Trotskyism

[Revulero]

Can anyone give me any information about what trotkyist are and what they believe in. All i know about them is that they're named after Leon Trotsky.

[Led Zeppelin]

Trotskyism is a Marxist theory whose adherents aim to be in the vanguard of the working class, particularly as opposed to Stalinism and Social Democracy. When opposed to Stalinism, Trotskyists place emphasis in their objective of eliminating Stalinist bureaucratic rule; in opposition to Social Democracy, Trotskyists advance the cause of militant workers revolution.

Trotskyist theory in the 20th century had three unique components, which set it apart from other Marxist currents:

Permanent Revolution: This theory stipulates that colonial/feudalist nations must engage in socialist revolutions, as opposed to the stagist theory of first having a capitalist revolution.
Political Revolution: The idea that the Soviet Union could be restored to a worker's democracy with a political revolution (as opposed to a social and economic revolution, in the traditional Marxist sense of the word.)
Transitional Programme: The use of "Transitional Demands" which can be introduced into workers' struggles with the possibility of receiving widespread support even in non-revolutionary times, but which lead into conflict with capitalism (forming a United Front, for example). Such demands are deemed to form a "bridge" between the "Maximum program" of revolution and the "Minimum program" of minor reforms under capitalism. (See the The Transitional Program).

In the 21st century, the theory of political revolution is no longer relevant, while the subject of permanent revolution has witnessed historical changes while retaining its relevance. The transitional programme remains valid for many Trotskyists, though to varying degrees.

Historical Development: Named after Leon Trotsky, the leader of the Left Opposition within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Trotskyism is the current of Marxism which originated in the International Left Opposition - those members of the Communist International who solidarised with Trotsky's positions in the late 1920s as opposed to Stalin's politics. After the victory of Hitler in Germany in the early 1930s (See Trotsky's writings on the subject), the Trotskyists went on to found a new, Fourth International in opposition to the Third (Communist) International. Though the Trotskyists remained very isolated for many years, in the 1960s many Trotskyist groups were able to build viable organisations at a time when Communist parties were in decline.

The Communist International was always an instrument of foreign policy of the Soviet Union, but in the earliest days this meant the building of communist parties whose aim was to emulate the Bolsheviks and make socialist revolution in their own country. Later, the Comintern became an instrument for bargaining and diplomacy rather than the fostering of revolution. The leaderships of national Communist parties were bureaucratically replaced by orders from Moscow and the serious disputes taking place within the Soviet party misrepresented to the young parties of the Comintern.

The first Trotskyists were people like James Cannon who had visited the Soviet Union as loyal delegates of their Communist Party, but then, having witnessed the struggle taking place within the Soviet party, returned to their home country and set up International Left Opposition groupings.

The issues at this time concerned the reasons for the failure of the German Revolution in 1923, the conduct of the target="_top"1926 General Strike in Britain, and whether the situation in Europe was ripe for revolution, and the tactics of the Chinese Revolution in 1926 and relations between the communists and nationalists.

Until the mid-1930s, these international supporters of Trotsky continued to argue within the Communist Parties of the different countries, even though they were all expelled from membership, vilified and often physically attacked if not murdered. The aim of the Trotskyists until the mid-1930s was to change the leadership and policies of the Soviet Union and the Communist International, and return it to a Marxist orientation, rather than to set up a rival organisation.

The failure of the Comintern to bring about a United Front between Communists and Social Democrats in Germany in the 1930s, opening the door to Hitler, was a turning point. Trotsky remarked, however, that it was not so much that this grave error had been made, but rather that within the ranks of both the leadership and the rank-and-file of the Communist International there was neither recognition of this mistake, nor any attempt to correct it. This, according to Trotsky, meant that the Comintern was "dead for the purposes of Revolution".

Accordingly, the Fourth International was founded in 1938. The aim of the Fourth International was to defend the Soviet Union as a workers' state, independent of the capitalist powers with nationalised means of production controlled by the working class, while at the same time, struggling to overthrow the Stalinist government of the Soviet Union.

