Had Leon Trotsky took over from Lenin how would have ww2 been different?

[wasteman]

Say the USSR adopted Trotskys view of Leninism as the right one and chose to expell Stalin, what would have changed with Leons temperment instead of Stalins?

[Charles Xavier]

What if superman didn't joint the justice league would the justice league be different?

What if Spiderman was a bad guy and the Green Goblin was a super hero?

What if the American Public Elected Al Gore in 2000 and choose to throw out George Bush, what would have changed?

What if Africa centre of the Imperialism instead of Africa?

What if the the Soviets were the first to land on the moon?

What if Tupac Didn't die what would he say?

:laugh:

[Revy]

Say the USSR adopted Trotskys view of Leninism as the right one and chose to expell Stalin, what would have changed with Leons temperment instead of Stalins?

There might never have been a Nazi Germany. A new German Revolution might have happened. That's just a possibility not a certainty though.

There certainly would have never been a Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Nazis would have been immediately vicious in words and action toward the fact that Russia was led by a Jew.

There are Stalinists who believe that Trotsky, a former head of the Red Army, would have been somehow less competent in resisting a Nazi invasion, or more viciously, that as a Jew he somehow would have willingly surrendered or capitulated to it or openly welcomed it, knowing what it would mean for him.

Stalin was an anti-Semite who sought peace with the Nazis. No matter what "secret motives" amateur Stalinist historians may try to pin on it, the action should speak for itself. I don't believe for one second this was some kind of stroke of genius against Hitler. Not for one second.

Trotsky would have certainly handled any situation thrown at him a thousand times better than Stalin. It's a huge difference that should not be trivialized.

[chegitz guevara]

I think, most importantly, the German Communists wouldn't have pursued the disastrous "social fascist" policy, so it's entirely possible that the Nazis might not have succeeded in Germany. In addition, the British General Strike, the French General Strike, and the Spanish Revolution may have turned out differently. Regardless, there would have been no alliance between Soviet and Nazi. On the flip side, however, Trotsky's proposed industrialization plan was much less ambitious than Stalin's, and so the USSR might not have been capable of resisting the Nazis if everything else were equal.

[Q]

On the flip side, however, Trotsky's proposed industrialization plan was much less ambitious than Stalin's, and so the USSR might not have been capable of resisting the Nazis if everything else were equal.

When Trotsky proposed his industrialisation plan, Stalin & co were still very much supporting the policy of Kulaks and long term (as in generations) industrial development. Trotsky was ridiculed as "superindustrialist" if I remember the term correctly.

Of course, under pressure from the reactionary Kulaks, Stalin & co had to switch tac and overnight became big supporters of industrialism. Firstly very moderate (much below Trotsky's initial proposals) and later, stunned by rapid developments possible under a planned economy, absurdly high.

The zigzags of the bureaucracy :rolleyes:

[Tower of Bebel]

It depends on how seriously he would reconsider his views after he heard of Lenin's testament. I think it was Stalin's rise to power that eventually made Trotsky to attack the formation of a party bureaucracy head on.

[Yehuda Stern]

I don't know if replacing Stalin with Trotsky would be enough to stall the counterrevolution enough until the workers could come to power elsewhere. It might have been that Trotsky would have come to power and counterrevolution would come from outside the USSR, instead from the inside, as happened. However, if Trotsky would've managed to overcome the crisis in the USSR through world revolution, there would never have been a WWII at the first place.

[Q]

The thing with "what if" questions is that history has way too many variables to make any sensical comments about it, especially for something like WWII (between Lenins death in 1924 and the start of WWII a shitload happened). It's like trying to look through a crystal ball to predict the future, but in this instance for an alternate reality.

[Pogue]

I think Nazism would have been resisted strongly and sooner.

[LOLseph Stalin]

"What if" questions are always interesting. I think about these things all the time.

Anyway, I think if Trotsky would have become the leader of the USSR, Communism would have spread further and would have been here today maybe. Also, because of Trotsky's belief in worldwide revolution, there could have been a successful revolution in Germany therefore preventing the Nazis from gaining so much power. With Stalin such things were impossible since he believed in "Socialism in one country".

[Black Sheep]

With Stalin such things were impossible since he believed in "Socialism in one country".
That claim destroys the most crucial driving force of societies and economies, the material conditions!

I believe things would have been pretty much the same btw.

[Grunt]

Here is what I think:


• Trotsky wouldn't have been under the strategic delusions of the
preinvasion Soviet Union under Stalin.

• Hence: No Molotov-Ribbentrop pact

• Hence: The Sovjet Union would have been far better prepared for
'Operation Barbarossa' (Trotsky was after all a great military
strategist)

• German advancing forces would perhaps been stopped after the
conclusion of Phase 1(June 22-August 25):


http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee107/conchbe/OperationBarbarossa1stepJune22-Augu.jpg


• Big Russian counter-offensive autumn/winter 1941
(hence no battle of Stalingrad, siege of Leningrad etc.)

• End of The Great Patriotic War perhaps as early as 1943.

• Thus: 10s of millions human lifes saved !

[duffers]

A person "coming to power" is betraying the notion of an egalitarian, classless society.

[communard resolution]

The Nazis would have been immediately vicious in words and action toward the fact that Russia was led by a Jew.

I'm not so sure about that. The Nazis too were opportunists. Hermann Goering about Jewish Luftwaffe officers: "I decide who's a Jew and who isn't". Like anyone in power politics, the Nazis were doing whatever suited them best at the time.

