Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 12:45:41 -0500 (EST)
From: SHAWGI TELL <v600a8e6-AT-ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu>
Subject: Re: On Trotsky


Louis G., I thought the theory of "uneven development" was originally 
advanced by Lenin.  Also, I thought Isaac Deutscher was, in the final 
analysis, anti-Communist.  Does he not still remain ambivalent at best 
about J.V. Stalin?

Hewlett Johnson's works on the Soviet Union deserve reading, as does the 
book "Mission to Moscow" by J. Davies, former U.S. ambassador to the USSR.

There's also a little book (I forget the author's name) entitled 
"Trotskyism, Maoism and Anarchism," or was it "Maoism, Trotskyism and 
Anarchism"?  Anyway, these anti-working-class trends are addressed by the 
author.


Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
V600A8E6-AT-UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU

On Thu, 15 Feb 1996 Godenas-AT-aol.com wrote:

> 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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> 


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