Why Did Cuba Welcome Trotsky's Assasin?

[Rainie]

And why did the USSR give Trotsky's assassin the highest medal for valor or whatever? I read this in wiki and I was shocked!

[Wanted Man]

He moved there on his own initiative, he had sat out his punishment, he was free to move there if he wanted to.

Besides, the Cuban government was not all that charmed with Trotskyism at the time (no idea what it's like now). 6 years after Mercader moved to Cuba, Fidel had some things to say about the Trotskyists at the closing session of the Tricontinental Conference:

http://marxists.org/history/cuba/archive/c.../1966/01/15.htm (http://marxists.org/history/cuba/archive/castro/1966/01/15.htm)

[TC]

You realize that letting someone travel through Cuba isn't like, a personal endorsement of their moral character from Fidel Castro, he's not like sitting there at the Havana Airport passport control going "hey, didn't you kill Trotsky?"

I mean, Pope John Paul II went to Cuba and made anti-communist pro-catholic speeches, he obviously isn't popular with the Cuban government but it takes a lot to ban someone from entering a country.

[Black Cross]

Well, did they "welcome" him, as the first post states, or did he just end up there?

[Raúl Duke]

And why did the USSR give Trotsky's assassin the highest medal for valor or whatever? I read this in wiki and I was shocked!

The rumor goes that Stalin had something to do with the assasination; since, unless I'm wrong, they had a power struggle (however, I heard that Trotsky recommended Stalin to being premier).

If that is true, than it makes some sense why they gave him the medal

Although, Wikipedia can't always be trusted. (at least so I heard)

[R_P_A_S]

i might have my dates fucked up. but The Cuban Revolution was not existent when Stalin was around...?

[rouchambeau]

Because Castro isn't totally evil. :P

[bezdomni]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 10:46 pm
i might have my dates fucked up. but The Cuban Revolution was not existent when Stalin was around...?
Not only that, but Trotsky was long dead as well.

Stalin died in 53, Trotsky died in 41 and the Cuban Revolution was in 59.

[Wanted Man]

The point is that Ramon Mercader moved to Cuba in 1960.

[Labor Shall Rule]

The Cuban Communist Party has always been an enclave for bureaucratism and opportunism; in 1933, it withdrawed support for a general strike that arised almost spontaneously against the Machado dictatorship, and it even collaborated with Batista from 1938 to 1945. As a matter of fact, at the time of Trotsky's assasination, the Cuban Communist Party had pledged it's support for Batista in exchange for their legalization, positions in his own cabinet, and control over the Cuban Confederation of Workers. I wouldn't be suprised if Batista himself had welcomed the ice-pick wielding Ramon Mercader, considering that he silenced opposition to not only the bureaucratic stratum and the parties that it corrupted, but was also a voice against comprador capitalism that was so prevalant in the Caribbean at that time.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Sorry, the "Cuban Communist Party" never existed. What exists today is the Communist Party of Cuba, which was formed in 1965 out of the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution, which itself was formed from the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations (ORI) - a merger of the July 26 Movement, the Revolutionary Directorate, and the Popular Socialist Party (PSP).

The PSP was the official communist party that existed before the revolution, and that did some of the things you mentioned. It was called the Communist Party of Cuba when founded in the 1920's, but later changed its name.

To try to portray the current Communist Party, which is lead by comrades who fought against the Batista Dictatorship, as the same party that allied with it, is utterly ridiculous.

[Wanted Man]

Dali, how is that relevant in any way? The CPC didn't even exist in its current shape at the time Mercader came to Cuba (1960).

Edit: thanks CdL.

[Leo]

And why did the USSR give Trotsky's assassin the highest medal for valor or whatever? I read this in wiki and I was shocked!

Why is this surprising at all? The assassin was working for them, what else did you expect them to do?


Dali, how is that relevant in any way? The CPC didn't even exist in its current shape at the time Mercader came to Cuba (1960).

Of course. And the existing Communist Party of Cuba reported that Castro was a representative of the "haute bourgeoisie" and probably working for the CIA to Khrushchev so until Castro allied himself with Russian imperialism, Cuba wasn't "socialist".

As for Mercader, Fidel Castro did welcome him in 1960 - he was regarded as a hero to the new imperialist block Cuba was becoming a part of after all.

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 03:04 am
Trotsky died in 41
Actually he died in 1940.

...

