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

[Eric Beck]

On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 4:56 PM, James Heartfield
<Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> OK, so now SA makes himself clear: he favours the free market and opposes
> socialism. He considers democratic planning an impossibility ("it probably
> could not have been so formulated even if that had been the intention") and
> SA thinks that the coercion of capital over labour through the market
> preferable to the self-determination of society. And because Trotsky favours
> socialism over capitalism, SA calls him a jerk!
>
> So, finally, it turns out that SA was not making a case against the
> usurpation of the workers' state by the bureaucracy (which was Trotsky's
> unique contribution, not SA's), but rather SA is arguing that socialism is
> an impossibility, and only the free market can govern the direction of
> labour.

I wonder if it's possible to count how many times in the last 80 years
this conversation arc has happened: The Trot is faced with
overwhelming historical evidence that Trotsky was a tyrant, and lots
else besides. Cornered, the Trot starts accusing his opponent of being
a closet capitalist and bourgeois apologist. Not a novel approach you
are taking here, James.