What thinkers influenced Trotsky?

[RedKobra]

Is there any record or account of the shoulders Trotsky saw himself standing on, beyond the obvious (i.e - Hege, Marx, Engels & to some extent, arguably, Lenin)? I think I'm right in saying he had theoretical disputes with Kautsky some time before Lenin did? So I'd imagine he didn't take much from Kautsky.

[Spectre of Spartacism]

Alexander Parvus, whom Trotsky first met in 1904, had a huge impact on Trotsky, especially on his theory of permanent revolution.

[The Idler]

Most socialists in Russia held Plekhanov and Martov in high regard.

[olahsenor]

The Mensheviks and their Social Democracy.

[The Idler]

The Mensheviks and their Social Democracy.
The Mensheviks were at least as Marxist as the Bolsheviks.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Perhaps it would be better to keep this thread focused on the question in the OP instead of the disgusting shilling for the Mensheviks. SoS is right; Trotsky was heavily influenced by Parvus. A. Joffe was also an influence, as well as a personal friend. Later, he would develop his position in discussion with people like Preobrazhensky, Pyatakov etc. in Russia, and others in and around the Left Opposition abroad.

[olahsenor]

Quoted from THE PROPHET, Trotsky's biography, comrade. Nonetheless, Trotsky showed his true good color when the Bolsheviks came into power. He became one of them. Sorry for the confusion.

[The Idler]

It is not "disgusting shilling for the Mensheviks" to say they were at least as Marxist as the Bolsheviks.
Here's an excerpt from Trotsky's speech in 1918

amongst us Marxists of the older generation there is not a single one who has not studied the works of Plekhanov. It was he who 34 years before October proved that the Russian Revolution would only triumph in the form of a revolutionary movement of workers. He strove to place the fact of the class movement of the proletariat at the root of the revolutionary struggle of the first circles of intellectuals. It is this that we learnt from him and in this lies the foundation not only of Plekhanov’s activity but also of the whole of our revolutionary struggle. To this we have remained true right up to the present day.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Machiavelli ;)

[Comrade Jacob]

The Mensheviks were at least as Marxist as the Bolsheviks.

This...

[Spectre of Spartacism]

This...

Not if you understand Marxism to be a program of action, and not a dry recitation of Great Texts.

[Rafiq]

It is not "disgusting shilling for the Mensheviks" to say they were at least as Marxist as the Bolsheviks.
Here's an excerpt from Trotsky's speech in 1918

Plekhanov, like - say, Kautsky (and yes, I mean to be provocative here) is a rather ambiguous figure as far as the split between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.

Here Trotsky, and for that matter Lenin when speaking of "Kautsky when he was a Marxist" are not juxtaposing these figures to the controversies that would later develop among them, but juxtaposing - say - Plekhanov to the older Left-populism.

[Rafiq]

Well what exactly does it mean to be a Marxist however? We can be word-mongerers all we want. The fact of the matter is that at the level of practice, the Mensheviks were bourgeois ideologues.

To a conservative, maybe it wouldn't be a crime to call the Mensheviks "Marxists". But then again, it would also not under the same terms be a crime to call the Soviet Union a "Communist state". Because we know what it means. Words convey a definite meaning contingent to the specific employment of that word.

It is at least significant that the Mensheviks called themselves Marxists, after all (i.e. rather than Kadets, or whatever you want).

But at the level of being true to the legacy of Marx, and therefore to the tradition of Marxism, the Mensheviks were not Marxists. The Mensheviks were theoretical opportunists who in every instance where push came to shove ran away from the responsibility of being revolutionaries like cowards, guising their own weaknesses with phrase-mongering and opportunism.

Trotsky is a figure who, for all intensive purposes was theoretically useless as far as giving us any distinct theoretical contributions to Marxism. That is not to say he was not a Marxist, or that his service during the civil war is anything but commendable (and this includes beautiful texts like Terrorism and Communism, which we ought to re-visit every month) - but that unlike what Trotskyists attempt to say, Trotsky is not up there as one of those big heads among Marx, Engels and Lenin.