[Janus]

And why did the USSR give Trotsky's assassin the highest medal for valor or whatever?
Because he did a great service to the USSR by wiping out Trotsky.

As far as his residency in Cuba, I believe he moved there in order to live with his mother though I'm not sure how warmly he was received by the Cuban leadership.

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by Leninism+July 12, 2007 10:27 am--> (Leninism @ July 12, 2007 10:27 am)

[email protected] 12, 2007 03:04 am
Trotsky died in 41
Actually he died in 1940.

My mistake.

I should have known that. I was Trotsky in a play once (Variations on the Death of Trotsky) and had to constantly repeat the day he died on. :P [/b]
Dude you edited my post instead of replying to it. :lol:

[Panda Tse Tung]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 10:35 pm
The rumor goes that Stalin had something to do with the assasination; since, unless I'm wrong, they had a power struggle (however, I heard that Trotsky recommended Stalin to being premier).

There wasn't much of a power-struggle, the reason for Trotsky's exile was because he undermined the Soviet-government in a couple of ways. Trotsky always likes to depict this as a power-struggle but it wasn't, not even anything close to it.



If that is true, than it makes some sense why they gave him the medal

They gave him a medal because Trotsky was trialled (without him being physically there) for terrorism and other activities during this trial:
http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/gover.../moscow-trials/ (http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/)
He thus fulfilled this death-penalty.
This is what the court said about it:
Lev Davidovich Trotsky, and his son, Lev Lvovich Sedov, now abroad convicted by the evidence of the accused I. N. Smirnov, E. S. Holtzman, Dreitzer, V. Olberg, Fritz David (I. I. Kruglyansky) and Berman-Yurin, and also by the materials in the present case as having directly prepared and personally directed the organization in the U.S.S.R. of terroristic acts against the leaders of the C.P.S.U. and the Soviet State, are subject, in the event of their being discovered on the territory of the U.S.S.R., to immediate arrest and trial by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.



Although, Wikipedia can't always be trusted. (at least so I heard)

Yes, well it's quite obvious. My advice to you is to create a critical mind (not an insult, really an advice). Just think very logically when people refer to sources (such as wikipedia). Everyone, and by that i mean everyone can edit everything on wikipedia (unless stated otherwise). Do you really think it can be trusted?

The original question has already been answered so I'll refrain from doing that.

[Random Precision]

There wasn't much of a power-struggle, the reason for Trotsky's exile was because he undermined the Soviet-government in a couple of ways. Trotsky always likes to depict this as a power-struggle but it wasn't, not even anything close to it.

Yes, it was a power struggle. And if by "the Soviet government" you mean "Stalin", then he certainly attempted to do so.


They gave him a medal because Trotsky was trialled (without him being physically there) for terrorism and other activities during this trial:
http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/gover.../moscow-trials/ (http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/)
He thus fulfilled this death-penalty.
This is what the court said about it:
Lev Davidovich Trotsky, and his son, Lev Lvovich Sedov, now abroad convicted by the evidence of the accused I. N. Smirnov, E. S. Holtzman, Dreitzer, V. Olberg, Fritz David (I. I. Kruglyansky) and Berman-Yurin, and also by the materials in the present case as having directly prepared and personally directed the organization in the U.S.S.R. of terroristic acts against the leaders of the C.P.S.U. and the Soviet State, are subject, in the event of their being discovered on the territory of the U.S.S.R., to immediate arrest and trial by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.

Hahah, yes. What fun the show trials were!


Yes, well it's quite obvious. My advice to you is to create a critical mind (not an insult, really an advice).

No disagreement there!

[Panda Tse Tung]

Yes, it was a power struggle. And if by "the Soviet government" you mean "Stalin", then he certainly attempted to do so.


I don't mean Stalin, i mean the Soviet-government and it's democratic centralist principles. Stalin was broadly elected by the vast masses of people, only when Trotsky's power started marginalizing is when he started 'opposing' the 'Soviet-bureaucracy'. He started a separate faction within the Communist party which is a breach of Democratic Centralist principles. Stalin tried to keep Trotsky in the party but this behavior is in any Communist Party intolerable.



Hahah, yes. What fun the show trials were!

I think you can better refrain from using the word 'show'-trial unless you can factually proof that it we're 'show'-trials.

