of Georgians. According to wiki, which I am paraphrasing, Lenin decided to back Stalin at this point. Wiki then says Lenin started to have doubts about Stalin's conduct and asked Trotsky to intervene on his behalf.

"In late December 1922, Lenin accepted that both Ordzhonikidze and Stalin were guilty of the imposition of Great Russian nationalism upon non-Russian nationalities.[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Affair#cite_note-Tchatcher-5) He now considered Stalin and his forceful centralizing policy increasingly dangerous and decided to dissociate himself at once from his protégé."

"On March 5, 1923, Lenin broke off personal relations with Stalin. He attempted to enlist Leon Trotsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky) to take over the Georgian problem, and began preparing three notes and a speech, where he would announce to the Party Congress that Stalin would be removed as Secretary General.[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Affair#cite_note-7) However, on March 9, 1923 Lenin suffered a third stroke, which would eventually lead to his death. Trotsky declined to confront Stalin on the issue probably due to his long-held prejudice against Georgia as a Menshevik stronghold,[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Affair#cite_note-Tchatcher-5) At the 12th Party Congress (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_Congress_of_the_Russian_Communist_Party_%28b% 29) in April 1923, the Georgian Communists found themselves isolated. With Lenin’s notes suppressed, every word uttered from the platform against Georgian or Ukrainian nationalism was greeted with stormy applause, while the mildest allusion to Great Russian chauvinism was received in stony silence.[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Affair#cite_note-8) Thus, Lenin’s illness, Stalin’s increasing influence in the party and his ascent toward full power, coupled with the sidelining of Leon Trotsky led to the marginalization of the decentralist forces within the Georgian Communist party.[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Affair#cite_note-Cornell-9)
The affair held back the careers of the Georgian Old Bolsheviks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Bolsheviks), but Ordzhonikidze’s reputation also suffered and he was soon recalled from the Caucasus.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Affair#cite_note-Smith-0) Mdivani and his associates were removed to minor posts, but they were not actively molested until the late 1920s. Most of them were later executed during the Great Purge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge) of the 1930s. Another major consequence of the defeat of Georgian "national deviationists" was the intensification of political repressions in Georgia, leading to an armed rebellion in August 1924 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Uprising) and the ensuing Red Terror (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror) which took several thousands of lives."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Affair#Lenin.E2.80.99s_involvement


Well, wiki is usually at least half right. Not sure Trotsky declined, I thought he accepted.


Here is the paperwork:


I will do these in reverse order:


Lenins last letter:



Top secret
Comrades Mdivani, Makharadze and others
Copy to Comrades Trotsky and Kamenev
Dear Comrades:
I am following your case with all my heart. I am indignant over Orjonikidze’s rudeness and the connivance of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky. I am preparing for you notes and a speech.[1] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/06b.htm#fwV45E768)
Respectfully yours,
Lenin
March 6, 1923

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/06b.htm


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

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


Top secret
Personal Dear Comrade Trotsky:
It is my earnest request that you should undertake the defence of the Georgian case in the Party C.C. This case is now under “persecution” by Stalin and Dzerzhinsky, and I cannot rely on their impartiality. Quite to the contrary. I would feel at ease if you agreed to undertake its defence. If you should refuse to do so for any reason, return the whole case to me. I shall consider it a sign that you do not accept.[3] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/05b.htm#fwV45E766)
With best comradely greetings
Lenin[1] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/05b.htm#fwV45P607F01)
March 5, 1923


Is it possible that Lenin had to get Trotsky to fight his battles against Stalin, over some 'misunderstanding' where Lenin 'changed his mind' but forgot to tell Stalin?