The Fourth International suffered badly during World War Two. Not only was its leader, Leon Trotsky, assassinated by a Stalinist agent in August 1940, but many of its members were either murdered, died fighting fascism, or were betrayed to the Nazis by their Communist Party rivals.

After the War, the Red Army soon found itself in control of half of Europe. Despite Stalin's aim to restore capitalist governments in Eastern Europe as a buffer between the Soviet Union and the West, capitalism was soon overthrown in these countries and pro-Soviet, already-bureaucratised, "communist" governments installed.

This posed problems for the small remaining forces of Trotskyism. They had predicted that the War would be followed by revolutions, but they had not expected that the Red Army would be leading them. These new states were characterised as "deformed workers states" by analogy with the Soviet Union which they described as a "degenerated workers state."

The Fourth International grew only slowly for two decades after the War, while at the same time it had split into several competing factions. However, the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 and the subsequent Soviet invasion of Hungary, created an opening in which a number of leading Communist Party intelligentsia in countries around the world switched to Trotskyism. Later, when the Red Army invaded Czechoslovakia to put down the "Prague Spring" the Trotskyists made more gains. The events of 1968 in fact triggered widespread, new social movements and working class struggles, and the Trotskyist parties were well placed to intervene in these events, and grew in strength.

Surprisingly perhaps, the crisis in the Communist Parties in the late-1980s and early 1990s, which culminated in the collapse of the Soviet Union itself, and accompanied by the dissolution of many Communist Parties around the world, also affected the Trotskyist parties. However, many have survived this change of terrain, and Trotskyist parties are to be found all over the world today, and in some countries are larger and more active than those remaining of the former parties of the Comintern.

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/t/r.htm#trotskyism

[A.J.]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 05:35 am
Can anyone give me any information about what trotkyist are
Mostly the snotty-nosed arts student offspring of white-collar petty bourgeois employees in rich imperialist countries.


I will provide evidence to support this claim in a later post.

[Y Chwyldro Comiwnyddol Cymraeg]

Originally posted by A.J.+October 02, 2007 03:12 pm--> (A.J. @ October 02, 2007 03:12 pm)
[email protected] 02, 2007 05:35 am
Can anyone give me any information about what trotkyist are
Mostly the snotty-nosed arts student offspring of white-collar petty bourgeois employees in rich imperialist countries.


[/b]
that was a useful post wanst it, a real help to the organinal poster

[BOZG]

Originally posted by A.J.+October 02, 2007 03:12 pm--> (A.J. @ October 02, 2007 03:12 pm)
[email protected] 02, 2007 05:35 am
Can anyone give me any information about what trotkyist are
Mostly the snotty-nosed arts student offspring of white-collar petty bourgeois employees in rich imperialist countries.


I will provide evidence to support this claim in a later post. [/b]
Well you got one of the words in your member title correct anyway.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Trotsky never recognized his theories as some sort of strain of Marxism. He refered to 'Trotskyism' and 'Trotskyists' under the same pretext that the Stalinists did, which was as a label to associate certain political partisans with that questioned the legitimacy of the bureaucratic stratum.

It is more of a continuation of Bolshevism. It recognized that the proletariat had to take on it's historic role of advancing a country with uneven development through it's assigned stages, which was the theoretical stance that the party took in the later years of heightened class struggle. It recognized the strategy of the party, and wished to copy it's success. If you read any of Trotsky's writings on the events in China, Spain, France, and Germany, they are all reflective of the experiences of the Bolsheviks, and how their defeats or setbacks resulted from their failure to not continue the tradition that Lenin subscribed years earlier.

[bezdomni]

Can't figure out trotskyism

You'd make a great trotskyist! :P

[Killer Enigma]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 05:35 am
All i know about them is that they're named after Leon Trotsky.
Woah! You're a bright one.

