/lit/ - Literature

he had awesome hair

Nothing really. he was expansionist and would've probably caused almost as much harm as stalin in the long run. However, if he'd been in power there probably would have been half as many purges and people like to romantacize that the soviet power structure might not have corrupted as fast as it did. Those is basically the only good things about trotsky

yeah absolutely nothing. he killed shittons of people during Lenin's first years after civil war, and fucked up a lot of shit as leader of some paramilitary operations.

furthurmore, whilst leading the secret police during the civil war, he published a bunch of statements that not only acknowledged what he did, but that attempted to argue for them on not moral grounds, but philosophical ones; a Bolshevik ubermensch, if you will. Whether this makes him more badass than Stalin is entirely up to debate, but seeing as Stalin was able to oust him, and then years later have him killed by an assassin wielding an ice axe, I think we can tell who one that battle as well.

http://histomatist.blogspot.com/2010/08/remembering-leon-trotsky.html

because he faked his death and went on to invent KFC

People want to be Communists without being associated with the infamous atrocities that prominent leaders of Communist nations have committed (e.g. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot). Easy as that.

>>1063092
In the end, he embraced capitalism.

>>1063113
or did he...

KFC color is red...IS THAT JUST A COINCIDENCE?! It has 9/11 written all over it if you ask me.

You know who's a really underrated communist leader?

Khrushchev.

>>1063144
lol he didn't do much and brezhnev just fucked up his work

>>1063065

He didn't lead any secret police during or after the civil war, because that was Dzerzhinsky's responsibility. "Paramilitary operations" didn't exist, unless you were to regard the various left-wing alliances throughout Russia as such. The Red Army of course did exist, and he was responsible for its formation out of the Red Guard, and had a great deal of strategic oversight. Throwing the term "paramilitary" into the mix is nonsensical, but I guess one can connive anything into a sinister sounding plot.

He did of course feel the need to defend Red Army operations in exile, specifically in regards to Kronstadt and its very late martyr status. Read "Their Morals and Ours".

He wasn't in any position to kill "shittons of people" after the civil war.

>...think we can tell who one that...
>one

>>1063048

The people who think of Trotsky as noble also think of Lenin as noble. Don't listen to them. Yes both were more noble than Stalin, but he's STALIN, its not that hard.

>>1063182
Banging his shoe on the desk was good enough
And raising cold-war tensions through the roof

>>1063222
But why aren't they noble? I want actual information and not just somebody telling me one thing is right.

>>1063222

The only reason Trotsky, Lenin, and many others, are tarred is for their actual achievements, which is bringing about and securing a workers state in the least likely place in Europe. In consequence, not only defeating several internal armies, but repelling many times more foreign forces. They also broke apart the territories of the former Russian empire into independent states, not merely out of consequence but as a political commitment.

Claiming that they are "ignoble" implies that they were dishonest in their thinking and actions, or weren't capable of defending themselves nor provide evidence of their achievements. There are many - often quite violent - national, military and intellectual heroes who fall much deeper into such a description.

>>1063314
didn't they betray the anarchist and other left-wing groups by overthrowing the provisional government who were truly the ones who took down the czars

Didn't they close down the emergent democracy in Russia in the name of protecting the revolution? Establishing the Cheka and paving the way for the tyranny of Stalin, thereby setting Socialism as a movement back for who knows how long?

>>1063384

Fucking THIS. THIS is why Lenin fucked up. He didn't allow democracy. DEMOCRACY. IT'S SOCIALISM, APPLIED TO POLITICAL POWER, AND HE SHUNNED IT. FUCK.

Lenin was good before and right at the beginning of the revolution, then SHIT TERRIBLE until he had his first stroke, and realized the USSR was going to turn into the shithole it became. But, too little, too late. He died before major reform was able to go through.


Then fucking Stalin came, and sealed the USSR's fate.

>>1063366

The provisional government in its structure was already in effect under the Tsar, and increasingly unrepresentative of the February Revolution in the following months - it never acted to bring the war to a close, nor in consequence deal with the national scarcity. Its nominal anarchist/SR/SD political capital (mostly amongst peasants) was shrinking, or congealing into a nationalist proxy acting on behalf of those who were undone in February. There was little democratic in practice about it. Merely a formal extension of the historic Duma.

