What if...??

[RedFlagComrade]

Would we be still living in a capitalist society today if...

...the Spartacist Revolution (Berlin Uprising) led by Rosa Luxemburg in Berlin had succeeded, giving the backward newly-communist Russia a much-needed boost from the fully industrialized and developed communist ally nearby in Europe?-(according to Marx a Communist country needs to be built on the ruins of a successfull capitalist one, or at least have access to the wealth of a nearby one)...


...the united communist/anarchist/republican forces had won the Spanish civil war against the fascist Franco?-(which would have happened if Stalin had, instead of piecemeally trying to delay Germany and Italy in the war in Spain from turning towards Russia, fully commited to supporting his fellow leftists)...


...when Lenin died, his last will and testament was adherred to, making Trotsky (his most favored) his successor, instead of the ruthlessly ambitious powerhungry Stalin, who Lenin had specifically denounced and cautioned against in his will?


...the imperialist US secret service had not helped to oust the democratically elected socialist Allende in Chile to place in power the right wing dictator Pinochet (since tried for human rights abuses), and in the meantime murdering many of Latin Americas young left?


And on the other hand-What would the world look like if Hitler had beaten the Russians and, as a result, won the second world war?

[Unicorn]

...the Spartacist Revolution led by Rosa Luxemburg in Berlin had succeeded, giving the backward newly-communist Russia a fully industrialized and developed communist ally nearby in Europe?
Luxemburgianism was an entire system of false positions and she could not lead Germany to socialism. If Ernst Thälmann was leading the party it could succeed.

[Dros]

Luxemburgianism was an entire system of false positions and she could not lead Germany to socialism.

I agree.

Luxembourgism is silly.


...when Lenin died, his last will and testament was adherred to, making Trotsky (his most favored) his successor, instead of the ruthlessly ambitious powerhungry Stalin, who Lenin had specifically denounced and cautioned against in his will?

lolz

1.) Lenin's Testament, if it is authentic, is very critical of Trotsky and the only thing it says about Stalin is that he is "rude". Lenin thought Stalin was rude because Stalin had gotten into a fight with Lenin's wife.

2.) Lenin looked highly upon Stalin for his entire career.

3.) Lenin was very sick when he wrote this and had been out of touch with the CC for some time.

4.) In a Communist party, leaders don't get to appoint their successors. Trotsky was rejected by the vast majority of the CC because he a.) had alienated most of the party, b.) was rather incompetent, and c.) had very wrong positions.

So basically, get over it.

[RedFlagComrade]

1.) Lenin's Testament, if it is authentic, is very critical of Trotsky and the only thing it says about Stalin is that he is "rude". Lenin thought Stalin was rude because Stalin had gotten into a fight with Lenin's wife.

2.) Lenin looked highly upon Stalin for his entire career.


I dunno where you got that from. Lenin despised Stalin.
And while his testament did describe Trotsky as a obsessive-compulsive perfectionist and a hard taskmaster who was hard to work with (the testament insultes everybody in the upper reaches of the party, but Trotsky came out most favorably of all the possible candidates for leadership) it was most damning when it described Stalin-who it said was ruthlessly ambitious and powerhungry-and by god it was proved right.

"(Although Lenin's comments were damaging to all Communist leaders, Stalin stood to lose the most since the only practical suggestion in the testament was to remove him from the position of the General Secretary of the Party's Central Committee.)"-quote from wikipedia entry lenins testament.

So Lenin wanted Stalin not made leader, but the opposite-removed from his position on the party's council

[RedFlagComrade]

3.) Lenin was very sick when he wrote this and had been out of touch with the CC for some time.


In fact Lenin had written this testament before he had his stroke but his wife kept it secret in the hopes that he would recover and it wasnt shown to the rest of the party until after his death.

[RedFlagComrade]

4.) In a Communist party, leaders don't get to appoint their successors. Trotsky was rejected by the vast majority of the CC because he a.) had alienated most of the party, b.) was rather incompetent, and c.) had very wrong positions.

I wasnt suggesting that Lenins word should have been followed like law-I just asked what the world would be like if it had been heeded.

[Dros]

I dunno where you got that from. Lenin despised Stalin.

You are obviously insane.

http://www.ladruida.com/fotos/Stalin-Lenin-Kalinin-1919.jpg


wikipedia

not a source


In fact Lenin had written this testament before he had his stroke but his wife kept it secret in the hopes that he would recover and it wasnt shown to the rest of the party until after his death.

You don't know what you're talking about. Lenin had his first stroke in May 1922. He didn't start working on the testament until the end of that year.

[RedFlagComrade]

the picture is meaningless-stalin had many photos of lenin doctored to put a completely seperate photo of him beside it-trying to tap into the love that was felt for lenin by the people of russia.he even had photos of himself airbrushed to make himself look slimmer and removed old comrades from photos as he murdered them one by one i the purges.And even if this picture is real (which i doubt) it wouldnt be unusual for colleagues to have formal photo taken together, even if they despised each other-completely irrelevant.

Wikipedia isnt a souerce?Doesnt change the truth-Lenin condemned Stalin in his will its in the history books and any unbiases book that youll find(I assume your Stalinist books omit unfortunate details like that)

Lenin recovered from that stroke and survived two more before he died.Nevertheless I conced your point.Doesnt change the fact that Stalin was a murdering lunatic, and that neither Lenin nor anybody else wanted him as leader.

[RedFlagComrade]

This has gone way off topic.