[Killer Enigma]

Mostly the snotty-nosed arts student offspring of white-collar petty bourgeois employees in rich imperialist countries.
This is a true, unbiased definition. Everyone else offering an alternative should stop right now because it's clear that this poster has an unparalleled knowledge in Marxism. It lacks any partisanship, generalizations, or fallacies. This could very well be the most objective definition of Trotskyism ever put forth.

[Fawkes]

Originally posted by Killer Enigma+October 02, 2007 04:05 pm--> (Killer Enigma @ October 02, 2007 04:05 pm)
[email protected] 02, 2007 05:35 am
All i know about them is that they're named after Leon Trotsky.
Woah! You're a bright one. [/b]
No need to be such an asshole.

[Redmau5]

Originally posted by A.J.+October 02, 2007 03:12 pm--> (A.J. @ October 02, 2007 03:12 pm)
[email protected] 02, 2007 05:35 am
Can anyone give me any information about what trotkyist are
Mostly the snotty-nosed arts student offspring of white-collar petty bourgeois employees in rich imperialist countries.


I will provide evidence to support this claim in a later post. [/b]
You're just a dickhead.

[Red October]

Originally posted by Makaveli+October 02, 2007 04:38 pm--> (Makaveli @ October 02, 2007 04:38 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 03:12 pm

[email protected] 02, 2007 05:35 am
Can anyone give me any information about what trotkyist are
Mostly the snotty-nosed arts student offspring of white-collar petty bourgeois employees in rich imperialist countries.


I will provide evidence to support this claim in a later post.
You're just a dickhead. [/b]
Well, you're obviously a snotty-nosed art student offspring of white-collar petty bourgeois employees in a rich imperialist country.

I'll back that up with facts if I feel like it. :lol:

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by Red October+October 02, 2007 09:56 pm--> (Red October @ October 02, 2007 09:56 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 04:38 pm

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 03:12 pm

[email protected] 02, 2007 05:35 am
Can anyone give me any information about what trotkyist are
Mostly the snotty-nosed arts student offspring of white-collar petty bourgeois employees in rich imperialist countries.


I will provide evidence to support this claim in a later post.
You're just a dickhead.
Well, you're obviously a snotty-nosed art student offspring of white-collar petty bourgeois employees in a rich imperialist country.

I'll back that up with facts if I feel like it. :lol: [/b]
Don't be ignorant.

[Red October]

Originally posted by Labor Shall Rule+October 02, 2007 05:24 pm--> (Labor Shall Rule @ October 02, 2007 05:24 pm)
Originally posted by Red [email protected] 02, 2007 09:56 pm

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 04:38 pm

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 03:12 pm

[email protected] 02, 2007 05:35 am
Can anyone give me any information about what trotkyist are
Mostly the snotty-nosed arts student offspring of white-collar petty bourgeois employees in rich imperialist countries.


I will provide evidence to support this claim in a later post.
You're just a dickhead.
Well, you're obviously a snotty-nosed art student offspring of white-collar petty bourgeois employees in a rich imperialist country.

I'll back that up with facts if I feel like it. :lol:
Don't be ignorant. [/b]
'twas a joke.

[RGacky3]

Youd make a horrible Comedian :P

[Die Neue Zeit]

1940: Assassination of Trotsky (http://en.internationalism.org/ir/103_trotsky.htm)


Sixty years ago on 20th August 1940, Trotsky died, assassinated by Stalin’s underlings; the second imperialist war had just begun. In this article, we want not only to remember a great figure of the proletariat, sacrificing a little to the fashion for anniversaries, but also to use the event to examine some of his mistakes, and the political positions that he adopted at the beginning of the war. After a life of ardent militant activity, entirely devoted to the cause of the working class, Trotsky died as a revolutionary and a fighter. History is full of examples of revolutionaries who have deserted, and even betrayed the working class; few are those who remained faithful all their lives and died fighting, as did Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. Trotsky was one of them.

In his later years, Trotsky defended a number of opportunist positions, such as the policy of entryism into the Social Democracy, the workers’ united front, etc. - and the communist left rightly criticised these during the 1930s. But he never went over to the enemy camp, the camp of the bourgeoisie, as the Trotskyists did after his death. On the question of imperialist war in particular, he defended until the end the traditional position of the revolutionary movement: the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war.

