> On 8/17/15 3:30 AM, Joseph Green via Marxism wrote: > > Trotsky dreamed that the autocrat Haile Selassie would strike a great blow, > > not just at Italian imperialism, but at world imperialism. Selassie fled > > Ethiopia soon after Trotsky praised him, and left resistance to Italian > > fascist aggression to those who were left behind. But Trotsky never > > reconsidered his stand, and it became a staple of Trotskyist wisdom until > > this day. > Louis Proyect wrote:
> This is what Trotsky wrote about Ethiopia: > > https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/04/oslo.htm > Yes, that's precisely the article! Thank you, Louis. It's Trotsky's famous letter "On Dictators and the Heights of Oslo", April 22, 1936. Trotsky talks of the necessity for the proletariat of "making a choice between two dictators." That is how he regards the struggle against Italian invasion. For him, the Ethiopian people have vanished except for the dictator, Haile Selassie. He glamorizes this choice of a dictator, saying "A dictator can also play a very progressive role in history; for example, Oliver Cromwell, Robespierre, etc." And moreover, he writes "The victory of the Negus [Haile Selassie]...would mean a mighty blow not only at Italian imperialism but at imperialism as a whole, and would lend a powerful impulsion to the rebellious forces of the oppressed people. One must really be completely blind not to see this." About 10 days later, on May 2, the grand anti-imperialist dictator and reincarnation of Cromwell and Robespierre, Haile Selassie, fled Ethiopia. A more sorry ending to Trotsky's vision could hardly have been imagined. One must really be completely blind not to see this. Yet Trotsky never reconsidered his position about what proletarian support for the Ethiopian people would mean, and never wrote about how the Ethiopian resistance really took place. I have seen various Trotskyists raise the importance of Trotsky's stand on Ethiopia; they seem to regard it as the gold standard for anti-imperialism; but I have not seen one discuss Trotsky's stand in light of the subsequent events after April 22. Selassie would only return later to Ethiopia with the help of British bayonets. Meanwhile the Ethiopian people waged such a determined and unyielding resistance against Italian invasion and occupation that Ethiopia was never fully subjugated. The movement that fought Italian aggression from inside Ethiopia was not a revolutionary movement, but it did want reforms in Ethiopia, not a return to absolutism. Instead it got the restoration of Selassie's absolutism. This restoration was not a great blow at world imperialism, but a tragedy for Ethiopia and for the neighboring Eritrean people, whom Selassie would annex. Trotsky's stand toward Haile Selassie is reminiscent of Stalin's famous remarks about the Emir of Afghanistan in "Foundations of Leninism". It is one of the examples of how Stalinism and Trotskyism have much in common. I wrote about this in "Anti-imperialism and the class struggle". http://www.communistvoice.org/29cEmir.html -- Joseph _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
