Trotskyism, wha'd up?

[Einkarl]

I've been reading Marx (and a bit of Lenin) for a few months and I have become very interested in Marxism and Marxian thought. I consider my self a revolutionary socialist, but I refrain from using the term "Marxist" simply because I think there is a lot more for me to read (admittedly, I haven't read Capital). I'm also looking into reading about Trotskyism, but I'd like a little info from you guys.

Could you guys summarize Trotskyism compared to Marxist-Leninism, or Stalinism.

I'd also like to hear in what ways you disagree or disagree.
It'd be awesome to hear from some Trotskyists and vehement Anti-Trotskyists.

Sorry for the odd title.

[Sea]

Trotskists and Stalinists both claim their respective ideologues to be the rightful successors to the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Whoever lineup. Frankly I think this is rather flawed and reeks of potential occultism.

It's my understanding that Stalin didn't contribute all that much (though I admit this is relative) to the theoretical side of things, and as far as I know Stalinists appreciate him for putting stuff into practice. Stalinists look up to uncle Joe as the guy that said "We know what we gotta do, and this is how we're gonna do it.". That is to say, the Soviet plan as it existed when Lenin passed away hadn't nearly been fully implemented.

But if you look at history you'll find that Stalin took some rather large sidetracks away from Bolshevism, to put it nicely. Lenin fully understood international revolution to be a prerequisite to communism. As a contrast to Stalin's purges, Lenin also understood that especially post-revolution it makes no sense whatsoever to punish (enemies of the) people for their ideas. At least I assume he did, seeing as he understood that ideas are subordinate to the conditions that drive people to them. Nevertheless, it's a rather sobering contrast when you think of how Lenin's purges affected your party membership whereas Stalin's purges affected your blood and breath.

This is sort of where Trotsky comes in. Well, not really, but for the purposes of this explanation it will do. In addition to having his own theories, Trotsky was also very opposed to Stalin's revisionism. I'm not very familiar with Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution nor much anything else of his so I'll leave this up to any trots that might be floating around this thread.

I'll wrap this up by saying that it's equally foolish to blame Stalin for everything bad that happened when he presided as it is to claim Trotsky would have been able to single-handedly carry out the goals of the fledgling Soviet state such that there would be no more states to compare it to -- the goal all along.

Mainly that goes as a disclaimer for what I assume will be a cacophony of Stalinists and Trots who want not the truth but to only defend their dear leader. Hopefully Ismael will pop up somewhere here, of all the defenses of Stalin that I've heard, his are generally the most coherent. Other than that you can expect a lot of bickering and other general marxist-revleftist behavior. :)

[Sentinel]

I posted this explanation (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2240167&postcount=7) of trotskyism for some rightwing guy in the OI learning forum a while ago. The entire thread is worth reading.

[GoddessCleoLover]

I posted this explanation (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2240167&postcount=7) of trotskyism for some rightwing guy in the OI learning forum a while ago. The entire thread is worth reading.

Excellent summation. I would note that Trotsky was outmaneuvered by a coalition that included Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Bukharin.

I would also encourage the OP to consider the perspective of the two Workers' Opposition groups, one led by Alexander Schliapnikov and Alexandra Kollontai and the other by Gavril Miazonov.

[ind_com]

I've been reading Marx (and a bit of Lenin) for a few months and I have become very interested in Marxism and Marxian thought. I consider my self a revolutionary socialist, but I refrain from using the term "Marxist" simply because I think there is a lot more for me to read (admittedly, I haven't read Capital). I'm also looking into reading about Trotskyism, but I'd like a little info from you guys.

Could you guys summarize Trotskyism compared to Marxist-Leninism, or Stalinism.

I'd also like to hear in what ways you disagree or disagree.
It'd be awesome to hear from some Trotskyists and vehement Anti-Trotskyists.

Sorry for the odd title.

I'm sure other ML posters will tell you in details how Trotsky was a dictatorial bureaucrat who executed people at will, and advocated the militarization of labour, or how he turned into a terrorist once he was exiled from the USSR. However, the problem with Trotskyism as a theory is much deeper, and independent of Trotsky's own opportunist and counter-revolutionary actions, it can be shown why Trotskyism will never be able to become the leading ideology of the proletariat anywhere. Trotskyism holds that the revolution might initiate in the more underdeveloped countries, but once it takes place, it has no plans for the revolution if it is not supported immediately by revolutions in the most advanced capitalist country. So, Trotskyism predicts doom for every isolated revolution. Also, Trotskyism has no clear revolutionary strategy. It repeats the same strategy which were applicable in the special conditions of Russia a century ago. Much like traditional Marxism-Leninism, it advocates a protracted legal struggle after which it predicts a sudden revolutionary upsurge in the working class and the state's armed forces. This is an opportunist line and allows Trotskyism to postpone the revolution infinitely into the future, because their protracted legal struggle can have no revolutionary effect on anything, due to the nature of the armed forces, intra-imperialist contradictions, and the impossibility of a bourgeois revolution creating a dual-power situation today. If you have enough patience, read this article:

http://www.mediafire.com/view/?g6nsqj65xpzdx5y

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

You'll probably hear alot of praise of Trotsky from his followers once they find this thread. But I think it's important to remember that it isn't a Stalin V Trosky dichotomy, many people can find Trotskyism in of it's self problematic without taking a sectarian approach to this original schism. "Stalinists" (Protip, there is no such thing as stalinism, the term is nothing but a vulgar slur that should be avoided) aren't the only ones who disagree with Trotsky's ideas. Left-Communists and Maoists also oppose Trotsky.

I think it's more important to engage both theoretical currents on their own terms rather than seeing them through the lense of the Moscow trials. I recommend that you download and read the paper at the bottom of this blog post. http://moufawad-paul.blogspot.com/2012/10/maoism-or-trotskyism-free-download.html

It's a pretty good critique of Trotskyism that engages it on it's own theoretical terms.

Edit: I realize that it is somewhat sectarian to give this user a Maoist critique of Trotskyism when he/she is so new, so could anyone provide a Left-Comm critique as well? Responces to those critiques defending Trotskyism are also helpful

[Jack]

Lenin fully understood international revolution to be a prerequisite to communism.

“I know that there are, of course, sages who think they are very clever and even call themselves Socialists, who assert that power should not have been seized until the revolution had broken out in all countries. They do not suspect that by speaking in this way they are deserting the revolution and going over to the side of the bourgeoisie. To wait until the toiling classes bring about a revolution on an international scale means that everybody should stand stock-still in expectation. That is nonsense.”
– Lenin, Speech delivered at a joint meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Moscow Soviet, 14th May 1918, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 9.

[GoddessCleoLover]

The Gramscian critique of Trotskyism is narrowly based but beautifully uncomplicated, to wit that historical events did not bear out the theory of permanent revolution.

Considering the issue more broadly, it is highly unlikely that Gramsci would have remained as the Italian CP GenSec had he been spared incarceration. Gramsci clearly disapproved of the deranged set of policies known as the "third period".

Getting back to the issue of Trotskyism, some of us who are not Trotskyists respect the fact that in 1923 Trotsky took a principled stand against bureaucratization and saw the folly in the Comintern's "third period" sectarianism.

[GoddessCleoLover]

“I know that there are, of course, sages who think they are very clever and even call themselves Socialists, who assert that power should not have been seized until the revolution had broken out in all countries. They do not suspect that by speaking in this way they are deserting the revolution and going over to the side of the bourgeoisie. To wait until the toiling classes bring about a revolution on an international scale means that everybody should stand stock-still in expectation. That is nonsense.”
– Lenin, Speech delivered at a joint meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Moscow Soviet, 14th May 1918, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 9.

Lenin is countering the notion that Russia ought to postpone her Revolution until revolutions break out in more industrialized countries. Although I do not uphold the Theory of Permanent Revolution, I don't see that quote from Lenin as addressing the PR issue at all.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Lenin is countering the notion that Russia ought to postpone her Revolution until revolutions break out in more industrialized countries. Although I do not uphold the Theory of Permanent Revolution, I don't see that quote from Lenin as addressing the PR issue at all.

But it does address the socialism in one country debate, which is relevant.

Though Lenin did flip flop on the issue alot so either way no quototation on the subject can be taken as holy writ.

[GoddessCleoLover]

But it does address the socialism in one country debate, which is relevant.

Though Lenin did flip flop on the issue alot so either way no quototation on the subject can be taken as holy writ.

As a Marxist I don't believe in Holy Writ. Nonetheless, I don't see Lenin supporting SioC with that quote. To me that quote merely says that the world revolution can START in Russia before it spreads elsewhere.

