Trotsky Vs. Stalin slugfest - round 2!

[Intermundia]

In the the Ask Gracchvs thread Gracchvs said:

Gracchvs

td,dr: Communism!

On the permanent revolution:
In Trotsky's view, because of the uneven and combined development of the world economy, the bourgeoisie of the backward countries is tightly bound to the feudal and imperialist interests, thereby preventing it from carrying out the fundamental tasks of the bourgeois revolution--democracy, agrarian revolution and national emancipation. In the presence of an aroused peasantry and a combative working class, each of these goals would directly threaten the political and economic dominance of the capitalist class. The tasks of the bourgeois revolution can be solved only by the alliance of the peasantry and the proletariat.

Marxism holds that there can only be one dominant class in the state. Since, as the Communist Manifesto states, the proletariat is the only consistently revolutionary class, this alliance must take the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, supported by the peasantry. In carrying out the democratic tasks of the revolution, the proletarian state must inevitably make "despotic inroads into the rights of bourgeois property" (e.g., expropriation of landlords), and thus the revolution directly passes over to socialist tasks, without pausing at any arbitrary "stages" or, as Lenin put it, without a "Chinese wall" being erected between the bourgeois and proletarian phases. Thus the revolution becomes permanent, eventually leading to the complete abolition of classes (socialism).

"While the democratic petty-bourgeois wish to bring the revolution to a conclusion as quickly as possible, and with the achievement, at most, of the above demands, it is our interest and our task to make the revolution permanent until all more or less possessing classes have been forced out of their position of dominance, until the proletariat has conquered state power, and the association of proletarians, not only in one country but in all the dominant countries of the world, has advanced so far that competition among the proletarians of these countries has ceased and that at least the decisive productive forces are concentrated in the hands of the proletarians. For us the issue cannot be the alteration of private property but only its annihilation, not the smoothing over of class antagonisms but the abolition of classes, not the improvement of existing society but the foundation of a new one."

--Karl Marx, "Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League," 1850

Rob makes the claim that Socialism in One Country is an attempt to deal with the problems brought on by... the revolution not succeeding.

First, let us look at what others have said:

"Question Nineteen: Can such a revolution take place in one country alone?
"Answer: No. Large-scale industry, by creating a world market, has so linked up the peoples of the earth, and especially the civilized peoples of the earth, that each of them is dependent on what happens in other lands....The communist revolution will, therefore, not be a national revolution alone; it will take place in all civilized countries, or at least in Great Britain, the United States, France and Germany, atone and the same time."

--F. Engels, "The Principles of Communism," 1847

And some Lenin:
"The Russian revolution has enough forces of its own to conquer. But it has not enough forces to retain the fruits of its victory...for in a country with an enormous development of small-scale industry, the small-scale commodity producers, among them the peasants, will inevitably turn against the proletarian when he goes from freedom toward socialism....In order to prevent a restoration, the Russian revolution has need, not of a Russian reserve; it has need of help from the outside. Is there such a reserve in the world? There is: the socialist proletariat in the West."

What do we have here?
"But the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the power of the proletariat in one country does not yet mean that the complete victory of socialism has been ensured. The principal task of socialism--the organization of socialist production--has still to be fulfilled. Can this task be fulfilled, can the final victory of socialism be achieved in one country, without the joint efforts of the proletarians in several advanced countries? No, it cannot. To overthrow the bourgeoisie the efforts of one country are sufficient; this is proved by the history of our revolution. For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, particularly of a peasant country like Russia, are insufficient; for that the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries are required."

--J. V. Stalin, "Foundations of Leninism," May 1924

And now for the other side:
The 7th congress of the Comintern (1935) claimed:
"the final and irrevocable triumph of socialism and the all-sided reinforcement of the state of the proletarian dictatorship is achieved in the Soviet Union."

The 1936 programme of the Communist Youth said:
"The whole national economy of the country has become socialist."

In the discussion, one of the speakers claimed:
"The old program contains a deeply mistaken anti-Leninist assertion to the effect that Russia can arrive at socialism only through a world proletarian revolution.' This point of the program is basically wrong. It reflects Trotskyist views."

The constitution, written by Bukharin and approved by Lenin is... anti-Leninist? Seriously, what the ******** kind of warped falsification can justify that nonsense?

Now let's look at it, was the SU socialist? No, not at all. Socialism is a period when classes have been abolished, and the state is withering away. Was the state withering away in the SU? No, it was one of the strongest and most centralised states in the history of humanity, and it needed to be. But that necessity is only proof that Russia was unable to achieve socialism on its own, and that socialism in one country is utter nonsense. As for Albania, it's a country of ******** peasants!


"this development of productive forces...is absolutely necessary as a practical premise [for socialism]: firstly for the reason that without it only want is made general, and with want the struggle for necessities and all the old crap would necessarily be reproduced; and, secondly, because only with this universal development of productive forces is a universal intercourse between men established....Without this, (1) communism could only exist as a local event; (2) the forces of intercourse themselves could not have developed as universal, hence intolerable, powers...;and (3) each extension of intercourse would abolish local communism. Empirically, communism is only possible as the act of the dominant
peoples 'all at once' or simultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of productive forces and the world intercourse bound up with them."

--K. Marx and F. Engels, The German Ideology, 1847

So sayeth the prophets.

