genuinely curious what ya'll think, i apologize in advance for the struggle session this might start lmao
This is probably the proper Marxist answer. Besides, those of us that defend the USSR under Stalin literally argue that things worked out that way because of the material conditions, Stalin’s personal leadership is negligible.
However, if permanent rev became the official doctrine, I don’t know if the USSR even survives that long. The material reality in the 20s was that the Red Army couldn’t just sweep across Europe to spread socialism. So then it comes down to “was Trotsky just criticising the leadership for making hard but necessary choices because he was butthurt, or would he actually have stuck to his guns if he was in power?”. The quote you mention seems to suggest the former.
Trotsky probably was just salty about not being GenSec, he had a notoriously big head about himself as a revolutionary. You're right though, he wanted international rev and when it didn't pop off he probably would've fomented it covertly while offering the international commies support of the Red Army. He was way too optimistic about revolutionary contagion.
probably, but i dont think he would propose the popular front between republicans and anarchists
The leaders of the CNT and FAI themselves declared after the uprising of May 1937: “Had we wished, we could have seized power at any time, because all the forces were on our side, but we did not want any dictatorship,” etc., etc. What the Anarchist servitors of the bourgeoisie did or did not want is in the long run a secondary issue. They did, however, admit that the insurrectionary proletariat was strong enough to have conquered power. Had it possessed a revolutionary and not a treacherous leadership, it would have purged the state apparatus of all the Azañas, instituted the power of the soviets, given the land to the peasants, the mills and factories to the workers – and the Spanish revolution would have become socialist and unconquerable.
But because there was no revolutionary party in Spain, and because there was instead a multitude of reactionaries imagining themselves as Socialists and Anarchists, they succeeded under the label of the Popular Front in strangling the socialist revolution and assuring Franco’s victory.
On the Causes of the Defeat of the Spanish Revolution
Funny enough, he advocated the popular front in Germany, but the Trotskyist line was always the necessity of the revolution as part of a struggle against fascism.
The policy of a united front of the workers against fascism flows from this situation. It opens up tremendous possibilities to the Communist Party. A condition for success, however, is the rejection of the theory and practice of "social fascism", the harm of which becomes a positive measure under the present circumstances.
The social crisis will inevitably produce deep cleavages within the social democracy. The radicalization of the masses will affect the social democrats. We will inevitably have to make agreements with various social-democratic organizations and factions against fascism, putting definite conditions in this connection to the leaders, before the eyes of the masses.... We must return from the empty official phrase about the united front to the policy of the united front as it was formulated by Lenin and always applied by the Bolsheviks in 1917.
Fascism: What it is and How to Fight it
If Trotsky had had less of a big head, there probably wouldn't have been as much left infighting.
he wasn't for literally declaring war, just accepting the real situation they were in: a socialist country in a capitalist world. stalin desperately tried to ally with the west against the nazis and they basically spit in his face (cus the west was always at war with the USSR despite not declaring it) so then he went to ally with the fucking nazis (and got some success). Trotsky just was admitting the truth that everyone knew, socialists and capitalists cannot cooperate. The capitalists will always do whatever they can to destroy the socialists.
Plus the fact that he realized the truth that we're living in now, that a socialist country cannot succeed while a global capitalist empire is in place. So he wanted to start weakening that empire, the same thing China has been doing for it's entire existence as a socialist state and the same thing any real leftist wants.
as important as material conditions are, they aren't everything either
ignoring basically all of the rest of political theory is almost as dumb as normal theorists ignoring material conditions. not every action taken by a leader is rational, especially true when you have authoritarian leaders
exactly, saying material condions are 100% responsible for what Stalin did is vulgar materialism and not Marxist.
Yeah, I really don't think he would have been that different. Maybe slower collectivization.
Trotsky was more radical in certain areas and would likely have been less focused on building up domestic forces than Stalin. He would've also favored central planning over the NEP as well so who knows.
I agree that his approach to the rising ww2 related threats would've been different, but I generally think that the USSR would've been less prepared for war going into it than they were until Stalin. But there's a lot of speculation involved here. The point is, Stalin was a very skilled war time leader, it's unclear how successful trotsky would've been in the same place.
Would Trotsky have maybe been a better commander in chief vs stalin's superior organization/logistic skills?
I think everyone's forgetting that Stalin wasn't a dictator. Great man of history is bullshit. A lot of the decisions made in the USSR were made by committee and the soviets. The reason Stalin kept power and Trotsky left was because the vast majority of the party supported Stalin's plans and rejected Trotsky's.
Bingo. The west and the western left are bewitched by the absurd religious belief that Stalin was some sort of superhuman that somehow held absolute dominance over the USSR through sheer will and supernatural abilities combined with the trotskyite lie that Trotsky himself was annointed by Lenin to become the next king of Socialism - completely ignoring the historical reality that he was a fucking nerd that nobody liked and only held on for so long because the Party wanted both him and Stalin to jointly chair the General Secretary position.
He got what he fucking deserved for being a greedy asshole.
He was literally the second most popular party official after Lenin, and at one point was a serious rival to Lenin himself. MLs insistence on painting trotsky as some dweeb who three stooged his way into his position and was actually secretly bad and everyone hated is fucking nonsense of the highest order.
