Sell me on it Trotsky vs Stalin

[LeninistIthink]

Ok, I've been pretty stuck here for a while now. So I'm opening it up to the wonders of RevLeft sell me on either permanent revolution or socialism in one country. Please no flame wars and no insulting each other, I won't see debate degrade into bullying.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

All of the above were alcoholic stinky ole men who didn't have a brain.

/closed

#thecloser

[Thirsty Crow]

I'd say they weren't alcoholic enough but hey that's just me.

Hello and welcome. The dillemma facing the collection of communist grouplets (i.e. the communist movement) is hardly one corresponding to the historical conflict between Trotsky (and who, Kamenev and Zinoviev) and Stalin.

[Q]

Moved from /intro to /learning.

[ñángara]

This is the Politburo in October 1917, according to the Wikipedia (in Spanish): Andréi Búbnov, Grigori Zinóviev, Lev Kámenev, Vladímir Lenin, Grigori Sokólnikov, Iósif Stalin y Lev Trotski. All but Lenin (died prematurely) and, of course, Stalin, were sentenced to death for being German spies or counterrevolutionaries. This may be a prove that a Party can't bring about a DoT.

[Kingbruh]

DoT. Sorry, what's DoT?

[Q]

Sorry, what's DoT?
ñángara probably meant to say DotP or "dictatorship of the proletariat".

[ñángara]

Sorry, what's DoT?
It's me that should be sorry. In my discharge, it's hard to "blindly" post google-translated English messages

[Guardia Rossa]

I am orthodox Leninist and ideologically heterodox, and I'll tell you today people are way too orthodox about ways to reach communism, nearing right-wingers and their idiot little fights about more state opression or more bourgeois opression.

Stalin was as needed to the Russian Revolution as Napoleon was to the French Revolution. Not that he was any good. His theories were copied from others and he almost turned the CCCP into Nazbol or Nazi. Russification was also no good thing he did.

Trotsky was a cynical, hated little man. His theories were very good altrough he was a complete asshole. "Best bolshevik", when he finally became one. Would have made a dictatorship just like Stalin, and was resented he was not the dictator.

Bukharin was not a administrative one, but yes of a writer.
The rest had too little popularity or were too mediocre to even be mentioned to be able to be THE man of the CCCP.

Lenin was the real thing. No Lenin, no october 1917.

No Lenin and the mensheviks would have either falled to some conservative/anarchist/proto-nazbol coup or broke in civil war (Germany says: Yay! Moar land!)
Or the bolsheviks never even broke out from the Party, who knows. Some were expelled and the rest accepted the Menshevik ideals.

[ñángara]

I am orthodox Leninist Who can blame Lenin for leading a CP to victory? The ideological problem came after his dead (1924).


Stalin was as needed to the Russian Revolution as Napoleon was to the French Revolution. Not that he was any good. His theories were copied from others and he almost turned the CCCP into Nazbol or Nazi. Russification was also no good thing he did. No win - win situation.


Trotsky was a cynical.. Do you mean ironic or sarcastic? :rolleyes:
Trotsky considered the problem of the Party's democracy, some crucial point that makes a difference with Stalin.


Lenin was the real thing. No Lenin, no october 1917.. Agreed. After Lenin there was no real Marxist collective discussion in the high ranks of the Party any more.

[Creative Destruction]

Lenin, savior of the workers.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

It seems to me that, for the personal and theoretical differences, Trotsky and Stalin had more in common than they had differences. Looking at Trotskyist and "Anti-Revisionist" parties today, honestly, it seems like it's as aesthetic as political.
If anything, ironically, Trotsky has had the more enduring cult of personality in the West.

[John Nada]

Why is there no all of the above?:(

Lenin, who upheld orthodox Marxism against attacks by revisionist, enriching Marxism with his theoretical contributions. He stood up to the imperialist powers, and helped lead the first successful proletarian revolution, which sent shock-waves throughout the world.

Upon his death, Ho Chi Minh said that even if the oppressed masses didn't know who he has, they heard his call for their liberation.

Trotsky, a firebrand orator who roused the workers to rebel with his speeches. His excellent writings inspiring them to fight.

When war broke out, he made the Red Army, fighting off the imperialists and counterrevolutionaries who would smoother the first worker's state in it's crib. All this as a Jew in a virulently anti-Semitic society.

He correctly called out fascism as the most dangerous threat. He denounced the rise of a bureaucracy that threaten to restore capitalism, paying with his life.