[ev]

I think we can burn this question down to, would the modern world be a better place if Trotsky took over instead of Stalin, my answer to such a question would be Yes.

[Grunt]

I think we can burn this question down to, would the modern world be a better place if Trotsky took over instead of Stalin, my answer to such a question would be Yes.
Definitely! Affirmative! :)

----

However - the question was about WWII. And since I have read and
still read everything about the Great Patriotic War that I can get
my hands on - I am naturally interested in speculations about what
would have been different with Trotsky as Commander in Chief of the
Glorious Red Army!

---

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

Well, as it would appear I'm the only non-Trotskyist (Maoist, incidentally; non-eclectic) on this forum, I'll offer my view on this. ...Actually, I think I've already summed up my views on this fairly well on another thread, so without bothering to come up with anything actually new :p, here is a very brief look at my view on what would have happened had Trotsky and Co. emerged as the leaders of the Soviet Union:


As for the supposed evils of socialism in one country, I will point out that, on the rare occasions that it has actually been applied, it has succeeded (the defeat, not failure, of the given revolutions aside). For example, take revolutionary China (1949-1976). Throughout the whole socialist period, China's industry grew at an average rate of 10 percent a year and agriculture also grew at an average rate of 3 percent a year. This, mind you, was despite having no trade partners to speak of for most of this time and yes amid all the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution!

The possibility of building socialism in a single country is not some nationalist, anti-communist thing. It is realistically the only way to have revolutionary victories! (On a country-by-country basis, in general, that is.) You see, there is this thing, may I remind the Trotskyists, called the law of uneven development, which yes includes the uneven development of ideas. If we simply await a scenario where "everyone is ready", we'll be waiting forever. 'Socialism in one country' is not a defeatist thing, but a call to seize upon every possible opening for revolution and socialism.

Historically, there has thus far been one self-described Trotskyist to head up any government. That's Hugo Chavez. It makes some sense that he regards himself as a Trotskyist as well. His logic matches up with that of the "permanent revolution" theory: it's just impossible to de-link in an overall way from the larger world economy, he reasons. He follows this reasoning through to conclusion: Because you can't survive largely independent of foreign trade, you shouldn't try to. That's what Trotskyism looks like in real world application.

Put more simply, a two-general-step process would have taken place:

1. The replacement of the proletarian dictatorship with a "workers' state".
2. After perhaps a few years, capitulation to international capital.

[communard resolution]

^^ You've got a point as far as uneven development. But when applied to smaller countries that don't possess a great deal of raw materials or certain agricultural products, would aiming at an autarchical economy -socialist or not- not inevitably lead to isolationist scenarios such as the economic train wreck that is North Korea? Or worse still, aggressive expansion as was the case with Hitler, who also aimed at an autarchic economy that Germany was simply not capable of?

Note: this is no intended cheap shot: I'm not comparing Nazism to Stalinism/Maoism. I'm really only speaking about the situation of smaller countries cutting their economic ties with the rest of the world.

[Grunt]

Well, as it would appear I'm the only non-Trotskyist (Maoist, incidentally; non-eclectic) on this forum, I'll offer my view on this. [...]

Far from it...:) I would say that there are very few
Trotskyist's on this forum.

(I myself -although I admire the man and find some(NOT all) of
his ideas important- am a Marxist-Leninist-Bolshevik. And that's
that.)

----

Still: The original question was about WWII !

Is there really nobody interested in the Great Patriotic
War ? A little speculating how military history would/could
have been different with Trotsky as Commander in Chief?



____

[Grunt]

[...]I'm really only speaking about the situation of smaller countries cutting their economic ties with the rest of the world.
A topic of the utmost importance!!

Worth a thread of his own - don't you think?

[Tatarin]

I think the more interesting question is - would a non-Soviet Russia ally itself with the nazis? Here I think the crucial point lies in Lenin, because it would seem like both Trotsky and Stalin would have defended the country from the nazis in any scenario.

My point here is that even if both Trotsky and Stalin would have died in an accident or something, anyone at the lead of the Soviet state would have defended it. But would anyone if the revolution never happened? If a "nationalist Russia" allied itself with Germany, it would have been a clear cut to Middle Eastern oil and a connection (though a long one) to Japan.

[Grunt]

If a "nationalist Russia" allied itself with Germany, it would have been a clear cut to Middle Eastern oil and a connection (though a long one) to Japan.

Yepp. A nationalist/tsarist Russia would have allied itself with
Germany. Hitler would have pushed this ally farther and farther
and in the end: Make it part of the 'Grossdeutsches Reich',
one way or another, maybe without even having to resort
to violence...

Great Britain would have been besieged and forced to give up.
The US would have confined them to fighting the Japanese
(after Pearl Harbour) but the Japanese would have defeated
them (because of the 'clear cut' you mentioned).

Very interesting speculations!! :)

[Valeofruin]

Notice how everyone talks about the Molotov Pact, everyone completely overlooks the fact that the Red Army would be busy warding off the Nazis with stones and spears under Trotskys 25 year vision for economic development.

[Q]

Notice how everyone talks about the Molotov Pact, everyone completely overlooks the fact that the Red Army would be busy warding off the Nazis with stones and spears under Trotskys 25 year vision for economic development.

Go troll somewhere else, kthxbai.

[Comrade_Red]

Who knows, maybe there would be dominantly Stalinists on this forum.