Trotskys opposition won 4000 votes of the membership while the Central Committee (Stalins platform) won 724,000 votes in 1927
At the Fifteenth Party Conference, Trotsky and Zinoviev finally destroyed themselves politically. Trotsky made a lengthy speech and had to ask repeatedly for more time. He was interrupted constantly by ridicule and laughter. Zinoviev grovelled and begged for giveness for his errors. He, too, was heckled and ridiculed. Both had been arrogant in power and now they were humiliated and defeated. It was left to Bukharin to make the final savage attack on them; the delegates, thirsting for blood, applauded loudly.The main discussion at the conference was not on the opposition, but on Stalin’s new theory of “socialism in one country.” It bore the stamp of his mind and outlook, and it marked the begin ning of the Stalinist era. The Russian revolutionary drive had been losing momentum since the end of the Civil War and the process had accelerated after Lenin’s death. A new policy was needed that would inspire the Russian people to undertake the superhuman task of carrying their country on from the October Revolution towards socialism and communism. That policy was “socialism in one country.” Its emotional appeal was overwhelm ing. It aroused a new fervor in the party, and pride in the revolu tion spread beyond the party ranks. It was a declaration of inde pendence from the West and of faith in the capacity of their country to forge ahead, creating its own future alone and unsup ported. Backward Russia, for so long treated as lagging on the outskirts of Western civilization, would show herself to be ad vanced and at the center of civilization in the coming millennium.-Ian Grey, Stalin, p. 215
Sounds really popular
"Second most popular party official" yet somehow lost his bid for General Secretary to some damn swarthy asiatic Georgian hun from the Caucuses.
This flatly ignores the fact that during the 10 years that the many socialist revolutionaries spent in exile Trotters was a loyal member of the Mensheviks until he jumped ship to the Bolcheviks right before the revolution kicked off because he was an opportunistic power-hungry rat that knew which party stood at the vanguard and wanted for himself a slice of glory.
“Second most popular party official” yet somehow lost his bid for General Secretary to some damn swarthy asiatic Georgian hun from the Caucuses.
He lost to Stalin because Stalin managed to get a bunch of senior party officials on his side, because a coalition between them seemed more favourable than sole rule by Trotsky. And Stalin wasn't just some asshole.
This flatly ignores the fact that during the 10 years that the many socialist revolutionaries spent in exile Trotters was a loyal member of the Mensheviks until he jumped ship to the Bolcheviks right before the revolution kicked off because he was an opportunistic power-hungry rat that knew which party stood at the vanguard and wanted for himself a slice of glory.
He split with Lenin in 1903, and left the Mensheviks in 1904 (To work with the Bolsheviks), and was put on trial by the government in 1905 and was exiled. Literally nothing you say has any connection to reality.
He lost to Stalin because Stalin managed to get a bunch of senior party officials on his side, because a coalition between them seemed more favourable than sole rule by Trotsky. And Stalin wasn’t just some asshole.
So he did indeed flatly loose in democratic election because he was a pretentious asshole that rested on his laurels. He should have tea with Hillary sometime.
This flatly ignores the fact that he split with Lenin in 1903 (and was denounced as a Judas, scoundrel, and a stealing swine by him), and left the Mensheviks in 1904
(To work with the Bolsheviks),(because they didn't go his way so he took the third way of getting splinters in his ass by straddling the fencepost between factions) and was put on trial by the government in 1905 and was exiled.Fixed :back-to-me-shining:
some damn swarthy asiatic Georgian hun from the Caucuses
What? Are we playing the "are Russians more anti-Semitic or more racist" game here or what
No? Trotsky was rejected for party leadership because Stalin managed to wrangle enough votes to put himself in charge, a good chunk of who voted for him because they thought he would be easier to control than Trotsky.
Trotsky was always a wrecher though, especially when he formed a block with Kaminev and Zinoviev.
In October 1926, the leaders of the opposition strutted about and asserted, as they are asserting now, that the Central Committee feared the truth, that it was hiding their "platform," concealing it from the Party, and so forth. That is why they went snooping among the Party units in Moscow (recall the Aviapribor Factory), in Leningrad (recall the Putilov Works), and other places. Well, what happened? The communist workers gave our oppositionists a good drubbing, such a drubbing indeed that the leaders of the opposition were compelled to flee from the battlefield. Why did they not at that time dare to go farther, to all the Party units, to ascertain which of us fears the truth—the opposition or the Central Committee? It was because they got cold feet, being frightened by the real (and not imaginary) truth.
There's some good stuff about Kaminev and Zinoviev in there too, that passage just kinda stuck out as something showing how no one really liked those guys.
You realise that that quote... doesn't actually say anything about Trotsky's character, right? Like if you want to highlight his wrecker tendencies, you could indeed point to his propensity for making new factions all the damn time, but this is a speech made by Stalin about Trotsky after Trotsky was defeated. It is not a reliable source of Trotsky's actual character and popularity.
