It's 1924. Lenin is kill. Stalin has been exiled and Trotsky is in charge of the party somehow

France and Britain would have intervened if the KPD looked like taking over, or if the USSR had invaded Germany. There's no way a German revolution could have succeeded.

Idea for a tv show: Some guy has seven chances to travel back in time to improve the world. He is a die-hard Trotskyist, so he uses each chance to help Trotsky against Lenin and Stalin. Each time, he figures out everybody wants to defenestrate Trotsky all the time because of what a twat he is endangering everyone with his grand ideas, so he saves Trotsky from one guy's assassination attempt, then Trotsky says something retarded and infuriating right after that and is killed in yet another gruesome way, so time-travel is in order again.

Then Trotsky is not assinated for once and brings a nuclear hyper holocaust to the world. So, with the last time-travel wish the protagonist goes back in time to deliver some hard-hitting critique to 1940 Trotsky chilling in Mexico.

Trotsky means Trotsky faction. And Trotsky faction is different from Stalin faction.

He could've spent money Stalin used to Industrialize/Collectivize to buy weapons and launch Red Jihad to conquer Poland and then Germany.

Probably they would've occupied the Rhineland but the industrial heartlands would've been rebellious knowing communists were coming. Berlin might well have fallen to the Red Army. At the very least, a unified fascist German state could not have happened.

I think the years after WW1 are the closest we've ever come to world revolution

The only change I could see happening is a possibly lighter purge of the army - resulting in a far less one sided (but still fairly poor) performance during Barbarossa. Maybe more funding for the KPD in Germany, which was by 1932, the second largest party in the country.

Wow has anyone ITT even read revolution betrayed?

There was no such thing in a significant extent in 1924 you retard. Planned industry was virtually non-existent at this point.

9 out of 10 times one of you dweebs mentions GMT you're misinterpreting it.

>>>/lit/

The idea that if Stalin wasn't there, there'd have been another autocratic ruler over the party apparatus is pretty flawed. The insane "lets praise our godlord chairman" worship wasn't a thing when Lenin died, Stalin pretty much created those conditions over a 10-15 year period.

You can say what you want about the guy, but the way Stalin got rid of pretty much everyone from the early Bolshevik leadership by playing all sides, so in the end only he was left standing, was pretty genius. I don't think anyone was as ruthless, cunning and dead inside as Uncle Joe to get to the undisputed top.

No.

Trotsky would have sold out the USSR to foreign interests and American imperialist powers, as well as backed and actively aided Nazi Germany, among other fascist powers. Trotsky was an opportunist and a crook through and through, even Lenin saw that.

sup Greaves

don't you have a tweet about how shitty Jacobin is to write

...

Has any Trot ever read anything by Trotsky? Q and A with a typical Trot:
Q: Why do you want to bring back the gold standard?
A: I want what?
Q: Why do you want to split up rail into separate units that have to cover their own costs?
A: What are you talking about?
Q: *shows texts by Trotsky where he said that*
A: lol whatever, nobody is perfect, still a great marxist

Yeah, apparently you don't need to know a fucking thing about ECONOMICS to be a GREAT MARXIST.

evidently.

You sound like a fucking autist

What is autistic is trying to reckon the efficiency of parts of the economy as if they were self-contained monads, their qualities intrinsic and existing outside space and time. Which is exactly the economic perspective of Trotsky. Money as a thing (gold) instead of money as a relation. The value of a fucking rail-network being the sum of its parts.

What's remarkable is how these words by him sit right next to his ADHD Hegel-on-acid Turbo Dialectics:

This.

It's baldly utopian to perpetually depend on your leaders being "virtuous" enough to resist the temptations of power and corruption. Not every person is a George Washington who rebukes those who hint at plots to make him king and peacefully steps down for his ideals, nor is it sound to expect them to be. The French Revolution provided no shortage of historical lessons, and the Bolsheviks knew this better than anyone.

In essence the bureaucratization of the Soviet Union was not the result of extant contradictions or shortcomings in the Bolshevik model, but of its wholesale subversion at the hands of a hungry political genius. Once perturbed from its steady course, the damage was not to be repaired by the token "destalinization" thereafter or the natural pressures of its material conditions.

Why do you want to abolish the distinction between town and country, mr. Marxist?
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm
Le kek

The gold standard and railroad administration are both tactical, nation-building, policy issues. It's dishonest to judge them as theory, as some kind of transcendental revolutionary goals that apply in all contexts and represent ends in themselves.
There's certainly a case to be made (in Revolution Betrayed, no less!) that planned "fiat" currency was incompatible with planned production in an industrializing nation. You seem to be overlooking both context and intent, like the guy on here who cited a single phrase from the Transitional Program to complain about the SEP's denunciation of modern unions as glorified arms of management – when he clearly hadn't read it all the way through.

...

I have no idea what that statement and link have to do with the claims of the post you "reply" to.
Non sequitur. Trotsky's proposals about railroad administration and the gold standard were retarded, at that time and place. Imagine that.
Nein.

...

gotta love tankie logic

The German Revolution took place during Lenin's tenure, not Stalin's. By the time Trotsky would have come to office, Wiemar would already be in full swing.

Your assumption that a modern Trotskyist must want to bring back the gold standard or split railroads, simply because Trotsky suggested it at some point in time, is unfounded.
As unfounded, even, as someone snatching up one policy proposal from the Communist Manifesto and attempting to characterize your views with it would be.
See the connection?

