How would Trotsky have changed the USSR?

[Combustible]

Thanks to Tukhachevsky the Red Army in 37-38 was considerably more advanced and had far more advanced theory than any of the other combatants of WW2, including Germany. Once Stalin killed him (and many others), he brought the Red Army down to the point that they almost lost WW2.

A double edged sword surely. The purge was perhaps one of the main reasons for their disaster in Finland but the removal of many of the top brass did let the likes of Zhukov rise up through the ranks.

 

[agricola]

A double edged sword surely. The purge was perhaps one of the main reasons for their disaster in Finland but the removal of many of the top brass did let the likes of Zhukov rise up through the ranks.

Not really - Zhukov was already in the position to lead Soviet forces in the brief Soviet-Japanese conflict in Mongolia of 1938, he wasnt one of the ones who found themselves bumped up into gaps filled by dead men.

 

[camouflage]

We all know what the Left Opposition's proposals were, but how would the USSR have changed if Trotsky managed to oust Stalin as de facto dictator of the USSR?

Would there have been a radical change? A reintroduction of inner-party democracy? The development of a multi-party democracy? The ending of persecution of those who disagree with the Communist Party?

Or a slightly softer version of Stalinism?

To my understanding, if Trotsky had run things the Sovjet Union would have been alot more like what the US said it was, a communist super state with a mission to spread 'communism' world wide. Under Stalin it was more just happy to guard it's western borders with a string of slavic puppet states and mind it's own gulag-ridden business.

 

[butchersapron]

In 1928?

 

[nino_savatte]

Is this another butchersapron bitchfest?

 

[Spion]

Lenin and Trotsky were committed to workers control of production as well as internationalisation of the revolution and once they'd got past the awkward situation of having had the proletariat virtually wiped out would have implemented measures to create that, AFAIK like.

 

[Spion]

It is not a question of substituting one ruling clique for another, but of changing the very methods of administering the economy and guiding the culture of the country. Bureaucratic autocracy must give place to Soviet democracy. A restoration of the right of criticism, and a genuine freedom of elections, are necessary conditions for the further development of the country. This assumes a revival of freedom of Soviet parties, beginning with the party of Bolsheviks, and a resurrection of the trade unions. The bringing of democracy into industry means a radical revision of plans in the interests of the toilers. Free discussion of economic problems will decrease the overhead expense of bureaucratic mistakes and zigzags. Expensive playthings palaces of the Soviets, new theaters, show-off subways – will be crowded out in favor of workers’ dwellings. “Bourgeois norms of distribution” will be confined within the limits of strict necessity, and, in step with the growth of social wealth, will give way to socialist equality. Ranks will be immediately abolished. The tinsel of decorations will go into the melting pot. The youth will receive the opportunity to breathe freely, criticize, make mistakes, and grow up. Science and art will be freed of their chains. And, finally, foreign policy will return to the traditions of revolutionary internationalism.

More than ever the fate of the October revolution is bound up now with the fate of Europe and of the whole world. The problems of the Soviet Union are now being decided on the Spanish peninsula, in France, in Belgium. At the moment when this book appears the situation will be incomparably more clear than today, when civil war is in progress under the walls of Madrid. If the Soviet bureaucracy succeeds, with its treacherous policy of “people’s fronts”, in insuring the victory of reaction in Spain and France – and the Communist International is doing all it can in that direction – the Soviet Union will find itself on the edge of ruin. A bourgeois counterrevolution rather than an insurrection of the workers against the bureaucracy will be on the order of the day. If, in spite of the united sabotage of reformists and “Communist” leaders, the proletariat of western Europe finds the road to power, a new chapter will open in the history of the Soviet Union. The first victory of a revolution in Europe would pass like an electric shock through the Soviet masses, straighten them up, raise their spirit of independence, awaken the traditions of 1905 and 1917, undermine the position of the Bonapartist bureaucracy, and acquire for the Fourth International no less significance than the October revolution possessed for the Third. Only in that way can the first Workers’ State be saved for the socialist future.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch11.htm#ch11-3

 

[butchersapron]

That's great. Thanks. Jesus saves as well.

 

[butchersapron]

What's you answer to the OP btw?

 

[Spion]

Whoops, I didn't tow the line. I clearly need re-educating. Please forgive me, O Dear Leader

 

[butchersapron]

Great answer, very political.

Trotsky said he wouldn't - and lenin. This is marxism is it? In 2009? Someone says something and that's it? Don't they train you anymore?

 

[Spion]

That's great. Thanks. Jesus saves as well.

Great answer, very political.

Comrade Pot, meet Comrade Kettle.

 

[butchersapron]

Compare my posts on this thread to yours.

