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On 11/5/14 9:41 AM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism wrote:
Actually Trotsky was focused on the contradiction between the forces and relations of production (and associated norms of distribution), i.e. how the inadequacy of the former hamstrung efforts to move beyond bourgeois forms of the latter Re-read the paragraphs cited (which are at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch09.htm ) That contradiction was also the main one pointed out by Mandel.
But there's another side of Trotsky that has to be acknowledged. He did emphasize the relations of production at certain points so strongly that there was some confusion over the differences between him and Stalin. After all, when Stalin moved against the kulaks and went full-blast toward industrialization, it led some to conclude that he had adopted the left opposition program.
Plus, there's that weird salute to atomic power and eugenics in "If America should go communist", plus his statement that capitalism will eventually make India the equal of Britain.
All that being said, he was unique in the late 30s for opposing the idea that the USSR was socialist. What we are dealing with today, as I pointed out in my original post, is a kind of neo-Stalinism in which nostalgia for the old USSR trumps the reality of what was really taking place in Eastern Ukraine, as if the preservation of Lenin statues was the main task facing socialists.
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