BS: Combat Trotskyphobia

Subject: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Folk Form # 1
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 01:39 PM

What can we do to stop discrimination against Trotskyites? Trotskyphobia is rampant throughout the UK at the moment. As soon as an employer finds out that someone is a member of a Trotskyite party, they cannot get jobs, they can lose jobs they already have, Higher education does not want to know them, and they can come under the surveillance of the secret service. The vast majority of Trotskyites are decent hard working people who want nothing better than to live their lives peacefully with their neighbours. They are very public spirited and frequently are active within the local community, especially trade unions. They are a credit to this country. Just think how culturally impoverished this country would be without Vanessa and Corim Redgrave, or how ill informed we would be without the journalism of the late Paul Foot, or how starved of intellectual nourishment we would be without the speeches and writings of Gerry Healy, who has also passed on. Trotskyites have made a valuable contribution to this country. The discrimination they face day in and day out should be recognised and efforts to stamp out Trotskyphobia should be made in all levels of society. Maybe an anti-Trotskyphobia unit should be set up by Ken Livingstone. Stamp out Trotskyphobia in London and maybe the rest of the country would follow suit.

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Amos
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 01:43 PM

Curious, RR: what does a Trotskyite believe? What are the tenets of his credo?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 01:52 PM

just carry an ice pick to be on the safe side......

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 02:01 PM

Amos:

Oversimplifying, I'm sure, but Trotsky advocated communism/socialism, achieved by peaceful and constitutional political means, as opposed to violent revolution. He was purged by the Bolsheviks, and eventually assassinated in Mexico by Bolshevik agents.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 02:05 PM

Here's what Wikipedia has on TROTSKYISM

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 02:42 PM

I guess RR (to paraphrase John Lenin) just wants us to give Trotskyism a chance.
Oh, did I spell Lennon wrong?

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Skivee
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 03:05 PM

Don't let Groucho catch you making that mistake

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: robomatic
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 03:38 PM

nothing like a useless discredited outmoded social system to perk up the ol' equalization juices. don't forget to treat mercatilists as fellows while you're at it.

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 03:41 PM

"Don't let Groucho catch you making that mistake"
My friend Tom Munnelly, who died a couple o months ago, planned his own funeral, and on the 'order of service' pamphlet he had printed:
"outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside a dog it's too dark to read".
Grouch Marx.
As we left the service (unusually a non-religious one held in the local church; so respected was Tom by the whole community) a friend remarked; "It's nice to to see a Marxist quote in a Catholic Church - it makes you feel as if you're getting somewhere at last".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: GUEST,albert
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 04:28 PM

Trotsky was one of the main architects of the October Revolution of 1917 which finished the Tsar .The Bolsheviks were opposed to the First World War which had cost many millions of Russian lives as well as millions of other nationalities.They simply stopped fighting the German army and ended the war in the east while spreading revolutionary propoganda among both German and Russian soldiers.
Trotsky also argued that unless the Revolution spread to Germany and other countries it would be overcome.
Trotsky was also the most prominent socialist opponent of Stalin and did his utmost to oppose his Russian chauvanism and increasingly oppressive rule ...and it was the Trotskyists inside Russia who were the first victims of the Stalinist Terror in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Over a dozen members of his family were murdered,executed ,imprisoned or made to disappear as Stalin wreaked his revenge on Trotsky for his opposition to Stalinism.
Trotsky was murdered in 1940 by Stalin's agents but Trotsky's belief in socialism from below and the need to form united fronts against fascism still have a great deal to teach us in our modern world.
albert

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 04:55 PM

some fer instances pls.; ideas that have not already failed pls.

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 05:03 PM

T-T-T-TROTSKY

T-T-T-Trotsky, beautiful Trotsky,
You're the B-B-B-Bolshevik that I adore
And when the Red Flag flies over the Soviet
I'll be waiting at the K-K-K-Kremlin door

- League for Socialist Action, Vancouver, 1975.
@USSR @political @parody
filename[ TTROTSKY



or


THE MAN WHO BLOWS UP RAILROAD TRAINS FOR TROTSKY

As I walk along the Kremlin with a highly furtive air
You can hear the serfs declare, "He must be a commissionnaire!"
You may hear them sigh, but I won't confess
You may hear them try, but they'll never guess
I'm the man who blows up railroad trains for Trotsky!

@parody @political
filename[ BROKEBN2

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 05:24 PM

Surely he was not a Bolshevik but a Menshevik?

John - at least that credo did not lead to the threat of extinction of life on the planet.

And of course Trotskyite beliefs have never been tried so they cannot be said to have failed.

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 07:15 PM

You can't blame people for not wanting the Trots....

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 07:51 PM

Your satirical intent seems to have gone over people's heads, Rockin' Reeler...

