From: "George Pennefather" <poseidon-AT-tinet.ie>
Subject: Re: AUT: Stalin/Trotsky
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 20:27:35 -0000


George: I am replying to Jerry's scurrilous attack on my viwes in defence of
the kind of politics that I take it aut-op-sy is designed to combat.

There is no essential difference between the politics of Trotsky and
Stalin.  Both equally supported the suppression of democracy both outside
and  inside the Bolshevik party.

Gerald: That depends on what period of time one is talking about.

George: No it doesn't.

 They both supported the abandonment of war communism and its indefinite
replacement by NEP.

Jerry: That is wrong. Trotsky (like Lenin) viewed the NEP as a necessary but
*temporary* retreat from War Communism.

George: "temporary" can mean indefinite. Lenin saw NEP continuing or more
years --if that is not indefinite nothing is. Any less of the quibbling and
more of the substance: The point is that Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky supported
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.

Gerry: Again, you are factually incorrect. Trotsky *never* supported forced
collectivisation.

George: All I can say is that Jerry is wrong. He did. Perhaps Gerard will
provide this evidence of his to show the contrary.


Jerrry: Wrong again. Trotsky *never* supported "socialism in a single
country".

George: Of course he did. He would have had to support essentially the same
policies as Uncle Joe in the event of the absence of European revolution or
American revolution. What else could he do if he were in power abandon power
because of the indefinite absence of European revolution? Now he might not
have called it socialism in one country. But who cares it would have had to
amount to the same thing. Of course there cannot be real socialism in one
country.
 In the indefinite  absence of European or world revolution Trotsky would
have had to
 essentially pursue the same domestic policies as Stalin did.

Jerry: But in *fact* Trotsky did oppose most all of the "domestic policies"
instituted by Stalin.

George: But in **fact** he did not oppose most of all the domestic policies"
instituted by Stalin. If anything Stalin aped Trotsky's proposed policies:
collectivisation; industrialisation etc.


Jerry: I am not a Trotskyist, but I am appalled by the plethora of false
statements in your post. I understand the anarchist critique of
Leninism and am not entirely unsympathetic to that perspective, but we
must attempt to establish the facts rather than bend those facts in either
or any direction. The "falsification of history" was a tactic well-tried
and employed by Stalin; "revisionist history" is the historical
perspective the the Far Right and Neo-Liberalism. We should not copy
either Stalin or the Neo-Liberal idealogues.

George: And why do you copy them?

Why does Jerry ignore the fact that Trotsky was a principal figure in the
crushing of the Kronstadt revolt? Why does Jerry ignore the fact that he
supported the crushing of the anarchist movement from the civil war onwards.
Why does he bend facts by falsely claiming that Trotsky did not support
Lenin's suppression of direct dmeocracy in the SU. Why does he ignore the
fact that Trotsky reinstated in the form of the Red Army an army modelled
along conservative lines abolishing the democratic election of officers etc?
Why does he ignore the fact that Trotsky substituted the Red Army for the
Red Guard and had the Cheka stand at the rear with machine guns ready to
shoot any Red Army soldiers that failed to kill their comrades at Kronstadt?

Jerry: In studying history, truth must be sought before propaganda.

George: And when is Jerry going to follow his own prescription?




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