How funny is it ALSO that in 1924, as Feburary, stalin publicly believed that SOIC was impossible (plain bolshevism, good on him) and within half a year, his view completely reversed? I wonder what changed in 1924 that made Stalin the representative of the international reaction?
^Well, there is a difference between "Third-Periodist" SIOC and official Marxist-Leninist doctrine of SIOC. The former said that socialism could be and should be built under the dictatorship of the proletariat to the most it possibly could, while the later said that SIOC could actually be achieved in one country. The difference, to me, seems very obvious and I think the argument that the logic of "Third Periodist" SIOC found it's logical conclusions in official Marxist-Leninist SIOC is unfounded and wrong. I am not sure how I feel about the Third Periodist position for certain reasons, but I agree that there is no way in hell socialism could be achieved in one country.
sorry double post
Then how do you explain that Lenin obviously changed his mind on Trotsky; since we all know that he joined up with the Bolsheviks? Trotsky's views on the prospects of proletarian revolution were obviously closer to the Bolsheviks than Mensheviks. Furthermore, Trotsky's group eventually expressed interest in joining the Bolsheviks, evidently on condition that Trotsky's earlier attacks on Lenin (that he was a "candidate for the post of dictator," etc.) were recognized as wrong. There was nothing about Lenin in turn saying that Trotsky's permanent revolution views were correct.
Recognized as wrong? Well Lenin was pretty right wing in terms of revolutionaries untill the April Thesis. I'd say he was as wrong as Trotsky (except for the positions against the war, which they both took) throughout most of the 1910s. Obviously he did great work in that time, but his views on how he thought the revolution was going to happen proved to be wrong. The difference between Lenin and every Stalinist is that Lenin can recognize when he was mistaken (such as the peasant and prole dictatorship) and he didn't take even what he said as dogma, whereas Stalinists take their positions from quotes that Stalin dug up from the 1910s from Lenin's theoretical stuff, completely ignoring the important things that he did which contradicted his earlier beliefs.
