Leon Trotsky

[Axl Van Sixx]

I'm curious to find out: what do you guys know about Trotsky? His life, his views, his writings, and what he stood for? And what is his relevance today in this ongoing crisis of global capitalism?

Believe me, I have plenty to say on the subject. But I thought this time that instead of writing a long, rambling first post, I would start with an open question. As far as I'm concerned, this guy is a hero, a genius and one of the greatest men of the 20th century, and with the collapse of the USSR and the failure of capitalism to provide anything but misery for the vast majority of the human race, his ideas are more relevant than ever. That said, I'm more interested in hearing your opinions.

 

[Thundercrack85]

The lesser of two evils. At least, that's all he was ever allowed to be.

 

[hippie_hunter]

I think that the Soviet Union would have not been as brutal as it became if he became Lenin's successor. I don't think that his ideology would have fixed anything (Communism has proven to be a failure), but I think he was one of the few major Communists that had good intentions as opposed to the brutal tyrants that have plagued the system.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

I think that the Soviet Union would have not been as brutal as it became if he became Lenin's successor. I don't think that his ideology would have fixed anything (Communism has proven to be a failure), but I think he was one of the few major Communists that had good intentions as opposed to the brutal tyrants that have plagued the system.

Ah, hippie_hunter, we meet again. I'm impressed that you give Trotsky some credit, but I take issue with your contention that "communism has proven to be a failure". Trotsky wrote a great deal about how the workers' democracy that he fought for all his life - which is what Marxian socialism is - had nothing in common with the totalitarian bureaucratic caricature of socialism that evolved in the Soviet Union.

Given the current state of politics the world over, I can say that Marxist socialism - the real thing, not the Stalinist pretender - is a highly appealing alternative to the current status quo, where Big Business buys our politicians who then enact unpopular policies and ordinary people have no say in how their lives are run, being crushed underfoot by brutal austerity measures that only serve to protect the wealth of a parasitic class of wealthy financiers.

I would much prefer to live under a workers' government as outlined by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky (and Ted Grant and Alan Woods). That means:

- Nationalizing all major corporations and putting them under democratic workers' control, not a centralized bureaucracy
- Workers' councils being the prime governing body instead of a Senate or Parliament. Workers elect delegates to ever-larger bodies - city, province/state, country, continent, etc.
- Delegates are paid no more than an average skilled worker's salary
- Unlike the current system where you elect a "representative" who is then free to betray you and then stays in power for years, under socialism delegates from the workers' councils would be subject to recall at any time. Basically, "if everyone is a bureaucrat, no one is a bureaucrat".

I'd much rather see a form of government like this, in which the resources of society serve human needs, rather than our current system which subordinates real people's lives to the insatiable desire for profit. Trotsky, to me, was the great defender of these profoundly democratic ideas, of real socialism, against the disgusting totalitarianism and perversion of Marxism represented by dictators like Stalin and Mao.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Great guy, just don't mention the atrocities.

Too bad they never put his face on a t-shirt, that would sell.

 

[Pink Ranger]

I find Trotsky has become a folk hero among extreme leftists, as kind of the way for them to justify believing in communism amidst the mountain of evidence that shows that political system is horrifying when put into practice. It gives them something to brandish around and say "this was how communism was supposed to work" despite there never being any solid evidence, only speculation, that the USSR would have been any better with him in charge.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Ah, hippie_hunter, we meet again. I'm impressed that you give Trotsky some credit, but I take issue with your contention that "communism has proven to be a failure". Trotsky wrote a great deal about how the workers' democracy that he fought for all his life - which is what Marxian socialism is - had nothing in common with the totalitarian bureaucratic caricature of socialism that evolved in the Soviet Union.

Given the current state of politics the world over, I can say that Marxist socialism - the real thing, not the Stalinist pretender - is a highly appealing alternative to the current status quo, where Big Business buys our politicians who then enact unpopular policies and ordinary people have no say in how their lives are run, being crushed underfoot by brutal austerity measures that only serve to protect the wealth of a parasitic class of wealthy financiers.

I would much prefer to live under a workers' government as outlined by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky (and Ted Grant and Alan Woods). That means:

- Nationalizing all major corporations and putting them under democratic workers' control, not a centralized bureaucracy
- Workers' councils being the prime governing body instead of a Senate or Parliament. Workers elect delegates to ever-larger bodies - city, province/state, country, continent, etc.
- Delegates are paid no more than an average skilled worker's salary
- Unlike the current system where you elect a "representative" who is then free to betray you and then stays in power for years, under socialism delegates from the workers' councils would be subject to recall at any time. Basically, "if everyone is a bureaucrat, no one is a bureaucrat".

I'd much rather see a form of government like this, in which the resources of society serve human needs, rather than our current system which subordinates real people's lives to the insatiable desire for profit. Trotsky, to me, was the great defender of these profoundly democratic ideas, of real socialism, against the disgusting totalitarianism and perversion of Marxism represented by dictators like Stalin and Mao.

That's great on paper but there lies a few problems:

1. Government bureaucracy, especially in the United States, tends to be incredibly inefficient. Inefficiency is one of the major reasons why the Communist bloc fell.

2. Human nature tends to screw everything up. Human beings are very individualistic by nature. Whether it be from the Communist leadership who typically turn into brutal tyrants or from the workers who want more, more, more and begin to perceive what they see as inequalities.

3. There's just very little innovations from Communist countries. Most of our scientific contributions come from the Western nations. Most of our great works of art (paintings, sculpture, film, music, video games, literature) comes from the Western nations. That's because you don't have government stifling such innovations and you have the vast amounts of wealth to fund such projects.

4. Communism kills investment. The economy no matter what system it is in, revolves around the flow of money. Communism brings that flow to a halt.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

1. Government bureaucracy, especially in the United States, tends to be incredibly inefficient. Inefficiency is one of the major reasons why the Communist bloc fell.

I absolutely agree with you here. And you know who else would agree with you on this point? Trotsky.

All of Trotsky's writings on the USSR after 1923 or so attack the bureaucracy that had arisen and which was suffocating the workers' power that existed immediately after the revolution. His seminal book, The Revolution Betrayed, is wholly devoted to this subject. In that book, he predicted that the bureaucracy in the USSR was ultimately doomed and that Russia would either revert to capitalism, or experience a political revolution that would restore workers' control to the economy.

Economic inefficiency was certainly one of the reasons the USSR collapsed, and as Trotsky argued, it's because a centralized bureaucracy can't decide everything that everyone in the country needs at any given time. This is why socialism is nothing if it's not democratic. Rather than a centralized bureaucracy, you need workers' councils around the country that vote democratically on what the enterprises need and send their delegates to the larger bodies.

2. Human nature tends to screw everything up. Human beings are very individualistic by nature. Whether it be from the Communist leadership who typically turn into brutal tyrants or from the workers who want more, more, more and begin to perceive what they see as inequalities.

This is more opinion than anything else, but it also forgets that "no man is an island" and that none of us could survive on our own. Do you make everything you need yourself? Do you hunt and gather your own food? Obviously not. We rely on other people to create what we need. Even corporations, who as a matter of course promote the cult of the individual, would be unable to function were it not for public infrastructure like roads and bridges.

But the idea that humans are invariably individualistic and greedy is a libel on the human race. Whenever I see a stranger stop and help someone they don't even know, my faith in humanity experiences another little boost.

3. There's just very little innovations from Communist countries. Most of our scientific contributions come from the Western nations. Most of our great works of art (paintings, sculpture, film, music, video games, literature) comes from the Western nations. That's because you don't have government stifling such innovations and you have the vast amounts of wealth to fund such projects.

That's because Western nations were wealthier to begin with. Of course you're not going to get as much technological or artistic innovation from countries that were poorer from the start. In order to have socialism you need to have material abundance, otherwise what you have is shared poverty. If the revolution in Germany had succeeded in 1918, we might be having a very different conversation.

At the same time, given their relative poverty, what the Stalinist countries did achieve is nothing short of remarkable. From being a backward, largely agrarian country at the end of the First World War, by the middle of the century Russia had become one of the world's two superpowers, defeated the most advanced and powerful military in Europe (Nazi Germany), and beat the world's richest, most technologically advanced country (the USA) into space. That's all very impressive and demonstrates the superiority of a nationalized planned economy, despite the suffocating influence of the Soviet bureaucracy.

