Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 09:43:08 -0600
Subject: Trotsky: friend of the worker


>Rahul,
>
>It's often been said that Stalin stole Trotsky's *industrial* policy
>(with or without distortions). But I haven't before seen it claimed that
>Stalin's agricultural policy -- forced collectivization -- came from
>Trotsky. My recollection is that the Left Opposition in the late 20's
>(the period I assume you have in mind) stood for agricultural cooperatives
>and *promoting* collectivization.
>
>What leads you to think otherwise?
>
>Walter Daum

I'll have to get back to you. I recall a quote of Trotsky's about how the
kulaks should be liquidated, but I read it a long time ago. From what I
have ready to hand at the moment, it looks like you're right about what he
*said*. His record while he had a position of power speaks unequivocally,
though, especially in his support for the militarization of labor as
opposed to workers' democracy. And of course there's Kronstadt, but someone
will call me a white Menshevik anarchist pig.

A few choice quotes:

"...it is essential to form punitive contingents and to put all those who
shirk work into concentration camps ..."

about the Workers' opposition:

"They turn democratic principles into a fetish. They put the right of the
workers to elect their own representatives above the Party, thus
challenging the Party's right to affirm its own dictatorship, even when
this dictatorship comes into conflict with the evanescent mood of the
worker's democracy. We must bear in mind the historical mission of our
Party. The Party is forced to maintain its dictatorship, without stopping
for these vacillations, nor even the momentary falterings of the working
class. This realization is the mortar which cements our unity. The
dictatorship of the proletariat does not always have to conform to formal
principles of democracy."

And lest one invoke the catchall excuse, "but the War ... ":

"I consider that if the Civil War had not plundered our economic organs of
all that was strongest, most independent, most endowed with initiative, we
should undoubtedly have entered the path of one-man management much sooner
and much less painfully."

This does not sound like a man I would trust to follow even a remotely
democratic course of action, with regard to collectivization or anything
else, once he got his greedy little mitts on power. I think in this regard,
quotes from 1924 and earlier are considerably more significant than those
>from the late '20's and after.

Rahul

PS There are some really good Lenin quotes too:

"Unquestionably submission to the single will is absolutely necessary for
the success of labor processes based on large scale machine industry ...
Revolution demands, in the interests of socialism, that the masses
unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of the labor process."

"Large scale machine industry which is the central productive source and
foundation of socialism calls for absolute and strict unity of will ... How
can strict unity of the will be ensured? By thousands subordinating their
will to the will of one."

"...the militarization of labor ... is the indispensable basic method for
the organization of our labor forces ... is it true that compulsory labor
is always unproductive? ... This is the most wretched liberal prejudice,
chattel slavery too was productive ... compulsory slave labor ... was in
its time a progressive phenomenon. Labor, obligatory for the whole country,
compulsory for every worker, is the basis of socialism."

I'm not happy with the ellipses in the last one, but I don't have the
original source. The reference to chattel slavery could not be ignored,
however. Can anyone help with the full quote?

This is a long way from What is to be Done? I think there are certain
obvious conclusions, but please, please, please don't throw me in that
briar patch!




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