> On 8/17/15 11:28 AM, Joseph Green via Marxism wrote: > > > > 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". > Louis Proyect wrote: > Look, your problem is not just with Trotsky (or Stalin). It is with > Lenin and the Comintern that viewed struggles such as these as worth > supporting. Italy was trying to make Ethiopia into a colony, just as it > had done to Somalia. We don't take a neutral "plague on both your > houses" position in such confrontations.
Louis, Louis, what can one do with you. You are too impatient to ponder the theoretical issues I am raising, and you are too anxious to win at all costs. If you read what I wrote, you would see that I firmly support the Ethiopian resistance to Italian fascist aggression, and I praised it. My difference with Trotsky isn't that he opposed the Italian invasion. Not at all. Rather than simply quote what I have already written on this thread, I'll cite a passage from my article "Anti-imperialism and the class struggle", "Trotsky correctly supported the Ethiopians against Italian aggression, but he phrased this as support for 'the Negus' (which was another name for the Emperor of Ethiopia, i. e. , Haile Selassie). He didn't refer to the difficulties that faced the Ethiopians because of the feudal conditions in Ethiopia and their subjugation to an absolute monarch, but instead completely identified the cause of the Ethiopian people with the leadership and rule of Haile Selassie." Indeed, Trotsky had a hard time figuring out how and why to support the Ethiopian people. From the standpoint of "permanent revolution", it wasn't obvious what to do. And it is notable that Trotsky doesn't cite permanent revolution as a reason for support of this struggle. Instead, to back support for the Ethiopian side, he had to invent a new principle: choosing between two dictators. That's why his letter "On Dictators and the Heights of Oslo" was so important in the Trotskyist movement. Trotsky's standpoint on the anti-imperialist struggle was different from that of Lenin and from that of communist anti-imperialism. It was not helpful for providing direction for the Ethiopian resistance to Italian invasion and occupation. It didn't attempt to do that, other than to tell everyone how great Haile Selassie might be. Trotsky's rationale was so defective that it could even be cited later on by certain Trotskyists to justify support of the Taliban. See http://www.communistvoice.org/28cTaliban.html -- Joseph Green _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