Trotskyists attempt to make Trotsky Lenin's equal, for example. This is pathetic. Trotsky would have never been worth a shit had he not led the Left opposition or posed something of an alternative to Stalinism (without outright condemning the legacy of the October Revolution). Trotsky is no more Lenin's equal than say, a figure like Bukharin. As far as Trotsky goes at the level of practice, Trotsky was an opportunist and his inability to assume power after the failure of the october revolution was purely an inevitability. Trotsky was no real, practical alternative to Stalinism aside from his desperate attempts to sever the dominance of the Soviet Union upon western Communism (which often times was at the expense of western Communism), and this was - to make a huge understatement, pathetically tragic.

That is not to say there are no insights from Trotsky that are of importance here. Take for example his analysis of racism in the United States vis a vis the worker's movement. This is very relevant today.

[Guardia Rossa]

Trotsky was no real, practical alternative to Stalinism aside from his desperate attempts to sever the dominance of the Soviet Union upon western Communism (which often times was at the expense of western Communism)

I didn't quite understand this part. Can you expand on it please?

[Spectre of Spartacism]

Trotskyists don't claim that Trotsky the man was an alternative to Stalinism. They claim Trotsky's program of working-class communist resistance to the bureaucracy was an alternative, one that was unfortunately not pursued in sufficient strength.

[Comrade Jacob]

I didn't quite understand this part. Can you expand on it please?

It means Rafiq is a #savage mofo

[Comrade Jacob]

Trotskyists don't claim that Trotsky the man was an alternative to Stalinism. They claim Trotsky's program of working-class communist resistance to the bureaucracy was an alternative, one that was unfortunately not pursued in sufficient strength.

Except the alternative is completely void of content.

[Art Vandelay]

Except the alternative is completely void of content.

A lot like your posts. Sorry to say it, but I don't think I've ever seen you manage to string together more than a sentence or two of vapid content on this site. Why you insist on passing comment on things you don't understand, especially when it's clear your grasp on Marxism is tenuous at best, is beyond me.

So, how exactly have you come to the conclusion that the program of the Left Opposition was completely 'void of content'? What texts have you read to come to this understanding? Are you capable of substantiating your claim?

[Comrade Jacob]

Not even most trots can define Trotskyism, so the idea that anyone else should is beyond me.

To be quite frank I don't consider the opinion of a Trotskyist like yourself to be worth any more than the shit my dog did earlier.

I state my opinion in quick understandable posts, just because you post longer doesn't mean anything.

[Comrade Jacob]

I also have other things to do in life that spend ages going into detail with you lot, you just frankly aren't worth it. I'm here for the banta.;)

[Art Vandelay]

So the answer is no, you can't back up your claims. This doesn't come as a surprise, but at least anyone who wasn't already aware can see why your posts shouldn't be taken seriously.

[Comrade #138672]

Not even most trots can define Trotskyism, so the idea that anyone else should is beyond me.

To be quite frank I don't consider the opinion of a Trotskyist like yourself to be worth any more than the shit my dog did earlier.

I state my opinion in quick understandable posts, just because you post longer doesn't mean anything.My posts are generally not that long either, but when something needs to be justified, I will justify it. In your case, I see that you hate Trotskyists and like to bash them, but it is not very convincing if you don't back it up.

[The Idler]

I'm opposed to Trotskyism but I don't think Trotsky is the root of all evil, I don't think he played no role in the Russian Revolution or what followed or had nothing worthwhile to say whatsoever. I guess that makes me a counter-revolutionary Trotskyist in the eyes of Stalinists though.

[Rafiq]

I didn't quite understand this part. Can you expand on it please?

It sounds a bit off. I mean that often times western Communist parties had to pay the price for the geopolitical interests of the Soviet Union, i.e. sometimes the interests of the Soviet state were at the expense of western Communism.

Trotsky' "left opposition" attempted to be true to the early Comintern spirit, while attempting to paint themselves as alrernatives to Stalinism. This was a failure. It then produced stupidity that you find in today's sacred transitional program. The rot in Trotsky is passed down to his legacy.

[olahsenor]

Trotsky was then testing the mood of the masses. Given that Liberals too were anti-monarchial like the rest of the disenfranchised politicians, he was attempting to reassure the liberals and the rest that socialism was nothing to be afraid of which might be one of the reasons why he chose the minority or Mensheviks. Not until the Bolsheviks achieved power and gathered consensus that he himself was convinced that Lenin's democratic centralism was the right course. Well, everyone had his faults then. But Lenin was the most submissive and it was that submissiveness that caught the attention of the Central Committee to elect him leader.

