From: "edmond caldwell" <lunacharski-AT-email.msn.com>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: AUT: Stalin/Trotsky
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1998 23:02:03 -0800


>Trotsky was killed while he too was saying that "anyway Russia is
>socialist" and millions of proletarians in the world looked at Russia as
>the socialist homeland, while it was the state capitalism homeland.

Not so.  Trotsky always, very consistently, denied that Russia was socialist
in any sense.  To call Russia socialist would have been a capitulation to
the Stalinists' anti-Marxist dogma of "socialism in one country," the
"theoretical" ideology of the bureaucracy which the internationalist Trotsky
fought against.  What Trotsky maintained was that Russia was a "degenerated
workers state," where a parasitic bureaucratic caste had usurped political
power from the working class but maintained itself on the basis of
proletarian property forms--i.e. nationalized property--which had issued out
of the revolution and the expropriation of the private capitalists.  Now,
let me add that I'm a former Trotskyist and I don't any longer accept the
orthodox Trotskyist explanation of the USSR as a degenerated workers state.
A workers state that merits the name MUST be based on some form of soviet
power (workers councils) or else it is a sham.
What the Internationalists said on this issue--"statisation is not
socialisation"; "statisation in itself is still a capitalist measure"--is
correct and salutary.  However, one constantly hears from various detractors
of Trotsky that he considered the USSR "socialist," which simply isn't true.
A polemic against Trotskyist positions should be against the positions which
Trotsky actually held.

Not only that, but isn't the position of groups such as Battaglia comunista
to elevate the need for a vanguard party over the need for workers direct
power in the form of councils?

Sincere Regards,
Ed

>Second World War, the second imperialistic war, has been fought in the name
>of socialism/democracy against nazifascism; and the "communist" thought was
>that this war is for.. an idea ( Fanny attitude for selfcalled marxists)
>Nowadays we see many of the trotskists (oh, how many they are) talking
>about the "Russia enigma", interrogating themselves on what to think about
>Russia's history and fall. And we see the most anti-communist anarchists
>upsurge with their idealistic, anti-party approach.
>Marxism survived for decays in the Internationalists' cellars, blamed by
>all for beeing "anti-communist" (anti-Russia), for saying strange, "absurd"
>things like "Russia is a capitalist state and in this
>epoch for its size, is the second imperialistic centre with/against the
>western one."
>Now marxism is getting out the cellars and asserting itself as the only
>serious reply to stalinism, the anti-communist campaign and the need to
>rebuild a communist perspective.
>Rev greetings
>m.jr
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Battaglia comunista
>Italian member of the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party
>cas.post. 1753, 20101 Milano Italy
>web site: http://www.ibrp.org
>e-mail: batcom-AT-poboxes.com
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>
>     --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---





     --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---