Regarding art, I'll point you to Alan Woods' article on Marxism and Art:

In contrast to the drabness and conformity that is the chief hallmark of Stalinist "socialist realism", the art that emerged from the October revolution was an outpouring of a free spirit. Revolutions are always highly voluble. The masses, so long compelled to submit in silence, suddenly find their voice. There is a flood of speech, of street corner oratory, of questioning and discussion everywhere: in the streets, in the factories, in the army barracks. Suddenly, society becomes alive. This new spirit of freedom and experiment inevitably found its mirror-image in art and literature. The revolution immediately set about making art available to the masses. The big art collections, such as the Tretyakovsky gallery and the collections of Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov were nationalised.

[...]

The movement for "proletarian culture" sprang up during the harsh years of the Civil War. After 1920 the members of these organisations numbered about 400,000. They published 15 different journals. In one way this was a positive development. But in general it suffered from the immaturity that characterised many aspects of the thinking of the period. Whole new layers were aroused by the October revolution from their old habits of somnolence and passivity. Minds were opened to new ideas. A spirit of experimentation predominated. Not all these experiments, however, were successful. Mixed up with a few precious specs of gold was a rather large amount of dross. To separate out the one from the other was a necessary task. But to determine what was genuinely of value and to establish new artistic criteria in consonance with the new social and cultural reality established by the Revolution, what was needed was experience and free debate. The idea that art and literature could somehow be dragooned and disciplined was entirely alien to the young workers' state with its spirit of revolutionary democracy. Lenin and particularly Trotsky tried to convince by argument, but it never crossed their mind that the Party should impose its will by force or coercion of any kind.

[...]

Bolshevism and Stalinism are mutually exclusive opposites. In the same way that Stalin had to murder all the Old Bolsheviks in order to consolidate the rule of a privileged bureaucracy, so in the realm of art, music and literature, the Stalinist counter-revolution left not one stone upon another of the artistic gains of the October revolution. The chief intellectual hallmark of the bureaucrat is conservative philistinism, national narrowness, total lack of imagination, an aversion to innovation and experiment, and a strong tendency towards conformity and control. After all, conservative routine is the guiding principle of every bureaucracy. Rules and regulations take the place of revolutionary initiative: the routinism of the apparatus replaces the freedom of the innovator.

Anyway, have you seen the kind of art that late capitalism has been churning out lately? In Hollywood we see endless remakes, reboots, and rehashes of old ideas. In literature we see people like Snooki awarded huge book contracts. The corporations that determine most of what we see, hear and read are allergic to risk, want guaranteed returns on their investments, and as a result so much of the art we're exposed to attempts to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

4. Communism kills investment. The economy no matter what system it is in, revolves around the flow of money. Communism brings that flow to a halt.

It brings foreign investment to a half if you're a socialist country surrounded by a sea of hostile capitalist countries. This is why socialism has to be international (as Marx, Lenin and Trotsky argued). No country, even one as big as Russia, can take itself out of the world market.

But if you had several socialist countries together, would this kill investment? Quite the contrary. In fact, investment would dramatically increase because it would no longer be limited by the need to turn a profit, but could go towards what the society's resources are capable of producing and what people need.

Just look at the 1930s. At this time, capitalism ground to a halt and was mired in Depression, but in the USSR, the country was experiencing incredible rates of economic growth. Capitalism today is stuck in a similar crisis of overproduction, just like the Great Depression. No capitalist will invest because it's not profitable for them, and as a result, we drag on through years and years of economic misery with no end in sight as working people continue to suffer. Thanks but no thanks. A better world is possible.

I find Trotsky has become a folk hero among extreme leftists, as kind of the way for them to justify believing in communism amidst the mountain of evidence that shows that political system is horrifying when put into practice. It gives them something to brandish around and say "this was how communism was supposed to work" despite there never being any solid evidence, only speculation, that the USSR would have been any better with him in charge.

But have you read any of Trotsky's work? The fact is that nobody has been able to adequately explain why the great Russian experiment in Soviet democracy degenerated into Stalinist dictatorship without using a Marxist analysis. Trotsky brilliantly explained WHY this happened, better than any other commentator, capitalist or communist.

He pointed out that you can't try to build socialism in a poor, isolated, backward country devastated by years of war, civil war, poverty and famine. No matter who was in charge, they would have had to deal with these concrete problems. People who say things wouldn't have been better with Trotsky in charge (a dubious accusation) miss the point. Trotsky fought for a return to workers' democracy in the Soviet Union. He didn't want to be a Stalin-style dictator. Socialism in the end is about working people running society for themselves.

Socialism in advanced capitalist countries would be completely different because we have so much wealth, so many abundant resources and technological advancement, coupled with deep-rooted democratic traditions. Take a look at Trotsky's article "If America Should Go Communist". He acknowledges all the criticisms of the Soviet Union and explains how different the situation in the United States is from Russia.

Great guy, just don't mention the atrocities.

How about you be specific instead of hurling serious charges devoid of any context?

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

I imagine most people won't click the link, so here are some key passages relevant to our discussion from If America Should Go Communist (1934). Note: "soviet" is just the Russian word for "council", in this context meaning workers' councils:

Should America go communist as a result of the difficulties and problems that your capitalist social order is unable to solve, it will discover that communism, far from being an intolerable bureaucratic tyranny and individual regimentation, will be the means of greater individual liberty and shared abundance.

At present most Americans regard communism solely in the light of the experience of the Soviet Union. They fear lest Sovietism in America would produce the same material result as it has brought for the culturally backward peoples of the Soviet Union.

They shudder lest Americans be regimented in their habits of dress and diet, be compelled to subsist on famine rations, be forced to read stereotyped official propaganda in the newspapers, be coerced to serve as rubber stamps for decisions arrived at without their active participation or be required to keep their thoughts to themselves and loudly praise their soviet leaders in public, through fear of imprisonment and exile.

They fear monetary inflation, bureaucratic tyranny and intolerable red tape in obtaining the necessities of life. They fear soulless standardization in the arts and sciences, as well as in the daily necessities of life. They fear that all political spontaneity and the presumed freedom of the press will be destroyed by the dictatorship of a monstrous bureaucracy. And they shudder at the thought of being forced into an uncomprehended glibness in Marxist dialectic and disciplined social philosophies. They fear, in a word, that Soviet America will become the counterpart of what they have been told Soviet Russia looks like.

Actually American soviets will be as different from the Russian soviets as the United States of President Roosevelt differs from the Russian Empire of Czar Nicholas II. Yet communism can come in America only through revolution, just as independence and democracy came in America.

[...]

The American soviet government will take firm possession of the commanding heights of your business system: the banks, the key industries and the transportation and communication systems. It will then give the farmers, the small tradespeople and businessmen a good long time to think things over and see how well the nationalized section of industry is working.

Here is where the American soviets can produce real miracles. "Technocracy" can come true only under communism, when the dead hands of private property rights and private profits are lifted from your industrial system. The most daring proposals of the Hoover commission on standardization and rationalization will seem childish compared to the new possibilities let loose by American communism.

National industry will be organized along the line of the conveyor belt in your modern continuous-production automotive factories. Scientific planning can be lifted out of the individual factory and applied to your entire economic system. The results will be stupendous.
Costs of production will be cut to 20 percent, or less, of their present figure. This, in turn, would rapidly increase your farmers’ purchasing power.

To be sure, the American soviets would establish their own gigantic farm enterprises, as schools of voluntary collectivization. Your farmers could easily calculate whether it was to their individual advantage to remain as isolated links or to join the public chain.

The same method would be used to draw small businesses and industries into the national organization of industry. By soviet control of raw materials, credits and quotas of orders, these secondary industries could be kept solvent until they were gradually and without compulsion sucked into the socialized business system.

Without compulsion! The American soviets would not need to resort to the drastic measures that circumstances have often imposed upon the Russians. In the United States, through the science of publicity and advertising, you have means for winning the support of your middle class that were beyond the reach of the soviets of backward Russia with its vast majority of pauperized and illiterate peasants. This, in addition to your technical equipment and your wealth, is the greatest asset of your coming communist revolution. Your revolution will be smoother in character than ours; you will not waste your energies and resources in costly social conflicts after the main issues have been decided; and you will move ahead so much more rapidly in consequence.

Even the intensity and devotion of religious sentiment in America will not prove an obstacle to the revolution. If one assumes the perspective of soviets in America, none of the psychological brakes will prove firm enough to ****** the pressure of the social crisis. This has been demonstrated more than once in history. Besides, it should not be forgotten that the Gospels themselves contain some pretty explosive aphorisms.

[...]

The average man doesn’t like systems or generalities either. It is the task of your communist statesmen to make the system deliver the concrete goods that the average man desires: his food, cigars, amusements, his freedom to choose his own neckties, his own house and his own automobile. It will be easy to give him these comforts in Soviet America.