[Rafiq]

Trotskyists don't claim that Trotsky the man was an alternative to Stalinism. They claim Trotsky's program of working-class communist resistance to the bureaucracy was an alternative, one that was unfortunately not pursued in sufficient strength.

And this is nothing more than hollow phrase mongering. How would "working-class communist resistance to the bureaucracy" be expressed in a practical matter, i.e. what would have been the outcome of this, so to speak? There was no alternative to Stalinism as far as the modernization of the Soviet Union was concerned - i.e. revolutionizing agriculture and dealing with the peasants. Trotsky attacks Stalin for how it was handled: What real alternative was there after several years of failed attempts at voluntary collectivization?

Of course, with a global revolution, these problems would not be problems. But that is precisely the problem - by the late 1920's the global revolution was hardly some immediate inevitability that could be waited upon.



So, how exactly have you come to the conclusion that the program of the Left Opposition was completely 'void of content'? What texts have you read to come to this understanding? Are you capable of substantiating your claim?

Your demand for "proof" is quite insincere. All we could do is talk about what the Left opposition was not doing, with qualifications why. No one here will dig up old texts that say outwardly "We, the left opposition, are without a real program". If we are talking about something which is not there, what "proof", or, what qualifications for substantiation would be sufficient? What could we actually produce if we are talking about things which were never produced to begin with?

[Emmett Till]

It is not "disgusting shilling for the Mensheviks" to say they were at least as Marxist as the Bolsheviks.
Here's an excerpt from Trotsky's speech in 1918

Except Plekhanov wasn't exactly a Menshevik. At the split conference in 1903 between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, he sided with Lenin.

He vacillated back and forth for the next decade or so, but then decided to support Russia in WWI, at which point the Mensheviks wouldn't have him either.

But yes, Plekhanov contributed tremendously to Russian Marxism. I suspect you could easily find a speech by Lenin saying very similar things about Plekhanov, to whom Lenin acknowledged much debt.

To this day, you have a Moscow subway station named after Kropotkin, which was blessed by Stalin and probably the idea of the guy who was running the subway construction program, name of Khrushchev.

Does that mean that Stalin and Khrushchev were anarchists? Don't think so.

[Emmett Till]

It sounds a bit off. I mean that often times western Communist parties had to pay the price for the geopolitical interests of the Soviet Union, i.e. sometimes the interests of the Soviet state were at the expense of western Communism.

Trotsky' "left opposition" attempted to be true to the early Comintern spirit, while attempting to paint themselves as alrernatives to Stalinism. This was a failure. It then produced stupidity that you find in today's sacred transitional program. The rot in Trotsky is passed down to his legacy.

Hey, staying true to that early Comintern spirit sounds pretty good to me! And indeed, Stalin most certainly didn't, so that's definitely in the alternative mode.

Actually, the transitional program is mostly Trotsky's brief summary of early Comintern program documents, some of which he wrote.

Trotsky never called himself a Trotskyist, but rather a "Bolshevik-Leninist." Just like Lenin wouldn't let anyone call themself Leninist, and Marx was famously not too fond of the adjective "Marxist."

But now they are all dead, and can't object when we call ourselves Marxist, Leninist or Trotskyist.

What's the justification for thinking of him as in some sense Lenin's theoretical equal? Namely, that the Soviet Union was the great event of the 20th century, and Trotsky was its Marxist analyst. As, essentially, the Soviet Union was then and is now the question of questions for Marxists.

Also, the theory of Permanent Revolution, which is the best guide to understanding revolutions in the Third World, a lot more important now than in Marx's or even Lenin's day.

Of course in practical terms, Trotsky was the main organizer of the Bolshevik Revolution and of the Red Army. Not unimportant!

[Spectre of Spartacism]

And this is nothing more than hollow phrase mongering. How would "working-class communist resistance to the bureaucracy" be expressed in a practical matter, i.e. what would have been the outcome of this, so to speak? There was no alternative to Stalinism as far as the modernization of the Soviet Union was concerned - i.e. revolutionizing agriculture and dealing with the peasants. Trotsky attacks Stalin for how it was handled: What real alternative was there after several years of failed attempts at voluntary collectivization?

Of course, with a global revolution, these problems would not be problems. But that is precisely the problem - by the late 1920's the global revolution was hardly some immediate inevitability that could be waited upon.


