Date: Sun, 18 May 1997 11:44:24 -0500
To: marxism-general-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU,
From: John Bicketts <sfeikema-AT-mach3ww.com>
Subject: Re: M-G: Trotsky, Democracy and all that stuff


At 03:28 AM 5/17/97 +0200, Rolf Martens wrote:
>John B wrote, on 16.05:
>
>(Rolf:)
>>>Sorry, John B, you're overlooking one *crucial trick* on the
>>>part of the enemies of the great majority of people.
>>>
>>>False-labelling.
>>>
>>>Those creeps are NOT "fellow Marxists".
>>>
>>>Ever heard of Bernstein?
>>>Ever heard of Trotsky?
>>
>>Tho' i'm not exactly a Trotskyite, I would say that he was a Marxist, no
>>matter what side you take on him.
>
>He may have been at one time, though I'm inclined do doubt that
>too. From a later point on, he became an enemy of the workers.

Trotskyistes would say you have it the other way around, but...

>His name rightly is infamous among Marxist-Leninists.

You say Marxist-Leninists. There are non-Leninist Marxists, and Leninists
who take a different opinion of Trotsky.

 True,
>there were and still are some errors on the part of several
>of the latter (read: in the Stalin tradition) which need to be
>rectified and which has helped the reactionary ideology of
>Trotskyism to linger on. But that's the quite subordinate
>side of things.
>
>
>(Rolf, correcting now some misspellings - sorry:)
>>>Ever heard of Crhushchev?
>>>Ever heard of Brezhnev?
>>>Ever heard of Liu Xiaochi in China?
>>>Ever heard of Lin Biao in China?
>>
>>Ever heard of Stalin? But never mind...
>>( I mean, he's why people wrongly associate socialism with dictatorship)
>
>In the main, he should be supported. But see also avove.

Oh, I never was much a fan of Stalin. He seemed much more into Russian
nationalism and stuff than in actually creating a worker's state. If he'd
been into that, maybe he would have treated the workers better.
>>
>>>That last-mentioned case was a particularly
>>>instructive one. Lin B was actuallt named in the oficial
>>>press in 1969 etc as Mao's "closest comrade-in arms"
>>>and probable successor.
>>>
>>>Yet in 1971 he tried a coup, i.a, intended to murder
>>>Mao Zedong.
>>>
>>>It failed. Some sucessors of his succeeded.
>>>
>>>With your primitive thinking John, the
>>>revolutionaries will get nowhere except in
>>>front of the machine guns of reaction.
>>
>>Your forgetting again, whatever you may think of the above people, most of
>>them WERE Marxists- maybe Marxists in the wrong, but most did beleive in
>>Marxism.
>
>Fror Chris' sake, NO!
>
>How on earth can you have reached such a conclusion?
>

Oh, it's fairly simple; Do you really think that the Trotskyists are
working for the capitalist system- No, whether you like their approach or
not. Anymore than Roosevelt was working for socialism.
  I just dont see why there cant be several opinions on how to oppose the
capitalist system!  Just like there are the fascist, laissez-faire, and
liberal methods of capitalism.
  True, maybe only one opinion can be right (altho that's more true in
science than in politics) but how can one be sure it's yours?

>There's some super-naivité on your part here.
>
Sorry !

>Most "ordinary people" know very well about many cases of
>*dastardly treason* by leaders or former leaders in the
>workers' movement. This on various levels. They can
>understand the very clear evidence against those crooks
>I mentioned.
>
>Would you care to try to explain how you have come to
>believe in what you expressed by that sntence above?

  I have no wish to get into an argument about Trotsky ( I hear they can
get ugly )
but I think that too the end I think he at least beleived that he was
fighting for the worker, and that he beleived Marx.  Now, I know that
Trotskyists would probably say that Stalin was the traitor who perverted
socialism, and I'm just going to stay out of it because I belong to NEITHER
camp.

>
>>As an analogy, the fact that many capitalists considered Roosevelt a
>>traitor sadly did not make him a socialist- he was just a different sort of
>>capitalist
>
>On that point, you're right.
>
>>This tendency to label people 'traitors of the revolution' seems rather
>>primitive to me- it's the reason the USSR had all those nice purges and
stuff.
>>It seems to me that a little democracy would have cut down on that a lot.
>>People could express their disagreements by vote rather than by violence.
>>  Sorry to bring up a beorgousie state, but despite sometimes very serious
>>disagreements the USA has never had a cuop d'etat or anything like it.  Not
>>that I'm advocating capitalism- I'm advocating democracy-capitalism is in
>>fact the reason that American democracy isn't worth a whole lot.
>> Combine Socialism AND democracy, see what ya get!
>
>That's the old bourgeois prejudice here again. It would carry to
>far if I were to try to explain it. But socialism always *was*
>demorcary, for the majority, and capitalism always *was*
>dictatorship, by a few over most people. You don't have to look
>that far under the surface to see this.

Well, your right about this. The only way there can be real socialism is
for it to have democracy.  Socialism = Worker Control of the means of
production, and how are they to control it but with a democratic system?
This is part of the reason the USSR was not fully socialist, and it's
unfortunate that they didnt fix this before the collapse.
  I'm used to emphasizing 'democratic socialism' in arguments because my
capitalist adversaries tend to assume socialism= dictatorship, and it's a
good idea to disillusion them of this quickly.

>
>Democracy: The Cultural Revolution in China was an excellent
>example of it. There *were* grave deficiencies on the question
>of actual democracy under the Stalin regime in the Soviet Union.
>Those were deformations of that socialism - to put this whole
>complicated matter, which still needs further investigation,
>in rater simple terms, as well as I on my part can do this today.
>
>Rolf M.
>
>
>
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