[communard resolution]

Yepp. A nationalist/tsarist Russia would have allied itself with
Germany. Hitler would have pushed this ally farther and farther
and in the end: Make it part of the 'Grossdeutsches Reich',
one way or another, maybe without even having to resort
to violence...


Note how easily they could have agreed on a common phantom 'enemy': the Jews. And naturally, they would have fucked over Poland just like Hitler and Stalin did.


clear cut to Middle-Eastern oil
As far as I remember from Albert Speer's 'Inside The Third Reich' account, Russia herself had a great deal of oil and other raw materials, which was the main reason for Hitler to invade it, more so than his dreams of Lebensraum for the master race. With an alliance like that and a few nice deals, perhaps any further expansion would have been regarded as unnecessary - at least for a while.

I don't believe the Nazis wanted to "rule the whole world" for the hell of it. Everything's always about oil and resources, isn't it?
They expand as much as they need to, then they stop until their self-destructive economy demands more.

By the way, what is your custom title now, Grunt? I think I can decipher "punk rocker", but not the words before that.

[Grunt]

[...]everyone completely overlooks the fact that the Red Army would be busy warding off the Nazis with stones and spears under Trotskys 25 year vision for economic development.

Care to explain? :confused:



Who knows, maybe there would be dominantly Stalinists on this forum.

:confused: Begging your pardon, but what is the connection to the
topic of this thread? Care to explain?

[Grunt]

Note how easily they could have agreed on a common phantom 'enemy': the Jews.

Good point!



And naturally, they would have fucked over Poland just like Hitler and Stalin did.

Exactly! They would have 'swallowed' it - and of course
(like in the real history) exterminate the polish jews completely.




As far as I remember from Albert Speer's 'Inside The Third Reich' account, Russia itself had a great deal of oil and other raw materials, which was the main reason for Hitler to invade it, more so than his dreams of Lebensraum for the master race.

Yeah - that is Speer alright. Always pragmatic. Hitler was too -
but I believe he also clinged on to the Lebensraum idea.

On the other side of the spectrum you have guys like Himmler
and Rosenberg whith their pan-germanic mystification, like
a religion - and they themself believed in it.



With an alliance like that and a few nice deals, perhaps any further expansion would have been regarded as unnecessary - at least for a while.

As you say: 'For a while...'.



Everything's always about oil and resources, isn't it?
I agree. That's what it comes down to in the end...

___



By the way, what is your custom title now, Grunt? I think I can decipher "punk rocker", but not the words before that.

It says: 'Bolshevist and Punk Rocker' :)

(note that in russian the noun is 'bolshevist' and not 'bolshevik',
which is the adjective)

[communard resolution]

On the other side of the spectrum you have guys like Himmler
and Rosenberg whith their pan-germanic mystification, like
a religion

Yeah, but even Hitler laughed at some of their candyfloss-brained mumbo jumbo. Well, at least that's what Speer claims.


It says: 'Bolshevist and Punk Rocker'

That's great news, compañero. Where's the smily icon where they cheer with beer mugs?

[Grunt]

Yeah, but even Hitler laughed at some of their candyfloss-brained mumbo jumbo. Well, at least that's what Speer claims.

Indeed he did. I don't believe everything Speer wrote, but Hitler
making fun of the Arian-/Pan Germanic-Mystics is well documented
in the 'Table Talks' (...not that I read that shit-it's utterly boring)




That's great news, compañero.

You think so? Cool! Cheers mate! :)



Where's the smily icon where they cheer with beer mugs?

I have it saved somewhere on photobucket, will look for it! :D

[Tatarin]

Also, pushing the speculations further, since Russia has resources and is "the clear cut" to Middle Eastern oil, Japan would have no use of attacking the United States (as I understand their war with the US was based on oil). The US could continue their "isolationist" tendencies, even ally itself with fascism later on.

Seriously, without the Russian Revolution, would there ever have been any resistance - at least any meaningful one - against global fascism?

[Victor]

It's possible that had Trotsky been in the saddle and Hitler in power, there might have been a World War over Spain. If Trotsky pushed for a more revolutionary line (as opposed to the Popular Front strategy of the PCE), the revolution in Spain could've ignited a lot more than it actually did. But then again, this is just speculation...

[Grunt]

Also, pushing the speculations further, since Russia has resources and is "the clear cut" to Middle Eastern oil, Japan would have no use of attacking the United States (as I understand their war with the US was based on oil). The US could continue their "isolationist" tendencies, even ally itself with fascism later on.
Good thinking, comrade! :thumbup1:



Seriously, without the Russian Revolution, would there ever have been any resistance - at least any meaningful one - against global fascism?
If we follow the speculative scenario we have staked out - I would say:
Probably not!

[Grunt]

It's possible that had Trotsky been in the saddle and Hitler in power, there might have been a World War over Spain. If Trotsky pushed for a more revolutionary line (as opposed to the Popular Front strategy of the PCE), the revolution in Spain could've ignited a lot more than it actually did. But then again, this is just speculation...
Yes - all we talk here is just speculation, but it's mighty interesting! :)
I completely forgot the spanish civil war...

[RedScare]

I don't think Trotsky would have bought into the whole appeasement crap, although there's no way to know for sure. Probably would have threatened war over the Sudetenland.

[Vargha Poralli]

History shaped by human action is very complex to make any predictions about it.

The purpose of learning history of ourselves should not be limited to mental excercises like this. The main purpose of history is to learn from it to shape very vague outine of our future.

