Trotsky's "If America Should Go Communist"

[manic expression]

Here's a link to the piece in English:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/wo...35/1935-ame.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1935/1935-ame.htm)

It's a really interesting essay. I think Trotsky hits a few nails on the head.

[Poum_1936]

I think Trotsky hits a few nails on the head.

For reals.

*Shakes fist at you gum chewers*

[Red Menace]

awsome article, very informitive

[EwokUtopia]

Fortunately for Trotsky, he wasnt dealing with an America hooked on FRIENDS and CNN. I dont think America will be going Communist anytime soon, we need a better starting place.

[ComradeR]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 08:54 am
Fortunately for Trotsky, he wasnt dealing with an America hooked on FRIENDS and CNN. I dont think America will be going Communist anytime soon, we need a better starting place.
Actually the US is approaching economic collapse with the impending energy crisis and falling value of the dollar. This will in all likelihood lead to a new depression that will create the perfect atmosphere for revolution.
And in all reality a revolution must happen in the US (or at least a major collapse) before any real chance of a successful revolution can happen anywhere else and survive, or else the imperial capitalist US will "strangle at birth" the new socialist society like it has every time in the past.

[Wanted Man]

He makes some good points, but I also disagree with quite a bit. For starters:


Who else will fight against communism? Your corporal's guard of billionaires and multimillionaires? Your Mellons, Morgans, Fords and Rockefellers? They will cease struggling as soon as they fail to find other people to fight for them.

I don't know about the situation in 1934, but at this point, such a claim has nothing to do with reality.

ComradeR: yes, that's what the Trotskyists have been predicting for years. It's called catastrophism, and is mostly used by them to give their members a sense of urgency in what usually amounts to very mundane tasks(selling newspapers and the like): we MUST do this, because next year, the new depression will finally come, and we must be prepared to liberate the proletariat, or the world will collapse in unprecedented barbarism!

In this thread, I partly agree with EwokUtopia: there's obviously going to be many more difficulties, and it's quite ridiculous to claim that revolution in the US is just around the corner(either because of Trotsky's words in the middle of the Great Depression, or because of the catastrophism of Trotskyists today). That doesn't mean the US, or any other "first world" countries should just be abandoned altogether. Such a position is a great excuse for the likes of MIM to completely stay inactive, or even to engage in scabbing and other such activities because such an action would be against the "labour aristocratic oppressors of the third world" and therefore "the enemy".

[Coggeh]

Very well written , and the turn "American Soviets" just gives me butterflys :wub:

[EwokUtopia]

Originally posted by Ronnie James [email protected] 15, 2007 11:34 am
That doesn't mean the US, or any other "first world" countries should just be abandoned altogether.
Im not saying we should abandon the first world, but within the first world, the US is least likely to have a good solid revolution. Remember, a quarter of the population is hardcore fundamentalist Christian, I dont know what the effects of a great depression would be on their theology, but somehow Im not too excited to find out. The UK, France, Germany, Spain, Poland, Canada (Oh good old Soviet Canuckistan, where art thou?), New Zealand, Ireland, hell, maybe even Austraillia are likelier candidates for revolution than the US.

[Councilman Doug]

Remember, a quarter of the population is hardcore fundamentalist Christian

Source?

[Rawthentic]

"1st world" nations are the only ones that can sustain a communist society. With this, they would be better able to help the underveloped nations develop to reach the material conditions to support it as well.

[The Grey Blur]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 11:08 pm
"1st world" nations are the only ones that can sustain a communist society
Noone has ever denied this, the point is a revolution can break out (like Russia in 1917) where capitalism is not fully developed and if so the revolution must spread internationally for it to be able to sustain a healthy worker's state.

[RGacky3]

The essay starts getting a little nuts and Utopian later on :P, But remember when Trotsky was around, before the red scare, after the Depression, Radicals were still strong then, Remember Debs? Oh yeah.

I like his point about American culture, and how some heads will have to be smashed, the kind of Cowboy culture we have here, can be a positive thing I think.

[redcannon]

i think Trotsky gives a lot of hope for the american future, and i like the idea of the Soviet America. I think he's right that because of america's influence on the world, especially now more then ever (sole superpower) communism would spread like a wild fire to other countries.

the time is ripe for revolution, or at least as ripe as it's going to get.

