[lbo-talk] Angela-a-Day

[Somebody Somebody]

Not surprisingly, Shane erases any differences of opinion in the early "worker's republic" outside of the top echelon of founding fathers, like Trotsky, Bukharin, and Lenin. And thus he ignores the history of the Workers' Opposition, of Shlyapnikov and Kollontai, who wanted to give primacy to the trade unions, and as well to Myasnikov's tendency. This is natural, since afterall, Trotsky only wanted to retain a sort of Central Committee democracy anyway. 

This is all ancient history, at any rate. Honestly, I rather like Trotsky with his early 20th century style - be-spectacled intelligentsia chic. He could even have been a good person if he has stayed out of the grubby business of pretending a peasant country, poorer and less developed than a modern sub-saharan backwater, could ever spark off a European revolution and thus lead the world into a worker's utopia.