• @redjoker
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    74 years ago

    Reading accounts from communists of the time that weren’t Soviets, but did study at the Comintern, like Harry Haywood, we can see that Trotsky’s theories were taught and debated up until he was kicked out of the party, and the debate over kicking him out took years and Trotsky had ample opportunity to give his side of the events

    Afterwards, Trotsky was conspiring with fascists to overthrow Stalin and pull the USSR out of the war, which would have not only allowed the Anti-Comintern Pact to win the war, but they would have gathered strength and attacked the USSR from both fronts once making peace with the UK and US

    Trotskyists since then are a mixed bag in my book. There are those, especially in Latin America, that have been martyred by fascists and deserve our respect for their heroism

    There’s the problem of covering up sexual assault by ISO and then the org trying to whitewash the whole affair by “disbanding” and taking over DSA from the inside. However, if we’re pitching stones from glass houses here, us MLs have the filth of Beria in our ranks

    My answer is no, and while we can form united fronts with Trots and other leftists to fight capitalism and do mutual aid work and generally raise class consciousness, left unity isn’t really a feasible goal because it leads to orgs breaking down over ideological fights. Compare this to community aid work by ecumenical religious organizations, they just do the work to help poor people and don’t debate whether Christianity, Islam, or Judaism is the correct religion while doing the work

      • @redjoker
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        34 years ago

        You flatter me, comrade

        I’ll also add that since /u/ComradeClucky is a mayor and has a bunch of crypto-communists in elected positions, a Trot in your cabinet is better than a liberal, and you should work with Trots pragmatically to achieve policy goals of improving the position of workers and raising class consciousness

      • @redjoker
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        44 years ago

        Interesting. I know the Russian government elected not to declassify the last caches of documents on Beria, and I was aware that Beria did hold true to Stalin’s vision of making the USSR even more democratic than the other Central Committee members wanted. I’m looking forward to what the declassification will lead to. I‘m also aware that Stalin’s grandson made some statements about Beria’s innocence and Stalin’s murder. Got some resources on this (in addition to Grover Furr, who I’m working on anyway)?

          • @redjoker
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            44 years ago

            Thanks comrade, much appreciated

  • Free PalestineA
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    4 years ago

    After being ousted by the Communist Party via vote, Trot was seen being escorted in Fascist Italy as a guest of the state. Then, he was assassinated about a week before he could testify in front of the HUAC, we don’t know what he was planning to say to them but it’s assumable that he might have sold out Soviet spies or informants within the US. His theories are great, but towards the end he had a shift into anti-sovietism, which in turn gives anti-communists a lot of leverage to split leftist parties. So, disliking Trotsky the man isn’t against left unity, but discounting his theories sectarianistly is.

    • Free PalestineA
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      54 years ago

      IMO Trot was an opportunist even before the revolution. We can see this with him backing the Menshevik during the Social Democrat Party days, and we can see this with him adopting other people’s theories without updating them. So him turning against the Union isn’t all that surprising, nor was the party turning against him.