Now let's go look at what S1C meant in practice:
After the pre-revolutionary situation in England in 1925:
In 1925 British coal operators sought to terminate the 1924 contract and replace it with anew agreement which would reduce miners to a below-subsistence standard of living. After an official inquiry into the industry the government returned a report which would have placed the main burden of modernizing the coal industry on the miners. Their answer was a strike beginning on 3 May 1926. The next day
the whole country was in the throes of a general strike. Councils of action were set up in the workers' districts to keep up morale and control the issuing of permits for emergency work or special transport. This was not simply an industrial dispute but a direct attack on the bosses' state. The General Council of the Trades Union Congress, which had been entrusted with the conduct of the strike, called it off after nine days and at the height of its effectiveness, frightened by its revolutionary implications. Men going back to work found themselves blacklisted or accepted back only on terms including reduction in wages, loss of seniority or leaving the unions. On 13 May a second general strike occurred over the victimizations, but after conciliatory speeches from the TUC leaders--and having no alternative leadership--the men again returned to work. The miners stayed out until a series of separate agreements made between 23 and 29 December, but they were forced by the treachery of the trade-union tops to fight alone. The owners won on all counts: the national contract was lost and miners had to work longer hours for lower wages.

After this, it is only principled that the SU pull all association with the reformist leaders of that union group, and yet in the interests of diplomacy, and not wanting to lose an ally in the UK, Stalin demanded that the association be maintained. Socialism in one country means "We have socialism here, and we need to protect it, its prestige, and its diplomatic clout at all costs, even at the cost of socialism in other countries, even at the cost of abandoning the revolutionary working class in other countries".

Look, I can't be bothered going on much further with this, but suffice to mention the events in China, with the fusion of the CCP with the nationalists, the demand that the CCP call off the peasant insurrection against the 'anti-imperialist bourgeoisie', the demand that the revolutionary struggles of the proletariat against the 'anti-imperialist bourgeoisie' stop. The 1927 Shanghai revolution, betrayed by Stalin, who ordered the CCP, who protested greatly, to abandon the soviets and let the nationalists into the city unopposed, resulting in the slaughter of tens of thousands of worker-communists.

Even after this, Stalin demanded a government alliance between the CCP and 'left KMT' in Wuhan. Because of the disasters of these policies in courting the 'anti-Imperialist' bourgeoisie, and because of the massive criticism coming from the CCP and Left Opposition, he ordered an adventurist uprising in Canton, where it was bound to suffer defeat. And defeat it suffered, though heroically.

Do I need to go through the 'popular fronts'? How about the Spanish Revolution? How about the betrayal of the proletariat in France at the end of WW2? How about the Indonesian events in 1965, that just like the fusion with the KMT above resulted in the slaughter of communists, in this case 3 million peasants and communists were slaughtered by the nationalists? How about the French days in 1968 where the Communist Parties opposed the taking of power... Or the failed Portuguese revolution in the 1970's...

There is no justification for socialism in one country. It is the theory of the betrayal of the international revolution, and in that way, rather than helping cement the proletarian regime in the SU, lead directly to Yeltsin.

☭Gracchvs

"“It is the duty of the Party to bury Trotskyism as an ideological trend.” – Joseph Stalin

Lets start with this quote by Engels.

"Question Nineteen: Can such a revolution take place in one country alone?
"Answer: No. Large-scale industry, by creating a world market, has so linked up the peoples of the earth, and especially the civilized peoples of the earth, that each of them is dependent on what happens in other lands....The communist revolution will, therefore, not be a national revolution alone; it will take place in all civilized countries, or at least in Great Britain, the United States, France and Germany, atone and the same time." -F. Engels


The proletariat experience of both Russia and Albania disprove this dated thesis. To deny so is to deny the socialist character of the Russian revolution which I suppose is typical of a Trotskyist. Trotsky very often denied things when reality proved him wrong. To give but one example:


“The only more or less concrete historical consideration put forward against the slogan of the United States of Europe was formulated in the Swiss Social-Democrat in the sentence which follows: ‘Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism.’ From this the Social-Democrat drew the conclusion that the victory of Socialism was possible in a single country, and that, therefore, there was no point in making the creation of a United States of Europe the condition for the dictatorship of the proletariat in each separate country. That capitalist development in different countries is uneven is an absolutely incontrovertible fact. But this very unevenness is itself extremely uneven. The capitalist level of England, Austria, Germany or France is not identical. But in comparison with Africa or Asia all these countries represent capitalist ‘Europe’, which has grown ripe for the social revolution. That no single country should ‘wait’ for others in its own struggle is an elementary idea which it is useful and necessary to repeat, in order to avoid the substitution of the idea of expectant international inaction for the idea of simultaneous international action. Without waiting for others, we begin and continue our struggle on our national soil quite sure that our initiative will give an impetus to the struggle in other countries; but if that should not happen, then it would be hopeless, in the light of the experience of history and in the light of theoretical considerations, to think, for example, that a revolutionary Russia could hold its own in the face of conservative Europe or that a Socialist Germany could remain isolated in the capitalist world.” - Leon Trotsky(Program of Peace 1917)

Trotsky wrote this in 1917, republishing it in 1924 obviously finding it correct. This was republished in 1924 when the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia did hold its own in the face of capitalist Europe for eight years when this was republished. The facts have spit in Trotsky's face yet he continues to cling on his obviously incorrect thesis. Trotsky recognizes this, so he interprets away the errs in his postcript to the pamphlet mentioned above:

“The assertion, repeated several times in A Program of Peace, that the proletarian revolution cannot be carried through to a victorious conclusion within the boundaries of one country may appear to some readers to be refuted by almost five years’ experience of our Soviet Republic. But such a conclusion would be groundless. The fact that the workers’ State has maintained itself against the whole world in a single country, and in a backward country at that, bears witness to the colossal might of the proletariat, which in other countries more advanced, more civilized, will be capable of performing real wonders. But, although we have held our ground in the political and military sense as a State, we have not yet set to work to create a Socialist society and have not even approached this stage. So long as the bourgeoisie remains in power in the other European countries, we are compelled, in our struggle against economic isolation, to seek for agreements with the capitalist world; at the same time one may say with certainty that these agreements may at best help us to cure some of our economic ills, to take one or another step forward, but that genuine advance in the construction of Socialist economy in Russia will become possible only after the victory of the proletariat in the most important countries of Europe.”

