League for the Revolutionary Party

[Kassad]

I'll get to the point: what do people on here think of the League for the Revolutionary Party (http://lrp-cofi.org/). Have you had any experiences with them? Where are they active?

[Grenzer]

Never heard of them.

Soviet Union as a "deformed capitalist state", that's interesting.

[theblackmask]

I've only heard of them on the internet...I'm assuming they are only active on the internet, as I live in Chicago, which tends to have branches of even the smallest nutjob leftist groups :D

[Prometeo liberado]

Ya, more another variation of "true" trotsky-Marxism. I too have only heard of them on the world wide web. They seem more like an organizing body for the construction of a Party than an actual functioning Party.

[Pretty Flaco]

i like the direction that chairman clark kent and general secretary bruce wayne take the party.

[daft punk]

I'll get to the point: what do people on here think of the League for the Revolutionary Party (http://lrp-cofi.org/). Have you had any experiences with them? Where are they active?

They look terrible. You should be able to tell that from a quick look at their website.


http://lrp-cofi.org/statements/isl_responds_to_cwi_082411.html
The ISL Responds to CWI Charges that It Lied about Their Israeli Group

"Comrades of the CWI, perhaps you will believe us now when we tell you that your comrades in MS play hide-and-seek with the Palestinian struggle? Perhaps you will even conclude that their game is more hide than seek! "

"We applaud their courage in doing this and condemn the attacks, but must note that this episode exposes their perspective that the working class in Israel can be won over to the socialist revolution as a whole – and even worse, that this can be done on an economist basis – is utterly detached from reality and leaves them unguarded against such dangers. "

"We fight for a Palestinian workers’ state from the river to the sea in which Jews will have the right to live free of any form of ethnic or religious oppression. Unlike Maavak Sozialisti and the CWI’s “two states” perspective, our unhesitating advocacy of a state in which the oppressed masses will realize their unimpeded democratic and national aspirations is the genuine Trotskyist tradition."

"To comrades of the CWI, we say: it is not too late to join this genuine revolutionary tradition of Trotskyism, whose program is the unqualified liberation of the oppressed, and whose watchwords are: say what is, tell the truth to the working class!"

Clueless

[black magick hustla]

redtrackworker is member of the lrp you should pm him cuz' otherwise you are just gonna get a bunch of clowns who talk smack cuz' the lrp shows no love for 'em.

[La Comédie Noire]

They have some inroads with a few unions, including the track workers union that struck back in 06 in new york? I'm online friends with a member and he's pretty smart.

Otherwise just seems like any other dialects discussion group.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

They are active in New York and Chicago. They are in the "left Shachmanite" tradition, they have their own unique theory of state capitalism, much more sophisticated than Tony Cliff's version.

They have a book, available on line, "The Death of Stalinism and the Rebirth of Marxism" by Walter Daum which, despite the clumsy title is actually quite interesting. I learned a lot from reading it even though I disagree with its basic idea.It goes into a sophisticated analysis of the nuts and bolts of the Soviet economy.They have several versions of this, basically they rewrite it with slightly different names. Worth reading though.

They are considered somewhat ultra-left and formulaic, although not nearly as crazy as the Sparts.They intervened in the NY transit strike in '05. As I understand their intervention in OWS was not super successful, although that's just the impression I got.


They have a one state solution for Palestine while the CWI proposes a two state solution.A one state solution would, in effect, drive the Jewish working class into the sea and pander to reactionary forces of nationalism and religion. Not a simple situation of course.

[Lucretia]

I'll get to the point: what do people on here think of the League for the Revolutionary Party (http://lrp-cofi.org/). Have you had any experiences with them? Where are they active?

I am pretty sympathetic with the group, but am not a member. There are some things I disagree with regarding the specifics of positions they have taken, and I think they try too hard to distinguish their theory of state capitalism from Tony Cliff's, though I think they are both fundamentally compatible.

But apart from that I am impressed with their members' openness to discussion and willingness to take serious opposing points of view. They are very serious about revolutionary politics.

[honest john's firing squad]

some stuff
I don't really get why you think these LRP dudes are are particularly daft; other communist parties have said dumber things and taken waaayyyy dumber positions.

Their website is pretty fucking ugly though.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Not heard of them, seen their ideas espoused elsewhere tho...

The number of parties, trotkysist or otherwise, makes my head hurt

[Grenzer]

Not heard of them, seen their ideas espoused elsewhere tho...

