Trotsky and Hitler: For the independence of the Ukraine! From mim3@nyxfer.blythe.org Thu Oct 26 21:10:20 1995 Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 21:10:19 -0400 (EDT) From: Maoist Internationalist Movement To: Chegitz Guevara cc: marxism@jefferson.village.virginia.edu Subject: Re: An End to Sectarianism On Tue, 17 Oct 1995, Chegitz Guevara wrote: > On Tue, 17 Oct 1995, Maoist Internationalist Movement wrote: > > > > > > > On Mon, 16 Oct 1995, Adam Bandt wrote: > > > > > Pat wrote: > > > > That's 1940 folks. There we have the thinking of Trotsky > > > > who puts his political fight with Stalin above the > > > > war against Hitler. In 1940 he is saying Stalin is a > > > > greater danger than Hitler and he is calling for civil war > > > > in the Soviet Union, while Hitler's troops are waiting > > > > to pounce. > > > > > > > > > > Hmmm... and boy, wasn't Stalin's line during the beginning of the > > > preceding decade - the suggestion that the german social democrats > > > were the main enemy - just soooo good. > > > > > > > Pat for MIM replies: By which you mean to point out Trotsky's > > inconsistencies, because he wanted alliance with social democrats > > with explicit anti-Soviet foreign policies, but he wanted > > war with the "Stalinist bureaucracy," right? > > Uhm Pat . . . ? There's this time issue thingy here. Trotsky was > advocating an alliance with the Social Democrats before the rise of > Hitler (ala the United Front strategy adopted by the Comintern in 1921 > and again in 1922). Trotsky thought Stalinism could be reformed back to > the path of workers' democracy *UNTIL* Stalin had the Communists ignore > the "flash in the pan" of real fascism to fight "social-fascism." This is > one of the great crimes against humanity and the socialist tradition. > What ever else you might be able to defend Stalin on, you can't here. Pat for MIM replies: By the way, thank you C.G. for admitting that Trotsky was for armed force against the Soviet Union (albeit supposedly just its leadership) only after Hitler came to power. (We'll take your word for it, though Stalin claimed Trotsky was masterminding terrorist blows all over the Soviet Union and some of Trotsky's supporters in the military did support a coup.) We find Trotsky's change of position as reported by C.G. convenient for Hitler, but believe it or not that isn't even the main complaint here in this context. If you admit that it was after Stalin supposedly botched the fight against Hitler that Trotsky hardened into a line for civil war in the Soviet Union, then you are simply historically wrong in the rest of your assertion. Trotsky CONTINUED to support united front with social-democrats at the same time that YOU ADMIT that he wanted civil war against the Stalin-led Bolsheviks. Most notably in France after Hitler seized power, Trotsky still wanted a united front with social-democrats and only complained that Stalin- admiring communists went too far in letting bourgeois parties into the united front. We think that's clear enough: despite appealing to those who thought he was so "principled," Trotsky preferred alliance with labor aristocrats and labor bureaucrat leaders over alliance with supposed "degenerated workers' state" leaders. Anyone who reads Trotsky with one-tenth the critical eye that is applied to Stalin will see that Trotsky spewed some good Marxist rhetoric at times, but whenever it came to issues of timing or strategy, he always made it clear whose side he was really on--the imperialists'--as movement history this century amply proves in its total lack of Trotskyist revolution against imperialism. Just as an example, in his published English writings of 1939-40 published by Merit, Trotsky called for self-determination for one country in three articles. Nope, it wasn't the Asian immigrants in the United Snakes. He said the communists need not write publications in Chinese or Japanese to reach these workers to oppose imperialism. No Trotsky was for nationalism of a certain strategic kind: the Ukraine's. Funny thing was that the Nazis were also calling for independence of the Ukraine at the same time! Though of course that pretense was dropped in the course of the genocidal war. Luckily for the Soviet Union, it never experienced what Trotsky really intended for it either.