Yeah, the rest of that speech goes deep into Trotsky. I just quoted that to show that the workers themselves didn't broadly support Trotsky. If they did, they wouldn't have literally beat his opposition bloc up and driven them out of town.
I just quoted that to show that the workers themselves didn’t broadly support Trotsky
From Stalin, who had a vested interest in keeping Trotsky from gaining any power... Right...
Why would it have been less prepared though? If the collectivisation started earlier and the officer corps didn't get purged the Soviets would have had a stronger and more capable military at the start of the war.
Trotsky did mostly sabotage himself and his prospects by overplaying his hand but positing Stalin as some genius organizer is counterfactual, what with all the lack of coordination and missteps that plagued the Soviet industrialisation drive in the 30s. Stalin did have great political instincts and savvy manoeuvring going for him (as well as yes, being a committed communist), which ultimately is of significant importance to making a political career. Look no further than all the subsequent general secretaries for a lesson of how social networking, precisely timed intrigue/treachery and the ability to use happy accidents were instrumental in propelling certain individuals over (sometimes much more capable) others.
Siege socialism is pretty much the only implementation of socialism capable of surviving war with the imperial core. Might be different now, as America is losing grip on its hegemony.
Stalin did many things wrong, one of which is being a coward wrt aggressive anti-imperialist foreign policy. Trotsky would've been better at him than this, but it's hard to say how well he would have done otherwise
Possibly, possibly he may have been able tp convince the KPD and SPD German socialists to form a united front against the Nazis. If so, untold numbers of people could have been spared the camps and the Eastern Front.
Matt said on a stream that if Germany hadnt gone fascist, France was also teetering either way at the time - I dont know that much history but I could see it because of how unstable France was. It could have been a Franco-Italo fascist alliance that the USSR and German socialists couldve opposed instead of the Nazis and Italian fascists. No idea how that couldve shook out.
I cannot imagine the SPD would go for that, like there was bad blood on both sides of that. I mean there's a reason they endorsed Hindenburg over Thalman in 1932, like their leader otto wels said "Bolshevism and fascism are brothers. They are both founded on violence and dictatorship, regardless of how socialist or radical they may appear".
if only the USSR won the Polish-Soviet war so that it could support a German revolution
No but this is a fun question. It is a question I have asked before when I did not know enough about the Communist movement and the Soviet Unions history.
If you asked me today for instance I would say there is little I (or anyone hypothetical) would've done differently given the material circumstances at the time.
And this leads back to liberal Great Man Theory. On this topic Plekhanov wrote a masterpiece to expound that history is not formed by individuals - the masses push forward their leaders (the individuals) and in their leaders they express their agency.
If, owing to certain mechanical or physiological causes unconnected with the general course of the social-political and intellectual development of Italy, Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci had died in their infancy, Italian art would have been less perfect, but the general trend of its development in the period of the Renaissance would have remained the same. Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo did not create this trend; they were merely its best representatives. True, usually a whole school springs up around a man of genius, and his pupils try to copy his methods to the minutest details; that is why the gap that would have been left in Italian art in the period of the Renaissance by the early death of Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci would have strongly influenced many of the secondary features of its subsequent history. But in essence, there would have been no change in this history, provided there were no important change in the general course of the intellectual development of Italy due to general causes
Plekhanov, On the Role of the Individual in History
I think Marxists that wonder about "this or that leader" should study this piece as it really expounds the Marxist view of the individual in history.
With the role of the individual placed in its proper context let's go down this rabbit hole
First we should ask why so many budding Marxists ask this question(as I myself did)? It can't be an accident. In the 1920s and the 1930s when William Randolph Hearst (a straight up nazi) was using his media empire, the Hearst Press, to spread lie and lie about the Soviet Union starving its people (the so called Holodomor) and using pictures from famines from the Austrian famine and the Russian famine of 1921 to tell the world that the USSR was "starving it's own people in 1933). This newspaper was a rabid anticommunist paper that printed stories like "Frog boy is only fed balls of raw meat" in the Soviet Union with a disfigured face. Imagine Rushan Abbas or Adrian Zenz except there's no internet and their published in every newspaper owned by the Hearst empire.
Basically imagine one of those newspapers talking about UFOs except it's full of red scare propaganda and was also providing a column for Mussolini and Goebbels
If you want to educate yourself on the Hearst Press please find a short article here or a full book here.
In the 1930s when Trotsky was exiled from the USSR the Hearst Press immediately began championing Trotsky as the true revolutionary and the one true Communist.
Meanwhile the Hearst Press began to pay Trotsky for contributions to it! The Hearst Press which was full of rumour, bizarre stories like the frog boy, telling the world the Communists were going to "nationalise women" and that they starved their own people - was now championing a "true communist". I think its obvious that the Hearst Press saw a rivet in the international Communist movement and now sought to stick a crowbar into it.
“He received $10,000 for his first articles for the Daily Express, New York Herald Tribune, New York Times, and other newspapers. Soon he would receive an advance of $7,000 from an American publisher for his autobiography, and for a series of articles entitled ‘The History of the Russian Revolution’ the Saturday Evening Post paid him $45,000.”
-Volkogonov’s Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary, page 323.