Either that same parliament (regardless of how many on "the left" filled its ranks) would have collapsed under its own weight and lethargy, inviting the military into the vacuum, or its closest democratic contender (the Soviet) would step in first and take its place - which is what happened, and had been happening since July. The Provisional government put up no fight when it was dissolved by the Bolsheviks, on behalf of the Soviet and ultimately the Revolution itself. The overthrow was something which had been developing out in the open for months.

Saying that "Lenin didn't allow democracy" is a moot simplification of something complex and entirely new. The Bolsheviks were a party of proletariat democracy: aimed at a workers' state, populated and steered by workers in their own interests. That meant seizing the political machinery which until then had belonged to the ruling elite, and forcefully excluding potential conflicts of interest until the State was manageable. Which in itself is a conflict of interest and a complex one neither Lenin, Trotsky, nor anyone in the vanguard managed to overcome in the circumstances, apart for the expectation that the "Bolsheviks" as an autonomous Party would cease to exist. "Bolshevik" translates to Majority and that's all Lenin understood it as. That the nominal Left which had been complicit in the Provisional Government found themselves outside any governing system after October is hardly something which can be pinned on Lenin or the Bolshevik leadership as a whole, who themselves were divided ahead of the act and continued to be divided over non-Bolshevik representation. That didn't prevent anyone from participating in the Soviet and having equal democratic rights. Any idea that there could be an Opposition in the same sense as that of the deposed Provisional parliament was obviously out of the question.

On a related note...
I don't break anonymity often, but when I do, I post under this.

>>1063770
I don't get it...

one thing alot of people admire trotsky for is his foresight of and early opposition to nazism

bumpan

>>1065284
While true that I am a political leftist, I am by no means a Trotskyist. I just like the wordplay on "Schlotzy's."

>>1066665
Or, you know, "Schlotzky's." Or whatever.
FUNNY NAME SERIOUS SAMMICH AMIRITEGUISE

bump

Trotsky was a wanker.

I have never understood why people hated Stalin. He was a great leader. He kept everyone in his country in control.

>>1067339
Guaranteed_replies.jpg

During the Russian "civil" war there were over 20 foreign invaders. Trotsky's command of the Red Army fought them off.

Then Stalin purged the Red Army, so the Finnish and then Germans could wipe the floor with them until half way through WWII.

>>1067347
Well, you have to admit that this was the ww1-era these guys were fighting in. Virtually any army with enough determination could hold a trench line almost indefinitely. The red army was highly determined,in a situation where they could not afford to lose, and on top of that the invading powers were not interested in a prolonged type of war as required for this kind of victory.

red army purges were poor planning, but the stavka was actually pretty decent after the opening stages. Although they nearly got annihilated in the early blitz

Where's ruby vajeen when you need him?

He was more of a purist, he is the embodiment of the USSR shunning traditional communism in favor of perverse nationalism

>>1063102
This.

Commie faggots are almost as retarded as Randfags, *almost.

trolls trolling troll trolls
trotsky, hoxha and guevara are not in high regard. they were in high regard when the soviet union was standing amongst ill-educated western students.
barely educated students did not regard him highly. they prayed, instead, to kronstadt sailors, to kropotkin and to imre nagy.
there also was this italian twit but people quoting him have evidently read nothing but him and lukacs and korsch. it's a shame! philosophy, politology and sociology cannot be studied independantly of history but it evidently was and is. a shame!

>>1063224
>And raising cold-war tensions through the roof
fucking yanqui pig. the doctrine of khruschev was peaceful coexistance. you, motherfuckers, have created and supported the cold war to extinguish the only state to sport and distribute the only truly democratic constitution.

>>1067339
amen to that. he industrialised the soviet state, repelled the fascist invaders and brought the old bolshevik butchers to justice.

>>1067434
Oh look, it's someone who thinks the Cold War was just a creation of the US and its allies.

>>1067443
it happened to be the case. rather than starting a struggle for democracy the yanqui exploiter negro hating swine have started a struggle against socialism and they have won. the end of history is the end of real socialism in the east and of social democracy in europe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Doctrine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_coexistence

>>1067447
Ah, so ruby vajeen appears to have arrived.

>>1067450
you infant lumpenproletarian mortality is higher than in subsaharan africa. your murder rate is higher than in countries with a civil war. you have the civilised world's highest rate of homeless people. enjoy your failed state.

