Questions for M-Ls

[Questionable]

I'm still pretty confused about which tendency I fall into. I'm definitely a Leninist, but I'm not sure where I stand from there. Pretty much every debate about Marxism-Leninism on this forum turns into a shitfest, so I'm just going to ask some questions I'm concerned about and hopefully get some decent answers from M-Ls.

FROM MARXIST-LENINISTS. I'm tired of sectarian bickering. I actually want to learn, so if you're just here to stir up shit and/or insult people without contributing anything, fuck off. If I could, I would post this directly in the Marxists-Leninists forum, but joining requires approval.

1: Are there any theoretical debunkings of Trotsky's criticisms of the USSR? It seems like every time he's brought up, M-Ls would rather hurl personal insults at him than actually address his criticisms. What is the M-L standpoint on theories such as the permanent revolution and degenerated workers' state? Additionally, how do M-Ls feel about Trotsky's role in the Russian Revolution? Even if he wasn't the main man, he still contributed largely to it when Stalin was still a desk worker. Isn't it a bit unfair to completely throw him under the bus?

2: Supporters of Stalin like to bring up the fact that the USSR brought down Nazi Germany. However, I've also heard arguments that communist parties in Germany were denounced as "social fascists" by the Comintern, and their focus on them instead of the Nazis allowed Hitler to come into power in the first place. If this is true, is there an explanation for it?

3: The M-L line is that the Soviet Union fail because people like Khrushchev "revised" the system and turned it into capitalism. Doesn't this seem anti-materialist? If socialism was established in the USSR, how could some "revisionists" reverse the entire process? Is there an exact definitions for "revisionism"?

4: This is a minor question, but it's been bugging me; the North Star Compass article in the Marxists-Leninists group description seems really shady. It claims that William Hearst obtained his information on Stalin's gulags from the Gestapo, but I can find nowhere else on the internet, aside from a conspiracy theory site, that supports this. What's the deal with that article?

I hope for some interesting responses from the Marxist-Leninists. And please, if you're anti-ML and you must post, just keep it civil. Even if M-Ls are theoretically wrong, they're a hell of a lot nicer some of the other people I've seen on here.

[Omsk]

Unfortunately,because of the childish mehaviour of some members,who can't controll themselves,you should ask all of these questions inside the ML group.I am sure your request will be accepted,even if you are not yet 'sure' about Marxism-Leninism.

All the best.

[daft punk]

Unfortunately,because of the childish mehaviour of some members,who can't controll themselves,you should ask all of these questions inside the ML group.I am sure your request will be accepted,even if you are not yet 'sure' about Marxism-Leninism.

All the best.

Surely you aren't scared of public debate? I did wonder, when I put up several threads and no M-Ls went on them.


I'm still pretty confused about which tendency I fall into. I'm definitely a Leninist, but I'm not sure where I stand from there. Pretty much every debate about Marxism-Leninism on this forum turns into a shitfest, so I'm just going to ask some questions I'm concerned about and hopefully get some decent answers from M-Ls.


As I say, I have put up threads on China, the Moscow Trials etc. Nothing from the Stalinists whatsoever on several threads. Their silence is deafening.



1: Are there any theoretical debunkings of Trotsky's criticisms of the USSR? It seems like every time he's brought up, M-Ls would rather hurl personal insults at him than actually address his criticisms. What is the M-L standpoint on theories such as the permanent revolution and degenerated workers' state? Additionally, how do M-Ls feel about Trotsky's role in the Russian Revolution? Even if he wasn't the main man, he still contributed largely to it when Stalin was still a desk worker. Isn't it a bit unfair to completely throw him under the bus?

Good points





2: Supporters of Stalin like to bring up the fact that the USSR brought down Nazi Germany. However, I've also heard arguments that communist parties in Germany were denounced as "social fascists" by the Comintern, and their focus on them instead of the Nazis allowed Hitler to come into power in the first place. If this is true, is there an explanation for it?



A good question. Yes it is definitely true, it was called the Third Period. Up to 1928 the KPD had worked with the SPD. The Communists went all sectarian at exactly the wrong time. Partly this was Stalin trying to hide the fact that he had just wrecked the Chinese revolution with policies that were the extreme opposite - he got the Communists to merge with the KMT with disastrous results.
see here for a Germany timeline and links:

1928 May: Reichstag elections (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/elect.htm#a285) return the SPD to cabinet with Chancellor Hermann MÜller. KPD get a third of the SPD’s vote (Nazis get less than a tenth). This SPD leadership is further right than before and opts for something called the Great Coalition—including the People’s Party—and holds power for about two years.
Meanwhile, the Comintern adopts the ultra-left doctrine of the Third Period and something called social fascism. The doctrine says the collapse of the world’s capitalist nations is supposedly following a handy pattern:



The First Period (1917-1924): Capitalist crisis and revolutionary upsurge;
The Second Period (1925-1928): Capitalist stability;
The Third Period (now): Capitalist crises return and proles are ready to rise up again.

The Comintern concludes it’s time to end Second Period collaboration with Social Democrats (and their powerful working class base). In the case of Germany, it means these SPD workers are really just “social fascists,” a sort of left wing of fascism.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/index.htm

Do you know that in 1931 the Communists had an electoral alliance with the Nazis? See above and a link to what Trotsky wrote, saying it would go down in revolutionary text books as what not to do.


I will leave it for there anyway.

[l'Enfermé]

Regarding daft punk's point on China, what basically happened is that Stalin forced the Chinese communists to subjugate themselves to the KMT and the KMT literally massacred thousands of communists and the flower of revolutionary proleteriat, and after all this he offered Chiang-Shek(KMT leader) a seat on the executive committee of the Moscow International(Comintern)

[Zulu]

1: Are there any theoretical debunkings of Trotsky's criticisms of the USSR? It seems like every time he's brought up, M-Ls would rather hurl personal insults at him than actually address his criticisms. What is the M-L standpoint on theories such as the permanent revolution and degenerated workers' state? Additionally, how do M-Ls feel about Trotsky's role in the Russian Revolution? Even if he wasn't the main man, he still contributed largely to it when Stalin was still a desk worker. Isn't it a bit unfair to completely throw him under the bus?

Here is some: http://www.marxists.org/archive/olgin/1935/trotskyism/05.htm

It's true the M-Ls focus on Trotsky's personal historical record, rather than on his theoretical criticisms. And that's quite justifiable, seeing how they were tailored to suit his factional political needs all the time, to the point that he advised the Soviet workers to lay down their weapons before the Nazis in the event of invasion. When interwoven with such suggestions it is hard to take them seriously.

There also is not so much difference between Trotskyism and Marxism-Leninism from the non-communist PoV, which also suggests that Trotsky's criticism had more to do with the power struggle, than with the ideology.

The main point of contention is, of course the "permanent revolution" vs. "socialism in one country". The Marxist-Leninists simply denounce the theory of "permanent revolution" as one that completely disregards reality (mainly the fact that to occur revolutions need a "revolutionary situation", which cannot be forced simply by the will of a few revolutionaries, or even a vanguard party alone), and on the other hand they deny that "socialism is one country" is anything more than a strategy that takes reality into account. They also maintain, that SiOC (along with the rest of the so called "Stalinism") is a direct continuation of Lenin's theory and practice, the view that is shared by the smarter of the bourgeois scholars as well. If you want some good Lenin's quotes supporting this, look through this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/stalinismi-t167670/index.html) thread.

And then there is this "workers' democracy" thing, which Trotsky is often seen as an advocate of. That is what is most easily debunked by his historical record: he wasn't supporting the "Workers Opposition" in the Bolshevik party when it first appeared in the 1921. Trotsky was on a high horse then, so he simply had no use for such a tactic. So the chances are the game would have been pretty much the same, even if the tables were turned between him and Stalin.







2: Supporters of Stalin like to bring up the fact that the USSR brought down Nazi Germany. However, I've also heard arguments that communist parties in Germany were denounced as "social fascists" by the Comintern, and their focus on them instead of the Nazis allowed Hitler to come into power in the first place. If this is true, is there an explanation for it?
Not the Communist party, but the Social Democratic Party of Germany was denounced as "social fascists". What should be kept in mind here:

It was Lenin who first denounced the social democracy as traitors to the workers' cause, and had the Bolshevik party, that had formerly been a part of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party, renamed Communist, putting the true communists at odds with the social democracy.

Stalin was of the Leninist opinion that the communists should not get entangled in the bourgeois state politics too much, and rather focus on the revolutionary struggle. From this point of view, a coalition with the traitors of the workers' cause (SDs) is obviously a wrong thing to do, and the open enemy's (Nazis') coming to power was not too bad, as it would only help unify and solidify the communists' position and dismiss the "parliamentary illusions" of some vacillating elements. The moribund capitalism showing its true face in the form of fascism also would help advance communism internationally.

And it was Bukharin who introduced the label "social fascism". So in the end it might have been a troskyist diversion. ;)






3: The M-L line is that the Soviet Union fail because people like Khrushchev "revised" the system and turned it into capitalism. Doesn't this seem anti-materialist? If socialism was established in the USSR, how could some "revisionists" reverse the entire process? Is there an exact definitions for "revisionism"?
Of course, it wasn't a one man's fault, and over-demonizing Khrushchev is wrong. His course was full of mistakes, the de-Stalinization, the rapprochement with Tito, the fall off with Mao, throwing in the towel during the Cuban crisis and the "peaceful coexistence" doctrine, handing over the state-owned machinery to the kolkhozes, the vestiges of Lysenkoism, etc, etc. However, the decisive turn back to capitalism was not undertaken until after his forced retirement. Some positive and genuinely socialist policies were still carried out under Khrushchev, (consolidation and enlargement of the sovkhozes - state owned farms, construction of "agro-towns", anti-religious campaigns and popularization of science, cancellation of Stalin's restriction on abortions).

The materialist analysis of all those moves would be along the lines that the victorious socialist policies of Stalin's period created a lot of wealth, that could be distributed among the population (and on a much more even basis than in the former Russian Empire). So the process of "bourgeoizification" of the Soviet citizenry began, especially of the party bureaucracy. Nationalism and chauvinism also were on the upward trend, especially in the wake of the Nazi invasion (but here is a fun fact: the Victory Day (May 9th) holiday was canceled under Stalin in favor of the New Year holiday, and it was not until after Khrushchev, that the Victory Day was made holiday again). So it was a gradual process, that was triggered by Khrushchev's "secret speech", but was in no way irreversible should the political will appear to return to socialist construction. But, without the genuine Marxist-Leninists at the helm (seems like the last of them were removed in 1957, as the "Anti-Party Group"), where could that will come from?

That's where Trotsky's criticisms could come in handy, by the way, if they weren't so discredited by his actions. To put it in the most simple terms, in the 1930s they were false, but some if them materialized - after Stalin's death and denouncement.





4: This is a minor question, but it's been bugging me; the North Star Compass article in the Marxists-Leninists group description seems really shady. It claims that William Hearst obtained his information on Stalin's gulags from the Gestapo, but I can find nowhere else on the internet, aside from a conspiracy theory site, that supports this. What's the deal with that article?

Even the Wikipedia acknowledges that Hearst was Hitler's sympathizer, so seeing how his muckraking tabloids mirrored the Nazi propaganda about the USSR, it's not that hard to connect the dots. His other sources could have been Trotsky's informants and the unsympathetic American contractors, like Fred Koch.



.

[daft punk]

Here is some: http://www.marxists.org/archive/olgin/1935/trotskyism/05.htm

It's true the M-Ls focus on Trotsky's personal historical record, rather than on his theoretical criticisms.
Ey up! Nice admission! Except the Stalinist version is all lies.



And that's quite justifiable, seeing how they were tailored to suit his factional political needs all the time, to the point that he advised the Soviet workers to lay down their weapons before the Nazis in the event of invasion.

Please support this claim! Support or retract.






There also is not so much difference between Trotskyism and Marxism-Leninism from the non-communist PoV, which also suggests that Trotsky's criticism had more to do with the power struggle, than with the ideology.

Support this utter bullshit.




The main point of contention is, of course the "permanent revolution" vs. "socialism in one country". The Marxist-Leninists simply denounce the theory of "permanent revolution" as one that completely disregards reality (mainly the fact that to occur revolutions need a "revolutionary situation", which cannot be forced simply by the will of a few revolutionaries, or even a vanguard party alone), and on the other hand they deny that "socialism is one country" is anything more than a strategy that takes reality into account. They also maintain, that SiOC (along with the rest of the so called "Stalinism") is a direct continuation of Lenin's theory and practice, the view that is shared by the smarter of the bourgeois scholars as well. If you want some good Lenin's quotes supporting this, look through this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/stalinismi-t167670/index.html) thread.

I demolished this in my thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/socialism-one-country-t168025/index.html?t=168025) on Socialism in One Country. You said virtually nothing on it. Your Lenin quotes are mined. Most are from when Lenin was a stagist, and the three that are not are taken out of context and he says one thing and you say he is saying something else. When I say you I mean Stalinists. There is no solid post 1917 quote from Lenin talking about SIOC.

But what we do have is a rock solid quote from Stalin in 1926 saying that the construction of a socialist economy is not possible in Russia on its own.

""...can the final victory of socialism in one country be attained, without the joint efforts of the proletariat of several advanced countries? No, this is impossible... For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, particularly of such a peasant country as Russia, are insufficient. For this the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries are necessary." (Quoted in Woods and Grant, Lenin and Trotsky: What They Really Stood For, pages 108-109) "
Stalin, 1924

He is not gonna say that if Lenin was saying SIOC is he?

I did a thread specifically on this, you had you chance there, and you did not take it, so dont start repeating the old lies now.






And then there is this "workers' democracy" thing, which Trotsky is often seen as an advocate of. That is what is most easily debunked by his historical record: he wasn't supporting the "Workers Opposition" in the Bolshevik party when it first appeared in the 1921. Trotsky was on a high horse then, so he simply had no use for such a tactic. So the chances are the game would have been pretty much the same, even if the tables were turned between him and Stalin.

Again, tired old lies and distortions I have thoroughly debunked a thousand times. A year after that Trotsky was arguing something different because the NEP had been introduced. The Trade Union debates are something you should actually study, not just churn out the same old rubbish on. Trotsky initially proposed ending war communism, essentially proposing an NEP. At the time the CC rejected this. So Trotsky said, things are desperate, if we are gonna keep war communism, lets do it properly. His mistake was thinking of the USSR was a workers state. He thought that as it was a workers state, there was no need for independent trade unions and they could become integrated into the state and management. The unions could take part in decision making. Later he admitted Lenin had a better judge of the mood of the country at the time. The WO was too far the other way, virtually handing power to the unions. No way was Lenin gonna have that. In the end, after the economy going nowhere for a year, they ended up adopting Trotsky's first idea, ending war communism and adopting the NEP. Soon after that Trotsky wrote the New Course, calling for more democracy, in 1923.







Not the Communist party, but the Social Democratic Party of Germany was denounced as "social fascists". What should be kept in mind here:

It was Lenin who first denounced the social democracy as traitors to the workers' cause, and had the Bolshevik party, that had formerly been a part of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party, renamed Communist, putting the true communists at odds with the social democracy.



The Comintern worked with the SPD during Lenin's lifetime and for 4 years after, so dont give me that. And Lenin wasnt around to see the Comintern hand power to the Nazis. They zigzagged sharp 'left' (pseudoleft) at exactly the wrong time.




Stalin was of the Leninist opinion

lol



that the communists should not get entangled in the bourgeois state politics too much, and rather focus on the revolutionary struggle.

There was no fucking revolutionary struggle. The last chance of that was 1923 when Stalin OPPOSED THE REVOLUTION.



From this point of view, a coalition with the traitors of the workers' cause (SDs) is obviously a wrong thing to do,
So why the alliance with them all the years previous? The cancelled the 1923 revolution, which Trotsky urged forward, because the couldnt get the SPD on board!!!!