...

Stalin called on all the efficiency of the GPU to liquidate him. Several attempts were made on his life, and these could only be repeated. Nothing seemed able to halt the Stalinist machine. On 24th May 1939, shortly before Trotsky’s death, a commando attacked his house during the night. Stalin’s henchmen had succeeded in placing a machine-gun opposite the windows of his bedroom. They fired between 200-300 rounds, and threw firebombs. Happily, the windows were placed high above the floor, and Trotsky, his wife Natalia, and his grandson Sjeva had a miraculous escape by hiding under the bed. But in the attempt that followed, Ramon Mercader succeeded with his ice pick where the others had failed.

But for the bourgeoisie, Trotsky’s assassination was not enough. As Lenin so rightly said in State and Revolution: “During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes relentlessly persecute them, and treat their teachings with malicious hostility, the most furious hatred, and the most unscrupulous campaign of lies and slanders. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonise them, so to say, and to surround their names with a certain ‘halo’ for the ‘consolation’ of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping them, while at the same time emasculating the revolutionary doctrine of its content, vulgarising it and blunting its revolutionary edge (...) They omit, obliterate and distort the revolutionary side of [Marxism’s] doctrine, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie”.

As far as Trotsky is concerned, this dirty work has been done by those who claim to be his heirs, the Trotskyists. They have used his “opportunist” positions to justify every national war since the last imperialist world war, as well as their defence of the USSR’s imperialist camp.

...

Trotsky’s position on the USSR is among his most serious mistakes. While he attacked Stalinism, he always considered, and defended, the USSR as the “socialist fatherland”, and at the least as a “degenerated workers’ state”.

But despite their dramatic consequences, all these political errors did not make Trotsky an enemy of the working class, as his “heirs” became after his death. In the light of events at the beginning of the war, Trotsky was even able to admit the possibility that he would have to revise his political judgement, in particular as far as the USSR was concerned.

...

If we leave aside the perspective he develops here, which reveals a discouragement, not to say a profound demoralisation where he seems to lose all confidence in the working class and its ability to assume historically its revolutionary perspective, it is clear that here Trotsky is beginning to call into question his positions on the “socialist” nature of the USSR and the “working of the USSR and the “working class” character of the bureaucracy.

Trotsky was assassinated before the end of the war, and Russia ended in the victorious camp alongside the “democracies”. Historical conditions demanded of those who claimed to be his faithful followers that they undertake, as he had planned to do, a revision of his position to, as he had said, “establish retrospectively that in its fundamental traits today’s USSR is the precursor of a new regime of exploitation on an international scale”. Not only did the 4th International fail to do this, it passed, bags and baggage, into the camp of the bourgeoisie.

...

It is quite true that Trotskyism failed to understand the war or the post-war world; this is why it betrayed the working class and proletarian internationalism by supporting one imperialist camp against another during World War II, and why ever since it has constantly supported little imperialisms against bigger ones in the all too frequent so-called “national liberation” struggles, or the struggles of “oppressed peoples”. Pierre Broué, Sam Levy and the others may not know it, but Trotskyism is dead for the working class, and there is no hope of its rebirth as an instrument of the class’ emancipation.

While I agree with most of the positions above, I disagree with their lack of mention of his frequent tendencies towards fractionalism (in this one aspect, today's Trotskyist sectarian groups are toeing the line with their thinker, and outshine the Stalinists and Maoists in being sectarians extraordinaire).

[For more, see my profile info and the relevant Communist Voice link (http://home.flash.net/~comvoice/30cTrotsky.html).]




Originally posted by Labor Shall Rule
It is more of a continuation of Bolshevism. It recognized that the proletariat had to take on it's historic role of advancing a country with uneven development through it's assigned stages, which was the theoretical stance that the party took in the later years of heightened class struggle. It recognized the strategy of the party, and wished to copy it's success. If you read any of Trotsky's writings on the events in China, Spain, France, and Germany, they are all reflective of the experiences of the Bolsheviks, and how their defeats or setbacks resulted from their failure to not continue the tradition that Lenin subscribed years earlier.