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Sorcha
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 08:01 PM

Aw shucks. I thought this was gonna be about fears of 13 Trotting Trolls. :(

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Art Thieme
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 08:20 PM

This is a red troll thread and I am out of here.

S. Allende was voted in, and then...

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Amos
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 09:04 PM

I had an aunt who worked for him before he was assassinated. I nver fully understood the context of the man and his times, although I knew the outlines of his history. Thanks, Dave. I was wondering what the original poster had to say from the view of (presumably) a modern adherent.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 09:31 PM

Hmmm. I was tempted to say, "Trotskyphobia? Isn't the the fear of Friday the Thirteenth??"

Well, maybe I shouldn't. I do wonder if Communism might have been a success if Trotsky had prevailed. He seemed to embody the best of Marx and Engels. Trouble is, the Trotskyites were too damn idealistic - you can trust idealists only so far.
Still, I find comfort in the first post, which says, "Trotskyphobia is rampant throughout the UK at the moment." Where there is Trotskyphobia, there must be Trotskyites. I had thought that Trotskyism was long dead. Can't say that I've ever seen a Trotskyite here in California.

Long live the idealism of Trotsky - but temper it with pragmatism, please.

-Joe-

So, when do we start singing The Internationale?

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 12:34 AM

GPU

When I was a lad in nineteen six
I joined a band of Bolsheviks
I read the Manifesto and the Kapital
And I even learned to sing the Internationale

I sang that song in a voice so true
That now I'm in the prisons of the GPU
.

When Lenin's boys insurrection made
I found myself on a barricade
At Kerensky's troops I aimed my gun
And I never stopped shooting 'till the Reds had won.

I shot that gun with an aim so true etc.


When NEP was started and Lenin died
I found myself on Trotsky's side
Well, all went well 'till twenty-eight
And then I was forced to capitulate.

Well, my capitulation had a ring so true, etc.


Now, since that time I've had no peace
My steps have been dogged by the Secret Police.
I denounced the traitors, time and again
I denounced the traitors with tongue and pen.

And my denunciations had a ring so true, etc.


Now revisionists all, wherever you may be
If you want to be a success, like me ---
Confess to terrorism and espionage
To Counterrevolution and sabotage.

Adhere to the line of Lenin, too
And you'll wind up in the prisons of the GPU.


Note: Dick Eney has pointed out that the Russian pronunciation of the
acronym GPU--- Gay Pay Oo---may not be clear to non-Russians.

from Glazer Ballads for Sectarians
@Russian @rebel
tune of Gilbert and Sullivan "When I was a Lad"
filename[ GAYPAYU
RG

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: GUEST,albert
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 01:28 AM

Trotsky was not a menshevik but did not join the Bolsheviks until 1917. He became the organiser of the Red Army which held at bay several TsaristRussian armies as well as the many Western armies sent to invade Russia in the aftermath of the October Revolution.
albert

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Folk Form # 1
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 01:38 AM

McGraph of Harlow. At last.....someone got it.

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 05:39 AM

Its a bit cerebral.....

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 05:49 AM

Should be OK in a bowl with milk then.

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Folk Form # 1
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 06:06 AM

Weelittledrummer, I'm a cerebral kind of guy.

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 07:53 AM

Trotsky did things and wrote things then he was murdered.

Within the British left lots of "Trotskist" groups have come and gone.

Probably the most successful was Militant - the group that "entered" the Labour Party for years. At one point it was said they had more full time workers than the Labour Party. They always claimed they were not a party when clearly they were. They were chucked out by the Party when it was led by Neil Kinnock.

I seem to remember that Gerry Healy's Workers Revolutionary Party fell apart after allegations of sexual harassment by Healy on his admin. staff.

The other big group are the Socialist Workers Party. The have existed since around 1972. Inspite of 30 odd years of organising the workers nobody much votes for them. They then got into bed with George Galloway to create Respect, inspite of the fact that George is an unreconstructed Stalinist and proud of it. Needless to say George has got fed up with the SWP and tried to chuck them out.

The Trots have always spent a lot of time fighting each other and forming smaller and smaller groups. Some entertainment can be had by following the blogs of contending groups via Google or by watching that bit in the Life of Brian about the Peoples Front for the Liberation of Judea et al.

Yours in Comradely Struggle

Lev

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: GUEST,david
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 08:26 AM

I thought it wouldn't take long for the red baiters to emerge on this thread!
The Socialist Workers Party has done many good things in its existence.The first that comes to mind was organising against the fascist National Front in the late 1970s when the fascists gained over 100000 votes in London and seemed to be on a roll.
The SWP helped to initiate both the Anti Nazi League and Rock Against Racism which led to hundreds of thousands of people being actively involved in opposing the thugs of the National Front who were set on terrorising black and brown people.
And it was Blair Peach an East End teacher and SWP member who was killed by SPG police when he along with thousands of others went to Southall to prevent a march by the National Front.
The SWP also more recently helped to form the Stop The War campaign which organised the million plus march on the streets of London in the weeks leading up to the attack on Iraq .
david

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 08:50 AM

David,

I am not a red baiter I am a Socialist.