As Trotsky once said, the Comintern was like a singer who sings wedding songs at funerals and funeral songs at weddings.

And later, only too late, the KPD did try for an alliance with the SPD.

Trotsky did not propose a horrible Stalinist-type Popular Front. He proposed joint action of the working class to stop fascism. He said it time and again, very clearly:

Leon Trotsky

For a Workers’ United Front Against Fascism

(December 1931)

Written in exile in Turkey, December 8, 1931.

"Worker-Communists, you are hundreds of thousands, millions; you cannot leave for anyplace; there are not enough passports for you. Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank. Your salvation lies in merciless struggle. And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring victory. Make haste, worker-Communists, you have very little time left!"
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1931/311208.htm

I urge all socialists to read this and if any Stalinist can fault it please start a thread or something. You wont, of course. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Immediately prior to that he said:

"But it is necessary to desire this victory. In the meantime, there are among the Communist officials not a few cowardly careerists and fakers whose little posts, whose incomes, and more than that, whose hides, are dear to them. These creatures are very much inclined to spout ultraradical phrases beneath which is concealed a wretched and contemptible fatalism. “Without a victory over the Social Democracy, we cannot battle against fascism!” say such terrible revolutionists, and for this reason ... they get their passports ready."








and the open enemy's (Nazis') coming to power was not too bad, as it would only help unify and solidify the communists' position and dismiss the "parliamentary illusions" of some vacillating elements. The moribund capitalism showing its true face in the form of fascism also would help advance communism internationally.

And it was Bukharin who introduced the label "social fascism". So in the end it might have been a troskyist diversion. ;)




Omg. This is incredible! First you lie and say Trotsky wanted a Nazi victory. Now you say a Nazi victory would be a good thing.

At the start of the article quoted above, Trotsky said:

"Germany is now passing through one of those great historic hours upon which the fate of the German people, the fate of Europe, and in significant measure the fate of all humanity, will depend for decades. "

this was correct. And you want to play games with fascism.

oh, and dont bullshit about Bukharin being some kinda Trot, this is just vile. Bukharin was Stalin's main point of support against Trotsky in the period 1924-8 when Stalin took power.

You are flailing around here like a man clutching at straws. There are so many contradictions in what you are saying I have lost count:

1. Trotsky advocated Nazi victory (this is a lie)
2. Lenin would have wanted the Nazis to take power (this is insane)
3. Oh, it might have been a Trot scam all along, tricking the Stalinists by a cunning mind control technique or god knows what.

Please think this through.

I'm not calling you stupid, or a liar, I just know that your head has been stuff chock full of lies and nonsense for so long you cant help it. Not only is it all lies, the tortuous 'logic' defies all belief!

I must admit, I never heard any Stalinist come out with the line that a fascist victory might be a good thing, but Trotsky did talk about the Stalinists' fatalism as I just showed.

[daft punk]

"Yes, should the fascists really conquer power, that would mean not only the physical destruction of the Communist Party, but veritable political bankruptcy for it. An ignominious defeat in a struggle against bands of human rubbish – would never be forgiven the Communist International and its German section by the many-millioned German proletariat. The seizure of power by the fascists would therefore most probably signify the necessity of creating a new revolutionary party, and in all likelihood also a new International. That would be a frightful historical catastrophe. But to assume today that all this is unavoidable can be done only by genuine liquidators, those who under the mantle of hollow phrases are really hastening to capitulate like cravens in the face of the struggle and without a struggle. With this conception we Bolshevik-Leninists, who are called “Trotskyists” by the Stalinists, have nothing in common.

We are unshakably convinced that the victory over the fascists is possible – not after their coming to power, not after five, ten, or twenty years of their rule, but now, under the given conditions, in the coming months and weeks.

Thälmann Considers the Victory of Fascism Inevitable"



Trotsky, same link as above. Please read it.


"...I believe that the Communist Party must propose an agreement for struggle to the Social Democratic Party and the leadership of the Free Trade Unions, from below up to the very top. In contrast to the decorative and impotent “Iron Front,” the united front of the working class against fascism must have a fully concrete, practical, and militant character. Its point of departure should be defense of all institutions and conquests of proletarian democracy and, in a broader sense: defense of culture before barbarism. A bold and frank initiative of the Communist Party along these lines would not only increase its authority extraordinarily, but also change the political situation of Germany from the bottom up. The monopolist bourgeoisie would immediately begin to feel that to play around with a Hitler dictatorship means to play with the fire of civil war, in which not just the paper values are in danger of going up in smoke. Among the countless and amorphous masses whom despair has driven into the camp of Hitler there will of necessity ensue a process of differentiation and of decomposition. The relation of forces would change sharply to the disadvantage of fascism on the very threshold of the struggle. Great perspectives would open up before the working class and the German people."


http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1932/320512.htm

[daft punk]

Leon Trotsky

The Tragedy of the German Proletariat:

The German Workers Will Rise Again – Stalinism, Never!

(March 1933)

Written in exile in Turkey, March 14, 1933.




"The most powerful proletariat of Europe, measured by its place in production, its social weight, and the strength of its organizations, has manifested no resistance since Hitler’s coming to power and his first violent attacks against the workers’ organizations. This is the fact from which to proceed in subsequent strategic calculations."


http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330314.htm

[manic expression]

Ey up! Nice admission! Except the Stalinist version is all lies.


Please support this claim! Support or retract.


Support this utter bullshit.


Again, tired old lies and distortions I have thoroughly debunked a thousand times.


lol
My, I do wonder why no one ever takes the time to discuss things with you. What a credit you are to your cause.

[Zulu]

@ Daft punk

I'm not replying to you, until you know what... preacher.


This caught my eye though:




Omg. This is incredible! First you lie and say Trotsky wanted a Nazi victory. Now you say a Nazi victory would be a good thing.

Comprehension failure on your part, or a deliberate misrepresentation of what I said.

I said Trotsky wanted the Nazis to invade the socialist USSR to "free" it from Stalin's rule.

And Stalin was not against the Nazis' winning elections in the capitalist Germany, especially when the alternative was to undermine the communist movement by entering a coalition with the treasonous social democracy.

Those two kinds of "Nazi victories" are a bit different, aren't they?

[l'Enfermé]

@ Daft punk

I'm not replying to you, until you know what... preacher.


This caught my eye though:


Comprehension failure on your part, or a deliberate misrepresentation of what I said.

I said Trotsky wanted the Nazis to invade the socialist USSR to "free" it from Stalin's rule.

And Stalin was not against the Nazis' winning elections in the capitalist Germany, especially when the alternative was to undermine the communist movement by entering a coalition with the treasonous social democracy.

Those two kinds of "Nazi victories" are a bit different, aren't they?
Trotsky wanted the Nazis to invade? But of course, it is the task of the Stalinists like yourself to invent such stupid and ridiculous lies. Trotsky was on the side of Hitler, of course, and Pol Pot only "supposedly" murdered 20 percent of the Cambodian population, he didn't actually do it for real, you see, because it was the Americans!


We do not entrust the Kremlin with any historic mission. We were and remain against seizures of new territories by the Kremlin. We are for the independence of Soviet Ukraine, and if the Byelo-Russians themselves wish – of Soviet Byelo-Russia. At the same time in the sections of Poland occupied by the Red Army, partisans of the Fourth International must play the most decisive part in expropriating the landlords and capitalists, in dividing the land among the peasants, in creating Soviets and Workers’ Committees, etc. While so doing, they must preserve their political independence, they must fight during elections the Soviets and factory committees for the complete independence of the latter from the bureaucracy, and they must conduct revolutionary propaganda in the spirit of distrust towards the Kremlin and its local agencies.


But let us suppose that Hitler turns his weapons against the East and invades territories occupied by the Red Army. Under these conditions, partisans of the Fourth International, without changing in any way their attitude toward the Kremlin oligarchy, will advance to the forefront as the most urgent task of the hour, the military resistance against Hitler. The workers will say, “We cannot cede to Hitler the overthrowing of Stalin; that is our own task”. During the military struggle against Hitler, the revolutionary workers will strive to enter into the closest possible comradely relations with the rank and file fighters of the Red Army. While arms in hand they deal blows to Hitler, the Bolshevik-Leninists will at the same time conduct revolutionary propaganda against Stalin preparing his overthrow at the next and perhaps very near stage.


This kind of “defense of the USSR” will naturally differ, as heaven does from earth, from the official defense which is now being conducted under the slogan: “For the Fatherland! For Stalin!” Our defense of the USSR is carried on under the slogan: “For Socialism! For the world revolution! Against Stalin!” In order that these two varieties of “Defense of the USSR” do not become confused in the consciousness of the masses it is necessary to know clearly and precisely how to formulate slogans which correspond to the concrete situation. But above all it is necessary to establish clearly just what we are defending, just how we are defending it, against whom we are defending it. Our slogans will create confusion among the masses only if we ourselves do not have a clear conception of our tasks.


This is the opinion of Trotsky, and of the Fourth International, on a Hitlerite attack on the degenerated Soviet Union. Not your ridiculous made-up shit.

Regarding:

And Stalin was not against the Nazis' winning elections in the capitalist Germany, especially when the alternative was to undermine the communist movement by entering a coalition with the treasonous social democracy.
Stalin forced the Communists in Germany to enter into a coalition with Nazis, and he forced Communists abroad to enter into coalitions and alliances with the "treasonous social democracy". This undermined the communist movement more so than anything else. Your bullshit is fucking ridiculous.

Maybe Hitler "supposedly" did the Holocaust, it was the Americans who "actually" did it by bombing Germany, yes? I wouldn't be surprised if you said it, you did already say the same thing about Cambodia.

[daft punk]

My, I do wonder why no one ever takes the time to discuss things with you. What a credit you are to your cause.
Who are you? Why are you such an expert on me when I have never heard of you? Why are you only capable of quote mining? Why do you bother to post?



@ Daft punk

I'm not replying to you, until you know what... preacher.


This caught my eye though:
Originally Posted by daft punk http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2390823#post2390823)

"Omg. This is incredible! First you lie and say Trotsky wanted a Nazi victory. Now you say a Nazi victory would be a good thing. "
Comprehension failure on your part, or a deliberate misrepresentation of what I said.

Neither. Comprehension failure on your part.




I said Trotsky wanted the Nazis to invade the socialist USSR to "free" it from Stalin's rule.


Well if you think that is true we need the proof, the quotes, or it's just meaningless allegations.

I repeat, support or retract, and I promise you I am NOT going to let this drop.




And Stalin was not against the Nazis' winning elections in the capitalist Germany, especially when the alternative was to undermine the communist movement by entering a coalition with the treasonous social democracy.

Those two kinds of "Nazi victories" are a bit different, aren't they?

pmsl. Yes they are. Oh, you crack me up though. You say Stalin was not against the Nazis taking power in Germany. Trotsky said it would be a terrible thing. Who was right?

Please explain what was great about the total annihilation of the German workers movement (which potentially was the most powerful in the world).

You say they couldnt enter a coalition with the treasonous social democracy. Yet social democracy was treasonous in 1919, but the communists were allied with it from 1923 or earlier up to 1928. And the KPD did try an alliance in the end around 1932, but left it too late. Plus, Trotsky wasnt advocating a coalition he was advocating united action:

"No common platform with the Social Democracy, or with the leaders of the German trade unions, no common publications, banners, placards! March separately, but strike together! Agree only how to strike, whom to strike, and when to strike! Such an agreement can be concluded even with the devil himself, with his grandmother, and even with Noske and Grezesinsky. [5] On one condition, not to bind one’s hands. It is necessary, without any delay, finally to elaborate a practical system of measures – not with the aim of merely “exposing” the Social Democracy (before the Communists), but with the aim of actual struggle against fascism. The question of factory defense organizations, of unhampered activity on the part of the factory councils, the inviolability of the workers’ organizations and institutions, the question of arsenals that may be seized by the fascists, the question of measures in the case of an emergency, that is, of the coordination of the actions of the Communist and the Social Democratic divisions in the struggle, etc., etc., must be dealt with in this program.
In the struggle against fascism, the factory councils occupy a tremendously important position. Here a particularly precise program of action is necessary. Every factory must become an anti-fascist bulwark, with its own commandants and its own battalions. It is necessary to have a map of the fascist barracks and all other fascist strongholds, in every city and in every district The fascists are attempting to encircle the revolutionary strongholds. The encirclers must be encircled. On this basis, an agreement with the Social Democratic and trade-union organizations is not only permissible, but a duty. To reject this for reasons of “principle” (in reality because of bureaucratic stupidity, or what is still worse, because of cowardice) is to give direct and immediate aid to fascism.
A practical program of agreements with the Social Democratic workers was proposed by us as far back as September 1930 (The Turn in the Comintern and the German Situation), that is, a year and a quarter ago. What has the leadership undertaken in this direction? Next to nothing. The Central Committee of the Communist Party has taken up everything except that which constitutes its direct task. How much valuable, irretrievable time has been lost! As a matter of fact, not much time is left. The program of action must be strictly practical, strictly objective, to the point, without any of those artificial “claims,” without any reservations, so that every average Social Democratic worker can say to himself. what the Communists propose is completely indispensable for the struggle against fascism. On this basis, we must pull the Social Democratic workers along with us by our example, and criticize their leaders who will inevitably serve as a check and a brake. Only in this way is victory possible."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1931/311208.htm

[daft punk]

Trotsky wanted the Nazis to invade? But of course, it is the task of the Stalinists like yourself to invent such stupid and ridiculous lies. Trotsky was on the side of Hitler, of course, and Pol Pot only "supposedly" murdered 20 percent of the Cambodian population, he didn't actually do it for real, you see, because it was the Americans!



This is the opinion of Trotsky, and of the Fourth International, on a Hitlerite attack on the degenerated Soviet Union. Not your ridiculous made-up shit.

Regarding:

Stalin forced the Communists in Germany to enter into a coalition with Nazis, and he forced Communists abroad to enter into coalitions and alliances with the "treasonous social democracy". This undermined the communist movement more so than anything else. Your bullshit is fucking ridiculous.

Maybe Hitler "supposedly" did the Holocaust, it was the Americans who "actually" did it by bombing Germany, yes? I wouldn't be surprised if you said it, you did already say the same thing about Cambodia.
Lol, I was just reading the exact same quote from Trotsky earlier today as it happens, of course there are many similar ones.

Yes, the Communists' alliance with the Nazis was terribly damaging:

Leon Trotsky

Against National Communism!
(Lessons of the “Red Referendum”)

(August 1931)



"How Everything is Turned Upon Its Head The mistakes of the German Communist Party on the question of the plebiscite are among those which will become clearer as time passes, and will finally enter into the textbooks of revolutionary strategy as an example of what should not be done.


In the conduct of the Central Committee of the German Communist Party, everything is wrong: the evaluation of the situation is incorrect, the immediate aim incorrectly posed, the means to achieve it incorrectly chosen. Along the way, the leadership of the party succeeded in overthrowing all those “principles” which it advocated during recent years."


"Is it true, however, that Thälmann entered a united front with Hitler? The Communist bureaucracy called the referendum of Thälmann “red,” in contrast to the black or brown plebiscite of Hitler. That the matter is concerned with two mortally hostile parties is naturally beyond doubt, and all the falsehoods of the Social Democracy will not compel the workers to forget it. But a fact remains a fact: in a certain campaign, the Stalinist bureaucracy involved the revolutionary workers in a united front with the National Socialists against the Social Democracy. If one could designate his party adherence on the ballots, then the referendum would at least have the justification (in the given instance, absolutely insufficient politically) that it would have permitted a count of its forces and by that itself, separate them from the forces of fascism. But German “democracy” did not trouble in its time to provide for participants in referendums the right to designate their parties. All the voters are fused into one inseparable mass which, on a definite question, gives one and the same answer. Within the limits of this question, the united front with the fascists is an indubitable fact.

