by jadam1 » May 22, 2002 @ 3:34pm
yeah, i had no sleep tonight writing this crap critique, ohh god, you can tell by how it lacks concentration....
"Above all in Russia—the homeland of October—the relevance of Trotskyism retains its full force. Trotsky warned long ago that the Stalinist Bureaucracy, that cancerous tumor(ulcer in Trotsky's words) on the body of the workers’ state, would end up by destroying all the gains of October. In 1936 Leon Trotsky predicted that “the fall of the present bureaucratic dictatorship, if it were not replaced by a new socialist power, would thus mean a return to capitalist relations with a catastrophic decline of industry and culture.” (The Revolution Betrayed, p. 251.) Now that prediction has been entirely vindicated. The last five or six years have provided ample proof of it. The same leaders of the so-called Communist Party of the Soviet Union who yesterday swore loyalty to Lenin and Socialism are today engaged in a disgusting scramble to enrich themselves through the systematic plunder of the property of the Soviet Union. Compared to this monstrous betrayal, the actions of the Social Democratic leaders in August 1914 seems like mere child’s play."1. In this quote from Allen Woods, he compiles Leon Trotsky's thoughts on Stalinism. Trotsky states that when the bureaucratic regime of Stalin would fail, the proletariat would not want to re-engage in a Soviet government. He claims that Stalin is a tumor to communism, and will generally eat away at it. Because of what the working class has already experienced in Stalinist USSR, they would not want to lose what they see as the benefits of a capitalist government. The wealth and the prosperity. Also, the current Russian bourgeoisie would not want to lose the power they have gained in the Black Market, and no Russian politician would lean towards a new communist revolution, as they would be killed if they said it.
In an article he wrote about "If America Should Go Communist", Trotsky says "They fear monetary inflation, bureaucratic tyranny and intolerable red tape in obtaining the necessities of life. They fear soul less standardization in the arts and sciences, as well as in the daily necessities of life. They fear that all political spontaneity and the presumed freedom of the press will be destroyed by the dictatorship of a monstrous bureaucracy. And they shudder at the thought of being forced into an uncomprehended glibness in Marxist dialectic and disciplined social philosophies. They fear, in a word, that Soviet America will become the counterpart of what they have been told Soviet Russia looks like."2. Here Trotsky talks generally about any other nation trying to achieve a current communist society. He talks about the U.S. becoming a communist nation and claims that the Soviet of America would be the most influential and powerful communist nation that could ever exist. He writes about how, after everything the Stalin portrayed in Soviet Russia, That other nations would not want to attain a communist government because they fear of becoming like Soviet Russia. When in Trotsky's words, he says "They drew this conclusion: certainly Stalinism 'grew out ' of Bolshevism, not logically, however, but dialectically; not as a revolutionary affirmation but as a Thermidorian negation. It is by no means the same." "... The experience of Stalinism does not refute the teaching of Marxism but confirms it by inversion." "... In this regard Stalinism, coarse, ignorant and thoroughly empirical, is its complete opposite." "... Stalinist bureaucracy, however, not only had nothing in common with Marxism but is in general foreign to any doctrine or system whatsoever."3. Here, Trotsky goes out of his way to explain that Stalinism is a complete opposite of Bolshevism. In his article "Stalinism and Bolshevism" dated 28 August 1937, Trotsky complains on how people believe that Stalinism was a subset of Bolshevism. He states that by it being the complete opposite of Marxism and it failing, Marxism would prosper under the same conditions. While this may be logically correct, it is not necessarily true. Stalinism was a government that came about during a time of need, when the great leader, Lenin had passed away. Trotsky believed that Stalin came into power not because of his cunning, but of his arrogance and his will to work.
" "Tell me," Skiyansky asked, "what is Stalin?"
Sklyansky knew Stalin well enough himself. He wanted my definition of Stalin and my explanation of his success. I thought for a minute.
"Stalin," I said, "is the outstanding mediocrity in the party." This definition then shaped itself for me for the first time in its full import, psychological as well as social. By the expression on Sklyansky's face, I saw at once that I had helped my questioner to touch on something significant.
"You know," he said, "it is amazing how, during this last period, the mean, the self-satisfied mediocrity is pushing itself into every sphere. And all of it finds in Stalin its leader. Where does it all come from?"
