Stalinism and Bolshevism

[Daymare17]

Everyone who is hostile to the October Revolution identifies Stalinism with Bolshevism. This includes bourgeois, anarchists, Stalinists. In reality they are as different as revolution and counter-revolution. I post Trotsky's article comparing the two. Trotsky's great service was to save Bolshevism from the bottomless pit of Stalinism.

From http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/wo...37/1937-sta.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1937/1937-sta.htm)


Leon Trotsky's
Stalinism and Bolshevism

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Online version: Reprinted in the magazine Living Marxism (No. 18, April 1990)
Transcribed for the Internet by Mike Griffin for the Trotsky Internet Archive, now a subset of the Marxist writers’ Internet Archive


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Stalinism and Bolshevism
Reactionary epochs like ours not only disintegrate and weaken the working class and isolate its vanguard but also lower the general ideological level of the movement and throw political thinking back to stages long since passed through. In these conditions the task of the vanguard is, above all, not to let itself be carried along by the backward flow: it must swim against the current. If an unfavourable relation of forces prevents it from holding political positions it has won, it must at least retain its ideological positions, because in them is expressed the dearly paid experience of the past. Fools will consider this policy ’sectarian’. Actually it is the only means of preparing for a new tremendous surge forward with the coming historical tide.

The Reaction Against Marxism and Bolshevism
Great political defeats provoke a reconsideration of values, generally occurring in two directions. On the one hand the true vanguard, enriched by the experience of defeat, defends with tooth and nail the heritage of revolutionary thought and on this basis strives to educate new cadres for the mass struggle to come. On the other hand the routinists, centrists and dilettantes, frightened by defeat, do their best to destroy the authority of the revolutionary tradition and go backwards in their search for a ’New World’.

MOD EDIT

If you are interested in reading more of Trotsky's incoherent ramblings, please follow the link above.

In addition, try to keep cut and paste articles to a couple of paragraphs with a link to the source for those interested in reading the whjole thing.

[YKTMX]

Nice post comrade. He's a brilliant writer and that is one of the best short analyses of what happened in Russia. :trotski:

No doubt some comrades will try and criticise out of sheer instinct but they happen to be, in this instance, wrong.

[Daymare17]

Thanks! It makes you ill to see how confused the left is, even on basic historic facts doesn't it!

[YKTMX]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2004, 06:04 PM
Thanks! It makes you ill to see how confused the left is, even on basic historic facts doesn't it!
I suppose it's a mix of "ignorance" and deliberate "obtuseness".

It is a rather complex opinion to be for October and Lenin but against Stalin and the Soviet Union.

Some comrades chose to capitulate to the harsh realities of "existing socialism" while others choose to sit from the sidelines sniping at the whole project, englufed in their own theoretical purity, unscarred by the "baggage" of practice.

As John Rees called them "dedicated followers of fashion".

[Morpheus]

I'm pro-October but anti-Bolshevik.


Originally posted by Leon Trotsky
The proletariat can take power only through its vanguard. In itself the necessity for state power arises from the insufficient cultural level of the masses and their heterogeneity. In the revolutionary vanguard, organised in a party, is crystallised the aspiration of the masses to obtain their freedom. Without the confidence of the class in the vanguard, without support of the vanguard by the class, there can be no talk of the conquest of power. In this sense the proletarian revolution and dictatorship are the work of the whole class, but only under the leadership of the vanguard. The Soviets are the only organised form of the tie between the vanguard and the class. A revolutionary content can be given this form only by the party.

If the party rules then the workers do not. Those leaders in fact, if not in name, constitute a new ruling class, with power over the proletariat. The above statement shows how elitist and anti-proletarian Trotsky really was. The works have an "insufficient cultural level" and so we must be dominated by some elite vanguard. This shows all this Trotskyist claptrap about workers having power, etc. to be bogus - in Trotsky's scheme it is the vanguard, not the workers, who have power.

[YKTMX]

I'm pro-October but anti-Bolshevik

:lol:


In itself the necessity for state power arises from the insufficient cultural level of the masses and their heterogeneity

Some sections of the Russian workers were extremely backward and uneducated. I know in you're anarchist paradise all Russia workers would have been put to work reading Marx and Nietzche before the revolution happened. This quote might be "nice" or "PC", it sadly happened to be a fact of time. If Trotsky was alive in today's advanced capitalisms, he'd see it diffirently. He isn't, so we have to use his ideas (and discard when neccessary) to change the world in the modern era. Certainly, your theory of immediate abolition seems silly in the face of the power of the modern capitalist class.


Without the confidence of the class in the vanguard, without support of the vanguard by the class, there can be no talk of the conquest of power. In this sense the proletarian revolution and dictatorship are the work of the whole class, but only under the leadership of the vanguard. The Soviets are the only organised form of the tie between the vanguard and the class. A revolutionary content can be given this form only by the party.