[Entrails Konfetti]

When one reads Trotsky or Lenin, they must look for what they don't say, and then ask themselves questions.

[RGacky3]

Originally posted by EL [email protected] 16, 2007 04:44 am
When one reads Trotsky or Lenin, they must look for what they don't say, and then ask themselves questions.
Yes, and we can read into what was not written and what did'nt happen and the difference between being and nothingness and the nothingness of being.

What do you Mean?

[Poum_1936]

But remember when Trotsky was around, before the red scare, after the Depression,

The orginal Red Scare was 1917-1920. In which the FBI was created to hunt down communists, socialists and general radicals. There was also a second Red Scare during 1947-57. Though I doubt Trotsky or yourself were meaning this period of time. No one does, if you were, my apologies. However, your use you Eugene Debs leaves me to believe you were talking about the first Red Scare during WWI and years after..

[More Fire for the People]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 02:54 am
Fortunately for Trotsky, he wasnt dealing with an America hooked on FRIENDS and CNN. I dont think America will be going Communist anytime soon, we need a better starting place.
This only signifies that CNN and Friends are better at articulating everyday life in the form of a spectacle then the people who actually live it.

Trotsky's article reeks of optimistic technocratic positivism. Then again it was only a piece of agitation meant to interest people in a deeper workings of Bolshevik-Leninist thought.

[Cheung Mo]

There will never be a revolution in my Canada: The most popular party leader wrote fascist propaganda for the KKKristian KKKoalition, favours unfettered capitalism, wants even closer ties to Washington, and believed for years that Jesus Christ would return in 1999.

And yes, I'm talking about our PM, Little Stevie Blunder.

And the so-called modern social democratic heartland of Quebec?

Consider this.

A neo-liberal cocaine addict, Frenchy Mike Harris, and the Second Coming of Maurice Duplessis are all substantially leading a left-leaning ecologist party and a coalition of anarchists, radical social democrats, feminists, and Trotskyists in the polls.

[More Fire for the People]

Originally posted by Cheung [email protected] 16, 2007 10:46 am
There will never be a revolution in my Canada: The most popular party leader wrote fascist propaganda for the KKKristian KKKoalition, favours unfettered capitalism, wants even closer ties to Washington, and believed for years that Jesus Christ would return in 1999.

And yes, I'm talking about our PM, Little Stevie Blunder.
The identification of the revolutionary process with electoral process is not only absurd but outright liberalism. Working class action takes place on the streets not in Parliament.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 07:09 am
What do you Mean?
Especially in this article we don't see what role the a Marxist-Leninist Party would play in USA at the time.

He wrote it like there was only one direction to Soviet America, and he doesn't really give anyone the idea where a 'path' to revolution would start.


This only signifies that CNN and Friends are better at articulating everyday life in the form of a spectacle then the people who actually live it.

Not exactly, it could be that Citcoms that display middle-class ideals and consumerism acts as distraction from whats going on. Even in working-class Citcoms like King of Queens and Roseanne the working-class are caught up in consuming. This consumtion to out do your neighbours is a middle-classism.
It could be this consumerism acts as a distraction.

It tells people to keep wearing the right the clothes, drive the right cars --otherwize they'll be looked down by their peers. Also if you happen to look better than your co-workers the boss will notice you and give you an assistant position.

In the USA being working-class is being unvaluable in the cultural-capital.
Whereas deviants we look at the poor and working-class as, people with character and as creative in improvising in tough financial positions. Poor people can certainly gerry-rig a machine to last a while-- when it breaks down they just gerry-rig it again.

[More Fire for the People]

The portrayal of everyday life in the form of a spectacle [a social relation between people that is mediated by images] is different then actual everyday life. Thus, while sitcoms portray a middle-class static view of the world they simutaneously portray real life — love, sex, death, sorrow, pain, worry, dread , and every other existential situation imaginable.