Thus, between midnight and dawn everything appeared to be turned on its head."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1931/310825.htm

[daft punk]

bit long maybe, but a useful quick reference guide:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/index.htm



http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/germ1.gif Leon Trotsky on

THE RISE OF HITLER
AND DESTRUCTION OF THE GERMAN LEFT



Though expelled from the USSR, Trotsky and the Left Opposition still considered themselves a faction of the Communist International. Until Hitler came to power, they tried to influence the Comintern and the German reds, to return them to the Leninist precepts of internationalism and internal democracy.
They did not (yet) support the rise of a Fourth International. It was these events in Germany, and the failure of the German Communist Party and the Communist International that lead to Trotsky’s call for a new, “Fourth” Communist International. We include one 1940 article on the nature of Fascism that Trotsky was working on the time he was murdered by a Stalinist agent. The rest of this collection deals specifically with the rise of the Nazis in the early 1930s.
In the following collection of Trotsky’s letters and articles, he is specifically addressing the German Communist Party, which he considered the only realistic organization to stop fascism. His goal was for them to break with Comintern policy, not the Comintern itself. These series of articles and essays, however, show Trotsky’s method in his ultimate break with the Comintern.
We’ve also include a chronology of events beginning with the rise of the workers movement at the end of World War I and statistics on the various elections that the Communist Party participated in.
This page was originally compiled by the Zodiac. The page has been reformatted to conform with the Trotsky Internet Archive (http://www.marxists.org/archive/index.htm). Several additional articles, previously un-transcribed have been contributed by the TIA’s director and other TIA volunteers.
1918: German revolution dies, due in large part to the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The SPD belongs to the old Second International. Before the war, it had never held power, only opposition. Class cooperationists, the SPD supported the war. In working to prevent a successful Red revolution, the SPD allies with capitalists and the army, even cooperating with right-wing “Freikorps”, thereby helping train early cadres of the future National Socialist Party (Nazis).
Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht are both executed by the state. Russian Bolsheviks had counted on a successful German revolution for the survival of their own revolution.
1919: German monarchy folds, the Weimar Republic is born. The Weimar constitution is a standard “social democrat"-style arrangement: workers are granted several “social safety net” programs, while the capitalists (and army) retain with full powers, which they more or less “promise” to never abuse. The first Weimar cabinet is headed by the SPD, and their Chancellor Philipp Scheidemann, in coalition with two capitalist parties, the Catholic Center Party and the German Democratic Party. (NOTE: In the 1919 Reichstag elections, 45 percent of voters support parties which label themselves Marxist.)
1921: All revolutionary opportunity has passed. The Third International (Communist International, or Comintern) initiates a “united front” strategy as a way of strengthening Communist parties in nations where Social Democrats dominated—rather like Germany.
1922: German government is crippled by, and unable to meet, war reparations specified by the Treaty of Versailles.
1923 January: French government sends troops to occupy the Ruhr. Inflation soars, the working class launches massive strikes, the middle class has savings wiped out. It’s an extreme crisis and the government is helpless. KPD membership swells and new ultra-right movements (like the Nazis) grow. But KPD leadership, guided by the Comintern, misses the opportunity. By 1924, events stabilize (with some American aid).
1924 May: Reichstag elections (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/elect.htm#a245) see “Marxist” parties drop to to 33 per cent of the electorate; Nazi strength declines even more drastically.
1924 December: Another round of Reichstag elections (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/elect.htm#a24C) sees SPD support grow and KPD drop.
1925: Presidential election (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/elect.htm#a25). Monarchist general Hindenburg elected president in runoff election against Wilhelm Marx, member of the Catholic Center Party—the latter being supported by the SPD and the liberal capitalist parties—and Ernst Thaelmann of the KPD.
1925-29: Weimar Republic’s stable period. SPD remains Germany’s largest party with powerful support from the working class. No realistic plan for a German social revolution can be constructed without intelligent consideration of the SPD.
Meanwhile, in the USSR, the “Left Opposition” is defeated by Stalinists. In 1927, Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party. In 1928, he’s deported to Siberia. In 1929, he’s exiled to Turkey. Stalinists purge more than just Left Opposition. By 1930, the Communist International and affiliated parties are merely bureaucratic extensions of Soviet foreign policy. The leaders of the KPD are appointees of the Kremlin.
1928 May: Reichstag elections (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/elect.htm#a285) return the SPD to cabinet with Chancellor Hermann MÜller. KPD get a third of the SPD’s vote (Nazis get less than a tenth). This SPD leadership is further right than before and opts for something called the Great Coalition—including the People’s Party—and holds power for about two years.
Meanwhile, the Comintern adopts the ultra-left doctrine of the Third Period and something called social fascism. The doctrine says the collapse of the world’s capitalist nations is supposedly following a handy pattern:



The First Period (1917-1924): Capitalist crisis and revolutionary upsurge;
The Second Period (1925-1928): Capitalist stability;
The Third Period (now): Capitalist crises return and proles are ready to rise up again.

The Comintern concludes it’s time to end Second Period collaboration with Social Democrats (and their powerful working class base). In the case of Germany, it means these SPD workers are really just “social fascists,” a sort of left wing of fascism.
1929 Fall: The Great Depression, death knell of Weimar. German unemployment hits 3 million. The already fragile German economy collapses. The populace is radicalized. KPD membership grows, despite alienation from SPD-led unions. The fascists likewise grow, now even attracting financial support from big capitalists. And the storm troops (Sturm-Abteilung or SA) hits 100,000 by year’s end.
1930 March: the SPD Müller cabinet resigns. Never again will Weimar see a majority government. President Hindenburg appoints Heinrich Brüning of the Center Party as Chancellor. Bruening tries to establish a more right wing government but fails to get sufficient support in the Reichstag.
Brüning cites Paragraph 48 of the Weimar Constitution and claims to now rule by “emergency decree.” The Social Democrats helped construct that paragraph, never imagining they’d be the target of it.
1930 July: Brüning’s emergency decrees on budget are overruled by SPD, KPD, and Nazi deputies. Hindenburg dissolves the Reichstag and calls for new elections.
1930 September 14: Election day (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/elect.htm#a309). SPD votes tumble by 6 percent, while the KPD rises by 40 percent. However, their combined vote falls from 40.4 per cent of electorate to 37.6. The real change is the Nazi vote—up 700 per cent. The Nazis go from ninth to second-largest party. Meanwhile, the Comintern-led KPD dubs this a victory for the Communists and “the beginning of the end” for the Nazis. The Comintern concurs.
Trotsky’s opinion was slightly different. To paraphrase him, the KPD is like a singer who sings wedding songs at funerals, and funeral songs at weddings ... and is soundly thrashed at each occasion.




TROTSKY’S WORKS ON THIS PERIOD:
1930 September 26: The Turn in the Communist International and the Situation in Germany (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1930/300926.htm)
1931 April 14: Thälmann and the “People’s Revolution” (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1931/310414.htm)
1931 August 20: Workers’ Control of Production (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1931/310820.htm)
1931 September 12: Factory Councils and Workers’ Control of Production (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1931/310912.htm)

1930 October 18: Shaken by the Nazi electoral triumph, the SPD decides to back Brüning’s government. With SPD support, Brüning remains Chancellor another 26 months. It is an unpopular rule that only benefits the Nazis. Big business support of Hitler continually increases. The SA is emboldened in attacks on working-class radicals.
Stymied by the SPD-Brüning block, the Nazis focus on gaining control of Prussia’s Landtag (state legislature). Prussia is the largest state in Germany, with over two-thirds of the population. It’s a Social Democratic stronghold. The Nazis, right-wing Nationalists and the Stahlhelm (a counter-revolutionary veterans’ organization), invoke a clause in the Weimar Constitution to launch a referendum to oust the Prussian SPD-coalition government. KPD opposes the referendum.
1931: Over 4 million unemployed.
1931 July 21: KPD leaders present ultimatum to sPD coalition leaders in Prussia: make a united front with us or we’ll back the Nazis. SPD leaders reject it. The KPD backs the Nazis, despite the fact it might put the Nazis in power—though now the KPD calls it the “Red referendum”. Nazis and German Communists campaign together to remove Prussia’s SPD-led government.
1931 August 9: Prussian Referendum fails. SPD stays in control.
1931 September: SPD leaders expel Reichstag deputies Max Seydewitz and Kurt Rosenfeld for open opposition to SPD support of Brüning regime. The expelled deputies favor a united front against fascists.
1931 October: More SPD expulsions/resignations. SPD splits. Left Social Democrats unite with SPD youth, pacifists, and some of the Brandlerite Communist Party Opposition (KPO) to form the Socialist Workers Party (SAP). Six SAP leaders are deputies in the Reichstag.
Trotsky takes a positive attitude toward new group, hoping that its members will overcome SPD centrism. But SAP is a confused body with no real impact on working-class politics. (In July 1932 elections, SAP gets merely 72,630 votes and lose all six Reichstag seats. In the November 1932 election, their vote drops further still. SPD rank and file can not be dislodged from their party that easily. So rather than destroy the SPD in this time of crisis, one should work to save it.)
1931 December: SPD leaders create the Iron Front for Resistance Against Fascism. The organization seeks to engage the old Reichsbanner, the SPD youth, and labor and liberal groups. SPD rallies to the Iron Front, holds mass demonstrations, fights fascists in the streets, and arms selves. This is more than the SPD leaders wanted. But SPD workers don’t care and grow increasingly revolutionary. Meanwhile, the KPD has no ideological concept of a united front—hell, they just supported the Nazis in the “Red referendum.”




TROTSKY’S WORKS ON THIS PERIOD:
1931 August 25: Against National Communism! (Lessons of the “Red Referendum”) (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1931/310825.htm)
1931 November 26: Germany, the Key to the International Situation (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1931/311126.htm)
1931 December 08: For a Workers’ United Front Against Fascism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1931/311208.htm)
1932 January 27: What Next? Vital Questions for the German Proletariat (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1932-ger/index.htm)

1932: Economic crisis deepens. Unemployed: 5 mil. “Social Democratic” state further dismantled.
1932 March 13: Presidential election (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/elect.htm#a323). Three main candidates: Hindenburg, Hitler, and Thälmann. But the Nationalists also push Stahlhelm leader Theodor Düsterberg—who merely steals votes from Hitler. Last Presidential election, the SPD opposed Hindenburg. Now they support him over Hitler. The Iron Front becomes an electoral machine for the monarchist militarist.
1932 April 10: Run-off Presidential election (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/elect.htm#a324) held since no clear majority was established. Düsterberg withdraws so Nationalists can campaign for Hitler. Hindenburg wins, but Nazi vote has doubled in 17 months. Nonetheless, the SPD hails Hindenburg’s election as a triumph over fascism.
1932 April 14: Brüning has Hindenburg sign a decree outlawing Nazi SA and SS. Brüning thinks this curbs Hitler’s growth. Instead, it will prove to be Brüning’s fall.
1932 May 31: Hindenburg demands Chancellor Brüning resign. Hindenburg picks Franz von Papen of the Centre pary as new Chancellor. The Center party expels von Papen. He is basically Hindenburg’s puppet, without any support in the Reichstag.
1932 June 4: Papen dissolves the Reichstag and calls for new elections.
1932 June 15: Papen rescinds the ban on Nazi private armies. Wave of violence results. Hundreds dead/wounded. Papen bans political parades in fortnight before July 31 elections.
1932 July 17: Nazis march, under police escort, through working class Hamburg. Result: 19 dead, 285 wounded.
1932 July 20: Citing the Hamburg battle, Papen claims the Prussian government can’t maintain “law and order.” He deposes the Social Democrats and appoints himself Reich Commissioner for Prussia.
The SPD once swore to defend the republic against any coup d’etat, from the right or the left. German workers wait for a call to action. The SPD promise to appeal Papen’s coup to the courts. Nothing else happens.
The KPD calls for a general strike. Of course, the KPD’s great “Red referendum” is used to ridicule it.
1932 July 31: Reichstag elections (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/elect.htm#a327). Nazis are now Germany’s largest party.
1932 September 12: New Reichstag convenes. Papen thinks he can manipulate the Nazis, but they realize they don’t need him. Nazis support the Reichstag vote to censure the Hindenburg-imposed Papen regime (vote of 513 to 32). The Reichstag is dissolved and new elections called for November 6.




TROTSKY’S WORKS ON THIS PERIOD:
1932 May 12: Interview with Montag Morgen (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1932/320512.htm)
1932 September 14: The Only Road (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1932/320914.htm)
1932 October 30: German Bonapartism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1932/321030.htm)

1932 November 6: Reichstag election (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/elect.htm#a32B). Nazi faithful have begun to tire of Hitler’s political maneuvers to gain power carefully. Morale drops. In the election, Nazis lose two million votes. Critically: total Nazi vote is now less than the combined SPD-KPD vote. But this is lost on the Comintern and KPD. This would turn out to be the last “free” election of Weimar Germany—and the Nazis failed to get their majority.
1932 November 17: Papen and cabinet resign.
1932 December 2: Hindenburg appoints “social general” Schleicher Chancellor. Schleicher tries split left (trade-union bureaucrats break with the SPD) and right (dissident “left Nazis” under Gregor Strasser break with Hitler).
1933 January 30: Hindenburg appoints Hitler as Chancellor. Papen is Vice-Chancellor. Hitler agrees to take only three of 11 cabinet posts. Trotsky expects worker parties will resist Hitler and mobilize. SPD leaders say “Hitler’s appointment” is constitutional and forbid worker actions that might upset the Nazis. The KPD, on the other hand, is still denouncing the SPD.
1933 March 5: Hitler gets Hindenburg to dissolve parliament. In the run-up to new election, KPD meetings are banned. KDP press are shut down. Nazis finally take control of Prussia and its nationwide police force and flooded it with storm troopers. The terror begins.




TROTSKY’S WORKS ON THIS PERIOD:
1933 February 5: Before the Decision (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330205.htm)
1933 February 23: The United Front for Defense: A Letter to a Social Democratic Worker (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330223.htm)

1933 February 27: Nazis start fire in the Reichstag and blame it on Communists.
1933 February 28: President Hindenburg suspends Constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression, press, assembly, association. Thousands of KPD and SPD officials are arrested. Only the Nazis and Nationalists are permitted to campaign in the last week before the election.
1933 March 5: Reichstag elections (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/elect.htm#a333). Even with all this “constitutional” oppression, the Nazis still couldn’t get a majority. But it was still game over. KPD calls for national strikes.
1933 March 23: Citing the Constitution, Hitler asks new Reichstag to grant him dictatorial power. This requires a two-thirds Reichstag vote. As KPD deputies are jailed or leaving the country, Hitler’s demand is granted (441 to 84). Liberal and conservative parties vote for it. Only the remaing Social Democrats vote against it.
1933 April 7: Stalinists Comintern deludes itself about an expected proletarian revolution soon to follow Hitler’s victory. While it dreams, the KPD is annihilated.
1933 May 1: May Day. The remaining SPD is a different beast than Frederick Engels had known. This creature supports Hitler’s various labor “reorganizations” and encourages workers to march in the Nazi “National Day of Labor” parade May 1.
1933 May 2: Nazis take over the trade-union movement and send labor leaders to concentration camps.




