Vladimir Lenin

The survival and expansion of Russian Stalinism threw all the political compass points of Trotsky's pre-World War "Trotskyism" into seismic confusion. Years of political ferment produced two "Trotskyisms" - Shachtmanites and Cannonites. The tiny Irish Group in this document declared for Shachtman. Since the formation of the Workers Party the theories of Shachtmanite comrades have reached the average party member in the Fourth International only at second hand; and, even then, chiefly in the form of excerpts published with the aim of discrediting them. The majority of comrades interested in...

The only road to the re-organisation of society is the conquest of state power by the working class. The proletariat must take power, turn it against the class enemy, and use it as a lever to expropriate the exploiting classes and imperialism, establish the workers' Republic and begin the economic and social transformation — the building of socialism. The workers' conquest of power will not mean achieving majorities in bourgeois parliaments and installing socialist ministers to drive the existing state machinery. Workers' power necessitates the breaking up of the political power of the...

Ukraine: Russian troops out! Seamus Milne's shoddy arguments for Putin Putin: hands off Ukraine! East Ukraine: it’s mostly Russian imperialism, not democratic protest Why socialists should side with Ukraine against Russia Ukraine is not just a token Russian Imperialism threatens Ukraine The Crimean Tatars: the nation Stalin deported The left and Maidan Leon Trotsky: Marxism and Ukrainian independence

In Kerensky's periodical, "Novaya Rossia" for July 12, 1939, my article on the independence of the Ukraine (printed in Socialist Appeal May 9, 1939) is subjected to a "criticism" of its own kind. From the standpoint of socialist, scientific, literary, etc., criteria, "Novaya Rossia" is of course of no interest at all. But it possesses this merit, that it enables one to peer into the heads of the Russian middle and petty bourgeois democrats. Scratch any of them hard enough and you will find a feudalist. The periodical fumes over the fact that I wholeheartedly and completely stand for the...

A reply on the question of Lenin's legacy. Part one Part two

Ciliga’s purpose in writing the last chapter of his book, The Russian Enigma (published as an article in the August issue of Politics) was to prove that it was Lenin who laid the foundation for the betrayal of the Russian Revolution by Stalin. To prove his thesis he relies on certain specific policies adopted by Lenin. To answer Ciliga fully it would be necessary to take up in detail the specific policies he cites and to arrive at a conclusion as to their correctness or incorrectness on the basis of a thorough analysis of all the factors that prevailed at the time they were adopted. Such an...

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...

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...

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...

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...