[Drace]

These kind of questions have nothing to offer. There just fun to discuss I suppose.

[BIG BROTHER]

Say the USSR adopted Trotskys view of Leninism as the right one and chose to expell Stalin, what would have changed with Leons temperment instead of Stalins?

It wouldn't matter much if Stalin or Trotsky were the leaders. It doesn't matter as much whose ideology was the official one, the material conditions of Russia would have made the degeneration inevitable. Anyways I'm going off topic, I think it would have still been pretty much the same.

[Hiero]

"What if" questions are always interesting. I think about these things all the time.

Anyway, I think if Trotsky would have become the leader of the USSR, Communism would have spread further and would have been here today maybe. Also, because of Trotsky's belief in worldwide revolution, there could have been a successful revolution in Germany therefore preventing the Nazis from gaining so much power. With Stalin such things were impossible since he believed in "Socialism in one country".


That's right, all we have to do is "believe" and everything will be ok :rolleyes:

[Glenn Beck]

It's possible that had Trotsky been in the saddle and Hitler in power, there might have been a World War over Spain. If Trotsky pushed for a more revolutionary line (as opposed to the Popular Front strategy of the PCE), the revolution in Spain could've ignited a lot more than it actually did. But then again, this is just speculation...

Here's a terrible thing to think about:
Were that to have happened, it would likely have turned into an unmitigated disaster barring the unreliable prospect of successful revolutions in multiple powerful nations simultaneously. The USSR putting its full muscle into backing Spain would have given the neutral capitalist powers an excuse to view them as aggressors and likely left them open to attack. Even if they remained neutral the USSR would not be able to count on any support.
Even a neutral capitalist nation is still capitalist, they would likely be more willing to trade with Germany than the USSR which did not even have to intervene in any other nations to be viewed by them as a menace and an aggressor.

[Grunt]

These kind of questions have nothing to offer. There just fun to discuss I suppose.
..and what's wrong with having fun discussing things? :)

[Q]

..and what's wrong with having fun discussing things? :)

The intertubes are srs bsns http://cpcn.ipbfree.com/html/emoticons/ph34r.gif

:lol:

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

I hate to have to dig way back in this thread, but I really wanted to respond to the replies people directed toward me. Sorry!


Originally posted by Nero the Emperor:
You've got a point as far as uneven development. But when applied to smaller countries that don't possess a great deal of raw materials or certain agricultural products, would aiming at an autarchical economy -socialist or not- not inevitably lead to isolationist scenarios such as the economic train wreck that is North Korea? Or worse still, aggressive expansion as was the case with Hitler, who also aimed at an autarchic economy that Germany was simply not capable of?I'm confused as to why so many people associate Maoism with North Korea. This is at least the third time on this forum (and I don't have that many posts!) that it has been implied that there is some sort of basic link between my political stance and that of Kim Jong Il. Here is my standpoint on this matter: North Korea was never a socialist country. Rather, they relied heavily on Soviet social-imperialism for trade "assistance" continually until the collapse of the latter, at which point their present scenario resulted. That may be a slight simplification, but it gives you the overall picture pretty accurately. Oh yes, they also opened up noteworthy trade with the more explicitly capitalist-imperialist countries in the 1970s, attempting to develop an export economy. This produced the government's bankruptcy within the decade, which in turn forced more and more austerity measures. "Self-reliance" for North Korea is a slogan, not a political line. It is precisely heavy dependence that has wrecked that country to the point of where it is today. North Korea is essentially a semi-feudal country complete with dynastic succession. I don't associate myself with that state. Like I said, I'm non-eclectic.

But to more directly answer your question, I would put forward, as a smaller-scale example of the self-reliance principle, Albania. That's not to say I consider Albania to have been a socialist country for the whole Hoxha period, or that Hoxhaist Albania was as good an example of self-reliance as revolutionary China (again, 1949-1976)...but nevertheless, it serves as an example of a smaller country that broke it off with Soviet social-imperialism and rejected any major links to international capital (for the Hoxha period anyway) and yet did quite alright, in the economic sense.

Incidentally, I'm not calling for absolute refusal to have trade relationships. For obvious reasons, that's just not possible for many countries. But, in a general sense, all-around development (including in both industry and agriculture) should be employed as an alternative to dependence on international capital. Trade relationships, for the socialist state, should operate like a robbery. If a gun is pointed to your head and you're told "Gimme your wallet", you do so out of obvious necessity to live. But there's a difference between making that kind of necessary compromise and joining up with the gunman in robbing others! You can't compromise the realm of principle, but only do what's necessary to ensure that your basic needs are met.


Note: this is no intended cheap shot: I'm not comparing Nazism to Stalinism/Maoism.Contrary to this notion, Stalinism and Maoism are not one and the same. My views on Stalin are complex and can be located on another thread, which I'm not allowed to link to yet, as I don't have 25 posts. I regard myself more specically as Marxist-Leninist-Maoist. I tend to exclude Engels and Stalin from that, not because I think they didn't have positive contributions or important ones, but because they don't represent something worth getting behind as comprehensively as Marx, Lenin, and Mao. Non-eclectic.

On Trotskysim:

Having said all this, I would like to briefly get a bit more deeply into this subject of Trotskyism, since that's the subject of this thread. The prevailing view here seems to be that Trotsky's stance concentrated in his "permanent revolution" theory represented a more "militant" line than that of, say, the principle that socialism can be had in a single country; that the "permanent revolution" theory is more genuinely internationalist and all this. It's even assessed by Trotsky sympathizers that his represented more genuinely Marxism and Leninism. In reality, Trotskyism is capitulation from beginning to end.

