A quick question

Hey, I have recently started questioning the points of Marxist-Leninist thought specifically that it seems to have completely and utterly destroyed what separations of power were inherent in the USSR.

I happened to be reading The Principles of Communism yesterday and it suddenly dawned on me how out of synch Marxist-Leninist thought was with its admonishment of Internationalism and World Revolution as well as references are made to perpetual revolution when it is discussed in point 18.

So I figured if Marxist-Leninist thought isn't jiving with Marxism as stated by Marx and Engels it is probably time to look elsewhere hence why I came here. Does anyone have any suggestions for further reading on Trotsky and his theories?

Thanks.

You could read any of Trotsky's works. The Revolution Betrayed is a good place to start but you should also maybe read anything about his history of the Russian revolution (such as The History of the Russian Revolution and The Lessons of October). His introduction to an abridged version of Capital (I forget what it's called, On Marx or something) is a good read. It was one of the last things he wrote.

Thanks for all the information. Looks like I have a lot of reading to look forward to.

Thanks again for all the information and support. I am looking forward to reading more in depth about Trotsky.

I just figured I would ask this question on this thread since I already started it. What is up with all the Stalinist accusations of Trotsky working with Fascists? I mean where are they pulling this shit from? I am rather confused by the accusations and assume it is nothing more than political slander since it seems to never be sourced.

I just figured I would ask this question on this thread since I already started it. What is up with all the Stalinist accusations of Trotsky working with Fascists? I mean where are they pulling this shit from? I am rather confused by the accusations and assume it is nothing more than political slander since it seems to never be sourced.

It stems from a hand written note. Stalin scribbled something like "Trotsky! Ugly fascist!" on a piece of paper and because Stalin wrote it then it must be true. It's just slander.

Thanks that is what I figured. The deeper I dig into Marxist-Leninist thought the more disturbed I am by what a paper tiger it is. Though I guess if you literally rewrite history and try to wipe out any signs of your opposition it is hard to say you are wrong. Now I need to get back to all the reading people have told me to look at in this thread.

Yeah I'm not sure whether I should find Stalin's attempts funny, sad or just outright disturbing.

I was skimming through Lenin's last written testaments and I found a rather amusing jewel that I hadn't read before and I figured I would share it:

The Georgian [Stalin] who is neglectful of this aspect of the question, or who carelessly flings about accusations of "nationalist-socialism" (whereas he himself is a real and true "nationalist-socialist", and even a vulgar Great-Russian bully), violates, in substance, the interests of proletarian class solidarity, for nothing holds up the development and strengthening of proletarian class solidarity so much as national injustice; "offended" nationals are not sensitive to anything so much as to the feeling of equality and the violation of this equality, if only through negligence or jest- to the violation of that equality by their proletarian comrades.

It is from The Question of Nationalities or "Autonomisation". Rather damning in my humble opinion.

Hey everyone I have just begun reading Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed and I have a few questions. Trotsky seems to have a lot of stats on Soviet Production and I was curious how he got his hands on it. I also have a question in Chapter 2, I think, he discusses that the USSR couldn't have possibly reached Socialism because they are not outproducing Capitalist Nations in the West in Quality and Quantity. Isn't this a bit disingenuous? Shouldn't Soviet production be compared to production under the Nicholas? It seems extremely silly to expect the USSR to outproduce the West in such a short period of time that is remotely stable. That or maybe I am missing something in regards to his point.

Hey everyone I have just begun reading Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed and I have a few questions. Trotsky seems to have a lot of stats on Soviet Production and I was curious how he got his hands on it. I also have a question in Chapter 2, I think, he discusses that the USSR couldn't have possibly reached Socialism because they are not outproducing Capitalist Nations in the West in Quality and Quantity. Isn't this a bit disingenuous? Shouldn't Soviet production be compared to production under the Nicholas? It seems extremely silly to expect the USSR to outproduce the West in such a short period of time that is remotely stable. That or maybe I am missing something in regards to his point.

Chapter one of "The Revolution Betrayed" is praising the Soviet rise in comparison to the Russian Empire, however chapter two moves on to Lenin's great question of "who shall prevail?" and thus it becomes a comparison, at it must be, of Capitalism vs Socialism. His point of the book is just that the USSR cannot possibly strive to surpass capitalism because it's methods are inadequate, the worker's lack the skill of the western workers, and so on due to the fact that the Imperial government didn't have the methods to begin with it, so Russia started with next to nothing. I guess to say, his point is that the USSR is rather hopeless while standing alone in the world since it must learn it's industrial means on it's own and shows economic and realistic data to back up this point. (He is making his beginning arguments for the permanent revolution and against the isolationism of Socialism in one State)

On the note of how he got the numbers, I believe the Soviet government made these relatively available to the world as a sort of "look how fast we are advancing" kind of thing so I wouldn't think it hard of him to find this information at all. Note how in chapter 2 he quotes Molotov, so this date was likely in Soviet media as well.

Chapter one of "The Revolution Betrayed" is praising the Soviet rise in comparison to the Russian Empire, however chapter two moves on to Lenin's great question of "who shall prevail?" and thus it becomes a comparison, at it must be, of Capitalism vs Socialism. His point of the book is just that the USSR cannot possibly strive to surpass capitalism because it's methods are inadequate, the worker's lack the skill of the western workers, and so on due to the fact that the Imperial government didn't have the methods to begin with it, so Russia started with next to nothing. I guess to say, his point is that the USSR is rather hopeless while standing alone in the world since it must learn it's industrial means on it's own and shows economic and realistic data to back up this point. (He is making his beginning arguments for the permanent revolution and against the isolationism of Socialism in one State)

On the note of how he got the numbers, I believe the Soviet government made these relatively available to the world as a sort of "look how fast we are advancing" kind of thing so I wouldn't think it hard of him to find this information at all. Note how in chapter 2 he quotes Molotov, so this date was likely in Soviet media as well.