That's a beautiful quote from Trotsky, nice work comrade :)


If the party rules then the workers do not

Oh dear. The party holds state power for the class which directs economic control for itself in the soveits. Quite clear. Maybe we should come to the anarchist position. Which I will caricatute for my own amusement...

"Ummmmm, the workers will just wake up one day and "get it". Any plans to guide them are "tyrannical". Any parties with leaders are "undemocratic". So anyway, after the revolution happens ( :lol: ), the people will be given arms to shoot any capitalist that comes to their neighbourhood. If they see B-52 bombers they should just shut their eyes and hope for the best. We should not try to take control of the state apparatus because we'll get our hands dirty Women should stay indoors and not let thier husbands go without checking the condition of their "peoples militia" uniform. Oh yeah and "fuck authority".

- Bakunin, 1870

:lol: I crack myself up so I do.

[Urban Rubble]

It is a rather complex opinion to be for October and Lenin but against Stalin and the Soviet Union.

Some say complex, some would say retarted. Stalin's policies were an extension of what Lenin already started. You guys act like fucking deportations and state terror fell out of the sky after Lenin died. Stalin simply did it on a bigger scale. I can't understand why you Trots can pick out every little thing Stalin ever did that may have been wrong, but you ignore the very same shit from Lenin. Lenin was the one that paved the way for this kind of rule, I don't see how you can be for one and not the other.


As John Rees called them "dedicated followers of fashion".

Didn't John Reed call them that ? That was probably a typo.


Some sections of the Russian workers were extremely backward and uneducated. I know in you're anarchist paradise all Russia workers would have been put to work reading Marx and Nietzche before the revolution happened.

You don't have to read Marx or Nietzche to understand that you're getting fucked. Most working class people already know it. Sadly, the term "Communism" or "Communist" has been very corrupted. You can't really utter it to a working class person in the Western world without immediately being shut out, and I believe that has alot to do with Lenin by the way. The point is, working class people are not stupid, they know that things are wrong. It's our job as Socialists to explain to them exactly what is wrong and why. Some would call that a "Vanguard", but I don't think it's quite the same. The difference is, we don't consolidate power afterwards.

[redstar2000]

Does the slogan ’Back to Marxism’ then mean a leap over the periods of the Second and Third Internationals...to the First International? But it too broke down in its time. -- Trotsky

Yes it did...mainly because of the political immaturity of the working class of that era.

But, it did not "break down" because of parliamentary cretinism, internal corruption, support for "one's own imperialists", vanguardism, "personality cults", etc.

As a federation dominated by workers, it managed to avoid nearly all of the evils of both social democracy and "Bolshevism" (what I have called "the Leninist paradigm").

So, in modern terms, I would argue that "back to Marxism" means back to a revolutionary movement dominated by the working class...and not a self-designated group of "leaders".


Thus in the last analysis it is a question of returning to the collected works of Marx and Engels. One can accomplish this historic leap without leaving one’s study and even without taking off one’s slippers. -- Trotsky

Lucky for an old guy like me! The implication is that Marx and Engels are only "of historical interest".

If you want to "leave your study" and be "really active", then you "must" operate according to "Lenin + Trotsky" or (if you want to be a "bureaucrat") "Lenin + Stalin".

Today, in the more backward provinces of the empire, it's "Lenin + Mao".

Odd, then, that the most active anti-capitalist folks today appear to be, if anything, rather "fuzzy" anarchists -- or at least of a markedly anarchist "temperament".

They seem to have little respect for or even interest in Lenin or any of his late disciples or current acolytes.


None of those who propose to renounce Bolshevism as an historically bankrupt tendency has indicated any other course. -- Trotsky

That might well have been the case in 1937; but it's not true now...obviously.


The flaw in this reasoning begins in the tacit identification of Bolshevism, [the] October Revolution and [the] Soviet Union. -- Trotsky

Nothing "tacit" about it: the Bolsheviks made the October "revolution" (coup) and established the Soviet Union.


Bolshevism, however, is only a political tendency closely fused with the working class but not identical with it. -- Trotsky

I agree...but for reasons that Trotsky would not have approved of.

The "close fusion" was one of masters and servants.


The state built up by the Bolsheviks reflects not only the thought and will of Bolshevism but also the cultural level of the country, the social composition of the population, the pressure of a barbaric past and no less barbaric world imperialism. -- Trotsky

Quite so...Lenin and the Bolsheviks abandoned Marxism and tried by act of will to impose "socialism" on a backward country.

Surprise...it didn't work.

Marx told them it wouldn't.


Bolshevism, in any case, never identified itself either with the October Revolution or with the Soviet state that issued from it. -- Trotsky

Pure sophistry! Not only did they "identify" with the "revolution" they made and the state that they founded, they boasted of their leading role in the whole process.