The number of parties, trotkysist or otherwise, makes my head hurt

The number of Trot sects is truly astounding. I don't think differing views on the economic nature of the Soviet Union is a sufficient reason for an organization to break up.. it's pretty irrelevant to real class struggle and workers' concerns.

[honest john's firing squad]

The number of Trot sects is truly astounding. I don't think differing views on the economic nature of the Soviet Union is a sufficient reason for an organization to break up.. it's pretty irrelevant to real class struggle and workers' concerns.
That's because left orgs and the innumerable Trot sects are irrelevant to real class struggle and workers' concerns.

[Grenzer]

That's because left orgs and the innumerable Trot sects are irrelevant to real class struggle and workers' concerns.

I can't say I'd disagree, so long as you are also including left communists into that.

Bakuninism and Economism are rampant throughout the left, which is why the left as it exists today is irrelevant.

It will take more than intervening in simple labour struggles to bring the working class into political power.

[honest john's firing squad]

I can't say I'd disagree, so long as you are also including left communists into that.
It'd be pretty hypocritical and ideologically inconsistent to suggest otherwise.

[el_chavista]

... although not nearly as crazy as the Sparts...


We Are Trotskyists And We Know How To Rap

We Are Sick Of All This Petit-Bourgeois Crap
Because We Stand For Independence Of The Working Class
We Don't Dissolve Ourselves In The Reactionary Mass

Welcome To The Cyber-Headquarters of
The Generic Trotskyist League (40% Off)

[Blanquist]

1. All Revolutionary movements were sectarian and started off as 'splinter's'

2. Being called a 'sect' by opportunists is a compliment.

4. 'State capitalism' is a cop-out and a sign of intellectual laziness or worse. And it was covered very well by Trotsky himself.

[honest john's firing squad]

We Are Trotskyists And We Know How To Rap

We Are Sick Of All This Petit-Bourgeois Crap
Because We Stand For Independence Of The Working Class
We Don't Dissolve Ourselves In The Reactionary Mass

Welcome To The Cyber-Headquarters of
The Generic Trotskyist League (40% Off)

Did you just try to rhyme 'class' with 'mass'?

[A Marxist Historian]

We Are Trotskyists And We Know How To Rap



We Are Sick Of All This Petit-Bourgeois Crap
Because We Stand For Independence Of The Working Class
We Don't Dissolve Ourselves In The Reactionary Mass


Welcome To The Cyber-Headquarters of

The Generic Trotskyist League (40% Off)


There really was such a "group," or rather single person who called himself a group and wrote the lines above, back in the '90s.

A true nutcase, an extremely disaffected former Spartacist best known for calling for the assassination of the leader of the Spartacists, whom apparently he did not care for.

-M.H.-

[Martin Blank]

We Are Trotskyists And We Know How To Rap

We Are Sick Of All This Petit-Bourgeois Crap
Because We Stand For Independence Of The Working Class
We Don't Dissolve Ourselves In The Reactionary Mass

Welcome To The Cyber-Headquarters of
The Generic Trotskyist League (40% Off)


Oh wow! Flashbacks to the late 1990s on Usenet's alt.politics.socialism.trotsky!

[Lenina Rosenweg]

There really was such a "group," or rather single person who called himself a group and wrote the lines above, back in the '90s.

A true nutcase, an extremely disaffected former Spartacist best known for calling for the assassination of the leader of the Spartacists, whom apparently he did not care for.

-M.H.-

A lot of people dislike Jim Robertson, although its certainly not acceptable to call for his assassination. I remember seeing this, I took it as good natured spoofing. He seems to have been involved in the IBT split when Jan Norden left the Sparts.Reading in between the lines it almost seems that the IBT , ("International Bolshevik Tendency") wouldn't take him either. Poor sod.

There are a lot of bizarre polemics coming out of the various Spartacoid splits.

http://www.bolshevik.org/ETB/Rtj.html

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/pamph/logan/preface.html



Having said this I do enjoy reading Worker's Vanguard. Their history articles are quite interesting. The Sparts' method is not productive, orienting strictly to the left, recruiting people "by ones and twos", maintaining their ultra left purity, etc.They resemble the Weisbordists in the 1930s.

But hey, one of my best friends and my first Marxist teacher is a Spart sympathizer, so.....