Here is Lenin's 'bombshell', bits anyway:

"hirdly, exemplary punishment must be inflicted on Comrade Orjonikidze (I say this all the more regretfully as I am one of his personal friends and have worked with him abroad) and the investigation of all the material which Dzerzhinsky's commission has collected must be completed or started over again to correct the enormous mass of wrongs and biased judgments which it doubtlessly contains. The political responsibility for all this truly Great-Russian nationalist campaign must, of course, be laid on Stalin and Dzerzhinsky. "

"I think that Stalin's haste and his infatuation with pure administration, together with his spite against the notorious "nationalist-socialism" [Stalin critised the minority nations for not being "internationalist" because they did want to unite with Russia], played a fatal role here. In politics spite generally plays the basest of roles. "

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

December 31 1922
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/autonomy.htm

see also


Leon Trotsky

On the Suppressed
Testament of Lenin

(December 1932)



"The bureaucratic national policy had already at that time provoked a keen opposition in Georgia, uniting against Stalin and his right hand man, Ordzhonikidze, the flower of Georgian Bolshevism. Through Krupskaya, Lenin got into private contact with the leaders of the Georgian opposition (Mdivani, Makharadze, etc.) against the faction of Stalin, Ordzhonikidze and Dzenhinsky. The struggle in the borderlands was too keen, and Stalin had bound himself too closely with definite groupings, to yield in silence as he had on the question of the monopoly of foreign trade. In the next few weeks Lenin became convinced that it would be necessary to appeal to the party. At the end of December he dictated a voluminous letter on the national question which was to take the place of his speech at the party Congress if illness prevented him from appearing. Lenin employed against Stalin an accusation of administrative impulsiveness and spitefulness against an alleged nationalism. “Spitefulness in general,” he wrote weightily, “plays the worst possible role in politics.” The struggle against the just, even though at first exaggerated, demands of the nations formerly oppressed, Lenin qualified as a manifestation of Great-Russian bureaucratism. He for the first time named his opponents by name: “It is, of course, necessary to hold Stalin and Dzerzhinsky responsible for all this out-and-out Great-Russian nationalistic campaign.” That the Great-Russian, Lenin, accuses the Georgian, Djugashvili, and the Pole, Dzerzhinsky, of Great-Russian nationalism, may seem paradoxical; but the question here is not one of national feelings and partialities, but of two systems of politics whose differences reveal themselves in all spheres, the national question among them. In mercilessly condemning the methods of the Stalin faction, Rakovsky wrote some years later:
To the national question, as to all other questions, the bureaucracy makes its approach from the point of view of convenience of administration and regulation.
Nothing better could be said.
Stalin’s verbal concessions did not quiet Lenin in the least, but on the contrary sharpened his suspicions. “Stalin will make a rotten compromise,” Lenin warned me through his secretary, “in order then to deceive.” And that was just Stalin’s course. He was ready to accept at the coming Congress any theoretical formulation of the national policy provided it did not weaken his factional support in the center and in the borderlands. To be sure, Stalin had plenty of ground for fearing that Lenin saw through his plans completely. But on the other hand, the condition of the sick man was continually growing worse. Stalin coolly included this not unimportant factor in his calculations. The practical policy of the General Secretariat became the more decisive, the worse became Lenin’s health. Stalin tried to isolate the dangerous supervisor from all information which might give him a weapon against the Secretariat and its allies. This policy of blockade naturally was directed against the people closest to Lenin. Krupskaya did what she could to protect the sick man from contact with the hostile machinations of the Secretariat. But Lenin knew how to guess a whole situation from accidental symptoms. He was clearly aware of the activities of Stalin, his motives and calculations. It is not difficult to imagine what reactions they provoked in his mind. We should remember that at that moment there already lay on Lenin’s writing table, besides the testament insisting upon the removal of Stalin, also the documents on the national question which Lenin’s secretaries Fotieva and Glyasser, sensitively reflecting the mood of their chief, were describing as “a bombshell against Stalin.”"




