On 13 Aug 2020 at 17:54, [email protected] wrote: > In your opinion, how > should Trotsky have responded at that time? > ken h
He should have supported the Ethiopian side of the Italo-Ethiopian war, but refrained from glorifying Haile Selassie. Trotsky's stand with regard to Haile Selassie has been an important part of the Trotskist canon for decades. It is repeatedly cited in the Trotskyist movement during discussions on the attitude to various wars. It was even cited by both (!) sides during a public debate among British Trotskyists over whether to support the struggle of the Taliban as anti-imperialist. (See http://www.communistvoice.org/28cTaliban.html and http://www.communistvoice.org/29cEmir.html) So, given the importance of the example of the Italo-Ethiopian war to Trotskyist theorizing, it is astonishing that it is hard to find any Trotskyist discussion of what happened in Ethiopia during the war and as a result of the war. Indeed, so far I haven't found any example of that. This shows something fundamentally wrong, even deeper than simply a wrong stand on a particular issue. One would think that revolutionary theory should be checked and rechecked against what actually happens in the world. To fail to do so is gross irresponsibility towards the workers and activists who pay the consequences if the theory is wrong. But instead the Trotskyist movement, while repeatedly citing "On Dictators and the Heights of Oslo", has not only ignored, but hid the facts of what went on. The article is cited over and over without even mentioning that Selassie fled Ethiopia ten days later, to say nothing of later developments. The RCIT's Yossi Schwartz makes a big point of Trotsky's article, but says nothing about Selassie fleeing Ethiopia. Pathfinder Press has published a collection of Trotsky's articles which adds an abundance of explanatory notes, but is quiet in these notes on Selassie fleeing. Lengthy Trotskyist articles can be found on an abundance of events and countries, but somehow not on what happened in Ethiopia during the Italo-Ethiopian war. This shows a guilty conscience, to say nothing of a disdain for the people and national groups of Ethiopia and Eritrea whose history is important. African history matters! -- Joseph Green -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#345): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/345 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/76151064/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