[Sea]

“I know that there are, of course, sages who think they are very clever and even call themselves Socialists, who assert that power should not have been seized until the revolution had broken out in all countries. They do not suspect that by speaking in this way they are deserting the revolution and going over to the side of the bourgeoisie. To wait until the toiling classes bring about a revolution on an international scale means that everybody should stand stock-still in expectation. That is nonsense.”
– Lenin, Speech delivered at a joint meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Moscow Soviet, 14th May 1918, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 9.Notice he speaks of making revolution. Internationalism is not tantamount to sitting around in your basement as you wait for communism to magically happen -- that is nonsense.

edit: Didn't see Gramsci Guy's post, but yeah pretty much what he said.

[Ilyich]

Anyway, to get back on track, there are some lively discussions going on in the Anti-Trotskyism group. I can't speak for l'Enferme or anyone else but, as you are interested in Trotskyism, I'd love to see you there. :)

[ind_com]

But it does address the socialism in one country debate, which is relevant.

Though Lenin did flip flop on the issue alot so either way no quototation on the subject can be taken as holy writ.

Instead of quoting leaders as if they were the unchangeable authority over all revolutions at all times, we should pose this question to Trotskyism, as I have posed it earlier. What does the victorious proletariat of a single country do if revolutions in all the other countries fail? If Trotskyism has nothing to offer in that case, then it also has no logic to criticize anyone who actually attempts to save the isolated revolution.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Instead of quoting leaders as if they were the unchangeable authority over all revolutions at all times, we should pose this question to Trotskyism, as I have posed it earlier. What does the victorious proletariat of a single country do if revolutions in all the other countries fail? If Trotskyism has nothing to offer in that case, then it also has no logic to criticize anyone who actually attempts to save the isolated revolution.

Yea, basically this.

We can disagree on how socialism in one country should be implemented, but if global revolution fails, well what then?

[Ilyich]

Yea, basically this.

We can disagree on how socialism in one country should be implemented, but if global revolution fails, well what then?

Then, the revolutionary leadership at least needs to understand the danger of bureaucratic degeneration in the face of backwardness and isolation so that the decay of the workers' state can be retarded and the crystallization of the bureaucratic caste held back long enough.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Then, the revolutionary leadership at least needs to understand the danger of bureaucratic degeneration in the face of backwardness and isolation so that the decay of the workers' state can be retarded and the crystallization of the bureaucratic caste held back long enough.

Well put. The Soviet leadership post-1924 came up with SIOC as ideological window dressing. Its theoretical origins are really rancid. The original German theorist who opined on the issue von Vollmar was one of the worst of the worst in the German Social Democratic party. I have a bit of German socialist history and frankly believe that vov Vollmar ought to have been expelled from the party. He was a crypto--nationalist, on the right wing of just about avery major issue, disdained Rosa Luxemburg because she was Polish, Jewish, female, and physically challenged. A real piece of "work".

[Aurora]

Hope this is useful to you, it's just some stuff i scribbled down and hopefully should give some idea of what Trotsky was about.


Trotsky was a revolutionary who played a large part in the revolution of 1905 where he was chairman of the Petrograd soviet, from his experiences in this he put forward the theory that capitalism had developed differently in Russia than it had in western Europe and the revolution in Russia would take a different path.

First that capitalism had developed unevenly with the countries that had bourgeois revolutions first like Britain and France developing rapidly and establishing their superiority over the world and from this held back the development of other countries and changing their course of development.
Second that capitalism had developed in a combined manner where in countries like underdeveloped Russia the most advanced means of production and with it an advanced proletariat existed side by side with feudal relics like a large mass of peasants.

In France the bourgeoisie had taken the lead in the revolution, lead the peasant masses with it and solved the question of democracy, land and nation, but in Russia the bourgeoisie was tied to foreign capital and was too weak and unwilling to carry out it's historic tasks.
So in Russia only the proletariat was a force capable of leading the peasants and carrying out the tasks of the democratic revolution, particularly the land question. But the proletariat which had seized power(dictatorship of the proletariat) to solve these tasks could not merely stop after completing them and hand power back to the capitalists, it would be compelled to move forward and solve it's own tasks, the socialist revolution, in this way of carrying over the democratic tasks into the socialist it made the revolution uninterrupted or permanent. Also the taking of power nationally by the proletariat does not end the revolution but only signals it's beginning, the victory of the revolution in Russia could only by assured by the victory of the revolution across the world.

He later expanded this theory to China and the rest of the world.

This was the position Trotsky held from 1905 onwards and when in 1917 Lenin put forward his April Theses to the Bolshevik Party, which contained the same practical tasks Trotsky advocated, he joined the Bolshevik Party.

The October Revolution was the fulfillment of Trotsky's theories, the workers party the Bolsheviks reached out a hand to the peasantry with it's land program and the peasantry followed the workers in revolution, the new state power, the soviets of workers and peasants deputies, immediately went forward with solving the land question and later moved on to the socialist revolution.

The Bolsheviks and Trotsky always linked the survival of the revolution with the spread of revolution across the world particularly in Germany, however things didn't turn out how they hoped, the revolution was left isolated after the European revolutions were defeated and the revolutionary wave sparked by the October Revolution receded, the proletariat and the economy were destroyed by the civil war and the curbing of democracy which was considered a war necessity in the state and a temporary measure against factionalism in the party became more acute and entrenched, there was a massive growth in bureaucracy which developed interests separate from those of the proletariat.

This forms the foundation of what Trotsky called the bureaucratic degeneration of the revolution.

Trotsky thought that there were three currents within the party at this time which were also present in the Communist Parties in various countries: the Left representing the proletariat lead by Trotsky which insisted that the revolution must be international or it would fail, the Centre representing the bureaucracy lead by Stalin which said that socialism could be achieved in one country and the Right representing the peasantry lead by Bukharin chief supporter of the NEP.

Bukharin allied with Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev and together they expelled Trotsky from the party and exiled him where he formed the International Left Opposition, after this Stalin expelled Kamenev and Zinoviev who capitulated and rejoined Stalin who in turn sidelined Bukharin who later capitulated to Stalin. In this way the bureaucracy came to completely dominate the party and state.

The history of the bureaucracy is mostly a history of vacillations, NEP to no NEP, pro-Kulak to anti-Kulak, no collectivization to forced collectivization, light industrialization to heavy industrialization etc
The Communist International turned from the organ of world revolution into a brake on revolution, through advocating holding back revolutions until the further development of capitalism and collaboration with the bourgeoisie, and a lot of the progressive measures enacted by the October Revolution were turned back largely to the norms of the bourgeois states, army ranks reintroduced, the bourgeois family reconstructed etc
In 1934 Stalin announced that the Soviet Union had completed the construction of socialism and from 1936-1939 the Bolsheviks who had been members before the revolution were systematically accused of terrorism, sabotage and fascism and executed en masse.

Trotsky argued that the Soviet Union had become a degenerated workers state, that is that the proletariat had lost control of the state and the bureaucracy now ruled likening this transformation to the period of thermidor and Bonapartism in the French revolution, he completely opposed the leadership of the USSR and advocated that the working class must reestablish the soviet democracy through a political revolution or the Soviet bureaucracy would lead the path back to capitalism, but he defended the gains that still existed in the USSR that of the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and the existence of a nationalized planned economy.

Trotsky's practice in exile before his assassination by the Stalinists was unwavering opposition to the soviet bureaucracy and bourgeois states and attempted to win the working class to revolution. The International Left Opposition which became the Fourth International began to fall apart after WW2 which didn't lead to a revolutionary situation like the first war had and it's leadership started orientating opportunistically towards Stalinism and the Social-Democracy.

Today Trotskyism like all of the left and workers movement is splintered and still trying to recover from the catastrophic destruction of the Soviet Union orchestrated by the bureaucracy and the resultant disillusionment of the masses worldwide combined with the triumph of capitalism which is only now coming to an end with revolutionary ideas taking they're first steps back into the public consciousness.

[ind_com]

Then, the revolutionary leadership at least needs to understand the danger of bureaucratic degeneration in the face of backwardness and isolation so that the decay of the workers' state can be retarded and the crystallization of the bureaucratic caste held back long enough.

Very true, but that does not have anything to do with the alleged impossibility of socialism in one country. To prevent bureaucratic degeneration, the masses themselves must conduct class struggle throughout the socialist country, even within the state machinery and the party.

[Red Enemy]

Although Trotskyism lies with orthodox Leninism, the Leninism of pre 1919, it also apologizes for the Leninism post 1919, for which I can't forgive it. It defends it with little to no criticism. Also, I'm not a fan of Trotsky's ideas on the nature of the SU.

