Trotskyism: The Red Army, Permanent Revolution, and the Left Opposition
Added 2017-12-29 08:10:05 +0000 UTCGabriel Palcic is an organizer, student, boxer, and Trotskyist. He helped co-found the Colorado Springs Socialists organization.
Gabe sits down with Brett to discuss Leon Trotsky's history and philosophy.
Topics Include: the Bolshevik Revolution, Permanent Revolution, Fascism, the Deformed Worker's State, Stalin and "Stalinism", Kronstadt, the Russian Civil War, and much more.
Find Gabe on FB here: https://www.facebook.com/gabe.palcic
Find Colorado Springs Socialists here: https://www.facebook.com/springsocialists/
Our Outro music by Sole. You can listen to, and support, his music here: https://sole.bandcamp.com/album/sole-dj-pain-1-nihilismo
Intro Music by The String-Bo String Duo. You can listen and support their music here: https://tsbsd.bandcamp.com/track/red-black
This podcast is officially affiliated with The Nebraska Left Coalition and Omaha GDC
Comments
The October Revolution didn’t happen solely because of Trotsky who was not even the main guy in the Bolshevik Party at all. And he didn’t take part in it as a “Trotskyist” but as someone who left the Mensheviks and joined the Bolsheviks in the summer of 1917. Since then there has never been and probably never will be a successful Trotskyist revolution, i.e. organised along the lines of his post-1917 writings. It would also seem that Trotskyists tend to idolise him way too much despite his objective failures as a politician and the fact that not a single post-1945 potent communist revolution ever claimed to have been inspired by him. The only significant difference between Stalin and Trotsky is that the former assessed the material conditions of the young USSR and the geopolitical situation on the world stage better and chose the more efficient strategy of building socialism. Trotsky would’ve probably provoked a war against the Soviet state by a united Western front. Revolution has much to do with manoeuvring when necessary and picking the right moment for the right decisions.
Darth Radious
2025-11-11 11:13:27 +0000 UTCLove your show but regrettably not this episode. I really wish you'd revisit this topic because, in my humble view, Trotsky was the most important Marxist theoretician of the 20th century next to Lenin. I do not believe that your guest adequately explains the serious political and theoretical differences that separated Trotsky from Stalin in the 20s and 30s, which had serious repercussions throughout the post-war world. Also, your guest fails to adequately explain Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, which cannot be done without mentioning Trotsky's views on the peasantry in underdeveloped countries. Finally, while I would wholeheartedly agree with Gabriel that the sectarianism among Trotskyists today is very unfortunate, he really doesn't give adequate credit to Trotsky's legacy and some of the organizations he helped found. I mean the SWP was one of the largest and influential parties on the U.S. left before McCarthy's anti-communist repression. And to say that there has never been a Trotskist revolution is to totally dismiss his theoretical contribution to the Russian Revolution of October 1917. Theory is the guiding light for Marxists, and as Lenin wrote, without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary action. For this reason alone, reading and understanding Trotsky's ideas is more than just of arcane historical interest, it's essential for the development of revolutionary theory in our epoch. Please try again with a guest that better understands this brilliant Marxist and martyr to the cause of communism.
Garrett Booker
2019-11-30 22:36:13 +0000 UTC