http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/12/lenin.htm

"To Comrade Kamenev (copy to comrade Trotsky): “Leon Borisovich:
“Supplementing our telephone conversation, I commumcate to you as acting chairman of the Political Bureau the following:
“As I already told you, December 31, 1922, Vladimir Ilyich dictated an article on the national question.
“This question has worried him extremely and he was preparing to speak on it at the party congress. Not long before his last illness he told me that he would publish this article, but later. After that he took sick without giving final directions.
“Vladimir Ilyich considered this article to be a guiding one and extremely important. At his direction it was communicated to comrade Trotsky whom Vladimir Ilyich authorized to defend his point of view upon the given question at the party congress in view of their solidarity upon it.
“The only copy of the article in my possession is preserved at the direction of Vladimir Ilyich in his secret archive.
“I bring the above facts to your attention.
“I could not do it earlier since I returned to work only today after a sickness.

“L. Fotieva
“(Personal secretary of Comrade Lenin)
“March 16, 1923”


http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1937/ssf/sf06.htm



“Dear Comrade Trotsky: I wish very much to ask you to take upon yourself the defense of the Georgian case in the Central Committee of the party. At present, the case is under the ’persecution’ of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky, and I cannot trust their impartiality. Quite the opposite. If you were to agree to under take the defense, my mind would be at rest. If for some reason you cannot agree to do so, please return the entire dossier to me; I shall consider that a sign of refusal from you. With best comradely greetings, LENIN.”
What had brought the question to such an acute stage? – I inquired. It turned out that Stalin had betrayed Lenin’s confidence; in order to insure himself support in Georgia, acting behind Lenin’s back and without the knowledge of the entire Central Committee, he had carried out, with the help of Ordzhonikidze and not without support from Dzerzhinsky, an organized coup d’édat there against the best section of the party, shielding himself falsely behind the authority of the Central Committee.

As Lenin’s illness made it impossible for him to meet other comrades, Stalin had taken advantage of this and had surrounded him with misinformation. Lenin instructed his secretaries to gather all the material they could on the Georgian matter and decided to come out openly with a statement. It is hard to say what shocked Lenin most – Stalin’s personal disloyalty or his rough and bureaucratic policy on the national question. Probably it was a combination of both. Lenin was getting ready for the struggle, but he was afraid that he would not be able to speak at the congress, and this worried him. Why not talk the matter over with Zinoviev or Kamenev? – his secretaries kept prompting him. But Lenin waved them aside impatiently. He foresaw that if he withdrew from activity, Zinoviev and Kamenev would join Stalin to make up a trio against me, and thus would betray him. “Do you happen to know Trotsky’s attitude on the Georgian question?” Lenin asks. “At the plenary meeting, Trotsky spoke in agreement with your views,” answers Glasser, who acted as the secretary at the meeting. “Are you sure?”
“Quite. Trotsky accused Ordzhonikidze, Voroshilov and Kalinin of failing to understand the national question.”
“Verify it again,” Lenin demands.
The next day, at the meeting of the Central Committee at my house, Glasser handed me a note with a brief summary of my speech of the day before, concluding with the question: “Did I understand you correctly?”
“What do you want it for?” I asked. “For Vladimir Ilyich,” Glasser answered. ”Yes, this is correct,” I replied. In the mean time, Stalin watched our correspondence with alarm, but at that moment I was still unaware of what it was all about. “After he read my correspondence with you,” Glasser told me afterward, “Vladimir Ilyich fairly shone ... ‘Now, it is a different matter.’ And he instructed me to hand over to you all the manuscripts that were to make part of his bomb for the twelfth congress.” Lenin’s intentions now were quite clear to me; by taking the example of Stalin’s policy he wanted to expose to the party, and ruthlessly, the danger of the bureaucratic transformation of the dictatorship.
“To-morrow Kamenev is going to Georgia for the party conference,” I said to Fotiyeva. “I can acquaint him with Lenin’s manuscripts so as to induce him to act properly in Georgia. Ask Vladimir Ilyich about it.” A quarter of an hour later, Fotiyeva returned out of breath:
“Under no circumstances.”
“Why?”
“Vladimir Ilyich says: ‘Kamenev will immediately show every thing to Stalin, and Stalin will make a rotten compromise and then deceive.’
“Then the thing has gone so far that Vladimir Ilyich no longer thinks that we can compromise with Stalin even on the right line?”
“Yes, he does not trust Stalin, and wants to come out against him openly, before the entire party. He is preparing a bomb.”"


http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/mylife/ch39.htm

see link for more.