"This is the reaction after the great social and psychological strain of the first years of revolution. A victorious counter-revolution may develop its great men. But its first stage, the Thermidor, demands mediocrities who can't see farther than their noses. Their strength lies in their political blindness, like the mill-horse that thinks that he is moving up when really he is only pushing down the belt-wheel. A horse that sees is incapable of doing the work." "4. Here, in My Life, Trotsky comments on what drives Stalin. He says that Stalin prospers because he can not see what is ahead of him, he just heads straight towards the nearest goal. This is further proved as he always followed zig-zag patternss, never knowing what he was doing. Stalin's government while basing its roots in Bolshevism and Marxism, since it did come after both, detoured into a completely different government controlled by a bureaucracy, and his fear of losing power. As Trotsky said "It emerges from the movement of the masses in the first period, the heroic period. But having risen above the masses, and then having resolved its own "social question" (an assured existence, influence, respect, etc.), the bureaucracy tends increasingly to keep the masses immobile. Why take risks? It has something to lose. The supreme expansion of the influence and well-being of the reformist bureaucracy takes place in an epoch of capitalist progress and of relative passivity of the working masses. But when this passivity is broken, on the right or on the left, the magnificence of the bureaucracy comes to an end. Its intelligence and skill are transformed into stupidity and impotence. The nature of the "leadership" corresponds to the nature of the class (or of the caste) it leads and to the objective situation through which this class (or caste) is passing."5.Here Trotsky talks about how Trotsky would never want to lose his grip on the Soviet people. Instead he would want to fulfill his own greedy needs for control and wealth. But when Stalinism lost its touch (i.e. A few years after Stalin died), the government would come to an end, which it certainly did recently. The programs of control Stalin used to keep power were also a point that other politicians did not like, such as the Moscow Trials and the Secret Police. In the Moscow Trials, Stalin persecuted all of the last revolutionaries from the October Revolution. He accused the majority of them as being workers for Hitler. He used the Secret Police to murder or jail anyone that opposed his views. He did so out of his own paranoia against anyone who tried to oppose him.
Had it not been for Stalin, the communist party could of spread into other, more influential countries such as Germany. In "My Life", Trotsky talked about how he wanted the Social Democrats to join with the Communist party in Germany against Hitler. Had this happened, the combined party would have far outnumbered the Nazis, But Stalin continued on reinforcing the belief that the communist party in Germany should stay away from the Social Democrats. This of course led to the Nazis taking power and ultimately, World War II. Trotsky predicted, that when Lenin would die, it would be inevitable for Stalin to gain control, why? Trotsky himself asked, "I was often asked, and even now I still am asked: "How could you lose power ?" In most instances, the question covers a naive conception of letting some material object slip from one's hands, as if losing power were the same thing as losing a watch or a note-book. "6. He says that it wasn't as simple of a matter as just losing something, It went into a greater scope, and more into the other influences that led to Stalin's taking of power. He also partially answered himself with "The new ruling group felt that I did not fit in with this way of living, and they did not even try to win me over. It was for this very reason that many group conversations would stop the moment I appeared, and those engaged in them would cut them short with a certain faceless shame and a slight bitterness toward me. This was, if you like, a definite indication that I had begun to lose power. "7. And here he continues on that Stalin's Propaganda did not allow him to achieve any power. Stalin went so far as to not allow work to anyone who supported "Trotskyism". “Trotskyism” was the word that Stalin made in order to combat Trotsky. In reality, “Trotskyism” was the theory of a Permanent Revolution by the proletariat. Workers were interviewed, and were asked series of questions in order to gain a job, and this was during the time Lenin was still alive. "But I was repelled by those very qualities that were his strength on the wave of decline -- the narrowness of his interests, his empiricism, the coarseness of his psychological make-up, his peculiar cynicism of a provincial whom Marxism has freed from many prejudices without, however, replacing them with a philosophical outlook thoroughly thought out and mentally assimilated. Judged by some of his casual remarks, which at the time seemed accidental but actually were not, Stalin was trying to find in me support against Lenin, whose control he found so irk some. At every attempt of this sort, I instinctively drew away from him and walked on. I believe that the sources of his cold and at first cowardly but thoroughly treacherous hatred of me are to be found in this"8a. Here was his first indication of Stalin's ongoing attacks against Trotsky. Trotsky knew well of Stalin's discontent against him. But there was not much that he could do to regain control. Stalin even went so far as to jail anyone who supported Trotsky and to hide any documents that are on good terms with Lenin and Trotsky. This was part of Stalin’s plan to essentially eliminate Trotsky from the history books." Quite frequently I heard isolated remarks of Kalinin, Vorosbilov, Stalin or Rykov with alarm. Where does this come from? -- I asked myself -- from what well does it gush? When I came to a meeting and found groups engaged in conversation, often they would stop when they saw me. There was nothing directed against me in those conversations, nothing opposed to the principles of the party."8b. " The Soviet republic, like the world proletarian vanguard, will finally liberate itself from the bureaucratic octopus. The historic collapse of Stalinism is predetermined and it will be a merited punishment for its innumerable crimes against the world working class. We want and look forward to no other revenge!"9. Here Trotsky predicts of modern times in his article "How did Stalin defeat the opposition?" He believed that the Soviet Republic would collapse under its own weight to return to a capitalist society.