Your demand for "proof" is quite insincere. All we could do is talk about what the Left opposition was not doing, with qualifications why. No one here will dig up old texts that say outwardly "We, the left opposition, are without a real program". If we are talking about something which is not there, what "proof", or, what qualifications for substantiation would be sufficient? What could we actually produce if we are talking about things which were never produced to begin with?


Why, yes. A 22 year old college student (or recent college grad) would definitely find actual class struggle against an actual bureaucracy that was actually established by an actual workers' revolution to be "empty phrasemongering." That's the funny thing about the petty bourgeoisie. Class struggle filters to them as nothing but phrases, phrases that don't connect with them directly as they would with an exploited worker. Unless they are an exceptional person, like Marx or Engels, they write it off as symbolic posturing. Conditioned by their experiences, they just don't know any better. There's no guessing which side of the class struggle you would have been on had you been alive in Russia in the 1920s, just as there is no doubt about which side of it you are on today.

Thankfully, the proletariat, not wooden-headed knock-kneed dingbats who mistake revleft Kautskyism for Orthodox Leninism, will be the people to decide what is or isn't supercilious phrase-mongering. Something tells me they'd choose Trotsky over Zizek. Only time will tell. In the meantime, I'd sooner flap my arms in hopes of lifting off the ground than try to debate somebody who would characterize a struggle against oppression as empty phrase-mongering.

[Rafiq]

What's the justification for thinking of him as in some sense Lenin's theoretical equal? Namely, that the Soviet Union was the great event of the 20th century, and Trotsky was its Marxist analyst. As, essentially, the Soviet Union was then and is now the question of questions for Marxists.

Also, the theory of Permanent Revolution, which is the best guide to understanding revolutions in the Third World, a lot more important now than in Marx's or even Lenin's day.

Trotsky was a Marxist analyst, correct, but he was a passive analyst. Lenin revolutionized Marxism, I know it is such an embarressing fact today - but he transformed it. Of course, a proper dialectical conclusion is that he was very conservative (i.e. he only changed it insofar as history changed, wherein the only way to be true to Marxism was to re-approximate it) but that is besdies the point. Trotsky is not, and never has been Lenin's equal.

As far as Trotsky's notion of "permanent revolution", this is far from the "best guide" in understanding revolutions. Many might be tempted to point out that Trotsky placed great emphasis on the indirect nature of class rule, i.e. combined and uneven development, the bourgeoisie's inability to carry out their own revolution, ETC. as best encapsulated both by his analysis of Stalinsim (which was as far as a class analysis goes, very tragic) and of Jacobinism (of course, which was spot on).

But these insights were not unique to Trotsky. You find the same logic in the 18th Brumaire. As old as Germany social democracy you have an aroma of demonizing the cowardly bourgeoisie for being unable to carry out their own liberal revolution following the events of 1848 and beyond.

The practical implications of Trotsky's permanent revolution, insofar as there exists a significant land-owning peasant demographic, is civil war between the proletarian dictatorship and the peasantry. Of course, a number of things should be noted: Today, in 2015, it is not the proletarian dictatorship but globalization which has destroyed, displaced and proletarianized a huge portion of the world's land owning peasantry. Globalist agricultural policies encouraged by the United States did a great deal to destroy this class in various countries who place a new-found emphasis on exporting food in approximation to the demands of the global market, which of course has no regard for the nutritional needs of local populations. Permanent revolution is simply not relevant in most countries - it doesn't take into account the mass marginalization of whole populations into essentially "non-economic" zones, ghettos, slums that are not longer threshers of exploitation, but simply "outside" the economic sphere from walled off cities. In Latin America, Africa and Asia you see this. Places like Dubai are not so exceptional in this regard - the kind of economic apartheid you see there is true for most regions in the world, or at the very least - is emerging.


Of course in practical terms, Trotsky was the main organizer of the Bolshevik Revolution and of the Red Army. Not unimportant!

Had Trotsky's legacy been confined to his heroism and great leadership during the civil war, no honest Marxist would dare speak ill of him.


Why, yes. A 22 year old college student (or recent college grad) would definitely find actual class struggle against an actual bureaucracy that was actually established by an actual workers' revolution to be "empty phrasemongering." That's the funny thing about the petty bourgeoisie. Class struggle filters to them as nothing but phrases, phrases that don't connect with them directly as they would with an exploited worker. Unless they are an exceptional person, like Marx or Engels, they write it off as symbolic posturing. Conditioned by their experiences, they just don't know any better. There's no guessing which side of the class struggle you would have been on had you been alive in Russia in the 1920s, just as there is no doubt about which side of it you are on today.

