“Hope for peace–prepare for war!”, LENIN SHOULD BE PRAISED AS WELL AS STALIN. On the Final Victory of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. Struggle of the Bolsheviks Against Trotskyism and the Anti-Party August Bloc, The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre: Report of Court Proceedings, Evidence of Leon Trotsky’s Collaboration with Germany and Japan, Left in Form, Right in Essence: A Critique of Contemporary Trotskyism, On Trotskyism: Problems of Theory and History, Stalin and the Chinese Revolution – Two lines on the Chinese Revolution: the line of the Comintern and Stalin versus the line of the Trotskyist opposition, How Trotskyism ‘remembers’ the Spanish Civil War, Trotsky’s struggle against Fascism, according to one of his latter-day admirers, Revolution in Colombia: ISO Stands on the Wrong Side, Lessons from the RNC: Mass Mobilization and Militant Actions Advance the Struggle, http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/castro/1966/19660216, The International Pan Islamic Communist Party of Proletarian Islam, Liberation and People's Democracy in Tibet: A Study Guide, Study Guide: Overview of Marxism-Leninism, the Science of Revolution, Socialism or Barbarism? Here I deal with the man and his real story in the historical context of the Bolshevik Revolution and the subsequent construction of Socialism in the USSR until his death in 1940. ( Log Out /  Mine has been limited to those in Los Angeles with whom I have had contact. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that the SWP were part of the Fourth International, which had had 10,000 members in the Soviet Gulag fighting by hunger strikes the totalitarian regime of Stalin, and that the debate occurred at the onset of a world war, in which the side that the working class should take was supremely relevant to US workers, this shows Pham Binh’s extreme national centeredness. Trotskyism or Leninism? There are significant political reasons that Trotskyism has failed to ever lead a successful revolution. This “failure” applies almost universally to anarchists (outside of Spain in the 1930s). In fact the whole subjective side of post-war Trotskyists’ weaknesses has been their insufficient appreciation of the “valuable ideas, strategy, and tactics” inherited from Trotsky. “Our international work began only in 1929 – and not on virgin territory, but on territory saturated with old and powerful organisations, and with new, confused, and often treacherous organisations that claimed adherence to our principles… The real issue is the question of programme, of the historical orientation of the tendency. Critics have argued that since the founders of neo-conservatism included ex-Trotskyists, Trotskyist traits continue to characterize neo-conservative ideologies and practices. Treating the programme as primary instead of secondary and subordinate to the material, living movement of working people led to issues that have plagued the Trotskyist movement from its inception until today.”. “Disagreements about theory or issues facing revolutionaries in foreign countries led to splits and the resultant groups require future members to agree to their side of the issue that led to the split. please permit me to suggest that you include this book among your anti-Trot reading material.Soviet Policy and its Critics by JR Campbell.It is an extraodinary little book which shows how Trotsky’s writings as well as actions confused the left into unwittingly supporting fascism.I strongly recommend it. But demarcation on the question of the Marxist programme must precede unity… in order for that unity to be honest and long lasting.”. It is split into two great camps. They played a key role in the armed uprising during the Bolivian revolution of April 1952. The Trotskyist Opposition Before and Now I. ( Log Out /  The 1950s and 1960s witnessed an unprecedented boom in Europe and North America, where most Trotskyist groups were located. In the First World War he fought – against Trotsky amongst others – to demand a break not only from the openly chauvinist socialists who supported their own ruling class, but also from those like Karl Kautsky who would not go beyond a pacifist position. I find it creepy at best that you would in anyway support this kind of brutal repression, torture and mass murder even if in the guise of rooting out all opposition. That leaves the peasant question. An analysis of the 1930s in the Soviet Union which sees the problems as arising from bureaucracy is, I think, not very convincing. If you send me an e-mail address I would like to send you an elaborated version of the theoretical resolutions in those chapters prepared for my anthropological and archaeological colleagues entitled Karl Marx’s Second Magnum Opus, Archaeology and Primitive Communism. Furthermore in their doctrinal papers they always refer to Trotsky as a great revolutionary when in fact he was and is the Anti-Christ of the international Marxist movement, if you will. Both organizations are at least occasional participants in the International Communist Seminar in Brussels, Belgium. The Trotskyist LSSP was the first mass workers’ party in Sri Lanka and led the 1953 general strike. It was the minority who split, precisely because they could not bear to be associated with the USSR after the Stalin-Hitler Pact and the carving up of Poland. Trotsky’s reason for believing the Left Opposition could “switch the points” in Germany in 1931 was related to the acuteness of the crisis, the rise of Hitler, the fact that millions of German Communists and Social Democrats knew Trotsky was the organiser of the October Revolution and that the