From: "George Pennefather" <poseidon-AT-tinet.ie>
Subject: AUT: Stalin/Trotsky
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 13:16:57 -0000


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Hi Folks

There is no essential difference between the politics of Trotsky and Stalin. Trotsky as much as Stalin supported Lenin in his bypassing of the Soviets in the October seizure of power or coup. Both equally supported the suppression of democracy both outside and inside the Bolshevik party. They both supported the use of mass terror and liquidation against those to the Left of the Bolshevik Party --Kronstadt etc.

They both supported the abandonment of war communism and its indefinite replacement by NEP. They both supported fast track industrialisation and forced collectivisation of farming --even if the form on which it was to be done was to vary slightly in the case of each of these Bolshevik figures.

Essentially they both supported what has been termed "socialism in one country".

The biggest and only real difference between the politics of Stalin and Trotsky was in the area of international politics. Trotsky was, it would seem, consistently for the encouragement and support of revolution in other countries in the hope of a European or world revolution being realised. However given that there was no certainty of a successful social revolution breaking out in any of the major imperialist countries Trotsky, like Stalin, would have supported the continued retention of state power by the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. In the indefinite absence of European or world revolution Trotsky would have had to essentially pursue the same domestic policies as Stalin did. At most there would have been a difference of style or form --no difference of substance.

He claimed that he would have promoted direct democracy in the SU (workers' democracy). But given his record after October 1917 while he formed part of the ruling clique this is less than certain. In the absence of social revolution in any of the major imperialist countries there was no possibility of Trotsky being able to offer a radical alternative to "socialism in one country". But as we all know socialism in one country is a contradiction in terms.

Essentially Trotskyism and Stalinism, as they are called, are merely different forms of Leninism a left counter-revolutionary politics which is not Marxism.

------
George

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