[Random Precision]

Stalin was broadly elected by the vast masses of people,

Wrong. He was appointed to the post of General Secretary of the Party, a position which, although considered inconsequential at the time, allowed him to fill the party's ranks with loyalists.


only when Trotsky's power started marginalizing is when he started 'opposing' the 'Soviet-bureaucracy'.

And he was quite justified in his opposition.


He started a separate faction within the Communist party which is a breach of Democratic Centralist principles. Stalin tried to keep Trotsky in the party but this behavior is in any Communist Party intolerable.

Don't tell me that you seriously belive that. :blink:


I think you can better refrain from using the word 'show'-trial unless you can factually proof that it we're 'show'-trials.

Fortunately, that job was already done for me by the Dewey Commission. I suggest that you read its report.

[RGacky3]

Politics, man politics, during the Soviet era, a lot of Communist politics was done pragmatically, not ideologically. Even today it is sometimes.

[The-Spark]

To my understanding Stalin became leader by secretly gaining favor in the party, i read that Lenin specificaly did not want Stalin to have leadership and that Trotsky and Stalin was always going at it.

[Axel1917]

He was awarded for wiping out the most skilled defender of genuine Leninism.

I am not sure too much about Cuba, but as it is obviously a Stalinist state, it is easy to see why he was allowed to settle there.

[The-Spark]

Im not sure about stalinist state, but the soviet union after stalin did have much influence on cuba, maybe it was them that sent the assasin to cuba?

[bezdomni]

Originally posted by Leninism+July 13, 2007 12:19 am--> (Leninism @ July 13, 2007 12:19 am)
Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 10:27 am


[email protected] 12, 2007 03:04 am
Trotsky died in 41
Actually he died in 1940.

My mistake.

I should have known that. I was Trotsky in a play once (Variations on the Death of Trotsky) and had to constantly repeat the day he died on. :P
Dude you edited my post instead of replying to it. :lol: [/b]
:lol:

Shit, sorry man. :blush:

[hajduk]

Stallin was a crazy man.Sorry.And rest of the SSSR was in that time.

[Black Cross]

Uhh, the SSSR is the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.

And at least stalin played a role in kicking the ass out of Hitler. That almost makes up for killing Lenin... and Trotsky...

[bezdomni]

That almost makes up for killing Lenin... and Trotsky...

Stalin didn't kill Lenin.

[Panda Tse Tung]

Wrong. He was appointed to the post of General Secretary of the Party, a position which, although considered inconsequential at the time, allowed him to fill the party's ranks with loyalists.

He was at first appointed and later elected. He has also tried to resign twice after Lenin's so-called 'testament' but the party (including Trotsky) refused.



And he was quite justified in his opposition.

The funny thing is though... that he held the exact same position on Bolshevism in general back when he was still 'in between'. Showing what kind of opportunist he was.


Don't tell me you actually believe that

Uhm, yes... it's so obvious that even the bourgeoisie (whom regularly defends Trotsky) recognizes it in their history-books.


Fortunately (...) read it

(sorry, my copy, paste broke.)

I have read it, and it states no explicit proofs. You just have to rely on Trotsky's word in it...


Politics (...) is sometimes.

Yes, whats wrong with pragmatic politics?
It is a fact that Stalin was very pragmatic, so i don't see why there's a need to emphasize on it.


To my understanding (...) going for it.

Thats incorrect, there never was a 'real' struggle. And it was not by gaining favor of party-members but mostly by gaining favor amongst the people themselves.

[Random Precision]

He was at first appointed and later elected. He has also tried to resign twice after Lenin's so-called 'testament' but the party (including Trotsky) refused.

Okay. I'll give you that one, and reserve my comments on Stalin's character for below. But may I ask you why you doubt Lenin's authorship of the Testament?


The funny thing is though... that he held the exact same position on Bolshevism in general back when he was still 'in between'. Showing what kind of opportunist he was.


If you're going to call his character into question, two can play at that game!

You say that Trotsky was an opportunist. Trotsky was only an opportunist in that his views changed on occasion, a condition common to any revolutionary in a revolutionary period, and that his actions reflected his changes in view. Even Lenin, who you Stalinists tend to regard as infallible, was known to do so on occasion. And furthermore, Stalin put Trotsky and all other opportunists of the period to shame once he got his chance during the post-Revolutionary period. He showed absolutely no regard for the traditions of the Revolution that he had played such a minor role in. He showed his true character, and exhibited it to its fullest extent in the struggle against "Trotskyism", itself an invention of the bureaucracy to justify its opposition to those against its growing power. He showed his opportunism, to name just a few ways, by his alliance with Bukharin and his faction to defeat those who had called for the return of worker's democracy and the supplanting of Russia's agricultural complex with an industrial one. He showed it once again when he betrayed Bukharin, adopting the central plank of his old opposition's platform as his own.