Still cant see any confirmation of the wiki claim that Trotsky didn't take up the case, except on book which says Trotsky was too ill at the time. It says Trotsky made a copy and returned it. This book (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nA7YzQMzO9YC&pg=PA141&lpg=PA141&dq=trotsky+defence+%22georgian+affair%22&source=bl&ots=VammHYE2rP&sig=P62-wEumEyS_zBagkdWahm3IEuY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vYZrT7WyM4ew8QP5orTOBg&sqi=2&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=trotsky%20defence%20%22georgian%20affair%22&f=false) says Trotsky agreed.

[Bostana]

Daft Punk you're the king at copy and paste I'll give you that.

[Ismail]

Or did Stalin give Lenin poison against Lenin's wishes, because Lenin was about to destroy Stalin's career?Uh, no? Lenin requested Stalin give him poison. Stalin couldn't bring himself to do it.

As for the Georgian Affair stuff, this is what Molotov said to Felix Chuev in 1972 (Molotov Remembers, pp. 195-196):

"Chuev: Stalin proposed in 1922 that all republics become part of the RSFSR on the basis of autonomy, which Lenin opposed. But then Stalin admitted his mistake and agreed to Lenin's proposal to form the USSR with all Soviet republics having equality.

Molotov: The point is that Stalin in this instance continued Lenin's line. But Lenin had moved beyond the solution he had advocated earlier and which Stalin knew well. Lenin then moved the question to a higher plane. Lenin had opposed the federal principle, federalism, because he favored centralism. All the reins, everything must be held in the hands of the working class so as to strengthen the state. Just read his article on the national question. Autonomy within a unitary state, yes. But Lenin suddenly dropped this unitary principle for a federal solution: 'Let us create the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics!' But Stalin did not know this at the outset."

[manic expression]

No he didn't, you're fantasising again
"Displaying excessive self-assurance" is diplomat-speak for being a jerk.


Why dont you try reading the last stuff Lenin wrote instead of typing rubbish?
Coming from the poster who refuses to read it when it says something negative about Trotsky, that's rich.


just one example of many there[/QUOTE
Oh wow, Trotsky agreed with Lenin once. Stop the presses!

[QUOTE]Is that even true? Show me evidence.
Trotsky didn't vote to strip Stalin of his position...the burden of proof is on you.


Stalin wasnt the main force behind Trotsky's expulsion? Who was then? Zinoviev and Kamenev were in the Left Opposition by then. Who was it?
Bukharin as well. Zinoviev was expelled with Trotsky for breaking party discipline, but before then he was against Trotsky and undermined much of Trotsky's standing in the party.


this just sounds childish a stupid. It was read out to small groups, no note-taking allowed, for good reason, why you cannot see this simple thing is beyond me.
It does sound childish to think that Soviet history was determined by a lack of notes taken, doesn't it? Glad you agree.


Oh, it doesnt matter that Lenin's last wish was hidden from the party?
You think it's all that matters, which is precisely why you're not acting like a Marxist.


Yes it was, and you support this anti-socialist criminal, so if you consider yourself to be a socialist, you only damage your own cause parroting lies debunked decades ago.
More baseless nonsense from someone who rants incoherently and entirely without point or purpose aside from slandering the Soviet Union and its leadership.

[daft punk]

Daft Punk you're the king at copy and paste I'll give you that.

Thank you.