This is in money from the 1920s and 30s, of course, so $62,000 in 1935 is about $1,170,000 in 2020.
Trotsky was largely discredited in the 1920s then early 30s (in the Communist movement). By the 1936 he further discredited himself with his revolution betrayed where he basically goes full mask off and says "there's no difference between hitler and Stalin" and that "the Soviet Union will crumble if Germany invades".
So now onto whether Trotsky would've made a better leader. In order to do this he would've had to become leader of the Bolshevik party so let's see if this is possible. Bearing in mind that all the way up until 1917 the Leninists were in a bitter struggle with the Mensheviks, the Liquidators (of which Trotsky was a part), the Mehratzi (Of which Trotsky led at some point).
In order to become leader of a Communist party - party democracy is done. You are voted in. It is not handed down to you like a Communist crown (which is the Hearst press version of history that Trotksy was "usurped by that tricksy Stalin")
In 1913 Trotsky called for destruction of Leninism
In a word, at this moment, all that Leninism consists of is based on lies and falsifications, and bears in itself the seeds of its own decay.
Two policies may now be applied: to destroy ideologically and organically the fractional walls which still exist, and thus destroy the very foundations of Leninism, which is incompatible with the organisation of workers into a political party, but which can perfectly grow on the manure of splits; or, on the contrary, to conduct a fractional selection of anti- Leninists (Mensheviks or liquidators) by a complete liquidation of the divergences on tactics.
Trotsky, 1913, Letter to Chkeidze
In 1914 Lenin Characterised Trotsky as a waverer with no ideological definiteness (this is basically what Trotskyism is today and why you can put 6 trots in a room and ask for a policy on one topic and they'll give you 9 answers)
Trotsky, however, possesses no ideological and political definiteness, for his patent for “non-factionalism”, as we shall soon see in greater detail, is merely a patent to flit freely to and fro, from one group to another.
- Trotsky does not explain, nor does he understand, the historical significance of the ideological disagreements among the various Marxist trends and groups, although these disagreements run through the twenty years’ history of Social Democracy and concern the fundamental questions of the present day (as we shall show later on);
- Trotsky fails to understand that the main specific features of group-division are nominal recognition of unity and actual disunity;
- Under cover of “non-factionalism” Trotsky is championing the interests of a group abroad which particularly lacks definite principles, and has no basis in the working-class movement in Russia.
All that glitters is not gold. There is much glitter and sound in Trotsky’s phrases, but they are meaningless.
Lenin, Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity
Further
Trotsky was an ardent Iskrist in 1901—03, and Ryazanov described his role at the Congress of 1903 as “Lenin’s cudgel”. At the end of 1903, Trotsky was an ardent Menshevik, i. e., he deserted from the Iskrists to the Economists. He said that “between the old Iskra and the new lies a gulf”. In 1904—05, he deserted the Mensheviks and occupied a vacillating position, now co-operating with Martynov (the Economist), now proclaiming his absurdly Left “permanent revolution” theory. In 1906—07, he approached the Bolsheviks, and in the spring of 1907 he declared that he was in agreement with Rosa Luxemburg.
In the period of disintegration, after long “non-factional” vacillation, he again went to the right, and in August 1912, he entered into a bloc with the liquidators. He has now deserted them again, although in substance he reiterates their shoddy ideas.
Such types are characteristic of the flotsam of past historical formations, of the time when the mass, working-class movement in Russia was still dormant, and when every group had “ample room” in which to pose as a trend, group or faction, in short, as a “power”, negotiating amalgamation with others.
The younger generation of workers should know exactly whom they are dealing with, when individuals come before them with incredibly pretentious claims, unwilling absolutely to reckon with either the Party decisions, which since 1908 have defined and established our attitude towards liquidationism, or with the experience of the present-day working-class movement in Russia, which has actually brought about the unity of the majority on the basis of full recognition of the aforesaid decisions.
(Ibid)
This is becoming an essay so will try to speed up..
In May 1917 Trotsky was to declare, only a few months away from the Russian Revolution
I cannot be called a Bolshevik... We must not be demanded to recognise Bolshevism
-Trotsky, May 1917
Ok so we're at 1917. But for some reason lets pretend Trotsky didn't waver between groups endlessly in a bitter struggle against the Bolsheviks before the revolution or try and liquidate them and pretend there's maybe been a reset or something on Trotskys likeability in the Bolshevik party.
in 1921 he basically reaffirms what he said in his Letter to M. Olminski1 (where he demanded the destruction of Lenininsm)
because, I confess frankly, I do not think at all that, in my disagreements with the Bolsheviks, I was wrong on all points. I was completely wrong in my assessment of the Menshevik fraction: I overestimated its revolutionary capabilities, and I thought possible to isolate and neutralise its right wing. However, this fundamental error is due to the fact that I was analysing the two fractions, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, by placing myself from the perspective of the permanent revolution and of the dictatorship of the proletariat, while, at that time, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were adopting the point of v
https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/trotltrs.htm
In 1924 he pisses the entire party off with his Lessons of October which basically goes "Trotsky did really great stuff and really the Bolsheviks suck"
entitled "Lessons of October." It was an account of the progress of the revolution with the theme of the betrayal by the "right." He dwelt on the conflict between Lenin and Zinoviev and Kamenev on the eve of the October Revolution and even wrote about mistakes made by Lenin himself.
