this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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chapotraphouse

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Trotsky hated "Stalinism" so much that he was willing to try to collaborate with the actual HUAC against the CPUSA and Stalin, possibly selling out his comrades in Latin America in the process (though this is unclear and he certainly denied it). He failed to, but only because the US side rescinded its invitation. https://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/trotsky.htm

He was a bastard and every time I research him, I find some new comically disgusting thing he said or did. Stalin should have killed him sooner.

Most Trots are at least slightly better than the man himself, but that's not saying much, and the nicest thing you can say of a given Trot is that they are really an ML with a subcultural affect (or a baby communist who doesn't know better and got swept up by the only game in town).

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Huac thing is insanely egregious and somehow I never knew about it

Also anarchists hate him too and it's a good way to get left unity going

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

every time I research him, I find some new comically disgusting thing he said or did

Other than the HUAC thing, what are other examples?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

He worked with rightists in what is commonly called the "opposition bloc" to destabilize the USSR, toward what end other than hating Stalin I am not even sure. Another member of this bloc was Yagoda, head of the NKVD and a butcher in the Great Purge, second only to his successor Yezhov (whose status in this regard I am unsure of). The bloc will make you lose years from your life trying to get consistent stories out of it if you research it.

As was mentioned elsewhere in the thread, he claimed that the Politburea were fascists and that the Soviets and Nazis represented a unified "camp" competing against the British-Aligned camp (though even in this distortion he recognizes that the Soviets hate the Nazis).

Trotsky flip-flopped on "Lenin's Last Testament", I believe initially recognizing it as the fabrication it was but later holding it up as real for opportunistic reasons.

Ironically, from what I can tell, he also flip-flopped on the "socialism in one country" thing (along with promoting a misrepresentation of it that exists to this day) after first supporting it, before even Stalin did, because once it became Soviet orthodoxy and Trotsky was ousted, it was just another thing to twist to paint them as devils.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

The rightists of the opposition bloc are not Nazis but Russian (etc.) rightists who were within the Soviet Union or fled from it. I don't endorse the "Nazi collaborator" claim, though I think the characterization of "show trials" is also ridiculous, as demonstrated by the much worse nature of the secret trials carried about by the Khrushchevites. Frankly, when I am feeling masochistic, I prefer reading about the opposition bloc stuff than the foreign fascist collaborator accusations.

Also, like, reading the comments of the very thread you link is a good idea.