Bolshevism considered itself as one of the factors of history, its ’Conscious’ factor - a very important but not decisive one. We never sinned on historical subjectivism. We saw the decisive factor - on the existing basis of productive forces - in the class struggle, not only on a national scale but on an international scale. -- Trotsky --emphasis added.

Horseshit!

If the "conscious factor" were not "decisive" (in their view), then what need for a "disciplined vanguard party" at all?


Having taken over the state, the party is able, certainly, to influence the development of society with a power inaccessible to it before; but in return it submits itself to a 10 times greater influence from all other elements in society. It can, by the direct attack by hostile forces, be thrown out of power. Given a more drawn out tempo of development, it can degenerate internally while holding on to power. -- Trotsky

It not only "can" -- it does.

In every case thus far.

To be fair, Trotsky didn't know this in 1937...but modern Trotskyists have no excuse.


In essence these gentlemen say: the revolutionary party that contains in itself no guarantee against its own degeneration is bad. -- Trotsky

That would be amended now to read: "the Leninist party guarantees that it will, sooner or later, degenerate whether or not it ever gains state power."


The specific alignment of forces in the national and international field can enable the proletariat to seize power first in a backward country such as Russia. -- Trotsky

No, what can happen is that a small party can seize power "in the name of the proletariat". But the class is not yet "ready" to govern itself because of its backwardness...so the end result is a party despotism and the working class is quickly reduced to servitude.

It is nonsensical to speak of "working class power" in this context...they don't have any.


At the eleventh party congress in March, 1922, Lenin spoke of the support offered to Soviet Russia at the time of the NEP by certain bourgeois politicians, particularly the liberal professor Ustrialov. "I am for the support of the Soviet power in Russia" said Ustrialov, although he was a Cadet, a bourgeois, a supporter of intervention - "because it has taken the road that will lead it back to an ordinary bourgeois state". Lenin prefers the cynical voice of the enemy to "sugary communistic nonsense". Soberly and harshly he warns the party of danger: "We must say frankly that the things Ustrialov speaks about are possible." -- Trotsky

Not only "possible" but inevitable.


"Relying on firmness of convictions, loyalty and other splendid moral qualities is anything but a serious attitude in politics." -- Lenin, quoted by Trotsky

A useful antidote to the ideas of contemporary Leninists of all varieties (especially Maoists).

But this is a quote by Lenin that will rarely be mentioned.


The proletariat can take power only through its vanguard. In itself the necessity for state power arises from the insufficient cultural level of the masses and their heterogeneity. In the revolutionary vanguard, organised in a party, is crystallised the aspiration of the masses to obtain their freedom. Without the confidence of the class in the vanguard, without support of the vanguard by the class, there can be no talk of the conquest of power. In this sense the proletarian revolution and dictatorship are the work of the whole class, but only under the leadership of the vanguard. The Soviets are the only organised form of the tie between the vanguard and the class. A revolutionary content can be given this form only by the party. This is proved by the positive experience of the October Revolution...No one has either shown in practice or tried to explain articulately on paper how the proletariat can seize power without the political leadership of a party that knows what it wants... -- Trotsky

The Paris Commune showed exactly that...the working class in power without a vanguard party.


If the revolution had triumphed, even if only in Germany, the need of prohibiting the other Soviet parties would have immediately fallen away. -- Trotsky

Yes, and the skies would have been darkened by herds of flying pigs.


Even now, in spite of the dramatic events in the recent period, the average philistine prefers to believe that the struggle between Bolshevism ("Trotskyism") and Stalinism concerns a clash of personal ambitions, or, at best, a conflict between two "shades" of Bolshevism.

Yeah...sign me up for that view. :P


...Bolshevism is the only possible form of Marxism for this epoch. -- Trotsky

That might have been a plausible statement in 1937. It's clearly not true now.


[Bolshevism] established for the first time the correspondence between the vanguard and the class which alone is capable of securing victory. -- Trotsky

Nope...all the "victories" have turned to ashes.

Marx was really right after all: the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves.

There's no other option.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Salvador Allende]

"Stalinism" is just another name for Marxist-Leninists. "Stalinists" were what the Trots called them to try and disassociate them with Lenin. However, Koba simply followed and achieved much of what Lenin wanted when he set up the CCCP. Simply spouting quotes by a left deviationist like Trotsky won't get you anywhere. You should look at the theories involved in Trotskyism and realize most Trotskyist theories and ideas like the "Permanent Revolution" theory have been disproven and that Trotskyism is certainly not following Lenin, but betraying his ideas.

