|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 2:40 am
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.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 11:13 am
This is going to be a long thread. But at least its interesting. Ladies and gentlemen, today i'm going to be playing devils advocate and defending Stalinism. As it stands, I do not consider myself a Stalinist, I'm am critical of both Stalin and Trotsky but for the sake of continuity, and to get everyone up to date with one of the most complicated questions of the present time I will the Stalinist. Don't worry kids, this is how Uncle Rob and Uncle Gracc get their kicks. We may look like we're fighting but we really do love each other! Gracc, to answer your first question. Stalinism best represents Marxism in the post-October world. It was the leadership of the party, led by Stalin. The successes of the revolution under Stalin were undeniable. After Lenin, Stalin was the first to push real socialist reforms since the installment of War Communism In the early 1930's the state began centrally allocating resources and assigned prices according to its own determination of rationality and need. In addition to this we saw also the states assistance to the peasants to establish collective farms, practice scientific farming and remitted their surpluses as payment for equipment leased. Also during this time we saw the beginning of what was called rapid industrialization. This provided millions of new jobs which expanded the level of the proletariat. Gross industrial production measured in rubles from 1926-7 rose from 18.3 milliards to 43.3 milliards, surpassing the optimal plan of 25.5 milliards. Employment in construction, transportation and industry surpassed quota, increasing from 11.3 million to 22.8 million people. by late 1931, 61% of the peasants in Russia had enrolled in the collective farms. Between 1928 and 1932, over ten million people joined the urban workforce and finally, between 1926 and 1933 the urban population swelled in the U.S.S.R.'s capital cities. Moscow: 2.2 to 3.6 million, and in Leningrad 1.6 to 3.5. And lets quote Trotsky to pull some more statistics. Trotsky The vast scope of industrialization in the Soviet Union, as against a background of stagnation and decline in almost the whole capitalist world, appears unanswerably in the following gross indices. Industrial production in Germany, thanks solely to feverish war preparations, is now returning to the level of 1929. Production in Great Britain, holding to the apron strings of protectionism, has raised itself 3 or 4 per cent during these six years. Industrial production in the United States has declined approximately 25 per cent; in France, more than 30 per cent. First place among capitalist countries is occupied by Japan, who is furiously arming herself and robbing her neighbors. Her production has risen almost 40 per cent! But even this exceptional index fades before the dynamic of development in the Soviet Union. Her industrial production has increased during this same period approximately 3½ times, or 250 per cent. The heavy industries have increased their production during the last decade (1925 to 1935) more than 10 times. In the first year of the five-year plan (1928 to 1929), capital investments amounted to 5.4 billion rubles; for 1936, 32 billion are indicated. If in view of the instability of the ruble as a unit of measurement, we lay aside money estimates, we arrive at another unit which is absolutely unquestionable. In December 1913, the Don basin produced 2,275,000 tons of coal; in December 1935, 7,125,000 tons. During the last three years the production of iron has doubled. The production of steel and of the rolling mills has increased almost 2½ times. The output of oil, coal and iron has increased from 3 to 3½ times the pre-war figure. In 1920, when the first plan of electrification was drawn up, there were 10 district power stations in the country with a total power production of 253,000 kilowatts. In 1935, there were already 95 of these stations with a total power of 4,345,000 kilowatts. In 1925, the Soviet Union stood 11th in the production of electro-energy; in 1935, it was second only to Germany and the United States. In the production of coal, the Soviet Union has moved forward from 10th to 4th place. In steel, from 6th to 3rd place. In the production of tractors, to the 1st place in the world. This also is true of the production of sugar. Gigantic achievement in industry, enormously promising beginnings in agriculture, an extraordinary growth of the old industrial cities and a building of new ones, a rapid increase of the numbers of workers, a rise in cultural level and cultural demands – such are the indubitable results of the October revolution, in which the prophets of the old world tried to see the grave of human civilization. With the bourgeois economists we have no longer anything to quarrel over. Socialism has demonstrated its right to victory, not on the pages of Das Kapital, but in an industrial arena comprising a sixth part of the earths surface – not in the language of dialectics, but in the language of steel, cement and electricity. Even if the Soviet Union, as a result of internal difficulties, external blows and the mistakes of leadership, were to collapse – which we firmly hope will not happen – there would remain an earnest of the future this indestructible fact, that thanks solely to a proletarian revolution a backward country has achieved in less than 10 years successes unexampled in history. Is this failure? Would one be right to call this the degeneration of a workers state? No. This all happened under real socialism and the leadership of Stalin. In just a few short years he brought the Soviet Union to world superpower status in few years time by adhering to socialism while Trotsky whined and complained that he didn't succeed Lenin. So what did he do? He tried to split the party. Stalin did what any Leninist would do and purge the harmful aspects of the party for not adhering to democratic centralism. Actually, Trotsky was at loggerheads with Lenin for a very long time. I find it quite odd that who claims to be the true heir of Lenin would consider himself to be one of his most bitter enemies. In 1903: "Trotsky was one of Lenin’s most vocal opponents. He charged