In other words "The revolution is ******** doomed unless a revolution happens somewhere else" Russia did not meet Trotsky's view of socialism therefore it was not socialism! Whats further , we can derive the idea that when a revolutionary situation occurs the proletariat should not take power unless there are other countries ready to take power as well. The proletariat would be wise to ignore the opportunity to take state power if no one else is ready to revolt. Funny how Trotsky claims to be the ideological heir to Lenin when Lenin himself said:

“As a separate slogan, however the slogan United States of the World would hardly be a correct one, first because it merges with Socialism, second, because it may wrongly be interpreted to mean that the victory of Socialism in a single country is impossible; it may also create misconceptions as to the relations of such a country to others.” -V.I. Lenin (On the slogan for a United States of Europe)

Whats further:

“Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of Socialism is possible first in a few or even in one single capitalist country taken separately. The victorious proletariat of that country, having expropriated the capitalists and organized its own Socialist production, would rise against the rest of the capitalist world, attract to itself the oppressed classes of other countries, raise revolts among them against the capitalists; and in the event of necessity come out even with armed force against the exploiting classes and their states.” For “the free federation of nations in Socialism is impossible without a more or less prolonged and stubborn struggle of the Socialist republics against the backward States.” -V. I. Lenin ibid.


What must also be addressed is the Marxist understanding of socialism. According to Marx there two phases. I apologize for the length of the quote but we cannot do without it:

" But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only -- for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.

But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!" -K. Marx (Critique of the Gotha programme)


There are two phases to communism, the first being Socialism where economic classes still exist a point which Gracchvs conveniently denies when he says :

" Socialism is a period when classes have been abolished, and the state is withering away. - Gracchvs

The state would have no need to wither away if classes didn't exist because the state arises when class conflict becomes irresolvable. No classes, no state. The state needed to exist in the Soviet Union because classes still existed- Kulaks, the peasantry and of course hostile capitalist powers. The kulaks caused trouble in the country side. If the state was so powerful could they simply have crushed them? They did, but by the state I mean the working class. I will recall the tale of the 25,000. 25,000 workers voluntarily went to the country side to assist in the collectivization and to thwart Kulak resistance. If the party or the bureaucracy could do it themselves why did the call upon the workers? For shits and giggles? I think not.


I would only like to say in passing that Stalin was but one man, and as we know one man does not turn the tide of history. A nation could never be run by one person, it is a collection of individuals all working under the whip of material reality. Did the USSR make mistakes? Yes. Did Stalin make mistakes? Yes. Did the Comintern make mistakes? Yes. But all of these had victories as well. We know well that the proletarian revolution is not one victory after another it is a prolonged epoch of class struggle, filled with retreat, advance, defeat, and victory. But I suppose it's easier for Trotskyists to be critics than revolutionaries, considering they've yet to lead the working class to anyvictory.  

[The Curse]

Quote:

considering they've yet to lead the working class to anyvictory.

Hugo Chavez identifies as a Trotskyist.  

[Le Pere Duchesne]

Rob, you know that what you are saying is wrong, you've admitted such on many occasions, but then you go back to this Stalinist nonsense.

All the quotes you bring up are distorted or interpreted in the most silly ways. While I expect with you it is an honest mistake, it is traditional in the Stalinist movement to falsify the positions of Trotskyism.

Thank you for catching that quote from PrinCom though. I'd quoted it from another work and in my haste did not notice the ellipsis, which totally changed the character of the answer:

— 19 —
Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone?

No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others.

Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany.

It will develop in each of these countries more or less rapidly, according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more significant mass of productive forces. Hence, it will go slowest and will meet most obstacles in Germany, most rapidly and with the fewest difficulties in England. It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now, while greatly stepping up its pace.

It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range.

This is the full quote. This cannot be denied. Each revolution has a number of general causes that are more or less present in every other major country in that epoch, and the revolution in one country will inspire revolution in others. We saw this in the aftermath of WW1, where the whole world erupted in a revolutionary conflagration. There is no way to deny this, because to do so is to say that each country is isolated, is a kind of Lego-piece, all on its own that touches, but is completely separate from every other. There is no country like that, before or after October.

The first quote you give of Trotsky is quite clear: We cannot count on foreign revolutions to radicalise our proletariat, we must do it, we must take power, and in that way we must radicalise the international proletariat. The second quote is also clear: We've taken power, and we must hold on by the teeth to what we have, but we must not delude ourselves into thinking that this is communism, we are too poor for that.

Your characterisation of the second quote is absolutely false. Trotsky does say the revolution is doomed unless it spreads, but this is a difference between Stalinism and Trotskyism: Trotskyism is internationalist. It is understandable that a Stalinist would see that and say that there's no hope. After all, if one can't build socialism in one country, what's the point, right? Right? No. For us it means that we must not cease trying to spread the revolution. We must not make deals with any capitalist power that say "our comrades will cease trying to take power in your lands". The revolution needs to spread. So rather than jut not take power, as is the immediate response of Stalinism, we wish to take power in each country that we are able, when able, and to use that state power to support the not-yet successful revolutions. This is especially important in the more undeveloped countries where they simply lack the means to overtake imperialism.