[SonofRage]

A Marxist response to Trotsky's "Stalinism and Bolshevism":

Bolshevism and Stalinism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1947/bolshevism-stalinism.htm)



The alleged purpose of Trotsky’s biography of Stalin[1] is to show “how a personality of this sort was formed, and how it came to power by usurpation of the right to such an exceptional role". The real purpose of the book, however, is to show why Trotsky lost the power position he temporarily occupied and why his rather than Stalin’s name should follow Lenin’s. Prior to Lenin’s death it had always been ‘Lenin and Trotsky’ ; Stalin’s name had invariably been near or at the end of any list of prominent Bolsheviks. On one occasion Lenin even suggested that he put his own signature second to Trotsky’s. In brief, the book helps to explain why Trotsky was of the opinion “that he was the natural successor to Lenin” and in effect is a biography of both Stalin and Trotsky.

All beginnings are small, of course, and the Bolshevism of Lenin and Trotsky differs from present-day Stalinism just as Hitler’s brown terror of 1933 differed from the Nazism of World War II. That there is nothing in the arsenal of Stalinism that cannot also be found in that of Lenin and Trotsky is attested to by the earlier writings of Trotsky himself.[2] For example Trotsky, like Stalin, introduced compulsory labour service as a ‘socialist principle’. He, too, was convinced “that not one serious socialist will begin to deny to the Labour State the right to lay its hands upon the worker who refuses to execute his labour power”. It was Trotsky who hurried to stress the ‘socialistic character of inequality, for, as he said, “those workers who do more for the general interest than others receive the right to a greater quantity of the social product than the lazy, the careless, and the disorganisers”. It was his opinion that everything must be done to “assist the development of rivalry in the sphere of production”.

Of course, all this was conceived as the ‘socialist principle’ of the ‘transformation period’. It was dictated by objective difficulties in the way of full socialisation. There was not the desire but the need to strengthen party dictatorship until it led to the abolishment of even those freedoms of activity which, in one fashion or another, had been granted by the bourgeois state. However, Stalin, too, can offer the excuse of necessity.

In order to find other arguments against Stalinism than his personal dislike for a competitor in intra-party struggles, Trotsky must discover and construct political differences between himself and Stalin, and between Stalin and Lenin in order to support his assertion that without Stalin things would have been different in Russia and elsewhere.

There could not have been any ‘theoretic’ differences between Lenin and Stalin, as the only theoretical work bearing the name of the latter had been inspired and supervised by Lenin. And if Stalin’s ‘nature craved’ the centralised party machine, it was Lenin who constructed the perfect machine for him, so that on that score, too, no differences could arise. In fact, as long as Lenin was active, Stalin was no trouble to him, however troublesome he may have been to ‘The Number Two Bolshevik’.

read more... (http://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1947/bolshevism-stalinism.htm)

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2004, 01:49 AM
I know in you're anarchist paradise all Russia workers would have been put to work reading Marx and Nietzche before the revolution happened.
You know? That sounds very definite. How did you come to this conclusion?


Oh dear. The party holds state power for the class which directs economic control for itself in the soveits. Quite clear.

I like the way that when discussing this aspect of theory Leninists et al will always say "it is simple," "it is clear," "it is the only way," "you are unrealistic" etc etc etc.

The material (the reality) consequences of the theory are not what the theory is supposed to achieve. The party holds state power on behalf of the workers in order to direct, not only economic control, but political and social control. This, we are all clear about. That's the problem. The party holding state power will not, and cannot, lead to anything else than what it has led to in the past. A dictatorship of a party. Not communism.


"Ummmmm, the workers will just wake up one day and "get it".

That is not a premise of anarchism, either you don't know what your talking about or your lying on purpose.


Any plans to guide them are "tyrannical".

Again this is completely untrue. Bakunin called for a revolutionary organisation of discplined anarchists who would help organise the workers. The difference between anarchism and leninism is that the anarchist revolutionary organisation acts as just that, a guide, not a leadership or a organisation of control.


Any parties with leaders are "undemocratic".

How can someone making decisions on behalf of everyone else be democratic? Because they were elected?


So anyway, after the revolution happens ( :lol: ), the people will be given arms to shoot any capitalist that comes to their neighbourhood.

?


If they see B-52 bombers they should just shut their eyes and hope for the best.

So basically what your saying is that leninist organisation would be capable enough of shooting a B-52 bomber out of the sky because it has a central committee and leaders?


We should not try to take control of the state apparatus because we'll get our hands dirty

Not so much get your hands dirty, but just be incapable of achieving communism. You can not weild state control, increase it's powers, while at the same time creating conditions for it to wither away. How can you centralise control into the hands of a group of people, increase the states control in eonomics, politics etc, disband all other political organisations, censor all opposition, create institutions of reppression while at the same time handing over power to the workers and withering away the states control. You cannot do both things at the same time.


"fuck authority".

Indeed.