TROTSKY’S WORKS ON THIS PERIOD:
1933 March 14: The Tragedy of the German Proletariat: (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330314.htm) The German Workers Will Rise Again – Stalinism, Never!
1933 March 17: Germany and the USSR (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330317.htm)
1933 March 21: Hitler and the Red Army (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330321.htm)
1933 May 28: The German Catastrophe: (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330528.htm) The Responsibility of the Leadership
1933 June 10: What Is National Socialism? (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330610.htm)
1933 June 22: How Long Can Hitler Stay? (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330622.htm)
1933 July 14: Fascism and Democratic Slogans (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330714.html)
1933 July 15: It Is Necessary to Build Communist Parties and an International Anew (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330715.htm)
1933 July 20: It Is Impossible to Remain in the Same International with the Stalins, Manuilskys, Lozovskys & Co. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330720.htm)
1934: Hitler’s Program (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1934/xx/hitler.htm)
1934 July 15: Bonapartism and Fascism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1934/340715.htm)
1940 August 20: Bonapartism, Fascism, and War (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1940/08/last-article.htm) (Trotsky’s Last Article)

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/return2.jpg


Last updated on: 16.9.2008

[Zulu]

This is the opinion of Trotsky, and of the Fourth International, on a Hitlerite attack on the degenerated Soviet Union. Not your ridiculous made-up shit.

Thing is this opinion of Trotsky is in effect the same as my made-up shit. See, If you are a Trotskyist worker, and Stalin's bureaucrat general gives you a rifle and sends into combat against the Nazis, but your guru says you must fight that Stalin's general...

At least Lenin was honest about his defeatism during the WWI. He said: we don't give a damn what happens to the Russian Empire, let it fall, it should not be defended, we must have a revolution instead.

And guess what, the Nazis front lines propaganda, when the actually did invade was mirroring that of Trotsky. It said: comrade workers, we're not your enemy, your enemy is Stalin, we've come to free you from him and from the Jews! [OK, that last part was the Nazis' own addition...]






Stalin forced the Communists in Germany to enter into a coalition with Nazis,

When?





and he forced Communists abroad to enter into coalitions and alliances with the "treasonous social democracy".

When?

And anyway, if that was so, does that mean that if Trotsky suggested that it's good, but if Stalin forced it, it's bad?





This undermined the communist movement more so than anything else.

That's why the Communist movement got so scary in the end of his rule that movie directors were being blacklisted in America as a preventive measure against the further spread of the communist movement, I see. Even today the Marxist-Leninist groups are the most numerous and actually engaged in the revolutionary struggle across the world, rivaled in this respect only by the Maoists, who are nevertheless the closest tendency to the M-Ls ideologically...

And the rest of your post seems too much like an attempt to start a flame war, which is understandable after you got pawned in that other thread, but I will not engage, since the OP is explicitly asking not to do this.

[Bostana]

Surely you aren't scared of public debate? I did wonder, when I put up several threads and no M-Ls went on them.

Scared of debate?
Ha

You Trots are all the same make some stupid claim, get proven wrong then bring up something stupid like Gulags or Bunkers then when people get annoyed and leave you claim you win.

Pathetic

[manic expression]

Who are you? Why are you such an expert on me when I have never heard of you? Why are you only capable of quote mining? Why do you bother to post?
Quite the socratic dialogue we have here, so allow me to add my own query: why are you so eager to prove my point? :laugh:

[Tim Cornelis]

Holly shit!


I'm tired of sectarian bickering. I actually want to learn, so if you're just here to stir up shit and/or insult people without contributing anything, fuck off..

And the third post does exactly this. Daft punk, fuck off! If someone is asking about Marxism-Leninism in learning, then the only acceptable answers are from an objective or Marxist-Leninist perspective! Even if you're not a ML yourself you could say, "generally MLs argue that..."

[Omsk]

As you see,"Questionable",some users just can't controll themselves.Its silly and interesting.

[Geiseric]

Debating with Stalinists is like debating with Republicans, Tea Partiers, or Nazis. Trust me, there is nothing to be gained from talking to them.

[Omsk]

Oh,here comes Syd Barrett,the worst 'attacker' of "Stalinists" on Revleft!

Between Syd and Daft Punk i choose to be eaten by a swarm of angry killer worms.

[Comrade Samuel]

Well I suggest you just wait to ask the M-L group, I'm certan Gallowsbird will accept you and then we can get to answering your questions comrade.

This will probably be closed in the next few hours so until then I guess can you enjoy the tendency war and if you get board in the meantime here's this list of of anti-Trotskyist reading to help answer your fist question.

http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/against-trotskyism-a-reading-guide/

Really sorry about this.

[Yazman]

Oh,here comes Syd Barrett,the worst 'attacker' of "Stalinists" on Revleft!

Between Syd and Daft Punk i choose to be eaten by a swarm of angry killer worms.

This is flaming. Don't do it again or it's infractions for you.

This is a warning.

[daft punk]

Holly shit!



And the third post does exactly this. Daft punk, fuck off! If someone is asking about Marxism-Leninism in learning, then the only acceptable answers are from an objective or Marxist-Leninist perspective! Even if you're not a ML yourself you could say, "generally MLs argue that..."

There will be no free speech on a Stalinist thread!

I have said what the Stalinist policies were, on one or two points. I replied to Q2 mainly. But when I read stuff that isn't true I debunk it. And then they fail to respond. Stop clogging up the thread with useless stuff. It's a free country. Unlike the USSR.

[daft punk]

Unfortunately,because of the childish mehaviour of some members,who can't controll themselves,you should ask all of these questions inside the ML group.I am sure your request will be accepted,even if you are not yet 'sure' about Marxism-Leninism.

All the best.

If you cant attack the post, attack the poster. Good motto. You even managed to do it in advance.

[Grenzer]

There will be no free speech on a Stalinist thread!

I have said what the Stalinist policies were, on one or two points. But when I read stuff that isnt true I debunk it. And then they fail to respond. Stop clogging up the thread with useless stuff. It's a free country. Unlike the USSR.

I think Goti kind of has a point here.

If someone wants to know "What do Stalinists think on subject X" I think we are obliged to give an honest answer; as in, telling them what Stalinists think on subject X on their own terms.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you shouldn't tear it to shreds, since most Stalinist positions are full of crap; but I am saying there is a certain etiquette that even we sectarians must observe. In other words, respond with the Stalinist position on their own terms; and only after you have listed how they themselves conceive of the position, then you can tear it to shreds. Even then, there are certain situations where you should restrain yourself.

If someone is asking whether there are any Hoxhaist parties in the US, for example, then you should just answer whether there are, and what they are. To do otherwise would be a bit disingenuous, don't you think?

[daft punk]

I think Goti kind of has a point here.

If someone wants to know "What do Stalinists think on subject X" I think we are obliged to give an honest answer; as in, telling them what Stalinists think on subject X on their own terms.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you shouldn't tear it to shreds, since most Stalinist positions are full of crap; but I am saying there is a certain etiquette that even we sectarians must observe. In other words, respond with the Stalinist position on their own terms; and only after you have listed how they themselves conceive of the position, then you can tear it to shreds. Even then, there are certain situations where you should restrain yourself.

If someone is asking whether there are any Hoxhaist parties in the US, for example, then you should just answer whether there are, and what they are. To do otherwise would be a bit disingenuous, don't you think?

I explained their 'social fascism' in detail.
"Meanwhile, the Comintern adopts the ultra-left doctrine of the Third Period and something called social fascism. The doctrine says the collapse of the world’s capitalist nations is supposedly following a handy pattern:



The First Period (1917-1924): Capitalist crisis and revolutionary upsurge;
The Second Period (1925-1928): Capitalist stability;
The Third Period (now): Capitalist crises return and proles are ready to rise up again.

The Comintern concludes it’s time to end Second Period collaboration with Social Democrats (and their powerful working class base). In the case of Germany, it means these SPD workers are really just “social fascists,” a sort of left wing of fascism."

and plenty more. The links cover it in even more detail. Trotsky goes into detail about what the KPD said and did, why they did it and what the consequences would be. He was proved right in tragic detail.



In fact it was a Stalinist who made the claim that they actually didn't mind if the fascists won! What I explained was that they were fatalistic about it and that they said they had to defeat social democracy before they could defeat fascism. Which is of course absurd because the only way they could stop fascism would be a united front with social democracy. Zulu may be right but that only takes things to an even more absurd level. Fascism should have been nipped in the bud in 1930-31 but it was not, and the Stalinists are to blame.

It all has to be put in context. The Chinese revolution had just been defeated, as Trotsky predicted thanks to Stalin's terrible policies, and Stalin was being forced to collectivise, as Trotsky predicted thanks to Stalin's terrible policies. The Third Period was sort of handy ideology, but tragically for the German working class an ultraleft turn was the last thing they needed, as history proved.

By the way I am not a sectarian.

[Omsk]

If you cant attack the post, attack the poster. Good motto. You even managed to do it in advance.

You are trully a jewel.My post was the post NO. #2 in this thread,so there was no post to 'attack' ,and i really don't plan on answering these attempts to derail the thread and provoke people.Seriously,this is awful.

You all just proved my post with your behaviour..



By the way I am not a sectarian


Are you sure?

[daft punk]

You are trully a jewel.

why thank you



My post was the post NO. #2 in this thread,so there was no post to 'attack'

as I said, a personal attack in advance, well done.




,and i really don't plan on answering these attempts to derail the thread

derail? Basically I answered Q2 in detail. And gave some vital context in which it has to be placed to be understood (the Third Period)

What exactly have I said that sounded like a derail attempt?





and provoke people.Seriously,this is awful.


I'm not trying to provoke anyone, I answered Q2. If you disagree with what I said, attack the post, not the poster.




You all just proved my post with your behaviour..

such as? Discussing Q2? What? Stop this shitty personal posting, please go back to ignoring me, it's easier for both of us. You cant attack my posts so leave me alone.




Anyway, I know you dont wanna debate me, you usually ignore me. To be honest, I quite like it that way. I waste enough time replying to Stalinists lies on here.

oh well done Grenzer, repping a useless post, in fact a personal attack from someone incapable of actually debating my posts, well done. I used to have some respect for you.

[Grenzer]

I explained their 'social fascism' in detail.
"Meanwhile, the Comintern adopts the ultra-left doctrine of the Third Period and something called social fascism. The doctrine says the collapse of the world’s capitalist nations is supposedly following a handy pattern:



The First Period (1917-1924): Capitalist crisis and revolutionary upsurge;
The Second Period (1925-1928): Capitalist stability;
The Third Period (now): Capitalist crises return and proles are ready to rise up again.

The Comintern concludes it’s time to end Second Period collaboration with Social Democrats (and their powerful working class base). In the case of Germany, it means these SPD workers are really just “social fascists,” a sort of left wing of fascism."

and plenty more. The links cover it in even more detail. Trotsky goes into detail about what the KPD said and did, why they did it and what the consequences would be. He was proved right in tragic detail.



In fact it was a Stalinist who made the claim that they actually didn't mind if the fascists won! What I explained was that they were fatalistic about it and that they said they had to defeat social democracy before they could defeat fascism. Which is of course absurd because the only way they could stop fascism would be a united front with social democracy. Zulu may be right but that only takes things to an even more absurd level. Fascism should have been nipped in the bud in 1930-31 but it was not, and the Stalinists are to blame.

It all has to be put in context. The Chinese revolution had just been defeated, as Trotsky predicted thanks to Stalin's terrible policies, and Stalin was being forced to collectivise, as Trotsky predicted thanks to Stalin's terrible policies. The Third Period was sort of handy ideology, but tragically for the German working class an ultraleft turn was the last thing they needed, as history proved.

Seems weird that you're complaining about Third Periodism. It's an improvement over normal Stalinist politics; and you're complaining that it's ultra-left? It sounds like you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. I can safely say that Third Period Marxism-Leninism really had a negligible impact on the rise of fascism. You are attributing power and influence to European communist parties which frankly didn't exist.

Either the USSR was a right-wing degenerate regime, or it was not. By definition support for Socialism in One Country and support for nationalistic capitalist movements already precludes Marxist-Leninist policy from being "ultra-left". This is just an ignorant slur, and I don't really think you understand what ultra-leftism is. What you seem to be saying here is that the proper, Trotskyist position is collaboration with social-democrats. Reformism!



By the way I am not a sectarian.

I would consider myself a pretty serious person. In real life, I don't laugh much; and on the internet, it's even harder to find something that can truly break my stoic indifference, but you somehow managed to accomplish that here. Congratulations.

[Omsk]

Oh daft - punk...

The OP said he want's answers from ML's ! But as my post proved,you just controll youself.You are incapable of doing so.And what is this entire: "You can't debate me,you are inferior i will crush you with my boring quotes from Trotsky i regard as historical evidence and historical works ! "

And the last time i checked,you failed to answer some of my questions,and declared that you simply : "Can't tollerate lies!" It ended on that.And this will end on this:

Goodbye.

[Deicide]

What will you do to ''Ultra-Leftists'' if you ever take power (which is extremely unlikely).

Come on, be honest.

[Omsk]

Who?Marxist-Leninists?

I doubt a Vanguard party of the workers will trouble themselves with a small group of students and dreamers.

[daft punk]

Seems weird that you're complaining about Third Periodism. It's an improvement over normal Stalinist politics; and you're complaining that it's ultra-left? It sounds like you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. I can safely say that Third Period Marxism-Leninism really had a negligible impact on the rise of fascism. You are attributing power and influence to European communist parties which frankly didn't exist.


Obviously you havent read this thread or given it any thought, you are too busy reading the one line personal insult posts and repping them.

Read the thread.




Either the USSR was a right-wing degenerate regime, or it was not. By definition support for Socialism in One Country and support for nationalistic capitalist movements already precludes Marxist-Leninist policy from being "ultra-left". This is just an ignorant slur, and I don't really think you understand what ultra-leftism is. What you seem to be saying here is that the proper, Trotskyist position is collaboration with social-democrats. Reformism!


Please read the thread, this is really stupid. It was pseudo ultraleft. I dont believe Stalin had any socialist inclinations by 1928. However he was going through the motions.

You are sounding as stupid as the Stalinists, but from an ultraleft point of view, basically agreeing with 'social fascism'. You call a battle to stop the Nazis taking power 'reformism'. What a joke'






I would consider myself a pretty serious person. In real life, I don't laugh much; and on the internet, it's even harder to find something that can truly break my stoic indifference, but you somehow managed to accomplish that here. Congratulations.
I would consider myself to be a pretty serious person. However in real life I laugh quite a lot.

This does not make me laugh, but it is a joke. You slag me down for wanting the workers of Germany to unite to stop fascism, and then call me a sectarian!

Incredible.

Do you not even blush when you write such crap?

[daft punk]

Oh daft - punk...

The OP said he want's answers from ML's ! But as my post proved,you just controll youself.You are incapable of doing so.And what is this entire: "You can't debate me,you are inferior i will crush you with my boring quotes from Trotsky i regard as historical evidence and historical works ! "

And the last time i checked,you failed to answer some of my questions,and declared that you simply : "Can't tollerate lies!" It ended on that.And this will end on this:

Goodbye.

Just leave it to Zulu, at least he had a go at debate. You gave up a long time ago.

[Ocean Seal]

One does not simply have a thread about Stalin without daft punk.

Also Borz, not that I don't believe you but I need to see evidence of Stalin offering Chaing a seat on the internationale after the massacre of communists.

[daft punk]

One does not simply have a thread about Stalin without daft punk.

Also Borz, not that I don't believe you but I need to see evidence of Stalin offering Chaing a seat on the internationale after the massacre of communists.
Yeah thats true. The first bit. I will leave the second bit to comrade Borz, should be easy enough.

Oh, you do realise that not only did Chiang go to Moscow to attend Comintern meeting, but also that Mao was on the KMT executive committee?