The volume, published in October 1924, caused a sensation. By digging up the past Trotsky was seen to be attempting to indict the present leadership and to cast doubts on the infallibility of Lenin. Bukharin promptly published an article in Pravda, entitled "How Not to Write the History of October."
This was an interim reply. Trotsky had to be answered fully and by raking up the past he had exposed himself to a devastating counterattack.. Before 1917 he had engaged constantly in polemics with Lenin; as was characteristic of the revolutionaries, their exchanges were marked by virulent abuse. Kamenev, then editor of the official edition of Lenin's works, published his reply in Pravda and Izvestiya on No vember 26, i924 under the title "Leninism or Trotskyism." The article, ranging over Trotsky's early career, sought to show that Trotsky had always been opposed to Bolshevism and Leninism.
Stalin's contribution was a reasoned and destructive attack. Re ferring to Trotsky's prominent role in October, he said that it was to be admitted that Trotsky had done well, but so had others.4 He dealt lightly with the errors of Zinoviev and Kamenev, which were generally known, and even admitted that before Lenin's arrival in Petrograd in March i917 "I shared this mistaken position of other comrades.''5 Nothing had antagonized members more than Trotsky's insufferable assumption that he had been right all the time. Stalin was at pains to show that he himself was human and fallible.
Ian Grey, Stalin: Man of History, p.203
By 1925 he's considered such a dangerous prick in the party that Kamenev and Zinoviev (some of the "old Bolsheviks" Trots love to defend when it comes to the 1936/37/38 Moscow Trials) tried to have Trotsky removed by an assassin
Pravda gave details of a secret meeting between Stalin and his two late associates on the Troika, in which Zinoviev had descended so low as to suggest that Trotsky be removed by an assassin, in such a way that the deed could be attributed to some counter-revolutionary agent
Stalins reply was characteristic; he did not deplore the moral aspect of the situation, which probably never occured to him but he would not be party to such bad political tactics. "Why make a martyr out of Trotsky, who will certainly be defeated anyway?"
adding "An amputation policy is full of dangers for the party, the amputation method is dangerous and infectious; today one is amputated, another tomorrow, a third the day after. What will be left of the party in the end?"
David M Cole, Stalin, p.68
In 1927 the bloc of Trotskyites and Zinovievites were to put their platform of the opposition to the Bolshevik party at the 15th party congress. 724,000 members voted for the Central Committee and 4000 voted for Trotskys Opposition.
At the Fifteenth Party Conference, Trotsky and Zinoviev finally destroyed themselves politically. Trotsky made a lengthy speech and had to ask repeatedly for more time. He was interrupted constantly by ridicule and laughter. Zinoviev grovelled and begged for giveness for his errors. He, too, was heckled and ridiculed. Both had been arrogant in power and now they were humiliated and defeated. It was left to Bukharin to make the final savage attack on them; the delegates, thirsting for blood, applauded loudly.
The main discussion at the conference was not on the opposition, but on Stalin's new theory of "socialism in one country." It bore the stamp of his mind and outlook, and it marked the begin ning of the Stalinist era. The Russian revolutionary drive had been losing momentum since the end of the Civil War and the process had accelerated after Lenin's death. A new policy was needed that would inspire the Russian people to undertake the superhuman task of carrying their country on from the October Revolution towards socialism and communism. That policy was "socialism in one country." Its emotional appeal was overwhelm ing. It aroused a new fervor in the party, and pride in the revolu tion spread beyond the party ranks. It was a declaration of inde pendence from the West and of faith in the capacity of their country to forge ahead, creating its own future alone and unsup ported. Backward Russia, for so long treated as lagging on the outskirts of Western civilization, would show herself to be ad vanced and at the center of civilization in the coming millennium.
-Ian Grey, Stalin p.215
So we see Socialism in One Country as a foreign policy that drove a new fervour in the party and reinstilled the revolutionary drive in the Communist Party. Had Permanent Revolution and its eurocentric view won out I guess we can envisage the collapsing and disintegration of the Party starting in 1927.
In November Trotsky was to present a statement to the Central Committee demanding it be printed and sent to members which was rejected. Trotsky had set up his own secret printing press which the OGPU found. He then setup his own opposition demonstration during the October celebrations which was a grave breach of Lenins non-factionalism and party rules and was promptly expelled from the party.
Conclusion
So we've basically got to the point where Trotskys ideas are discredited in the party where the CC can garner 724,000 votes for its program and Trotskys opposition can only get 4000 votes
So the only thing we can do here is "magic" Trotsky to becoming leader and instead of the Bolshevik party being full of Marxist-Leninists being full of Trotskyites (otherwise they'd have chosen a different leader to Trotsky)
So if he's leader of the Bolsheviks I don't see him executing a successful revolution under his leadership. He was unable to unify one of the many parties he was in or led during that period as actual history so why would it be any different if he was leader of the bolsheviks at any point? We saw Lenin characterise him as having "no ideological definiteness" and merely "flitting from one group to the next with high sounding and pompous phrases".