You hadn't suggested that before this post, and so my criticism stands. But as for the claim itself, we'll probably just have to "agree to disagree"
I don't believe a War Commisar, who routinely deals with rifles, trains and other machinery, is in the habit of regarding them as nothing functionally more than the sum of their parts.
Feels to me you're fishing for an uncharitable interpretation, especially with this "self-contained monads" nonsense.

There was another attempt at insurgency in the mid-20's. The German communists even asked Trotsky to go undercover and help them, which he wanted to, but Stalin and the others decided against.

But how would Stalin of been exiled in 1924?

Kicking puppies, probably

There is certainly a case to be made (in this thread, no less!) that you should go blow Ron Paul, you massive retard. Perhaps ISIS is more your thing than socialism, I hear they have a boner for gold money as well.

fucking kek, dying

who are the other pillars of Tankie Twitter? I know cordeliers

Wow that's some seriously insightful historical analysis, user.

wew

A bit. I even created a thread for Trots not too long ago (Trotsky's Lenin quote contradicted Lenin's actual speech).

How is choosing voluntarist analysis over Marxist not flawed? And I have yet to see anything that supports "autocratic ruler" hypothesis. Anti-Stalinist historian consider this "common knowledge" and doesn't even attempt to quantify or clarify anything.

Lenin didn't end up as a pharaoh-style mummy that got worshipped every single day "over 10-15 year period". It happened right after his death.

You know why it was a thing since the beginning? Because Russia was the most religious state in Europe before October. You don't change peoples thoughts overnight. It takes generations.

He didn't.

Can you list Stalin's significant deviations from 1902 program? Because Stalin "played" Centrist faction in Bolshevik party, not "all sides".

Yes, you don't think. You consume regurgitated propaganda.

How exactly did this bureaucratization look like in 1925? How it could've been avoided?

If I say that the essence of Trotskyist displeasure with "bureaucracy" was that they wanted government officials to have less public oversight and less responsibility, will you be able to argue against this?

...

Hi there!

You seem to have made a bit of a mistake in your post. Luckily, the users of Holla Forums are always willing to help you clear this problem right up! You appear to have used a tripcode when posting, but your identity has nothing at all to do with the conversation! Whoops! You should always remember to stop using your tripcode when the thread it was used for is gone, unless another one is started! Posting with a tripcode when it isn't necessary is poor form. You should always try to post anonymously, unless your identity is absolutely vital to the post that you're making!
Now, there's no need to thank me - I'm just doing my bit to help you get used to the anonymous image-board culture!

wew
Do you have some academic defense of Stalin's rule as not fundamentally autocratic? Say, in the same vein as North's thorough exposition of the flaws in Trotsky biographies by Thatcher, Swain and Service?

Perhaps not off the top of my head, since it's such a foreign claim. It stands at odds with the entire body of his work marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/xx/bureaucracy.htm
When he bemoans the ineffectual bureaucracy, it's not for insufficiently absolute, swift authority (the Moscow trials show this quite clearly,) but for its frequent standing at odds with the goal of a self-actualized revolutionary proletariat and ultimate limitation in many spheres of life to the purely cosmetic.
Economic self-determination must invariably rest on this self-actualization, and the role of a central authority in socialist society is necessarily to promote and defend it, not to "rule" the proletariat

The job of the trade union is to communicate to the stupid workers what the wise party decided. That's Trotsky. The party orders you to do which job and where. That's Trotsky. Militarization of Labor. That's Trotsky.

If you are spewing Cold War propaganda I'm allowed to point it out, no?

There could be no proper defence if there is no proper accusation. And it is not about defence, but about serious research on Soviet power structure - there is none. And yet, we have absolute conviction of people that all has been researched and thoroughly investigated - and "serious scientists" "scientifically discovered" that it was autocratic regime.

Which would be quite hard to justify, no? Trotsky was a politician. Why do you expect him to openly state something like this?

This is a good propaganda, but very poor explanation of suggested alternative.

I expected you'd say as much. A big part of responding effectively to you is going to be knowing how exactly you're arguing
and what would falsify your hypothesis

If there is no research, how do you expect to support your own claims?

You can start actually responding any time. Don't worry, people have been responding to me without predicting my words for a long time. Somehow they manage.

I can even give you a hint: the most effective responses are generally argumentative, rely on objective reality, and are properly sourced. They don't rely on posting "I expected you'd say as much".

You can't seem to formulate my "hypothesis". And failure to falsify is hardly the most effective response.

Have you gone full autismo? My "claims" are that there is no proper research, and yet people (you) use words like "autocratic regime". What part do I need to support?

KEK
You really are a salty cunt, mate.

It's not on me to turn your vague, unfalsifiable assertion into a specific claim. It's on you to pin down what you mean and give an actual argument. I obviously can't judge arguments I am not presented with.
You're literally avoiding doing exactly this, expressly so that I can only strike at shadows.
And if your response to "this general ethos is clearly incompatible with the sum total of his published work as a theorist and politician" is screaming "well, you can't trust anything he's written! It's all lies!" you'd sure as shit better have some historical evidence.

What the fuck is this incoherent ramble? Are you actually unfamiliar with the concept of falsifiability?
logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/178/Unfalsifiability

AYYYYYYY BACK TO THE MOTTE
No. Fuck you. You've directly claimed that Trotsky's work cannot offer a reflection of his intent, and your position as a professed Stalinist, rather than "M-L," implicitly rests on some combination of historical claims and apologism on the matter of his tenure and legacy. Your idea of evidence for all of this is to kick the board over and yell that there's simply no research! Not to mention the vicious condescending act when I so much as press you to make your "insinuations" about Trotsky precise!