"In the early 1924, he participated in the CPC's help to Dr. Sun Yat-sen (http://wiki.china.org.cn/wiki/index.php/Sun_Yat-sen) in reorganizing the Kuomintang (http://wiki.china.org.cn/wiki/index.php?title=Kuomintang&action=edit&redlink=1) (KMT), attended the First and Second National Congresses of the KMT and was elected alternate member of the Central Executive Committee."
http://wiki.china.org.cn/wiki/index.php/Mao_Zedong

see also here (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RwurAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=mao+KMT+executive+alternating+member&source=bl&ots=mGcaod8bDo&sig=j7ByM2bSH8vQWuLFDfXuHbwPLAc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=b-ppT6bODOTS0QW9y_jvCA&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=mao%20KMT%20executive%20alternating%20member&f=false)for example

Anyway, i have a dedicated thread on China. Nobody has posted on it yet unfortunately. The Stalinists saw it and ran!

[manic expression]

There will be no free speech on a Stalinist thread!
Melodramatic persecution complex that was completely irrelevant 30 years ago.


It's a free country. Unlike the USSR.Ah, so you approve of capitalist society and think of it as "free". Interesting, though not surprising in the slightest. :lol:


I dont believe Stalin had any socialist inclinations by 1928.You believe something you want to believe but can't prove anything more than that. Typical of cheap anti-socialists.


You gave up a long time ago.
Funny, you're the one who ran away from my very simple question.

[daft punk]

Melodramatic persecution complex that was completely irrelevant 30 years ago.

Ah, so you approve of capitalist society and think of it as "free". Interesting, though not surprising in the slightest. :lol:

Freer than the USSR yeah, in terms of free speech. It is a simple fact.


You believe something you want to believe but can't prove anything more than that. Typical of cheap anti-socialists.


Well, he killed all (most anyway) the socialists in the 1930s. I did a thread on it but no Stalinists posted.



Funny, you're the one who ran away from my very simple question.
I ran away from what? And btw that was addressed to Omsk not you, or is he your sock puppet?

[Omsk]

And btw that was addressed to Omsk not you, or is he your sock puppet?

Sock puppets can be detected with ease,so your idea is absurd.And you accuse other people of slander?

[daft punk]

Sock puppets can be detected with ease,so your idea is absurd.And you accuse other people of slander?

oo-ohh. Not much of a sense of humour have you?

[Questionable]

I'm sorry, but I really haven't learned anything from this. It's the same mud-slinging from both sides. It's all "You're wrong, Trotsky said this." "No, you lie! He actually said this!" "Actually, my source says it was true" "Your source is stupid! Mine is true!" "No u!" mixed with some insults. Even if M-Ls are wrong, I'd rather judge that myself than have someone do all the thinking for me.

I applied to Marxists-Leninists a few days ago and my invite hasn't been accepted, it seems.

[manic expression]

Freer than the USSR yeah, in terms of free speech. It is a simple fact.
Capitalism thanks you for your kind support.


Well, he killed all (most anyway) the socialists in the 1930s. I did a thread on it but no Stalinists posted.
Haha, a Trotskyist trying to tell us that Bukharin and Zinoviev were model socialists.


I ran away from what?
You ran away from a very simple question.

[Bostana]

oo-ohh. Not much of a sense of humour have you?

Humour has to be funny

More than half the stuff you say is from Trotsky's diary and has no facts to it. Stop Question dodging, and another thing try to be more open and read what other's have to say (or type) and you might find out that most of Trotsky's policies are wrong.

[manic expression]

@Questionable: You're entirely correct, your questions deserve honest answers. Here's how I feel about what you asked in your original post:

1.) Well, yes, Stalin did write Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1951/economic-problems/index.htm), which indirectly addressed many of the criticisms made by Trotsky and his supporters. Stalin also directly challenged many of Trotsky's ideas in Trotskyism or Leninism (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/11_19.htm), though you have to remember that this was written before Trotsky's more pointed critiques made in 1928 so not all of it is going to be covered.

It is true that a lot of falsities were directed at Trotsky by Comintern supporters. Trotsky, as far as I know, didn't try to organize a coup and his contacts within the Soviet Union during the 30's weren't nearly as extensive as they were portrayed (though they still existed). However, he was breaking the ban on factions during the 20's, and even though the ban wasn't great policy it was still a breach of party discipline and any serious communist party in the world would have taken real exception to it.

IMO Trotsky was an important figure in the Revolution, but most of all as a military leader. Trotsky, IIRC, was hesitant to vote for taking the Winter Palace and spoke against the idea, but then again most were as Lenin was the one who was really all for taking action. Trotsky wasn't without fault as leader of the Red Army (he did very poorly at Brest-Litovsk) but he seemed to be everywhere and was tireless in his duties. So yes, Trotsky did contribute quite a bit during the Civil War. One thing most people forget is that Stalin wasn't some grand conspirator behind the isolation and exile of Trotsky...in fact it was Zinoviev and Bukharin who really pushed for it.

As for Stalin being a desk worker...well not entirely, he was near the front lines in at least one instance (probably others but I haven't reviewed it) like other posters have mentioned. Stalin spent a good deal of time running around Soviet-controlled territory, administering to supply lines and the like, he wasn't just at his desk. And even if he was, I don't think it's a very persuasive argument against him. Lenin was at a desk much of the time...leaders oftentimes do that. Stalin wouldn't have helped matters all that much if he grabbed the nearest Mosin-Nagant and charged the White Army's lines.

And if you think Stalin was just a desk-jockey, read up on his earlier revolutionary career. The guy was an all-action hero for the party while it was underground.

In all, I don't think Trotsky should have been thrown so much under the bus, but it wasn't all Stalin's doing, it was a matter of general infighting within the party in a time of crisis...and anyway in his time in exile he wasn't exactly extending much of an olive branch to the Soviet leadership so it's easy to understand why they felt they had to throw so much negativity at him. Above all, though, it disappoints me greatly that so many worthy figures in the movement turned on each other...Trotsky was undeniably an inspiring leader during the Civil War and he did bring up very valid points when writing about the structure of the USSR (even if I ultimately disagree), but many of those he opposed had their strengths as well. Had they been able to act as the comrades that they were, the movement would have been much, much better off. This, what is very much the battles of a bygone generation of our movement, is something we need to learn from so that it doesn't happen in the future.

2.) IIRC, the Social Democrats were termed "social fascists", and in my opinion they were deserving of such a label. After all they were the ones who formed the first fascist militias during the German Revolution.

The charge that the Comintern allowed Hitler to get into power is baseless...it was Hindenberg and the Black and Red Union (or whatever they were called) that propelled Hitler to the Chancellorship and later to complete control. The KPD was opposing the Nazis in the streets as well as in the political arena...no one can seriously say that the German communists weren't fighting the good fight. I mean really, even after they were suppressed they continued to oppose fascism in Spain (the German volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, made up primarily of German communists forced into exile by Hitler, were universally known as the finest of the International Brigades...their efforts were truly, utterly, indescribably heroic).

3.) Yeah, I agree with you, it seems too individual-minded to blame Khrushchev for so much. Personally, I do not share so much criticism of Khrushchev, he did some things right but he blundered early and often too.

4.) Sorry, can't help you on that, don't know much about it.

[Rooster]

FROM MARXIST-LENINISTS. I'm tired of sectarian bickering. I actually want to learn, so if you're just here to stir up shit and/or insult people without contributing anything, fuck off. If I could, I would post this directly in the Marxists-Leninists forum, but joining requires approval.

The main problem that you are going to have with that forum is that you probably won't find any real answer, not unless you accept that marxist-leninist stance as being true. Mostly because most of them don't know anything about Trotsky or his ideas, but read just second hand accounts or read mined quotes without context provided by other people.

1: Are there any theoretical debunkings of Trotsky's criticisms of the USSR? It seems like every time he's brought up, M-Ls would rather hurl personal insults at him than actually address his criticisms. What is the M-L standpoint on theories such as the permanent revolution and degenerated workers' state? Additionally, how do M-Ls feel about Trotsky's role in the Russian Revolution? Even if he wasn't the main man, he still contributed largely to it when Stalin was still a desk worker. Isn't it a bit unfair to completely throw him under the bus?

A few of his ideas are probably wrong. The idea of a degenerated workers' state being the main one. Of course, an ML is going to tell you that it's wrong because obviously there was socialism in the USSR and it'll end pretty much on that because you will never come to an agreement on the term unless you accept that it was socialism. Also, and this is the real main issue, ML's don't really understand or know or even want to know what the theory of permanent revolution is. It is basically an idea explaining why the socialist revolution should take place in Russia before others, in stead of a bourgeois democratic one that the mensheviks were arguing for. Lenin seemed to accept it anyway, but the closest I've gotten to them providing a criticism is that they believe in permanent revolution but it's a different kind of permanent revolution. Which I don't think holds much water. Incidentally, Trotsky was calling for no co-operation with the provisional government based on this, and for the immediate transition to a socialist revolution, and Lenin then took up that very same idea. It was Stalin and the rest of the party back in Russia that were initially wanting to work with the provisional government until Lenin reprimanded them. It should be worth noting that the idea of permanent revolution doesn't strictly deny the idea that you can't have socialism in one country but it does say that this socialism would eventually collapse. And a casual look at any map that was printed after the 90s would testify to that.

Trotsky's role in the revolution is usually minimised as much as possible. There's a quote from Stalin saying that the revolution would never have happened without Trotsky, or something along those lines, I can't really be bothered looking for it.


2: Supporters of Stalin like to bring up the fact that the USSR brought down Nazi Germany. However, I've also heard arguments that communist parties in Germany were denounced as "social fascists" by the Comintern, and their focus on them instead of the Nazis allowed Hitler to come into power in the first place. If this is true, is there an explanation for it?

That's true, they did call them social fascists. Why? I don't know. I'm not an expert on that part of history. It probably had to do with a blundering political leadership.


3: The M-L line is that the Soviet Union fail because people like Khrushchev "revised" the system and turned it into capitalism. Doesn't this seem anti-materialist? If socialism was established in the USSR, how could some "revisionists" reverse the entire process? Is there an exact definitions for "revisionism"?

It seems anti-materialist because it is anti-materialist. And the definition of revisionism? It used to mean the dulling or removing of the revolutionary content of Marx's ideas but the ML line is basically that Stalin was correct and everything he did was correct. Doing anything different is revisionism. Saying that any of his ideas were wrong is revisionism. Usually with cries of being anti-communist. So this still lies on the ML ideology being fundamentally correct. But I argue that it's not an ideology based on material analysis, but one that basis itself on political example hence your endless quote wars.

[Zealot]

1: Are there any theoretical debunkings of Trotsky's criticisms of the USSR? It seems like every time he's brought up, M-Ls would rather hurl personal insults at him than actually address his criticisms. What is the M-L standpoint on theories such as the permanent revolution and degenerated workers' state? Additionally, how do M-Ls feel about Trotsky's role in the Russian Revolution? Even if he wasn't the main man, he still contributed largely to it when Stalin was still a desk worker. Isn't it a bit unfair to completely throw him under the bus?

Stalin wasn't merely a desk worker. You can read this (http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/against-trotskyism-a-reading-guide/) reading list if you want to see some ML criticisms of Trotskyism.


2: Supporters of Stalin like to bring up the fact that the USSR brought down Nazi Germany. However, I've also heard arguments that communist parties in Germany were denounced as "social fascists" by the Comintern, and their focus on them instead of the Nazis allowed Hitler to come into power in the first place. If this is true, is there an explanation for it?

There is. I think other Comrades have answered this one.


3: The M-L line is that the Soviet Union fail because people like Khrushchev "revised" the system and turned it into capitalism. Doesn't this seem anti-materialist? If socialism was established in the USSR, how could some "revisionists" reverse the entire process? Is there an exact definitions for "revisionism"?

Yes, it's anti-materialist which is why no ML claims this.


4: This is a minor question, but it's been bugging me; the North Star Compass article in the Marxists-Leninists group description seems really shady. It claims that William Hearst obtained his information on Stalin's gulags from the Gestapo, but I can find nowhere else on the internet, aside from a conspiracy theory site, that supports this. What's the deal with that article?

The Hearst corporation often utilized Nazi propaganda in their papers and frequently made straight out fabrications. Even Trotsky once called them the "ally of Hitler". This may be what is meant when the article says they received information "from the Gestapo".

[Zulu]

In addition to my earlier post (http://www.revleft.com/vb/questions-m-ls-t169253/index.html?p=2390780#post2390780) I wish to add, on Question 1:

Trotsky's role in the Civil War was indeed downplayed during Stalin's rule. However, the Trotskyists tend to exaggerate it. Boris Bazhanov, Stalin's former aide who defected to the West and wrote memoirs of his experiences was in no way sympathetic to Stalin, but gave Trotsky a balanced characteristic along the lines that he had been a skilled orator and organizer, and had a lot of guts, but a poor judge of character (compared to Bazhanov himself, who somewhat indulged in the assertion that he had "cracked" Stalin's character) and too preoccupied with his own greatness as one of the leaders of the world revolution. And Bazhanov specifically pointed out, that while Trotsky had been always in the front, it had been Lenin, the desk man who worked out all the strategy both during the October events, and throughout the Civil War.

As far as Stalin's role in the Civil War goes, Lenin sent him to a number of the most hot spots. Most notably he organized the defense of Tsaritsyn in 1918 (later renamed Stalingrad for that) against the overwhelming forces of the White Cossaks. Also on his initiative several small units of the Red Cossacks we organised into the 1st Mounted Army, which some say was the most advanced large military unit at the time in the world and it was undoubtedly so in the Red Army, the rest of which was mostly rag-tag mass of volunteers and conscripts with a few small special units. In 1920s during the war against Pilsudsky's White Poles, the 1st Mounted Army was performing extremely successfully in the Ukraine (defeating Nestor Makhno in the process). Many future Soviet generals and marshals began their career there (Stalin's personally knowing them from that time was obviously to their advantage later). By contrast, the march on Warsaw, sponsored by Trotsky and led by his protege Tukhachevsky ended in disaster.

[daft punk]

I'm sorry, but I really haven't learned anything from this. It's the same mud-slinging from both sides. It's all "You're wrong, Trotsky said this." "No, you lie! He actually said this!" "Actually, my source says it was true" "Your source is stupid! Mine is true!" "No u!" mixed with some insults. Even if M-Ls are wrong, I'd rather judge that myself than have someone do all the thinking for me.

I applied to Marxists-Leninists a few days ago and my invite hasn't been accepted, it seems.

Well, I gave you a ton of info on Social Fascism. You should have learned a lot from that, especially if you read the links, you should be an expert.

I have not slung any mud. If something is a lie, I prove it, I don't say it for the fun of it. The fact is that most stuff Stalinists say is lies, and I can and have demonstrated that, it's not difficult.

Why has not one Stalinist posted on my threads such as China, Moscow Trials, SIOC etc? Because when we get into even basic detail, their position crumbles in the face of the facts.

You have actually had a Stalinist claim that it was seen as not a bad thing for the Nazis to take power in Germany. Clearly he is not denying the 'social fascism' thing at all.

What is your opinion on that?

Please don't equate pointing out lies and repeating lies. These people just cannot see the wood for the trees, they cling to these lies like a drowning man clutches at straws. I can demonstrate something is a lie to a Stalinist, and a week later they will have exorcised it from their mind, and go back to their repetition of the old 1930s Stalinist propaganda.

Here we have a Stalinist on the one hand admitting fascism coming to power was a good thing in Germany, and at the same time claiming falsely that Trotsky wanted Russian workers to lay down their arms in the event of a German invasion! I challenged him on this, did I get a reply? No, it was conveniently dropped of course.

Not only contradictory statements, but one he refuses to support with evidence.

What is your opinion on this?

[daft punk]

Capitalism thanks you for your kind support.

I the USSR I would have been shot for saying what I say on here.



Haha, a Trotskyist trying to tell us that Bukharin and Zinoviev were model socialists.

Yeah, Stalin only had 2 people shot in the great purge.



You ran away from a very simple question.
repeat it, no idea what you're on about.

