A video covering Trotsky from a YouTuber who covers dark chapters in history just dropped and some lib was like "I think if Trotsky was in power instead of Stalin that the USSR would have stopped the Nazis earlier"
Bruh. You're really out here claiming that Stalin didn't press the Stop Nazis button early enough?
These clowns have zero grasp of material conditions. Trying to stop the Nazis from taking all of Poland would have been cause for war almost certainly. Attempting to stop the Nazis earlier would have undoubtedly been the defeat of the USSR because, in all honesty, they just barely scraped it in at the last minute and going too hard too soon would have been to their demise.
These are the people who complain that the USSR didn't help the Spanish Republic "enough", despite being just about the only country to provide any significant military aid to the Republic. (Strange how their criticisms of the socialist USSR never seem to stretch far enough to reach the so-called socialist Leon Blum [in effect he was just another example of milquetoast SocDem failsons] and his government who not only refused to provide aid to the Spanish Republic but also refused to enforce the terms of the non-aggression pact to which they were signatories to along with the Nazis and the Italian fascists [to the point where an Italian diplomat openly declared to Blum that there was an Italian regiment operating in Spain and that it "would not be removed under any circumstances"]); the Spanish Civil War was prelude to WWII and the USSR absolutely could not afford for a "national" conflict (putting aside the international involvement and the major influence of Morocco on the war for a vain attempt at brevity here) to spill out into a regional European war or, worse yet, to spiral out into another world war at that time.
They just don't seem to grasp how dire the situation was for the USSR, how close a call it was during WWII, and yet they'll denounce the USSR for ruthlessly sending troops to the slaughter on the frontlines in WWII "with one rifle between two soldiers", without a single moment to consider that an earlier engagement in WWII for the USSR would have meant a far greater death toll because they would have been even more underequipped and less technologically advanced.
These people treat history like dilettantes. They fancy themselves as main characters and they project this attitude back out over history, with all the benefits of hindsight, and they armchair quarterback so they can put on airs of being some sort of historical and geopolitical hotshot.
they'll denounce the USSR for ruthlessly sending troops to the slaughter on the frontlines in WWII "with one rifle between two soldiers"
Which, I cannot stress this enough, never happened and is anti-Soviet propaganda dreamed up post-war. Things were pretty fucking bad but it was never so bad that they didn't have crates and crates of Mosins to hand out.
All the benefits of hindsight without any of the practical application when it comes to current events. "It's obvious this was going to happen" yeah, what were the events that happened prior to the topic of discussion, and how does that relate to it being an inevitablility? Nothing happens in a vacuum, explain how we got here.
What gets me is that these people think that it's just obvious how history was always going to play out (it really isn't) but the also have a tendency to think that some small intervention or minor adjustment would dramatically change the course of world history (most of the time it probably wouldn't have.)
It's a weird sort of doublethink where they believe that history is just so but at the same time they believe that it's also extremely mutable.
I guess that's what zero materialism does to an MFer.
I think it has to do with the drive of needing both the "right" answer and also the "easy" answer. People like us don't derive any pleasure from conclusions such as this, because as we know, history does not particularly enjoy "right" or "easy". That's why we tend to get bogged down into the details, because there's so much nuance in basic historical issues.
I know for myself, I always find myself browsing through obscure historical facts for all hours of the day, because some of them may be relevant to stuff i might be asked. And constantly struggle with my knowledge, because i don't have all of the pieces to a puzzle, i don't feel qualified to respond. I think this is another reason why i have no debate bro tendencies, because i hate walking into situations that i'm not prepared for.
Trotsky couldn't even be arsed to fully give public support to Czechoslovakia forming an alliance with the USSR. He would rather it fall than be saved if it would mean Stalin would look good
to be fair there is definitely a case to be made that Trotsky's permanent revolution would have involved arming Rosa Luxemburg and fighting the nazis before they took over Germany. But this is in the realm of alternate history
That's just ahistorical. Trotsky's idea of permanent revolution was not clearly defined till later, but more importantly, the Bolsheviks did attempt to assist the Spartakus League. Despite negotiating it, Trotsky had been opposed to Brest-Litovsk which created the conditions for a lot of demobilized soldiers as well as Germany focusing on a spring offensive westward now that they had no eastern front. An offensive that caused more discontent in the German people and soldiers and led to the revolution.
When Germany did revolt, it was premature and had various flaws, not helped at all by the fact that the expectation of simultaneous revolutions across developed Europe didn't happen. The permanent revolution required everyone to be on the same page and level of capitalist development leading to a purely class based revolution.
That wasn't reality though. By spring 1919 the major revolutionary outbreaks had been put down. The Soviets had no time or means to actually assist Rosa, and a lack of arms was not really the problem in the first place. The Soviets had no direct means of helping, at this time they had been struggling with Poland invading western Ukraine, the Bolsheviks in the rest of Ukraine being thrown back by a German occupation and then puppet government, and a bunch of other issues. By the time the move was made to spread westward most revolutions had been destroyed, and pushing the war with Poland after its invasion of Kiev proved wasteful.
It's like saying there is a case to be made that they could've assisted the Battle of Blair Mountain.
No I'm just saying it is a coherent belief someone might have not that I agree with it. I also don't think there's much point in talking about what Trotsky might have done because he didn't.
