From: Godenas-AT-aol.com
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 09:20:20 -0500
Subject: On Trotsky


A good place to start, for those familiar with the general outlines of the
Russian Revolution (The Russian Revolution from Lenin to Stalin by EH Carr is
an excellent brief survey for those who aren't) is Isaac Deutscher's three
volume biography (1954-63).  This can be read in conjunction with Trotsky's
own autobiography (My Life).  I think Trotsky's "best" work is History of the
Russian Revolution, written in the early 30s.  You should also read The
Permanent Revolution, which was a doctrine more or less derived, vulgarly,
from Marx (that and the theory of so-called "uneven development" are the two
hallmarks of trotskyism, aside from the obsessive anti-Stalinism that is
really the core of their creed).   The Revolution Betrayed (1937) is, in my
opinion,  the hook on which most of our modern day trots hang their hat; it
is, in my opinion, a sorry piece of writing, showing the wear of the years in
exile, informed by an insouciant and self-serving selection of the facts,
etc.  The bloom was definitely off the rose as far as Trotsky the
revolutionary was concerned.  Toward the end of his life, Trotsky lamented
the "congenital inability of the working class to become a ruling class."
 This of course was said at a dark hour of despair, but the whole trajectory
of trotskyism, embodied in the innumerable "4th International" groupings,
seems to roughly follow this line: adventurism, despair, reaction.  It is
revealing that, nearly 60 years after his death, there is yet to emerge a
genuinely trotskyist revolutionary movement with any influence anywhere in
the world.   (I'm excluding small parlitamentary groupings like elements of
the PT in Brazil that come and go and have only limited influence within a
very limited sphere of electoral politics)  Could it be that trotskyism,
finally, was just another degenerative strain of Russian anarcho-syndicalism?
  While there are many trots willing to appropriate the mantle of Leninism
(the Sparticist League, for example), there are few leninists wishing to be
known as disciples of Trotsky.  I know this list is dominated by sympathizers
of Lyov Bronstein, and I'm sure we will hear from them in due course.
                                Louis Godena


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