Gracchia Saint-Justine
The modern communist movement is currently shattered, but we still have two tendencies which dominate: Stalinism and Trotskyism. Both issue from the Great October Revolution. The questions posed to us iare the following:
1: Which best represents Marxism in the post-October world?
2: Which best coincides with the thought of Lenin?
3: Which offers the best understanding of revolutionary struggles and post-revolutionary development?
4: Which best formulates the tasks of the vanguard party?
5: Which provides the best orientation for a revolutionary party?
6: Which most coincides with reality?
Using Marxist texts most relevent to the question at hand, and citing historical events and material where appropriate, discuss the above six questions.
1: Marxism in the post-october world is conditioned by a, at bottom, the attitude taken toward the state. Both the state of the capitalists, and the state of the revolutionary proletariat. With this in mind, we need to know what position Lenin took toward the state. We find Stalinism claiming that socialism has been achieved in the USSR, and yet we find nothing but a growth of the state power, rather than its dimunition, rather than finding it
withering away as Lenin expressed, taking his cue from Engels and Marx. [State and Revolution]. Trotsky, in contradistinction to Stalinism, claimed that the SU was not yet sociaist, and could not be socialist due to being surrounded by hostile, and more powerful capitalist powers. This is something Lenin repeatedly emphasised, both in speeches and in articles. In fact, we don't even find the theory of Socialism in One Country until late 1924.
I think that settles the question there easily enough.
2: I've mostly answered this above, so I'll leave this for any examples that come up in the course of further discussion. And I'll fininsh the post tomorrow, because now I'll watch X-Files.
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