If you're going to call either one an opportunist, let's not forget which one it was, Stalin or Trotsky, who aped the ways of the tsars by sending his revolutionary opponents to labor camps in Siberia. If you're going to call either an opportunist, let's not forget which one engineered the mass execution of a generation of his former comrades on the shoddiest of premises in a paranoid struggle to hold on to power. If you're going to call either of them an opportunist, let's not forget which one purged the Red Army of practically all capable commanders in that same paranoid struggle, and practically welcomed in the enemies of our cause. Let's not forget which one made a pact with socialism's most hated enemy, and expected that he would not betray it. And most importantly to our discussion, let's not forget which one ended up with an ice axe sticking out of the back of his head after years of persecution and exile, betrayed by the results of the very revolution he had helped to lead. I can tell you which one it wasn't!


Uhm, yes... it's so obvious that even the bourgeoisie (whom regularly defends Trotsky) recognizes it in their history-books.

For the time being, I'll ignore the implied slander and just refer you to my comments above.


I have read it, and it states no explicit proofs. You just have to rely on Trotsky's word in it...

Unfortunately, you seem to have forgotten one of the key principles of trials, at least in democratic systems (and please don't degrade yourself by seizing on this point to call me bourgeois): presumption of innocence. During a trial, it is the state's job to prove the guilt of those accused. Stalin's apparatus instead made up the most ridiculous of accusations, (including that Trotsky had arranged the death of Maxim Gorky in his faraway exile status) and controlled the trials to make sure they would result in favorable rulings. Thus, show trials. It was not the job of the defendants to prove their innocence. Give me real proof (read: not of the Stalinist-doctored variety) that the defendants were guilty of the crimes they were accused of and we might have something to talk about.

Just to pre-empt a resurgence of your comments about Trotsky's undermining of democratic centralism, allow me to say that insistence on democratic centralism (in this case, I mean the temporary banning of factions) was one of the main ways in which the bureaucracy, with Stalin at its head, was able to solidify power and turn back the clock on the revolution, ending any hope for true socialism and workers' democracy. Such an insistence on anti-factionalism during the post-revolutionary period turned a disaster into a catastrophe.

Also, his refusal of adherence to democratic centralism at that time, while it may have seemed like a grave sin to the bureaucracy, hardly justifies a death sentence. Much less a clandestine assassination.


Thats incorrect, there never was a 'real' struggle. And it was not by gaining favor of party-members but mostly by gaining favor amongst the people themselves.

Oooh, now that is simply delicious. The ascendancy of the bureaucracy merely filled the void left by the collapse of workers' power, with no democracy involved. Although if by "the people", you mean "the peasant class", you are partially correct, at least up until the betrayal of the Right Opposition that advocated on its behalf. And only in that the peasantry did not actively resist Stalin's growing hold on power, while the proletariat were too exhausted and drained of revolutionary fervor to do the same.

[praxicoide]

Well, I don't want to get into this Trosky/Stalin debate, but I just wanted to add that the Soviet Union's Communist Party had a enormous influence on the parties in Latin America, and that would include Cuba.

I know that in Chile, the Communist party was very Bolshevik, so much that the Socialist Party was much more radical and less cooperative with bourgeois governments.

[Panda Tse Tung]

Okay. I'll give you that one, and reserve my comments on Stalin's character for below. But may I ask you why you doubt Lenin's authorship of the Testament?

I don't doubt Lenins authorship, Stalin wouldn't have addressed it if it we're false. No, i just don't call it a testament cause it isn't written as being such. Trotsky has recognized this, before his opportunism forced him to call it a testament again.

I dont have the time to respond to the rest of this story right now, so i will later :).

[YKTMX]

Because Fidel doesn't like proleterian insurrectionists like Lev. And so he likes the kind of people who murder proletarian insurrections, such as that odious turd Mercader.

Fidel is a man of his class, and is true to his word to that extent.

Although I am thankful for TC comparing the welcoming of a murdering Stalninist stooge to the the visit of the Pope!!

Haha.