Cute. You even know my age now. I can deal with this very thoroughly, or I can ask you a simple question: I want you to compile me a list of every single Marxist theoretician, organizer, you have ever read or heard of. What proportion of them come from proletarian backgrounds? It memorizes me how far your head is up your ass. No, I mean it, sometimes this kind of talk fascinates me. You actually compensate for your own inability to approach the topic in a theoretical matter by explaining your intellectual impotency in terms of my personal class background. I am no cynic, dear Spectre. I mean that, I am quite confident that you actually convince yourself - you actually bestow upon yourself the privilege of ignoring others' arguments because it's their "class background" speaking for them.

This is the epitome of intellectual barbarism, of the most crude and degenerate philistinism. Plainly put you have no fucking notion of class and how it relates to people's political positions - WE LIVE IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD. Of course, people who passively hold their "opinions", of course these almost always reflect their class backgrounds. But INSOFAR as it concerns ACTUAL ideologues, and I mean ACTIVE fucking ideologues, THEN THE CLASS NATURE OF ONE'S POSITIONS IS IRREDUCIBLE TO THEIR PERSONAL BACKGROUND. The point is that ideology is irreducible to individuals - as are SYSTEMIC things like class.

That is why you will find MANY, MANY Nazi ideologues who came from working-class backgrounds. I want to ask a serious question. No, truly, I mean it: Are you actually stupid? Honest question, why do I need to say this? Why do I need to point out such banalities? Why do I need to point out things which are COMMON knowledge, which do not take any serious, critical thought to know: Things like, for example, the fact that an intellectuals' personal class background is not a good indication of their positions, and why? Because for intellectuals, regardless of how their personal experiences have shaped their views, their ideas must relate to a wider society. Paul Robeson said that an artist must choose between freedom or slavery. The same is true for the intellectual. Intellectuals who derive from a petty bourgeois background can have thoroughly bourgeois, banal views. People from bourgeois backgrounds can be petty bourgeois ideologues.

"Conditioned by my experiences"? What magical insights are inaccessible to me that you have? You talk SHIT, say stupid SHIT, and then you avoid defending yourself by saying "Oh, look at you, you're a college student, that must explain everything". What? I have not hid anything. I have OPENLY stated on several occasions my class background. You say "conditioned by my experiences" I don't "know any better", that is, I don't arrive at the same great insights that you do. But I want you to actually think about this for a second. The idea that my class background is some hidden elephant in the room that I have not taken into consideration carefully and critically over the past - let's say 5 years, in relation to my ideas, the idea that it is something I am not conscious of as far as how it related to the consciousness that produced the idiot before you (I am an idiot, for engaging you, I acknowledge this) is painfully fucking stupid. Spectre of Spartacism literally, actually thinks he's clever: He thinks that I am some rabid, loose intellectual who has not taken into consideration the magical pseudo-theoretical panacea that Spectre thinks is "class analysis" and that finally, when Spectre points out that I am a student and not actually a proletarian, it's like I'm caught with my pants down, like it's supposed to be some secret that embarrasses me.

And the irony here is quite simple: It is not out of my "class background" that I had become a Communist. Of course, the reasons as to why people BECOME Communists as intellectuals are trivial and banal ones. I the events which led to the person typing this computer were because I was from an Arab background who grew up in the post 9/11 generation and had to deal with all of the politics that came with that. Of course this is not what sustains me today, but that's what built the bridge leading up to the leap that which there is no going back upon. You see, these are personal matters and I do not mean to be dramatic - I just want you to know how painfully fucking wrong you are at every level. Again, I can email you more details if you are so curious, I do not care that much about my personal life or the COMPLETELY and TOTALLY arbitrary reasons as to why I was eventually able to be a Communist - it is literally just by chance.

Of course, given my experiences, I could not arrive at the conclusions Spectre does. That is why the actual working class, however he wants to define it (Be it the comparatively small, relatively - compared to the precairat - well off industrial working class in the United States or the precariat), is so quick to arrive at the same conclusions the Spartacists do. Conditioned by their personal experiences, the working class arrives at the same conclusions the Sparts do, yes?

