/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>2455182
>according to the daily worker, people at the moscow trials confessed to being trotskyists and working with the nazis
It feels strange to have to explain this, but perhaps you are a 17 year old baby communist. These confessions were elicited under torture and can't be relied upon. When the soviet archives were briefly opened during glasnost and after the fall of the soviet union, some of these signed confessions were found to be covered in dried blood.
The accused weren't Nazis and they weren't even Trotskyists. And they probably weren't wreckers or saboteurs either.

>>2455196
>These confessions were elicited under torture and can't be relied upon

Prove that these confessions were elicited under torture, lmao. Just claiming that they were doesn't prove that they were

>some of these signed confessions were found to be covered in dried blood

More horror stories, seriously?

>>2455196
>>2455205
Like, let's look at the picture; why NOT A SINGLE ONE of defendants have used an open court - meaning there were western journalists sitting in the auditory - accused the court about tortures and such openly? NOT A SINGLE FUCKING ONE. Were they not true revolutionaries, true communists? Were they Stalin's puppets? Did Stalin mind control them somehow?

>>2455205
prove they weren't retard. I'm not the party raising the confessions as evidence of a stain on trotskyism. Many people recanted when they were about to be shot and said they were tortured.


>be me
>old bolshevik since 1910ish
>devote your life to gommunism
>live brave historic life
>go through the fires of hell during the revolution and the civil war
>stick with stalin during the 20s
>in the 30s suddenly decide to become a trotskyist and also a nazi agent
>get killed by stalin
>this somehow was the life trajectory of literally hundreds of people
this is what you actually believe

>>2455196
>>2455212
I mean, this shit was so bad looking for the defendants that another guy claiming innocence for the defendants - Solzhenitsyn - in his fiction, were he was describing one such a court, has put into the mouth of a defendant a big ass tirade about how Stalin is wronging him, lol. Even Solzhenitsyn had enough brains to understand that open court proceedings require the unjustly persecuted to speak out against the unjust system openly

>>2455215
>old bolshevik since 1910ish
>devote your life to gommunism
<during open court, instead of defending your innocence, submit to Stalin's brain waves and don't talk about totally real not fake tortures to the western journalists present in the hall

>>2455216
their families were being threatened

>>2455217
What, of every one of them? And none of them were true bolshevik anymore who would go and risk their own and their families' lives for the revolution, like they did in 1905 and in 1917? What happened to their revolutionary spirit, you asshat?

>>2455217
>>2455218
Meanwhile, we know for a fact that during the WW2, real communists did in fact sacrifice their families for the greater good of their motherland. We know of Stalin's sons, for example. How come traitor to the revolution Stalin had more of a spirit than real old bolsheviks who could quite easily create a lot of troubles for Stalin just by simply speaking out? Huh? HUH?

>>2455219
i'm going to be real with you dude, I am pretty sure you are like 16. No adult communist in the current yearthinks this sort of stuff. Not even ML leaning figures like zizek. They all acknowledge the torture.
If you can post a photo of a drivers license with that says you are over 25, I will continue this conversation. Feel free to black out identifiable information.

>>2455225
You have to understand that "Trotsky" to diehard MLs isn't a human being so much as an ominous evil specter responsible for everything that ever went wrong in communism, with thousands upon thousands of loyal Bolsheviks falling under his sway and devoting their lives to destroy the Soviet Union and have it colonized by Nazi Germany because they're evil and evil hates good things like Stalin. Apologia for the Moscow Trials ultimately isn't rooted in anything except vibes and the desire for a good vs evil narrative

>>2455225
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1937/dewey/session13_c.htm

Why did Trotsky say this about Radek?

>During the trial, Radek testified: “… in February, 1932, I received a letter from Trotsky … Trotsky further wrote that since he knew me to be an active person he was convinced that I would return to the struggle.” Three months after this alleged letter, on May 14th, 1932, I wrote to Albert Weisbord in New York: “… The ideological and moral degeneration of Radek testifies to the fact that not only is Radek not made of first-grade stuff, but also that the Stalinist régime must support itself either on depersonalized functionaries or demoralized people.” Such was my real appraisal of this “active person”!

>No adult communist in the current yearthinks this sort of stuff. Not even ML leaning figures like zizek. They all acknowledge the torture.

