Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
The Soviet Union Did Not Fail
"Gigantic achievement in industry, enormously promising beginnings in agriculture, an extraordinary growth of the old industrial cities and a building of new ones, a rapid increase of the numbers of workers, a rise in cultural level and cultural demands – such are the indubitable results of the October revolution, in which the prophets of the old world tried to see the grave of human civilization. With the bourgeois economists we have no longer anything to quarrel over. Socialism has demonstrated its right to victory, not on the pages of Das Kapital, but in an industrial arena comprising a sixth part of the earths surface – not in the language of dialectics, but in the language of steel, cement and electricity. Even if the Soviet Union, as a result of internal difficulties, external blows and the mistakes of leadership, were to collapse – which we firmly hope will not happen – there would remain an earnest of the future this indestructible fact, that thanks solely to a proletarian revolution a backward country has achieved in less than 10 years successes unexampled in history."
"This also ends the quarrel with the reformists in the workers movement. Can we compare for one moment their mouselike fussing with the titanic work accomplished by this people aroused to a new life by revolution? If in 1918 the Social-Democrats of Germany had employed the power imposed upon them by the workers for a socialist revolution, and not for the rescue of capitalism, it is easy to see on the basis of the Russian experience what unconquerable economic power would be possessed today by a socialist bloc of Central and Eastern Europe and a considerable part of Asia. The peoples of the world will pay for the historic crime of reformism with new wars and revolutions."
Leon Trotsky, "The Revolution Betrayed"
"This also ends the quarrel with the reformists in the workers movement. Can we compare for one moment their mouselike fussing with the titanic work accomplished by this people aroused to a new life by revolution? If in 1918 the Social-Democrats of Germany had employed the power imposed upon them by the workers for a socialist revolution, and not for the rescue of capitalism, it is easy to see on the basis of the Russian experience what unconquerable economic power would be possessed today by a socialist bloc of Central and Eastern Europe and a considerable part of Asia. The peoples of the world will pay for the historic crime of reformism with new wars and revolutions."
Leon Trotsky, "The Revolution Betrayed"
The Soviet Union Did Not Fail
By Steven Argue
The following question was asked at the For Communism (Leninist-Trotskyist) site:
"Hello guys, i'm sorry but just consider me as a noob Communist. I just want to know why the hell Soviet Union failed and why Trotskyism is better than Stalinism?"
Here was my response:
The Soviet Union did not fail. The Russian Revolution turned one of the poorest countries in the world into an industrial powerhouse capable of defeating two major imperialist invasions, including the Nazis, and rebuilding to provide everyone with a job, education, and health care. The example of the gains of the Russian Revolution also forced western imperialist countries to give women more rights like the vote, forced western European countries to provide free health care and education, and supplied some important material aid to the anti-imperialist revolution. These were all gains of the October 1917 Russian Revolution led by Lenin and Trotsky.
Yet, there was also a degeneration that occurred in the early years of the revolution. Despite surviving, the invasion by 14 imperialist armies, including the United States, combined with the imperialist backed White Army and an imperialist economic blockade, the USSR emerged out of this attack greatly wounded. The U.S. backed White Army murdered 100,000 Jews just in Ukraine alone. It was under these conditions of war, hunger, and White terror that emerged the growth of a more conservative layer in the bureaucracy that did not agree with the program and ideals of Lenin and Trotsky. There were several reasons for this, including the fact that many of the best worker communists were killed at the front as well as the fact that the party and bureaucracy had to take in many people who never really agreed with the ideals of the revolution. After Lenin died, Stalin was able to capture power with the backing of this more conservative layer.
Stalin betrayed the Russian Revolution in a number of ways including making abortion illegal, outlawing homosexuality, opposition to any real workers democracy which included the murder of most of the people led the revolution and calling them "Trotskyites", and abandoning Lenin and Trotsky's program of breaking out of isolation through promoting the world revolution. Instead, Stalin's international program was one of big betrayals of the international working class in Germany, Spain, and China in the 1920's and 30's. This was all part of Stalin's program of ""socialism in one country", a conservative program of betrayal established to try to keep the imperialists from attacking the USSR and to attempt to gain better trade relations. Those betrayals in Germany, China, and Spain made Trotsky aware of the need to build a new international which was established as the Fourth International under Trotsky's leadership in exile from the USSR.