Here's a hint: When Marxists point out the class background of hte ideologue they are attacking, THEY CAN THOROUGHLY EXPLAIN HOW EXACTLY THIS WORKS, they don't have to FUCKING resort to vague things like "well, given the fact that you're a student" or whatever. And what's sad is because at the level personal experiences I AM very acquainted and familiar with student-activism. Student leftists predominantly become leftists through college and as a result of their college experiences. Is this true for Rafiq? It is not.


Thankfully, the proletariat, not wooden-headed knock-kneed dingbats who mistake revleft Kautskyism for Orthodox Leninism, will be the people to decide what is or isn't supercilious phrase-mongering. Something tells me they'd choose Trotsky over Zizek. Only time will tell. In the meantime, I'd sooner flap my arms in hopes of lifting off the ground than try to debate somebody who would characterize a struggle against oppression as empty phrase-mongering.

"A struggle against oppression" he sais. I have SIMPLY pointed out the very basic fact that talking about "working class communist revolutionary Leninist resistance against the bureaucracy" is VAGUE and MEANINGLESS. WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THIS? What would, at the level of practice, CONSTITUTE the expression resistance and what would its conclusion be? The proletariat overthrows the Stalinist bureaucracy and there is again no guarantee of the success of world revolution. And you keep talking about the "working class" in Russia. Are you aware of the fact that the revolutionary proletariat was overwhelmingly decimated during the civil war and that the newer proletariat was the result of, for example the NEP? Even they were a tiny demographic. Whether or not the proletarian dictatorship would have survived would have not solved the problem of the necessity of modernizing agriculture.

And you want to know what is so ironic about all of these? Stalinism was, in effect, a COMPROMISE with the peasant masses in this certain respect - Stalinism adjusted to the practical necessity of dealing with them, Stalinism was a reaction to the proletarian dictatorship. This was necessary to prevent the whole collapse of the state. Had the proletarian dictatorship survived without world revolution - it wouldn't have lasted very long. Stalinism destroyed the October revolution, yes. But what you forget was that it saved the Soviet state. The two were conditions of each other. My point is that Trotsky did not solve this problem, at the level of proposing a practical alternative to Stalinism.

Everyone, look at this shit:

the proletariat, not wooden-headed knock-kneed dingbats who mistake revleft Kautskyism for Orthodox Leninism, will be the people to decide what is or isn't supercilious phrase-mongering

"The proletariat" he sais with such confidence. No, the proletariat is not that big other which is going to guarantee your theoretical impotency, ideological and spiritual flimsiness, and philistinism will all be rewarded at the end of the day. Even by the standards of Trotsky himself - you mock him with your hollow phrase mongering. You make pretenses to the "proletariat" which is either apolitical or flocking to reaction in huge numbers already. The proletariat AS INDIVIDUALS are not a topic of concern here - because the proletariat that exists today are not class-conscious - it takes will, organization, and the active dedication of militants to forge the foundations of a real proletarian politics. In order to go about doing this effectively, the axiom that is of concern here is consciousness. Marx and Engels arrived at the conclusions that they did not from blossoming out of the ass of the proletariat, but from their involvement with the Young Hegelians. Without this, there would be no Marxism.

It is so disgustingly opportunistic - because few intellectuals are going to fit the criteria of being actual proletarians, especially in the "orthodox" sense of being a worker which produces commodities and 'tangible' value (i.e. the industiral proletariat). Certainly most Sparts, born out of the failure of the counter-culture, do not.

So what's the fucking point? The point is NOT to lower yourself to the ignorance of the typical proletarian or worker, the point is to disseminate scientific knowledge among the broad masses- among the proletariat. The proletariat are not ignorant, predisposed to reaction, racism, antisemitism, backwardness and the list goes on because they are inherently stupid or because these things are encoded in their DNA. They are this way because of fucking STUPID intellectuals - and that's ALL YOU ARE AS FAR AS THESE MATTERS ARE CONCERNED, and don't you EVER fucking forget it you rodent - who condescendingly do not want to be "elitist" towards them and so on. YOU have the time to read? YOU have the time to engage in such matters? YOU have the time to study these things? THEN YOU ALSO HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY AND DUTY TO BE AS "ELITIST" AND THEORETICALLY INVOLVED AS POSSIBLE INSOFAR AS YOU GO AROUND PRETENDING TO BE A COMMUNIST.