>>1067434
If that is the best troll-fu you can manage, you're failing.

Kruschev is probably my favourite soviet premier of the cold war era, simply because of his theatrics. He was a very competitive man,most of his speeches are exaggerated bluffs and pointed complaints against the united states. The Kitchen debate is a great example of this.

Although it is very easy to argue that the united states is as much to blame for raising tensions, you cannot deny Kruschev's part in the Cuban missile crisis. An event quite possibly the most near to armageddon in the entire cold war inb4 argument about retaliation for US nukes in turkey

>>1067465
>you cannot deny Kruschev's part in the Cuban missile crisis
BRAINWASHED IDIOT! i stopped reading here to get a heart attack from your fox-news induced ignorance, yanqui sheep.
was he the one to install AmeriKKKan Imperialist rockets in fascist Turkey? was he the one to support the fascist apartheid in Cuba that has lead to Castro's revolution? There was no Cuban Missle crisis! There is an eternal American Power Elite Gluttony Crisis!
What is the next thing you will do? Blam Brezhnev for Pinnochet, Pol Pot and Sabra and Shatila? You Ignoramus!

>>1067472
man, you are way too obvious

>>1067472
> BRAINWASHED IDIOT! i stopped reading here to get a heart attack from your fox-news induced ignorance, yanqui sheep.
I LOLed. I picture this poster shaking with rage, masturbating furiously while typing with the other. And perhaps munching on some imported Cheetos, which doubtlessly enrage him even further.

>>1067354

>trenches on Eastern Front

ho ho ho

>>1067477
I think he's serious, man.

>my mfw when communism is great in theory but terrible in practice

>>1067481
Yeah, I know. Large distances = not many trenches.

Still, you have to admit that Infantry defending almost always wound up with the advantage in the ww1 era

>>1067479
>>1067477
ah, you two don't even know what the missile crisis was about than. why were they there? don't know it? because your Klansman establishment already had nukes pointing to moscow. All khruschev asked to, kindly, remove them and you call him a aggression. I just got another hear attack. Have you ever tried to use your frontal lobes?
ah! i remember. the american democracy used to remove them by force. do they still do it with icepicks or have they moved to chemicals?

You seem to be the kind of person who hold the pro-nazi antisemite klansman president Truman's descission to butcher Japanese civilians with nuclear bombs to be righteous way to act towards a defeated and disarmed nation. your impotent middle class is perfectly hopeless.

>my face when commies disregard everything as capitalist propaganda

Enjoy your tinfoil hats.

>>1067486
communism is great in theory? says who? it's awful in theory. you have no money and have to endure a plutocracy in all the walks of life.

>>1067523
>my face when commies disregard everything as capitalist propaganda
your face sits firmly on a hollow skull.

>Why is Trotsky put in such high regard? What exactly makes him more noble than Stalin or Lenin?
he wasn't proletarian like Stalin or but a mere clerk like Lenin. His family owned a farm on a holiday resort in Krim. That makes him more "noble".

Read Trotsky's autobiography and find out.

It's a very illuminating read.

>>1067576
why not the one by Isaak Deutscher?

He took an icepick to the back of the neck. Granted, he didn't live, but that still takes balls.

>>1067584

That works too, but it's nice to hear it in the man's own words too.

From an artistic and literary point of view (being that we are, in fact, on a literature, not political theory board):

Trotsky succumbs to the same banal art-as-utility theory that most (if not all) Marxists propound, but with remarkable concession to the relative autonomy of what that art entailed. This was rather unsavory to the more radical (read: philistine) of his peers, who preferred that art and literature specifically and exclusively follow the doctrine of socialist realism or similar schools.

Trostky wished to neither specify the subjects of art nor make decrees on the artistic community. (At least, he said so in 1922).

>mfw I come back to check on my thread and it's turned into shit and has someone giving an even worse name to communists

>>1067818

u mad, philistine?

>>1067808
HURR HURR DERP HURR DERP DERP

TROTZ WAS OPPOSITION
STALIN WAS ESTABLISHEMENT
HURR DURR DERP DERP
DOWN WITH THE RED BOURGEOISIE

SHMA ISRAEL TROTZKI ELOHEINU
SHMA ISRAEL TROTZKI EKHAD

You god has feet and hands made of clay and iron and our god is eternal herp derp derp