[YKTMX]

:D This is why I love this place, attacked from the left and right! I'm a glutton for punishment.



Some say complex, some would say retarted

Ahh, only the mentally handicapped are Trotskyist. Nice start comrade.


. You guys act like fucking deportations and state terror fell out of the sky after Lenin died

That's exactly what we don't do. We actually analyse the facts and see where Stalin came from and how he managed to come to power. Which is opposed to your proposal that whenever the revolution had happened, in whatever circumstances, flaws in Leninism would have brought Stalinism.


I can't understand why you Trots can pick out every little thing Stalin ever did that may have been wrong, but you ignore the very same shit from Lenin.

We don't "ignore it". We look at the circumstances, the failure of the other revolutions, the imperialist invasion, the civil war, the disspearance of the working class and analyse Lenin's decisions in that context. Stalin's decisions where made when the S.U. was at it's strongest militarily and economically and were used to consolidate his own power.


Didn't John Reed call them that ? That was probably a typo.

No, John Rees is a author of a book called "In defense of Ocotber".


The difference is, we don't consolidate power afterwards.

Oh right, so what's the point of revolution? Just to hand back power after we've had our fun?


You know? That sounds very definite. How did you come to this conclusion?

Deductive reasoning, you shoudl try it, it's fun.


The party holding state power will not, and cannot, lead to anything else than what it has led to in the past. A dictatorship of a party. Not communism.

I disagree.


Bakunin called for a revolutionary organisation of discplined anarchists who would help organise the workers. The difference between anarchism and leninism is that the anarchist revolutionary organisation acts as just that, a guide, not a leadership or a organisation of control.

You don't understand the Leninist conception of the party. The party follows the masses not the other way about.


How can someone making decisions on behalf of everyone else be democratic? Because they were elected?

Yes.


So basically what your saying is that leninist organisation would be capable enough of shooting a B-52 bomber out of the sky because it has a central committee and leaders?

No, because we take control of military power to repel attacks from countries that haven't thrown of their shackles.


You can not weild state control, increase it's powers, while at the same time creating conditions for it to wither away. How can you centralise control into the hands of a group of people, increase the states control in eonomics, politics etc, disband all other political organisations, censor all opposition, create institutions of reppression while at the same time handing over power to the workers and withering away the states control. You cannot do both things at the same time

Yes, you can. The measures you describe are preparations for the subsequent dissolution. As long as the "state" is properly accountable then this will be quite possible.


Indeed.

I though you'd like it.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2004, 01:03 AM
Deductive reasoning, you shoudl try it, it's fun.


That's your answer?


I disagree.

Evidently

[YKTMX]

That's your answer?

Well, one your member was attacking Trotsky for merely saying that the Russian working class were backward, which was a large section, true.


The proletariat can take power only through its vanguard. In itself the necessity for state power arises from the insufficient cultural level of the masses and their heterogeneity

Here's the part of the quote from Trotsky that I defended. Now, Morphues was quoting it negatively, whereas I merely pointed out that it was a fact. I also added that Trotsky may well have seen it diffirently if he were alive today.

I deduced from this attack (and from other similar sounding "anarchisms") that it is the position of the anarchists that any attempt by people who are "backward" to free themselves is doomed to failure. Now, this "backwardness" can be solved through educational enlightenment. Therefore, anarchists wished to see steel workers in Petrograd read Das Kapital in between their 14 hour shifts.

[Morpheus]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2004, 11:49 PM
Some sections of the Russian workers were extremely backward and uneducated.
Trotsky claimed that "in itself the necessity for state power arises from the insufficient cultural level of the masses and their heterogeneity." Are you alleging that being backward (what the hell is that supposed to mean, other than showing your anti-proletarian prejudice?) and uneducated are identical with "insufficient cultural level of the masses" and heterogeneity? If so, prove it and prove that Russian workers were like this at the time. Russian workers were among the most advanced of their time and much more advanced than many working classes today. They formed workers councils (soviets) & factory committees, taking over factories and overthrowing the government. The vast majority were socialists of some sort without reading volumes of Marx.


I know in you're anarchist paradise all Russia workers would have been put to work reading Marx and Nietzche before the revolution happened.

Straw man.


The party holds state power for the class which directs economic control for itself in the soveits.

If the party holds power *for* the workers then the workers don't actually hold power, the party does. As this party has power over workers, the dictatorship of the proletariat is really the dictatorship of the party over the proletariat. Your caricatute is a misrepresentation.


We actually analyse the facts and see where Stalin came from and how he managed to come to power.