Originally Posted by daft punk http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2392928#post2392928)
"Or did Stalin give Lenin poison against Lenin's wishes, because Lenin was about to destroy Stalin's career? "

Uh, no? Lenin requested Stalin give him poison. Stalin couldn't bring himself to do it.

As for the Georgian Affair stuff, this is what Molotov said to Felix Chuev in 1972 (Molotov Remembers, pp. 195-196):

"Chuev: Stalin proposed in 1922 that all republics become part of the RSFSR on the basis of autonomy, which Lenin opposed. But then Stalin admitted his mistake and agreed to Lenin's proposal to form the USSR with all Soviet republics having equality.

Molotov: The point is that Stalin in this instance continued Lenin's line. But Lenin had moved beyond the solution he had advocated earlier and which Stalin knew well. Lenin then moved the question to a higher plane. Lenin had opposed the federal principle, federalism, because he favored centralism. All the reins, everything must be held in the hands of the working class so as to strengthen the state. Just read his article on the national question. Autonomy within a unitary state, yes. But Lenin suddenly dropped this unitary principle for a federal solution: 'Let us create the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics!' But Stalin did not know this at the outset."

All I know is, Lenin was furious with Stalin, not only over Georgia but also the Trade Molopoly and other stuff, plus the wife thing, and Stalin's career was clearly on the line. Fortunately for Stalin, I think Lenin went into a coma or lost his ability to speak a few days later due to another stroke. Stalin benefited enormously from Lenin's stroke and then death. I have given a ton of evidence on Georgia. The Trade Monopolies is even clearer still. Lenin had Trotsky fighting Stalin on his behalf.

[Bostana]

Thank you.

Nothing to be proud of.




All I know is, Lenin was furious with Stalin, not only over Georgia but also the Trade Molopoly and other stuff, plus the wife thing, and Stalin's career was clearly on the line. Fortunately for Stalin, I think Lenin went into a coma or lost his ability to speak a few days later due to another stroke. Stalin benefited enormously from Lenin's stroke and then death. I have given a ton of evidence on Georgia. The Trade Monopolies is even clearer still. Lenin had Trotsky fighting Stalin on his behalf.

Lenin was never furious over Stalin:

I well remember that in one of my conversations with Lenin in 1921 he referred to Stalin as "our Nutcracker" and explained that if the "political bureau were faced with a problem which needed a lot of sorting out Stalin was given the job."
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 72

[daft punk]

Top secret Comrades Mdivani, Makharadze and others
Copy to Comrades Trotsky and Kamenev
Dear Comrades:
I am following your case with all my heart. I am indignant over Orjonikidze’s rudeness and the connivance of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky. I am preparing for you notes and a speech.[1] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/06b.htm#fwV45E768)
Respectfully yours,
Lenin
March 6, 1923


just about the last thing Lenin wrote. Lenin rarely used phrases like "with all my heart". And not only was he indignant at Stalin he was preparing a speech on it!


indignant http://sp.dictionary.com/dictstatic/g/d/speaker.gif (http://dictionary.reference.com/audio.html/lunaWAV/I01/I0133000)  http://sp.dictionary.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif (http://thesaurus.com/help/luna/Spell_pron_key.html)
Part of Speech: [I]adjective Definition: angry Synonyms: acrimonious (http://thesaurus.com/browse/acrimonious), annoyed (http://thesaurus.com/browse/annoyed), bent out of shape, boiling, bugged, burned up, disgruntled (http://thesaurus.com/browse/disgruntled), displeased, exasperated, fuming, furious (http://thesaurus.com/browse/furious), heated, huffy, in a huff, incensed (http://thesaurus.com/browse/incensed), irate (http://thesaurus.com/browse/irate), livid (http://thesaurus.com/browse/livid), mad (http://thesaurus.com/browse/mad), miffed, p.o.'d, peeved, piqued, provoked (http://thesaurus.com/browse/provoked), resentful (http://thesaurus.com/browse/resentful), riled, scornful (http://thesaurus.com/browse/scornful), seeing red, up in arms, upset (http://thesaurus.com/browse/upset), wrathful

[Bostana]

Top secret Comrades Mdivani, Makharadze and others
If it's top secret how did the public hear about it?