The quote given by Lenin is also very clear in the context of the article, and of the party at that time: He is not talking about 'socialism in one country' as the term is used by Stalinism. He is talking about the victory of the socialist revolution, and no one at the time thought differently, as shown by the quote from Stalin in my post. The socialist revolution, upon victory, will serve to spread the revolution abroad, as given in your further quote.

And this began to happen after WW1, but with the defeat in Poland (caused, funnily enough, by Stalin deciding to split his army, thus allowing each portion to be defeated in turn on the approach to Warsaw) and Italy the opportunity closed, and the next revolutionary period had to be awaited. The rearguard action in Germany, the Revolution of 1923, was betrayed betrayed by the KPD, on orders from the Troika (Zinoviev in particular), in much the same manner that Zinoviev and Kaminev, both members of the troika, acted on the eve of October...

One could include the events of WW2 and its aftermath in this, and it wouldn't change much.

You quote from the Critique, but I think you payed as much attention to what you were quoting as I did in my original post, when I quoted the ellipsis'd q19 from PrinCom. Here, there is no talk of classes, merely that there is still inequality because communism is still not mature enough. The higher phase of communism only exists once the state has withered away, the process of the withering away being socialism. But let us grant for the moment that I was a little hasty in that post, and that classes still exist under socialism, although in a diminishing and attenuated form. What does that mean? It means that the increasing weakening in class differences corresponds to the withering away of the state, and that classes will disappear more and more the closer one approaches communism. In this case, this must mean that the class contradictions facing the Soviet Union were still extremely great, in order to have an apparatus that could perpetrate the purges. And the menace, even if we take the Stalinist announcements that 'classes have been abolished' and all that... the menace of the class contradictions still looms, because the rest of the world was still capitalist, moreover the strongest countries were capitalist and still posed a threat, if militarily-diplomatically and through espionage. for just this reason it is impossible to say the SU had achieved socialism. It couldn't, because it was in no position to relinquish the state, to have it 'wither away'. Each step, on the contrary, strengthened it vis-a-vis the population, alienated the working class from it, and raised it above society as a whole. One can argue the necessity of the turn to Stalinism in that regard, but one cannot argue that this, along with attendant increase in inequality, not decrease (I'm looking at the wage differences between workers, technical experts, and bureaucrats, the other perks that the Party members got, like shops that only catered to party members, and the other bureaucratic advantages received, all of which had nothing to do with the natural inequalities between people, but social position).

Finally, the refrain that Stalin was only one man is useless here. This is shown in part by the fact that the title of the thread mentions Stalin and Trotsky, and not Stalinism and Trotskyism. When someone has such influence and administrative power, they can use it. The reason Stalin had this power is because he represented the interests of the bureaucracy, and if he had turned away from the interests of the bureaucracy he would have been ousted and replaced by a new Stalin. But the power Stalin had is undeniable, however 'modest' he may have acted about it (such modesty was necessary, as extravagance at the top would be responded to by motions of the working class below). The similar refrain 'there were mistakes, yes!' is also rather grating. There are mistakes, and then there are the times when you shake hands with Kautsky and Ebert on the 4th of August. There is no way to deny that in every instance that I've given, where the Stalinists made 'mistakes', the left opposition and Trotsky had the correct position. To dismiss this with 'well you're just criticising' is to not look reality squarely in the face: Trotsky lead the October insurrection and built the Red Army. One cannot deny that. We criticized, we were right, and the road followed by Stalinism has lead to defeat, and massacre, and betrayal after betrayal. One cannot deny that.

I repeat my characterisation of S1C, that I gave in my original post:
"We have socialism here, and we need to protect it, its prestige, and its diplomatic clout at all costs, even at the cost of socialism in other countries, even at the cost of abandoning the revolutionary working class in other countries".

For someone who claims fait accompli as the justification of Stalinism, you seem to be ignoring that very, very real practical result: When it came down to counter-revolution, there wasn't even a civil war, the Stalinist state crumbled, and the Stalinists just gave up power. The only ones to fight against counter-revolution, and not merely to denounce it from afar (or worse, join Yeltsin's barricades), the only group to go to the DDR, and thence to the SU, to try to salvage the situation, to lead the workers to power, and to oppose counter-revolution through workers struggle was the Spartacist League, the only authentic Trotskyist organisation. None of the Stalinist parties did, neither the Moscow-line parties, the Maoists, nor the Hoxhaists.

☭Gracchvs

 

[SoViEtTaNkT34]

Gracchia Blanqui

For someone who claims fait accompli as the justification of Stalinism, you seem to be ignoring that very, very real practical result: When it came down to counter-revolution, there wasn't even a civil war, the Stalinist state crumbled, and the Stalinists just gave up power. The only ones to fight against counter-revolution, and not merely to denounce it from afar (or worse, join Yeltsin's barricades), the only group to go to the DDR, and thence to the SU, to try to salvage the situation, to lead the workers to power, and to oppose counter-revolution through workers struggle was the Spartacist League, the only authentic Trotskyist organisation. None of the Stalinist parties did, neither the Moscow-line parties, the Maoists, nor the Hoxhaists.

☭Gracchvs

And how did that work out? Oh thats right just like Spain and any other Trotskyist organization. Its rather strange how well Maoism is doing in comparison.

Now if the Spartacist League had ordered those 3 tank divisions from Poland/fringe East Germany than I'd be one happy boy but Neither of them did. I think we are in agreeance that the proper way to put down a rebellion would have been the Hungarian method wink .