[RedTrackWorker]

I'm glad I missed this thread in a way, so that various people got to put forward their views before an LRP rep weighed in. The lack of any real criticism is sad, as I would like to learn from real criticism.

I do agree with two points that were made:
1) Our website is ugly.
2) I agree that "I don't think differing views on the economic nature of the Soviet Union is a sufficient reason for an organization to break up" (but if you read our website, I think it is clear that that is not why we exist as a separate group).

To B who wrote: " 4. 'State capitalism' is a cop-out and a sign of intellectual laziness or worse. And it was covered very well by Trotsky himself. " I doubt you can call our theory intellectually lazy. It was covered well by Trotsky up till his death but reality has a funny way of changing and needing to be updated. Refusing to update one's theory is the sign of intellectual laziness and the various non-theories of "deformed" workers' states (which can't decide on when the states were created nor could offer any understanding of their internal dynamics nor predict their demise) are cliche examples of intellectual laziness in general.

We are not left Schachmanites in any way. We share nothing with them other than having a version of state capitalist theory that we see as opposed to S's.


They have a one state solution for Palestine while the CWI proposes a two state solution.A one state solution would, in effect, drive the Jewish working class into the sea and pander to reactionary forces of nationalism and religion. Not a simple situation of course.

This is a substantive criticism, but it's not one I can learn anything from as I've studied Zionism in depth and broken from it. Our position does not require driving Jews into the sea--that's just slander. As for pandering to reactionary forces, I'll leave that to groups like the CWI that defend the right of settlers to take other people's land, which is what the "two state solution" does.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

We are not left Schachmanites in any way. We share nothing with them other than having a version of state capitalist theory that we see as opposed to S's.



This is a substantive criticism, but it's not one I can learn anything from as I've studied Zionism in depth and broken from it. Our position does not require driving Jews into the sea--that's just slander. As for pandering to reactionary forces, I'll leave that to groups like the CWI that defend the right of settlers to take other people's land, which is what the "two state solution" does.
I tend to agree that the LRP is a serious group -- but I agree with the Sparts and their offshoots about the class nature of the USSR and the deformed worker's states.

I would be very interested to know how the LRP believe they are different from Shachtman.

As for Israel, I don't think the comrade was saying you advocate driving Jews into the sea, just pointing out the possible logic of your position. Israel is complicated, obviously, but you want to be very careful not to simply reverse the terms of oppression. It is always very dicey when you have "interpenetrated peoples" -- The call for united action by Hebrew and Palestinian workers to overthrow capitalism seems more to the point. And fierce opposition to any kind of religious crap, Jewish or Muslim. I'm not sure that a two-state solution would solve a whole lot.

[TrotskistMarx]

I have just heard from The League of The Revolutionary Party (LRP) from the internet, and I just read their articles. But I don't know much about them. They are not so popular like the Socialist Party, or other leftist parties of USA


I'll get to the point: what do people on here think of the League for the Revolutionary Party (http://lrp-cofi.org/). Have you had any experiences with them? Where are they active?

[RedTrackWorker]

I would be very interested to know how the LRP believe they are different from Shachtman.

The SL tradition has more in common with Shachtman and Robertson spent about the same amount of time as Sy in Shachtmanite groups. While the founders of the League came out of a Shachtamanite group (as did Robertson), it doesn't claim that heritage or any continuity with them. In terms of political positions--rejecting proletarian military policy, military defense of the KMT during world war 2 and a few others I can't recall off the top of my head--the SL all upholds S's positions while the League upholds the "orthodox" positions. "Shachtmanite" was just a handy label/libel for Robertson (and the brief SWP experience allowed for a kind of apostolic succession stance) since the LRP was a competitor with them for people looking for serious revolutionaries (hard to believe now that anyone would look at the SL as serious but it was try some time ago). But the label didn't actually mean anything because there is not a single thing about the League's politics that is Shachtmanite except for the label "state capitalism" which we use very differently than S did.

[A Marxist Historian]

The SL tradition has more in common with Shachtman and Robertson spent about the same amount of time as Sy in Shachtmanite groups. While the founders of the League came out of a Shachtamanite group (as did Robertson), it doesn't claim that heritage or any continuity with them. In terms of political positions--rejecting proletarian military policy, military defense of the KMT during world war 2 and a few others I can't recall off the top of my head--the SL all upholds S's positions while the League upholds the "orthodox" positions. "Shachtmanite" was just a handy label/libel for Robertson (and the brief SWP experience allowed for a kind of apostolic succession stance) since the LRP was a competitor with them for people looking for serious revolutionaries (hard to believe now that anyone would look at the SL as serious but it was try some time ago). But the label didn't actually mean anything because there is not a single thing about the League's politics that is Shachtmanite except for the label "state capitalism" which we use very differently than S did.