When the US entered the Vietnam War and Korean War, they Joined in the name of pacifism, and in the name to end communism. Trotsky said that this was an excuse for the US to enter a war10. The US also saw the benefits of War during World War II, when its economy was jolted up from a depression by the need for war and to protect themselves. It also saw for uses of its military spending by using pacifism as an excuse, Just as Wilson said, when he said "The War to End All Wars". Furthermore, Trotsky said that the bourgeoisie would use pacifism to their own benefits. They certainly did this during the Afghanistan War with the USSR. They provided the Pakistan's military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) with intelligence and arms to support the Mujahideen in order to combat Russia and Communism. By giving them arms and intelligence, the US had pushed Russia out of Afghanistan. They were during the time, also well aware of the Golden Crescent Drug Trading ring in the Middle East, which was being supported in a way, by the CIA. The CIA had no choice but to sacrifice the prospect of ending one of the major heroin producing centers in the world, but instead, chose not to in order to pursue their pacifistic "war against communism"11.
"CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of Pakistan Intelligence operated hundreds of heroin laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures or arrests ... U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin dealing by its Afghan allies `because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there.' In 1995, the former CIA director of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan, admitted the CIA had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. `Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets. We didn't really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade,'... `I don't think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout.... There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.'"12. This basically outlines the main points which i have just explained to you. It also shows how concerned the US was about the Drug Problem. The US has also used Pacifism as an excuse to wage war several other times. Almost every war the US has entered post World War I has been in the name of Pacifism. But like Trotsky said, " In the USA the pacifism of the petty-bourgeoisie showed itself in its true role, as the servant of imperialism, in an even less disguised manner. There, as elsewhere, it was the banks and the trusts which really managed politics. Even before the war, owing to the extraordinary development of industry, and of the export trade, the USA had been steadily moving in the direction of world interests and of imperialism. But the European war drove on this imperialistic development at a feverish pace. At the very moment when many pious people (even Kautsky) were hoping that the horrors of the butchery in Europe would fill the American bourgeoisie with horror of militarism, the real influence of the events in Europe was proceeding, not on psychological , but on materialistic lines, and was leading to the very opposite results. The exports of the USA, which in 1913 had totalled 2,466 millions of dollars, rose in 1916 to the crazy height of 5,481 milliards of dollars. Naturally the lion's share of this export trade was allotted to the munitions industry. Then came the sudden threat of a cessation in he export trade to the Entente countries, when unrestricted submarine warfare began. In 1915 the Entente had imported American goods up to thirty-five milliards, while Germany and Austria-Hungary had barely imported as much as fifteen millions. Thus, not only a diminution of the gigantic profits was indicated, but the whole of American industry, which had its basis in war industry, was now threatened with a severe crisis. It is to these figures that we must look for the key to the division of "sympathies" in America. And so the capitalists appealed to the State: "It is you who started this development of war-industry under the banner of pacifism, it is now up to you to find us a new market." If the State was not in a position to promise the "freedom of the seas" (in other words, freedom to squeeze capital out of human blood) then it must open a new market for the threatened war industries - in America itself. And so the requirements of the European slaughter produced a sudden, a catastrophic militarisation of the USA."13. The bourgeoisie used pacifism as an excuse to gain materialistic profit, from the War. He clearly shows how the U.S. corporations seeing how much money they were making off of the war, decided to prolong the war for their own interests, and in a sense, created "war for pacifism"14 as an excuse. " The American soviets will be full-blooded and vigorous, without need or opportunity for such measures as circumstances imposed upon Russia. Your unregenerate capitalists will, of course, find no place for themselves in the new setup[A Soviet America]. It is hard to imagine Henry Ford as the head of the Detroit Soviet."15. And continuing from before, Trotsky talks about how the American capitalists would not be able to regain conciuosness if they had not used "war for pacifism" to regain their money.
