Leon Trotsky

Lenin, Trotsky, and Soviet democracy

What did Lenin mean by "Dictatorship of the Proletariat? What was Soviet democracy? By What did Lenin mean by "Dictatorship of the Proletariat"? What was Soviet democracy? By Maurice Spector, who after reading Trotsky's critique of the Communist International at its 6th World Congress in 1928 became one of the founders of American Trotskyism. IMMEDIATELY AFTER the accession of Hitler, Trotsky wrote that the issue presenting itself to the masses was no longer Bolshevism versus Fascism but Fascism versus Democracy. Our subsequent critique of the Popular Front might make it appear that we had...

Lenin, Trotsky and Soviet Democracy

IMMEDIATELY AFTER the accession of Hitler, Trotsky wrote that the issue presenting itself to the masses was no longer Bolshevism versus Fascism but Fascism versus Democracy. Our subsequent critique of the Popular Front might make it appear that we had perversely abandoned this view when Moscow adopted it. That would be a complete misunderstanding. We rejected the whole conception of the Popular Front precisely because it was impotent to combat fascism. The struggle for the democracy vital to the workers could not be waged in a bourgeois alliance for the maintenance of a corrupt parliamentary...

Lenin, Trotsky and Soviet Democracy

IMMEDIATELY AFTER the accession of Hitler, Trotsky wrote that the issue presenting itself to the masses was no longer Bolshevism versus Fascism but Fascism versus Democracy. Our subsequent critique of the Popular Front might make it appear that we had perversely abandoned this view when Moscow adopted it. That would be a complete misunderstanding. We rejected the whole conception of the Popular Front precisely because it was impotent to combat fascism. The struggle for the democracy vital to the workers could not be waged in a bourgeois alliance for the maintenance of a corrupt parliamentary...

Lenin, Trotsky and Soviet Democracy

IMMEDIATELY AFTER the accession of Hitler, Trotsky wrote that the issue presenting itself to the masses was no longer Bolshevism versus Fascism but Fascism versus Democracy. Our subsequent critique of the Popular Front might make it appear that we had perversely abandoned this view when Moscow adopted it. That would be a complete misunderstanding. We rejected the whole conception of the Popular Front precisely because it was impotent to combat fascism. The struggle for the democracy vital to the workers could not be waged in a bourgeois alliance for the maintenance of a corrupt parliamentary...

Workers' Control of Industry in Bolshevik Russia

A MISTAKE MADE BY BOLSHEVIKI (From The Boston Traveler, Nov 21,1918) One of the big mistakes made by the Bolsheviki in Russia, was their failure after they got in power to keep managing brains in charge of businesses. They assumed that ownership of properties conferred upon them special magical powers which would enable them to operate businesses efficiently. If we may believe the dark reports that come from Russia, and there seems to be reason for doubting them, business has been paralyzed, factories are closed down and workers are everywhere down and workers are everywhere idle. The new...

The Origins of Work’s Control of Industry in Revolutionary Russia

A MISTAKE MADE BY BOLSHEVIKI (From The Boston Traveler, Nov 21,1918) One of the big mistakes made by the Bolsheviki in Russia, was their failure after they got in power to keep managing brains in charge of businesses. They assumed that ownership of properties conferred upon them special magical powers which would enable them to operate businesses efficiently. If we may believe the dark reports that come from Russia, and there seems to be reason for doubting them, business has been paralyzed, factories are closed down and workers are everywhere down and workers are everywhere idle. The new...

The Peace Programme (1915)

I. What Is a Program of Peace? What is a program of peace? From the viewpoint of the ruling classes or of the parties subservient to them, it is the totality of those demands, the realization of which must be ensured by the power of militarism. Hence, for the realization of Miliukov’s “peace program” Constantinople must be conquered by force of arms. Vandervelde’s “peace program” requires the expulsion of the Germans from Belgium as an antecedent condition. From this standpoint the peace clauses merely draw the balance sheet of what has been achieved by force of arms. In other words, the peace...

Trotsky: The Russian Marxists and Terrorism (1909)

[Note: Evno Azef was head of the military section of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. That party waged a war of systematic individual terrorism against the leading bureaucrats of the Tzarist State. In 1909 Azef was exposed as a long time police agent. Though Marx himself had expressed the greatest admiration for the Narodnik men and women who were hanged for killing Tzar Alexander II, in 1881, the Russian Marxists came to oppose the tactic of individual assassinations. To it they counterposed the education and mobilisation of the working class and, as some of them sometimes put it, an...

Tradition and Living Revolutionary Policy

The question of the relationship of tradition and party policy is far from simple, especially in our epoch. More than once, recently, we have had occasion to speak of the immense importance of the theoretical and practical tradition of our party and have declared that we could in no case permit the breaking of our ideological lineage. It is only necessary to come to an agreement on what is meant by the tradition of the party. To do that, we must begin largely by the inverse method and take some historical examples in order to base our conclusions upon them. Let us take the “classic” party of...

Blitzkrieg and Revolution (May 1940)

I. IF HITLER WINS – PERSPECTIVE FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION The fundamentals of Marxism have not changed. But the German blitzkrieg has radically altered the political situation. For years all informed persons, from Roosevelt to Trotsky, believed that the Germans would be defeated in the second imperialist war. Revolutionaries looked forward to this defeat as initiating an era of socialist revolution. The imperialist perspective was not very different. The bourgeoisie dreaded the exhaustion of both sides, followed by the revolt of the millions in Central Europe against the long drawn out slaughter...

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