Not all political positions are equal. Some are, as it were, more equal than others.

The class nature of the Soviet state is the dividing line between Trotskyism, Stalinism and Social Democracy. The Russian Revolution of 1917 is the only time in human history that the working class successfully seized power and set about constructing socialism. It's the question of questions.

Which is why Revleft spends most of its time debating Trotsky, Stalin and the nature of the USSR and other Stalinist states, even though most Revleft participants don't want to. It's unavoidable, as "what happened in Russia" is the first thing any would-be socialist wants an answer to first.

The LRP, like Shachtman, has a "Third Campist" position in the world historic struggle that dominated the twentieth century from 1917 to 1991, between the Soviet Union and the capitalist world. And which continues to be quite relevant with respect to Cuba etc.

That the theoretical explanation, Sy Landy and Walter Daum's particular eccentric brand of "state capitalism," differs from Shachtman's "bureaucratic collectivism" is a merely theoretical question, as the programmatic implications are not terribly different.

Yes, the LRP today doesn't have as anti-communist and social democratic a position on Stalinist states as Shachtman had in his last years--instead, it's about the same as Shachtman had in the 1940s, when he was younger and had not gone so far to the right. The abstract theoretical differences are really besides the point.

Yes, the Spartacists agree with Shachtman on the "Proletarian Military Policy" and the exact line Chinese Trotskyists should have carried out during WWII with respect to Chiang Kai-Shek. I think Trotsky would have changed his mind about the PMP and miltarily supporting US puppet Chiang vs. the Japanese, but frankly, who knows and so what?

Most people nowadays have never even heard of the PMP, and Chiang has shall we say a poor reputation. The only truly anti-imperialist force in China during WWII was Mao and his guerillas--whom Shachtman, in glaring contradiction to his theoretical analyses at the time, was more or less supporting, militarily at any rate, during WWII.

I don't know what the theoretical position of the LRP is on that, but I suspect it's worse than Shachtman's, as unfortunately was that of the "orthodox" American SWP as well.

That the Spartacists support Trotsky as to the single thing Trotsky cared most about and even more importantly knew most about in the entire world, namely defending the Russian Revolution to the death, Stalin or no Stalin, but don't feel that otherwise every word out of Trotsky's mouth was gospel from Mt. Sinai, is IMHO very much to their credit, on both counts.

Trotsky also thought that blacks in America were a nation, at this point in history pretty obviously he was wrong. Why? Because he wasn't familiar enough with America, and more to the point with the history of the black struggle for equality in America. He even thought that blacks had their own language.

Such is life.

-M.H.-

[Lucretia]

Not all political positions are equal. Some are, as it were, more equal than others.

The class nature of the Soviet state is the dividing line between Trotskyism, Stalinism and Social Democracy. The Russian Revolution of 1917 is the only time in human history that the working class successfully seized power and set about constructing socialism. It's the question of questions.

Which is why Revleft spends most of its time debating Trotsky, Stalin and the nature of the USSR and other Stalinist states, even though most Revleft participants don't want to. It's unavoidable, as "what happened in Russia" is the first thing any would-be socialist wants an answer to first.

The LRP, like Shachtman, has a "Third Campist" position in the world historic struggle that dominated the twentieth century from 1917 to 1991, between the Soviet Union and the capitalist world. And which continues to be quite relevant with respect to Cuba etc.

That the theoretical explanation, Sy Landy and Walter Daum's particular eccentric brand of "state capitalism," differs from Shachtman's "bureaucratic collectivism" is a merely theoretical question, as the programmatic implications are not terribly different.

Yes, the LRP today doesn't have as anti-communist and social democratic a position on Stalinist states as Shachtman had in his last years--instead, it's about the same as Shachtman had in the 1940s, when he was younger and had not gone so far to the right. The abstract theoretical differences are really besides the point.

Yes, the Spartacists agree with Shachtman on the "Proletarian Military Policy" and the exact line Chinese Trotskyists should have carried out during WWII with respect to Chiang Kai-Shek. I think Trotsky would have changed his mind about the PMP and miltarily supporting US puppet Chiang vs. the Japanese, but frankly, who knows and so what?