Thanks I figured that out once I started reading Chapter 3 where he begins to state that the USSR can't survive or reach Socialism alone. Which was funny because I was reading Trotsky laying out his argument and I was like well yeah the USSR couldn't last by itself it needed the Revolution to spread and that was the point Trotsky was making. I felt kind of silly about making this post after figuring it out myself.

I figured as much about the production numbers they seemed like they had to come from Soviet media organs since they were all rounded numbers. Thanks for the reply though it further cements I'm on the right track to understanding Trotsky's critique of the Soviet Union.

Lol it is quite alright :P

and anytime, I've read "In defense of Marxism" many times, so if you have any more questions don't think twice about posting them here.

Lol it is quite alright :P

and anytime, I've read "In defense of Marxism" many times, so if you have any more questions don't think twice about posting them here.

Thanks that helps a lot I find it is easier to really absorb what I am reading by forming it into questions and finding the answers. I will add that I am impressed that Trotsky is more than willing to blame the out of control bureaucracy and not just Stalin which is quite unlike what a lot of MLs claim. Though Stalin definitely deserves the blame for the hydra he not only created but further entrenched in the USSR. While I am sure Stalin thought he was protecting the Revolution in his own head he literally created the monster that would destroy the USSR and I still don't get what was going through his head to purge all the Old Bolsheviks from the party not even the MLs can give me a good answer other than Stalin made mistakes...ya think?

Yes that is a great way to learn things, I use it myself. On the note of the ML's their problem is that they have never actually read the works of Trotsky, they just hear he was disliked by Stalin, and wrote a few books against him, thus assume he was completely anti-Stalin and set out with nothing but baseless accusations since Stalin couldn't be wrong! But realistically Stalin is not by name mentioned all that much in the book, and Trotsky even *praises* his economic development work in the first chapter of the book, but he then goes to explain in detail with supporting facts why Stalin betrayed the revolution and so on, Trotsky even quotes Stalin a few times to prove his points (as Stalin changes his views magically in that manner)....

Yeah I found Stalin's indecisiveness or maybe purposefully political wrangling to be disturbing. He at first was rather supportive of Trotsky but when that proved to be a political liability he became more neutral amongst the Left-Right fighting in the CC. Then he swung to the Right in order to crush the Left to only once again swing to the Left latter to crush the Right. I find it amusing that the Left Opposition's Economic Plan was eventually put into place by Stalin but was considered far too late by Trotsky who points out the Kulaks were already way too entrenched by the NEP and Bukharin's policies. I don't know whether Stalin was brilliantly manipulative or just completely out of his depth but his decisions were ultimately strange and destructive not out of malice but a complete lack of direction.

I am amused though how much I was discouraged by MLs not to read any Trotsky at all. I am finding their notions of Trotsky are way out from the reality of his writing. In fact Trotsky's analysis is probably one of the most well done on the Soviet Union and probably the fairest towards Stalin not that MLs would accept that. Haha.

This is very true, Stalin I personally believe was using rhetoric of left, central, and right to gain personal control of the party. In his political moves he basically eliminated everyone who had a mind to anything against him, and replaced them with what amounts to his political puppets who'd jump to his every party line with vigor.

Yes indeed, they created that rhetoric of never read Trotsky, because if one did, they would discover the truth about it and defeat their entire mythology around Trotsky being a Stalin basher.....when really, as you said, he gave the most fair analysis of the Soviet Union and Stalin, never really stooping to direct insults, as most critics of Stalin have done.

Completely agreed RedTrackWorker. I originally was introduced to Marxist theory by a Marxist-Leninist and I always kept hearing never read Trotsky so I never did not that I had any idea of where to start anyways. So after having left the Far Left for a while being completely disappointed with ML parties I came back recently but that ML thought still lingers and it is a tough beast to defeat as it is so engrained just not to read Trotsky as he was a notorious liar or something yet ironically everyone who told me that has never read Trotsky either.

So instead of falling back into the ML Line I made a very concerted effort to build back up my knowledge from Marx onwards and it has been rather successful. I would have to say reading Trotsky so far has been extremely enlightening and not the experience I expected. Though I will admit I am disappointed with the ML group because it seems the only way to get much of a response and not even a good one is state you agree with Stalin but need more info. I was even more disappointed that the only defense or explanation given for the Purges was that mistakes were made. Kind of an understatement.

What it represented was the replacement in the bureaucracy of the workers and burnt-out revolutionaries who *made* the revolution with unpolitical and nonrevolutionary upwardly mobile workers who benefitted from the revolution. In purely social terms, the Brezhnev generation were actually more proletarian than the ex-revolutionaries they replaced.

So essentially you just wrote a better justification of the purges than any Stalinist in history. You make it sound as if this was a good thing because by some way the proletarians were put into power after, which is bullshit. What was put into power was a bureaucracy which wouldn't question Stalin as they had no political ideologies as all of the Old Bolsheviks possessed, even the Pro-Stalin elements posed a possible threat of thinking for themselves.