They all acknowledge torture? Really? Nobody requires proof of tortures, when the eyewitnesses of the Moscow Trials have all said that they've seen no proof of tortures? Says a lot about the "adult" communists, lmao

>>2455231
Or this about Pyatakov:

>Involved here is the testimony of Pyatakov. He stated that he met me in Norway in December 1935 for conspiratorial talks. Pyatakov was supposed to have come from Berlin to Oslo by airplane. The immense importance of this testimony is self-evident. I have declared more than once, and I declare again, that Pyatakov, like Radek, for the past nine years was not my friend but one of my bitterest and most treacherous enemies, and that there could have been no question of negotiations and meetings between us. If it were proven that Pyatakov actually visited me, my position would be hopelessly compromised. On the contrary, if I prove that the account of the visit is false from beginning to end, it is the system of “voluntary confessions” which will be compromised. Even if one were to admit that the Moscow court is above suspicion, the accused Pyatakov would still remain suspect. His testimony must be verified. That is not difficult. Pyatakov is not yet shot. He should immediately be presented with the following series of precise questions.

Why did Trotsky throw his confidants under the bus so strongly, lol? I thought they were real, true old bolshevik revolutionaries who were wrongly accused at Moscow Trials!

>>2455231
your chatgpt tier research betrays a shit understanding and that you aren't really reading any of the history

<radek
he turned in the guy who brought him a letter from trotsky, seemingly a smoking gun indication he had no interest in trotskyist conspiracy
>Pyakatov
reading comprehension. Trotsky denied meeting this guy. Based on some brief research, the Norweigan press at the time reported that no plane landed at the supposed airfield in Oslo where this took place.

also you are reported for being underage

>>2455225
Bitch detected

https://www.hrono.ru/dokum/193_dok/1937tro00.php

Apparently, contents of this trial was recreated from Pravda and other OPENLY PUBLISHED NEWSPAPERS

>>2455251
>the Norweigan press at the time reported that no plane landed at the supposed airfield in Oslo where this took place.

Oh, but Norway did receive a plane, according to Norwegian Communist Party research

Trotsky's defence is hilarious, by the way. "How could Pyatakov come to me at 3:30, talk with me until 5:30, and fly back? It's impossible! I'm a good host, I would have given him a meal, because he would be feeling hungry! And no way in hell would he fly back immediately, he must had rested in Norway at an inn!" Such childish attempts, lol

>>2455262
>Norway did receive a plane, according to the Moscow aligned official communist party that dutifully parroted the Moscow line
retard!

>>2455264
<you LIE!

We can go and read this https://www.hrono.ru/dokum/193_dok/1937tro00.php and find Radek's confession about how the excuse for travelling to Norway for Pyatakov was an arranged speech to students, lol

As for passport, Bessonov, another witness, has said that DANISH passport for Pyatakov was acquired through bribery of DANISH officials

Norwegian authorities have CONFIRMED TO OFFICIAL SOVIET INQUIRY that during winter months, planes were allowed to land in that airport.

Holmstrom (the guy who in another reserach had acquired hotel Bristol plans and had proved without a shred of a doubt that Trotsky was lying) has apparently found this:

>According to Sven-Erik Holmstrom, some time later the correspondents of Tidens Mystery managed to find witnesses from among the local residents. They gave the journalists some very interesting information. So, one of them did not want to disclose his own name, but expressed his willingness, if necessary, to give evidence to the internal affairs bodies. He said that when Leon Trotsky was staying in a hut near the lake, he saw a plane fly in from the south, passing over Mount Girihaugen and over Ringkollen, and then making several circles over Lake Oyangen before landing. And another local villager reported the discovery of ski landing gear tracks on Lake Oyangen.

>>2455276
Trotsky's probable house near Oslo, where he talked to Pyatakov

>>2455264
>>2455276
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidens_Tegn

This is the newspaper yandex translated as "Tidens Mystery". 25 Jan 1935 issue of that newspaper had a journo investigation of Pyatakov arriving in Oslo, lmao

Did Stalin pay fascist-adjacent newspaper to shit on Trotsky?

>>2455276
>accused accuses other accused in confession, therefore other accused is guilty and trials were not show trials
circular argument, retard!

>Norwegian authorities have CONFIRMED TO OFFICIAL SOVIET INQUIRY that during winter months, planes were allowed to land in that airport.
permitted to land doesn't mean that any planes landed. civilian plane logs indicated no planes landed. this is such a meaningless clarification that I must once again point out that you are a retard.
Think of it like this. You are *allowed* to hang out with girls. But if we check your paren'ts ring doorbell camera, there aren't any women coming over to hang out.