I really have to disagree with you here. Neither your "Bolshevism-Leninism" nor other posters' "Marxism-Leninism" are continuations of Lenin's line of thought, again particularly on the questions of permanent revolution and organization.

[grove street]

It"s another name for Dogmatic Marxism> Following Marx to the dot with little consideration for Dilaectacal Materialism>

[A.J.]

What someone posted on another forum......


The theoretical sources of Trotskyism are mechanical materialism in philosophy and voluntarism and schematism in sociology. The methodological basis of the trend is subjectivism, which is characteristic of the petit bourgeois world view as a whole. Since Trotskyism is a reflection of the antiproletarian views of the petite bourgeoisie, it is characterized by an anticommunist tendency in its political positions, by abrupt shifts from an extreme revolutionary stance to one of capitulation to the bourgeoisie, by a misunderstanding of the dialectics of social development, and by dogmatism in evaluating the events and phenomena of social life. The views and principles of Trotskyism were formulated in opposition to those of Leninism on all fundamental questions concerning the strategy and tactics of the working class movement. Trotskyism took as its point of departure the rejection of the Leninist doctrine of a new type of party.

During the Revolution of 1905-07, Trotskyists, distorting Marx's idea of permanent revolution, propounded their own theory of permanent revolution, which they opposed to Lenin's doctrine of the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois democratic revolution and the doctrine of the transformation of this revolution into a socialist revolution. Trotskyists repudiated the revolutionary nature of the peasant masses as well as the proletariat's ability to establish a firm alliance with the peasantry; they ignored the bourgeois democratic tasks of the first Russian revolution and put forth the voluntaristic idea of establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat as a result of the bourgeois democratic revolution. Their slogan was "no tsar, but a workers' government" Trotskyists claimed that permanance of the revolutionary process and the fate of the socialsit revolution in each country dependent on the victory of the world revolution, and they therefore asserted tht without state support of the European proletariat, the working class of Russia could not retain power. As Lenin pointed out, Trotsky's theory was in fact helping the "liberal-labor politicians in Russia, who by 'repudtiation' of the role of the peasantry understand a refusal to raise up the peasants for the revolution!"

Trotskyism found little support in the Russian working-class movement. Few in number, Trotsky's followers were Russian emigre intellectuals who lost their connections with the proletarian movement and were attempting to profit politically from the differences of opinion between the principal trends within the RSDLP--Bolshevism and Menshevism. Trotskyism found little support inthe Russian working-class movement. Few in number, Trotsky's followers were Russian emigre intellectuals who lost their connections with the proletarian movement and were attempting to profit politically from the differences of opinion between the principal trends within the RSDLP--Bolshevism and Menshevism. Lenin wrote: "Trotsky was an ardent Iskraist from 1901 to 1903...At the end of 1903, Trotsky was an ardent Menshevik, i.e., he deserted from the Iskrists to the Economists... In 1904 and 1905, he deserted the Mensheviks and occupied a vacillating position, now cooperating with Martynov (the Economist), now proclaiming his absurdly Left "permanent revolution' theory" During the reactionary period from 1907 to 1910, Trotskyism consittuted a variety of Liquidationism. "Trotsky behaves like a despicable careeriest and factionalist," Lenin wrote in 1909. "He pays lip service to the Party and behaves worse than other of the facionalists. In 1912, the Trotskyists, playing the role of "party unifiers" organized the August anti-party bloc, which unified all the opportunists who had been excluded from the party ranks at the 6th All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP.

