Trotsky... (1 Viewer)

[Aerials]

"Trotsky deserved to be Lenin's replacement, having shaped and molded the Bolsheviks into the supreme political party of Russia by 1929"

comment

 

[Sarah168]

how many pages do u want us to write for u?

 

[Aerials]

lol that depends on how much you know about Trotsky... I specifically said comment.. Something like "yeh Trotsky was cool, he would have kicked ass as leader" would have done it

 

[2muchwork]

Here i am thinking i've made a huge discovery that someone has exactly the same essay as me, and then i realise, your in my class!! hehe..how's yours going. mine haven't started.! woohoo, typical of me, ..

 

[2muchwork]

Here i am thinking i've made a huge discovery that someone has exactly the same essay as me, and then i realise, your in my class!! hehe..how's yours going. mine haven't started.! woohoo, typical of me, ..

 

[ameh]

"yeh Trotsky was cool, he would have kicked ass as leader"



there =D

 

[ToKooL4SkooL]

Trotsky was pretty kool, who knows what would have happened to Russia if he became leader??? He was clearly the most legitimate future leader.

 

[clerisy]

I like Trotsky, despite his aggressions and obsessions and general weird-ness. Considering that he was, after Lenin, the most influential figure both in carrying out the actual revolution and in "consolidating Bolshevik power" (I hate that little phrase-- I drastically overuse it in essays) up to the mid-1920s, I think in terms of achivements and pre-Stalin-manoeuvers position in the party, he was the most legitimate successor to Lenin.

However, once Stalin became more prominent in the lead-up to Lenin's death, the dramatic drop in Trotsky's power and popularity pretty much established him as a 'Nigel No-Friends' (I haven't used that expression in years) by 1929, so you could say that even if he was the most legitimate (which you could argue against anyway), he wasn't the most probable or was incapable of maintaining the position or something like that.

ie you could argue either way. Which is always the case in modern, which frustrates me incredibly when studying or learning, but is actually quite nice when faced with an essay in an exam that you really don't have much info to answer with.

 

[Aerials]

Originally posted by 2muchwork
Here i am thinking i've made a huge discovery that someone has exactly the same essay as me, and then i realise, your in my class!! hehe..how's yours going. mine haven't started.! woohoo, typical of me, ..

lol is that you Nat? Sorry if its someone else. Yeh I've started it, nearly finished... I just needed outside comments. Because I want to see what the "against" arguments would consist of so I could 'cover all the bases' as it would be.

I personally like Trotsky both as a person and as a leader (not that I knew him in person :| ) He was probably, alongside Lenin, one of the two greatest revolutionaries as well as Marxists (though he is seen to change his stance several time during the course of 1905-1929). His major downfall though, came as a result of his open-ness about his political stance (such that he put forth in 'permanent revolution' AFTER Lenin's death). It opened him upto a lot of attacks both from within and without the party (which was also strenghthened by the general notion that he was an arrogant pig, and an abuser of power, if indeed power was given to him.)

Cmon, there must have been some flaws... find them people! I want to argue

 

[blam_babe]

Trotsky was crap at poltics. He didn't like the "drudgery of politics" and preferred to sit in his little train reminiscing the good ol' times when he was War Commissar, running around Russia in his propaganda train with his band of merry men.

 

[Sarah168]

i've noticed that anything to do with the russian national study somehow all boils down to something very comical all the time ...hehe sorry just an observation

 

[Aerials]

Originally posted by blam_babe
Trotsky was crap at poltics. He didn't like the "drudgery of politics" and preferred to sit in his little train reminiscing the good ol' times when he was War Commissar, running around Russia in his propaganda train with his band of merry men.

lol band of merry men... very nice.

Of course you could just take a look at the negative aspect of his train-riding episode. Or you could consider both perspectives. You have on one hand people who see it as just a propaganda campaign which Trotsky had put together by himself and on the more intelligent side, you have the people who see the campaign as an aid to 'consolidate Bolshevik power' (youre not the only one clerisy). Of course, he did print out stacks of propaganda material (all for the Bolshevik "government"), but he also maintained his goal of choosing/handpicking his troops to serve in the Red Army against (mostly) foreign opposition. It was in fact him who proposed the idea of placing ex-tsarist officers back among the ranks of the army- and Im sure most historians are aware how that helped the revolution

 

[Ziff]

Trotters was an arsehole who, along with Lenin, was willing to retreat and distort Marxist doctrine at the drop of a hat and ultimately only cared about consolidating and attaining power.