Most Americans have been misled by the fact that in the USSR we had to build whole new basic industries from the ground up. Such a thing could not happen in America, where you are already compelled to cut down on your farm area and to reduce your industrial production. As a matter of fact, your tremendous technological equipment has been paralyzed by the crisis and already clamors to be put to use. You will be able to make a rapid step-up of consumption by your people the starting point of your economic revival.

[...]

Soviet America will not have to imitate our bureaucratic methods. Among us the lack of the bare necessities has caused an intense scramble for an extra loaf of bread, an extra yard of cloth by everyone. In this struggle our bureaucracy steps forward as a conciliator, as an all-powerful court of arbitration. You, on the other hand, are much wealthier and would have little difficulty in supplying all of your people with all of the necessities of life. Moreover, your needs, tastes and habits would never permit your bureaucracy to divide the national income. Instead, when you organize your society to produce for human needs rather than private profits, your entire population will group itself around new trends and groups, which will struggle with one another and prevent an overweening bureaucracy from imposing itself upon them.

You can thus avoid growth of bureaucratism by the practice of soviets, that is to say, democracy – the most flexible form of government yet developed. Soviet organization cannot achieve miracles but must simply reflect the will of the people. With us the soviets have been bureaucratized as a result of the political monopoly of a single party, which has itself become a bureaucracy. This situation resulted from the exceptional difficulties of socialist pioneering in a poor and backward country.

The American soviets will be full-blooded and vigorous, without need or opportunity for such measures as circumstances imposed upon Russia. Your unregenerate capitalists will, of course, find no place for themselves in the new setup. It is hard to imagine Henry Ford as the head of the Detroit Soviet.

[...]

Soviet America will not imitate the monopoly of the press by the heads of Soviet Russia’s bureaucracy. While Soviet America would nationalize all printing plants, paper mills and means of distribution, this would be a purely negative measure. It would simply mean that private capital will no longer be allowed to decide what publications should be established, whether they should be progressive or reactionary, “wet” or “dry,” puritanical or pornographic. Soviet America will have to find a new solution for the question of how the power of the press is to function in a socialist regime. It might be done on the basis of proportional representation for the votes in each soviet election.

Thus the right of each group of citizens to use the power of the press would depend on their numerical strength – the same principle being applied to the use of meeting halls, allotment of time on the air and so forth.

Thus the management and policy of publications would be decided not by individual checkbooks but by group ideas. This may take little account of numerically small but important groups, but it simply means that each new idea will be compelled, as throughout history, to prove its right to existence.

Rich Soviet America can set aside vast funds for research and invention, discoveries and experiments in every field. You won’t neglect your bold architects and sculptors, your unconventional poets and audacious philosophers.

 

[Marck87]

Trotsky also had a little dictator within himself. He was one of those who wanted to spread communism to the rest of Europe imidietly after the bolshevik revolution, Stalin wanted to postpone and concentrate on spreading and maintaining it in Soviet Russia before expanding.

The Communist and leftist always uses the "we hate imperialist" card in every discussion but look at what their "own" guys did with their precious ideology. He´s one of those that got exiled and killed by one of his own, and got a certain Hero status among the new generation, but in truth, in my opinion, he was the same as the likes of Lenin and Stalin.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

Trotsky also had a little dictator within himself. He was one of those who wanted to spread communism to the rest of Europe imidietly after the bolshevik revolution, Stalin wanted to postpone and concentrate on spreading and maintaining it in Soviet Russia before expanding.

The Communist and leftist always uses the "we hate imperialist" card in every discussion but look at what their "own" guys did with their precious ideology. He´s one of those that got exiled and killed by one of his own, and got a certain Hero status among the new generation, but in truth, in my opinion, he was the same as the likes of Lenin and Stalin.

First of all, Lenin was a great man. He worked for peace when the world was sending its young men to be slaughtered by the millions in a pointless war on the battlefields of Europe. He stood up for the poor and oppressed in all countries, and fought all his life for the solidarity of the international working class. He helped found the first workers' state in the world, and no matter what ended up happening in the years after, that is of enormous historical importance.

Lenin had nothing in common with Stalin, unless it's that they both called themselves "communists". Lenin was flexible in his tactics but always firm in his principles, a proletarian internationalist until the end. He was a great intellectual and wrote an incredible number of articles and books. Lenin was loyal to his comrades and always worked for inner-party democracy wherever possible. His approach to dealing with political arguments was always to "patiently explain." In a sane world, we would look at Lenin with the same respect commonly paid to, say, Abraham Lincoln.

Stalin was a cynical opportunist who worshiped power above all else, a psychopath who killed most of the Old Bolsheviks as a means of securing his own power (in addition to killing millions of other innocent people). He made little if any contribution to theory and destroyed the possibilities for revolution in countries all over the world; aside from leading the Chinese communists to a massacre in 1925-27 by telling them to ally themselves with Chiang Kai-Shek (!), he most infamously helped Hitler come to power by totally misreading the objective situation. While Trotsky urged the German Communists and Social Democrats to form a united front against the Nazis, Stalin ordered his minions in the German Communist Party to adopt the insane policy of "social fascism" in which the Social Democrats were seen as the main threat. The Nazis took power in the country with the strongest labour movement in Europe, as Hitler himself pointed out, without even a window pane being shattered.

The main point of contention between Stalin and Trotsky was Stalin's idea of "socialism in one country". This has nothing to do with Marxism, which always saw the revolution as international. For someone unfamiliar with Marxist ideas, it's easy to say Stalin was just being "realistic", but the fact is that by embracing nationalism the Stalinists helped divide the international working class by their country of origin when they should have been working together across borders. Nothing symbolized the failure of this backward idea more than the Sino-Soviet split in the 60s, where the bureaucratic elites in both the USSR and China engaged in cross-border skirmishes over "their" land and resources, where genuine socialists would have joined the two countries in a Socialist Federation of Eurasia and shared resources.

So if you say Trotsky was just the same as Lenin, that's a huge compliment. If you say he was just like Stalin, that's a huge insult. But no one could seriously look at the writings and actions of Trotsky, Lenin and Stalin and say that they were all the same. Stalin betrayed the most fundamental principles of Marxism.

You also said Trotsky had "a little dictator in him" without backing this up with evidence of any sort. That has nothing to do with him wanting to spread communism to western Europe. Of course he did! Marxists want (and need) to see the revolution spread as far as possible for reasons I've outlined above. If anything, this would have made Trotsky a great liberator.

If you want to talk about what "our" guys did with our "precious ideology", you'll have to be more specific. I assume you're talking about violence, but I need concrete examples. If it happened during the Russian Civil War, I just want to remind you that the Bolshevik government was attacked as soon as they came to power not only by the wealthy classes in their own country, but by 21 foreign armies. It's easy to lecture a government about violence when you ignore the context of such a desperate situation. But really, I want to know specifically what you take issue with, when the government that took power in the 1917 October Revolution, for its first few years, was the most democratic in history.

 

[Marck87]

Pardon me Axl Von Sixx, but Lenin was not a great man. He let his people suffer by starvation right after the revolution, he hunted down the kulaks. And why did he take russian troops out the war? To concentrate on the inner struggles in USSR, and also to put on a friendly mask for the rest of the European nations.

He even glorified the storming of the Winterpalace with the Eisenstein movie (forgot the title of the movie) inserted him in the movie, when intact he wash´t in Russia at all, and the movie presented a view thats so distorted from the truth, big shootouts, lots of fighting. When in reality, the guards went out from the Palace and surrendered. Initiated the Red Terror too, were Lenin signed a piece of paper that allowed the execution of 25 Tsarist emissaries, and 765 White guards and other civil servants. If you were not with the cause, you were against it.

Lenin is not the same as Stalin and Hitler, but a beast in his own right. And I have family-ties with some of the of the european-nations that suffered under the Soviets after WWII.

And my dictator quote on Trotsky comes from a saying of his, don't remember it quite correctly, read it when I was attending the university a couple of years ago, but when spreading the marxistic way of life, it was by any means necessary, by killing and and wiping out all enemies of the Party. Wouldn´t call that a gentleman now would we?

But remember, thats my opinion

 

[Quetzal]

Trotsky was in charge of the Army he had a tremendous respect in Russia, but I am sure he could have been cruel to a degree too (not the same as Stalin of course) had he been forced into the situation.

I dont think Trotsky would have helped the Soviet Union at all, and think he would have hastened its destruction. The Soviets leaders were already embroiled in division and only Stalin's fearmongering and elimination of opposition prevented a true split in the party.