Left Opposition was arguing for the antifascist united front, which many of them already realised was vital. Surely the question of whether you adopt a defencist or a neutral position in a war is of some importance for a political organisation? In short they re-elaborated the Bolshevik programme, which in any case had been added to by programmatic resolutions of the congresses in 1905, 1906, 1907 and 1912. Actually, the Soviet Union made enormous strides in the 1930s in industrialization and even in living standards. It may help you to see how the Comintern was not politically monolithic. That is certainly a reactionary manifestation.” (James P. Cannon, Marxists Internet Archive). Of course they should not have simply clung to the 1938 document; they should have regularly updated the programme to meet new challenges. It was named for its ideologist and leader, L. D. Trotsky (real surname Bronshtein, 1879–1940). Hitler would have won the war. If the Trotskyist (and Maoist and Stalinist and anarchist) groups survived in a sect-like condition this was hardly surprising. This was a damning criticism which amounts to saying that three years before before the 1917 revolution, Trotsky did not consciously, that is concretely, understand what the real struggle was about in the Russian revolutionary movement. But objective economic and geo-strategic conditions also played a huge role in preventing the Trotskyists from building mass parties. This assumption of course doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. This relates to one of Stalin’s main criticisms of Trotsky, namely that Trotskyism meant forceful attacks on all the world’s leading revolutionaries. Rather the party, like the Bolsheviks in 1917, turns its key elements into popular slogans: “all power to the soviets”, “Bread peace and land”, “Workers control of production”, etc. Truly baffling…, **** Neither the WWP nor the PSL is guilty of either of those things. Stalin on the other hand, saw the party itself as a means to promote his won interests and as a tool for the control of the bureaucracy. Rather than putting unity above political clarity and organisational effectiveness, Trotsky rightly made programme the precondition of unity: “Unity is an excellent thing. I can understand not agreeing politically with Trotsky as far as organisation is concerned, but how can anybody still think that Stalin did any good for the revolution? In fact it is no wonder that Pham Binh acknowledges Duncan Hallas (SWP ideologue) as the originator of many of his criticisms. That book has been explicitly rejected by the leaders of both WW and PSL as “Stalinist.” Some Minor Questions II. In August 1945 they emerged as the main opposition to the Stalinists, with tens of thousands joining its contingents on demos. While you are at it you might want to take a look at a real world website devoted to the class struggle in South America. The Crisis of Capitalist Globalisation and the Socialist Solution. The ISO has a great weekly newspaper and yearly conference and, mores than any I identify with them. Many supplementary texts are provided as well. A welfare state, rising wages and full employment seemed to validate reformism and disprove revolutionary Marxism. Okay person with a very long name(no offence), I agree. But what in their present outlook makes them Trotskyists? He expands on his experiences to make general criticisms of anarchism. Trotskyists also criticize the bureaucracythat developed in the Soviet Union under Stalin. Trotskyism, Class, and Feminism. was their only programme. Historic issues were at stake: not least whether the revolutionary programme was a utopia, and whether Stalinism or even social democracy could perform the historic tasks of social revolution. Of course these masses, in their vast majority, will never read the programme or give their formal assent to it. However, they seem to me much more focused on Socialist Worker and their monthly rather than building revolution. The issue is a new chapter in the struggle between Marxism and centrism – a struggle that characterises our epoch.”, With tragic prescience, Trotsky identified the future fate of the Spanish ex-Trotskyist Andreu Nin and his group, the POUM .The POUM was founded on a rotten compromise between organisations with incompatible programmes. Pham Binh, an American socialist, has written a series of articles criticising far left groups on his Planet Anarchy website. In fact, Trotsky attacked not only Stalin, but also Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Radek, and virtually every other important Bolshevik in the strongest possible terms. At the same time, only a small proportion of time, effort, and resources go to leading and organising militant struggles for tangible gains like rent control or a living wage.”
Is this so? What it does not excuse is continued sectarianism in the 1970s and 1980s or today. Trotskyists are critical of Stalinism, as they oppose the idea of Socialism in One Country. The Unfinished Revolution,” the account of the International Brigade soldier and scholar of the Spanish Civil War Arthur Landis. Since the 1960s they have scarcely mentioned programme. Common sense military strategy says that first accumulate the conquered area and then make a stronghold there and advance for next front. If indeed these “ideas, strategy and tactics” (otherwise known as a programme) are of “enduring value” one wonders why Pham Binh – whose central theme is the Trotskyists’ obsession with programme – does not explain how what was so valuable before 1940 became worthless and dangerous thereafter. 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