Not to mention that all the head commies (males) were chauvanistic idiots who did nothing but attack and discourage the role of women in the revolution (what Kollontai was promoting) and stopping dissent within the party - even though Workers' Opposition was closer to original Marxist doctrine in ideology and practises than the rest of the Bolshevik party. Trotsky, along with the other head Bolsheviks did their utmost to repress anyone who disagreed with the appalling way they were running the nation.

Trotsky was just as undeserving of becoming leader as anyone else. Anyway, it's his own fault for being manipulated by Stalin so easily.

 

[Ziff]

He brought the death penalty back too (in the army).

And remember the incident where some part of the army rebelled so he had them shot?

 

[Aerials]

Yes the Kronstadt Rebellion.

Originally posted by Ziff
Not to mention that all the head commies (males) were chauvanistic idiots who did nothing but attack and discourage the role of women in the revolution (what Kollontai was promoting)

Since the beginning of the Tsarist empire, it was in fact UNDER THE COMMUNIST REGIME that women were considered equal to men AND got the vote as well as many other options within day-to-day life. You need to do some reading on that

And, Trotsky can be considered the only one (besides Lenin) in the Bolshevik party to have followed the Marxist guidelines. Of course this "Marxism" was stretched from time to time such as the introduction of the NEP (which was proposed by Trotsky a year earlier than Lenin ) but as we are all aware, no system of government is perfect and in order to fix imperfections, sometimes one needs to "bend the rules" as it may be. Precedents of this can be seen in many forms of government stretching from Capitalism to Nazism to Communism.

 

[Ziff]

Originally posted by Aerials
Yes the Kronstadt Rebellion.

No, no. Another one. In August 1918 Trotsky ordered that any unit retreating without orders both its commissar and commander would be immediately shot. Later that month some new army recruits nicked a steamer and so he had them shot (y).

Also remember as War Commissar he was the one who ordered compulsory military service and compulsory labour service.

David Christian says "Trotsky's savagery paid off". I'm inclined to agree. He was still an arsehole though!

 

[Ziff]

Originally posted by Aerials
Since the beginning of the Tsarist empire, it was in fact UNDER THE COMMUNIST REGIME that women were considered equal to men AND got the vote as well as many other options within day-to-day life. You need to do some reading on that.

No, you need to do reading on that. They were equal under law, yes on paper, but even within the Bolshevik/Communist party women were treated horribly and the demands of the Zhedontel were often laughed at or dismissed without any action.

Yes, women's status was slightly elevated but not by much. As Kollontai and her department agittated for more and more rights (1st generation rights and 2nd generation rights) she was constantly attacked for her views on sexual morality and later on for her support of Workers' Opposition. In the end she was replaced with someone less ambitious and during the Stalinist era the slight progress made was destroyed.

It was, however, Trotsky who attacked her in some of the most dispicable ways in Party Committee meetings and in the Soviets. He, as well as the other males in the party (and remember that the head of the party were ALL males), attacked the work of the Zhedontel and did not really support much of the women's work at all.

The attitude of the men within the party was what I was talking about. Not what actually happened - most of the work promoting females happened at the beginning of the revolution and was part of Marxist doctrine. Later on the situation deteriorated more and more.

 

[Aerials]

Originally posted by Ziff
The attitude of the men within the party was what I was talking about. Not what actually happened - most of the work promoting females happened at the beginning of the revolution and was part of Marxist doctrine. Later on the situation deteriorated more and more.

but thats exactly what matters, the things that actually happened? Who cares what other party members thought of her? Trotsky was highly disliked in the party, he didnt have a cry about it, he stood strong and fought it out. If in fact Zhedontel was so in favor of gaining women's rights, she could, and should have fought it out. You also forget to mention the amount of praise women got throughout the (will finish this later, dad has a conference meeting)