Say something. Say something about the OP. Make a case that people can respond to. Don't just recite the bible.

 

[butchersapron]

Actually, for a trot, this lack of substantial reply is an absolute cop out.

 

[Spion]

*laughing at Butcher's attempts to prod me*

Read the OP, read what Trotsky said then get your feeble mind working, won't you, old fruit?

 

[butchersapron]

cop out it is.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

Spion, the trouble with your post and much of the trotskyist tradition is that many groups before the emergence of the Left Opposition were arguing for these things: A return to genuine democracy, restoration of the soviets as true workers councils, independent press etc. Indeed many of trotsky's demands were made by the Kronstadt Commune (the uprising was of course led by old-bolsheviks and sailors who had participated in October 1917), the workers opposition (which Trotsky opposed) and the workers group, even though the working class had taken a battering there was a wave of strikes around the same period as Kronstadt in Petrograd that show a working class that was politicised and combative.

Yet groups like the SWP/SP and all the other trotskyist sects have a weird way of looking at the degeneration of the Russian Revolution. They will only support opposition when Trotsky sees the light, any other grassroots opposition before the launch of the Left Opposition is deemed unacceptable and the crushing of the Kronstadt sailors is supported.

Let's be clear, the Left Opposition was the weakest politically of the opposition movements to Stalinism. As Anton Ciliga, a member of the Left Opposition who was imprisoned in Russia, stated, Trotsky always appeal to the bureaucrats and leadership, he never tried to mobilise the working class to fight to reclaim the revolution.

Of course, socialism-in-one-country wasn't possible, but some form of more just and democratic society, with more workers participation would have been possible.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

Some good articles on the left alternative post-1917

Bolshevik Opposition to Lenin:
G. T. Miasnikov and the Workers' Group
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/lobby/2379/mias.htm

Lenin, Also
Anton Ciliga (ex-Left Opposition)
http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/ciligaintro.html
http://www.revolutionary-history.co.uk/supplem/Cilgobit.html

 

[Spion]

Udo, I'm happy to have a conversation about it, but you'll have to set aside some of your axes for now as I can only speak for myself rather than 'much of the trotskyist tradition' and 'groups like the SWP/SP and all the other trotskyist sects'.

Anyway, so which bit of the Trosky quote do you disagree with exactly? Or is it that you don't disagree with it but it is somehow invalid because it's different from what he said/did at another time?

The OP was quite clear. He said "How would Trotsky have changed the USSR?"
To which I provided Trotsky's answer from 1936: "Bureaucratic autocracy must give place to Soviet democracy" etc

But I realise that appears quite different from his earlier actions/words and I'm happy to discuss that too.

 

[Spion]

When Trot was in power and head of the Red Army, he was a ruthless so-and-so and a keen user of 'red terror'.

If Trot had been the dictator instead of Stalin...?

I love the way you can't say Trotsky. It's like watching someone who can't say the name of a former partner because they're so not over them

 

[nino_savatte]

I love the way you can't say Trotsky. It's like watching someone who can't say the name of a former partner because they're so not over them

Innit?

 

[Udo Erasmus]

Udo, I'm happy to have a conversation about it, but you'll have to set aside some of your axes for now as I can only speak for myself rather than 'much of the trotskyist tradition' and 'groups like the SWP/SP and all the other trotskyist sects'.

Anyway, so which bit of the Trosky quote do you disagree with exactly? Or is it that you don't disagree with it but it is somehow invalid because it's different from what he said/did at another time?

The OP was quite clear. He said "How would Trotsky have changed the USSR?"
To which I provided Trotsky's answer from 1936: "Bureaucratic autocracy must give place to Soviet democracy" etc

But I realise that appears quite different from his earlier actions/words and I'm happy to discuss that too.

Cheers for the comment.

It is actually true that many people from these earlier oppositions, revolts actually attempted to do some joint work with the Left Opposition, for example, G. T. Miasnikov and the Workers' Group as mentioend in the Avrich article I linked to. Miasnikov is someone whom should actually be more well known to those who support 'socialism from below' it is quite moving how this old bolshevik managed to mobilise huge numbers of fellow members of the bolsheviks in his opposition to the bureaucratisation of the party.

But if you read the Ciliga link you see how a member of the Left Opposition became disillusioned with what Trotsky was proposing, one of his sharpest criticisms is that Trotsky for a long time presented himself as loyal to the regime, that he always presented his appeals as to the leadership rather than ever attempting to serious mobilise the working class against the regime. He also suggests that many in the Left Opposition weren't proposing a radical shift from stalinism, but rather that they could do stalinism better as it were!