Most people nowadays have never even heard of the PMP, and Chiang has shall we say a poor reputation. The only truly anti-imperialist force in China during WWII was Mao and his guerillas--whom Shachtman, in glaring contradiction to his theoretical analyses at the time, was more or less supporting, militarily at any rate, during WWII.

I don't know what the theoretical position of the LRP is on that, but I suspect it's worse than Shachtman's, as unfortunately was that of the "orthodox" American SWP as well.

That the Spartacists support Trotsky as to the single thing Trotsky cared most about and even more importantly knew most about in the entire world, namely defending the Russian Revolution to the death, Stalin or no Stalin, but don't feel that otherwise every word out of Trotsky's mouth was gospel from Mt. Sinai, is IMHO very much to their credit, on both counts.

Trotsky also thought that blacks in America were a nation, at this point in history pretty obviously he was wrong. Why? Because he wasn't familiar enough with America, and more to the point with the history of the black struggle for equality in America. He even thought that blacks had their own language.

Such is life.

-M.H.-

When you say that Trotsky "knew the most about the Russian Revolution," I think it is important to emphasize that state capitalists by and large tend to agree with the Ortho-Trots on points of empirical fact. It's the theoretical interpretation of those facts that places them on separates sides of the question. It's not like Trotsky's knowledge of the workings of the Soviet bureaucracy could give him any insight into whether that oppressive bureaucracy was a "class" or a "caste." We all know it was oppressive, that it dominated the state, and as a result dictated how production was to occur through its attempted "planning."

And as you say, Trotsky was not right about everything. Just as Marx and Lenin were wrong about some things. (We've already established in a previous thread, for example, that you disagree with Lenin on the question of whether there will be a 'bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie' in a socialist society. So you obviously think he was wrong about that, which is fine.)

[A Marxist Historian]

When you say that Trotsky "knew the most about the Russian Revolution," I think it is important to emphasize that state capitalists by and large tend to agree with the Ortho-Trots on points of empirical fact. It's the theoretical interpretation of those facts that places them on separates sides of the question. It's not like Trotsky's knowledge of the workings of the Soviet bureaucracy could give him any insight into whether that oppressive bureaucracy was a "class" or a "caste." We all know it was oppressive, that it dominated the state, and as a result dictated how production was to occur through its attempted "planning."

And as you say, Trotsky was not right about everything. Just as Marx and Lenin were wrong about some things. (We've already established in a previous thread, for example, that you disagree with Lenin on the question of whether there will be a 'bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie' in a socialist society. So you obviously think he was wrong about that, which is fine.)

We established no such thing. I continue to think that Lenin was just being a bit sloppy in the way he formulated a few lines in the pamphlet, and he did *not* really mean that you'd have a bourgeois state, with or without an actual bourgeoisie, in a socialist society. Or rather, the quote marks were appropriate, as all he meant was that there would something you could call a "bourgeois state" if you liked, but really was no such thing.

But, as that argument was getting tired and repetitive, indeed perhaps largely descending to argument over the meaning of words and even syntax, I urge Revlefters to just go to the threads a couple months ago in the Theory section and see for themselves.

I think Trotsky's rather vast knowledge of the Soviet state, him being in fact one of its central builders, inclines me to believe he understood its class nature pretty damn well. Your placing quote marks around the words "class" and "caste" in this situation is not so appropriate, as we are talking about a material entity which Trotsky rubbed noses with on a daily basis for years, not some theoretical abstraction.

-M.H.-

[Lucretia]

We established no such thing. I continue to think that Lenin was just being a bit sloppy in the way he formulated a few lines in the pamphlet, and he did *not* really mean that you'd have a bourgeois state, with or without an actual bourgeoisie, in a socialist society. Or rather, the quote marks were appropriate, as all he meant was that there would something you could call a "bourgeois state" if you liked, but really was no such thing.

But, as that argument was getting tired and repetitive, indeed perhaps largely descending to argument over the meaning of words and even syntax, I urge Revlefters to just go to the threads a couple months ago in the Theory section and see for themselves.