Let me guess Trotsky revealed it?

[manic expression]

If it's top secret how did the public hear about it?

Let me guess Trotsky revealed it?
Yeah, but it's OK when Trotsky breaks party discipline...because he's Trotsky. :rolleyes:

[daft punk]

If it's top secret how did the public hear about it?



The monumental “Lenin Collected Works” (LCW) issued by Progress Publishers is the core source for the V.I. Lenin Internet Archive. The Institute of Marxism-Leninism in Moscow, USSR, assembled LCW more than 50 years ago.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/note.htm

[Omsk]

Daft Punk i though we had the discussion on the lies of Trotsky regarding the idea that Stalin poisoned Lenin.

[daft punk]

Nobody knows for sure. You had a doctors report or something supposedly. It was Ismail who brought it up. What we do know is that Stalin had reasons to fear that Lenin was bringing his political career to an end.

[Grenzer]

I don't advocate a DOTP myself, and merely repeat Marx.

He advocated a DOTP modeled after the Paris Commune (though not identical to it). It would be a more or less "centralised" body controlled from below through mandated and recallable delegates. Public officials would be paid a workers' wage. Wage labour would begin to be replaced by associated labour.

Indeed, I think Robbo's critique of the DOTP was particularly astute. The Proletariat only exists in relation to the Bourgeoisie, so if capitalism and the bourgeoisie have been smashed, then by definition the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot exist; yet you have socialism. Of course there still might be petit-bourgeoisie and peasants, but then I would say that you still don't have socialism and are in a transitional phase. As such, I don't advocate the DOTP; but the destruction of the system in which class distinctions exist to begin with.

[manic expression]

Nobody knows for sure.
Which, apparently, is grounds to declare that Stalin was personally responsible. :laugh:

[Revolutionair]

Indeed, I think Robbo's critique of the DOTP was particularly astute. The Proletariat only exists in relation to the Bourgeoisie, so if capitalism and the bourgeoisie have been smashed, then by definition the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot exist; yet you have socialism. Of course there still might be petit-bourgeoisie and peasants, but then I would say that you still don't have socialism and are in a transitional phase. As such, I don't advocate the DOTP; but the destruction of the system in which class distinctions exist to begin with.

The dictatorship of the proletariat strikes me as the revolution itself. If you are exercising authority over a class of people, as the oppressor class, then you are effectively revolutionizing the social order. The DOTP in this sense only refers to the actual revolution which only takes a couple of days at maximum.

You only need the social reproduction that the DOTP offers during a change in control over the means of production. As soon as the means of production are socialized, then you have abolished your class. Thus ending the need for the state AND lower phase communism.

[Omsk]

Nobody knows for sure. You had a doctors report or something supposedly. It was Ismail who brought it up. What we do know is that Stalin had reasons to fear that Lenin was bringing his political career to an end


Yes that's right,there is absolutely no 'evidence',just like in the case of Sergei Kirov.It is good to see you admit this,and that you changed your stance after the discussion we had.

[daft punk]

Yes that's right,there is absolutely no 'evidence',just like in the case of Sergei Kirov.It is good to see you admit this,and that you changed your stance after the discussion we had.

I have never said Stalin killed Lenin, nor that Stalin killed Kirov, and neither did Trotsky. Nobody knows. What we know is that both deaths suited Stalin down to the ground. In fact it is a fact that Stalin danced on both of their graves singing hallelujah. Ok I made that up but I know he did in his evil insane mind.

[manic expression]

Ok I made that up but I know he did in his evil insane mind.
What, so you know nothing but you know all this because he's "evil" and "insane"? That's about as far from materialism as you can get.

Trotskyism, redefining delusion for the 21st Century.