Stalin, born as the son of a abusive Georgian cobbler father and an ex-serf mother. He took up a religious education in a language imposed on his people, as that was one of the few ways to move up and escape.

Later, he found Marxism, and lead the life of a revolutionary and outlaw. Working behind enemy lines, he organized strikes, direct action, strong-arm robberies to fund the revolution, waging guerrilla warfare against the Czar. He formulated what would be the Marxist answer to the question of oppressed nations, calling for their liberation.

Upon Lenin's death, he took charge and continued the revolution. Under him, the Soviet people industrialized the country at record speed, setting record breaking growth.

When faced with the grave threat of fascism, he rallied the masses to fight. "Not One Step Back". Faced with direr odds and at a high price, fascism was crushed.

Upon his death, the Soviet Union went from a backwater to a superpower. No longer was socialist construction limited to "one country", but encompassed 1/3 of the world.

Naturally there's a lot of bad shit I've left out(that I personally disagree with). I haven't gotten into the often lethal differences they had. However the OP asked to "sell Trotsky or Stalin" to them. I figured why not both.;)

Now that I think of it, why isn't there a "none of the above" option?:confused:

[LeninistIthink]

Because the poll is for show, I was asking guys to convince me for trotskyism or stalinism (marxism-leninism), I know some like the latter more.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The difference between Stalinism and Trotskyism is not exactly the difference between the theory of permanent revolution and socialism in one country. The theory of permanent revolution was formulated in opposition to the stagism of the old social-democracy, accepted by Stalinists, Maoists, Barnesites etc. Whereas Bukharin's theory about "socialism in one country" was opposed to the insistence of every Bolshevik before him on the international revolution.

There are other differences, of course, and they are not minor ones. The question of the class nature of the Soviet Union is an extremely important one, with Stalinists generally upholding the Soviet Union as socialist from the first five-year plans until the fifties (after which, the "Brezhnevites" consider the Soviet Union to have remained socialist, and Maoists and Hoxhaists consider it to have become a capitalist, imperialist, and, depending on the writer, possibly fascist state), and most Trotskyists considering it a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat until the twenties and a degenerated workers' state afterwards.

Another key difference is the approach taken to work with other political groups. Trotskyists, on paper at least, uphold the approach of the first four congresses of the Comintern - the united front, an action, not a coalition, with all parties having freedom to pose their own slogans, and with the class lines being clearly drawn. Stalinists generally subscribe to the theory of the popular front - a coalition with both bourgeois workers' parties and the "democratic" liberal parties. Some - but mostly the ultralefts today - approximate the "united front from below" of the infamous "Third Period", where unity is sought with "the rank-and-file" of other organisations against their leadership.

There four questions - the international revolution or socialism in one country, the permanent revolution (or something similar) or stagism, the united front or the popular front or the united front from below, and the Soviet union as socialist, a transitional society, a historical anomaly, or capitalist - pretty much define the position of existing socialist groups. Sometimes they show up in odd places - e.g. many of the "radical" anarchists take an essentially popular front approach when it comes to work with minorities, and the ultra-left "communisation theory" is pretty much socialism in one country riot, stripped of all the theoretical scaffolding Bukharin and Stalin had to erect around it (the theory that the DotP is socialism, the continuation and intensification of the class struggle in socialism etc.).

As for "selling you" on the international revolution and the permanent revolution, well, when you look at the historical development of states like the Soviet Union, Hungary, China and so on, which theory seems more plausible to you?

Was there a bourgeois-democratic stage in Russia, corresponding to the doomed and ineffective Provisional Government, and in Hungary corresponding to the Karoly government? If so, these would be the shortest "stages" in human history, and the most ephemeral as well, given that these governments did little if anything to change the Russian and Hungarian societies. And how have subsequent attempts at a bourgeois-democratic revolution in the periphery of the imperialist system fared? From Algeria under Ben Bella to Nepal a few years ago, the bourgeoisie of the periphery has shown itself to be too weak and too intimately connected to the imperialist system to fulfill the democratic tasks of the bourgeois revolution. Modern capitalism is reactionary everywhere.

Was the Soviet Union socialist? Did it, at any point, reach the lower phases of the communist society? Even if we allow that in socialism, there is a state, commodity exchange (we can't really fault Bukharin or Stalin for this - it was in fact the former Trotskyist Preobrazhensky who coined the misleading term commodity-socialism), classes and so on, socialism is supposed to be a mode of production, a historically stable set of relations of production. How did ostensible socialism not simply disappear after 60 years, but also give way to capitalism? It would mean a more advanced mode of production regressing into a less advanced one - as if France had become feudal after the Second Empire.

