[lbo-talk] Stalinism (was Eric Hobsbawm)

[c b]

More generally the Soviet system was lost from the start, as Lenin
foresaw (without a successful,German revolution), partly because of
Hayekian reasons, partly because of foreign hostility, partly because
of the triumph of a hidebound bureaucracy under the dictatorship of a
cruel and irrational tyrant. But I don't think Bukharin or Trotsky
could have saved the Soviet experiment. Socialism in one country was a
fact, and a trap, not a choice. As Isaac Deutscher said, socialism in
a backwards country gives you backwards socialism. Alternative
leadership would have been less savage and destructive, but the USSR
was doomed after November 1918.

^^^
CB: I agree with Andie's main point here. It is not at all clear that
Trotsky would have been less savage and destructive.