If Trotsky had taken his right as successor, there would have only been chaos. Stalin and the other rightists (comparatively of course) wouldnt have permited for Trotsky to rule for long because he would have caused too much disent and unless he acted as cruelly as Stalin had by purging opposition, the party would have crumbled. Plus lets not forget Trotsky was a Jew. In Russia at that time anti-semitism was at an all time high. Compounded with the economic problems, the several revolts earlier and the threatened revolts and actual revolts against the Soviets at that time would have been putting a target on the Soviet Party's back. Very few people in the Soviet Union knew at that time Trotsky was a Jew, and had he became the leader he would been a scapegoat for the Soviet Union's problems.

In short I feel like Trotsky would not have been able to keep the Soviet Union together (plus his plans would have further impoverished the Soviet Union causing unrest). In otherwords, Trotsky would have meant doom for the Soviet Union.

 

[TLATOANI]

TROSTKY , well a good example of a REAL COMMUNIST! , your oppinions are very good AXL, are ya russian?

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

Pardon me Axl Von Sixx, but Lenin was not a great man. He let his people suffer by starvation right after the revolution, he hunted down the kulaks.

Food production and distribution was already disastrously low in Russia during the First World War - what do you think caused two revolutions in the first place? In that case, Tsar Nicholas himself introduced requisition of peasants' grain to keep his armies fed. During the Civil War, the Bolsheviks collected grain from the peasants in order to maintain food supplies to the Red Army and the cities. But in many cases the peasants resisted and hoarded their grain, and that combined with the disruption caused by the war led to a critical shortage of food in the cities. Thus, city-dwellers started leaving to the country en masse in an effort to escape starvation.

My question for you is, how is any of this Lenin's fault? You portray it as if he deliberately starved people. Why would the leader of a young government eager to gain support and establish legitimacy engage in a deliberate policy of starvation of his biggest supporters (the workers in the cities)? The answer is that he didn't. You're taking the tragic consequences of objective conditions which Lenin couldn't control and blaming them on him.

How did Lenin hunt down the kulaks? He requisitioned grain from them during the Civil War in order to feed the army and the cities. And after the war he made a huge concession to them in the form of the New Economic Policy, which re-introduced certain elements of capitalism. That was a desperate response to the country's economic problems which resulted from the protracted wars. It also created a huge danger for the Soviet government, because it vastly increased the power of the kulaks to a degree that threatened the gains of the revolution.

And why did he take russian troops out the war? To concentrate on the inner struggles in USSR, and also to put on a friendly mask for the rest of the European nations.

All true. And what's wrong with any of that? I'm not quite sure what you mean by "friendly mask". Lenin signed a humiliating peace treaty with Germany because there was really no other choice at the time, and he of course did it to gain breathing room for the fragile revolutionary government. There was really no mask though, because even though he signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk he never made any secret of the fact that he opposed all capitalist governments.

He even glorified the storming of the Winterpalace with the Eisenstein movie (forgot the title of the movie) inserted him in the movie, when intact he wash´t in Russia at all, and the movie presented a view thats so distorted from the truth, big shootouts, lots of fighting. When in reality, the guards went out from the Palace and surrendered.

You almost had me...until I checked and saw that the movie, October, was released in 1927, three years after Lenin's death. Who was glorifying Lenin again?

The explanation for this scene is artistic in nature. Eisenstein was making a propaganda film that sought to test his theory of montage by adapting them to the Marxist philosophy of the dialectic. He cut together contrasting images that compelled the viewer to mentally examine the connections between them, before the disparate elements came into conflict. For example, the movie starts with close-ups of the tsar's gold, his crown, and people living in luxury, then cuts to peasants and workers living in desperate poverty. These come into conflict, and then the next part we see the revolution and the contradictions that evolve from that, and so on.

Given that October was in many wars an artistic experiment, it might be unfair to criticize it for not being a completely faithful historical re-enactment. The basic problem was that the revolution as it really happened was just very uncinematic - small groups of people occupying widely separated government buildings and other strategic locations over the course of a long night. Eisenstein staged an exciting mass revolutionary seizure of power because of artistic license; he felt it made for a better film. You can blame him for that, but you can't blame Lenin - especially since, as I pointed out earlier, he was dead when the movie was made.

P.S. Lenin was certainly in Petrograd, Russia during the October Revolution and seizure of power. That is a historical fact.

Initiated the Red Terror too, were Lenin signed a piece of paper that allowed the execution of 25 Tsarist emissaries, and 765 White guards and other civil servants. If you were not with the cause, you were against it.

You leave out the crucial fact that the Red Terror was a response to the White Terror. Terrorism from reactionary elements was a huge problem at the time. Bolshevik officials were killed by bombs, revolutionary workers were rounded up and shot, Lenin suffered an assassination attempt, and that's just within the cities; across the whole country White forces initiated pogroms against Jews and committed massacres of supposed revolutionary sympathizers. In such a chaotic and dangerously violent situation, how easy was it to indefinitely avoid cracking down on such terrorism?

Lenin had a response to bourgeois critics who had selective arguments regarding the legitimacy of terror: “The English bourgeois have forgotten their 1649, the French their 1793. The terror was just and legitimate when it was applied by the bourgeoisie for its own advantage against the feudal lords. The terror became monstrous and criminal when the workers and poor peasants dared to apply it against the bourgeoisie.”

Terror was used in the English Revolution to suppress Royalist elements that refused to recognize the power of Parliament, and it was used in the French Revolution to defend the new republic against the deposed feudal classes. Regardless of our personal opinions today on whether this was justified, the real question is: did the use of terror by these radical governments mean that these revolutions weren't justified?

Talk to a French person these days and ask them whether they think the French Revolution was a mistake. Expect to hear a lot of responses in the negative.

Incidentally, the number of people you mention as the victims of Bolshevik terror pales in contrast to, say, the 100,000 Iraqis killed by "democratic" governments in the USA and Britain during their war of aggression against Iraq.

Lenin is not the same as Stalin and Hitler, but a beast in his own right. And I have family-ties with some of the of the european-nations that suffered under the Soviets after WWII.

And my dictator quote on Trotsky comes from a saying of his, don't remember it quite correctly, read it when I was attending the university a couple of years ago, but when spreading the marxistic way of life, it was by any means necessary, by killing and and wiping out all enemies of the Party. Wouldn´t call that a gentleman now would we?

But remember, thats my opinion

The Soviet government from Stalin onwards had nothing in common with the revolutionary proletarian internationalism espoused by Lenin and Trotsky. You can't blame the actions of a brutal nationalist, bureaucratic government, which existed decades after Lenin died and that had declared Trotsky an enemy of the state, on either of them.

Until you can dig up the exact quote by Trotsky where he said the stuff about killing enemies of the state, I have no reason to respond to it. I do know Trotsky wrote a pamphlet called "Why Marxists Oppose Individual Terrorism". But he, like Lenin, was always in favour of a peaceful transition to socialism wherever possible. The problem was that ruling classes everywhere rarely give up their privileges without a fight.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

Trotsky was in charge of the Army he had a tremendous respect in Russia, but I am sure he could have been cruel to a degree too (not the same as Stalin of course) had he been forced into the situation.

I dont think Trotsky would have helped the Soviet Union at all, and think he would have hastened its destruction. The Soviets leaders were already embroiled in division and only Stalin's fearmongering and elimination of opposition prevented a true split in the party.

If Trotsky had taken his right as successor, there would have only been chaos. Stalin and the other rightists (comparatively of course) wouldnt have permited for Trotsky to rule for long because he would have caused too much disent and unless he acted as cruelly as Stalin had by purging opposition, the party would have crumbled. Plus lets not forget Trotsky was a Jew. In Russia at that time anti-semitism was at an all time high. Compounded with the economic problems, the several revolts earlier and the threatened revolts and actual revolts against the Soviets at that time would have been putting a target on the Soviet Party's back. Very few people in the Soviet Union knew at that time Trotsky was a Jew, and had he became the leader he would been a scapegoat for the Soviet Union's problems.

In short I feel like Trotsky would not have been able to keep the Soviet Union together (plus his plans would have further impoverished the Soviet Union causing unrest). In otherwords, Trotsky would have meant doom for the Soviet Union.

Interesting contribution. It actually is a good question as to what the Soviet Union would have looked like if Trotsky had been in charge, and difficult to answer with any certainty. I think Trotsky would have avoided Stalin's ultra-left policy of forced total collectivization: throughout the 1920s, Trotsky and the Left Opposition advocated steady and voluntary collectivization instead.