@ Curse: Where does Hugo consider himself a Trotskyist? J/w I havent read anything on that yet. This is why I tend to stay away from South American revolutionaries.. but also mainly because of their desire to keep religious institutions aka Castro, Hugo, Zapatistas etc  

[Le Pere Duchesne]

SoViEtTaNkT34

Gracchia Blanqui

For someone who claims fait accompli as the justification of Stalinism, you seem to be ignoring that very, very real practical result: When it came down to counter-revolution, there wasn't even a civil war, the Stalinist state crumbled, and the Stalinists just gave up power. The only ones to fight against counter-revolution, and not merely to denounce it from afar (or worse, join Yeltsin's barricades), the only group to go to the DDR, and thence to the SU, to try to salvage the situation, to lead the workers to power, and to oppose counter-revolution through workers struggle was the Spartacist League, the only authentic Trotskyist organisation. None of the Stalinist parties did, neither the Moscow-line parties, the Maoists, nor the Hoxhaists.

☭Gracchvs

And how did that work out? Oh thats right just like Spain and any other Trotskyist organization. Its rather strange how well Maoism is doing in comparison.

Now if the Spartacist League had ordered those 3 tank divisions from Poland/fringe East Germany than I'd be one happy boy but Neither of them did. I think we are in agreeance that the proper way to put down a rebellion would have been the Hungarian method wink .

@ Curse: Where does Hugo consider himself a Trotskyist? J/w I havent read anything on that yet. This is why I tend to stay away from South American revolutionaries.. but also mainly because of their desire to keep religious institutions aka Castro, Hugo, Zapatistas etc

It failed, and the DDR went through counter-revolution, and the leader of the Spartacists in Russia was killed by neo-nazis. That's beside the point, however. Stalinism refused. The more conservative elements in the CPSU leadership tried a coup, but didn't have the backbone to go through with it. They also pulled out of Europe after the pro-socialism demonstrations in the DDR January 1990. That's right, the Stalinists LET the DDR suffer counter-revolution because workers saw the bureaucracy was disintegrating. Rather than tanks being useful, they would have been useless. The collapse of Stalinism in Eastern Europe wasn't some mass uprising of workers to try to abolish bureaucratic privileges or some counter-revolutionary coup, rather it was the disintegration of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Tanks were simply not an option, because the bureaucracy that controlled those tanks had lost the will to rule the workers' states, lost faith in socialism, and lost the authority to tell the tanks to go in.

So to say it ended like Spain is wrong. In Spain, the Stalinists, Social Democrats, and Anarchist leaders butchered the workers when they went on strike against the 'republican' capitalists, and this lead to the defeat of the Spanish revolution. In Eastern Europe and the SU, the Stalinists just gave up power.

Also, Maoism? Really? Maoism declared the Soviet Union to be 'red imperialist' and that it did not deserve defence, and used this as an excuse to enter into a military alliance with the leading global imperialists, the USA, against the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union went into Afghanistan to put an end to the woman-hating clericalist cutthroats, the Maoists OPPOSED this, and SUPORTED the US giving arms and money and other aid to the mujahadeen.

It doesn't matter if Maoism is popular among the more backward regions of the planet, because it is completely and utterly wrong: Pro-Imperialist, homophobic, sexist, and anti-worker.

re: Chavez:
The man could call himself Jesus-Buddha-Hubbard, but it wouldn't change the fact that hes a filthy ******** populist.

☭Gracchvs

 

[The Curse]

SoViEtTaNkT34

@ Curse: Where does Hugo consider himself a Trotskyist? J/w I havent read anything on that yet. This is why I tend to stay away from South American revolutionaries.. but also mainly because of their desire to keep religious institutions aka Castro, Hugo, Zapatistas etc

http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com/2007/02/01/chavez-the-trotskyist-is-it-time-for-the-sixth-international-already/  

[Le Pere Duchesne]

The Curse

SoViEtTaNkT34

@ Curse: Where does Hugo consider himself a Trotskyist? J/w I havent read anything on that yet. This is why I tend to stay away from South American revolutionaries.. but also mainly because of their desire to keep religious institutions aka Castro, Hugo, Zapatistas etc

http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com/2007/02/01/chavez-the-trotskyist-is-it-time-for-the-sixth-international-already/

Go away curse. You know as well as I that any claims Chavez makes to Trotskyism carry as much weight as any claims I could make to Liberalism or Stalinism.

☭Gracchvs

 

[The Curse]

Gracchia Blanqui

The Curse

SoViEtTaNkT34

@ Curse: Where does Hugo consider himself a Trotskyist? J/w I havent read anything on that yet. This is why I tend to stay away from South American revolutionaries.. but also mainly because of their desire to keep religious institutions aka Castro, Hugo, Zapatistas etc

http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com/2007/02/01/chavez-the-trotskyist-is-it-time-for-the-sixth-international-already/

Go away curse. You know as well as I that any claims Chavez makes to Trotskyism carry as much weight as any claims I could make to Liberalism or Stalinism.

☭Gracchvs

You're several comments too late with the snippiness. Tank asked where he made the claim and I provided a link.  

[Intermundia]

Sorry It took me a couple days to get back to this. Been busy with s**t. Anyway, Gracchvs, as painful as it is for me to say this you are once again correct. I capitulate. The prerequisite for the achievement of communism is the withering away of the state, and that can only be achieved if class antagonisms seek to exist, which is only possible under a world system. To isolate it is to say "******** you" to the world revolution and to communism.

I remember drawing this conclusion a month or two ago but I think I went on a binge and forgot about it completely. Regardless, De-Stalinization has begun.