This also brings me to an interesting point about Trotsky. In "If America Should Go Communist" and in the previous qoute, Trotsky talks about " the Detroit Soviet" and "Within a few weeks or months of the establishment of the American soviets, Pan-Americanism would be a political reality.
The governments of Central and South America would be pulled into your federation like iron filings to a magnet. So would Canada. The popular movements in these countries would be so strong that they would force this great unifying process within a short period and at insignificant costs. I am ready to bet that the first anniversary of the American soviets would find the Western Hemisphere transformed into the Soviet United States of North, Central and South America, with its capital at Panama. Thus for the first time the Monroe Doctrine would have a complete and positive meaning in world affairs, although not the one foreseen by its author. "16. Here he clearly states in the belief of a Soviet of States, and that it would be the best course of action for the Soviet America. He also comments on how the Monroe Doctrine would now truly stand for no outside intervention in South America, as it would be part of the Federation of the Soviet Americas. But returning to my previous discussion, When he discusses Stalin in his essay "Stalinism and Bolshevism", He says that "The anarchists, for their part, try to see in Stalinism the organic product, not only of Bolshevism and Marxism but of 'state socialism' in general. They are willing to replace Bakunin's patriarchal 'federation of free communes' by the modern federation of free Soviets. But, as formerly, they are against centralized state power. Indeed, one branch of 'state' Marxism, social democracy, after coming to power became an open agent of capitalism. The other gave birth to a new privileged caste. It is obvious that the source of evil lies in the state. From a wide historical viewpoint, there is a grain of truth in this reasoning. The state as an apparatus of coercion is an undoubted source of political and moral infection. This also applies, as experience has shown, to the workers' state. Consequently it can be said that Stalinism is a product of a condition of society in which society was still unable to tear itself out of the strait-jacket of the state. But this position, contributing nothing to the elevation of Bolshevism and Marxism, characterizes only the general level of mankind, and above all - the relation of forces between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Having agreed with the anarchists that the state, even the workers' state, is the offspring of class barbarism and that real human history will begin with the abolition of the state, we have still before us in full force the question: what ways and methods will lead, ultimately, to the abolition of the state"17. Now he clearly shows that the state, and even a Soviet State, is the " offspring of class barbarism and that real human history will begin with the abolition of the state" when in fact, previously he promotes a Soviet America in where there would be a Soviet of the North, Central, and South Americas. This can be reinforced by his statement of a "Detroit Soviet" where he is showing that state-ship should be maintained. Trotsky in some places, can be contradictory, but not as much as Stalin. In "My Life", Trotsky talks about a release made by Stalin on the first anniversary of the October Revolution
" “All practical work in connection with the organization of the uprising was done under the immediate direction of Comrade Trotsky, the President of the Petrograd Soviet. It can be stated with certainty that the Party is indebted primarily and principally to Comrade Trotsky for the rapid going over of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the efficient manner in which the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee was organized.”
The above passage was written by Stalin on the occasion of the first anniversary of the October Revolution. Later the same Stalin could write: “Comrade Trotsky played no particular role either in the party or the October insurrection, and could not do so being a man comparatively new to our party in the October period.” (Stalin’s Works, Moscow, 1953 edition.)"18.
I believe Trotsky's writings can be applied towards today. In "My Life", "Stalinism and Bolshevism", and in "How Did Stalin come into Power?", Trotsky warns off how Stalin came into power, and the first warnings of it. We can use that information, to ward off any other Stalin-like dictators, we could of used this knowledge in Cuba with Fidel Castro, but we didn't. Also, the reasons as to why Stalin remained in power, can be used on explaining the phenomenon of why Osama Bin Laden is still in power. He is a horse, who can not see past the wheel. In essence, Osama Bin Laden sees what was put in front of his face, and cannot understand the "whole picture" "In the words of bin Laden (quoted by Beardman): "neither I, nor my brothers saw evidence of American help"."19. While, "Yet according to Abdel Monam Saidali, of the Al-aram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo, bin Laden and the "Afghan Arabs" had been imparted "with very sophisticated types of training that was allowed to them by the CIA" "20. We can also deduce that supposedly Osama Bin Laden's, and the US’s war are a "fight for pacifism", as Trotsky showed, are mere illusions created by the bourgeoisie. I believe that Leon Trotsky's work has a lot of significance even in our time. Trotsky warned of a future communist revolution after Stalin's, but i do not believe such a revolution would occur, as we have no need in our time for a communist society.
Sleep Deprived
, its about 6 pages single spaced...
