There's not much really to say from my end. I agree with it is really all I can say.
I think it would be more interesting if you told us what you think about it.
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Leon Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed
Just started reading it and it's quite interesting. I would be curious to hear your critiques of it. It would be good to hear criticisms from people across the spectrum: lefts, anti-revisionists, anarchists, even Trotskyists.
To get the most out of this thread, please stick to the actual theories and ideas Trosky presents in his book instead of launching personal attacks against him or his followers. In other words, reply only if you've actually read the book.
Thanks!
There's not much really to say from my end. I agree with it is really all I can say.
I think it would be more interesting if you told us what you think about it.
I think it's an excellent piece of Marxist analysis. I knew you would eventually get to reading it, comrade - I just never thought of suggesting it because I'd imagine every Trot you've met in your life recommended it to you.
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I read it before the collapsed the soviet Union, It was impresive, and considering the clarity how trosky described and anticpated the crisis o f the stanist states, a real masterpiece
Hm, I suppose it's either this book has already been discussed a million times (the search function didn't give me many useful results though), or not that many people have actually read it. I'd be surprised if the latter were the case given how frequently 'the Trots' are slagged off here.
OK, I'll report back with my thoughts once I'm done with it - could take a while though since I'm quite busy at the moment. In the meantime, any comments or tips what to look out for when reading (in the positive as well as negative sense) would be appreciated.
Speak soon.
Personally I found his comments on Stakhanovism a bit hypocritical. He's right to condemn it as anti-working class and applaud the resistance the workers showed to it. But it's a bit strange considering Trotsky himself had experimented with the militarization of labor as well, which had also been extremely unpopular with the workers when he tried it, but that hadn't bothered him at the time either.
The part about the League of Nations and the Comintern which deals with the USSR's rapprochement to the western nations is especially good when viewed in the context of the later development of the Popular Fronts and WW2.
I'm not a real fan of his references to the French Revolution like the usage of the term "Thermidorian Reaction" to describe the Stalinist counter-revolution, but that's not only restricted to this book. But in general like much of his theoretical work it's certainly a valuable and good read.
Hijacking your thread for a bit Nero: I was thinking of reading The Third International After Lenin, should I read The Revolution Betrayed instead?
I don't know, personally I'd recommend reading The Revolution Betrayed first.
But I guess it depends on what you want to read them for.
The Third International After Lenin was written in 1928 while The Revolution Betrayed was written in 1936, so they deal with fairly different periods.
Although in one way or another they both deal with the debate about international world revolution versus socialism in one country.
But The Revolution Betrayed is fairly broad in it's choice of subjects in order to describe and focus on the nature of the USSR and Stalinism. The references to the Comintern, the interaction between fascism and Stalinism and the USSR's entrance into the League of Nations are a smaller part of this.
While the Third International after Lenin is more about the specifics of the party and the policy of the Comintern but doesnt' really deal with any of the economic or labor issues that The Revolution Betrayed touches on.
Depends on what you want to read about.
If you want to read about failure of policies of Comintern regarding tactics to counter fascists and in general its policies in other countries then the former would be a good read.
Latter delas with the Comintern too but in a very detailed and really shows how it correleated with the Zigzags in the internal policies of the Stalinist Beaureaucracy.
It is possible to build gigantic factories according to a ready-made Western pattern by bureaucratic command – although, to be sure, at triple the normal cost. But the farther you go, the more the economy runs into the problem of quality, which slips out of the hands of a bureaucracy like a shadow. The Soviet products are as though branded with the gray label of indifference. Under a nationalized economy, quality demands a democracy of producers and consumers, freedom of criticism and initiative – conditions incompatible with a totalitarian regime of fear, lies and flattery.
-Trotsky
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