The point of the Critique post was to demonstrate how class antagonisms under socialism still exist, therefore the state still exists to some degree. But yeah you got the point.  

[Le Pere Duchesne]

I know things are weird for you at the moment, that's why I didn't attack you as an opponent, but gave you the benefit of the doubt. Nice to see that you agree with some of what I've said, though. heart

☭Gracchvs

 

[Intermundia]

Gracchia Blanqui

I know things are weird for you at the moment, that's why I didn't attack you as an opponent, but gave you the benefit of the doubt. Nice to see that you agree with some of what I've said, though. heart

☭Gracchvs

The path of truth is a rigid one.  

[Upper-cut_flash]

Gracchia Blanqui

Each revolution has a number of general causes that are more or less present in every other major country in that epoch, and the revolution in one country will inspire revolution in others.

Yes, that is the way it should be, and that is what was expected during and after the October Revolution. But you're using too much hindsight here. Right from the beginning, the Soviet Union was isolated and came under the brunt of foreign reaction, and despite revolutionary attempts in multiple countries across Europe, the Soviet economy was devestated and needed to industrialize if it were to ever compete on the world stage.

We saw this in the aftermath of WW1, where the whole world erupted in a revolutionary conflagration. There is no way to deny this, because to do so is to say that each country is isolated, is a kind of Lego-piece, all on its own that touches, but is completely separate from every other. There is no country like that, before or after October.

Gracchia Blanqui

The first quote you give of Trotsky is quite clear: We cannot count on foreign revolutions to radicalise our proletariat, we must do it, we must take power, and in that way we must radicalise the international proletariat. The second quote is also clear: We've taken power, and we must hold on by the teeth to what we have, but we must not delude ourselves into thinking that this is communism, we are too poor for that.

I don't think anybody is going to argue against this. The only thing I might say is that a single country can build infact build up their economy and reach an advanced form of socialism by relying on their own strength. The size of the country does not matter. Dialectical decision-making in the planning process can accomplish

Gracchia Blanqui

Your characterisation of the second quote is absolutely false. Trotsky does say the revolution is doomed unless it spreads, but this is a difference between Stalinism and Trotskyism: Trotskyism is internationalist. It is understandable that a Stalinist would see that and say that there's no hope. After all, if one can't build socialism in one country, what's the point, right? Right? No.

This is contradictory considering what I've heard from other Trotskyists. Often they claim that Russia was too backwards and isolated to organize socialist production and that the peasantry was too medievil to be organized into collective and state farms.

Gracchia Blanqui

For us it means that we must not cease trying to spread the revolution. We must not make deals with any capitalist power that say "our comrades will cease trying to take power in your lands". The revolution needs to spread.

Hmm I'm guessing you're posting this in reference to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which was never meant to be a full scale alliance, but rather a temporary measure in order to save time and build up both sides' armies.

And nobody is denying the need for the revolution to spread in order to guarantee the final victory of socialism. Even Stalin himself admitted this:

"The support of our revolution by the workers of all countries and still more the victory of workers in at least several countries is a necessary condition for fully guaranteeing the first victorious country against attempts at intervention and restoration a necessary condition for the final victory of socialism" - Stalin

I don't believe in the false dichotomy of SIOC vs. world revolution. Internationalism is not a trait distinct of Trotskyism. Every Marxist wants world revolution.

Gracchia Blanqui

So rather than jut not take power, as is the immediate response of Stalinism, we wish to take power in each country that we are able, when able, and to use that state power to support the not-yet successful revolutions. This is especially important in the more undeveloped countries where they simply lack the means to overtake imperialism.

I'll ignore the jab at Stalin at the beginning of your post and move onto the bulk.
What makes you think that underdevloped countries lack the means to shake off imperialism? I hate to throw myself into stereotypes, but look at socialist Albania. They managed to fight off the Greeks, the Yugoslavs, and the Americans when they tried to restore the monarchy through a bay of pigs style invasion in the 50s. Not only that, but Hoxha ripped Khruschev a new one when he suggested that Albania should remain an orchard for Eastern Europe.

For the time being, this is all I'll respond too. Time is short right now, and I lack the time to thoroughly study the rest of your post. I might come back to it later.  

[Le Pere Duchesne]

Thanks for the reply.

Quote:

Yes, that is the way it should be, and that is what was expected during and after the October Revolution. But you're using too much hindsight here. Right from the beginning, the Soviet Union was isolated and came under the brunt of foreign reaction, and despite revolutionary attempts in multiple countries across Europe, the Soviet economy was devastated and needed to industrialize if it were to ever compete on the world stage.

Nope, not using too much hindsight. Trotsky was saying at the time that the revolution needed to spread, and trying to offer his counsel to the Comintern on the correct tactics, like not joining the KMT, for example...

Quote:

I don't think anybody is going to argue against this. The only thing I might say is that a single country can build in fact build up their economy and reach an advanced form of socialism by relying on their own strength. The size of the country does not matter. Dialectical decision-making in the planning process can accomplish

Rational planning can certainly build up the economy, but not to socialism. Each country has limited resources, people, and technical skills. Capitalism seeks to overcome this through imperialist expansion. Socialism overcomes it through economic planning in the most advanced countries in the world. For a country, especially a poor one like Albania, to rely on its own strength means to lack the technical education of the more advanced countries, to lack the raw materials of the advanced countries, and to lack the commodities of the advanced countries. Hemmed in on all sides, with a dearth of resources, classes cannot disappear, and must in some measure become permanent, while the bulk of the economy is dedicated to the military in an effort to merely survive. This is before we deal with bureaucratic corruption!