I do sympathize with the Trotskyists, and Trotsky's struggle against Stalinism, but the man was trying to salvage dinner plates from a sunken ship. The Trotskyist cause has created more sectarian inter-tendency bickering than anyone could have predicted. Split's over Trotsky's theory of the nature of the USSR and Shachtmans, over Shachtmans and Johnson Forest, etc etc. Petty splits, and name calling. "You're an opportunist party!" "no, you are!". That's what I see has come of the Trotskyist movement...and selling newspapers.

As to "ind com", Russia was never "socialist". It was, at a point a proletariat dictatorship, but nothing more. I determine this to be when the soviets became subordinate to the party, and the working class was decimated in population, i.e. war communism.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

What Aurora said.

Also, Trotskyism in my mind and in those of other Trotskyists, is the continuation of Bolshevism and Leninism. The above quote is not an endorsement by Lenin of SIOC, it basically says that you don't sit on your ass waiting for revolution to happen everywhere at once -- not exactly a controversial position, btw. The Stalinists/MLers/Maoists use two quotes by Lenin, both out of context to back up their assertion that SIOC was not a huge break with Leninism/Bolshevism. This stands against almost endless quotes and writing by Lenin, and his actions in fighting to build the Communist International. SIOC was an abandonment from revolutionary internationalism of the Bolsheviks, one of their greatest strengths.

The core nature of Stalinism is NATIONALISM -- the poison that led to almost all parties of the Second International voting war credits to their own bourgeoisies at the outbreak of WWI. The Stalinists always value their privileged status over the workers of their own countries, but even more so, over the victory of the world revolution.

[ind_com]

As to "ind com", Russia was never "socialist". It was, at a point a proletariat dictatorship, but nothing more. I determine this to be when the soviets became subordinate to the party, and the working class was decimated in population, i.e. war communism.

Lenin equated socialism and a particular type of state-capitalism more than once. I do not understand the second part of your claim. What was the system before and after the soviets became subordinate to the party, and the working class was decimated in population?

[ind_com]

What Aurora said.

Also, Trotskyism in my mind and in those of other Trotskyists, is the continuation of Bolshevism and Leninism. The above quote is not an endorsement by Lenin of SIOC, it basically says that you don't sit on your ass waiting for revolution to happen everywhere at once -- not exactly a controversial position, btw. The Stalinists/MLers/Maoists use two quotes by Lenin, both out of context to back up their assertion that SIOC was not a huge break with Leninism/Bolshevism. This stands against almost endless quotes and writing by Lenin, and his actions in fighting to build the Communist International. SIOC was an abandonment from revolutionary internationalism of the Bolsheviks, one of their greatest strengths.

Marxist-Leninists or Maoists do not refer to only two quotes of Lenin to support SIOC. That Lenin supported SIOC when the world revolution failed, is evident from many of his writings, even the last one.


The core nature of Stalinism is NATIONALISM -- the poison that led to almost all parties of the Second International voting war credits to their own bourgeoisies at the outbreak of WWI. The Stalinists always value their privileged status over the workers of their own countries, but even more so, over the victory of the world revolution.

Stalinism exists only in the minds of non-bolsheviks. The core nature of Marxism-Leninism, and then Maoism, has been to actually engage in revolutionary warfare rather than degenerating to bourgeois discussion circles.

As for the allegation against 'Stalinist' privilege, I would like to point out that it is a well-known fact that ML and Maoist revolutionaries get nothing more than the poorest workers' and peasants' quality of life, as long they conduct class-war and don't surrender. On the other hand, such levels of poverty are unimaginable to many communists in other tendencies, most of whom tend to be from well-off backgrounds.

Proletarian internationalism implies that the revolution in a single or a group of countries is subordinated to the world revolution. Indeed, when it was assumed that a powerful country like Germany would face a revolution, Lenin himself was ready to subordinate the revolution in Russia for a proletarian victory in Germany, as it was thought that a revolution in such an advanced country would quickly induce world revolution. However, such a situation never arose in history again. The only allegation on this line that can be brought against Stalin is support to the colonial troops joining the imperialist war. But this stand of Stalin was ideologically no different from the Bolshevik stand promoted by Lenin himself on Turkey. This is not due to any special mistake by Stalin, but some problems in Leninism itself, which Trotsky himself never recognized. These are as follows:

1) Support to the Russian insurrection line, which became invalid after the Russian Revolution. Hence, support to parliamentary communist parties and primarily legal struggle. This led to tailism of the other legal parties by the colonial communist parties and their subsequent degeneration.

2) Also, due to the insurrection line, failure to recognize that the masses could overthrow imperialism through people's war. Defeatist tactics highly favourable for people's war, but not so much for legal struggles in the colonies, when the communist party is weak.

3) Not recognizing continuation of class-struggle in socialism, the need of multiple revolutions to reach communism, and the possibility of capitalist restoration. Since the USSR was viewed as a fortress invincible to internal capitalist restoration, all resources were to be directed towards saving it from imperialism.

These points are absent in pre-Maoist communist ideologies, and account for the mistakes made by Stalin. Trotsky himself never went to examine the actual problems in Leninism. He came out with several inconsistent lines against the USSR. On the one hand, he advocated defeatism for the colonies, while defending the USSR, but on the other, he also claimed that the USSR would lose to Fascism and the bourgeois democracies would be unable to defeat fascism either. Trotsky wanted nothing other than a 'political revolution' in the USSR, which meant nothing but keeping the system intact and just replacing the top of the leadership by Trotsky and his henchmen. The theoretical position of Trotskyism is between orthodox Marxism and Leninism, so that it cannot analyze Leninism's advancements over the problems in Marxism, let alone its shortcomings of Leninism itself.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Marxist-Leninists or Maoists do not refer to only two quotes of Lenin to support SIOC. That Lenin supported SIOC when the world revolution failed, is evident from many of his writings, even the last one.



Stalinism exists only in the minds of non-bolsheviks. The core nature of Marxism-Leninism, and then Maoism, has been to actually engage in revolutionary warfare rather than degenerating to bourgeois discussion circles.

As for the allegation against 'Stalinist' privilege, I would like to point out that it is a well-known fact that ML and Maoist revolutionaries get nothing more than the poorest workers' and peasants' quality of life, as long they conduct class-war and don't surrender. On the other hand, such levels of poverty are unimaginable to many communists in other tendencies, most of whom tend to be from well-off backgrounds.

Proletarian internationalism implies that the revolution in a single or a group of countries is subordinated to the world revolution. Indeed, when it was assumed that a powerful country like Germany would face a revolution, Lenin himself was ready to subordinate the revolution in Russia for a proletarian victory in Germany, as it was thought that a revolution in such an advanced country would quickly induce world revolution. However, such a situation never arose in history again. The only allegation on this line that can be brought against Stalin is support to the colonial troops joining the imperialist war. But this stand of Stalin was ideologically no different from the Bolshevik stand promoted by Lenin himself on Turkey. This is not due to any special mistake by Stalin, but some problems in Leninism itself, which Trotsky himself never recognized. These are as follows:

1) Support to the Russian insurrection line, which became invalid after the Russian Revolution. Hence, support to parliamentary communist parties and primarily legal struggle. This led to tailism of the other legal parties by the colonial communist parties and their subsequent degeneration.

2) Also, due to the insurrection line, failure to recognize that the masses could overthrow imperialism through people's war. Defeatist tactics highly favourable for people's war, but not so much for legal struggles in the colonies, when the communist party is weak.

3) Not recognizing continuation of class-struggle in socialism, the need of multiple revolutions to reach communism, and the possibility of capitalist restoration. Since the USSR was viewed as a fortress invincible to internal capitalist restoration, all resources were to be directed towards saving it from imperialism.

These points are absent in pre-Maoist communist ideologies, and account for the mistakes made by Stalin. Trotsky himself never went to examine the actual problems in Leninism. He came out with several inconsistent lines against the USSR. On the one hand, he advocated defeatism for the colonies, while defending the USSR, but on the other, he also claimed that the USSR would lose to Fascism and the bourgeois democracies would be unable to defeat fascism either. Trotsky wanted nothing other than a 'political revolution' in the USSR, which meant nothing but keeping the system intact and just replacing the top of the leadership by Trotsky and his henchmen. The theoretical position of Trotskyism is between orthodox Marxism and Leninism, so that it cannot analyze Leninism's advancements over the problems in Marxism, let alone its shortcomings of Leninism itself.

It is a LIE of huge proportions to state that Lenin supported SIOC. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but to be simply mistaken about this is to intentionally blind yourself to mountains of documentation. I bet you can't find four quotes to support it. And any quote you can use will be taken out of context. How do I know this? Because I've read the documents and the transcripts from the first four congresses of the CI. It is plain as day that the Bolsheviks were about international revolution first.

As for bringing "people's war" to advanced industrialized nations, forget it. Can't be done. There is no social/material basis for it. Plus the bourgeoisie in these countries have the ready means to crush it.

