Leon Trotsky

In Defense of Revisionism (1946)

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...

WHAT IS THE WORKERS' REPUBLIC? (1967)

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...

In Defence of Ukrainian Independence

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

Leon Trotsky: Marxism and Ukrainian independence

Trotsky's 1939 call for Ukrainian independence Democratic feudalists and the independence of the Ukraine Independence of the ukraine and sectarian muddle-heads The Fenians: Rise and Decline(1967) Stalin the temporary holder of the ukraine

Stalin The Temporary Holder Of the Ukraine (1939)

[Note: A Pact between Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia was signed on August 23, 1939. On Sept 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland from the west; on 17 August Russia invaded Poland from the east and the armies met at a pre-arranged point and partitioned Poland. Much of the territory taken by Russia was of the Ukraine, territory taken by Poland in the war of 1920.] ---- War, like revolution, is distinguished by the fact that at a blow it destroys idiotic formulas and reveals the naked reality underneath. "Defense of democracy" is an empty formula. The invasion of Poland is a bloody reality. Today...

Democratic Feudalists and the Independence of the Ukraine

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...

Independence of the Ukraine and Sectarian Muddle-heads

In one of the tiny, sectarian publications which appear in America and which thrive upon the crumbs from the table of the Fourth International, and repay with blackest ingratitude, I chanced across an article devoted to the Ukrainian problem. What confusion! The author sectarian is, of course, opposed to the slogan of an independent Soviet Ukraine. He is for the world revolution and for socialism—“root and branch.” He accuses us of ignoring the interests of the USSR and of retreating from the concept of the permanent revolution. He indicts us as centrists. The critic is very severe, almost...

How Norway's Labour helped Stalin against Trotsky

When Leon Trotsky published his autobiography, My Life (1930) aged 50, he had already experienced three periods of exile. The first, from 1903 to 1905, took place between two spells of underground work, two prison terms and two banishments from Tsarist Russia. The second, between the two Russian revolutions (1905 and 1917) and included the First World War, was spent in Austria, the Balkans, France, Spain and then the US. His third and final banishment began in 1929, following a year of internal exile in Central Asia, and commenced with his expulsion to Turkey. With some justice he could...

New insight on Trotsky in Norway

Oddvar Høidal, Trotsky in Norway: Exile, 1935–1937: University of Illinois Press (2013).

When Leon Trotsky published his autobiography, My Life (1930) aged 50, he had already experienced three periods of exile. The first, from 1903 to 1905, took place between two spells of underground work, two...

The Basis of Workers’ Democracy

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...

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