I'm not sure how Trotsky realistically could have done it differently. The policy was based on the belief (which AFAIK Trotsky shared) that the USSR was "in the crosshairs of World Imperialism" and so had to industrialize as rapidly as possible or be crushed by the inevitable, impending invasion.
Moreover, a great deal of the damage of the famine was caused because Cheka "scientists" had decided that so and so many hectares of land could produce so and so many bushels of grain. Because Cheka scientists under the Banner of Scientific Socialism cannot be wrong, that meant if the peasants said they didn't have that many bushels, they must be lying and trying either to sabotage things or horde. Would that be different with Trotsky in the saddle?
--- On Thu, 8/13/09, Bhaskar Sunkara <bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Bhaskar Sunkara <bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Angela Davis a Stalinist?
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Thursday, August 13, 2009, 8:56 AM
> One of the contradictions of course
> was the fact that Trotsky and the
> "left" opposition supported collectivization. as opposed to
> the
> Bukharinists. In fact a lot of the left oppositions
> plans were adopted in a
> very distorted way by the Stalinist bureaucracy in the late
> 20s leading a
> fairly large portion of the opposition to see reconiliation
> with Moscow.
> The famine of course was used as a political tool by
> Stalin... and
> collectivization would have been handled in an entirely
> different way if
> Trotsky was in power-- that's indisputable.
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