On the USSR, Trotsky's position was complex, but consistent. He viewed the overthrow of capitalism as historically progressive and defended the USSR unconditionally against imperialism and counterrevolution. The political revolution he called for was for a return to party democracy and workers democracy (I know, it barely existed in the former USSR, a discussion for another time and place). And a return to the revolutionary internationalist positions of the Bolsheviks pre-1924.

Trotsky did not say that fascism would triumph in WWII. But he was very worried about it, and about the way the USSR was dealing with it. Was Trotsky wrong to see the peril in Stalin's policies leading up to the war? I don't think so.

Communists use legal parties when possible. Why? Because you can reach more people that way. When there is intense state repression, you go underground. Making a fetish of non-legal organizing is not Marxist, nor does it make sense. In some circumstances you might have a legal and underground organization. These are tactics, comrade, not principles.

Let's use China in the 1920s as a prime example. The line followed by the CCP was exactly what the Bolshviks did not done. They entered into the bourgeois KMT because they were seen as the primary agent of the bourgeois revolution. The communists played a huge role in building and strengthening the KMT. Elements in the CCP leadership argued for an independent CP. The CI under Zinoviev and Stalin would have none of this. The LO in the USSR objected to this -- eventually Chaing started slaughtering Communists, when he no longer felt he needed their support. Did the CI relent? No, they decided to ally with the "left-wing" of the KMT -- leading to more slaughtered communists and supporters. Had they actually carried out the "insurrectionist line" as you call it, their might have been a Chinese revolution in the twenties, similar to the Russian Revolution. Instead hundreds of thousands of the best militants were killed, and the Revolution was set back two decades, at an enormous cost -- had the Chinese Revolution happened then, the history of the rest of the twentieth century would have been different -- most likely far better. The point here is that the Bolshevik line in China would have been to insist on an independent Communist Party. Perhaps United Front action could have been taken against warlords with the KMT -- But the rule is, organizational and class independence first.

As for Maoist Leaders not having privileges, that's nonsense. Maybe not so much during the fighting, but after? Of course the main privilege is political power, at the expense of the rest of the populace. And of course Mao was a Chinese nationalist. That's how he behaved. I would guess that he even said this on several occasions. Look at the disgusting role the CCP played in Indonesia in the early 60s. Same shit. Support Sukharno at all costs, so that the army can slaughter you when the time comes. The PKI should have been contending for power, instead they had their heads so far up Sukharno's ass that when the axe fell, they were helpless -- paid for with about half a million lives.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

The core nature of Stalinism is NATIONALISM -- the poison that led to almost all parties of the Second International voting war credits to their own bourgeoisies at the outbreak of WWI. The Stalinists always value their privileged status over the workers of their own countries, but even more so, over the victory of the world revolution.
I would disagree with this. While nationalism was at points an integral part of Stalinism, I wouldn't say that it constituted the "core". After all, I don't think nationalism alone would explain the actual policies that the bureaucracy followed or why. The key question for me is, what is the philosophical method that clarifies the Stalinist approach in general? It's not enough, in my opinion, to point out Stalin's mistakes and blunders; an effective refutation of Stalinism must expose the kernel of its thought and behavior, and how it has affected the class struggle. I think Trotsky provided the best clue for this in The Revolution Betrayed:

The historians of the Soviet Union cannot fail to conclude that the policy of the ruling bureaucracy upon great questions has been a series of contradictory zigzags. The attempt to explain or justify them “by changing circumstances” obviously won’t hold water. To guide means at least in some degree to exercise foresight. The Stalin faction have not in the slightest degree foreseen the inevitable results of the development; they have been caught napping every time. They have reacted with mere administrative reflexes. The theory of each successive turn has been created after the fact, and with small regard for what they were teaching yesterday.
Though Trotsky does not call it by its name, I believe that he is essentially describing pragmatism. The entire "theory" of "Socialism in One Country", for me, is mired in this outlook. In the absence of a successful proletarian revolution in Western Europe, in an isolated worker's state with a population exhausted and demoralized from the horrors of the civil war, the bureaucracy had come to the conclusion that what they had achieved was enough, and that dependency on the capitalist market while retaining and defending their privileges was the only way to "preserve" the revolution's gains. The complete rejection of internationalism naturally flows from this. Such were the material conditions that gave rise to Stalinism, and it is primarily on this basis that we must reject it.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Both Lev Bronsteinovich and Megaman Trotsky make a number of excellent points. My conclusion is that Nationalism served as a cover or justification for the continued rule of the power elite. Trotsky wrote The Revolution Betrayed in the 1930s. We have the benefit of a broader historical perspective. OTOH nationalism is not and ideological end unto itself and IMO it has been used to justify the rule of the Party. The Chinese CP today uses Chinese nationalism to justify its rule.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

I would disagree with this. While nationalism was at points an integral part of Stalinism, I wouldn't say that it constituted the "core". After all, I don't think nationalism alone would explain the actual policies that the bureaucracy followed or why. The key question for me is, what is the philosophical method that clarifies the Stalinist approach in general? It's not enough, in my opinion, to point out Stalin's mistakes and blunders; an effective refutation of Stalinism must expose the kernel of its thought and behavior, and how it has affected the class struggle. I think Trotsky provided the best clue for this in The Revolution Betrayed:

Though Trotsky does not call it by its name, I believe that he is essentially describing pragmatism. The entire "theory" of "Socialism in One Country", for me, is mired in this outlook. In the absence of a successful proletarian revolution in Western Europe, in an isolated worker's state with a population exhausted and demoralized from the horrors of the civil war, the bureaucracy had come to the conclusion that what they had achieved was enough, and that dependency on the capitalist market while retaining and defending their privileges was the only way to "preserve" the revolution's gains. The complete rejection of internationalism naturally flows from this. Such were the material conditions that gave rise to Stalinism, and it is primarily on this basis that we must reject it.
Yes. Agreed that nattionalism, per se is not the core of Stalinism. It is one of the most common expressions of it. Centrally, it is about keeping the bureaucracy in power at the expense of revolutions -- this leads almost inexorably to nationalism, however, because the given bureaucracies are all national entities. And panicked reactivity, which you are calling pragmatism, is a hallmark of Stalinism.

[Geiseric]

“I know that there are, of course, sages who think they are very clever and even call themselves Socialists, who assert that power should not have been seized until the revolution had broken out in all countries. They do not suspect that by speaking in this way they are deserting the revolution and going over to the side of the bourgeoisie. To wait until the toiling classes bring about a revolution on an international scale means that everybody should stand stock-still in expectation. That is nonsense.”
– Lenin, Speech delivered at a joint meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Moscow Soviet, 14th May 1918, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 9.

That quote is against stagism, which is a theory Stalin ad co. Brought back to comintern, ruining the chinse revolution.

[ind_com]

It is a LIE of huge proportions to state that Lenin supported SIOC. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but to be simply mistaken about this is to intentionally blind yourself to mountains of documentation. I bet you can't find four quotes to support it. And any quote you can use will be taken out of context. How do I know this? Because I've read the documents and the transcripts from the first four congresses of the CI. It is plain as day that the Bolsheviks were about international revolution first.

Okay, here are five quotes of Lenin implying his support for socialism in one country. Please feel free to discuss the contexts, and let me know if you want more quotes. And the fact that the Bolsheviks or all Marxists subordinated everything else to the world revolution is immaterial here, because socialism in one country deals only with the case where the world revolution fails, and the proletariat is victorious only in a single or a few countries.


"A United States of the World (not of Europe alone) is the state form of the unification and freedom of nations which we associate with socialism—about the total disappearance of the state, including the democratic. As a separate slogan, however, the slogan of a United States of the World would hardly be a correct one, first, because it merges with socialism; second, because it may be wrongly interpreted to mean that the victory of socialism in a single country is impossible, and it may also create misconceptions as to the relations of such a country to the others.

Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone. After expropriating the capitalists and organising their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world—the capitalist world—attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, stirring uprisings in those countries against the capitalists, and in case of need using even armed force against the exploiting classes and their states. The political form of a society wherein the proletariat is victorious in overthrowing the bourgeoisie will be a democratic republic, which will more and more concentrate the forces of the proletariat of a given nation or nations, in the struggle against states that have not yet gone over to socialism. The abolition of classes is impossible without a dictatorship of the oppressed class, of the proletariat. A free union of nations in socialism is impossible without a more or less prolonged and stubborn struggle of the socialist republics against the backward states." -V.I.Lenin, On the Slogan for a United States of Europe, 1915


"Thirdly, the victory of socialism in one country does not at one stroke eliminate all wars in general. On the contrary, it presupposes wars. The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in different countries. It cannot be otherwise under commodity production. From this it follows irrefutably that socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will for some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois. This is bound to create not only friction, but a direct attempt on the part of the bourgeoisie of other countries to crush the socialist state’s victorious proletariat. In such cases, a war on our part would be a legitimate and just war. It would be a war for socialism, for the liberation of other nations from the bourgeoisie." -V.I.Lenin, The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution, 1916



"For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly." -V.I.Lenin, The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It, 1917.