Don't you DARE fucking talk about "college kids" and what not - I don't give a fuck where you come from personally. You are an intellectual, that is ALL YOU ARE. So you ahve the responsibility of owning up to the same theoretical controversies you dismiss because "da proletariat" doesn't care about them. "ONly proletarians can be communists, unless they're exceptional intellectuals like Marx and Engels". Here's what Lenin has to say:

The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals. By their social status the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia. In the very same way, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy arose altogether independently of the spontaneous growth of the working-class movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of thought among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia. In the period under discussion, the middle nineties, this doctrine not only represented the completely formulated programme of the Emancipation of Labour group, but had already won over to its side the majority of the revolutionary youth in Russia

Marx and Engels were hardly exceptional "anomalies", as far as their class background goes, to say the least. He goes on:

This does not mean, of course, that the workers have no part in creating such an ideology. They take part, however, not as workers, but as socialist theoreticians, as Proudhons and Weitlings; in other words, they take part only when they are able, and to the extent that they are able, more or less, to acquire the knowledge of their age and develop that knowledge. But in order that working men may succeed in this more often, every effort must be made to raise the level of the consciousness of the workers in general; it is necessary that the workers do not confine themselves to the artificially restricted limits of “literature for workers” but that they learn to an increasing degree to master general literature. It would be even truer to say “are not confined”, instead of “do not confine themselves”, because the workers themselves wish to read and do read all that is written for the intelligentsia, and only a few (bad) intellectuals believe that it is enough “for workers” to be told a few things about factory conditions and to have repeated to them over and over again what has long been known

As for whether workers would prefer Zizek to Trotsky, first, the dichotomy is clownishly hilarious. You're comparing apples to fucking oranges. For one, Zizek today is one of those figures who would be a stepping stone to many people even ever giving a shit about Trotsky. Trotsky was more modest, too - he would never make pretenses to having anything to do with Zizek, just as Trotsky did not claim to be Lukacs's greatest adversary or whatvever. Please shut up and never post on this website again.

[Emmett Till]

Why, yes. A 22 year old college student (or recent college grad) would definitely find actual class struggle against an actual bureaucracy that was actually established by an actual workers' revolution to be "empty phrasemongering." That's the funny thing about the petty bourgeoisie. Class struggle filters to them as nothing but phrases, phrases that don't connect with them directly as they would with an exploited worker. Unless they are an exceptional person, like Marx or Engels, they write it off as symbolic posturing. Conditioned by their experiences, they just don't know any better. There's no guessing which side of the class struggle you would have been on had you been alive in Russia in the 1920s, just as there is no doubt about which side of it you are on today.

Thankfully, the proletariat, not wooden-headed knock-kneed dingbats who mistake revleft Kautskyism for Orthodox Leninism, will be the people to decide what is or isn't supercilious phrase-mongering. Something tells me they'd choose Trotsky over Zizek. Only time will tell. In the meantime, I'd sooner flap my arms in hopes of lifting off the ground than try to debate somebody who would characterize a struggle against oppression as empty phrase-mongering.

SOS: Personalizing polemics here on Revleft is in general unwise (as I've done myself on occasion I regret to say) but particularly unwise with Rafiq.

Why? Because it sets off his logorrhea, making further discourse difficult to impossible. As a polemicist, Rafiq is "differently abled."

Besides, he is hardly any worse than the Platypus imperialism facilitators your beloved IBT is so fond of, indeed probably somewhat better. They are remarkably polite with those SOB's so you really shouldn't be so nasty with Rafiq if you want to follow their example.

[Fourth Internationalist]

SOS: Personalizing polemics here on Revleft is in general unwise (as I've done myself on occasion I regret to say) but particularly unwise with Rafiq.

Why? Because it sets off his logorrhea, making further discourse difficult to impossible. As a polemicist, Rafiq is "differently abled."

Besides, he is hardly any worse than the Platypus imperialism facilitators your beloved IBT is so fond of, indeed probably somewhat better. They are remarkably polite with those SOB's so you really shouldn't be so nasty with Rafiq if you want to follow their example.

Your obsession with the IBT is odd. I think it's a case of projection when you go on and on about how they are an obsessive hate cult.

[Jacob Cliff]

Why do you always write "sais" lmao?