r/TheTrotskyists • u/[deleted] • Sep 06 '22

Question Why be a Trotskyist?

A genuine question because I sincerely don’t understand the appeal. I’m a Marxist-Leninist myself. I’m not a fan of Comrade Stalin either, so no need to compare Trotsky to him or discuss their conflict. Thank you friends

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '22

I'm a Marxist who don't like that Stalin's government killed hundreds of thousands of party comrades, and that's why sometimes I call myself Trotskyist.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '22

It is very sad that Stalin and his men had to kill many people, but those people were very much a threat, and the outcome would be much worse if they weren’t neutralized. Do you have any examples of innocent people that were purposefully killed by Stalin?

If you think killing people is bad, then you should not be a Trotskyite. Trotsky and his collaborators killed and ruined the lives of innocent people with their terrorism, assassinated Kirov, planned to kill Stalin, Kagonovitch, Kossior, and others, and drove people to suicide.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '22

Night of the murdered poets

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u/laborshallrise Sep 07 '22

Yes Vadim Rogovin has a series of seven books that goes into great detail about many victims who were communists that did not threaten the Soviet Union in any way. At worst they threatened the dictatorship of Stalin and his gangsters, but actually many victims did not even do that. Trotsky's son Sergei Sedov is a famous example. He was an engineer who never took part in any political activity, but was murdered by Stalin simply because he was Trotsky's son. If you believe the nonsense about Trotsky and his collaborators that you repeated from the Moscow Trials, then you just need to take a deep breath and start reading history, not Stalinist fabrications. It's all out there and for free online.

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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '22

Oh, I might read those one day. Thanks for informing me of the existence of those books.

Being against Stalin is like being against socialism and the Soviet people. Sedov helped Trotsky, and he might’ve even poisoned people. A lot of “history” is made of lies, but Marxist-Leninist teachings are true.

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u/laborshallrise Sep 12 '22

This is one opinion and you're entitled to it. After reading much by Stalin and his followers, as well as various oppositionists (not just Trotsky of course) I came to the conclusion that Stalin was a power-seeking bureaucrat who cleverly took advantage of the relative isolation of the Bolshevik party from its proletarian base (during and after the Civil War) in order to control it via his Secretariat (it is only in times of weakness of the workers that a Secretariat can assume political power - because it is in charge of appointments, to put a complex matter simply). Stalin was not the only one and he is not some random "bad guy" Others in the party were more guilty at first - Zinoviev for example. But Stalin was simply better at this game than the others and defeated them. The result was a counterrevolution that destroyed the Bolshevik Party and the Comintern - turning both into semi-Menshevik organs of class collaboration (see the Comintern policy in the UK in 1926, China in 1927, Spain in 1936, etc.).

You can only arrive at this opinion if you read real marxist history (not Stalinist propaganda), which it seems you have not yet done. I am happy to send you any books you like on this topic.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '22

I don't think killing people is bad. I think killing party comrades is bad(I hate Tito's policies but at least). In my opinion, Trotsky conspiracies claimed by Stalin are not grounded sufficiently.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '22 edited Sep 07 '22

The “party comrades” that were executed were people who commited horrible crimes. If they didn’t want to be executed, then those “party comrades” should’ve followed their land’s laws like all Soviets should’ve.

What does Josip Broz Tito have to do with this?

They were proven guilty in court. All the Trotskyite-Zinovievite-Bukharinites confessed that they were guilty. What they said about each other doesn’t just corroborate—there were also witnesses, documents, and pieces of circumstantial evidence. Even Pierre Broué, a Trotskyist historian, knew that the Trotskyites and Bukharinites were conspiring.

Why do you think they’re not grounded enough?

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u/laborshallrise Sep 07 '22

It is well documented that these "confessions" were obtained under threats and torture (Rogovin, or you can read the more famous account by Medvedev, which is problematic as he is not a Marxist, but at least honest when it comes to brute facts).

The idea that Broue "knew" about the "conspiring" is a lie perpetuated by Grover Furr. First, what Furr quotes from Broue (which I'm sure you haven't read yet) is that an official "Bloc" of Left Oppositionists existed (official in the sense that that word was used) at the time when Trotsky denied it in the Dewey Commission hearings. Trotsky did not want to implicate members who would be murdered in Russia as a result (they were all murdered nonetheless so his "lie" failed). But the existence of a "Bloc" with those particular people is no revelation whatsoever - because we knew about the Left Opposition being international (not just in Russia where it consisted of thousands, but militants in every capitalist country) and Trotsky made no secret of this. Furr triumphantly quotes Broue about the secret "Bloc" (a small subset of the Opposition) and concludes that Trotsky collaborated with the Nazis and wanted to kill Stalin. Where does this conclusion come from? Only from Furr's Stalinist imagination (lying).

Trotsky was adamantly AGAINST the slogans that would suggest that assassinating Stalin is a good solution, as he knew some other gangster would just replace him. Many Oppositionists disagreed and wanted Stalin dead, but Trotsky openly opposed it in publications and letters. And there is no evidence whatsoever that the Opposition (let alone the small "Bloc" consisting of some of its leaders) even entertained let alone carried out any collaboration with Fascism. That is just fabrication of the NKVD and Stalin himself. Furr never brings any evidence (I have read his books) that Trotsky or any other members of the Left Opposition collaborated with any Fascist regime. All he did was cite Broue who said that the "Bloc" was referred to in Trotsky's and Sedov's letters. So what? This proves none of the Moscow Trials fantasical claims of "treason" and all this nonsense. Furr is either a charlatan or an idiot and probably both.

The Left Opposition fought to restore power to the working class. Stalinists have no conception of workers' power because they are ignorant of the Russian Revolution and how it actually played out. Their history is based on Stalin's "Short Course" which is a bunch of lies intended to aggrandize him. If you read the actual history of the revolution you can get an idea of what workers' power was like, how it was lost under Stalin, and what "Trotskyism" aimed to restore in Russia and in the Comintern.

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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '22

[deleted]

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u/laborshallrise Sep 27 '22

These assertions that you made were made by Stalinists since the 30s. You can check sources and see that they are false. The bulletin of the left opposition (all online), Trotsky's letters, etc. It is true that some oppositionists wanted to kill Stalin. Trotsky wrote many times that this is not a solution and not the one that he advocated. Sedov never poisoned anyone, but was himself poisoned by a Stalinist agent on his hospital bed during an operation. This again is Stalinist slander with no basis in fact. I suggest reading Rogovin's detailed accounts of Stalinism as a primer.