"Our press has always spoken of the need to prepare fora revolutionary war in the event of the victory of socialism in one country with capitalism still in existence in the neighbouring countries. That is indisputable." - V.I.Lenin, The Revolutionary Phrase, 1918


"In the last analysis, the outcome of the struggle will be determined by the fact that Russia, India, China, etc., account for the overwhelming majority of the population of the globe. And during the past few years it is this majority that has been drawn into the struggle for emancipation with extraordinary rapidity, so that in this respect there cannot be the slightest doubt what the final outcome of the world struggle will be. In this sense, the complete victory of socialism is fully and absolutely assured.

But what interests us is not the inevitability of this complete victory of socialism, but the tactics which we, the Russian Communist Party, we the Russian Soviet Government, should pursue to prevent the West-European counter-revolutionary states form crushing us. To ensure our existence until the next military conflict between the counter-revolutionary imperialist West and the revolutionary and nationalist East, between the most civilised countries of the world and the Orientally backward countries which, however, compromise the majority, this majority must become civilised. We, too, lack enough civilisation to enable us to pass straight on to socialism, although we do have the political requisites for it. We should adopt the following tactics, or pursue the following policy, to save ourselves." -V.I.Lenin, Better Fewer, But Better, 1923

Note that Lenin called communism 'the highest stage of socialism'. Hence, the complete or final victory of socialism means the victory of the world socialist revolution and subsequent communism. Stalin shared this view with him. However, here in the piece above, Lenin mentions the shortcomings of the Soviet Union, and observes that they must hold on till the world revolution takes place, to finally defeat capitalism. Lenin notes that Russia already has the political requirements to be socialist, but it is not enough 'civilized'. However, the cultural values that constituted the then notion of 'civilization' are debatable among communists now. In fact, anyone today who claims that imperialist nations are more 'civilized', is an open reactionary. Therefore, viewing Lenin's thoughts in the light of our modern position, it is reasonable to deduce that Russia was ready for the construction of socialism, as much as any other country. Even in the most economically powerful imperialist country, if the proletariat manages to win a socialist revolution, it will face immense damage and subsequent attacks from other imperialist countries. It will have no colonies to depend on. It may require years or even decades to embrace socialism culturally. So, 'civilization' is not a factor.


As for bringing "people's war" to advanced industrialized nations, forget it. Can't be done. There is no social/material basis for it. Plus the bourgeoisie in these countries have the ready means to crush it.

That there is no material basis for starting a revolutionary war is the cheapest revisionist excuse ever. That only ensures that self proclaimed communists can enjoy the safety of legal struggles while slandering actual revolutionary wars that take place anywhere in the world. The bourgeoisie are almost always prepared with the means to crush a revolutionary war, but that doesn't mean that the working class will not be able to militarily outwit the bourgeoisie.


On the USSR, Trotsky's position was complex, but consistent. He viewed the overthrow of capitalism as historically progressive and defended the USSR unconditionally against imperialism and counterrevolution. The political revolution he called for was for a return to party democracy and workers democracy (I know, it barely existed in the former USSR, a discussion for another time and place). And a return to the revolutionary internationalist positions of the Bolsheviks pre-1924.

And that political revolution would consist nothing but replacing Stalin with Trotksy, and some other leaders with some fans of Trotsky. What Trotsky meant by party democracy was actually factionalism, that Lenin advocated banning, in order to stop Trotsky and his likes.


Trotsky did not say that fascism would triumph in WWII. But he was very worried about it, and about the way the USSR was dealing with it. Was Trotsky wrong to see the peril in Stalin's policies leading up to the war? I don't think so.

Trotsky criticized Stalin's policies, and at the same time claimed that Stalin was adopting Trotsky's policies. What does this tell about Trotsky's own plans on the USSR?


Communists use legal parties when possible. Why? Because you can reach more people that way. When there is intense state repression, you go underground. Making a fetish of non-legal organizing is not Marxist, nor does it make sense. In some circumstances you might have a legal and underground organization. These are tactics, comrade, not principles.

If you are a genuine revolutionary party, then the bourgeois state will not allow you to operate legally as soon as you grow powerful even in a single area. If in a stable situation, with no other class challenging its rule, the bourgeoisie does allow a leftist party to operate legally, that implies that that party is merely a part of the left wing of capital itself. And whenever there is state repression, it is next to impossible for a party to go underground if most of its organization is not underground already. The revolution is not a big game of hide-and-seek so that a party is able to change its strategy drastically at will.


Let's use China in the 1920s as a prime example. The line followed by the CCP was exactly what the Bolshviks did not done. They entered into the bourgeois KMT because they were seen as the primary agent of the bourgeois revolution. The communists played a huge role in building and strengthening the KMT. Elements in the CCP leadership argued for an independent CP. The CI under Zinoviev and Stalin would have none of this. The LO in the USSR objected to this -- eventually Chaing started slaughtering Communists, when he no longer felt he needed their support. Did the CI relent? No, they decided to ally with the "left-wing" of the KMT -- leading to more slaughtered communists and supporters. Had they actually carried out the "insurrectionist line" as you call it, their might have been a Chinese revolution in the twenties, similar to the Russian Revolution. Instead hundreds of thousands of the best militants were killed, and the Revolution was set back two decades, at an enormous cost -- had the Chinese Revolution happened then, the history of the rest of the twentieth century would have been different -- most likely far better. The point here is that the Bolshevik line in China would have been to insist on an independent Communist Party. Perhaps United Front action could have been taken against warlords with the KMT -- But the rule is, organizational and class independence first.

The tailism of the then CPC was largely because it was misguided by the Russian line on China, and because the then de-facto leader, who would later turn into a Trotksyite and then finally a non-communist, did not understand the ground conditions of China. And the workers had no military preparations or training, so the ones that fled the cities would have been slaughtered too had they moved for an insurrection.


As for Maoist Leaders not having privileges, that's nonsense. Maybe not so much during the fighting, but after? Of course the main privilege is political power, at the expense of the rest of the populace.

Please state an example where a Maoist that remained loyal to the revolution enjoyed extra-ordinary privileges after a revolution? And no Maoist so far as had enough political power to execute red army soldiers at will, like Trotsky did.


And of course Mao was a Chinese nationalist. That's how he behaved. I would guess that he even said this on several occasions. Look at the disgusting role the CCP played in Indonesia in the early 60s. Same shit. Support Sukharno at all costs, so that the army can slaughter you when the time comes. The PKI should have been contending for power, instead they had their heads so far up Sukharno's ass that when the axe fell, they were helpless -- paid for with about half a million lives.

Mao on several occasions declared himself an internationalist and opposed narrow-nationalism. The role of the CPC in Indonesia was that way because the Chinese line of revolution was only beginning to get generalized to the third world. The PKI did try to respond militarily, but they were slaughtered due to lack of preparation. So, that was a defeat for insurrectionism again, because that is what made them concentrate on legal struggles. However, the CPC played its internationalist role by sheltering the escaped communists from Indonesia.

[Le Socialiste]

Trotskyism, as outlined by Leon Trotsky and later taken up by numerous other revolutionaries and theorists, is at its core a continuation of Marxism and its revolutionary tradition. Without going too far in-depth (though I'd be more than happy to if asked), the key components of Trotskyism can be defined as follows:

1) The United Front (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/ffyci-2/08.htm): Trotsky was a firm proponent of the united front (http://www.isreview.org/issues/17/unitedfront.shtml) as a tactical necessity. His reasoning is as follows, writing "[T]he task of the Communist Party is to lead the proletarian revolution. In order to summon the proletariat for the direct conquest of power and to achieve it the Communist Party must base itself on the overwhelming majority of the working class. So long as it does not hold this majority, the party must fight to win it (emphasis mine)." Trotsky stressed that this was only possible insofar as the party was/is capable of "remaining an absolutely independent organization with a clear program and strict internal discipline;" it does not dissolve into the front, but continues to play an integral role in it.

Of course, there are those who would argue that the united front need only apply to workers who constitute their organization's respective memberships, and not extend to their 'leaders'. This, Trotsky points out, undermines the entire point of the united front. He writes:

"Does the united front extend only to the working masses or does it also include the opportunist leaders? The very posing of this question is a product of misunderstanding...The question arises from this, that certain very important sections of the working class belong to reformist organizations or support them. Their present experience is still insufficient to enable them to break with the reformist organizations and join us. It may be precisely after engaging in those mass activities, which are on the order of the day, that a major change will take place in this connection."

By engaging in the united front, socialists gain the opportunity to win over layers of the working-class that might've otherwise been more difficult to reach, while simultaneously striving for minor gains that benefit the masses and prepare them for future actions. And if the reputation or legitimacy of the reformist and opportunist leaders within the united front are tarnished or otherwise discredited in the eyes of their supporters in the process, all the better.

2) The importance of centralism and discipline within the party, conducted through democratic channels that actively involve the membership. The organizational model of democratic centralism, initially opposed by Trotsky prior to 1917 and embraced in the lead up and aftermath of the revolution, mustn't be confused with Stalinist conceptions of party organization and be recognized instead as a key component in the establishment and maintenance of intra-party democracy.

Trotsky was keen to criticize what he saw as the growth of "bureaucratic inertia" within the Bolshevik party, labeling it a "truly alarming development" in The New Course (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1923/newcourse/index.htm):

"Bureaucratism is not a fortuitous feature of certain provincial organizations, but a general phenomenon...It is not at all a “survival” of the war period; it is the result of the transference to the party of the methods and the administrative manners accumulated during these last years."

3) The theory of Permanent Revolution, while first appearing as early in 1850 in some of Marx and Engels' works, is most closely associated with Trotsky who put a different spin on the phrase to explain how countries lacking 'advanced' capitalist traits could experience socialist revolution(s). Proponents of Permanent Revolution argue that, in the event that an underdeveloped capitalist state's bourgeoisie is incapable or unwilling to initiate and carry through a 'revolutionizing' of the political and economic means, it falls to the country's proletariat to meet and surpass these tasks.

Trotsky upholds internationalism as a key aspect of Permanent Revolution, without which the latter wouldn't be able to maintain and defend itself against the pressures of a hostile capitalism. In so doing, he dismisses Stalin's assertion that it is possible to have socialism in one country.

Also of note is that Trotsky built up the concept of Permanent Revolution as an alternative to the "Two Stage Theory," which maintains that all undeveloped countries must pass through two revolutions: that of bourgeois democracy and, finally, socialism.

These are the first three aspects of Trotskyism that come to mind. There's admittedly much more to it that I'm sure others more experienced than I can elaborate on.

[Lucretia]

I've been reading Marx (and a bit of Lenin) for a few months and I have become very interested in Marxism and Marxian thought. I consider my self a revolutionary socialist, but I refrain from using the term "Marxist" simply because I think there is a lot more for me to read (admittedly, I haven't read Capital). I'm also looking into reading about Trotskyism, but I'd like a little info from you guys.

Could you guys summarize Trotskyism compared to Marxist-Leninism, or Stalinism.

I'd also like to hear in what ways you disagree or disagree.
It'd be awesome to hear from some Trotskyists and vehement Anti-Trotskyists.

Sorry for the odd title.

The basic disagreement that exists between Trotskyists and "Marxist-Leninists" (Stalinists) is that Trotskyists believe that socialism is not possible in a single country, whereas Stalinists do. Trotksyists aren't utopian or native enough to think that the process of world revolution will occur all at once, so they support attempting to construct socialism through a workers' state.

However, unlike Stalinists, they are aware of the fact that socialism by its very nature is antithetical to the kind of reified relations between states that would exist in a world hostilely divided between bourgeois and workers' states. And the reason why is that these reified relations, springing from involvement in a world market, would inevitably impose the demands of value on the production activities of people within workers' states, and such considerations are not compatible with socialist production. Consideration of value does not necessarily mean the existence of a capitalist economy, but it does mean pressure to revert back capitalism, just as it means the society making those considerations is not and cannot be "socialist" -- a way of organizing production which presupposes the destruction of value.

[Lucretia]

Okay, here are five quotes of Lenin implying his support for socialism in one country. Please feel free to discuss the contexts, and let me know if you want more quotes. And the fact that the Bolsheviks or all Marxists subordinated everything else to the world revolution is immaterial here, because socialism in one country deals only with the case where the world revolution fails, and the proletariat is victorious only in a single or a few countries.

All these quotes have been debated a thousand times on this forum, and it has been shown each and every time that these quotes do not mean that Lenin possessed the view that a socialist society could be established while encircled by capitalist states. When Lenin uses terms like "victory of socialism," in the context of revolutionary struggle at both the national and international level, he is clearly referring to the political victory of a socialist revolution -- the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat --not the completion of the tasks required to establish an entire society as socialist in terms of its social and economic relations. This sloppy quoting is exactly what Lev Bronsteinovich was talking about when he mentioned taking things out of context.

I also wanted to note that the first quote in particular, often used by anarchists to justify rubbishing Lenin as bourgeois, is an odd one to adduce in support of your position.

[ind_com]

All these quotes have been debated a thousand times on this forum, and it has been shown each and every time that these quotes do not mean that Lenin possessed the view that a socialist society could be established while encircled by capitalist states. When Lenin uses terms like "victory of socialism," in the context of revolutionary struggle at both the national and international level, he is clearly referring to the political victory of a socialist revolution -- the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat --not the completion of the tasks required to establish an entire society as socialist in terms of its social and economic relations. This sloppy quoting is exactly what Lev Bronsteinovich was talking about when he mentioned taking things out of context.

I also wanted to note that the first quote in particular, often used by anarchists to justify rubbishing Lenin as bourgeois, is an odd one to adduce in support of your position.

I don't know when these debates took place or who conclusively read the mind of Lenin, to conclude that Lenin did not mean socialism when he said socialism. So, until someone produces those arguments here, I will hold that it was the usual word-twisting Trottery.

[Thirsty Crow]

“I know that there are, of course, sages who think they are very clever and even call themselves Socialists, who assert that power should not have been seized until the revolution had broken out in all countries. They do not suspect that by speaking in this way they are deserting the revolution and going over to the side of the bourgeoisie. To wait until the toiling classes bring about a revolution on an international scale means that everybody should stand stock-still in expectation. That is nonsense.”
– Lenin, Speech delivered at a joint meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Moscow Soviet, 14th May 1918, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 9.
This is no refutation of what the user claimed. If you bothered to read this excerpt more closely, you would have noticed that Lenin here is arguing against the notion of the impossibility and undesirability of the overthrow of the Tsarist state, as put forward by Mensheviks for instance (that is, I assume, the purpose of the covert slur of "...even call themselves socialist").

Really, what a hack job you stalinists do while trying to defend an unviable position.

[Zulu]

I don't know when these debates took place or who conclusively read the mind of Lenin, to conclude that Lenin did not mean socialism when he said socialism. So, until someone produces those arguments here, I will hold that it was the usual word-twisting Trottery.

Look at this thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/stalinismi-t167670/index.html). There, I think, I did a good job pointing out that Lenin was a "Stalinist" before Stalin himself. Some juicy quotes there and extensive bickering with this Lucretia about their meaning.

The funny thing about the Trotskyists is that they, on the one hand, yearn to prove that Stalin always differed in his views from those of Lenin, and, on the other, they can't go full on the material available to them, because it'd defeat their other points. One such example is the question of the monopoly of the foreign trade in 1922. Stalin's position was something between undecided and advocacy of relinquishing it, while Lenin strongly insisted on enforcing it. But they can't use this much against Stalin, because then it would become painfully clear from Lenin's writings, that he argued the monopoly of the foreign trade from the SiOC PoV.

[Zulu]

Lenin here is arguing against the notion of the impossibility and undesirability of the overthrow of the Tsarist state,

What kind of bullshit is that?

The Czarist state had been overthrown as a result of the February (bourgeois) revolution, and Lenin didn't have to defend that. What Plekhanov and the Mensheviks were against was the overthrow of the bourgeois republic, which followed the October revolution and the disband of the Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks (measures completely supported by Trotsky, by the way).

[Thirsty Crow]

What kind of bullshit is that?

The Czarist state had been overthrown as a result of the February (bourgeois) revolution, and Lenin didn't have to defend that. What Plekhanov and the Mensheviks were against was the overthrow of the bourgeois republic, which followed the October revolution and the disband of the Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks (measures completely supported by Trotsky, by the way).
Yeah, I made the mistake of confusing tsarism with the bourgeois republic as defended by Mensheviks.
Though, the point still holds. In no way does that quote represent anything like a support for the notion of socialism in one country.

[Zulu]

In no way does that quote represent anything like a support for the notion of socialism in one country.

It represents a strong support for the notion of SiOC, as it basically points out that some place got to be the first to kick bourgeois asses. From this logically follows that this first place may be either joined soon by other places, or remain the only such place for some time, during which the revolutionaries in that place will be faced with the no-choice choice of either retiring or executing the SiOC tactic, while awaiting the proletariat in other countries to man up.

[ind_com]

However, opposition to SIOC is only a secondary problem with Trotskyism. The question of SIOC arises only when there is a revolution in some countries. But Trotskyism does not have any practical general strategy for revolution in any country of today. They cannot lead a revolution until the condition of some country replicates that of 1917 Russia up to the tiniest detail. This is the biggest problem with Trotskyism.

[Geiseric]

There were actually revolutions across the world, but Comintern fucked up while stalinists were in charge.

[ind_com]

There were actually revolutions across the world, but Comintern fucked up while stalinists were in charge.

You mean there were revolutions after the 1917 wave that had Trots in its leading positions?

[Thirsty Crow]

It represents a strong support for the notion of SiOC, as it basically points out that some place got to be the first to kick bourgeois asses.
No, it does not since the concept we're talking about here does not concern the strategic and political issues of the overthrow of the bourgeois state, but rather the very nature of socialism and it's viability in one isolated region. It is a more immediately political argument, not a theoretical one. In other words, Lenin does not deal with socialism as a altogether different mode of production in the excerpt, but merely states his disagreement with the idea that it was necessary for Russian workers and communists notto smash the nascent Russian state built on capitalist foundations. This can only be understood within the context of Russian communists incessant insistence and hope for international revolution.

[Zulu]

This can only be understood within the context of Russian communists incessant insistence and hope for international revolution.

And yet he completely reneged on this in his latter work, "Our Revolution", with the quote he attributed to Napoleon, something to the effect of "Let's get into the fight, and then we'll see..."

And I would actually posit that Trotskyism with its "permanent revolution" was originally more accommodating to the idea of SiOC, than the "old" (pre-1917) Bolshevism that was completely 2-stageist, and, therefore, indeed did not expect to attempt socialism in Russia ahead of the advanced countries. It was not until the WWI erupted, that Lenin decided the world revolution was imminent and "converted to Trotskyism", declaring a green light for the socialist revolution in Russia. When it became clear around 1920 that the world revolution was being postponed, the Bolsheviks found themselves in exactly the awkward situation of "what the hell we gonna do now with this Mother-fucking-backward-agrarian-Russia on our hands, still surrounded by the imperialist predators???" And, big surprise, it was none other than Trotsky who was the first with the ideas that later materialized in the industrialization.

[Geiseric]

You mean there were revolutions after the 1917 wave that had Trots in its leading positions?

Don't you know about M.N. roy? Or Chen Dixiu? Or the support from the Ussr for the fascist invasion of abyssinia? Or any other revolutionary leaders sold out by Comintern, such as James Cannon, the only communist in 1940 America who was against the imperialist WW2? Or do you know anything about he spanish civil war? It was evident that forming alliances with imperialist states was more important than pursuing revolution if you connect the dots with comintern policy zig zaggs.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Chen Dixiu?

Chen advocated the entryism into the KMT which led to alot of good communists getting slaughtered. Additionally, his military and political tactics resulted in a number of defeats for the CPC. So in this case I don't think Chen is a good representive of Trotskyism, or even common sense really.

[Lucretia]

I don't know when these debates took place or who conclusively read the mind of Lenin, to conclude that Lenin did not mean socialism when he said socialism. So, until someone produces those arguments here, I will hold that it was the usual word-twisting Trottery.

You don't know where they took place? I told you they took place on revleft. Is it so difficult to take a little initiative and use the search function located on the Revleft tools menu at the top of your page? If, for some inexplicable reason you can't find that, you can always search for your Lenin quotes on google, restricting your results to revleft by appending "site:www.revleft.com" at the end of your search terms.

[ind_com]

You don't know where they took place? I told you they took place on revleft. Is it so difficult to take a little initiative and use the search function located on the Revleft tools menu at the top of your page? If, for some inexplicable reason you can't find that, you can always search for your Lenin quotes on google, restricting your results to revleft by appending "site:www.revleft.com" at the end of your search terms.

No need of that, thanks. Zulu already gave a more believable account of what actually happened.

[ind_com]

Don't you know about M.N. roy? Or Chen Dixiu? Or the support from the Ussr for the fascist invasion of abyssinia? Or any other revolutionary leaders sold out by Comintern, such as James Cannon, the only communist in 1940 America who was against the imperialist WW2? Or do you know anything about he spanish civil war? It was evident that forming alliances with imperialist states was more important than pursuing revolution if you connect the dots with comintern policy zig zaggs.


Chen advocated the entryism into the KMT which led to alot of good communists getting slaughtered. Additionally, his military and political tactics resulted in a number of defeats for the CPC. So in this case I don't think Chen is a good representive of Trotskyism, or even common sense really.

This. And M.N.Roy isn't a very good example either, if you look at his degeneration after his expulsion from the Comintern. These two instances aren't exactly of Trots in leading positions during intense revolutionary wars. Actually there aren't any examples apart from the 1917 wave, for the reason I mentioned earlier.

[Geiseric]

My point is their positions, which you obviously disagree with, CAME FROM STALINISTS IN COMINTERN.

[Geiseric]

Chen advocated the entryism into the KMT which led to alot of good communists getting slaughtered. Additionally, his military and political tactics resulted in a number of defeats for the CPC. So in this case I don't think Chen is a good representive of Trotskyism, or even common sense really.

He did because Stalin did. Stalin made and approved the Comintern policies, or at least the people he put in charge of Comintern did, in the same way that Trotsky and Lenin had responsibility if anything went wrong when they were at the helm of comintern, from 1921 to 1924.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

He did because Stalin did. Stalin made and approved the Comintern policies, or at least the people he put in charge of Comintern did, in the same way that Trotsky and Lenin had responsibility if anything went wrong when they were at the helm of comintern, from 1921 to 1924.

What? This makes no sense. Admit it, they advocated the same policies as the "Stalinists" that you hate, and they led to dreadful failure. Why should Trots heed the line of Comintern on China when they disagreed on them on everything else. And if Chen made a mistake as disastrous as his, then don't you agree he deserved to be expelled from the party?

[Geiseric]

Chen's line, I'm saying it again and for the last time, came from Stalin's toadies in Comintern, in conjunction with right oppositionists. Chen went with it and took all of the blame, when the original stagism which spawned the entryism into KMT came from specifically Michael Borodin, who Stalin appointed as the Comintern delegate to the CPC,which Chen was a leader in. Mao in specific started to talk about how revolutionary the peasantry could be at this point, so he was also an agent in the revival of stagism, and the birth of the "bloc of four classes," which Stalin agreed with, which is out and out class collaboration.

Look up the Shanghai massacre, and tell me that it would of still happened if the Stalinists in Comintern, and Mao included, didn't agree to the disarmament after the defeat of the Wuhan uprising, and if they didn't declare it as their duty to work inside of the KMT, which obviously didn't work by that point.

“The revolutionary armies in China [that is, the armies of Chiang Kai-shek] are the most important factor in the struggle of the Chinese workers and peasants for their liberation. For the advance of the Cantonese means a blow at imperialism, a blow at its agents in China, and freedom of assembly, freedom of press, freedom of organization for all the revolutionary elements in China in general and for the workers in particular.” -Stalin

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Chen's line, I'm saying it again and for the last time, came from Stalin's toadies in Comintern, in conjunction with right oppositionists. Chen went with it and took all of the blame, when the original stagism which spawned the entryism into KMT came from specifically Michael Borodin, who Stalin appointed as the Comintern delegate to the CPC,which Chen was a leader in.


I'm a Maoist, so I don't care about all the mean things you have to say about Stalin since I don't see the need to defend him unless it is against Khrushchevite revisionism. The point is that you argued that Trotskyites took a better line than Stalin, and then flip flopped saying that they had the same line as Stalin and therefore this makes Maoism bad because Chinese Trotskyism was similar to Stalin. Which leaves me like

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQOP-_WLoUqnorpiF2sE3fzGTBXahd3bQXAzAvdhUTRY6pSm8qGzQ



Mao in specific started to talk about how revolutionary the peasantry could be at this point, so he was also an agent in the revival of stagism, and the birth of the "bloc of four classes," which Stalin agreed with, which is out and out class collaboration.

First of all, the accusation of stagism is absurd. New Democracy is a method of starting revolution as soon as possible without having to wait for the "correct" class composition.

Second. JMP explains New Democracy pretty well in this post

http://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/s9fq8/what_makes_maoism_antirevisionist/c4c70rm

Your accusation of class collaboration is not baseless, but that post should clear things up

[Geiseric]

It wasn't a chinese trotskyist position, there was no such thing as chinese trotskyists until like 1928, after the Canton insurrection which was pushed for by Comintern delegates failed miserably, due to the Maoist and Stalinist idea of disarming the working class after the "Left KMT" coup in Wuhan failed. The position taken, the one forced by Comintern, and accepted by Mao, who was the leader of the CPC, was reflective of the Stalin quote I put above, namely believing that working inside of, or in subordination to the KMT was a good idea.

Are you forgetting that Mao and Stalin were buddies for a long time?

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Are you forgetting that Mao and Stalin were buddies for a long time?

So first you point out Chinese Trotskyism in the form of Chen then you say he is really a Stalinist and now he never existed at all?

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/173/580/Wat.jpg?1315930588

Ermm, are you okay comrade? I think you might be a bit under the weather. You might want to see a doctor about that.

But regarding this point. Mao was very similar to Stalin in the pre anti-revisionist period. But when Stalin died and capitalist reforms began in the USSR, he realized that Stalin's approach was flawed and couldn't prevent the restoration of capitalism so he began to criticize Stalin from the left and began a radically different path for China. This is just a small selection of his articles against Stalin or against what he saw as tendencies that would create what you would refer to as a "degenerated workers state", to use your terminology

Twenty Manifestations Of Bureaucracy By Mao
http://www.marxists.org/reference/ar...9/mswv9_85.htm

Concerning Economic Problems Of Socialism In The USSR By Mao
http://www.marxists.org/reference/ar...8/mswv8_65.htm

Reading Notes On The Soviet Text Political Economy By Mao
http://www.marxists.org/reference/ar...8/mswv8_64.htm

Critique of Stalin’s Economic Problems Of Socialism In The USSR By Mao
http://www.marxists.org/reference/ar...8/mswv8_66.htm


Supposedly he wrote a critique of The Foundations of Leninism at one point but I couldn't find it. Either way it's intelectually dishonest to say that Mao was a Stalinist since this neglects a large part of his work, the part of his work that "Maoism" is derived from. Heck, Kim Il Sung even went as far as to call Mao a Trotskyite

“Stalin should be criticized, but we have differing opinions as to the form the criticism ought to take. There are some other questions, too, on which we disagree.”
—Remarks about the Criticism of Stalin (Oct. 23, 1956), WMZ2, p. 148, in full. A comment made to P. F. Yudin, the Soviet ambassador to China.

“From the very beginning our Party has emulated the Soviet Union. The mass line, our political work, and [the theory of] the dictatorship of the proletariat have all been learned from the October Revolution. At that time, Lenin had focused on the mobilization of the masses, and on organizing the worker-peasant-soldier soviet, and so on. He did not rely on [doing things by] administrative decree. Rather, Lenin sent Party representatives to carry out political work. The problem lies with the latter phase of Stalin’s leadership [which came] after the October Revolution. Although [Stalin] was still promoting socialism and communism, he nonetheless abandoned some of Lenin’s things, deviated from the orbit of Leninism, and became alienated from the masses, and so on. Therefore, we did suffer some disadvantages when we emulated the things of the later stages of Stalin’s leadership and transplanted them for application in China in a doctrinaire way. Today, the Soviet Union still has some advanced experiences that deserve to be emulated, but there are some other [aspects] in which we simply cannot be like the Soviet Union. For example, the socialist transformation of the capitalist industries and commerce, the cooperativization of agriculture, and the Ten Major Relationships in economic construction; these are all ways of doing things in China. From now on, in our socialist economic construction, we should primarily start with China’s circumstances, and with the special characteristics of the circumstances and the times in which we are situated. Therefore, we must still propose the slogan of learning from the Soviet Union; just that we cannot forcibly and crudely transplant and employ things blindly and in a doctrinaire fashion. Similarly, we can also learn some of the things that are good in bourgeois countries; this is because every country must have its strengths and weaknesses, and we intend chiefly to learn other people’s strengths.
“Stalin had a tendency to deviate from Marxism-Leninism. A concrete expression of this is [his] negation of contradictions, and to date, [the Soviet Union] has not yet thoroughly eliminated the influence of this viewpoint of Stalin’s. Stalin spoke [the language of] materialism and the dialectical method, but in reality he was subjectivist. He placed the individual above everything else, negated the group, and negated the masses. [He engaged in] the worship of the individual; in fact, to be more precise, [in] personal dictatorships. This is antimaterialism. Stalin also spoke of the dialectical method, but in reality [he] was metaphysical. For example, in the [Short] History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik), he wrote of the dialectical method, put [the theory of] contradictions [only] at the very end. We should say that the most fundamental problem of dialectics is the unity of contradictory opposites. It is [precisely] because of his metaphysical [character] that a one-sided viewpoint was produced, in which the internal connections in a thing are repudiated, and problems are looked at isolatedly and in a static way. To pay heed to dialectics would be to look at problems and treat a problem as a unity of opposites, and that is why it would be [a] comprehensive [methodology]. Life and death, war and peace, are opposites of a contradiction. In reality, they also have an internal connection between them. That is why at times these oppositions are also united. When we [seek to] understand problems we cannot see only one side. We should analyze [it] from all sides, look through its essence. In this way, with regard to [understanding] a person, we would not be [taking the position] at one time that he is all good, and then at another time that he is all bad, without a single good point. Why is our Party correct? It is because we have been able to proceed from the objective conditions in understanding and resolving all problems; in this way we are more comprehensive and we can avoid being absolutists.
“Secondly, the mass line was seen as tailism by Stalin. [He] did not recognize the good points about the mass line, and he used administrative methods to resolve many problems. [B]But we Communists are materialists; we acknowledge that it is the masses who create everything and are the masters of history. [For us] there are no individual heroes; only when the masses are united can there be strength. In fact, since Lenin died, the mass line has been forgotten in the Soviet Union. [Even] at the time of opposing Stalin, [the Soviet Union’s leadership] still did not properly acknowledge or emphasize the significance of the mass line. Of course, more recently, attention has begun to be paid to this, but the understanding is still not [sufficiently] deep.
“Furthermore, class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat were [items] that Lenin had emphasized. At one time, the divergence between Lenin and the Third International and the Second International was mainly along the lines that the Marxists emphasized the class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat whereas the opportunists were unwilling to acknowledge them. One of the lessons to be learned from the occurrence of the Polish and Hungarian Incidents, in addition to [the fact that] there were shortcomings in the work [of the Communist parties], is that after the victory of the revolution they had not properly mobilized the masses to weed out thoroughly the counterrevolutionary elements.”
—Speech at the Second Plenum of the Eight Central Committee (Nov. 15, 1956), Version II, WMZ2, pp. 185-6. One excessively long paragraph in the report of this speech has been broken up into three paragraphs for readability purposes. Note that an expurgated version of this speech, which drastically tones down the criticisms of Stalin, is given as “version I” in WMZ2, and was also published in slightly different form after Mao’s death in the Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, vol. V. (An excerpt from “version I” is presented above, just before this item.)

[Lucretia]

No need of that, thanks. Zulu already gave a more believable account of what actually happened.

Why waste people's time asking where these debates took place when you obviously had no intention of viewing them and analyzing them? Zulu is a dyed-in-the-wool Stalinist who is going to give you a particular slant -- which is obviously the only thing you're interested in being exposed to.

From what I can recall of Zulu, based on the one time I attempted to debate him before, he was the same way. He already had all the right answers, Lenin's actual words be damned. When it came time to actually looking at Lenin's texts, and carefully analyzing their content, Zulu ended our exchanges right quick like, basically doing the Internet equivalent of plugging his fingers in his ears and shrieking "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" over and over again. His exegetical skills are highly questionable.

[Geiseric]

You don't know where they took place? I told you they took place on revleft. Is it so difficult to take a little initiative and use the search function located on the Revleft tools menu at the top of your page? If, for some inexplicable reason you can't find that, you can always search for your Lenin quotes on google, restricting your results to revleft by appending "site:www.revleft.com" at the end of your search terms.

Did he seriously say Trottery? I've never heard that before.

[Thirsty Crow]

Did he seriously say Trottery? I've never heard that before.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/onlyfools/uncovered/images/brothers.jpg

Delboy, don't you know that Stalin was a plonker?

[ind_com]

Why waste people's time asking where these debates took place when you obviously had no intention of viewing them and analyzing them? Zulu is a dyed-in-the-wool Stalinist who is going to give you a particular slant -- which is obviously the only thing you're interested in being exposed to.

It's kinda evident by now that he has defended his points well elsewhere, because no one here is even remotely near to refuting him.

[Lucretia]

It's kinda evident by now that he has defended his points well elsewhere, because no one here is even remotely near to refuting him.

Huh? The five quotes you initially posted were briefly discussed by me, but have since dropped out of the discussion entirely -- including any discussion Zulu might have attempted to have. You seem to be conflating "discussing the specific quotes you introduced" with "shamelessly defending Stalin." The two are related, but certainly not identical.