>Lenin and Trotsky were
>responsible for the 20+ nation invasion of the USSR? They were
>responsible for the international economic blockade? The failure to
>deliver reparations and aid to the USSR guaranteed by Brest-Litovsk? Who
>pulled Russia out of WWI? Kornilov and his Cossacks? They were
>responsible for the massive economic sabotage carried by the Russian
>ruling class?
No. But they were responsible for putting down the Kronstadt uprising, which was a reaction against stripping the soviets of their power and centralizing authority in the Bolshevik party. They were also responsible for putting down the Mahknovist movement, as Jamal mentions below:
> At Kronstat they murdered members of
>> their own Communist Party who disagreed with them, and many soldiers
>> were switching sides.. no, not to the white army, but to the side
>> of the Kronstat rebels. And then there was the Ukraine, where Lenin showed
>> his trechery against Makhno, who helped the Bolsheviks fight the whites.
>> How can you support a man (Lenin) who said such things as "Socialism is
>> nothing more than state-capitalism."
>
>What would have happened otherwise?
Perhaps a libertarian socialist revolution, as opposed to an authoritarian one. Perhaps not. Nobody can really answer that question.
>> The USSR was a horrible place to live.
>
>Did you live there? Pretty nice compared to what it looks like now. IT
>was indeed paradise compared to the situation most people in the
>southern and increasingly the northern hemisphere's live in.
>
> >Human will was crushed.
>
>What is human will and how was it crushed? Ever heard Richter or Gilels
>or Mavrinsky? What about Shostakovich and Prokofiev? Ever seen the films
>of Tarkovsky? The Russian ballets? How about the state of the sciences
>in the USSR? They got a rocket into space before the USA did. Human
>creativity flowered in the USSR.
>
> The people would have been better off if the Bolsheviks never
>> came to power in Russia and China and they had become social democracies.
>
>Ha, standard conservative propaganda. How do you know this? Why didn't
>they become capitalist social democracies? What you are arguing for is
>social democracy. Judging by its pre-revolutionary economy, Russia would
>have become another India or Brazil. 90% of the population in 1917 was
>illiterate. Same with China. Starvation was eliminated and life
>expectancy rose. No small feat with such a large population and small
>economy.
All of this depends on who you ask. Of course, the USSR can point to some impressive achievements, some of which you point out. But there were also purges and forced relocation programs, as well as punishment for any who didn't tow the political line.
I give the fSU a lot of credit for some very real accomplishments, but it wasn't a system that freed men's souls. It had a lot of problems too, the biggest being the power monopoly enjoyed by the Communist Party.
>> Statism and authoritarianism ruined the revolution.
>
>Without statism and some degree of authoritarianism in the army the
>counter-revolutionaries would have triumphed. But I guess that's fine in
>your book. Read *Conquered City* by Victor Serge.
What's your evidence for this? I haven't read *Conquered City* (although I'd be interested), but I've read other accounts (admittedly sympathetic to anarchism) which contradict this assessment. Orwell says the Spanish militias functioned just as well in the absence of authoritarian officers. Its also my understanding that during the Russian Civil War, many Bolshevik recruits rallied to the slogan "All power to the Soviets," which is anti-authoritarian.
Brett