Yet, despite Stalin's betrayals, Trotsky never abandoned the importance of the USSR's revolutionary socialist economic system, which his leadership and the leadership of Lenin established in the USSR in the first place. He saw the massive advances in the USSR's economy as putting flesh and bones on the theories of socialism. Trotsky defended the USSR from imperialist attack and internal capitalist counterrevolution. At the same time, he recognized that a conservative privileged bureaucracy had seized power. To reestablish workers democracy he advocated a political revolution that, unlike a capitalist counterrevolution, would preserve the socialist system.
Unfortunately, capitalist counterrevolution prevailed in 1992. Yeltsin, backed by the imperialists, seized power, murdered large numbers of pro-communist protesters in the streets, opened fire on the Soviet legislature, and carried out a capitalist counterrevolution that produced hunger and unemployment and decreased life expectancy by 10 years in just 10 years. This was a failure of capitalism. To a large degree, despite some serious problems which Trotskyism addresses and works to avoid, socialism in the USSR was a success.
-Steven Argue for the Revolutionary Tendency
Revolutionary Tendency
https://www.facebook.com/RevolutionaryTendency
For Communism (Leninist-Trotskyist)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/425464974257183/
This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news
By Steven Argue
The following question was asked at the For Communism (Leninist-Trotskyist) site:
"Hello guys, i'm sorry but just consider me as a noob Communist. I just want to know why the hell Soviet Union failed and why Trotskyism is better than Stalinism?"
Here was my response:
The Soviet Union did not fail. The Russian Revolution turned one of the poorest countries in the world into an industrial powerhouse capable of defeating two major imperialist invasions, including the Nazis, and rebuilding to provide everyone with a job, education, and health care. The example of the gains of the Russian Revolution also forced western imperialist countries to give women more rights like the vote, forced western European countries to provide free health care and education, and supplied some important material aid to the anti-imperialist revolution. These were all gains of the October 1917 Russian Revolution led by Lenin and Trotsky.
Yet, there was also a degeneration that occurred in the early years of the revolution. Despite surviving, the invasion by 14 imperialist armies, including the United States, combined with the imperialist backed White Army and an imperialist economic blockade, the USSR emerged out of this attack greatly wounded. The U.S. backed White Army murdered 100,000 Jews just in Ukraine alone. It was under these conditions of war, hunger, and White terror that emerged the growth of a more conservative layer in the bureaucracy that did not agree with the program and ideals of Lenin and Trotsky. There were several reasons for this, including the fact that many of the best worker communists were killed at the front as well as the fact that the party and bureaucracy had to take in many people who never really agreed with the ideals of the revolution. After Lenin died, Stalin was able to capture power with the backing of this more conservative layer.
Stalin betrayed the Russian Revolution in a number of ways including making abortion illegal, outlawing homosexuality, opposition to any real workers democracy which included the murder of most of the people led the revolution and calling them "Trotskyites", and abandoning Lenin and Trotsky's program of breaking out of isolation through promoting the world revolution. Instead, Stalin's international program was one of big betrayals of the international working class in Germany, Spain, and China in the 1920's and 30's. This was all part of Stalin's program of ""socialism in one country", a conservative program of betrayal established to try to keep the imperialists from attacking the USSR and to attempt to gain better trade relations. Those betrayals in Germany, China, and Spain made Trotsky aware of the need to build a new international which was established as the Fourth International under Trotsky's leadership in exile from the USSR.
Yet, despite Stalin's betrayals, Trotsky never abandoned the importance of the USSR's revolutionary socialist economic system, which his leadership and the leadership of Lenin established in the USSR in the first place. He saw the massive advances in the USSR's economy as putting flesh and bones on the theories of socialism. Trotsky defended the USSR from imperialist attack and internal capitalist counterrevolution. At the same time, he recognized that a conservative privileged bureaucracy had seized power. To reestablish workers democracy he advocated a political revolution that, unlike a capitalist counterrevolution, would preserve the socialist system.
Unfortunately, capitalist counterrevolution prevailed in 1992. Yeltsin, backed by the imperialists, seized power, murdered large numbers of pro-communist protesters in the streets, opened fire on the Soviet legislature, and carried out a capitalist counterrevolution that produced hunger and unemployment and decreased life expectancy by 10 years in just 10 years. This was a failure of capitalism. To a large degree, despite some serious problems which Trotskyism addresses and works to avoid, socialism in the USSR was a success.
-Steven Argue for the Revolutionary Tendency
Revolutionary Tendency
https://www.facebook.com/RevolutionaryTendency
For Communism (Leninist-Trotskyist)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/425464974257183/
This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news
Add Your Comments
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$255.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network