Let's start with a critical definition; the definition of the proletarian dictatorship. Here is Lenin on this matter:

(Italics added by me for emphasis.)


Vladimir Lenin, from Foreward to 'On Deceiving the People with Slogans About Liberty and Equality':

"The dictatorship of the proletariat is a special form of class alliance between the proletariat, the vanguard of the working people, and the numerous non-proletarian strata of working people (the petty bourgeoisie, the small proprietors, the peasantry, the intelligentsia, etc.), or the majority of these; it is an alliance against capital, an alliance aiming at the complete overthrow of capital, at the complete suppression of the resistance of the bourgeoisie and of any attempt on its part at restoration, an alliance aiming at the final establishment and consolidation of socialism."The proletarian dictatorship is defined by the orientation and objective of liberating all of humanity, which encompasses the elimination of class distinctions. The proletariat wants to go out of existence, not to go into a "workers' state" of the orientation and objective that "The first will be last and the last will be first"! Lenin's definition implies a class alliance defined by political line (what it's "aiming at"), not an exclusionary thing. The line is the important thing, not what class background you come from.

How long should this arrangement persist?

(Again, italics are mine for emphasis.)


Karl Marx, from 'Critique of the Gotha Programme':

"Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."

Vladimir Lenin, from 'The State and Revolution', Chapter 2:

"The dictatorship of a single class is necessary not only for every class society in general, not only for the proletariat which has overthrown the bourgeoisie, but also for the entire historical period which separates capitalism from "classless society", from communism. Bourgeois states are most varied in form, but their essence is the same: all these states, whatever their form, in the final analysis are inevitably the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The transition from capitalism to communism is certainly bound to yield a tremendous abundance and variety of political forms, but the essence will inevitably be the same: the dictatorship of the proletariat."Here is Trotsky's proposal:

(Yet again, italics are mine.)


Leon Trotsky, from Preface to 'The Year 1905' (work dated 1922):

"It was precisely during the interval between January 9 and the October strike of 1905 that the views on the character of the revolutionary development of Russia which came to be known as the theory of 'permanent revolution' crystallized in the author's mind. This abstruse term represented the idea that the Russian revolution, whose immediate objectives were bourgeois in nature, could not, however, stop when these objectives had been achieved. The revolution would not be able to solve its immediate bourgeois problems except by placing the proletariat in power. And the latter, upon assuming power, would not be able to confine itself to the bourgeois limits of the revolution. On the contrary, precisely in order to ensure its victory, the proletarian vanguard would be forced in the very early stages of its rule to make deep inroads not only into feudal property but into bourgeois property as well. In this it would come into hostile collision not only with all the bourgeois groupings which supported the proletariat during the first stages of its revolutionary struggle, but also with the broad masses of the peasantry with whose assistance it came into power. The contradictions in the position of a workers' government in a backward country with an overwhelmingly peasant population could be solved only on an international scale, in the arena of the world proletarian revolution."To put this more simply, the replacement of the proletarian dictatorship with a "workers' government" was Trotsky's immediate goal. This was not a "militant" revolutionary stance, but an enormous and fundamental capitulation: Such a move would be to surrender all non-proletarian strata to the enemy! As we can see in the quote above, this thing of going for a "workers' state" is what creates the basis for Trotsky's version of "internationalism", which amounts to nothing less than a rejection of the law of uneven development (which, again, includes the uneven development of ideas). So that (surrender) is the standpoint from which the "permanent revolution" theory begins. Where does it end? Well, applying the law of uneven development, it ends in more overt surrender, in view of the logic that socialism cannot be sustained without a continual supply of new revolutions. I've pointed to the example of Chavez, the world's first self-described Trotskyist head of government. That's the trajectory of Trotskyism.

One last comparison (with, as usual, my italics):


Vladimir Lenin, from 'On the Slogan for a United States of Europe':

"Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country taken separately. The victorious proletariat of that country, having expropriated the capitalists and organized its own socialist production, would stand up against the rest of the world, the capitalist world, attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, raising revolts in those countries against the capitalists, and in the event of necessity coming out even with armed force against the exploiting classes and their states. ...the free union of nations in socialism is impossible without a more or less prolonged and stubborn struggle of the socialist republics against the backward states."

VS...

Leon Trotsky, from 'The Year 1917' (republished in 1924):

"The only more or less concrete historical argument advanced against the slogan of a United States of Europe was formulated in the Swiss Sotsial-Demokrat (MY NOTE: at the time, the central organ of the Bolsheviks) in the following sentence: 'Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism.' From this the Sotsial-Demokrat draws the conclusion that the victory of socialism is possible in one country, and that therefore there is no reason to make the dictatorship of the proletariat in each separate country contingent upon the establishment of a United States of Europe. That capitalist development in different countries is uneven is an absolutely incontrovertible argument. But this unevenness is itself extremely uneven. The capitalist level of Britain, Austria, Germany or France is not identical. But in comparison with Africa and Asia all these countries represent capitalist 'Europe,' which has grown ripe for the social revolution. That no country in its struggle must 'wait' for others, is an elementary thought which it is useful and necessary to reiterate in order that the idea of concurrent international action may not be replaced by the idea of temporizing international inaction. Without waiting for the others, we begin and continue the struggle nationally, in the full confidence that our initiative will give an impetus to the struggle in other countries; but if this should not occur, it would be hopeless to think — as historical experience and theoretical considerations testify — that, for example, a revolutionary Russia could hold out in the face of a conservative Europe, or that a socialist Germany could exist in isolation in a capitalist world."