Except facts that contradict your analysis, such as the continuities of policy between Lenin & Stalin. Most of the things attributed to Stalinism had their precursors in the first years of Bolshevik rule:

-state farms/"collectives" first established in 1918
-war on the peasants - grain requisitions under Lenin / forced collectivization under Stalin
-using torture to extract "confessions" was first used against striking workers in 1919
-One party state established in the first half of 1918
-persecution of dissident party members began in 1921 with the decree banning factions
-suppression of independent socialist and labor organizations began in 1918

Of course Stalin took these things to an extreme beyond that of Lenin and Trotsky, but the precursors were there. There is more continuity between Lenin and Stalin than most anti-Stalin Leninists would have us believe. Stalin used the same strategies and repressive machinery (systemic lying, repression of all opposition, etc.) Lenin used against the Left SRs, anarchists, Mensheviks, etc. against his opponents.


Which is opposed to your proposal that whenever the revolution had happened, in whatever circumstances, flaws in Leninism would have brought Stalinism.

That's not opposed, it's support by facts. Like the fact that Stalinism was brought about *everywhere* a Leninist revolution occured, not just Russia so it can't just be a coincidence or the results of special circumstances. And the fact that decades before the Russian Revolution several people predicted implementing a Dictatorship of the Proletariat would result in things like Stalinism.


We look at the circumstances, the failure of the other revolutions, the imperialist invasion, the civil war, the disspearance of the working class and analyse Lenin's decisions in that context.

Lenin claimed imperialist invasions and civil war were inevitable and that those who denied they were inevitable are utopians. If they cause Leninism to turn into Stalinism then Leninism will always turn into Stalinism because, according to Lenin, they are inevitable in revolution. The "dissapearance of the working class" is a myth invented to rationalize Bolshevik tyranny. Workers were still around and even went on strike against the Bolsheviks. See http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secH8.html#sech85 And I have yet to see a coherent explanation how the failure of other revolutions caused Bolshevik tyranny in the early years of the revolution (1917-1921). Indeed, other revolutions would also have faced civil war, etc. and so also would have degenerated according to your theory.


No, John Rees is a author of a book called "In defense of Ocotber".

And you can find refutations of it at http://www.anarchism.ws/writers/anarcho/defence.html and http://struggle.ws/ws92/krons34.html


No, because we take control of military power to repel attacks from countries that haven't thrown of their shackles.

There's no reason anarchist militias can't shoot down bombers, just like a Leninist military.

[The Feral Underclass]

John Rees. What a funny little man he is. He reminds me of post man pat. I remember, in my days as an SWPer he was once concerened for my well being at Marxism 1997. What a nice man.

[YKTMX]

Russian workers were among the most advanced of their time and much more advanced than many working classes today. They formed workers councils (soviets) & factory committees, taking over factories and overthrowing the government. The vast majority were socialists of some sort without reading volumes of Marx.

Of course there were brilliant, inspirational sections of the Russia working class but the fact is that Russian chauvinism and illiteracy where a major factor in Russian society.


If the party holds power *for* the workers then the workers don't actually hold power, the party does. As this party has power over workers, the dictatorship of the proletariat is really the dictatorship of the party over the proletariat. Your caricatute is a misrepresentation.

What make you assume that the party can't represent the class. The party is made up of the class, is the class in it's highest form. The most "advanced members" of the class, who can argue Marxist ideas during times of reaction. Lest you forget, Trotsky was voted head of the Petrograd soviet. The Bolsheviks were of the working class, the vanguard, the followers and the followed.


state farms/"collectives" first established in 1918

So, during times of famine a state has no right to take grain from hoarders?


Lenin used against the Left SRs, anarchists, Mensheviks, etc. against his opponents.

The reasons for the terror are well known and well trodden.


. Like the fact that Stalinism was brought about *everywhere* a Leninist revolution occured

I'm interested in this oft repeated assertion that there was "more than one" Leninist revolution. I'd be interested to see you list them in you will.


And I have yet to see a coherent explanation how the failure of other revolutions caused Bolshevik tyranny in the early years of the revolution (1917-1921)

Because as Lenin and Trotsky often explained, the backwardness of Russia would be it's own downfall if the more advanced workers didn't follow and support the Russian people. This was clear from day one in Russia.


Indeed, other revolutions would also have faced civil war, etc. and so also would have degenerated according to your theory.

No, if the workers of the world had risen up and destroyed all capitalists states, "civil war" would have been a non-issue. The might of the collective western imperialisms combined with the Whites couldn't defeat Russia on it's own! Imagine them against all the worker's states of the world.


There's no reason anarchist militias can't shoot down bombers, just like a Leninist military.

Quite.

[redstar2000]

What make you assume that the party can't represent the class? The party is made up of the class, is the class in its highest form. The most "advanced members" of the class, who can argue Marxist ideas during times of reaction. Lest you forget, Trotsky was voted head of the Petrograd soviet. The Bolsheviks were of the working class, the vanguard, the followers and the followed.

What makes you assume that "representation" is the equivalent of class rule? Especially when that "representation" becomes permanent and incontestable?