I think people in Russia were actually well aware of the fact that Trotsky was of Jewish origin. In fact, Lenin apparently offered the top job in the Bolshevik government to Trotsky at first, but the latter refused on account of his Jewish ancestry, which might cause suspicion of the government among more backward and reactionary elements. The White Army certainly made use of this aspect of Trotsky in anti-Semitic propaganda during the Civil War.

Ultimately, that was one reason why Trotsky lost out to Stalin, but a far more important reason was that Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks comparatively late and many of the older party members never fully accepted his quick rise to prominence in the organization. Stalin appealed to their resentments.

Saying that the party would have crumbled if Stalin hadn't carried out his repressive measures is (probably unintentionally) a defense of those measures. The kulaks and NEPmen were certainly a problem, but Trotsky's approach to collectivization would have been more gradual; at the same time, he saw clearly the danger of these alien class forces, so I don't think the Soviet Union would have regressed into capitalism if he had been in charge. And if the economy boomed under Stalin, it would have done even better if the shackles of the bureaucracy were taken off and Trotsky's (really, Marx's) ideas of workers' democracy taken up.

The real question is whether Trotsky's emphasis on spreading revolution around the world would have led the Soviet Union to destruction, or whether Stalin was more prudent in concentrating on building up "socialism in one country". The fact is that if there had been revolutions elsewhere in the world, the Soviet Union would not have been isolated and would have flourished if an advanced Western country went socialist and allied with it. Stalin's polices, as I pointed out above, also contributed to the rise of Hitler. If Trotsky's policy of the United Front had been the one adopted by the German labour movement, the German Communists and Social Democrats might have been able to stop fascism in its tracks.

So ultimately, while you make some good and provocative arguments, I still think the USSR would have been way better off if Trotsky had become the main leader instead of Stalin.

TROSTKY , well a good example of a REAL COMMUNIST! , your oppinions are very good AXL, are ya russian?

Thanks! And no, I'm Canadian.

 

[Marck87]

My question for you is, how is any of this Lenin's fault? You portray it as if he deliberately starved people. Why would the leader of a young government eager to gain support and establish legitimacy engage in a deliberate policy of starvation of his biggest supporters (the workers in the cities)? The answer is that he didn't. You're taking the tragic consequences of objective conditions which Lenin couldn't control and blaming them on him.

"To win our enemies, we need our own socialistic militarism.We need to get ninety million of our hundred million people of Sovjet Russia. When it comes to the rest of the ten million, I don´t care about them. They must be destroyed." - Lenin 1918 (Robert Gelateley "Lenin, Stalin, Hitler:The Age of Social Catastrophe page 68.

So one of the "moderate" communist and by your sayings a exceptional rolemodel, urges for killing millions of innocent people, because they don´t have the same meanings about a way of life. hmmmm, sounds a lot like another dictator that rose a decade later.

The first thing Lenin did when he became the leader, was eliminating the freedom to speech. He talked about the Tsars brutal leadership and his brutal state, Lenin made something far worse in my opinion.

During the Civiwl War, Trotskij wrote " during a civil war, only the oppressed has the right to use violence.

Lenin made a new institution, the Tjeka ( don´t know the english translation for this I´m afraid, since I'm translating from norwegian)

Lenin also demanded that the revolutionary justice court should show "no mercy towards the counterrevolutionaries, bullies, anarchists and other who opposed the lovely new regime.

Around 1918, the word "Concentration camps" and "Labor camps" was heard throughout the Russia ( kontsentratsionnije lager and lager prinudetel´nykh rabot) thanks to Lenin. In may 1918 Trotskij announced that every czech rebel that wouldn't lay down their arms would be sent to one of these camps, without trial.

Lenin approved warmly of the camps in the northern region, and under his guidance with the Policebuerau they set up camps in the Uktha region on 20th.april s1921.

They also went after the kosaks. to "de-kosakkifize them". Because of their ties with the old regime, they were ordered lawless.

The Tjekka went after the class-enemies the same way the Gestapo did with their enemies.

And also, Lenin called communism for "Dictatorship of the proletars". Dictatorship. And he also wanted the whole world in his palm. Megalomaniac would I say about Lenin, just as the others. Communism is an extremist ideology. You don´t have any rights at all, especially if you don´t follow the leaders. Look at the other Communist states that has come and gone. The only ones with the rights are the Power Elite and the rulers.

And pardon my fact error with the Eisenstein movie. But as you said, it was a propaganda movie.

And yes, Lenin wash´t to fond of Stalin violent mind. But he kept him, because he got the job that needed to be done, done (killings, terrorizing).

Sorry if my spelling might be incorrect at times, it´s late here in Norway, and I´ve had a long day at work today, and a long day at work awaits me tomorrow.

But even if we disagree on this subject, I must say I enjoy talking history with people I disagree and agree with.

 

[Quetzal]

Interesting contribution. It actually is a good question as to what the Soviet Union would have looked like if Trotsky had been in charge, and difficult to answer with any certainty. I think Trotsky would have avoided Stalin's ultra-left policy of forced total collectivization: throughout the 1920s, Trotsky and the Left Opposition advocated steady and voluntary collectivization instead.

I think people in Russia were actually well aware of the fact that Trotsky was of Jewish origin. In fact, Lenin apparently offered the top job in the Bolshevik government to Trotsky at first, but the latter refused on account of his Jewish ancestry, which might cause suspicion of the government among more backward and reactionary elements. The White Army certainly made use of this aspect of Trotsky in anti-Semitic propaganda during the Civil War.

Ultimately, that was one reason why Trotsky lost out to Stalin, but a far more important reason was that Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks comparatively late and many of the older party members never fully accepted his quick rise to prominence in the organization. Stalin appealed to their resentments.

Saying that the party would have crumbled if Stalin hadn't carried out his repressive measures is (probably unintentionally) a defense of those measures. The kulaks and NEPmen were certainly a problem, but Trotsky's approach to collectivization would have been more gradual; at the same time, he saw clearly the danger of these alien class forces, so I don't think the Soviet Union would have regressed into capitalism if he had been in charge. And if the economy boomed under Stalin, it would have done even better if the shackles of the bureaucracy were taken off and Trotsky's (really, Marx's) ideas of workers' democracy taken up.

The real question is whether Trotsky's emphasis on spreading revolution around the world would have led the Soviet Union to destruction, or whether Stalin was more prudent in concentrating on building up "socialism in one country". The fact is that if there had been revolutions elsewhere in the world, the Soviet Union would not have been isolated and would have flourished if an advanced Western country went socialist and allied with it. Stalin's polices, as I pointed out above, also contributed to the rise of Hitler. If Trotsky's policy of the United Front had been the one adopted by the German labour movement, the German Communists and Social Democrats might have been able to stop fascism in its tracks.

So ultimately, while you make some good and provocative arguments, I still think the USSR would have been way better off if Trotsky had become the main leader instead of Stalin.

Well I guess I should give a quick disclaimer, I am not a communist nor prescribe to previous philosophies, I just enjoy history. t:

Trotsky may have joined the movement late, but he had been an outspoken Menshevik for a while before; and was still widely liked among his peers. By top position in the government do you mean his successor? Because I am pretty sure Lenin did choose Trotsky as his successor but Stalin merely out maneuvered him in his Pravda, the Politburo, and by his complete dismissal of Lenin's Testament, rather than Trotsky declining the role.

I dont think we can forget though that Trotsky had been ardent on moving the Communist movement to more direct revolution and away from already theorized plans like the Five Year Plans. The fact that he argued against the NEP shows (what I consider) a lack in judgment. The Soviet currency was devalued, it hadnt been long since the White Army uprising, people were starving throughout the country, the Cheka at the time wasnt instilling enough fear and there was public dissent in the cities.

Had the NEP not been adopted, I honestly believe the Soviet Union could not have survived. The fact that Trotsky was being sniped at by other members of the Politburo while still in the Soviet Union would not have bode well.

The fact he was Jewish was used obviously by people in power against him. However what I am saying is the populace as a vast majority didnt care at that time about Trotsky beyond his role of General (who had failed several times in humiliating losses to the Germans in WW1 and Poland during the Civil War).

The revolt that almost crushed the Tzars after the humiliating Russo-Japanese War only a few years earlier had been stopped by sparking up Jewish paranoia. The Jews were still blamed consistently in the media, and including in Stalin's Pravda. Its almost a sure thing that it would only have hurt his image to the populace later if Stalin became disgruntled.