Let's go back to Marx for a moment:

"this development of productive forces...is absolutely necessary as a practical premise [for socialism]: firstly for the reason that without it only want is made general, and with want the struggle for necessities and all the old crap would necessarily be reproduced; and, secondly, because only with this universal development of productive forces is a universal intercourse between men established....Without this, (1) communism could only exist as a local event; (2) the forces of intercourse themselves could not have developed as universal, hence intolerable, powers...;and (3) each extension of intercourse would abolish local communism. Empirically, communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples 'all at once' or simultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of productive forces and the world intercourse bound up with them." --K. Marx and F. Engels, The German Ideology, 1847

Quote:

This is contradictory considering what I've heard from other Trotskyists. Often they claim that Russia was too backwards and isolated to organize socialist production and that the peasantry was too medievil to be organized into collective and state farms.

Haha, first lesson you will learn from hanging out in this guild: There are many groups that claim to Trotskyism, but they're wrong and I'm right. =P
The Trotskyist position on Russia is that it was too backward to achieve socialism on its own, and that it needed revolution in the advanced countries to help it along. But even with a revolution in Germany and a successful war in Poland, the SU would not have been able to become socialist. The military and economic pressure of the remaining capitalist countries, particularly the US would still have been too strong.

As for the peasantry collectivising, Trotsky advocated, long before Stalin, that the peasants should be encouraged to collectivise voluntarily, by providing economic and technical incentives to those that do. Instead, the Stalinised SU followed Bulharin's policy of 'socialism at a snail's pace' where the peasants were told not to collectivise, but to 'enrich yourselves'. Under threat of counter-revolution, Stalin was forced to force collectivisation on the peasantry.

Quote:

Hmm I'm guessing you're posting this in reference to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which was never meant to be a full scale alliance, but rather a temporary measure in order to save time and build up both sides' armies.

Not only:
"Now the toiling masses in a number of capitalist countries are faced with the necessity of making a definite choice, and of making it today, not between proletarian dictatorship and bourgeois democracy, but between bourgeois democracy and fascism."
"Under certain conditions, we can and must bend our efforts to the task of drawing these parties and organizations or certain sections of them to the side of the anti-fascist people's front, despite their bourgeois leadership. Such, for instance, is today the situation in France with the Radical Party...." --G. Dimitrov, "Report to the Seventh Comintern Congress," 1935
and from the CPUSA, in the report to the CC on December 4 1936, browder said:
"We can organize and rouse them [the majority of "the people"] provided we do not demand of them that they agree with our socialist program, but unite with them on the basis of their program which we also make our own."
On a different occasion, Mr. Browder had this to say:
"In the United States we have to win the war under the capitalist system....Therefore, we have to find out how to make the capitalist system work....We have to help the capitalists to learn how to run their system."

And the French CP's paper had this to say:
"The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Spain requests us to inform the public...that the Spanish people are not striving for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, but know only one aim: the defense of the republican order while respecting private property."

Quote:

And nobody is denying the need for the revolution to spread in order to guarantee the final victory of socialism. Even Stalin himself admitted this:

Yes, he did say such. He went further in early 1924:
"But the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the power of the proletariat in one country does not yet mean that the complete victory of socialism has been ensured. The principal task of socialism--the organization of socialist production--has still to be fulfilled. Can this task be fulfilled, can the final victory of socialism be achieved in one country, without the joint efforts of the proletarians in several advanced countries? No, it cannot. To overthrow the bourgeoisie the efforts of one country are sufficient; this is proved by the history of our revolution. For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, particularly of a peasant country like Russia, are insufficient; for that the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries are required." --J. V. Stalin, "Foundations of Leninism," May 1924

The thing is, Stalinism subsequently abandoned this view, as we see at the end of the year: "we have all that is necessary for building a complete socialist society".

According to the Comintern in 1935 "the final and irrevocable triumph of socialism and the all-sided reinforcement of the state of the proletarian dictatorship is achieved in the Soviet Union."

the final and irrevocable triumph of socialism. This means nothing other than that class distinctions have ceased, and that there is no threat from capitalist restoration from outside. But this is in complete contradiction to the marxist understanding given above, "communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples"

But then... well, I'll let Stalin speak for himself:

Howard : May there not be an element of danger in the genuine fear existent in what you term capitalistic countries of an intent on the part of the Soviet Union to force its political theories on other nations?

Stalin : There is no justification whatever for such fears. If you think that Soviet people want to change the face of surrounding states, and by forcible means at that, you are entirely mistaken. Of course, Soviet people would like to see the face of surrounding states changed, but that is the business of the surrounding states. I fail to see what danger the surrounding states can perceive in the ideas of the Soviet people if these states are really sitting firmly in the saddle.

Howard : Does this, your statement, mean that the Soviet Union has to any degree abandoned its plans and intentions for bringing about world revolution?

Stalin : We never had such plans and intentions.

Howard : You appreciate, no doubt, Mr. Stalin, that much of the world has long entertained a different impression.

Stalin : This is the product of a misunderstanding.

Howard : A tragic misunderstanding?

Stalin : No, a comical one. Or, perhaps, tragicomic.

You see, we Marxists believe that a revolution will also take place in other countries. But it will take place only when the revolutionaries in those countries think it possible, or necessary. The export of revolution is nonsense. Every country will make its own revolution if it wants to, and if it does not want to, there will be no revolution. For example, our country wanted to make a revolution and made it, and now we are building a new, classless society.

But to assert that we want to make a revolution in other countries, to interfere in their lives, means saying what is untrue, and what we have never advocated.
[Source]

Quote:

I don't believe in the false dichotomy of SIOC vs. world revolution. Internationalism is not a trait distinct of Trotskyism. Every Marxist wants world revolution.