Lenin with the attempt to build up a closed organization of conspiracy not a party of the working class... Lenin... mildly and persuasively appealed to Trotsky. All was in vain. Trotsky was stiffening in hostility" [ Deutscher: ‘Prophet Armed: Trotsky: 1879-1921’ (hereafter: ‘I. Deutscher: 1989 (1)’; Oxford; 1989; pp. 80-81.] In 1904: Trotsky ‘Lenin’s methods lead to this: the party organisation at first substitutes itself for the party as a whole; then the Central Committee substitutes itself for the organisation; and finally a single ‘dictator’ substitutes himself for the Central Committee.... Is it so difficult to see that any serious group… when it is confronted by the dilemma whether it should, from a sense of discipline, silently efface itself, or, regardless of discipline struggle for survival – will undoubtedly choose the latter course, and say: perish that ‘discipline’ which suppresses the vital interests of the movement. This evil-minded and morally repugnant suspicion of Lenin, this shallow caricature of the tragic intolerance of Jacobinism… must be liquidated at the present time at all costs, otherwise the party is threatened by complete political, moral and theoretical decay’ in 1909: Lenin says this: Lenin ‘Trotsky behaves like a despicable careerist and factionalist. He pays lip-service to the Party and behaves worse than any other of the factionalists’ In 1910: Lenin ‘Trotsky expressed the full spirit of the worst kind of conciliation, ‘conciliation’ in inverted commas... which actually renders the most faithful service to the liquidators** and Otzovists**… This position of… Trotsky is wrong’ 1911: Lenin ‘Trotsky expressed conciliationism more consistently than anyone else. He was probably the only one who attempted to give the trend a theoretical foundation. Ever since the spring of 1910 Trotsky has been deceiving the workers in a most unprincipled and shameless manner by assuring them that the obstacles to unity were principally (if not wholly) of an organisational nature. The only difference between Trotsky and the conciliators in Paris is that the latter regard Trotsky as a factionalist and themselves as non-factional, whereas Trotsky holds the opposite view. Trotsky provides us with an abundance of instances of scheming to establish unprincipled ‘unity’’ 1912: Lenin] ‘Look at the platform of the liquidators. Its liquidationist essence is artfully concealed by Trotsky’s revolutionary phrases’[/quote]
[url=http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1912/nov/05.htm]The Platform of the Reformists and the Platform of the revolutionary Social-Democrats[/url]
1914:
[quote="Lenin ‘Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. At the present moment he is in the company of the Bundists and the liquidators’ Lenin ‘Trotsky is fond of high-sounding and empty phrases. We were right in calling Trotsky a representative of the ‘worst remnants of factionalism’. Trotsky... possesses no ideological and political definiteness. Under cover of ‘non-factionalism’ Trotsky is championing the interest of a group abroad which particularly lacks definite principles and has no basis in the working-class movement in Russia. There is much glitter and sound in Trotsky’s phrases, but they are meaningless. Joking is the only way of retorting mildly to Trotsky’s insufferable phrase-mongering. Trotsky is very fond of using with the learned air of the expert pompous and high-sounding phrases, to explain historical phenomena in a way that is flattering to Trotsky... 1915: Lenin ‘Trotsky... as always entirely disagrees with the social-chauvinists in principle, but agrees with them in everything in practice’ 1916: Lenin ‘What are our differences with Trotsky?... In brief – he is a Kautskyite’ 1917: Lenin ‘Trotsky arrived, and this scoundrel at once ganged up with the Right wing of ‘Novy Mir’... That’s Trotsky for you!! Always true to himself ‘twists, swindles, poses as a Left, helps the Right’ And there is a lot more but I'm lazy and don't feel like shifting through Lenin's collected works. So as you can see up until the revolution Lenin was outright opposed to Trotsky. He was a liquidator. He continued this tendency Up through Lenin's death. trying to once again fracture the party. The first of these disagreements was Breast-Livosk. Trotsky pretty much walked in the conference, told the Germans that they were dismantling their armies and left. Despite Lenin's concern that the German's would continue to invade, Trotsky went ahead and did it anyway. What happened? The Germans invaded and Russia had to sign terrible peace agreements. Mind you, Trotsky's action was against the CC's decision. 1920: Lenin ‘I have had to enumerate my ‘differences’ with Comrade Trotsky because, with such a broad theme as ‘The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions’, he has, I am quite sure, made a number of mistakes bearing on the very essence of the dictatorship of the proletariat’ 1921: Lenin ‘The Central Committee sets up a trade union commission and elects Comrade Trotsky to it. Trotsky refuses to work on the commission, magnifying by this step alone his original mistake, which subsequently leads to factionalism, becomes magnified and later leads to factionalism’ From here on In, Lenin became ill. There was an assassination attempt on him after he was giving a speech to a bunch of factory workers. Had surgery to remove one of the bullets. Another was lodged in his spine and he never got better after that. [more to add later, out of time for now, I have a doctors appointment]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 2:14 pm
I have mentioned in other threads about the unprincipledness of playing 'devil's advocate', so I'll leave that there, and won't bother touching it until it is brought up again. Aside from that, would others like to post, for either side? I'd like to stay clear of this thread for a while so others can argue and I can come back in a few days and thoroughly dismantle the most pressing points.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 3:25 pm
Fine. Let your thread wither and die.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 3:59 pm
I'd like the thread to be a little more than you pretending to not!stalinism and me showing how your points are nonsense, you know? I want it to be more than just you and me.
