Date: Wed, 21 Aug 1996 05:39:57 +0100
From: Richard Bos <Richard.Bos-AT-hagcott.meganet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: A 'recent' member of the Bolsheviks & October


Hugh Rodwell wrote:
> 
> Richard B, trying to squash Nick H, wrote:
> 
> >Note that I said "Trotskyist Party". Trotsky was then a member of the
> >Bolsheviks (a recent one), and acting under the guidence of the party
> >which certainly could not be described as a Trotskyist party. Even
> >Trotskists would not claim that I think. I do not think I was wide of the
> >mark at all.
> 
> A couple of things about this remarkably stupid statement:
> 
> 1) Granting for the sake of argument that the Bolsheviks weren't a
> Trotskyist party, they were even less a *Stalinist* party. Stalin's role in
> October was not merely minimal but in fact negative. Stalin had a position
> in the central bodies of the party, but he was no *leader* of the October
> revolution or the revolutionary Bolshevik party in 1917, and neither were
> the crew (the Molotovs etc) who later formed the core of the Stalinist
> counterrevolution. They were dragged along by events, reluctantly.
> 
> So Richard shot his own balls off, not to put too fine a point on it.
> 

1) I was not trying to squash Nick.
2) You agree that the Bolsheviks were not a Trotskyist party.
3) I did not make any claims about it being a "Stalinist" party.
4) There was nothing that you could point to as inaccurate in what I 
said.
5) Stop hurling insults about. I will not do it back to you. Then maybe 
we can both learn something. I admit that I do not know it all. It would 
be good if you would admit the same in an honest fashion.
-- 
Best wishes,

Richard.                     
      New Worker Online http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2853




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