During World War I, Trotskyism was a component of international centrism, a social democratic trend that wavered between social chauvinism and petit bourgeois pacifism. Trotksyists rejected Lenin's conclusion that it was possible in the period of imperialism for the proletarian revolution to triumph first in a few countries or even in a single country. In opposition to Lenin's slogan transforming the imperialist war in to a civil war, Trotsky advanced the slogan "Neither victory nor defeat," which essentially meant that everything would remain as before; consequently, even tsarism would be preserved. Lenin wrote: "Whoever is in favor of the slogan "neither victory nor defeat' is consciously or unconsciously a chauvinist; at best he is a conciliatory petit bourgeois, but in any case an enemy of proletarian policy, a partisan of existing governments, of the present-day ruling classes.

After the February Revolution of 1917, just as in 1905, the Trotskyists confused the bourgeois democratic stage of the revolution in Russia with the socialist stage; failing to recognize the bourgeois democratic stage, they demanded the immediate creation of a "true workers' government," the leading role in which they assigned to conciliatory parties. They continued to advocate the alliance of the Bolsheviks with the opportunists under the aegis of Trotskyism, and they attmpted to make the Mezraiontsy, or "interfaction" Social Democrats, into a nucleus around which a united, centrist Social Democratic Party could be formed. After the October Socialist Revolution, Trotskysits alleged that the victory of the revolution would be short lived; they claimed that Sovier power would inevitably perish if socialist revolutions did not occur in the very near future in other European countries and if the Soviet republic did not receive direct state aid from the proletariat of the West.

The Trotkskyists opposed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and foiled the timely conclusion of the negotiations, thus exposing the still weak Soviet republic to the threat of German imperialist aggression. As a result, the Soviet government was compelled to sign a peace treaty at a later date under worse conditions. The Trotskyists viewed the raison de'etre of Soviet power to be the fostering, or pushing, of world proletarian revolution by any means, including military measures. This interpretation was completely at variance with Marxism, for Marxism has always been opposed to 'pushing' revolutions, which develop with the growing acuteness of the class antagonisms that engender revolutions. The thesis of pushing world revoluton by means of war is also a tenet of present day Trotskyism. During the difficult period of reconstruction after the Civil War of 1918-20, Trotksyism took shape as a petit bourgeois deviation within the Russian Communist Party. The Trotskyists initiated an intraparty struggle during the trade union controversy of 1920 and 1921. They created a faction ith its own political platform demanding the transformation of the unions into an adjunct of the state machinery and the reduction of the Party's guiding role in building socialism. They attempted to impose on the party wartime methods of leading the masses.

The existence of Trotskyism and its periodic activiation in individual countries are traceable to various causes, among which are the following: the attraction into the revolutionary movement of large numbers of petit-bourgeois minded and politically inexperienced intellectuals, students, peasants, and craftsmen, who easily fall under the influence of the "ultrarevolutionary" slogans of the Trotskyists, the antirevoultionary activity activity of "left-wing" and right-wing revisionists, whose views and actions often coincide with those of the Trotskyists; and the use and support of Trotskyism by forces of anticommunism and imperialism, which find in Trotskyism an ally in the struggle against Marxism-Leninism.

Trotskyists render substantial aid to the bourgeoisie in its efforts to cause schisms in working class and national liberation movements. During periods of mass demonstrations by working people, extremist factions among the Trotskyists carry out provocative acts that provide the forces of reaction with an opportunity to arouse the politically inexperienced portion of the population against the proletariat and its vanguard, the Communists. During the 1968 general strike in France, Trotskyists and other "ultrarevolutionaries" supported the adventuristic idea of an immediate armed uprising. In Japan the Trotskyists gave the reactionary forces a pretext for the bloody suppression of the demonstrations in Shinjuku in October 1968 and in Yokosuka in January 1969. Trotskyists have engaged in similar activities in other countries as well. Schismatic efforts of the Trotskyists in Chile aided the fascist coup there. Trotskyists attmept to penetrate mass revolutionary organizations for the purpose of destroying the organizations from within. They are particularly active in youth organizations, where they take advance of some of the youngsters' political immaturity and failure to recognize the true face of Trotskyism.

[R_P_A_S]

it sickens me to read how some people bash other leftist. just because their "isms" are different. the main reason why I can't stand how some of you make this stuff out to be some holly code and religion.