[Honggweilo]

Originally posted by Councilman Doug+February 15, 2007 10:35 pm--> (Councilman Doug @ February 15, 2007 10:35 pm)
Remember, a quarter of the population is hardcore fundamentalist Christian

Source? [/b]

Wiki
Bureau's Statistical Abstract of the United States, 76.7% of American adults identified themselves as Christian

[More Fire for the People]

Originally posted by ddxt301+February 16, 2007 11:03 am--> (ddxt301 @ February 16, 2007 11:03 am)
Originally posted by Councilman [email protected] 15, 2007 10:35 pm

Remember, a quarter of the population is hardcore fundamentalist Christian

Source?

Wiki
Bureau's Statistical Abstract of the United States, 76.7% of American adults identified themselves as Christian [/b]
I would make a distinction between the various kinds of American Christianity: fundamentalist, moderate, progressive, and Black theology.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by Hopscotch [email protected] 16, 2007 04:58 pm
The portrayal of everyday life in the form of a spectacle [a social relation between people that is mediated by images] is different then actual everyday life. Thus, while sitcoms portray a middle-class static view of the world they simutaneously portray real life — love, sex, death, sorrow, pain, worry, dread , and every other existential situation imaginable.
Though people who watch them know this isn't reality, they want it to be their reality. Or it's their escape from reality-- a way to forget about what happened at work.

[Honggweilo]

Originally posted by Hopscotch Anthill+February 16, 2007 05:05 pm--> (Hopscotch Anthill @ February 16, 2007 05:05 pm)
Originally posted by ddxt301+February 16, 2007 11:03 am--> (ddxt301 @ February 16, 2007 11:03 am)
Councilman [email protected] 15, 2007 10:35 pm

Remember, a quarter of the population is hardcore fundamentalist Christian

Source?

Wiki
Bureau's Statistical Abstract of the United States, 76.7% of American adults identified themselves as Christian [/b]
I would make a distinction between the various kinds of American Christianity: fundamentalist, moderate, progressive, and Black theology. [/b]
thats true, but with a 70% christian population, 1/3 are bound to be fundamentalist due to all the white supremesist denominations, neo-con crusaders and sectarian cults :lol:. I cant source that yet so its pure speculation anyway.

[perokatulin]

Comrades --

Although I share ComradeR's observation about capitalism heading into troubled waters, I have reservations about whether or not it is near collapse. First, monetary crises, and recessions are not necessarily threatening to the system, so long as central banks have the political power to both adjust policies and to sway the capitalist governments to punish the working class more brutally. That is what the 20th Century taught them.

However, I do agree that the environment, and particularly global warming, is setting the stage for capitalism to enter a period of unprecedented crisis later in this century. Essentially, the U.S. is governed by a symbiosis of finance capital and energy companies that prop up the bourgeois ruling class. The failure of the system to adopt a more green form of economy -- or even make significant progress toward it, is a manifestation of this power relationship. In that sense, Bush and Cheney are nothing but pimps.

Capitalism needs "lebensraum" as surely as the Third Reich did. When that room for growth disappears the system plunges into crisis. The emerging environmental crisis can do just that. It may take the better part of this century, but sooner or later economic growth will be impossible, and claims to it will be fraudulent. Under such circumstances, socialism will have to realize that Marx's material pre-requisite for socialism, cannot proceed on the basis of a competition with the capitalists to see which system is the most productive. Rather, socialism must represent the working class in a society in which "economic sufficiency" must replace "consumerism." Without a viable socialist political movement, capitalism will modify itself by impoverishing the more viable working classes in the developed nations, and creating the misery of sub-Saharan Africa on a global scale for the masses of the world's "Lazarus Stratum." The sad part of it is, that such a dystopia is already developing and may reach its full development in the context of a contracting global economy.

Changing the U.S. away from capitalism and imperialism will be very difficult. It will certainly be in fits and starts. But without taming "Pepe the Crocodile," I tend to think that it will be very difficult to avoid even greater waves of misery in this century.

-- Pero K.

[Spirit of Spartacus]

Changing the U.S. away from capitalism and imperialism will be very difficult. It will certainly be in fits and starts. But without taming "Pepe the Crocodile," I tend to think that it will be very difficult to avoid even greater waves of misery in this century.


Well, comrade, a lot could happen outside the US, to influence events inside the US.

The oppressed masses of under-developed Third World countries won't be sitting there waiting for a revolution in the US. They must create the conditions for a US revolution...by smashing US imperialism.