You might not believe that there is a contradiction between them, but... as Ive shown, this is exactly what the policy of S1C meant in practice, under the leadership of Comrade Stalin. 'Peaceful Co-Existence' was the official policy of the Soviet Union under Stalin, long before it was given that title by Khrushchev.

Quote:

I'll ignore the jab at Stalin at the beginning of your post and move onto the bulk.

Swap 'Stalin' for 'Trotsky' and that is something I've said to Rob many times over the last year... Those exact words, often enough...

As for the question at the end of your post, I think my answer has been given in this post and in the earlier posts in this thread.

Thanks for taking the time to put your views down. 3nodding

I'd like to ask that before your next post, that you have a read through my other posts in this thread. I understand you are busy, and that replying to everything you find wrong in all of my posts here may be time consuming, but reading them shouldn't take too long, and it will at least give you a better idea of what to expect from my responses in terms of perspective and content.

☭Gracchvs

 

[Comrade D]

Any vanguard party should be opposed as a tyrannical force!

The failures of China, Russia, Cuba, et all lie in the fact of the Vanguard party. Anarchist spain, the result of a syndicalist movement resulting in true bottom-up rule for the time it existing was preferable to the top-down approach of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin.

Any attempts at the creation of a vanguard party should be opposed by those who those that wish to see the destruction of coercion in society of all forms. At its core the vanguard party assumes the role of a paternalist who feels it is their right to dictate to the proletariat what their role shall be. Just like the capitalist before them, they are an oppressive force that institutionalizes power in itself above all, while marginalizing the working class's rights.

While there may be lip service paid to the democratic worker rule over society, the vanguard party through it's vested monopoly on violence does nothing but restrict the rightful say of workers in society.

All people do by trading off between Stalin and Trotsky is change one dictator for another, the first believes that his right to rule over the working class exists only in his country, and the later believes his right dominates the world!  

[Le Pere Duchesne]

I wrote this post on another forum, to an Anarchist who posted some copypasta from an Anarchist FAQ against the Vanguard Party.

I

Er, you could do with reading what Lenin said, instead of copypasta-ing an anarchist FAQ. Unless you wrote the FAQ in question, in which case intelectual lazyness or dishonesty is clearly evident.

Lenin's position wasn't, as that post tries to say, that the workers are stupid and don't know what they are doing and can't reach [revolutionary] socialist consciousness by themselves because of some political retardation. On the contrary, the biggest barrier to socialist consciousness also came from outside the workers movement, in the form of bourgeois culture and the crumbs from imperialism. All sorts of bourgeois ideologies serve to divert the class struggle, to turn it toward chauvinism, parliamentarism, and explosive, but largely apolitical trade unionism. To deny this is absurd.

To counter these huge pressures on the working class movement it needs a disciplined vanguard party to purge these things from the movement, to take it under its wing, and to lead it.

Contrary to the assertion [by the FAQ] that the proletariat is merely the revolutionary cannon fodder [of the vanguard party], the proletariat is extremely necessary to the life of the party. But it cannot make the party on its own in the first place. This is the big problem with the anarchist critique, it sees the Leninist viewpoint as static, and does this because it sees the working class as static. No, we don't seek to become revolutionary-technical experts for the class struggle. The socialist inteligentsia is needed in the same way as yeast in a brew. It starts the thing off, but once underway, more does not need to be added and it does not play a leading role. The fermentation has begun and will continue unabated.

Now, earlier in the FAQ I skipped a point, but now I've explained that part, this needs to be explained:
"Without a guiding organisation, the energy of the masses would dissipate like steam not enclosed in a piston. But nevertheless, what moves things is not the piston or the box, but the steam."

Can this be denied? Without an organisation, what happened in the February revolution? Representatives of the workers took hold of the movement... only in order to try as hard as possible to hand power over to the bourgeoisie. Now, yes, the anarchist refrain that there should be no leaders is sure to come here, but that simply isn't going to happen. Some people are more charismatic, articulate, and capable or organising. It is a simple fact. And in the course of struggle, they are chosen to lead, to give coherence to the multiplicity of thoughts, slogans, desires. The vanguard party is the way one group seeks to organise its members, in order to shield them from reformist impulses, to hold them to discipline, and to organise the struggle collectively. In the course of the revolution, the party is necessarily opened up to more and more workers as they attain consciousness until the party is millions strong, and these millions of workers will determine party policy in the factory and shop committees, the local committees, the national and international committees.

>>onto the next part of the copypasta...

Gonna skip over the nonsense redbaiting and deal with the actual political points made... oh, about halfway through: "workers power exists independently of the workers".

As should be clear from my explanation above, the party is not independent of the workers, but contains the best workers. After the revolution it contains huge layers of the proletariat who have been brought to revolutionary consciousness. These workers are in most cases those chosen by the workers themselves, local factory committee leaders and representatives. In this way, the broadening of the party represents the broadening of the influence of the proletariat in the party, not merely because of the increase of workers in the party, but because those workers are less and less the upper layers, but more and more they are workers who are surrounded by more and more workers in their daily lives, and they feel that pressure on them when at party meetings.

As I said in a discussion with fake-Trotskyists on this question:

"To say that the proletariat will come to Marxism [or any revolutionary consciousness] on its own is either liquidationist, as it poses the vanguard party as unnecessary, or abstentionist, by saying that intellectuals do not need to engage in practical revolutionary work, and can continue with their books and discussions and lectures and 'red universities' and all that stuff...

All because the proletariat will come on its own."