[AGITprop]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 06:12 pm
it sickens me to read how some people bash other leftist. just because their "isms" are different. the main reason why I can't stand how some of you make this stuff out to be some holly code and religion.
i seriously fucking agree.
geez! get over yourselves. most of you are just a bunch of fucking clueless teenagers who fucking read shit and think they know everything...get out there..get a fucking job....feel opression. see what its like to work ur ass off for shit money and then maybe when u actually KNOW something...you could bash someone elses thought...now im not saying that you all are a bunch of fucking clkueless teenagers with no life experience...but alot of you are......so shut up...let a person speak..and dont fucking insult everythng u dont fucking agree with..christ..im sick of u pseudo-revolutionnaries whos egos rule their action.

for the record..im not saying i know more than you guys...cuz i probably dont..im just a teenager too. im learning..and so are other people here...so fuck...relax and let people speak without jumping down their throats...

especially killer enigma....fuck u..ur just an asshole..

[BobKKKindle$]

The Socialist Workers' Party in the United Kingdom has advanced an alternative evaluation of the USSR that differs from the main body of Trotskyist opinion and the analysis Trotsky conducted in 'The Revolution Betrayed'. Tony Cliff described the USSR under the rule of Stalin and subsequent soviet leaders as operating under a system of 'State-Capitalism'.

In contrast to Trotsky, Cliff did not believe that state ownership of economic resources was irreconcilable with the capitalist mode of production or an important feature of a socialist society; Cliff recognized that several capitalist countries under the control of social-democratic parties such as the UK had nationalized key sections of the economy following the war, and as such concluded that the USSR was not socialist in any way – not even a workers' state suffering from bureaucratic degeneration – and was instead a society with similar power dynamics to market capitalist societies and a ruling class composed of the upper section of the communist party and managers.


It"s another name for Dogmatic Marxism> Following Marx to the dot with little consideration for Dialectical Materialism>

Did you read any of the material posted above? Trotsky, in agreement with Lenin, disagreed with Marx's original prediction that it was necessary for society to undergo capitalist development prior to a socialist revolution. I recommend you read 'The Development of Capitalism in Russia' to gain a better understanding of Lenin's position instead of making assertions.

The most important difference between Stalinism (a bureaucratic and authoritarian distortion of Marxism) is that Stalinists maintain the stag-ist interpretation (derived from Marx's dialectics) of History whereas Trotskyists have always grasped every opportunity for revolution that has arisen. Stalinist parties have always tried to obstruct the development of popular movements, I would like to draw your attention in particular to the May 1968 Uprisings - the CGT encouraged workers to return to work and accept concessions instead of seizing state power (AJ actually recognizes this, I quote "During the 1968 general strike in France, Trotskyists and other ultrarevolutionaries supported the adventuristic idea of an immediate armed uprising") and the Spanish Civil War, during which the Comintern encouraged disagreements within the United Front and eventually caused military conflict between different ideological factions, resulting in the defeat of Franco.

[Tower of Bebel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 08:06 pm
What someone posted on another forum......
Why is it that you do not want us to know who made this and where you got it from? :rolleyes:

[Mehring]

That is a piece of falsification par-excellence. The events of the 21st century bore out Trotsky's permanant revolution. Stalinism is anti communism. The myth that socialism in one country represents a legitimate strand of marxism is a nonsense. Trotsky tried to unite socialists around class issues and form strategies, documents and parties that could leas to socialist revolution. Every document he wrote and every account of the events from people who took part bears that out.

The bourgeoisie seeks to split the movement by trying to legitimate stalinism so as to weaken the workers movements. They no that Stalin was really the friend of the Bourgeoisie. Trotskyism is a unifying force for the working class and its vital that during periods of reaction as we have just been through that the kernal of actual living marxism is kept living so that when capitalism falls into crisis as it is now doing their will somewhere for workers to turn so that our class can become the dominant one and society and the economy can be run in our interests.