[daft punk]

Humour has to be funny

More than half the stuff you say is from Trotsky's diary and has no facts to it. Stop Question dodging, and another thing try to be more open and read what other's have to say (or type) and you might find out that most of Trotsky's policies are wrong.

hilarious. You really are for real? Come on, give us you thoughts on social fascism, or did you already?

[GallowsBird]

@Questionable: You have been accepted to the M-L group (welcome) so I would post this up there as I see this is going the way of any M-L related thread.

[daft punk]

Trotsky, IIRC, was hesitant to vote for taking the Winter Palace and spoke against the idea, but then again most were as Lenin was the one who was really all for taking action.

Pleas support this claim with evidence.



Trotsky wasn't without fault as leader of the Red Army (he did very poorly at Brest-Litovsk)

B-L was before he was leader of the Red Army.






In all, I don't think Trotsky should have been thrown so much under the bus, but it wasn't all Stalin's doing, it was a matter of general infighting within the party in a time of crisis...and anyway in his time in exile he wasn't exactly extending much of an olive branch to the Soviet leadership so it's easy to understand why they felt they had to throw so much negativity at him. Above all, though, it disappoints me greatly that so many worthy figures in the movement turned on each other...Trotsky was undeniably an inspiring leader during the Civil War and he did bring up very valid points when writing about the structure of the USSR (even if I ultimately disagree), but many of those he opposed had their strengths as well. Had they been able to act as the comrades that they were, the movement would have been much, much better off. This, what is very much the battles of a bygone generation of our movement, is something we need to learn from so that it doesn't happen in the future.

shame, you try to stay objective, good, but end up missing the main points entirely.

What is your opinion on the purge?




2.) IIRC, the Social Democrats were termed "social fascists", and in my opinion they were deserving of such a label. After all they were the ones who formed the first fascist militias during the German Revolution.

The charge that the Comintern allowed Hitler to get into power is baseless...

This was stated by Zulu, or implied by him, I have never actually heard it before. Oh, and you should try reading what I have written on social fascism because you two statements here are contradictory. If you support the soc fas theory then you support the division of the working class which makes a fascist victory inevitable, even if you didnt want that. The proof of the pudding...





it was Hindenberg and the Black and Red Union (or whatever they were called) that propelled Hitler to the Chancellorship and later to complete control. The KPD was opposing the Nazis in the streets as well as in the political arena...

and the KPD also had an alliance with the Nazis in 1931.




no one can seriously say that the German communists weren't fighting the good fight.

They said they had to defeat the social democrats before they could defeat the fascists. See my posts and links to Trotsky's writings which detail it all.



I mean really, even after they were suppressed they continued to oppose fascism in Spain (the German volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, made up primarily of German communists forced into exile by Hitler, were universally known as the finest of the International Brigades...their efforts were truly, utterly, indescribably heroic).

The Stalinists sabotaged the revolution in Spain. This led to the victory of fascism. But this was after the Third period, new policies, different material conditions, same result. They always did the wrong thing at the wrong time. This was not coincidental.

[daft punk]

@Questionable: You have been accepted to the M-L group (welcome) so I would post this up there as I see this is going the way of any M-L related thread.
http://mylibrarycardworeout.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/dsc00418.jpg?w=400&h=300




fyp


The Spider and the Fly
Mary Howitt

Will you walk into my parlour?" said the Spider to the Fly,
'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I've a many curious things to shew when you are there."
Oh no, no," said the little Fly, "to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again."


"I'm sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high;
Will you rest upon my little bed?" said the Spider to the Fly.
"There are pretty curtains drawn around; the sheets are fine and thin,
And if you like to rest awhile, I'll snugly tuck you in!"
Oh no, no," said the little Fly, "for I've often heard it said,
They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!"


Said the cunning Spider to the Fly, " Dear friend what can I do,
To prove the warm affection I 've always felt for you?
I have within my pantry, good store of all that's nice;
I'm sure you're very welcome -- will you please to take a slice?"
"Oh no, no," said the little Fly, "kind Sir, that cannot be,
I've heard what's in your pantry, and I do not wish to see!"


"Sweet creature!" said the Spider, "you're witty and you're wise,
How handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes!
I've a little looking-glass upon my parlour shelf,
If you'll step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself."
"I thank you, gentle sir," she said, "for what you 're pleased to say,
And bidding you good morning now, I'll call another day."


The Spider turned him round about, and went into his den,
For well he knew the silly Fly would soon come back again:
So he wove a subtle web, in a little corner sly,
And set his table ready, to dine upon the Fly.
Then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing,
"Come hither, hither, pretty Fly, with the pearl and silver wing;
Your robes are green and purple -- there's a crest upon your head;
Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are dull as lead!"

Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little Fly,
Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by;
With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew,
Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue --
Thinking only of her crested head -- poor foolish thing! At last,
Up jumped the cunning Spider, and fiercely held her fast.
He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den,
Within his little parlour -- but she ne'er came out again!


And now dear little children, who may this story read,
To idle, silly flattering words, I pray you ne'er give heed:
Unto an evil counsellor, close heart and ear and eye,
And take a lesson from this tale, of the Spider and the Fly.
The Spider and the Fly
Mary Howitt

[manic expression]

I the USSR I would have been shot for saying what I say on here.
No, you wouldn't have. The only time in which that would have been true was a very small period in the 30's and to a much lesser extent late 40's. Your pro-capitalist ignorance of socialist society is duly noted.


Yeah, Stalin only had 2 people shot in the great purge.
For a considerable period of time it was Yezhov running the show and Stalin was indirectly involved...when it became clear that Yezhov was out of control, Stalin arrested and punished him. After that point the purges weren't nearly as chaotic and aggressive as they were during the Yezhovchina.


repeat it, no idea what you're on about.
True, you have no idea.


Pleas support this claim with evidence.
I must say, however, that Trotsky did not play any special role in the October uprising, nor could he do so; being chairman of the Petrograd Soviet he merely carried out the will of the appropriate Party bodies, which directed every step that Trotsky took.

Here (http://www.mltranslations.org/Britain/trotvslenin.htm)


B-L was before he was leader of the Red Army.
And he still messed up majorly.


shame, you try to stay objective, good, but end up missing the main points entirely.

What is your opinion on the purge?
You mean the purge that took place a full decade after Trotsky was ejected from his position and exiled from the Soviet Union? The purge that wasn't related to the question? That one? :laugh:

The purges were an overreaction to the genuine uncertainty sparked by the assassination of Kirov and its aftermath. Many former kulaks were discovered within the party and no one knew whom they could trust. Information was contradicted by misinformation and the party felt it had to act decisively, and acted too extremely. Things spun out of control with Yezhov and luckily were brought to a close before WWII opened.


This was stated by Zulu, or implied by him, I have never actually heard it before. Oh, and you should try reading what I have written on social fascism because you two statements here are contradictory. If you support the soc fas theory then you support the division of the working class which makes a fascist victory inevitable, even if you didnt want that. The proof of the pudding...
The working class was already divided as union bureaucrats and social democrats betrayed the cause of their class. Identifying them as no friends of workers was just calling a spade a spade.

Or do you think the Freikorps were just a nice group of workers?


and the KPD also had an alliance with the Nazis in 1931.
Evidence.


They said they had to defeat the social democrats before they could defeat the fascists. See my posts and links to Trotsky's writings which detail it all.
They were fighting the fascists in the streets and dying on the battlefields of Spain while Trotskyists were doing nothing. Trotsky's writings, the only thing of remote worth that can be ascribed to your tendency, pale in comparison to the sacrifices made by the German communists in this struggle.


The Stalinists sabotaged the revolution in Spain.
Wah wah opportunistic blather. Your crocodile tears for anarchists is a bit undermined by Trotsky's (correct) actions at Krondstadt.

But since you think capitalism is "free", you probably like how the revolution failed in Spain.

[daft punk]

Originally Posted by daft punk http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2392593#post2392593)
"I the USSR I would have been shot for saying what I say on here. "

No, you wouldn't have. The only time in which that would have been true was a very small period in the 30's and to a much lesser extent late 40's. Your pro-capitalist ignorance of socialist society is duly noted.


[email protected] only in a small period in the 30s and to a much lesser extent in the 40s. Neither here nor there then.
Manic, I think about a million people were killed in the 30s at least. Some say a lot more. At least 10,000 Trotskyists were sent to the Gulag and almost all were shot. All the old Bolsheviks were shot except a couple. Not only were they shot, their wives, husbands, children, parents and so on were shot. About a million were expelled from the CP. This was a massive operation, mainly from 1936-8 but the terror started back in 1926-7 and went on right through the 1940s.

Not only were the Trots and their families killed. Communists from other countries living as emigres in Russia, seeing it as a sanctuary, were shot.


The second “mass operation” was taken against representatives of a number of nationalities, primarily those having their own territories which had been part of the Russian empire, but which had become independent states after the October revolution (Poles, Finns, Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians). The Stalinist reprisals were especially ferocious against communists from these states, who were arbitrarily condemned as agents of the governments of these countries. Most had been forced to seek exile in the Soviet Union because of the oppression and terrorism they had found ‘at home’. Leopold Trepper, the famous and heroic leader of the Russian underground intelligence organisation under the Nazis, the ‘Red Orchestra’, and who broke from Stalinism and praised Trotskyism, estimated that 80% of the revolutionary emigrants in Russia were repressed and many, if not most, were shot during Stalin’s Great Purge.
Many of them were tortured and the repression reached such lengths that the Bulgarian émigrés warned the Bulgarian head of Stalin’s Comintern Georgi Dimitrov: “If you don’t do everything necessary to stop the repressions, then we will kill Yezhov [head of the NKVD, who himself was later purged and shot], this counter-revolutionary.” Eight hundred Yugoslav communists were also arrested. Tito, who became head of the Yugoslav Stalinist state after the Second World War, played a role in organising the destruction of his own party in Moscow. When Tito enquired about who was now to lead the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY), Dimitrov was surprised: “You are the only one left… It’s a good thing that at least you are left, otherwise we would have to disband the CPY.” Those Yugoslavs arrested and shot were killed with the benediction of Tito and Milovan Djilas, who himself was later a ‘dissident’ under the Tito regime and was cast out of the magic circle of ‘Titoism’. Thos charged were expelled from the CPY on charges of ‘Trotskyism’. This did not stop some misguided ‘Trotskyists’, the predecessors of the present United Secretariat of the Fourth International, later describing Tito as an “unconscious Trotskyist”. They even organised work brigades of young people in the 1950s to assist the Yugoslav state in its first period in power when Tito came into collision with Stalin.
A similar repression was launched against the Communist Party of Poland, which had committed the unpardonable sin of actually supporting the Left Opposition in 1923-24. The seventy-year old Adolf Warski, one of the founders of the social-democratic and communist parties of Poland, was shot. The same fate was meted out to the leaders of the Communist Party of Germany who had sought refuge in Russia from the horrors of Nazism only to meet with the horrors inflicted by Stalin’s security apparatus. At the Ninth Congress of the Sozialistiche Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED), the governing party of the former German Democratic Republic, in January 1989, it was reported that at least 242 prominent members of the Communist Party of Germany had perished in the Soviet Union. By the beginning of 1937, the majority of Austrian Schutzbundists had already been arrested. They were members of the socialist military organisation which after the defeat of the anti-fascist uprising of 1934 had emigrated to Russia and had been received there as heroes.
The same fate was met by Hungarians, who probably constituted the biggest foreign national group living in the Soviet Union then. Ten of 16 members of the first Central Committee of the Communist Party of Hungary were killed, as well as 11 out of 20 people’s commissars of the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919. One of these victims was Bela Kun, who had led the Soviet Republic. At the end of the 1980s it was revealed in a hitherto secret document that Imre Nagy, who became the prime minister of Hungary in 1956, had played an active role in the 1930s in the decimation of the leaders of his own party. He had been for a long time a secret informer for the NKVD. Ironically, after the 1956 uprising he became prime minister of Hungary but was shot following its repression by the successors of the NKVD, the KGB.
Rogovin comments: “Altogether, more communists from Eastern European countries were killed in the Soviet Union than died at home in their own countries during Hitler’s occupation.” One leading Lithuanian communist commented that because of the decimation of the Lithuanian Communist Party’s Central Committee at the hands of Stalin and his executioners, “I alone remained alive! And I remained alive because I had been carrying out underground work in fascist Lithuania.” The same fate befell the Mongolian, Japanese and many other communist parties. Stalin’s seeming paranoia towards all things non-Russian (ironically, he was himself ‘non-Russian’, a Georgian) was revealed later in the secret archives of the NKVD where there was testimony against Palmiro Togliatti, the leader of the Communist Party of Italy, Harry Pollitt, general secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Jacques Duclos of the French Communist Party, Mao Ze-dong and many others. Latvians, many of them having participated in the underground struggle against tsarism, and in the 1905 and 1917 revolutions, were ruthlessly suppressed by Stalin.


http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/3794

Please give your opinions on the above.




For a considerable period of time it was Yezhov running the show and Stalin was indirectly involved...when it became clear that Yezhov was out of control, Stalin arrested and punished him. After that point the purges weren't nearly as chaotic and aggressive as they were during the Yezhovchina.

Do you seriously believe this? Please tell me you are not that brainwashed/gullible. This was Stalin's one man show. He dictated. Sure, he killed his killers. He killed loads of NKVD leaders and operatives for instance.

Oh, look, he vanished!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/91/Voroshilov%2C_Molotov%2C_Stalin%2C_with_Nikolai_Ye zhov.jpg/220px-Voroshilov%2C_Molotov%2C_Stalin%2C_with_Nikolai_Ye zhov.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/The_Commissar_Vanishes_2.jpg/220px-The_Commissar_Vanishes_2.jpg

Nikolai Yezhov

vanishing NKVD leader




He killed these people not because they were out of control but to keep them quiet and shift the blame. For instance Stalin was killing most of the NKVD who had sabotaged the revolution in Spain when they returned.



Originally Posted by manic expression http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2392048#post2392048)
"You ran away from a very simple question. "

"repeat it, no idea what you're on about"


True, you have no idea.

stop dicking around and repeat the question. I am not a mind reader.



Originally Posted by manic expression http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2392084#post2392084)
"Trotsky, IIRC, was hesitant to vote for taking the Winter Palace and spoke against the idea, but then again most were as Lenin was the one who was really all for taking action. "
Pleas support this claim with evidence.
I must say, however, that Trotsky did not play any special role in the October uprising, nor could he do so; being chairman of the Petrograd Soviet he merely carried out the will of the appropriate Party bodies, which directed every step that Trotsky took.


This is not evidence it is a lie from Stalin. I will now prove it was a lie in Stalin's own words:

Stalin, Telegram to Lenin 1917:
"All practical work in connection with the organization of the uprising was done under the immediate direction of Comrade Trotsky, the president of the Petrograd Soviet. It can be stated with certainty that the Party is indebted primarily and principally to Comrade Trotsky for the rapid going over of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the efficient manner in which the work of the Military-Revolutionary Committee was organized. The principal assistants of Comrade Trotsky were Comrades Antonov and Podvoisky."
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1918/11/06.htm

This was later deleted from Russian edition of his book, but it was in earlier ones and editions in Britain etc.

The fact is that Trotsky was the main leader of the October revolution from a practical point of view, as he was head of the Petrograd Soviet and it was Trotsky who got the soldiers to go over to the Red side. This was a process over a couple of weeks or so. Lenin was an ideological leader but for some reason he had to stay in hiding until after the storming of the Winter Palace.









Here (http://www.mltranslations.org/Britain/trotvslenin.htm)

I dont need the link, I just proved it to be lies. I have quoted these lies a million times myself, from the original Stalin sources. He says it several times in slightly different ways.