===
We have to consider, if Trotsky did become the leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin would still have had control of the Politburo. He controlled the Pravda. He had gained many supporters with how he treated Lenin after his death. Stalin would not have remained complacent forever; he was power hungry. I do not think Trotsky could have held Stalin at bay forever.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

"To win our enemies, we need our own socialistic militarism.We need to get ninety million of our hundred million people of Sovjet Russia. When it comes to the rest of the ten million, I don´t care about them. They must be destroyed." - Lenin 1918 (Robert Gelateley "Lenin, Stalin, Hitler:The Age of Social Catastrophe page 68.

So one of the "moderate" communist and by your sayings a exceptional rolemodel, urges for killing millions of innocent people, because they don´t have the same meanings about a way of life. hmmmm, sounds a lot like another dictator that rose a decade later.

That was a quote by Zinoviev, not Lenin. And the meaning of "destroyed" is vague in this political context. He doesn't say, "they must be killed".

The first thing Lenin did when he became the leader, was eliminating the freedom to speech.

That's not true at all. His first priority was ending the war against Germany. But yes, the Bolsheviks did close down some of the bourgeois newspapers. This was a natural consequence of taking the press out of private hands and putting it into the public domain. In the Bolsheviks' own words (from a 1917 resolution):

The suppression of the bourgeois press was dictated not only by purely military needs in the course of the insurrection, and for the checking of counter-revolutionary action, but it is also necessary as a measure of transition toward the establishment of a new regime with regard to the Press-a regime under which the capitalist owners of printing-presses and of paper cannot be the all-powerful and exclusive manufacturers of public opinion.

We must further proceed to the confiscation of private printing plants and supplies of paper, which should become the property of the Soviets, both in the capital and in the provinces, so that the political parties and groups can make use of the facilities of printing in proportion to the actual strength of the ideas they represent-in other words, proportionally to the number of their constituents.

The reestablishment of the so-called "freedom of the press," the simple return of printing presses and paper to the capitalists,-poisoners of the mind of the people-this would be an inadmissible surrender to the will of capital, a giving up of one of the most important conquests of the Revolution; in other words, it would be a measure of unquestionably counter-revolutionary character.

Proceeding from the above, the Tsay-ee-kah categorically rejects all propositions aiming at the reestablishment of the old regime in the domain of the Press, and unequivocally supports the point of view of the Council of People's Commissars on this question, against pretentions and ultimatums dictated by petty bourgeois prejudices, or by evident surrender to the interests of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.

He talked about the Tsars brutal leadership and his brutal state, Lenin made something far worse in my opinion.

During the Civiwl War, Trotskij wrote " during a civil war, only the oppressed has the right to use violence.

Lenin made a new institution, the Tjeka ( don´t know the english translation for this I´m afraid, since I'm translating from norwegian)

Lenin also demanded that the revolutionary justice court should show "no mercy towards the counterrevolutionaries, bullies, anarchists and other who opposed the lovely new regime.

Around 1918, the word "Concentration camps" and "Labor camps" was heard throughout the Russia ( kontsentratsionnije lager and lager prinudetel´nykh rabot) thanks to Lenin. In may 1918 Trotskij announced that every czech rebel that wouldn't lay down their arms would be sent to one of these camps, without trial.

Lenin approved warmly of the camps in the northern region, and under his guidance with the Policebuerau they set up camps in the Uktha region on 20th.april s1921.

The Bolsheviks were in the middle of a Civil War. They were being attacked from all sides by powerful enemies, they were suffering acts of terrorism from reactionary forces. The British were the first to establish concentration camps, during the Boer War. But we don't hear too much about that, do we? Nobody says that Britain was historically ruled by an evil and inhumane regime, despite the fact that they had concentration camps of their own. Funny how our outrage at historical events is so selective...

There were counter-revolutionary spies and terrorists everywhere in Russia at the time, which necessitated the establishment of the Cheka. The ranks of the Cheka were filled by ordinary workers and Party members who worked in the interests of the working class and the revolution. It was only after Stalin and the bureaucracy established their control over state security forces that we started to get the politicized brutality of the NKVD.

They also went after the kosaks. to "de-kosakkifize them". Because of their ties with the old regime, they were ordered lawless.

The Tjekka went after the class-enemies the same way the Gestapo did with their enemies.

No. The Bolshevik government offered the kulaks the chance to join the new society. Instead of being rich farmers, they would have to be ordinary farmers like everyone else. Many of them resisted this. But Lenin never engaged in large-scale repression of the kulaks. He even caved in to their demands by instituting the New Economic Policy in the 20s. It was Stalin who initiated the violent liquidation of the kulaks as a class.

I would argue that the NKVD went after its enemies (some from unfavoured classes, but also including loyal Old Bolsheviks, ordinary workers, etc.) the same way the Gestapo did. But not the Cheka. The key point is, the Cheka was a response to White terrorism, as was the Red Terror in general. The NKVD was the tool of a paranoid and bloodthirsty dictator.

And also, Lenin called communism for "Dictatorship of the proletars". Dictatorship. And he also wanted the whole world in his palm. Megalomaniac would I say about Lenin, just as the others.

You misunderstand the concept - the "dictatorship of the proletariat" means the dictatorship of a class, not a single person. From Alan Woods' Reformism or Revolution:

The word "dictatorship" in Marx's day had an entirely different connotation to that which we attach to it today. After the experience of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and Pinochet the word dictatorship signifies concentration camps, the Gestapo and the KGB. But Marx actually had in mind the dictatorship of the Roman Republic, whereby in a state of emergency (usually war) the usual mechanisms of democracy were temporarily suspended and a dictator ruled for a temporary period with exceptional powers.

The concept makes a lot more sense if you consider that right now, under capitalism, we live under the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie". Ever get the feeling that it doesn't matter who you vote for, that no matter which party wins, nothing changes and the same people are pulling the strings? Because big business buys all the politicians. No matter what party is in power, the bosses get their way. The idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat is simply that we would have a government that acts only in the interests of the working class, not in the interests of the 1%.

Communism is an extremist ideology. You don´t have any rights at all, especially if you don´t follow the leaders. Look at the other Communist states that has come and gone. The only ones with the rights are the Power Elite and the rulers.

This is the difference between Stalinism and Maoism, which you just described, and real Marxism, which Lenin and Trotsky championed. That's why I started this thread: because Trotsky represented the original ideas of Marxism and socialism (meaning real democracy) in the face of Stalinist reaction.

Besides, the situation you described is pretty much the same today in the capitalist countries. Glenn Greenwald has done a great job of documenting America's two-tiered justice system. Wealthy and powerful people who start wars of aggression that kill hundreds of thousands of people - not naming any names - are shielded from any accountability for their actions ("look forward, not backward") while ordinary Americans are sent to prison for years for the pettiest offenses. Both capitalism and Stalinism empower elites at the expense of ordinary people. That's why I hate both of those systems. And that's why I endorse socialism as it was developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.

Real socialism is the opposite of Stalinism. Instead of an unaccountable bureaucracy that decides everything, the people run their own lives democratically.

And yes, Lenin wash´t to fond of Stalin violent mind. But he kept him, because he got the job that needed to be done, done (killings, terrorizing).

No, he kept Stalin around because Stalin was a good organizer and he excelled at carrying out the bureaucratic side of the work.

But even if we disagree on this subject, I must say I enjoy talking history with people I disagree and agree with.

Yeah, me too. Glad you feel the same way.

I could argue that this illustrates my contention that socialism is democratic, whereas a Stalinist might just call you names and end the debate...

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

Trotsky may have joined the movement late, but he had been an outspoken Menshevik for a while before; and was still widely liked among his peers. By top position in the government do you mean his successor? Because I am pretty sure Lenin did choose Trotsky as his successor but Stalin merely out maneuvered him in his Pravda, the Politburo, and by his complete dismissal of Lenin's Testament, rather than Trotsky declining the role.

Actually, no, in 1917 Lenin suggested that Trotsky take the position of Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars - the position that he himself ended up taking, but which Trotsky refused on account of his Jewishness.

Trotsky was outmaneuvered by Stalin politically, but it's not merely a matter of individual personalities. As Trotsky brilliantly wrote in The Revolution Betrayed and his other works, Stalin really represented a new class in Soviet society - the bureaucracy - which he based his power on.

I dont think we can forget though that Trotsky had been ardent on moving the Communist movement to more direct revolution and away from already theorized plans like the Five Year Plans. The fact that he argued against the NEP shows (what I consider) a lack in judgment. The Soviet currency was devalued, it hadnt been long since the White Army uprising, people were starving throughout the country, the Cheka at the time wasnt instilling enough fear and there was public dissent in the cities.