Lots of people were involved in opposing the Front, supporting the ANL and RAR and the STW campaign and most were not SWP members. Most Socialists are outside the SWP. Why is that? 30 years of attacking Socialists outside the SWP hasn't helped.

But how comfortable are you with George now?

Les

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 09:01 AM

Congratulations on stopping the war.

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 09:11 AM

It's worth remembering that most Socialists are outside the SWP as are most Trotskists.

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: GUEST,david
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 06:32 PM

I am all in favour of as many socialists as possible.....we will never get socialism without socialists!
I seem to remember that Neil Kinnock [now Baron Kinnock of Bedwellty ] was a rebel and a socialist...he turned into a right wing party functionary and is now a despised figure in Wales...that is what membership of the Labour Party can do to a socialist!
david

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 06:42 PM

If Wikipedia is correct -

"With the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks clearly diverging, Russian Mensheviks and non-factional social democrats returning from European and American exile in spring-summer of 1917 were forced to take sides. Some re-joined the Mensheviks. Some, like Alexandra Kollontai, joined the Bolsheviks directly. A significant number, including Leon Trotsky and Adolf Joffe, joined the non-factional Petrograd-based anti-war group called Mezhraiontsy, which merged with the Bolsheviks in August 1917. A small but influential group of social democrats associated with Maxim Gorky's newspaper Novaya Zhizn (New Life) refused to join either party."

Accordingly Trotsky was a menshenvik until August 1917.

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 25 Dec 07 - 04:36 AM

David,David tell us about George .....

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: GUEST,david
Date: 25 Dec 07 - 05:38 AM

Ah George,
There is a whole lot of stuff about the Galloway/Respect dispute on the net.Readers can go to Socialist Worker for one side of the argument or to Respect Renewel for the Galloway version .
david

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Joe Offer
Date: 25 Dec 07 - 05:49 AM

Damn.
I hate it when I don't get jokes.
And I still don't get it...

Sincerely,
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Dec 07 - 09:26 AM

Think "Islamophobia"...

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: GUEST,david
Date: 25 Dec 07 - 09:54 AM

To Richard
Trotsky did not belong to the Mensheviks.He joined the Bolshevik Party led by Lenin in the summer of 1917.

Trotsky was associated with the socialist grouping called Mezhraionstsy which had existed in Petrograd since 1913 and which kept itself independent of both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.

The Mezhraionstsy joined the Bolsheviks in July 1917 bringing about 4000 members to join the Bolshevik Party which had about 400000 members. [ source" Trotsky :Towards October," Tony Cliff published by Bookmarks in 1989 ].
david

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Riginslinger
Date: 25 Dec 07 - 10:12 AM

'"outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside a dog it's too dark to read".'
Grouch Marx.

"...a friend remarked; "It's nice to to see a Marxist quote in a Catholic Church - it makes you feel as if you're getting somewhere at last"."



                              That's funny!

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 25 Dec 07 - 02:39 PM

No, David, why did the SWP ever get into bed with George?

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: GUEST,david
Date: 25 Dec 07 - 06:51 PM

Come on Les, dont play the dullard...with New Labour galloping to the right and being the party of war and privatisation a yawning gap has opened up to the left of New Labour...all the mainstream parties actually support the free market agenda and even the Liberals who opposed the war until the invasion started then supported the attack on Iraq.
Galloway was an outspoken and effective critic of the invasion and got thrown out of New Labour for his anti war stance.He has been villified and attacked ever since and the formation of RESPECT out of the anti war mood in the country.
When it was founded the three aims were
1 Opposition to the US/UK invasion and all the barbarism that it entailed.
2 Support for civil rights here at home as it was clear that civil rights were bound to be attacked .
3Support for ethnic minority groups who it was clear would be scapegoated by the government,the media and by the BNP and the far right.
Galloway had the bottle to stand up to the warmongers when almost the whole of parliament failed the test and voted for war [Plaid Cymru MPs were among the small number of honourable exceptions].
The disagreements between him and the SWP now do not diminish his courage and outspokeness five years ago or the support the SWP gave him then.
Les,you must have known of the above as it is no state secret so why get coy and ask the question even?
david

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Stringsinger
Date: 25 Dec 07 - 07:14 PM

Dick:

"When I grow to old to fight,
I'll become a Trotskyite.
When I grow to old to see,
A "Forwards" reader, I will be"

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 25 Dec 07 - 07:51 PM

Good case Dave, I think it's about judgement, George never had any he was a pro-soviet Stalinist.