Here is some reading on how the revolution proceeded:

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

Leon Trotsky

The History of the Russian Revolution

Volume Three: The Triumph of the Soviets

Chapter 41
The Military-Revolutionary Committee



"With this same purpose of camouflage a Social Revolutionary and not a Bolshevik was placed at the head of the commission on the “Committee of Defence.” This was a young and modest intendant, Lazimir, one of those Left Social Revolutionaries who were already travelling with the Bolsheviks before the insurrection – although, to be sure, not always foreseeing whither the course would lead. Lazimir’s preliminary rough draft was edited by Trotsky in two directions: the practical plans relating to the conquest of the garrison were more sharply defined, the general revolutionary goal was still more glossed over. As ratified by the Executive Committee against the protest of two Mensheviks, the draft included in the staff of the Military Revolutionary Committee the præsidiums of the Soviet and of the soldiers’ section, representatives of the fleet, of the regional committee of Finland, of the railroad unions, of the factory committees, the trade unions, the party military organisations, the Red Guard, etc. The organisational basis was the same as in many other cases, but the personal composition of the committee was determined by its new tasks. It was assumed that the organisations would send representatives familiar with military affairs or standing near to the garrison. The character of an organ should be conditioned by its function. Another new formation of this period was no less important. Under the direction of the Military Revolutionary Committee there was created a Permanent Conference of the Garrison.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/hrr/ch41.htm



And he still messed up majorly.

He created and led the Red Army to victory and you say he messed up majorly. Nice. Support or retract!



You mean the purge that took place a full decade after Trotsky was ejected from his position and exiled from the Soviet Union? The purge that wasn't related to the question? That one? :laugh:


You think the purge in the 1930s was not related to Trotsky getting kicked out 10 years earlier?

Boy are you wrong.

Do you know that most of Trotsky's family, his supporters, and their families were killed in the purge. It was too late to get Trotsky so he was killed in Mexico.







The purges were an overreaction to the genuine uncertainty sparked by the assassination of Kirov and its aftermath.

Yes, it's quite natural for the assassination of one person to lead to the killing of a million, happens every day.




Many former kulaks were discovered within the party and no one knew whom they could trust.

Lol! There wasnt much chance of the kulaks taking over, although yeah, the bulk of people killed were kulaks.



Information was contradicted by misinformation and the party felt it had to act decisively, and acted too extremely. Things spun out of control with Yezhov and luckily were brought to a close before WWII opened.

see above. Put the kulaks to one side. Tens of thousands of Trotskyists were killed. Also loads of communists from other countries living in Russia as emigres:

"The second “mass operation” was taken against representatives of a number of nationalities, primarily those having their own territories which had been part of the Russian empire, but which had become independent states after the October revolution (Poles, Finns, Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians). The Stalinist reprisals were especially ferocious against communists from these states, who were arbitrarily condemned as agents of the governments of these countries. Most had been forced to seek exile in the Soviet Union because of the oppression and terrorism they had found ‘at home’. Leopold Trepper, the famous and heroic leader of the Russian underground intelligence organisation under the Nazis, the ‘Red Orchestra’, and who broke from Stalinism and praised Trotskyism, estimated that 80% of the revolutionary emigrants in Russia were repressed and many, if not most, were shot during Stalin’s Great Purge. Many of them were tortured and the repression reached such lengths that the Bulgarian émigrés warned the Bulgarian head of Stalin’s Comintern Georgi Dimitrov: “If you don’t do everything necessary to stop the repressions, then we will kill Yezhov [head of the NKVD, who himself was later purged and shot], this counter-revolutionary.” Eight hundred Yugoslav communists were also arrested. Tito, who became head of the Yugoslav Stalinist state after the Second World War, played a role in organising the destruction of his own party in Moscow. When Tito enquired about who was now to lead the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY), Dimitrov was surprised: “You are the only one left… It’s a good thing that at least you are left, otherwise we would have to disband the CPY.” Those Yugoslavs arrested and shot were killed with the benediction of Tito and Milovan Djilas, who himself was later a ‘dissident’ under the Tito regime and was cast out of the magic circle of ‘Titoism’. Thos charged were expelled from the CPY on charges of ‘Trotskyism’. This did not stop some misguided ‘Trotskyists’, the predecessors of the present United Secretariat of the Fourth International, later describing Tito as an “unconscious Trotskyist”. They even organised work brigades of young people in the 1950s to assist the Yugoslav state in its first period in power when Tito came into collision with Stalin.
A similar repression was launched against the Communist Party of Poland, which had committed the unpardonable sin of actually supporting the Left Opposition in 1923-24. The seventy-year old Adolf Warski, one of the founders of the social-democratic and communist parties of Poland, was shot. The same fate was meted out to the leaders of the Communist Party of Germany who had sought refuge in Russia from the horrors of Nazism only to meet with the horrors inflicted by Stalin’s security apparatus. At the Ninth Congress of the Sozialistiche Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED), the governing party of the former German Democratic Republic, in January 1989, it was reported that at least 242 prominent members of the Communist Party of Germany had perished in the Soviet Union. By the beginning of 1937, the majority of Austrian Schutzbundists had already been arrested. They were members of the socialist military organisation which after the defeat of the anti-fascist uprising of 1934 had emigrated to Russia and had been received there as heroes.
The same fate was met by Hungarians, who probably constituted the biggest foreign national group living in the Soviet Union then. Ten of 16 members of the first Central Committee of the Communist Party of Hungary were killed, as well as 11 out of 20 people’s commissars of the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919. One of these victims was Bela Kun, who had led the Soviet Republic. At the end of the 1980s it was revealed in a hitherto secret document that Imre Nagy, who became the prime minister of Hungary in 1956, had played an active role in the 1930s in the decimation of the leaders of his own party. He had been for a long time a secret informer for the NKVD. Ironically, after the 1956 uprising he became prime minister of Hungary but was shot following its repression by the successors of the NKVD, the KGB.
Rogovin comments: “Altogether, more communists from Eastern European countries were killed in the Soviet Union than died at home in their own countries during Hitler’s occupation.” One leading Lithuanian communist commented that because of the decimation of the Lithuanian Communist Party’s Central Committee at the hands of Stalin and his executioners, “I alone remained alive! And I remained alive because I had been carrying out underground work in fascist Lithuania.” The same fate befell the Mongolian, Japanese and many other communist parties. Stalin’s seeming paranoia towards all things non-Russian (ironically, he was himself ‘non-Russian’, a Georgian) was revealed later in the secret archives of the NKVD where there was testimony against Palmiro Togliatti, the leader of the Communist Party of Italy, Harry Pollitt, general secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Jacques Duclos of the French Communist Party, Mao Ze-dong and many others. Latvians, many of them having participated in the underground struggle against tsarism, and in the 1905 and 1917 revolutions, were ruthlessly suppressed by Stalin."
http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/3794


How does this fit into your theory?




The working class was already divided as union bureaucrats and social democrats betrayed the cause of their class. Identifying them as no friends of workers was just calling a spade a spade.

Or do you think the Freikorps were just a nice group of workers?

so, you stick by social fascism, even though it led to the destruction of the German workers movement and the coming to power of the Nazis as Trotsky predicted, WW2 and the holocaust. Well done.

Well fucking done.

Trotsky 1931:
"Germany is now passing through one of those great historic hours upon which the fate of the German people, the fate of Europe, and in significant measure the fate of all humanity, will depend for decades. "
"Worker-Communists, you are hundreds of thousands, millions; you cannot leave for anyplace; there are not enough passports for you. Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank. Your salvation lies in merciless struggle. And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring victory. Make haste, worker-Communists, you have very little time left!"

You, decades later:

"just calling a spade a spade"



"and the KPD also had an alliance with the Nazis in 1931. "
Evidence.


certainly:


1928 May: Reichstag elections (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/elect.htm#a285) return the SPD to cabinet with Chancellor Hermann MÜller. KPD get a third of the SPD’s vote (Nazis get less than a tenth). This SPD leadership is further right than before and opts for something called the Great Coalition—including the People’s Party—and holds power for about two years.
Meanwhile, the Comintern adopts the ultra-left doctrine of the Third Period and something called social fascism. The doctrine says the collapse of the world’s capitalist nations is supposedly following a handy pattern:



The First Period (1917-1924): Capitalist crisis and revolutionary upsurge;
The Second Period (1925-1928): Capitalist stability;
The Third Period (now): Capitalist crises return and proles are ready to rise up again.

The Comintern concludes it’s time to end Second Period collaboration with Social Democrats (and their powerful working class base). In the case of Germany, it means these SPD workers are really just “social fascists,” a sort of left wing of fascism.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/index.htm

Here is Trotsky's article on this:

Leon Trotsky

Against National Communism!
(Lessons of the “Red Referendum”)

(August 1931)

Written in exile in Turkey, August 25, 1931.

"How Everything is Turned Upon Its Head

The mistakes of the German Communist Party on the question of the plebiscite are among those which will become clearer as time passes, and will finally enter into the textbooks of revolutionary strategy as an example of what should not be done."


"Is it true, however, that Thälmann entered a united front with Hitler? The Communist bureaucracy called the referendum of Thälmann “red,” in contrast to the black or brown plebiscite of Hitler. That the matter is concerned with two mortally hostile parties is naturally beyond doubt, and all the falsehoods of the Social Democracy will not compel the workers to forget it. But a fact remains a fact: in a certain campaign, the Stalinist bureaucracy involved the revolutionary workers in a united front with the National Socialists against the Social Democracy. If one could designate his party adherence on the ballots, then the referendum would at least have the justification (in the given instance, absolutely insufficient politically) that it would have permitted a count of its forces and by that itself, separate them from the forces of fascism. But German “democracy” did not trouble in its time to provide for participants in referendums the right to designate their parties. All the voters are fused into one inseparable mass which, on a definite question, gives one and the same answer. Within the limits of this question, the united front with the fascists is an indubitable fact.
Thus, between midnight and dawn everything appeared to be turned on its head.
“United Front,” But With Whom?

What political aim did the leadership of the Communist Party pursue with its turn? The more you read the official documents and speeches of the leaders, the less you understand this aim. The Prussian government we are told, is paving the road for fascism. This is absolutely correct. The federal government of Brüning [2], the leaders of the Communist Party add, has actually been fascisizing the republic and has already accomplished a lot of work on this road. Absolutely correct, we reply to this. “But you see, without the Prussian Braun, the federal Brüning cannot maintain himself!” the Stalinists say. This, too, is correct, we reply. Up to this point we are in complete accord. But what political conclusions flow from this? We have not the slightest ground for supporting Braun’s government, for taking even a shadow of responsibility for it before the masses, or even for weakening by one iota our political struggle against the government of Brüning and its Prussian agency. But we have still less ground for helping the fascists to replace the government of Brüning-Braun. For, if we quite justly accuse the Social Democracy of paving the road for fascism, then our own task can least of all consist of shortening this road for fascism."


http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1931/310825.htm





"They said they had to defeat the social democrats before they could defeat the fascists. See my posts and links to Trotsky's writings which detail it all. "

They were fighting the fascists in the streets and dying on the battlefields of Spain while Trotskyists were doing nothing. Trotsky's writings, the only thing of remote worth that can be ascribed to your tendency, pale in comparison to the sacrifices made by the German communists in this struggle.



Lol. The Stalinists sabotaged the revolution in Spain deliberately. I just showed you the Red Referendum, the alliance with the Nazis. You yourself oppose a unity of communist and social democrat workers to stop the Nazis. If you had been alive at the time, in a position of responsibility in the KDP, it would be your fault that the Nazis took power. According to Zulu you may have even wanted it!

Trotsky:

"...the Bolsheviks did not content themselves with a general appeal to the workers and soldiers to break with the conciliators and to support the red united front of the Bolsheviks. No, the Bolsheviks proposed the united front struggle to the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries and created together with them joint organizations of struggle. Was this correct or incorrect? Let Thälmann answer that."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1931/311208.htm

I know the SPD leaders were shit, but what Trotsky was proposing would have split the social democratic workers away from their leaders, and/or forced their leaders leftward. It was not a Stalinist-style Popular Front he proposed, climbing into bed with each other, it was joint action on the ground.




"The Stalinists sabotaged the revolution in Spain. "
Wah wah opportunistic blather. Your crocodile tears for anarchists is a bit undermined by Trotsky's (correct) actions at Krondstadt.

But since you think capitalism is "free", you probably like how the revolution failed in Spain.

Hey kiddo, I have actually had Stalinists admit to me that the revolution in Spain had to be sabotaged, for the fight against fascism. Never worked did it?

No tell me, Spain, the Moscow Trials, they both happened at the same time?

Is everything just a coincidence in your mind?

[manic expression]

[email protected] only in a small period in the 30s and to a much lesser extent in the 40s. Neither here nor there then.
Neither all the time as you say. They were two exceptional periods...outside of them you would never have so much as smelled such a heavy penalty for anti-Soviet dissent. Someone like Sukharov basically couldn't publish and had to stay in a certain region but other than that wasn't punished for speaking against the government.


Manic, I think about a million people were killed in the 30s at least. Some say a lot more. At least 10,000 Trotskyists were sent to the Gulag and almost all were shot. All the old Bolsheviks were shot except a couple. Not only were they shot, their wives, husbands, children, parents and so on were shot. About a million were expelled from the CP. This was a massive operation, mainly from 1936-8 but the terror started back in 1926-7 and went on right through the 1940s.

Not only were the Trots and their families killed. Communists from other countries living as emigres in Russia, seeing it as a sanctuary, were shot.
Like I said, an exceptional period of a few years, one in which the Soviet leadership had basically lost control of the situation.

I think the news of wives, husbands and so being killed is exaggerated.


Please give your opinions on the above.
I'm not reading an entire article because you want me to. Quote something specific and I'll give you my opinion just fine.


Do you seriously believe this? Please tell me you are not that brainwashed/gullible. This was Stalin's one man show. He dictated. Sure, he killed his killers. He killed loads of NKVD leaders and operatives for instance.

Oh, look, he vanished!
Don't fade into melodrama in order to make some emotional point. No leader has the capacity to oversee everything in such conditions...Yezhov was charged with rooting out anti-party elements (which objectively existed) and he did a horrible job at it. Stalin saw that he was out of control and punished him for his crimes. That's as much as you can ask from a leader.


He killed these people not because they were out of control but to keep them quiet and shift the blame. For instance Stalin was killing most of the NKVD who had sabotaged the revolution in Spain when they returned.
There was no need to shift blame, Yezhov failed at his task to an outrageous extent.


stop dicking around and repeat the question. I am not a mind reader.
It's quite clearly on this very thread. See page 2.


This is not evidence it is a lie from Stalin. I will now prove it was a lie in Stalin's own words:
Stalin, in that same passage, did recognize the important role Trotsky played. However, Trotsky didn't make the revolution by himself, he was one of many very great figures in those heroic moments.


The fact is that Trotsky was the main leader of the October revolution from a practical point of view, as he was head of the Petrograd Soviet and it was Trotsky who got the soldiers to go over to the Red side. This was a process over a couple of weeks or so. Lenin was an ideological leader but for some reason he had to stay in hiding until after the storming of the Winter Palace.
I think it is unfair to make Trotsky the main leader when so many other dedicated communists played important roles.


I dont need the link, I just proved it to be lies. I have quoted these lies a million times myself, from the original Stalin sources. He says it several times in slightly different ways.

[QUOTE]He created and led the Red Army to victory and you say he messed up majorly. Nice. Support or retract!
It's common knowledge that he messed up at Brest-Litovsk. Pointing out that obvious fact isn't to say he didn't do important work elsewhere. As Commissar of War he should take a good deal of credit for the Red Army's victory, but others need to be assigned credit as well...and even then it doesn't mean they were correct about all things, Tukhachevsky was vital in the victory but he was hardly a model communist.