But lets magic him into producing a successful revolution.
So lets see they go all in on Permanent REvolution - with the collapse of all the revolutions across Europe which are stamped out by reaction in the early 1920s (Finland/Hungary/Germany/Romania etc. etc.) you would likely see a demoralised Communist Party due to the Trotskyite eurocentric belief no socialism can survive on its own and they were dependent on revolution breaking out in the West.
At this point it means either the Communist Party dies a slow death starting in 1927 due to this demoralisation or we go on Trotskyite adventurism and Trotsky decides to use the Red Army to invade neighbouring countries.
This was tried in 1920 and the Red Army suffered a resounding defeat in Poland which resulted in Poland annexing parts of Ukraine/Belarus and Lithuania from the Soviet Union. Given the state of the USSR in 1927 (only just recovering from World war, civil war then the 1921 famine). So Trotsky is successful in uniting the disparate Capitalist forces in 1927 instead of Stalins Socialism in One Country which is a masterplay at foreign policy
Don't believe me though I'll let Stephen Kotkin explain why it's a masterpiece
If somehow Trotsky makes it to 1936 the USSR would be full of terror and paralysed defeatism due to Trotskys defeatism in his REvolution Betrayed where he states that
Can we, however, expect that the Soviet Union will come out of the coming great war without defeat? To this frankly posed question, we will answer as frankly: If the war should remain only a war, the defeat of the Soviet Union would be inevitable. In a technical, economic, and military sense, imperialism in incomparably more strong. If it is not paralyzed by revolution in the West, imperialism will sweep away the regime which issued from the October revolution.
Trotsky, Revolution Betrayed, 1936
Compare this to Stalins speech of 1941
The enemy is not so strong as some frightened little intellectuals picture him. The devil is not so terrible as he is painted. Who can deny that our Red Army has more than once put the vaunted German troops to panic flight? If one judges, not by the boastful assertions of the German propagandists, but by the actual position of Germany, it will not be difficult to understand that the German-fascist invaders are facing disaster. Hunger and impoverishment reign in Germany to-day; in four months of war Germany has lost four and a half million men; Germany is bleeding, her reserves of man-power are giving out, the spirit of indignation is spreading not only among the peoples of Europe who have fallen under the yoke of the German invaders but also among the German people themselves, who see no end to war. The German invaders are straining their last efforts. There is no doubt that Germany cannot sustain such a strain for long. Another few months, another half-year, perhaps another year, and Hitlerite Germany must burst under the pressure of her crimes.
Stalin, Speech at the Red Army Parade on the Red Square, Moscow
In 1939 Trotsky was writing on the indepence of Ukraine. This is despite the fact the Pro independence forces were bourgeois natinonalists and fascists (who would go on to setup their own SS divisions and collaborate with the Nazis). Whislst the Pro Communist forces were pro Stalin.
This is full knowing that Hitler had demanded conquering Ukraine for the oil fields and Lebensraum in Meinkampf which Communists had meticulously studied for obvious reasons.
Trotsky, Independence of the Ukraine and Sectarian Muddleheads
In the Moscow Trials (dismissed as frame ups by bourgeois and trotskyite historians) it's asserted Trotsky wanted to carve off a huge section of the Soviet Union for Hitler, specifically the Ukraine for assistance for Trotsky and Tukhachevksy coming to power. If Trotsky had been in charge of the Soviet Union the defeatism that coloured his outlook would mean capitulating to Hitler and gifting Ukraine to the Nazis
The Nazis would now have the caucas oilfields to expand and be almost unhindered in their war in the West against Britain.
With a hacked off Ukraine to the Nazis the Soviets are no longer in a feasible position to move millions of troops into Bessarabia in 1940 to deter the Nazis invading Britain nor do they now have the oil capacity (having lost Ukraine) to sustain a long war.
There is little now to stop General Plan Ost (which was basically to elimate the slavic race and settle their lands with Germans).
In short the Communist party collapses in the late 20s due to demoralisation or adventurism which unites the bitterly anti-Communist forces. It's well known now that Britain colluded with Hitler under Chamberlain with Lord Halifax making statements like "Hitler and Britain will be a staunch bullwark against Communism". By trying to wage war for spreading Communism this would've ended the USSR there and then
In Our Time: The Chamberlain/Hitler Collusion
If somehow it doesn't Trotsky would've carved off the Ukraine and left the Soviet Union a rump state leaving Hitler free to wage war on the West. Once Britain is defeated he almost certainly would've turned east but never having to have waged a war on 2 fronts. With a now diminished Soviet Union (Probably just a hacked back Russia as the Nazis had envisaged), the oil fields under Nazi control the Hitlerites do not come within 22km of Moscow - they take it.
So ironically, Trotskys statement in 1936 becomes prophecy in Ww2
Can you briefly summarize the main ideas of the “absurdly-left“ theory of permanent revolution?
"Briefly" good god man it's quite an indepth topic
I'll have a go though
Trotsky occupied a middle position between the Bolsheviks and Menshiviks but in essence was closer to the Mensheviks.