Back to the original question-what would the world look like today in any of the above scenarios^^

Drosera-We can continue this discussion on my other thread in the learning... section (stalinists/hoxhaists/maoists?)

[Dros]

the picture is meaningless-stalin had many photos of lenin doctored to put a completely seperate photo of him beside it-trying to tap into the love that was felt for lenin by the people of russia.he even had photos of himself airbrushed to make himself look slimmer and removed old comrades from photos as he murdered them one by one i the purges.And even if this picture is real (which i doubt) it wouldnt be unusual for colleagues to have formal photo taken together, even if they despised each other-completely irrelevant.

I am aware. I just thought it was funny and that picture does not warrant my claim and was not intended to. You are simply misinformed. Lenin promoted Stalin within the party and spoke very highly of him within the party. I suggest you go find some of those documents.


Wikipedia isnt a souerce?Doesnt change the truth-Lenin condemned Stalin in his will its in the history books and any unbiases book that youll find(I assume your Stalinist books omit unfortunate details like that)

This is really absurd. Go read something, anything, about the USSR.


Lenin recovered from that stroke and survived two more before he died. Nevertheless I conced your point.Doesnt change the fact that Stalin was a murdering lunatic, and that neither Lenin nor anybody else wanted him as leader.

The point is, Lenin was totally out of politics when he wrote the so-called testament. And please talk about the argument Stalin had with Nadezhda Krupskaya. Immediately prior to the writing of the will. And since she was Lenin's only source of information and he allegedly dictated the will to her, Lenin is by know means informed or objective in his assessment. And even at that point, the only thing he says is that Stalin is rude.

As for him not being wanted as leader, that is patently and objectively false. He was elected General Secretary democratically by the CC. Trotsky was crushed because he was arrogant and wrong. It was a blow out landslide victory for Stalin. Really please. This is simply untrue and anyone with a cursory understanding of Soviet politics would know that.

[Die Neue Zeit]

All this anti-Luxemburgism reeks a bit of reductionism to me. :(

Yes, she was quite ignorant when she criticized Lenin's democratic centralism in the early 1900s (mainly because she never actually read congressional resolutions, even though the MENSHEVIKS were in agreement with the Bolsheviks on this subject), but she never actually led the failed Spartacist revolution:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartakusbund


On 1 January 1919, the KPD executed a short-lived communist revolution in Berlin despite protests from Luxemburg and Liebknecht. The uprising was crushed by the government of the new Weimar Republic; however, the government had to rely on the right wing freikorps in place of the army or police.

Essentially this was just a bloodier version of the July Days in Russia.

[AGITprop]

Understanding history is one thing.

Asking what ifs, is another. It's completely useless and just starts arguments that are non-productive.

If you want to debate who was better, Trotsky or Stalin, do so, but don't ask what if(?), it is just pointless.

Focus on the road ahead.

[RNK]

What if you people stopped with the "what if" shit, and stopped having wet dreams about beautiful wonderful communist superland, and stopped being little turds?

Well, that'd just be spiffy.

[Marukusu]

1. No. Even if the spartacist uprising would have succeded, I doubt that they would stay in power for very long. Ultra-nationalist reactionaries such as the freikorps would start a civil war rather than accepting some "communists" as leaders.
Other world powers such as the USA, France and Britain would probably intervene to crush the revolution as they tried to do in Russia.

2. No. The result would have been that a new Moscow-friendly nation in Europe. France and Britain wouldn't like it at all... no world revolution there.

3. No. Trotsky had few allies in the politburo and wasn't as charismatic and well-liked as Stalin.

4. No. Why the hell would we live in communism just if Allende wasn't overthrowed? He was just one man, he would never be able to change the whole world.

[Colonello Buendia]

I suggest you go find some of those documents.




which documents? "How Lenin Loved me?" "How Trotsky sucks balls"
cite theses fantabulous documents from the world of make believe. It's well known that Lenin warned Trotsky about Stalin and it's well known that Stalin lied about his position on the NEP to get support from the Politburo. Trotsky had become disillusioned by the time of the power struggle though he still had mass support from the red army. as for the photo, it looks doctored but I'm not sure even if it wasn't Hitler and Stalin had pictures together so are you implying they were best buds to?

[Intelligitimate]

Stalin comes off the best in the 'Testament'. Only in a postscript, after word got back to him that Stalin was rude to his wife over the phone (for violating doctor's orders), did Lenin criticize anything about Stalin at all, describing him as too rude. Lenin then suggests replacing him with someone exactly like Stalin, except less rude.

This, compared to pointing out Trotsky's non-Bolshevik past and pointing out his bureaucratic tendencies, Zinoviev and Trotsky's treachery, and saying Bukharin was not fully Marxist. Not only that, Stalin even offered his resignation at the 13th Party Congress, like the testament advises, and everyone, including Trotsky, refused it.

This is more or less a consequence of the fact Stalin was given the thankless job of watching after a dying Lenin, who was slowly loosing his critical facilities. There are some other documents Trotskyists could produce to show Lenin was turning against Stalin, but nothing before Lenin was already removed from politics and becoming deeply suspicious of everyone in his isolation.

[Black Cross]

RedFlagComrade- Use the edit button. Moderators don't care for trip-posts... especially when followed by a double post.

[ComradeOm]

I dunno where you got that from. Lenin despised Stalin? Lenin's first major disagreement with Stalin only came in the early twenties. It wasn't until the former had suffered his stroke that he actively began to manoeuvre against him. Hardly evidence to suggest that the two were mortal enemies