That, and the ******** in the coding [ONCE ********] is frustrating me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 6:22 pm
Leon Trotsky is one of the most influental people of the 20th century and is a political genius who would have run Russia with an iron fist and a thirst for the blood of the immoral fools called Capitaists, Anarchists and Facists.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 7:06 pm
I have a love/hate attitude towards Stalin. While I despise him for the mass purges and terror caused by him, I find myself often agreeing with his politics and views on life and Marxism.
Trotsky was cool and might have been a better replacement than Stalin. Mainly I like the fact that he didnt see the Capitalist nations as allies the way Stalin did (which a better take on Marxism than Stalin's) . Its a shame he and Stalin couldn't just get along and bury the hatchet (no pun intended).
But I wonder, how would have Trotsky faired in the ultimate battle with Hitler had he become the secretary of the party?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 7:29 pm
I can no longer be... I read up on Stalin... I didn't need an article to support him, I downright rejected him on cruelty and purging alone. The ends do not justify the means, you barbaric dickface.
And HERE I reserve my response for Trotsky, which I am not going to side with simply because I dislike Stalin. BUT FIRST.... A nappies. A cog in the American death machine....
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 10:43 pm
I'm not a fan of people of either persuasion.
Besides, Trotskyism's so marginalised and small that it can hardly be called one of today's "two major fields" or whatever Graccia called it.
And Zed, purging's awesome. Ever done it? Go onto your facebook and purge at least ten people. You'll find out how cool it feels.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 10:45 pm
Nokturnal Evisceration But I wonder, how would have Trotsky faired in the ultimate battle with Hitler had he become the secretary of the party? Trotsky'd have fostered a revolutino in Germany and toppled Hitler before he ever got to be a threat.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 7:00 am
Herobane Nokturnal Evisceration But I wonder, how would have Trotsky faired in the ultimate battle with Hitler had he become the secretary of the party? Trotsky'd have fostered a revolutino in Germany and toppled Hitler before he ever got to be a threat. I seriously doubt that. If you think that somehow Trotsky would majically have saved the DAP from is historical fate into the NSDAP then your sadly mistaken. Germany didnt unite with the revolution during ww1 nor post ww1. Russia having its own economic problems with War Communism and NEP I dont think could have attempted to invade Germany. Or are you saying that the overall policy of Socialism in one Country instead of focusing on internationalism killed the DAP? Please tell me how Trotsky would have Fostered Revolution in Germany while dealing with Kulaks and collectivization at the same time. Both the Kulaks and collectivization are Trotsky's creation the only difference is the "WELL Trotsky would have implemented it better"... and if thats your case how so?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 7:11 am
Nokturnal Evisceration I have a love/hate attitude towards Stalin. While I despise him for the mass purges and terror caused by him, I find myself often agreeing with his politics and views on life and Marxism. Trotsky was cool and might have been a better replacement than Stalin. Mainly I like the fact that he didnt see the Capitalist nations as allies the way Stalin did (which a better take on Marxism than Stalin's) . Its a shame he and Stalin couldn't just get along and bury the hatchet (no pun intended). But I wonder, how would have Trotsky faired in the ultimate battle with Hitler had he become the secretary of the party? Siding with capitalist nations??????? If your talking about the Pact with Hitler then I will state that was mainly done to keep the Soviet Union out of the coming war and to expand. Why would the Soviet Union want to be caught up in a War between Capitalist nations? Its essentially the same position the United States and Britain took by not having a 2nd front till 1944... To essentially weaken the Soviet Union by having Nazi Germany go up against the Soviet Union so the outcome would be a weak Soviet Union. So simply put it in reverse He wouldnt have faired too well if he didnt Stop NEP and collectivized..which is what he was going to do... oh wait I think someone else did something strangely similar to that...c.c
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 7:15 am
SoViEtTaNkT-72 Its essentially the same position the United States and Britain took by not having a 2nd front till 1944... To essentially weaken the Soviet Union by having Nazi Germany go up against the Soviet Union so the outcome would be a weak Soviet Union. What is your evidence of this?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 7:53 am
Syntax450 SoViEtTaNkT-72 Its essentially the same position the United States and Britain took by not having a 2nd front till 1944... To essentially weaken the Soviet Union by having Nazi Germany go up against the Soviet Union so the outcome would be a weak Soviet Union. What is your evidence of this? US going into Africa instead of creating a 2nd front off the bat. Its understandable that they couldn't do so in early 1942 but late 1942 early 1943... come on The fact that the only attempt towards a 2nd front happened right after the invasion of France prior to D-day says alot as well. IF you want Ill quote Churchill and later on Truman as them being anti- Soviet which furthers this notion.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 8:36 am
Of course they were anti-Soviet they were the leaders of the two most powerful ******** capitalist countries on Earth!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