He agreed with the Bolsheviks that the liberal bourgeois would have nothing to do with the coming revolution. At the same time he agreed with the Mensheviks that the peasantry could not be a dependable ally.
Tsarism, according to Trotsky could be replaced by a workers government. On no account could it be replaced by a joint dictatorship of the working class and the peasantry. And on coming to power it would be the function of the Workers government to attack private property, including the peasant holdings. By its attack on private property by the Workers government would alienate and arouse the hostility and resistance (thanks to Trotsky) of the majority of the population.
The resistance of the peasantry would endanger the workers government. But on the other hand the workers government would stimulate the working class of the industrially advanced European countries to wage ruthless struggle against their own bourgeoisie, seize state power and establish socialism.
In return Western europe, would now come to the aid of the Russian workers government in Russia to crush by force the resistance of the peasantry. This is permanent revolution.
“In the absence of direct State support on the part of the European proletariat, the Russian working class will not be able to keep itself in power and to transform its temporary rule into a stable socialist dictatorship. No doubt as to the truth of this is possible.”(“Our Revolution,” Russian Edition, Pg. 278.
Trotsky, Our Revolution 1906
“A steady rise of socialist economy in Russia will not be possible until after the victory of the proletariat in the leading countries of Europe.”
Trotsky, (“Collected Works,” Vol. 3, Part I, Pgs.92-93.)
What this would mean in practice is Permanent Counter-Revolution. By the negation of the peasantry as a revolutionary role that the peasantry could play (and did play) it would mean depriving the Russian working class of a dependable ally and turning the peasantry into a tool of the liberal bourgeois. There would have been no revolution in Russia had this line followed and Lenin was to reject it for a second time in 1915 in the following:
To bring clarity into the alignment of classes in the impending revolution is the main task of a revolutionary party. This task is being shirked by the Organising Committee, which within Russia remains a faithful ally to Nashe Dyelo, and abroad utters meaningless “Left” phrases. This task is being wrongly tackled in Nashe Slovo by Trotsky, who is repeating his “original” 1905 theory and refuses to give some thought to the reason why, in the course of ten years, life has been bypassing this splendid theory.
From the Bolsheviks Trotsky’s original theory has borrowed their call for a decisive proletarian revolutionary struggle and for the conquest of political power by the proletariat, while from the Mensheviks it has borrowed “repudiation” of the peasantry’s role. The peasantry, he asserts, are divided into strata, have become differentiated; their potential revolutionary role has dwindled more and more; in Russia a “national” revolution is impossible; “we are living in the era of imperialism,” says Trotsky, and “imperialism does not contra pose the bourgeois nation to the old regime, but the proletariat to the bourgeois nation.”
Here we have an amusing example of playing with the word “imperialism”. If, in Russia, the proletariat already stands contra posed to the “bourgeois nation”, then Russia is facing a socialist revolution (!), and the slogan “Confiscate the landed estates” (repeated by Trotsky in 1915, following the January Conference of 1912), is incorrect; in that case we must speak, not of a “revolutionary workers’” government, but of a “workers’ socialist” government! The length Trotsky’s muddled thinking goes to is evident from his phrase that by their resoluteness the proletariat will attract the “non-proletarian [!] popular masses” as well (No. 217)! Trotsky has not realised that if the proletariat induce the non-proletarian masses to confiscate the landed estates and overthrow the monarchy, then that will be the consummation of the “national bourgeois revolution” in Russia; it will be a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry!
A whole decade—the great decade of 1905-15—has shown the existence of two and only two class lines in the Russian revolution. The differentiation of the peasantry has enhanced the class struggle within them; it has aroused very many hitherto politically dormant elements. It has drawn the rural proletariat closer to the urban proletariat (the Bolsheviks have insisted ever since 1906 that the former should be separately organised, and they included this demand in the resolution of the Menshevik congress in Stockholm). However, the antagonism between the peasantry, on the one hand, and the Markovs, Romanovs and Khvostovs, on the other, has become stronger and more acute. This is such an obvious truth that not even the thousands of phrases in scores of Trotsky’s Paris articles will “refute” it. Trotsky is in fact helping the liberal-labour politicians in Russia, who by “repudiation” of the role of the peasantry understand a refusal to raise up the peasants for the revolution!
-Lenin, Two Lines On The Revolution
It took only two years to prove Lenins correctness
To sum up
-
The rejection of the peasantry as a revolutionary force
-
The rejection of stages in the development of the revolution (Which amounted in practice skipping the first stage of the revolution: the majority of the Russian people, particularly the peasantry, against the Tsar. But only the working class who constituted a tiny minority at the time against the Tsar and the "bourgeois nation" including the peasantry)
It is noted that the Soviets did eventually wage a war against the nascent bourgeois elements in the peasantry which did seriously de-stabilise the Soviet government. But this was done in the early 1930s when a lot of the peasantry had been drawn into the cities and into the proletariat. Not as immediate fact against the "bourgeois nation" in 1917 which would've seen the peasantry side with the White guardists
If you wish to read further I recommend studying Lenin. If you're unsure where to start with Lenin then his Selected Works is organised in a timeline that makes some of the arguments easier to understand
Lenin - Selected Works in Two Volumes - Volume 1
If you are still getting your bearings on studying this history I can recommend the following resources
https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/index.htm#Trotskyism
https://espressostalinist.com/marxism-leninism-versus-revisionism/trotskyism/
Against Trotskyism was released by the Soviet government and compiled Lenins polemics against Trotskyism
https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/AgainstTrotskyism.pdf
As well as Carl Davidsons excellent, Trotskyism:Left In Form, Right In Essence
-
This is a huge counterfactual that relies on Trotsky basically being a different person or someone hacking the brains of the old comrades. Everyone wanted Stalin. But let's assume Trotsky assumes power with a broad mandate.
