[lbo-talk] Robert Frost Defends Robespierre, Lenin, Mao

[Marv Gandall]

Doug writes:
>
> On Apr 25, 2009, at 1:26 PM, B. wrote:
>
>> Noam Chomsky (as someone else alluded to) has a very good bit about  1)
>> What Lenin and Trotsky were like when they were out of power and  on the
>> sidelines, outsiders looking in, vs. 2) What they were like  when they
>> were in power.
>>
>> Perhaps not surprisingly, there is a stark contrast! Trotsky and  Lenin,
>> while out of power, were almost libertarian socialist in  their
>> sentiments. ("State and Revolution.")
>
> So maybe this has something to do with taking power, rather than their
> innate "jerkiness"?
===============================
Taking power, moreover, in extreme conditions of civil war and foreign
intervention.  There is nothing particularly unique about the measures
adopted by the new Soviet republic to distinguish it from other
revolutionary states which inevitably became locked in desperate struggles 
for survival.

Trotsky on Their Morals and Ours:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/morals/morals.htm

Dewey's comments on Trotsky's essay, also published in the SWP journal,
the New International in 1938:
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/comments/dewey01.htm