Joseph Green says that Trotsky "ranked Selassie alongside Cromwell or Robespierre".
Trotsky's mention of Cromwell and Robespierre was solely to make the point that dictatorships can sometimes, in a specific historical context, play a progressive role. Robespierre helped bring an end to the French feudal monarchy. Cromwell overthrew the English monarchy, though it was soon restored. This did not mean that Trotsky approved of every action taken by Cromwell or Robespierre. I am not aware of Trotsky writing anything about Cromwell's actions in Ireland. In the case of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie was, at the time Trotsky wrote, head of a government that was resisting an Italian invasion. This resistance was progressive. Trotsky was advocating support for this resistance despite the dictatorial nature of the government. This had nothing to do with the personal qualities of Haile Selassie. Chris Slee ________________________________ From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Joseph Green <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, 14 August 2020 5:43 PM To: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [marxmail] Transitional Programme | A Transition to Nowhere | Prometheus On 14 Aug 2020 at 2:30, Chris Slee wrote: > Trotsky's article was not intended as a comprehensive analysis of > Ethiopian society. It has no analysis of Ethiopian society. The vaunted theory of "permanent revolution" had nothing to say with regard to the struggle of the peoples of Ethiopia. Trotsky had no idea of what should be done with respect to the complex internal situation of Ethiopia. > > Trotsky did not "sing psalms of praise to the Ethiopian > dictatorship", as Joseph Green claims. He ranked Selassie alongside Cromwell or Robespierre, which for Trotsky -- who ignores certain things about these "dictators", such as Cromwell's butchering of the Irish people -- was very high praise. He said that Selassie might play a "very progressive role in history". He imagines that someone similar to Selassie might "place himself at the head of the next uprising of the Indian people in order to smash the British yoke". He dreams that Selassie might strike "a mighty blow not only at Italian imperialism but at imperialism as a whole". (https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/04/oslo.htm) It's ludicrous when the RCIT's pamphlet says that Trotsky regarded Selassie as a "reactionary" and when you deny that Trotsky praised Selassie to the skies. > Trotsky would not have been very surprised by Haile Selassie running > away. You are just inventing this out of your head. You don't bother looking into what really happened in Ethiopia or what Trotsky really wrote; instead you just do spin control. >From "On Dictators and the Heights of Oslo" it is abundantly clear that Trotsky expected Selassie to lead the resistance to the Italian invasion. (Did Cromwell run away from England and let someone else do the fighting against the Royalists?) And the Trotskyist movement's silence for over 80 years about Selassie fleeing Ethiopia, a silence from Trotsky to the present, shows that the Trotskyist movement was profoundly embarrassed by Selassie fleeing. And also profoundly unwilling to check theory against fact. --- 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 (#478): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/478 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/76151064/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES<br />#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.<br />#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.<br />#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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