Just because "it's always been done like that?"

How does one measure this "advanced portion" of the working class, anyway? Is a Leninist worker "more advanced" by definition?

As I recall reading, the Bolshevik party was about 65% working class in October 1917...that percentage steadily dropped afterwards until Lenin's death. It was Stalin who then brought in a large influx of working class members -- the "Lenin Levy".

Trotsky was indeed elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet...he was a popular guy in that city in his own right. He didn't win "because" he was a Bolshevik; he wasn't in 1905 nor early in the spring of 1917.

All talk of the working class nature of Leninist parties dissolves, of course, in the face of the class origins of their leadership.

The only working class leader in the Bolshevik party was...um, Joseph Stalin.

And that didn't work out too well, did it?

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[YKTMX]

All talk of the working class nature of Leninist parties dissolves, of course, in the face of the class origins of their leadership.

Marx and Engels both had upper class backgrounds and lives.


How does one measure this "advanced portion" of the working class, anyway? Is a Leninist worker "more advanced" by definition?

The Marxist workers who view everything in terms of class conflict and the destruction of his slave master is more advanced than the worker who views reform as an end in itself.


that percentage steadily dropped afterwards until Lenin's death. It was Stalin who then brought in a large influx of working class members -- the "Lenin Levy".

Yes, it dropped under Lenin because most of the Russian working class died in the period after the revolution. As Stalin rebuilt it (whilst simultaneously destroying it of course), it naturally rose again.


Trotsky was indeed elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet...he was a popular guy in that city in his own right. He didn't win "because" he was a Bolshevik; he wasn't in 1905 nor early in the spring of 1917.

What's your point? My point was that the Bolsheviks had genuine and deep rooted working class associations. This statement merely reiterates it.

[redstar2000]

Marx and Engels both had upper class backgrounds and lives.

By all accounts, Marx led an utterly wretched life.


Yes, it dropped under Lenin because most of the Russian working class died in the period after the revolution.

:o ???

No doubt there were quite a few working class Bolsheviks who died in the civil war; but I think the real reason that the proportion of workers in the Bolshevik party declined is that a substantial number of non-working class people signed up...as a good career move.


My point was that the Bolsheviks had genuine and deep rooted working class associations.

And my point is that you can't use Trotsky to demonstrate that assertion...he was popular in his own right, not "because" he was a Bolshevik.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[YKTMX]

No doubt there were quite a few working class Bolsheviks who died in the civil war; but I think the real reason that the proportion of workers in the Bolshevik party declined is that a substantial number of non-working class people signed up...as a good career move.

Oh come on Red, be serious. There was absolutely no sign that under Lenin being a CP member would lead to a better exsitence. Lenin lived modestly as did his comrades, unlike Stalin who although rarely "buying himself" things was constanstly being given "gifts" by the people.


And my point is that you can't use Trotsky to demonstrate that assertion...he was popular in his own right, not "because" he was a Bolshevik.

Yeah, he was brilliant eh? :)

[redstar2000]

Oh come on Red, be serious. There was absolutely no sign that under Lenin being a CP member would lead to a better existence.

Nope, that's just historically wrong. It's true that Lenin lived quite modestly; but the people who flocked to join the Bolsheviks after October were seeking and getting administrative positions (often jobs that they'd had under the Czarist regime) with perks galore.

It might even be argued that Lenin's willingness to introduce higher salaries for these "experts" was an attempt to "reign in" their otherwise insatiable greed. With administrative powers in their hands, they were often able to arrange for themselves to have first pick of any consumer goodies that became available...and Lenin might well have thought it would be cheaper in the long run to just pay them more.

In any class society, it's always a good career move to join the side that's winning.


Yeah, he was brilliant eh?

Well...at least he wrote his own speeches and delivered them in an appealing manner. ;)

[American_Trotskyist]

Stalin Followed Nothing of What Lenin Wanted. I capitalize these because they need to be. If you knew anything about October or Lenin you would see Stalin was just a petty bourgeois reactionary. The fact is he regressed socialism in the country go to Newyouth.com and read it. I can't believe the ignorance that continues to today when people think that Stalin did something for socialism. And yes we supported the USSR and all of the other Proletarian Bonapartist regimes, but we never said they were socialist. We choose the correct path of Marx and Lenin, so sorry if we have conviction and maintain during social change. Goddamned Mensheviks.

[redstar2000]

That was very clever of you, American_Trotskyist...going back and digging up an old Trotsky-Stalin thread and "bumping" it up so that you could get in a "dig".

I cannot deny that cleverness (not to mention persistence) deserves to be rewarded...so I will not move this thread to History.

I will note, however, the "contradiction" between your expressed desire to "discuss" the whole Stalin-Trotsky conflict and the mindless rant that you actually posted.