Ok, have it your way. Lenin was sloppy when he mentioned a 'state' under communism/socialism in multiple places (not just the one place I quoted above) throughout the pamphlet, and meant something totally different than what he actually wrote. I'm not really interested in debating the point, and my intention wasn't to revive the issue for debate. As you noted, interested parties can simply consult the relevant thread, where we laid out our respective positions in posts that really do speak for themselves. I just brought it up as an example of how we should not feel obliged to support a position like it's some sort of sacred cow just because one of the big names from the revolutionary past held that position. (Remember: my main argument in that thread was NOT that Lenin was correct, but was merely attempting to establish was Lenin's view actually was.) What we're wedded to here as Marxists is method, and not every revolutionary always consistently upholds the historical materialist method of analysis. Not even Marx himself.


I think Trotsky's rather vast knowledge of the Soviet state, him being in fact one of its central builders, inclines me to believe he understood its class nature pretty damn well. Your placing quote marks around the words "class" and "caste" in this situation is not so appropriate, as we are talking about a material entity which Trotsky rubbed noses with on a daily basis for years, not some theoretical abstraction.Again, your argument seems to consists of "Well, he was actually involved in the state machine, so he had intimate knowledge of how it functioned! How could he possibly be wrong in his analysis of it?!" But as I said, we're not disputing the factual foundation upon which Trotsky based his analysis, a foundation of which he no doubt possessed an amazing and intimate command, at least during the period he was a member of said machine. State capitalists like me question the theoretical assumptions that Trotsky introduced in his analysis and interpretation of those facts.

It's kind of a cheap debating trick to say, "Well, I'm the CEO of WalMart, so I know better than Karl Marx ever did how capitalism works, because *I* am in the belly of the beast! Marx never ran a capitalist business!" when nobody is questioning the CEO's understanding of certain facts about WalMart's profit margins, its marketing strategies (or any other bit of information the CEO would no doubt be in a better position to know), and instead are questioning the larger social and political implications of its business model.

[RedTrackWorker]

And the *change* the League's theory points to coincided with Trotsky's information about internal affairs being cut off--as of course a side effect of the purges was to get rid of anyone who would slip out information to the Fourth. So to say "Trotsky knew the most" when the whole issue is did a decisive change happen in the late 30's, when Trotsky was well aware that his information was getting weaker and weaker is really just beside the point.

[A Marxist Historian]

And the *change* the League's theory points to coincided with Trotsky's information about internal affairs being cut off--as of course a side effect of the purges was to get rid of anyone who would slip out information to the Fourth. So to say "Trotsky knew the most" when the whole issue is did a decisive change happen in the late 30's, when Trotsky was well aware that his information was getting weaker and weaker is really just beside the point.

A valid argument if you accept the LRP argument that the USSR was a deformed workers state up until the Great Terror of the late 1930s.

But that is a truly peculiar dating. What social transformations accompanied the Great Purges? None whatsoever. What political changes accompanied the Great Purges? None whatsoever (well, almost none, as Bukharin had had a definite influence on Soviet foreign policy, but that's a detail). What changes in the relationship between the Soviet state and the working class accompanied the Great Purges? None whatsoever.

At least the Cliffites, in dating the transformation to forced collectivization and the Stalinist industrialization drive of the late '20s and early '30s, are talking about a moment when big social transformations were taking place. They are dead wrong, but that's another story.

The victims of the Great Purges were party and state officials who either were true blue loyal Stalinists, or had capitulated to Stalin. Actual revolutionaries were long gone from the Soviet state apparatus at that point.

The industrial working class was probably the class of people in Soviet society least directly affected by the Great Terror. It all took place over their heads, an ugly and murderous intra-bureaucratic withch hunt.

Plus the murderous campaigns against marginal elements of Soviet society, petty criminals, exiled former kulaks who escaped their exile camps without permission, former priests, nobles and capitalists, ethnic minorities whose fatherlands were aligned with Hitler and Japan, etc. Just about everybody except the working class.

The only real role the working class played in it was that sometimes they were mobilized by Stalin against capitulated former Trotskyists like Pyatakov, accused of being "wreckers," sabotaging the factories, blowing miners up in deliberate mine sabotage, etc. etc. Scapegoating of ex-oppositionists for the numerous problems of bureaucratized Soviet industry, whose managers, often former Trotskyists or other oppositionists, paid far too little attention to safety and working class living conditions with their eyes fixed on increasing production by any means necessary.

That the Great Terror of 1937-38 coincided with a period of rising prosperity, increasing wages, ending of hunger in the countryside etc. etc. was not coincidental. That allowed Stalin to carry out his purges without fear that purge victims would be able to mobilize mass support.

-M.H.-