My second line of critique is that most trotskyist groups around the world support Trotsky's programme of 1936, but rubbish all earlier grassroots attempts to push such a programme. Trotsky's 1936 programme isn't disimillar to the demands of the Kronstadt Uprising (whose suppression he supported), or the Workers Opposition or the Workers Group etc. or of groups outside of the Bolsheviks. The Workers Opposition was continually rubbished as petit-bourgeois when it represented the most working class element of the bolsheviks and wanted to root out the cross-class elements of the regime to strengthen its working class base.

So shouldn't we support these earlier uprisings and grassroots resistance to the degeneration of the revolution, (while maybe also supporting the left opposition) yet these are never mentioned in the literature of the trotskyist movement.

Instead we are told that the degeneration of the revolution was down to external, objective circumstances and the destruction of the working class.

But it doesn't make sense, why privellege trotsky's revolt therefore anymore than the earlier rebellions and resistance?

 

[Stobart Stopper]

We all know what the Left Opposition's proposals were, but how would the USSR have changed if Trotsky managed to oust Stalin as de facto dictator of the USSR?

Would there have been a radical change? A reintroduction of inner-party democracy? The development of a multi-party democracy? The ending of persecution of those who disagree with the Communist Party?

Or a slightly softer version of Stalinism?

Trotsky had a very pure view of communism, as defined by Karl Marx. In respect of this he represented a threat to the developing model of a national state put forward by Lenin who was trying to adapt a revolution in the face of a continuing white Russian opposition, which was sponsored by the west.
Lenin realised that he could not win such a battle unless he redefined the pure theory of Trotskyism .

 

[mk12]

Any comeback Spion, to Udo's well made points?

 

[Spion]

Any comeback Spion, to Udo's well made points?

Yeah, no rush tho

 

[butchersapron]

Do you not feel the future at your back?

 

[Spion]

Only when I'm looking the wrong way

 

[Spion]

one of his sharpest criticisms is that Trotsky for a long time presented himself as loyal to the regime, that he always presented his appeals as to the leadership rather than ever attempting to serious mobilise the working class against the regime.

For how long? What does he mean by the regime? When? How was this manifested? What does he (and you) mean by "mobilis[ing] the working class against the regime" - voting, strikes, armed insurrrection? Mobilisation takes many forms. Clearly Trotsky thought until near the late 20s at least that uncompromising and if necessary armed struggle against the leadershp of the CP was not necessary.

The real question is this - was the party reformable? And if so at what point did it cease to be reformable?

He also suggests that many in the Left Opposition weren't proposing a radical shift from stalinism, but rather that they could do stalinism better as it were!

My understanding of Stalinism at the time is bureaucratisation and operating within the USSR's national boundaries. My understanding of the Left Opposition is that it wanted a return to party and economic democracy and internationalisation of the fight for revolution. How members of the latter tried to outdo the former on the formers' own terms without becoming Stalin loyalists is beyond me.

My second line of critique is that most trotskyist groups around the world support Trotsky's programme of 1936, but rubbish all earlier grassroots attempts to push such a programme. Trotsky's 1936 programme isn't disimillar to the demands of the Kronstadt Uprising (whose suppression he supported), or the Workers Opposition or the Workers Group etc. or of groups outside of the Bolsheviks.

As I said before, I can't really have a discussion based on what others think, can I?

The Workers Opposition was continually rubbished as petit-bourgeois when it represented the most working class element of the bolsheviks and wanted to root out the cross-class elements of the regime to strengthen its working class base.

As an aside, working class people can have petit bourgeois politics. I suspect a characterisation of the WO as PB was not him saying 'You're middle class you are.'

So shouldn't we support these earlier uprisings and grassroots resistance to the degeneration of the revolution, (while maybe also supporting the left opposition) yet these are never mentioned in the literature of the trotskyist movement.

Once again, it's a bit pointless me trying to speak for 'the trotskyist movement'

But it doesn't make sense, why privellege trotsky's revolt therefore anymore than the earlier rebellions and resistance?

A very good question. I suspect it's to do with how T characterised the party and the early Soviet Union. If one believed it essentially to be progressive and (re-)formable into an asset to the w/c then one would have been against armed threats from whatever source. If one changed one's opinion on its reformability with the passage of time and events then you'd say revolution against it was necessary. Changed circumstances dictate changed attitudes.

None of which get us - well me anyway - to whether Trotsky was right or not in the early stages. I need to do a load of reading on the anarchist hobby horses of Kronstadt/Makhno stuff, so despite what I've just said above the jury is sort of out. I suspect that our disagreements are actually more fundamental than those details anyway as I think a revolutionary party is necessary and I guess you don't.

BTW, do you support Trotsky's 1936 position that I quoted above?