Just as I suspected, you have nothing new or even coherent to say about this stuff...you simply want to "practice your polemics" like a beginning piano student practicing his scales.

From me, you get an F.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[American_Trotskyist]

Oh thanks Red, it means a lot to get a complement from someone who's life revolves around a forum. However, unlike you, I'm not some fool who acts like a Priest and accuses others of not having conviction so I can boost my confidence. I'm secure in my convictions, are you? Well thanks for the complement but I guess I’ll just have to listen to you act like a little priest trying divide the revolutionary forces so you can feel secure in your archaic belief, Menshevikism

[PRC-UTE]

Yankee Trot:

you can feel secure in your archaic belief, Menshevikism


Goddamned Mensheviks.

Yankee Trot,

Don't you realise that the 'Menshevik' label has no comparison to to-day? Who on this site is in any way Menshevik-like? The charactaristics of a proto-socialist party in a primitive, despotic fuedel society has nothing in common with the social conditions most Che-live'ers struggle in.

That's the funniest insult lobbed on Che-lives yet.

And btw, Leon was originally a Menshevik! :lol:

[American_Trotskyist]

Menshevikism has everything to do with Stalinism. Their rejection of Permanent Revolution is what lead to this. This lead to the betrayal of the Spanish Revolution, French, German (In 1923 Stalin lead the faction in the politburo to oppose any extension of the revolution in to German saying they needed to be united against fascism, even though it was more clear than ever that the Germans were ready for socialism, and this went against every Lenin said about the Russian revolution only being able to survive with the aid of the West, Red save it). Only the most Idealist philosopher would ignore the scientific approach to the reaction in Russia and the adoption of "Socialism in One Country". The support of the national bourgeoisie, denying revolution to those who need it because of foreign policy, the reaction in society, the curtailing of rights (however, sometimes this is need but briefly) and the death of DEMOCRACY are all characteristics of reactionary socialism which is caused by a lack of goods and the backwardness of a peasant country unable to produce for its own industrial needs. But back to Menshevikism, Lenin choose Trotsky as the person to lead because of his devotion to the proletariat, not the petty bourgeoisie, please read,” Lenin and Trotsky What They Really Stood For" for more information about it. Well, I'm tired as a bastard so I’ll right more later.

[American_Trotskyist]

Oh, my friend, the Two Stage Theory is the text book example of Menshevikism. Lenin was completely against this that is what the Mensheviks fought for and what the Bolsheviks fought against , if you don't understand this you know nothing of the October Revolution, stating he wanted a direct take over by the proletariat with out the bourgeoisie, doesn't he sound like a damn Trot?!

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by American_Trotskyist
Well, I'm tired as a bastard so I’ll right [write?] more later.

Yes, I think you do need to get some sleep...and quite a bit as your posts are extremely incoherent.

Sweet dreams of "the permanent revolution" -- whatever that's supposed to mean these days.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[SonofRage]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2004, 08:52 AM

Sweet dreams of "the permanent revolution" -- whatever that's supposed to mean these days.
From my observations of various Trotskyist groups, I think these days it will surely involve selling a lot of newspapers. :P

[American_Trotskyist]

Yes there was a deformed "socialist" economy in the USSR and Mao's China. The complete lack of democracy killed economy. Trade Unions were banned from strikes, collective bargaining and holding elections within them. The workers committes where not elected, thus killing the idea of a state dying and workers control over the means of production. This meant the state would need more bureaucracy to combat economic woes and not allowing the workers fix the problem within their factories and mines. So the government would then need to fix problems by rushing to the largest one's fixing them and allow the smaller ones grow. So a socialist economy is a democratically planed economy.

[Hate Is Art]

Nope, that's just historically wrong. It's true that Lenin lived quite modestly; but the people who flocked to join the Bolsheviks after October were seeking and getting administrative positions (often jobs that they'd had under the Czarist regime) with perks galore.

Examples?

From my observations of various Trotskyist groups, I think these days it will surely involve selling a lot of newspapers

Oh god, selling newspapers - fucking hell!! Whatever next, sooner or later this filthy Trots will be running a website or something. Whereas being part of an anarchist group entails what exactly? Wearing a baraclava and graffiting, jeez I can use a stereotype too.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Digital Nirvana
Nope, that's just historically wrong. It's true that Lenin lived quite modestly; but the people who flocked to join the Bolsheviks after October were seeking and getting administrative positions (often jobs that they'd had under the Czarist regime) with perks galore.

Examples?

After the Bolsheviks moved the capital to Moscow, the party took over two large luxury hotels as living quarters for state officials. The luxuries were retained.

There's also considerable indirect evidence from Lenin's own writings...on several occasions he explicitly justified using the old Czarist bureaucracy as well as paying "specialists" (from the old regime) enormously inflated salaries.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas