Goldberk wrote:I agree that the Bolsheviks deserved unquestioned support during the civil war, but I'm less sure after. And for me dag's comment underlines the problem, the false black and white absolutism, some circumstances allow a more nuanced approach.
I did attempt to qualify the support of the USSR by citing Trotsky, who had every right to not only oppose it on the grounds his friends and family were executed, but on the more serious grounds it was being run by a complete idiot that couldn't even make an analysis deep enough to stop him from encouraging people to vote for Hitler in 1931; an illiterate that, in my decade in a half of posting, I've never seen anybody be able to cite because of his profound failure at everything he ever tried.
But, that being so, it does not mitigate the fact that the Soviet Union had gone a lot further than anyone else in establishing a workers' democracy. Yes, there were problems. But, and it's worth underlining again, the two big problems ecost because we refuse to learn the basic truths that even Trotsky laid out in his final analysis of Stalin and the Soviet Union:
1. People that think that since everything wasn't completely perfect and so abandon the movement are hacks. There will never be a flawless movement of pure hippy love that will do everything perfectly. This is true of almost every Trotskyist party today, and really the vast majority of leftist groups.
2. People that do not acknowledge the problems with the Soviet Union are hypocrites and liars that are also useless to us. These are mostly Stalinists, and it's why their anaylsis sounds like somebody just talking loudly; while Stalin reads like it was written with a crayon between masturbation sessions; and why we keep making the same stupid mistakes over and over again, as the left.
You must acknowledge the errors, but also accept that there will be errors. The Soviet Union deserved our support. Not unquestioned childish support, but our support as mature adults.
Alis Volat Propriis; Tiocfaidh ár lá; Proletarier Aller Länder, Vereinigt Euch!