Watching last night you can't get away from the overwhelming ability and role that was Trotsky' s . It was Trotsky that saved the Russian revolution. His organisational ability, his generalship and his political analysis made it all possible. His subtle mind and his oratory cemented it and I feel that without Trotsky Lenin would have lost his nerve.
I think that psychologically Stalin hated Trotsky. Trotsky was a Jewish intellectual and deep within Stalin there was the anti Semitic prejudice partly created by the history of the pogrom and also of his early days as a trainee orthodox priest. It's no doubt that Trotsky could appear arrogant yet Stalin's dislike says more about him than it does of Trotsky.
China Melville and Tariq Ali provided fascinating insights and observations. Lenin spotted the historical opportunity..and took it. However hard the right rages against the revolution it must be recognised that no other solution was possible at the time to end the war and to try to establish a socialist world. Both Trotsky and Lenin spotted a world revolution and it was Stalin who did not. It was Stalin that went on to establish a pact with Hitler and it is to Stalin that Putin values. Putin's support of Stalin's legacy tells us a great deal about both. It is Putin now who is becoming a poster boy of the alt right , with his anti feminism , homophobic and nationalist agenda. Scratch Stalin and you find a Putin doll within.
Lenin legalised divorce, gave equal rights to men and women and decriminalized homosexuality. Lenin sort to transform society and create a new sort of society. Had Trotsky triumphed over Stalin I am sure that the Red army would have ensured the still birth of the Nazis . Europe today would have been very different. I consider that the intervention of the whites during the civil war forced Lenin into centralisation and made it easier to lay down a Stalinist totalitarianism.
There is an argument that the economic conditions and the material base of Russia in 1917 meant that the revolution was doomed to fail as Russia had not reached the necessary stage of late capitalism Whatever we think though we can't get away from the pivotal role that Trotsky played and in terms of influence on modern history and culture his legacy is second to none. His role has been often obscured in the battle between the Trots and the Tankies Trotsky has a significant contribution to modern ecology and to social liberation.Without the Russian revolution his ideas would not have spread and been so significant. Lenin and Trotsky have a historical importance that must be recognised...Stalins legacy lays more with that of Hitler and others like him.it was as if the totalitarian rule he created was a weird perverse mix of prejudice and Russian totalitarianism dating back to Czarist Russian. Lenin and Trotsky looked to the future...Stalin did not..
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