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Dec 07 - 08:24 PM

David, I would like to read both views of the Respect argument. Can yo be more precise with the links please?

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: GUEST,david
Date: 26 Dec 07 - 05:20 AM

To Richard
Just type in Socialist Worker on google and go to its on line section and there you will find several articles about the split inside Respect.
For an opposite view go to the" Respect Renewal" site which is supportive of Galloway.However,there is also the "Respect" website itself which has several articles on the dispute.
Contrary to what you may read elsewhere the Respect Coalition is still going and the SWP is a part of it with the founding aims of opposing the war and neo liberalism still at its core.
david

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 26 Dec 07 - 07:22 AM

The SWP have existed as the best organised group on the left of politics. They play almost no role in the actual democratic process because nobody much ever votes for them. They spring to life from time in organisations like CND because lots of people in the Labour and Trade Union movement are pro CND etc.

They have been busy in the Anti-war movement - a movement full of most people from the left to, and beyond the SDP. This does not represent support for SWP policies. No doubt the SWP see these movements as a recruiting ground and nowt wrong with that.

George is and was always a fool. His support for the old Soviet Union is all the evidence needed, isn't it? As far as most of us can see he has no real respect for party politics, this is a tenable position, not one I support. He must have spent most of his life despising the SWP and it's historic criticism of the Soviet Union, the CP and their fellow travellers inside the Labour Party.

The historic problem for people in all far left parties has been internal division, splits and no real support anywhere. So, after 30 odd years of SWPing they get into bed with George. I bet that caused a split didn't it? Maybe just a small one? Real SWP, Continuity SWP, Surreal SWP?

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: GUEST,david
Date: 26 Dec 07 - 02:27 PM

Dear Les
The stuff you have written is fantasy...the sort of thing that a Daily Mail staff writer who is told to write a hatchet job on the SWP would write.
I don't have a brief to write a defence about Galloway but in the period leading up to the invasion and indeed after the war was unleashed, Galloway was the outstanding parliamentarian to oppose the war.He did it in parliament,on television,in street meetings and in mass demonstrations. While the New Labour leadership lied their collective heads off,ably supported by the media and so called experts Galloway spoke the truth about the barbarism about to be unleashed.
As for the SWP not once has it attempted to substitute itself for the mass anti war movement.Instead it threw itself into building that movement.A movement that led to a million strong anti war march on the eve of the invasion which gutted any Blair propoganda that the country was behind the US/UK invasion.
As I mentioned in a previous posting New Labour has abandoned any pretence at socialism or the redistribution of wealth and is now well and truly in the service of the arms dealers and manufacturers,the city spivs ,the fat cats and the privateers. While it sacks and imposes wage restraints on public sector workers it has allowed the salaries of the richest in the land to go throught the roof....these are the people who have received pay increases year on year for the past 20 years of some 20 percent per annum.
It is this situation which has brought about the formation of RESPECT....it is an attempt to win working class people away from its traditional loyalty to New Labour.
And there have been some successes most notably in East London where Galloway defeated the sitting New Labour loyalist overturning a 20000 majority in the process.Or take Michael Lavellette in Preston who is a city cllr and who is providing an alternative to New Labour.
Of course there are problems which the SWP/RESPECT dispute has worsened but the alternative is to see a vicious BNP break into Labour heartlands as voters turn away from New Labour.
david

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Hollowfox
Date: 26 Dec 07 - 04:11 PM

As a Trotskyist friend told me in the 1970's,"A Trotskyist is like a Trotskyite as much as a Socialist is like a socialite." Linguistic hairsplitting to all but those close to the argument.

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Dec 07 - 05:18 PM

What does that mean Hollowfox?

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Dec 07 - 06:03 PM

Thank you David for the further help finding information.

It is a difficult arena. Plainly there is a need for opposition to the brutality of capitalism, and there is no significant such opposition in the main parliamentary parties.

SWP (and my memories of student politics many years go) however leave an impression of an absence of transparency and democracy.

Galloway, however, appears to be veering towards theocracy (but of a different form to that in the USA) and plutocracy. He has balls of steel and one has to admire his chutzpah, but the more he pushes towards his cult of personality the more one has to worry about his funding sources (not only his connections or otherwise to Iraqi oil finance but also his connections or otherwise to Texan oil interests), and who pays for and chooses his very expensive suits.

Subject: RE: BS: Combat Trotskyphobia
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 26 Dec 07 - 11:45 PM

If history has taught us anything, it's that all these "isms" are oversimplifications, and don't work in their "pure" forms. The US hasn't been purely capitalist for almost a century, now.