So I know that trotskyites get a lot of heat from this community but I’ve been reading about trotsky and his opinions seem pretty good? He called himself a Bolshevik-Leninist which obviously isn’t great but the idea of international socialism seems better, IMO, that national or Stalinist type socialism. Maybe I’m misunderstanding something here though so somebody tell me why I’m wrong.

  • T_Doug [he/him]
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    4 years ago

    There's no credible historical evidence that Trotsky (a Ukrainian Jew) allied himself with fascists against the USSR. If he really did collaborate with the Third Reich, there would be mountains of documented evidence of it within the captured Nazi archives. But in the decades of historians studying the Imperial Japanese, Nazi German, and Soviet archives there is nothing that credibly suggests that either Trotsky was collaborating with Fascists, or that there was a vast Trotskyist against Stalin, which justified the purges.

    You also frequently see criticisms of Trotyskyist orgs used to criticize the man himself, as though he's responsibly for all that's done in his name long after death. That's absurd, particularly because there's plenty of purportedly "Marxist" parties which have supported Capitalism and Imperialism , but that shouldn't have any relevance to one's opinion of Marx himself.

    • Hungover [he/him]
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      4 years ago

      Thanks, as I said, I didn't know the credibility.

      I've gone back and looked where I saw this mentioned, and it was this comment: https://hexbear.net/post/54641/comment/525484 (the one by JoeySteel, for some reason I can't link directly to it). Basically Trotsky argued for an independent Ukraine in 1939, when Ukranian fascists also wanted independence, that's the accusation.

      • T_Doug [he/him]
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        4 years ago

        Thanks for the info, sorry for misrepresenting your point, it's only that many ML's (like Grover Furr) really do accuse Trotsky of working directly with Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan.

        I just read Trotsky's article on Ukraine, and while his advocacy for a "A united, free and independent workers’ and peasants’ Soviet Ukraine" is hardly a great take in the global context at the time, it's still a far cry from allying himself with Fascists. As he says in the article, he would never support the independence of Ukraine if it was done to establish a Bourgeois Democratic republic, much less a Fascist one.

        Not the slightest compromise with imperialism, either fascist or democratic! Not the slightest concession to the Ukrainian nationalists, either clerical-reactionary or liberal-pacifist! No “People’s Fronts”! The complete independence of the proletarian party as the vanguard of the toilers!

        Again, not a great take. But I'd hesitate to say that he's allying with Fascists.

    • mazdak
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      1 year ago

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