Firstly as others have mentioned, Permanent revolution in the 20s would have gotten the USSR curbstomped. In the 60-70s...it might have been more workable. This right here is a dealbreaker. But lets assume Trotsky tries it out, gets pushback, and backs away.
Trotsky was almost as pro-industrialisation as Stalin, so much of the same things would have happened there, perhaps slightly more competently administered (not that Stalin was incompetent here, Trotsky was just a superb mind at this kind of stuff.) He probably was more focused on council communism, but not as much as the average Trot would have you think. He was very much for "revolutionary discipline" and more for the leadership of the party top ranks over Stalin's repeated attempts to democratize the party.
He'd have been probably about as purge-happy, if not more so. Trotsky was always the hardliner in putting down dissent, often going against Lenin.
Remember much of the purgers were fed via false data from German intelligence, and there were plotters, most of whom woul be plotting no matter who was in power.
On the other hand Trotsky might not have made the stupid, stupid choices Stalin made for Secret Police heads. Trotsky may well have headed the purges personally, and it would have resulted in a bloodier but more accurately targeted and shorter purge.
WW2 probably would have had a slightly less industrially developed USSR under better initial command. So a slower retreat to Moscow and maybe less encirclements but ultimately the pushback to the German border would have been much harder.
I think its kind of a wash, personally. Material conditions favoured Stalin, and while other choices could be made the USSR was very constrained in its survivable paths. That said I'd love to see old Trotsky play the Decolonisation game in Africa and deal with Mao post WW2.
This entire thread can be boiled down to everyone hates the guy that actually gets his hands dirty. While trotsky was off getting freaky with Frida, Stalin was left with the monumental task of trying to lead the USSR through fucking hell.
I think Trot’s idea of supporting communists around the world was good.
Obviously a wildly hypothetical counterfactual, but I think so. You wouldn't know this from talking to Trots today, or even reading things Trotsky himself wrote after he was kicked out of power, but Trotsky in the early 20s really did believe in council democracy to a much greater extent than Stalin. He would likely have created a more pluralistic leadership system based on a wider base of left factions. This is particularly evident in his works on 1905.
One thing that's definitely true: all the folks on this thread talking about how Stalin would have done a better job fighting the Nazis are talking out their ass. This is not surprising, because most people in the west are taught what is essentially the German perspective on the Red Army (hordes of ill equipped peasants). In reality, the Red Army had the resources, technology, doctrine and training to beat back the Germans pretty easily, but were hamstrung by idiotic decisions by Stalin and the various sycophants he put in charge after the purges. Deep Battle is a fantastic way of fighting a war, and conceptually very similar to how all postwar armies conduct combined arms defensive operations--it's a pity the Red Army was not allowed to implement it as planned. And of course prewar air force procurement under Stalin was a grotesque shitshow.
any time someone claims that Stalin single handedly won WW2 it lets me know that person is a total fucking moron and an embarrassment to socialists everywhere. Stalin was a hell of a lot like Hitler when it comes to commanding a military, totally out of his depth and constantly fucking up the general's plans. Like wasting millions of socialist lives on a town with his stupid fucking name in it....
Did you know that Stalin was totally incompetent and that's how he became the leader of the most important revolutionary government in modern history?
If you're interested in learning more about why many scholars view Stalin in this light, and you don't speak Russian, I'd recommend John Erickson's history of the Eastern front. Given his connections in the Soviet wartime leadership, he was a key piece of the historiography right up until the Soviet archives opened in the 90s. And the new folks working off those archives are too young to have interviewed many of key players, so I think he still has an advantage.
Or maybe you're just stanning Stalin for the sick memes, dunno.
Suggesting that Stalin wasn't totally incompentent because that actually makes no sense is stanning Stalin apparently.
And no, I don't care to read this nieche stuff about history. I'm not a WWII buff and I don't find it particularly relavent to anything whether Stalin was a military genius or not. Frankly, I don't see what it proves one way or another.
It may well not be relevant to your interests, which is totally fair, but it's very relevant to this thread about whether Stalin or Trotsky would have better led the Soviet Union through the second world war.
I see what you mean, but these threads sort of rub me the wrong way because they are so open to wild ideological speculation.
Hey, just popping in from the adjacent time line. In the 2020 where Trotsky shanks Stalin with a broken vodka bottle we have global communism but man eating super-plants have taken over most of the Americas and south-east Asia so it's at best a draw.