Had the NEP not been adopted, I honestly believe the Soviet Union could not have survived. The fact that Trotsky was being sniped at by other members of the Politburo while still in the Soviet Union would not have bode well.

That's a good argument. I would say that Trotsky was right in the long run - that eventually the role of the market would have to be reduced and the role of the state (ideally meaning workers' democracy rather than a centralized bureaucracy) increased. But at the time the NEP was a necessary concession and Lenin was clearly right in arguing for it. I think the real question was what to do next, and this is what Trotsky was talking about. They certainly couldn't have avoided the NEP altogether. The Russian economy after the Civil War was absolutely devastated and needed time to regrow.

The fact he was Jewish was used obviously by people in power against him. However what I am saying is the populace as a vast majority didnt care at that time about Trotsky beyond his role of General (who had failed several times in humiliating losses to the Germans in WW1 and Poland during the Civil War).

The revolt that almost crushed the Tzars after the humiliating Russo-Japanese War only a few years earlier had been stopped by sparking up Jewish paranoia. The Jews were still blamed consistently in the media, and including in Stalin's Pravda. Its almost a sure thing that it would only have hurt his image to the populace later if Stalin became disgruntled.

Unquestionably Trotsky's Jewish heritage, as he himself recognized, would have hurt him as leader, so I agree with you there. But I don't think Stalin emphasized anti-Semitism until the Doctors' Plot after the Second World War, and even then it was far more subtle than, say Nazi Germany. Instead of ranting against Jews directly, the government would have a campaign against so-called "rootless cosmopolitans".

But of course I'm not defending that. The fact that a self-proclaimed "socialist" leader would use anti-Semitism at all for political ends is horrific in itself, and is yet another reason why Stalinism has nothing in common with genuine Marxism, which is about the unity of all workers, regardless of race, sex, religion, culture, language, nationality, etc.

We have to consider, if Trotsky did become the leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin would still have had control of the Politburo. He controlled the Pravda. He had gained many supporters with how he treated Lenin after his death. Stalin would not have remained complacent forever; he was power hungry. I do not think Trotsky could have held Stalin at bay forever.

Stalin was probably a better politician than Trotsky overall. He wasn't as principled; Stalin was happy to say whatever he needed to in a given situation for his political advantage. Thus in the mid-20s he supported the NEP, and as the decade ended he suddenly reversed course and went full speed ahead into forced collectivization. All of this made Stalin the perfect representative of the new class of Soviet bureaucrats, who justified their rule and privileges with Marxist-sounding rhetoric but otherwise had nothing in common with the ideas of socialism.

The good news is that this is all history now. While Trotsky was alive and in the decades after he died, the Soviet Union dominated half the world and it was easy to see him as some kind of marginal figure. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the failure of free market capitalism, people are beginning to look for an alternative. I'm not saying the workers of the world are suddenly going to embrace Trotsky - that would be totally unrealistic at this point in time - but I think at this particular moment in history, examining this man's life, his work and ideas, has a lot to offer if we're trying to figure out how to create a better society. Because man, I am sick of the way things are going right now.

 

[DACrowe]

Given how Lenin and Trotsky dealt with the aristocracy, ruling class, and White Guards, I doubt the Soviet Union would have been any substantially better off if he was the successor as opposed to Stalin. I don't know if he would have executed 10 million people like Stalin, but he showed a desire for power and the Soviet Union slipping into tyranny and a parody of the Bolshevik ideal--just given the nature of its government and the size of its borders--seems almost inevitable. Especially because, like Lenin, one day Trotsky too would die and opportunists like Stalin would have surrounded him.

In any case, Trotsky, like his dream, ended up murdered by the hands of people who took advantage of his faith in the institution of an absolutist state. To think his teachings, or Marx's, will come back because of the global meltdown anytime in the near future, despite the increasingly globalized world, seems as delusional as thinking it would work in the first place.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

Given how Lenin and Trotsky dealt with the aristocracy, I doubt the Soviet Union would have been any better off if he was the successor as opposed to Stalin. I don't know if he would have executed 10 million people like Stalin, but he showed a desire for power and the Soviet Union slipping into tyranny--just given the nature of its government and the size of its borders--seems almost inevitable.

In any case, Trotsky, like his dream, ended up murdered by the hands of people who took advantage of his faith in the institution of an absolutist state.

Why do you insist on acting as if the bureaucracy that emerged due to Russia's backwardness, isolation and poverty was what the leaders of the October Revolution intended? Talking to anti-communists, you always get this sense that they imagine Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin in a room together, rubbing their hands with glee as they plot to take over the world, kill millions and enslave people in a totalitarian nightmare. It's an upside-down, comic book caricature of reality. How exactly does this image square with the actual ideals of Marxism - of international solidarity and workers' democracy?

Trotsky explained what happened in his writings. I've repeated those arguments above. It was the pressure of objective events that led to the degeneration of the Russian Revolution. Poverty and hunger were already rampant before the Bolsheviks took power, as a result of the privations of the First World War, and then when they took power to attempt to solve these problems they had to fight a prolonged and bloody civil war in which their enemies were aided by 21 foreign armies. The pressure of war led to more centralized decision-making, and the general poverty that already existed led the state to raise itself above society as the ultimate arbiter of economic allocation.

Marx, Lenin, Trotsky et al never imagined an "absolutist state"; they imagined a vibrant workers' democracy. But an absolutist state is what emerged, because they took power in a poor and backward country. You can't construct socialism in such a situation, and they were fully aware of this; all you'll get is shared poverty. That's why their whole outlook was based on a successful revolution in the advanced and wealthy Western countries. And this wasn't a pie-in-the-sky fantasy in 1917-18. Revolutions were breaking out all over Europe at the end of the war; in Germany workers' councils had already taken power, until they were betrayed by the Social Democratic leaders who promptly handed power back to the bourgeoisie.

Like most people, you don't look at the specific historical circumstances or the nuances of Marxist theory because it's easier to just paint with a broad brush and say "see? Marxism doesn't work." In that sense, you're more blinded by ideology than I am.

To think his teachings, or Marx's, will come back because of the global meltdown anytime in the near future, despite the increasingly globalized world, seems as delusional as thinking it would work in the first place.

Did you read what I wrote above? I acknowledged this is not likely at the moment. But I firmly believe in these ideas, and I'd rather work towards them and stand by my principles than continue on the path to barbarism the world seems intent on. You know, I have more respect for someone like Ron Paul than any "savvy", successful politician with no principles.

And there's a funny thing about revolutionary situations: suddenly, all the old rules don't apply anymore. At such a moment, all the old "realists", who used to talk about moderation, about working within the realm of the "possible", suddenly become irrelevant to the discussion. You're like the Egyptian reformists earlier this year who said everything would be fine if Mubarak just made some minor adjustments. At some point, the people get sick of hearing this kind of stuff and they want major changes. Capitalism is going from crisis to crisis, and we're approaching such a moment.

But if you think Marx's teachings haven't already made a comeback because of the economic crisis, then you're out to lunch. Das Kapital is currently a bestseller in Germany. Again and again Marx is coming up in newspaper commentaries. Maybe if you read recent articles in the very mainstream British newspaper The Guardian, you'd retract that statement:

Why Ed Miliband should speak the language of Marx

The Occupy Wall Street image that marks the end of the global consensus

A crisis of capitalism

One of my favourite (non-Marxist) writers, Chris Hedges, has been expressing similar sentiments:

Why I Am a Socialist

Or perhaps most relevant to our discussion...

This Country Needs a Few Good Communists

The witch hunts against communists in the United States were used to silence socialists, anarchists, pacifists and all those who defied the abuses of capitalism. Those “anti-Red” actions were devastating blows to the political health of the country. The communists spoke the language of class war. They understood that Wall Street, along with corporations such as British Petroleum, is the enemy. They offered a broad social vision which allowed even the non-communist left to employ a vocabulary that made sense of the destructive impulses of capitalism. But once the Communist Party, along with other radical movements, was eradicated as a social and political force, once the liberal class took government-imposed loyalty oaths and collaborated in the witch hunts for phantom communist agents, we were robbed of the ability to make sense of our struggle. We became fearful, timid and ineffectual. We lost our voice and became part of the corporate structure we should have been dismantling.