And...
Leon Trotsky, from Postscript to 'Peace Programme', dated 1922:

As long as the bourgeoisie remains in power in the other European countries we shall be compelled, in our struggle against economic isolation, to strive for agreements with the capitalist world; at the same time it may be said with certainty that these agreements may at best help us to mitigate some of our economic ills, to take one or another step forward, but real progress of a socialist economy in Russia will become possible only after the victory of the proletariat in the major European countries.""Militancy" or capitulation, I ask you?

[Grunt]

Here is my standpoint on this matter: North Korea was never a socialist country. Rather, they relied heavily on Soviet social-imperialism for trade "assistance" continually until the collapse of the latter, at which point their present scenario resulted.[...] North Korea is essentially a semi-feudal country complete with dynastic succession. I don't associate myself with that state. Like I said, I'm non-eclectic.
That's affirmative!



[...]but nevertheless, it serves as an example of a smaller country that broke it off with Soviet social-imperialism and rejected any major links to international capital (for the Hoxha period anyway) and yet did quite alright, in the economic sense.
'Did quite alright'? Are you sure about that?



If a gun is pointed to your head and you're told "Gimme your wallet", you do so out of obvious necessity to live.
No, I take the gun away from the robber, shove it up his ass and pull
the trigger until it goes 'click'...:D (pardon my french)



[...]Stalinism and Maoism are not one and the same.
They are not? Interesting. Educate me!:)



My views on Stalin are complex and can be located on another thread, which I'm not allowed to link to yet, as I don't have 25 posts.
Would you be so kind and post me the link via PM? Thanks! :)



I tend to exclude Engels and Stalin from that, not because I think they didn't have positive contributions or important ones, but because they don't represent something worth getting behind as comprehensively as Marx, Lenin, and Mao. Non-eclectic.
That's affirmative, except I don't see Mao's big contribution (besides
fom the excellent and very useful: 'On Guerilla Warfare').



[...]I would like to briefly get a bit more deeply into this subject of Trotskyism, since that's the subject of this thread.
That's a negative. The subject of this thread is: If Trotsky would
have been commander in chief of the Glorious Red Army - how and why
would The Great Patriotic War been different.

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

Originally posted by Grunt:
That's a negative. The subject of this thread is: If Trotsky would
have been commander in chief of the Glorious Red Army - how and why
would The Great Patriotic War been different.Maybe I didn't make this clear enough in my commentary thus far, but what I've been trying explain is that there would have been no "Great Patriotic War" in the form it took had Trotsky assumed the leadership of the country...because the Soviet Union would not have lasted that long. Hopefully, that more directly responds to the question. Sorry, I ramble. It's a curse. I get obsessed with detail to the point of forgetting that people often simply want a concentration of my main point in a single sentence.

'Did quite alright'? Are you sure about that?90 percent. To tell you the truth, the frame in which the question was posed caught me off guard and saw me unprepared with statistics. :blushing::D Albania's not my chief example of success in anything.


Would you be so kind and post me the link via PM? Thanks! :)Sure! :cool:


That's affirmative, except I don't see Mao's big contribution (besides fom the excellent and very useful: 'On Guerilla Warfare').
Mao's contributions were numerous, including laying out the principles of new democratic revolution, which remain relevant to much of the Third World to this day, as well as, as you pointed out, strategies for conducting guerilla warfare as part of that, as well as providing us with important lessons from the Great Leap Forward on how to properly conduct socialist development (in an all-around way that progresses toward the reconciliation of city and countryside, rather than increasing the distinctions and inequalities between them). The Great Leap Forward is much-maligned, but it is to be pointed out that, while Mao acknowledged that mistakes were made (particularly in placing an overemphasis on steel and insufficient emphasis on agricultural food production) and moved to correct them, it's worth pointing out that revolutionary China did solve its hitherto persistent food shortage problem (similar to ones that typically plague much of the Third World) by 1970. That had everything to do with the lessons of the Great Leap Forward. But the Great Leap Forward was much more than this: it was a whole way of organizing and mobilizing people to not only engage in production, but also to manage their own daily affairs in a collective manner and go forward with revolutionary transformations on an ideological and cultural level! (And much of the horror story painted about the Great Leap Forward is 1) not true and 2) to the extent it is true, can be attributed to factors like the huge floods of 1959 coinciding with the Soviet Union pulling out all its economic advisors in the same year combined with certain mistakes made and acknowledged by the leadership of the party upon discovery.)

Finally, and most importantly though, there was the Cultural Revolution. This was definitely Mao's most important and defining contribution! The Cultural Revolution represented not only the discovery of how to discover and deal with enemies in socialist society -- in a revolutionary way, from below, not with "purges" -- but also a whole approach to keeping things going forward in socialist society more generally toward the reconciliation of all class distinctions and transform the Four Alls (all the production relations, all the social relations, all the habits, culture, and customs, and all the thinking of the people)! Dialectics (including open debate aimed at getting to the truth of things ever more fully) and popular mobilization were leading components of this. There were yes mistakes made even in this that need to be learned from (including, for example, in the arts, which needed to be less dogmatic and more inclusive of a dialectical relationship between party-directed model revolutionary works and works coming from all sorts of viewpoints, covering all manner of subjects), but nevertheless the basic lessons of the Cultural Revolution stand out today as a basic starting point for revolutionaries and, as far as I'm concerned, they constitute a dividing-line question. From the Cultural Revolution we gather the vitality of not simply moving forward, but of doing so in a mass way and from below...the importance of a radically open society in the form of, to use a metaphor, a "solid core with a lot of elasticity". There are articles on this subject and the subject of Mao more generally I would link you too as well if I were able.