Let the dead bury the dead the living are where the action is
A video covering Trotsky from a YouTuber who covers dark chapters in history just dropped and some lib was like "I think if Trotsky was in power instead of Stalin that the USSR would have stopped the Nazis earlier"
Bruh. You're really out here claiming that Stalin didn't press the Stop Nazis button early enough?
These clowns have zero grasp of material conditions. Trying to stop the Nazis from taking all of Poland would have been cause for war almost certainly. Attempting to stop the Nazis earlier would have undoubtedly been the defeat of the USSR because, in all honesty, they just barely scraped it in at the last minute and going too hard too soon would have been to their demise.
These are the people who complain that the USSR didn't help the Spanish Republic "enough", despite being just about the only country to provide any significant military aid to the Republic. (Strange how their criticisms of the socialist USSR never seem to stretch far enough to reach the so-called socialist Leon Blum [in effect he was just another example of milquetoast SocDem failsons] and his government who not only refused to provide aid to the Spanish Republic but also refused to enforce the terms of the non-aggression pact to which they were signatories to along with the Nazis and the Italian fascists [to the point where an Italian diplomat openly declared to Blum that there was an Italian regiment operating in Spain and that it "would not be removed under any circumstances"]); the Spanish Civil War was prelude to WWII and the USSR absolutely could not afford for a "national" conflict (putting aside the international involvement and the major influence of Morocco on the war for a vain attempt at brevity here) to spill out into a regional European war or, worse yet, to spiral out into another world war at that time.
They just don't seem to grasp how dire the situation was for the USSR, how close a call it was during WWII, and yet they'll denounce the USSR for ruthlessly sending troops to the slaughter on the frontlines in WWII "with one rifle between two soldiers", without a single moment to consider that an earlier engagement in WWII for the USSR would have meant a far greater death toll because they would have been even more underequipped and less technologically advanced.
These people treat history like dilettantes. They fancy themselves as main characters and they project this attitude back out over history, with all the benefits of hindsight, and they armchair quarterback so they can put on airs of being some sort of historical and geopolitical hotshot.
Which, I cannot stress this enough, never happened and is anti-Soviet propaganda dreamed up post-war. Things were pretty fucking bad but it was never so bad that they didn't have crates and crates of Mosins to hand out.
All the benefits of hindsight without any of the practical application when it comes to current events. "It's obvious this was going to happen" yeah, what were the events that happened prior to the topic of discussion, and how does that relate to it being an inevitablility? Nothing happens in a vacuum, explain how we got here.
What gets me is that these people think that it's just obvious how history was always going to play out (it really isn't) but the also have a tendency to think that some small intervention or minor adjustment would dramatically change the course of world history (most of the time it probably wouldn't have.)
It's a weird sort of doublethink where they believe that history is just so but at the same time they believe that it's also extremely mutable.
I guess that's what zero materialism does to an MFer.
I think it has to do with the drive of needing both the "right" answer and also the "easy" answer. People like us don't derive any pleasure from conclusions such as this, because as we know, history does not particularly enjoy "right" or "easy". That's why we tend to get bogged down into the details, because there's so much nuance in basic historical issues.
I know for myself, I always find myself browsing through obscure historical facts for all hours of the day, because some of them may be relevant to stuff i might be asked. And constantly struggle with my knowledge, because i don't have all of the pieces to a puzzle, i don't feel qualified to respond. I think this is another reason why i have no debate bro tendencies, because i hate walking into situations that i'm not prepared for.
Trotsky couldn't even be arsed to fully give public support to Czechoslovakia forming an alliance with the USSR. He would rather it fall than be saved if it would mean Stalin would look good
to be fair there is definitely a case to be made that Trotsky's permanent revolution would have involved arming Rosa Luxemburg and fighting the nazis before they took over Germany. But this is in the realm of alternate history
That's just ahistorical. Trotsky's idea of permanent revolution was not clearly defined till later, but more importantly, the Bolsheviks did attempt to assist the Spartakus League. Despite negotiating it, Trotsky had been opposed to Brest-Litovsk which created the conditions for a lot of demobilized soldiers as well as Germany focusing on a spring offensive westward now that they had no eastern front. An offensive that caused more discontent in the German people and soldiers and led to the revolution.
When Germany did revolt, it was premature and had various flaws, not helped at all by the fact that the expectation of simultaneous revolutions across developed Europe didn't happen. The permanent revolution required everyone to be on the same page and level of capitalist development leading to a purely class based revolution.
That wasn't reality though. By spring 1919 the major revolutionary outbreaks had been put down. The Soviets had no time or means to actually assist Rosa, and a lack of arms was not really the problem in the first place. The Soviets had no direct means of helping, at this time they had been struggling with Poland invading western Ukraine, the Bolsheviks in the rest of Ukraine being thrown back by a German occupation and then puppet government, and a bunch of other issues. By the time the move was made to spread westward most revolutions had been destroyed, and pushing the war with Poland after its invasion of Kiev proved wasteful.
It's like saying there is a case to be made that they could've assisted the Battle of Blair Mountain.
there is a case, but not a very good one
No I'm just saying it is a coherent belief someone might have not that I agree with it. I also don't think there's much point in talking about what Trotsky might have done because he didn't.
Let the dead bury the dead the living are where the action is
The dead made our living
yeah and it's important to understand the past but what might have happened if history in some way changed is not a worthwhile question
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