Hope in this age of bankrupt capitalism will come with the return of the language of class conflict. It does not mean we have to agree with Karl Marx, who advocated violence and whose worship of the state as a utopian mechanism led to another form of enslavement of the working class, but we have to speak in the vocabulary Marx employed. We have to grasp, as Marx did, that corporations are not concerned with the common good. They exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill and lie to make money. They throw poor families out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars to make profits, poison and pollute the ecosystem, slash social assistance programs, gut public education, trash the global economy, loot the U.S. Treasury and crush all popular movements that seek justice for working men and women. They worship only money and power. And, as Marx knew, unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force that consumes greater and greater numbers of human lives until it finally consumes itself. The nightmare in the Gulf of Mexico is the perfect metaphor for the corporate state. It is the same nightmare seen in postindustrial pockets from the old mill towns in New England to the abandoned steel mills in Ohio. It is a nightmare that Iraqis, Pakistanis and Afghans, mourning their dead, live each day.

Now, personally I disagree strongly with Hedges' characterization of Karl Marx, where he throws around some of the same misconceptions you do. Marx did not "worship the state"; quite the opposite. His whole view of socialism was built around the idea that the state is primarily an instrument for the oppression of one class by another, and so if you get rid of classes, eventually the need for the state will disappear and the state will wither away.

But my point here is that even though he's not a Marxist, Hedges, like the writers at The Guardian, and like many mainstream economists, is realizing that only the language and theory of Marx can adequately explain what's happening to capitalism today. And so your contention that the ideas of Marx will never be relevant again is obviously a moot point already. Lots of people are talking about Marx, whose analysis and critique of capitalism is still without parallel.

That's one side of the equation - criticizing capitalism. But the other is building an alternative system. I believe Trotsky excelled in that regard. Did you read his description above that I posted of what communism would look like in the USA? Nobody has yet responded to that, and I want to know whether they can actually read Trotsky for themselves instead of repeating what they've told about him and continue to repeat the same old slanderous lies about him.

One last question: how's capitalism working out for most people these days? Not too good. You're seriously trying to parrot Margaret Thatcher by arguing to me that "there is no alternative"? It's a monstrous libel on the human race to claim this is the best we can do.

 

[Axl Van Sixx]

Given how Lenin and Trotsky dealt with the aristocracy, ruling class, and White Guards, I doubt the Soviet Union would have been any substantially better off if he was the successor as opposed to Stalin. I don't know if he would have executed 10 million people like Stalin, but he showed a desire for power and the Soviet Union slipping into tyranny and a parody of the Bolshevik ideal--just given the nature of its government and the size of its borders--seems almost inevitable. Especially because, like Lenin, one day Trotsky too would die and opportunists like Stalin would have surrounded him.

Sorry, I typed up my last response before you edited this post, but honestly, just having you acknowledge that makes a huge difference.

 

[DACrowe]

Why do you insist on acting as if the bureaucracy that emerged due to Russia's backwardness, isolation and poverty was what the leaders of the October Revolution intended? Talking to anti-communists, you always get this sense that they imagine Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin in a room together, rubbing their hands with glee as they plot to take over the world, kill millions and enslave people in a totalitarian nightmare. It's an upside-down, comic book caricature of reality. How exactly does this image square with the actual ideals of Marxism - of international solidarity and workers' democracy?

I see you caught I edited my post to make it more clear. But I don't think any of them, including Stalin, planned to take over the world and become tyrants. I think Lenin and Trotsky were idealists while Stalin was an opportunist (I suppose Kissinger would call him a realist). I just think the type of state they wanted to enforce on Russia and make as an example to the world was always doomed because even if you ignore the lack of individuality and competition (essential for a successful economy), not to mention civil rights (essential for a successful government), there will always be men like Stalin there to usurp or manipulate the pursits' dreams. And I don't think Trotsky is as pure as many of his defenders make out.

Marx, Lenin, Trotsky et al never imagined an "absolutist state"; they imagined a vibrant workers' democracy. But an absolutist state is what emerged, because they took power in a poor and backward country. You can't construct socialism in such a situation, and they were fully aware of this; all you'll get is shared poverty. That's why their whole outlook was based on a successful revolution in the advanced and wealthy Western countries. And this wasn't a pie-in-the-sky fantasy in 1917-18. Revolutions were breaking out all over Europe at the end of the war; in Germany workers' councils had already taken power, until they were betrayed by the Social Democratic leaders who promptly handed power back to the bourgeoisie.

Marx considered Proletarian/workers leadership (government) after the revolutions a step towards a world without a government and there was equality, yes. But that's never how it works out.

Did you read what I wrote above? I acknowledged this is not likely at the moment. But I firmly believe in these ideas, and I'd rather work towards them and stand by my principles than continue on the path to barbarism the world seems intent on. You know, I have more respect for someone like Ron Paul than any "savvy", successful politician with no principles.

I haven't read every post (to be fair they're LONG posts! ) but I've read most of them and I read your OP, which is much like the paragraph below, that suggests we're on the verge of a "Workers of the World Unite" revolution.

And there's a funny thing about revolutionary situations: suddenly, all the old rules don't apply anymore. At such a moment, all the old "realists", who used to talk about moderation, about working within the realm of the "possible", suddenly become irrelevant to the discussion. You're like the Egyptian reformists earlier this year who said everything would be fine if Mubarak just made some minor adjustments. At some point, the people get sick of hearing this kind of stuff and they want major changes. Capitalism is going from crisis to crisis, and we're approaching such a moment.

If you say so.

But if you think Marx's teachings haven't already made a comeback because of the economic crisis, then you're out to lunch. Das Kapital is currently a bestseller in Germany. Again and again Marx is coming up in newspaper commentaries. Maybe if you read recent articles in the very mainstream British newspaper The Guardian, you'd retract that statement:

Why Ed Miliband should speak the language of Marx

The Occupy Wall Street image that marks the end of the global consensus

A crisis of capitalism

One of my favourite (non-Marxist) writers, Chris Hedges, has been expressing similar sentiments:

Why I Am a Socialist

Or perhaps most relevant to our discussion...

This Country Needs a Few Good Communists

I've studied Marx in history and sociological courses in university. I admit I'm rusty on all the specifics but I understand his POV. I just don't think his solutions to very real problems are realistic, achievable, or what I'd want to see in America.

One last question: how's capitalism working out for most people these days? Not too good. You're seriously trying to parrot Margaret Thatcher by arguing to me that "there is no alternative"? It's a monstrous libel on the human race to claim this is the best we can do.

Well I don't think there has been a successful alternative to date. I actually think capitalism has been very good to the United States, Europe and, arguably in the last 20+ years, China.

That said, I don't trust a man made institution (which is what the market is despite what Hobbes may have said) to be infallible or safe. As much as I believe in a free, democratically-elected Republic that answers to the people, I believe those public institutions should intensely guard the markets to ensure opportunity and growth for the lower classes, provide for the basic welfare of the people who will never be at the top that also helps nurture a strong middle class, and is vigilantly on guard to the abuses and corruption of so-called capitalists who'd destroy the system for everyone just to line their pockets a little more....as they did in 2008.

For the last 30 years, the US has shifted its priorities and resources to the top 1 percent to the downside and hardship of everyone else. However, I believe that can be rectified and fixed without completely destroying our economic system and form of government that has created so much for our standard of living in this country--mostly during the mid-20th century before Reaganomics muddled everything--not to mention the damaging effects it would have on our Constitution and individuality where things like art and freedom of expression would be lost.

 

[The Overlord]

Trostsky was very much a dictator who was willing to slaughter members of the working class that disagreed with him, as this incident shows:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSkronstadt.htm

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

How this guy a hero, he seems more like a tyrant. Its easy to create a dictatorship with Communism, declare anyone who disagrees with you an counter revolutionary and then just have them killed. Communism creates the kind of "us vs. them" mind state that can be used to justify a dictatorship, anyone who disagrees with the government is doing is labeled "them" and the government can make them disappear.

Lenin wasn't a hero either, he created the tools of dictatorship that Stalin used to create his reign of terror.

The problem with a dictatorship controlled by workers, is it doesn't make sense. Members of the working class are not a hive mind, they will disagree and not always get along. A dictatorship of the workers cannot represent all their interests. Heck members of thew working class are both members of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall street, so clearly these members of the same class disagree over how things should be done.

Plus a government needs a bureaucracy to function. You can't slap a suit on a baker and expect him to brilliant administrator or slap a uniform on a tailor and expect him to be an ingenious military leader. To work effectively, a dictatorship of the proletariat would need a bureaucracy, because administrative and organizational skills are not something everyone has. That's why Stalin took over in the first place and that's why the dictatorship of the workers will always fail, those with the administrative and organizational skills will rise to the top. A bureaucrat will always out maneuver another type of worker in this sort of government.