[Grunt]

Maybe I didn't make this clear enough in my commentary thus far, but what I've been trying explain is that there would have been no "Great Patriotic War" in the form it took had Trotsky assumed the leadership of the country...because the Soviet Union would not have lasted that long.[...]
Alright - thanks for clearing that up. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Your guess is as good as mine or the others! :)



90 percent. To tell you the truth, the frame in which the question was posed caught me off guard and saw me unprepared with statistics.
Albania's not my chief example of success in anything.
Fair enough! :)



Sure! :cool:
Thanks!



Mao's contributions were numerous, including laying out the principles of
new democratic revolution, which remain relevant to much of the Third
World to this day, as well as, as you pointed out, strategies for
conducting guerilla warfare as part of that, as well as providing us with
important lessons from the Great Leap Forward on how to properly
conduct socialist development (in an all-around way that progresses
toward the reconciliation of city and countryside, rather than increasing
the distinctions and inequalities between them). The Great Leap Forward
is much-maligned, but it is to be pointed out that, while Mao
acknowledged that mistakes were made (particularly in placing an
overemphasis on steel and insufficient emphasis on agricultural food
production) and moved to correct them, it's worth pointing out that
revolutionary China did solve its hitherto persistent food shortage problem
(similar to ones that typically plague much of the Third World) by 1970.
That had everything to do with the lessons of the Great Leap Forward.
But the Great Leap Forward was much more than this: it was a whole way
of organizing and mobilizing people to not only engage in production, but
also to manage their own daily affairs in a collective manner and go
forward with revolutionary transformations on an ideological and cultural
level! (And much of the horror story painted about the Great Leap Forward
is 1) not true and 2) to the extent it is true, can be attributed to factors
like the huge floods of 1959 coinciding with the Soviet Union pulling out all
its economic advisors in the same year combined with certain mistakes
made and acknowledged by the leadership of the party upon discovery.)


Finally, and most importantly though, there was the Cultural Revolution.
This was definitely Mao's most important and defining contribution! The
Cultural Revolution represented not only the discovery of how to discover
and deal with enemies in socialist society -- in a revolutionary way, from
below, not with "purges" -- but also a whole approach to keeping things
going forward in socialist society more generally toward the reconciliation
of all class distinctions and transform the Four Alls (all the production
relations, all the social relations, all the habits, culture, and customs, and
all the thinking of the people)! Dialectics (including open debate aimed at
getting to the truth of things ever more fully) and popular mobilization
were leading components of this. There were yes mistakes made even in
this that need to be learned from (including, for example, in the arts,
which needed to be less dogmatic and more inclusive of a dialectical
relationship between party-directed model revolutionary works and works
coming from all sorts of viewpoints, covering all manner of subjects), but
nevertheless the basic lessons of the Cultural Revolution stand out today
as a basic starting point for revolutionaries and, as far as I'm concerned,
they constitute a dividing-line question. From the Cultural Revolution we
gather the vitality of not simply moving forward, but of doing so in a mass
way and from below...the importance of a radically open society in the
form of, to use a metaphor, a "solid core with a lot of elasticity". There
are articles on this subject and the subject of Mao more generally I would
link you too as well if I were able.
You make some good points! Very balanced view! I read it very
carefully. I myself dunno much about Mao and China - whereas you
seem to have done some serious reading.
Due to lack of knowledge (aka ignorance) I always assumed:
Mao=Stalin (more or less). Maybe I was wrong...

Please send me the links about Mao, The Great Leap Forward
and The Cultural Revolution via PM, will you?

P.S.: May I ask - What is your opinion on Ho Chi Minh?

P.P.S.: What is your opinion on Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge?


Many thanks!

:star2:

[communard resolution]

I'm confused as to why so many people associate Maoism with North Korea

I do not.


his is at least the third time on this forum (and I don't have that many posts!) that it has been implied that there is some sort of basic link between my political stance and that of Kim Jong Il.I did not. I brought up North Korea as an example for smaller countries that aim to establish some sort of 'socialism in one country' yet lack the resources for economic self-sufficiency - the results are disastrous.
That's why I also brought up Hitler, who obviously didn't intend to establish any kind of socialism, but who did aim for a national autarchy/self-reliance, which Germany with her limited resources was incapable of providing - hence aggressive expansion.



Contrary to this notion, Stalinism and Maoism are not one and the same. I did not claim that. I should have written "Stalinism or Maoism" instead of "Stalinism/Maoism" for the sake of clarity.

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

Grunt:

I responded to your requests and questions in a private message, given that none of them really related to the subject of this thread. I thought that would be more appropriate. (And of course I had to give you the links via PM for obvious reasons.)

[Victor]

Apparently someone, Simon Louvish, actually wrote a novel detailing Trotsky coming to power and a Communist Germany. Here's a little bit about the book from the online journal american heritage:


The more striking alternate histories are true novels, not prose descriptions of war games, and they rarely anatomize the point of divergence from our history. Some of the most interesting are meditations on the contingency of the history that produced our present. Over the last decade several have implicitly argued that the triumph of postwar American liberalism was by no means inevitable; they have done this simply by envisioning various very plausible pasts and the resulting presents. The best of these is the Anglo-Israeli novelist Simon Louvish’s The Resurrections, but at least as haunting is a trilogy by S. M. Stirling.
In The Resurrections Louvish imagines a history branching from ours when Hitler’s failed beerhall Putsch is followed by a successful Communist revolution in Germany and subsequently by Leon Trotsky’s victory over Stalin. Hitler and Goebbels flee to America, where the former becomes a nasty but essentially harmless isolationist senator from Illinois. In this universe World War II and its attendant catastrophes never happen, but with a meticulous logic Louvish produces a history very much uglier than ours. Mussolini’s is the most prominent fascist European regime; others prevail in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Greece, Spain, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria, pretty much where such regimes flourished in our history, but without a world war to sweep them away. Unweakened by a Second World War, the British Empire survives with a conscript army policing a score of brushfire insurgencies and joylessly keeping a precarious peace in its mandate in Palestine. But it is Louvish’s America, the scarred victor in a nuclear war with Japan, that most disturbs the reader. The uglier strains of 1920s and 1930s U.S. politics have produced a plausible political coalition of an isolationist Midwest and an anti-Semitic South. The most toxic American racial and ethnic politics flourish, nothing having been discredited by an Auschwitz that never was. Louvish reminds us that postwar liberalism was to a degree Hitler’s creation, and without its midwife might never have been born.

[Grunt]

Grunt:

I responded to your requests and questions in a private message, given that none of them really related to the subject of this thread. I thought that would be more appropriate. (And of course I had to give you the links via PM for obvious reasons.)
Thanks RDR!!! I really owe you one! :)

Will PM you soon! :)

[Grunt]

Apparently someone, Simon Louvish, actually wrote a novel detailing Trotsky coming to power and a Communist Germany. Here's a little bit about the book from the online journal american heritage:


The more striking alternate histories are true novels, not prose descriptions of war games, and they rarely anatomize the point of divergence from our history. Some of the most interesting are meditations on the contingency of the history that produced our present. Over the last decade several have implicitly argued that the triumph of postwar American liberalism was by no means inevitable; they have done this simply by envisioning various very plausible pasts and the resulting presents. The best of these is the Anglo-Israeli novelist Simon Louvish’s The Resurrections, but at least as haunting is a trilogy by S. M. Stirling.
In The Resurrections Louvish imagines a history branching from ours when Hitler’s failed beerhall Putsch is followed by a successful Communist revolution in Germany and subsequently by Leon Trotsky’s victory over Stalin. Hitler and Goebbels flee to America, where the former becomes a nasty but essentially harmless isolationist senator from Illinois. In this universe World War II and its attendant catastrophes never happen, but with a meticulous logic Louvish produces a history very much uglier than ours. Mussolini’s is the most prominent fascist European regime; others prevail in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Greece, Spain, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria, pretty much where such regimes flourished in our history, but without a world war to sweep them away. Unweakened by a Second World War, the British Empire survives with a conscript army policing a score of brushfire insurgencies and joylessly keeping a precarious peace in its mandate in Palestine. But it is Louvish’s America, the scarred victor in a nuclear war with Japan, that most disturbs the reader. The uglier strains of 1920s and 1930s U.S. politics have produced a plausible political coalition of an isolationist Midwest and an anti-Semitic South. The most toxic American racial and ethnic politics flourish, nothing having been discredited by an Auschwitz that never was. Louvish reminds us that postwar liberalism was to a degree Hitler’s creation, and without its midwife might never have been born.

Thanks comrade! Tis is great stuff! Mind-boggling! :D
Will reply in detail tomorrow.

[DesertShark]

Say the USSR adopted Trotskys view of Leninism as the right one and chose to expell Stalin, what would have changed with Leons temperment instead of Stalins?
Maybe the USA wouldn't have supported one evil dictator to help overthrow another...

Probably not what you were looking for, but it was something that pissed me off about US alliances during WW2.

[wasteman]

What about the cold war? Do you think trotsky would have as aggressive as stalin in the formation of post WW2 europe?

very interesting stuff :laugh:

[Grunt]

What about the cold war? Do you think trotsky would have as aggressive as stalin in the formation of post WW2 europe?
I would say yes. And don't forget: Both, the CCCP under Stalin + his
successors and the US of A were agressive. (The US of A maybe
more in the covert 'black ops' kind of way, spelled: CIA - but still).


I know that I will get my ass kicked for saying this, but:

Ultimately - the M.A.D. doctrine prevented WWIII (and still
does - it's still 'valid'...)

But now 'new players' (China, Pakistan, India) are of course
destabilizing the nuke-balance...

(+ of course the '51st' state...)

But that is hardly news...

[Pogue]

Trotsky's theories of world revolution and general more genuinely socialist line would have led him to grant greater support to Spain during the war, and also the revolution could have spread, perhaps even to parts of western europe. He had the military ideas to take control well and so Hitler would have been opposed sooner and quicker. Spain would most definatly have been an easier fight for us without the Stalinist purges and Stalin's betrayal of the working class and socialist revolution. I think we would have stopped Franco, and had a more solid base across Europe ready to fight fascism - for example the French Resistance would have been more openly supported.

[Grunt]

[...]He had the military ideas to take control
well and so Hitler would have been opposed sooner and quicker.[...]
Yes I agree.