MikeyBoy
26th July 2003, 00:23
(Thanks to my friend, Randy, for helping me with the essay!)
Mao Tse-Tung wrote that we should analyze our comrades dialectically, not metaphysically. How can we forsake an individual for disagreeing with only a few issues, no matter how important they may seem? What this means is that we should evaluate their shortcomings AND their achievements. We should not coerce everyone into the same beliefs, because there are no absolutes. Trotsky was a man with bright abilities as a revolutionary. He was a writer with a beautiful poetic style of wording, and a ruthless general who led the Red Army. I will not, however, look away from his faults.
Trotsky’s call for mobilization of large worker armies, with organization and strict regulation of a military, was nothing short of dictatorial. I suppose it is understandable that he might have thought this to be efficient because of his successes with the military. This was actually stolen and put into practice by Stalin later, where convicts became members of the vast GULAG work camp system. And history has proven that these massive worker armies were inefficient and ineffective. Any historian will tell you that death rates were high, and the work was mostly pointless. Was this the result of Stalin’s madness and would it have been different under Comrade Trotsky?
Trotsky’s major theoretical work, permanent revolution, undermines Marxist thought at its very core. By combining the conditions of different social stages we can skip from feudalism to Communism…Capitalism is not only a social stage it is a key condition in the transition to Communism! This is why the disaster of the USSR became capitalist instead of communist. Trotsky later realized this, and attributed it to the Stalinist betrayal, when in fact Capitalism was the only way forward. The Bolshevik coup and growth of the Stalinist regime accelerated feudalism into the Capitalist stages. Once again we see how one-sidedness of history leads to misunderstandings. The fall into capitalism was neither solely the fault of any one person, but rather the result of a naturally occurring progression. The USSR under Bolshevik rule became socialist only in the sense that capitalism leads to communism. It could not have skipped the capitalist stage of development. Had Trotsky gained command of the Russia, he would not have been able to do any better than Stalin.
But the important thing is that Trotsky saw the growth of Capitalism as inevitable, and shared his thoughts. It took longer than he thought for the USSR to become fully capitalist again, but not too long. Before the end of the century Russia had become not only capitalist in economics, but developed Capitalist politics as well. Once the Soviet Regime collapsed, there was no longer any pretense that Eastern Europe was at all Marxist. History proved Trotsky correct.
As the leading Bolshevik, Lenin’s legitimate concern for the growth of Stalin’s power should have been noticed. Trotsky should have followed Lenin instead of Stalin. After his displacement from the USSR, Trotsky continued to be a loyal Marxist and opposed the traitorous Stalinist regime and its deformed worker’s state. In this stage of his life he began to understand in full the consequences of the revolution. It was too late for Trotsky, but his writings will educate both posterity and ourselves.
Mao Tse-Tung wrote that we should analyze our comrades dialectically, not metaphysically. How can we forsake an individual for disagreeing with only a few issues, no matter how important they may seem? What this means is that we should evaluate their shortcomings AND their achievements. We should not coerce everyone into the same beliefs, because there are no absolutes. Trotsky was a man with bright abilities as a revolutionary. He was a writer with a beautiful poetic style of wording, and a ruthless general who led the Red Army. I will not, however, look away from his faults.
Trotsky’s call for mobilization of large worker armies, with organization and strict regulation of a military, was nothing short of dictatorial. I suppose it is understandable that he might have thought this to be efficient because of his successes with the military. This was actually stolen and put into practice by Stalin later, where convicts became members of the vast GULAG work camp system. And history has proven that these massive worker armies were inefficient and ineffective. Any historian will tell you that death rates were high, and the work was mostly pointless. Was this the result of Stalin’s madness and would it have been different under Comrade Trotsky?
Trotsky’s major theoretical work, permanent revolution, undermines Marxist thought at its very core. By combining the conditions of different social stages we can skip from feudalism to Communism…Capitalism is not only a social stage it is a key condition in the transition to Communism! This is why the disaster of the USSR became capitalist instead of communist. Trotsky later realized this, and attributed it to the Stalinist betrayal, when in fact Capitalism was the only way forward. The Bolshevik coup and growth of the Stalinist regime accelerated feudalism into the Capitalist stages. Once again we see how one-sidedness of history leads to misunderstandings. The fall into capitalism was neither solely the fault of any one person, but rather the result of a naturally occurring progression. The USSR under Bolshevik rule became socialist only in the sense that capitalism leads to communism. It could not have skipped the capitalist stage of development. Had Trotsky gained command of the Russia, he would not have been able to do any better than Stalin.
But the important thing is that Trotsky saw the growth of Capitalism as inevitable, and shared his thoughts. It took longer than he thought for the USSR to become fully capitalist again, but not too long. Before the end of the century Russia had become not only capitalist in economics, but developed Capitalist politics as well. Once the Soviet Regime collapsed, there was no longer any pretense that Eastern Europe was at all Marxist. History proved Trotsky correct.
As the leading Bolshevik, Lenin’s legitimate concern for the growth of Stalin’s power should have been noticed. Trotsky should have followed Lenin instead of Stalin. After his displacement from the USSR, Trotsky continued to be a loyal Marxist and opposed the traitorous Stalinist regime and its deformed worker’s state. In this stage of his life he began to understand in full the consequences of the revolution. It was too late for Trotsky, but his writings will educate both posterity and ourselves.