Finally, what effect did the failure of the international revolution actually have? According to the theory of SioC, it should not have mattered much - socialism could be built in Russia alone. But in reality, the failure of the revolution to spread to other areas of the world, chiefly Germany, had an immense effect, from the retreat of the Soviet state in the economic area, replacing administrative requisitioning with market mechanisms in the countryside, a retreat from workers' democracy in many respects, a partial retreat when it came to industrialisation (also advocated by Trotsky, let's be honest here), the social conservatism of the twenties and thirties, chiefly aimed at women (and let's not mince words here, the condition of women is key to achieving socialism), a (necessary but problematic nonetheless) entanglement with imperialism (to the point that Zinoviev made noises about "socialist imperialism"!), careening from the "Third Period" to the popular front, and so on. Ultimately, Trotskyists would say, workers' rule in the Soviet Union was replaces by that of a brittle, contradictory and historically anomalous bureaucratic caste.

So, these are some of the things I think you should consider. Obviously I write from a Trotskyist perspective. Others would view things differently - it's up to you to decide for yourself which approach is more useful.

Finally, and this is a pet peeve of mine to be honest, don't let the CPGB-PCC/YY supporters convince you that theirs is an "orthodox" Marxism. Undoubtedly they would say that it is, but everyone else would dispute this. They tend to be very aggressive about claiming the name, but it would really be a bit too much to just give in.

[G4b3n]

Unlike the Trots would like to tell themselves, Trotskyism and Stalinism are not polar opposites. In practice, Trotskyism probably wouldn't look much different. We are still talking about centralization of power, a lack of genuine consideration for worker's control, and other fundamental problems that Leninism ultimately created. I would honestly love to be a Leninist, I love to read Lenin, he was very passionate and his rhetoric was awesome, but the conditions that necessitated his politics were a breeding ground for nothing beyond any sort of proletarian Bonapartism and Stalinism was the logical result.

And anyone who actually thinks solidifying tendencies is useful today is not looking at anything remotely important (it wasn't even useful when the left was relevant). Just get out and do leftist shit. Anarchists and Stalinists could work to together on the same shit if they wanted. But many don't and the reasons are petty.

[Ismail]

Just get out and do leftist shit. Anarchists and Stalinists could work to together on the same shit if they wanted. But many don't and the reasons are petty.As far as the Spanish Civil War went, Durruti got along well with Soviet military officers sent to assist the Republic, repeated a PCE slogan in his last radio broadcast, and when he died was duly mourned by Spanish Communists, plus representatives of the CNT served in the government alongside the Communists, Socialists, etc.

Then there were anarchists who fought in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War (including that one anarchist who actually ordered the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly.)

So yeah anarchists can work with commies. It's just that when the most pressing issue is 2 or 3 commies and 2 or 3 anarchists protesting high tuition fees or something the urgency doesn't exactly exist.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Unlike the Trots would like to tell themselves, Trotskyism and Stalinism are not polar opposites. In practice, Trotskyism probably wouldn't look much different. We are still talking about centralization of power, a lack of genuine consideration for worker's control, and other fundamental problems that Leninism ultimately created. I would honestly love to be a Leninist, I love to read Lenin, he was very passionate and his rhetoric was awesome, but the conditions that necessitated his politics were a breeding ground for nothing beyond any sort of proletarian Bonapartism and Stalinism was the logical result.

And anyone who actually thinks solidifying tendencies is useful today is not looking at anything remotely important (it wasn't even useful when the left was relevant). Just get out and do leftist shit. Anarchists and Stalinists could work to together on the same shit if they wanted. But many don't and the reasons are petty.

That's pretty much spot on until the last couple of sentences. There are serious, legitimate and anything-but-petty qualms anarchists and "Stalinists" would have with working with each other. If you see problems with centralized power and a lack of consideration for workers' control, that should be obvious. They might be able to work together on things such as protesting anti-terrorism legislation, but anything substantive to build alternative political structures or carry out a revolution would quickly undermine that cooperation because of differences that really aren't reconcilable in the end.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

Trotsky was a much better writer but Stalin was more stylish.

[rednortherner]

Both are 20th Century in nature. Neither hold the answers for today (or even at the time) the best thing we can can do is learn and develop 21st Century Communism. By keeping this argument up we make ourselves irrelevant. Both were bastards. both did things that were good and bad, and it doesn't meant they were right.

[LeninistIthink]

They are certainly relevant, as was other 20th century communists. Both deal with the socialist state after its establishment and are key thinkers, especially on permanent revolution which is pretty key for revolution in the third world according to some marxists, and look at over 20th century marxists like Lenin, who set up the disciplined party and ideas most communists follow or Gramsci, a man who set up key theories on cultural hegemony, just because they were 20th century doesn't mean they're not important, even if we disregard all they say we have to learn from mistakes and just ignoring them will create a 20th century communism all over again.

[Ismail]

They are certainly relevant, as was other 20th century communists. Both deal with the socialist state after its establishment and are key thinkers, especially on permanent revolution which is pretty key for revolution in the third world according to some marxists, and look at over 20th century marxists like Lenin, who set up the disciplined party and ideas most communists follow or Gramsci, a man who set up key theories on cultural hegemony, just because they were 20th century doesn't mean they're not important, even if we disregard all they say we have to learn from mistakes and just ignoring them will create a 20th century communism all over again.The irony of self-styled "Marxists" who complain about how everyone is supposedly fixated on "20th century socialism" is that they somehow forgot they're ostensibly upholding a doctrine conceived in the 19th century.

It's a silly and unscientific way of looking at things. No one says to an advocate of bourgeois ideology "you know Locke lived over 300 years ago, right?"

[LeninistIthink]

Spot on. :)

[LeninistIthink]

Hopefully this thread is not dead. :laugh: Can anyone just super quickly summaries why trotsky and stalin thought things and what they thought with bullet points.

[rednortherner]

I have to agree with the two of you, i just meant trying to repeat what they did/their specific line isn't progress and leads to becoming a history group. Rather than trying to affect change now. We need to talk about them as part of the bigger picture. Just no real need to be sold on on or the other :) both made contributions that were both positive and negative. The question should be what parts of their ideas and actions are useful for learning from, as this covers both the bad and the good.

[Comrade Jacob]

Both are 20th Century in nature. Neither hold the answers for today (or even at the time) the best thing we can can do is learn and develop 21st Century Communism. By keeping this argument up we make ourselves irrelevant. Both were bastards. both did things that were good and bad, and it doesn't meant they were right.

I see you are part of the CPB. Tell me, how will "The British road to socialism" "Hold the answers for today"?

[Comrade Jacob]

Socialism in one country ended up being socialism in many countries. Permanent Revolution has achieve nothing but creating liberal-"Marxists" who prefer to whine over words than actually do anything ever.

[Cliff Paul]

Socialism in one country ended up being socialism in many countries. Permanent Revolution has achieve nothing but creating liberal-"Marxists" who prefer to whine over words than actually do anything ever.

I don't think you understand what permanent revolution is

[Antiochus]

Socialism in one country ended up being socialism in many countries. Permanent Revolution has achieve nothing but creating liberal-"Marxists" who prefer to whine over words than actually do anything ever.

It also ensured the final collapse of those countries and the USSR. Socialism cannot exist inside a bubble within the Capitalist sea.

Oh and please don't say some shit like "It was the revisionists!". Even if we take that to be true, there were no major structural changes in the USSR that could be described as a clear break from economic and social policy during and after Stalin. I mean I find it funny that Stalinists and Maoists say "After 1953/1976 Socialism died in USSR/China". I mean really? 1 person's death caused an immediate return to Capitalism? Surely if that was true, the forces of Capital MUST have been in operation WITHIN their rule.

[Art Vandelay]

Permanent Revolution has achieve nothing but creating liberal-"Marxists" who prefer to whine over words than actually do anything ever.

Permanent Revolution is a theory that posits in late developing capitalist countries the bourgeosie remains too weak as a socioeconomic class to carry out the tasks traditionally associated with the bourgeois democratic revolution, and as a result, the proletariat can - and must - complete the remaining tasks in conjunction with their own socialist revolution. Economic/political theories don't 'achieve' anything on their own, so your comment was rather pointless. A theoretical framework merely provides communists with a guide to action. It was percisely this framework - an understanding of permanent revolution - which led Lenin to reject his past stagist approach and to develop the line he advocated for in his April Theses; as he would later say: 'the chain broke at it's weakest link.' October was permanent revolution in action.

I'd suggest taking the advice of your man Mao: 'No investigation, no right to speak.'

[LeninistIthink]

Sorry guys I did the work and agreed with Trotsky and correction continued revolution not permanent revolution which is different.