You think the purge in the 1930s was not related to Trotsky getting kicked out 10 years earlier?
It was far more related to Kirov's death and the discoveries of considerable numbers of ex-kulaks in the party rolls. Trotsky's exile only played a role when it came out that he had contacts within the USSR (which were exaggerated then, but they existed regardless).


Do you know that most of Trotsky's family, his supporters, and their families were killed in the purge. It was too late to get Trotsky so he was killed in Mexico.
Like I said, it is a shame that there was such an overreaction. However, Trotsky wasn't innocent in the whole thing.


Yes, it's quite natural for the assassination of one person to lead to the killing of a million, happens every day.
It was the initial act that set off the chain of events...just about every historian, even anti-Soviet ones, recognizes the centrality of it in the purges.


Lol! There wasnt much chance of the kulaks taking over,
Oh, well I'm sure you're such an expert.


see above. Put the kulaks to one side. Tens of thousands of Trotskyists were killed. Also loads of communists from other countries living in Russia as emigres:
The kulaks in the party were a revelation that spurred fears of other anti-party infiltration. Many communists who were innocent were killed and that is a true tragedy (something Stalin expressed regret over later), but that is due to the chaotic situation at the time more than any malicious intent on the part of Stalin. The party, mid-way into the purges, had basically lost control and Soviet society was in crisis.


How does this fit into your theory?
About as well as other Trotskyist propaganda.


so, you stick by social fascism, even though it led to the destruction of the German workers movement and the coming to power of the Nazis as Trotsky predicted, WW2 and the holocaust. Well done.
So, you stick by Trotskyism, that did nothing to fight fascism while the communists you oppose fought and died ultimately defeating it. :laugh:


Lol. The Stalinists sabotaged the revolution in Spain deliberately. I just showed you the Red Referendum, the alliance with the Nazis. You yourself oppose a unity of communist and social democrat workers to stop the Nazis. If you had been alive at the time, in a position of responsibility in the KDP, it would be your fault that the Nazis took power. According to Zulu you may have even wanted it!


I know the SPD leaders were shit, but what Trotsky was proposing would have split the social democratic workers away from their leaders, and/or forced their leaders leftward. It was not a Stalinist-style Popular Front he proposed, climbing into bed with each other, it was joint action on the ground.
Trotsky was wrong, then. Loads of alliances with social democrats have not once split workers away from the leadership. It was an idealist solution that hadn't a chance of working. Even that aside, Trotskyists did nothing to fight fascism while communists gave everything. You spit on their sacrifices because you're more concerned with slandering communists than you are with opposing fascism.


Hey kiddo, I have actually had Stalinists admit to me that the revolution in Spain had to be sabotaged, for the fight against fascism. Never worked did it?
More fake, hypocritical crying over anarchists.


No tell me, Spain, the Moscow Trials, they both happened at the same time?

Is everything just a coincidence in your mind?
:lol: Yeah, sure, Stalin planned for the Spanish Civil War to happen at that moment.

[Bostana]

hilarious. You really are for real? Come on, give us you thoughts on social fascism, or did you already?

What does Fascism have to do with being open minded?

And accepting the fact that Trotsky's policies were obsolete and made no real sense and only those who refuse to go beyond his diary are ignorant.

[Geiseric]

This is denialism, Stalin was a thermidor to the russian revolution, and it's impossible not to admit it. "It wasn't possible for him to oversee the purge that he ordered. He signed all of the hundreds of thousands of execution orders but didn't really care enough to see which names were on it." Do you see how assanine that sounds? It's outside of logic. He killed all of the old bolsheviks, which is something that isn't easily ignored, from any place in society, regardless of Stalin, who is somebody who would keep in contact with many of these people about political matters.

On another note, Stalin insisting that the U.S.S.R. means that he agreed with Trotsky that a 3rd world country could be turned to socialism. Great job not realising that.

It's a cult, and I don't understand what makes it attractive at first. Stalin's moustache looks lame.

[Zulu]

He killed all of the old bolsheviks
This is not true.

Molotov was an "old Bolshevik". Kaganovich was an "old Bolshevik". Kalinin was an "old Bolshevik". Kollontai was an "old Bolshevik".

Was Trotsky an "old Bolshevik"? No.

[Geiseric]

not all of them, but don't play stupid, most of them were killed in the purges. Trotsky was worth more with his activities than most of the old bolsheviks, excluding those like sverdlov and others who organised the soviets. There is no reason that Leon Trotsky should have been exiled from the U.S.S.R. and any attempt to say otherwise is to buy into an ideology that is formed from complete revisionism. Stalinism should not of happened, and he would of never held power if it wasn't for the purges. Him and the elite in the soviet union were parasites on the working class, and hindered the progress of the world revolutions so that they could maintain their privileged position. Bourgeois historians would say otherwise, hey would of said that what happened was socialism to discredit the theories of marxism, but at the time when Stalin was in power he was increadibly popular with the American Government, and the CP-USA helped the government carry out The Smith Acts which were directed exactly at arresting Trotskyists.

[daft punk]

Neither all the time as you say. They were two exceptional periods...outside of them you would never have so much as smelled such a heavy penalty for anti-Soviet dissent. Someone like Sukharov basically couldn't publish and had to stay in a certain region but other than that wasn't punished for speaking against the government.

The repression peaked in the late 30s and early 40s but it basically went on from 1926 to 1953 and never completely stopped. Hungary 1956 ring any bells for example?
http://www.filolog.com/images/budapest_56_06.jpg




Like I said, an exceptional period of a few years, one in which the Soviet leadership had basically lost control of the situation.

this is completely untrue, support or retract






I think the news of wives, husbands and so being killed is exaggerated.

this is completely untrue, support or retract

Trotsky:
4 children:
Zinaida
Nina
Lev
Sergei

Zinaida:
married Zakhar Borisovich Moglin (SHOT 1937)
they had a daughter Alexandra
she later married Platon Ivanovich Volkov (SHOT 1936)
they had a son Vsevolod

Stalin said she could leave the USSR but could only take one child, the sick fucker made her choose which one to leave behind! She took the youngest one and left Alexandra with her dad. After he was exiled (shot) she was looked after by her grandmother, who too later perished in the labour camps.
Finally Alexandra, Trotskys grandchild, was exiled to Kazakhstan.
Her mum, Zinaida, got away with son Vselvolod. He stayed with Trotsky's son Lev in Paris, but Lev was POISONED BY THE GPU. Vselvolod ended up in Mexico with Trotsky. Suffering from TB and depression, Zinaida was driven to suicide.

Nina died of TB. Her husband Man Samoilovich was shot in 1937. Their two children both disappeared without trace.

Lev married Anna Samoilovna Riabukhina shot in 1938. They had a son, fate after 1937 unknown.

Sergei was shot in prison in 1937.
He married Ol'ga Eduardovna Grebner and later Genriet(t)a Mikhailovna Rubinshtein. Genriet was imprisoned for 10 years and banished. They had a daughter Julia.

Trotsky had 2 sisters and a brother. Eliziveta died of disease in 1924. The other two
Aleksandr shot 1938
Olga (who was married to Kamenev) shot 1936

Trotsky also had a former wife Aleksandra shot 1938



I'm not reading an entire article because you want me to. Quote something specific and I'll give you my opinion just fine.

It is a short quote in itself. You are wasting my time. If you are not capable of reading that give up politics now.

However I will give you one line to work with for the purposes of the debate.

“Altogether, more communists from Eastern European countries were killed in the Soviet Union than died at home in their own countries during Hitler’s occupation.”



Don't fade into melodrama in order to make some emotional point. No leader has the capacity to oversee everything in such conditions...Yezhov was charged with rooting out anti-party elements (which objectively existed) and he did a horrible job at it. Stalin saw that he was out of control and punished him for his crimes. That's as much as you can ask from a leader.

this is completely untrue, support or retract





There was no need to shift blame, Yezhov failed at his task to an outrageous extent.

this is completely untrue, support or retract




It's quite clearly on this very thread. See page 2.

stop playing games. If you have a question, ask it. I have asked you about 3 times.



Stalin, in that same passage, did recognize the important role Trotsky played. However, Trotsky didn't make the revolution by himself, he was one of many very great figures in those heroic moments.

The two quotes prove Stalin was an utter liar and the purges were based on these lies.



I think it is unfair to make Trotsky the main leader when so many other dedicated communists played important roles.

And is it fair to say he played no particular role, denounce him as a German spy, and kill all his followers and family, and their families?







It was far more related to Kirov's death and the discoveries of considerable numbers of ex-kulaks in the party rolls. Trotsky's exile only played a role when it came out that he had contacts within the USSR (which were exaggerated then, but they existed regardless).


Like I said, it is a shame that there was such an overreaction. However, Trotsky wasn't innocent in the whole thing.


You are naive. I have given you plenty of info, you had your chance.




The kulaks in the party were a revelation that spurred fears of other anti-party infiltration. Many communists who were innocent were killed and that is a true tragedy (something Stalin expressed regret over later), but that is due to the chaotic situation at the time more than any malicious intent on the part of Stalin. The party, mid-way into the purges, had basically lost control and Soviet society was in crisis.

Rubbish. The kulaks were seen as a threat and were purged, sure, no argument there. The left were also seen as a threat and were purged under false pretence, but your mind cannot even think about that possibility, which is actually established fact, because you head has been filled with lies and you dont want to question them.





About as well as other Trotskyist propaganda.

You are answering a whole load of historical data with that? The Polish CP was completely closed down, etc, you just dismiss is as propaganda.





So, you stick by Trotskyism, that did nothing to fight fascism while the communists you oppose fought and died ultimately defeating it. :laugh:


this is completely untrue, support or retract






Trotsky was wrong, then. Loads of alliances with social democrats have not once split workers away from the leadership. It was an idealist solution that hadn't a chance of working. Even that aside, Trotskyists did nothing to fight fascism while communists gave everything. You spit on their sacrifices because you're more concerned with slandering communists than you are with opposing fascism.

this is completely untrue, support or retract




More fake, hypocritical crying over anarchists.

No, as I said, some Stalinists admit Stalin deliberately crushed the Spanish revolution.




:lol: Yeah, sure, Stalin planned for the Spanish Civil War to happen at that moment.

He planned the sabotage of the revolution at the same time as the purges in Russia.

Please type seriously, with evidence to back your claims.

[manic expression]

The repression peaked in the late 30s and early 40s but it basically went on from 1926 to 1953 and never completely stopped. Hungary 1956 ring any bells for example?
Hahaha you are quite naive. Hungary 1956 wasn't a case of people speaking against the Soviet Union, it was a case of armed insurrection against the socialist government. Crack open a history book now and again.


utter
fucking
bullshitNot
An
Argument.
:lol:


please dont waste my time typing crap.One family that is very exceptional in this regard. It was not a general thing.


“Altogether, more communists from Eastern European countries were killed in the Soviet Union than died at home in their own countries during Hitler’s occupation.”Very Robert Conquest-esque, I must say. You are a pro-capitalist, and so the shoe fits.


Pathetic.Not an argument.


patheticAgain not an argument.


stop playing stupid games. If you have a question, ask it.Page 2.


The two quotes prove Stalin was an utter liar and the purges were based on these lies.It has nothing to do with the purges, first of all, and moreover it shows that you are either ignorant or lying about what Stalin wrote.


And is it fair to say he played no particular role, denounce him as a German spy, and kill all his followers and family, and their families?Stalin said he played an important role...the idea that he was a spy was due to the chaos of the time and Trotsky's willingness to play ball with imperialists in order to slander the USSR. I don't at all approve of what happened to his family.


You are naive, you know very little, you have no interest in the truth or serious debate, you just like playing games and repeating stupid lies. I have given you plenty of info, you had your chance.I've responded to every point you've put forward. Don't get mad just because your position is getting undermined.


Rubbish. The kulaks were seen as a threat and were purged, sure, no argument there. The left were also seen as a threat and were purged under false pretence, but your mind cannot even think about that possibility, which is actually established fact, because you head has been filled with lies and you dont want to question them.The "left" were expelled previously for breaching party discipline. The purges in the 30's were not directly related.

It was not a false pretense because no one actually knew who killed Kirov. No one knew how so many kulaks got into the party. No one knew what other anti-party elements there might have been. It's easy to say they were incorrect in some of their assumptions when we're sitting at our computers 70 years on, but it wasn't so easy to see that then.


You are answering a whole load of historical data with that? How old are you? 13? The Polish CP was completely closed down, etc, you just dismiss is as propaganda. Childish. A waste of time. I'm not putting you on ignore but I'm pretty much done with this.It's not historical data such much as projecting all sorts of things on Stalin for no particular reason. There is no basis given for why it was such a horrifying thing to reform the Polish CP...it's not as if Trotskyists aren't capable of doing such a thing.


Support or retract this pile of shite.Burden of proof is on you...how many Trotskyists fought and died in the struggle against fascism?


see above.Burden of proof is again on you. How many times have social democratic parties been split due to an alliance with a communist party?


No, as I said, some Stalinists admit Stalin deliberately crushed the Spanish revolution.So now whatever "some Stalinist" says is the be-all-end-all truth? How quickly you change your opinion of "Stalinism"...first Stalinists are evil and now their word is infallible, but only when you agree with it. :lol:


He planned the sabotage of the revolution at the same time as the purges in Russia.How did he sabotage the revolution from the other side of Europe? Were it not for Soviet support the Republic would have fallen within the first months of the war.


Manic, this whole post is terrible. Please type seriously, with evidence to back your ludicrous claims, or I won't bother with you any more as this is not achieving anything. Up you game, shut up, or get ignored. Think about how much effort I put in and how much you do. All you do is make wild unsupported claims off the top of your brainwashed head. It's just not worth my time.I just point out how your assumptions are incorrect and you throw a temper tantrum. But I can't make you respond to my points, you can run away from my arguments if you like.

[Yazman]

Daft punk, I'm done with the flames that have been ongoing in this thread. You've been doing it consistently in here, and another user has already been infracted, not to mention I've received complaints about your flames.

If you can't make posts without being insulting to somebody else, don't even bother to post.

As far as everybody else is concerned, I'm not warning anybody else in here, the next post with any violation results in an infraction.

[Omsk]

Daft Punk,if you trully want historical discussion,than you should at least know not to believe in childrens stories like the one that Stalin killed Kirov.

[manic expression]

Ok I just had a look at these, for my thread highlights post. Not good enough. However I will clarify. I put you on ignore because I am bored of spending ages putting together a post full of support etc for you to just throw back a wild claim off the top of your head, plus all the messing around with me supposed to be guessing the question I was supposed to be asking.
Or, I made you mad because it was all too easy to undermine your absurd non-arguments and point out your lack of real support. All your so-called "support" consisted of writings by people you already agree with, and with such a house of cards it was exceedingly simple to knock it down.


I'm not that arsed about any so-called infraction, it just gave me the impetus to shove you onto ignore.Or, it gave you the impetus to cry about being exposed as a bankrupt troll and run away because you were bested in every exchange. I expected no less.

[daft punk]

All I wanted was to debate the OP, well, just the second point really, but the Stalinists have turned it into a flame fest and of course I get the blame. It's like a gang of hyenas.

Like a mini 1930s purge.

[Yazman]

Sorry guys, but I did warn y'all not to make fucking off topic posts or violations.

Daft punk: I recognise you did make a worthy argument, but you also included flames and borderline trolling, next time please re-read your post and make sure to omit that stuff.

Manic expression, Syd Barrett:

Daft punk getting an infraction is not a license to troll daft punk or post off topic crap.

This isn't a thread for how much you don't like the forum or think somebody is a coward. If you don't have an actual constructive post with on-topic content to post, then just don't make a post.

I warned y'all not to post more crap in here. DON'T do it again.

[daft punk]

Will try not to. And in fairness to Yazman, he has been very reasonable with me in pms. I appreciate he has a necessary job to do and is trying to do it impartially.