>According to norweigan grover furr, unnamed witnesses talked some shit a gorillion years ago
the smoking gun!!!

>>2455292
>accused digging each others' graves is not proof!!!1

Legal practice begs to differ, ololol. Practice shows that they, in fact, do dig each other's graves, and their admissions can be trusted (to an extent). You are just being retard intentionally because you can't admit to being wrong, and to Trotsky being a traitor

>civilian plane logs indicated no planes landed

So what? It was a military airport anyway, and Germany was known to fly secret planes all over the place, leaving no reports. For example, they've secretly flown hundreds of planes to Spain

>the smoking gun!!!

That's your proof that confession was forced? I thought you had solid arguments, and not an emotional appeal to muh common knowledge

>>2455292
>>2455297
Besides, why would a "concerted admission of goilt" feature an event which had to be clarified with Norweigian authorities, with those authorities contradicting the evidence? Like, do you think Soviets were playing mindgames to lull the world into not believing them? Like, has there ever been a country that tried to pull such mindgames? Uniqueness of situation in world history is an argument in favor of Soviet account of event, not Trotsky's. Otherwise iit's just a conspiracy theory: super-smart Soviets shitting onto their own arguments so that confessions looked more believable - but by doing so providing Trotsky with fuel to defend himself!

That's totally how forced confessions work, btw

Since the opponent will now pretend to have won and not to care, i'll just post Radek's admission to showcase Trotsky's breadth of betrayal of communism

Radek: If you ask about the formula, it was a return to capitalism, the restoration of capitalism. It was veiled. The first option reinforced capitalist elements, it was about transferring significant economic facilities to both the Germans and the Japanese in the form of concessions, and about obligations to supply Germany with raw materials, food, and fats at prices below world prices. The internal consequences of this were clear. The interests of private capital in Russia are concentrated around the German-Japanese concessionaires. In addition, all this policy was related to the program of rehabilitation of the individual sector, if not in the whole of agriculture, then in a significant part of it. But if in the first case it was a question of a significant restoration of capitalist elements, then in the second – the indemnities and their consequences, the transfer to the Germans, in case of their demands, of those factories that would be especially valuable for their economy. Since in the same letter he was already fully aware that this was a revival of private trade on a large scale, the quantitative ratio of these factors already gave a picture of a return to capitalism, which left remnants of the socialist economy, which would then become simply state-capitalist elements. The first letter did not contain a social program, the second one does. The first was a short letter about the acceleration of the war, and the second letter was an assessment of the international situation, here tactics in case of war were considered. If the first letter should be considered as an impetus for defeatist tactics, then the second letter provided a complete developed program, therefore it differs in its volume. The first letter was on 2-3 pages, and the second was 8 pages on thin English paper, a detailed letter.

>>2455262
You’re embarrassing yourself

>>2455326
*I* embarass myself? Really? Not the retard who can't answer clearly why real deal old bolsheviks and true revolutionaries haven't used the open court design of Moscow Trials to accuse Stalinist regime of forced confessions and tortures in front of world press and Pravda newspaper and etc etc?

>>2455332
I stopped reading when you ignored the point that Radek turned in the person who delivered a letter from Trotsky, but yes, you are embarrassing yourself.

>>2455335
Wait, so what you are saying is, Radek was sacrificing himself and pretended to be a trot just to smear st. Trotsky with dirt?

>>2455341
What I am saying is that you are unhinged and bad at reasoning and I don’t want to see any more posts by you

>>2455344
???????
Walk me through the mental steps, would you. Radek turned in the person who delivered a letter from Trotsky; how's that impossible? What's your opposition to this?

>>2455346
Your original hypothesis:
>Radek was a left Oppositionist in the 20s
>he entered into a Trotskyist conspiracy and got a letter from Trotsky
>he was arrested and then had a change of heart and admitted everything and was fine (not under duress)

Anon pointed out that the evidence you surfaced, (the letter from Trotsky), actually strained your interpretation (because he snitched on the guy who delivered the letter) but you glided past that to gishgallop in other pastures despite it being a good point and an indication he definitely wasn’t in a Trotskyist conspiracy at the time.

This is the null hypothesis
>Radek was a left oppositionist and ally of Trotsky
>After Trotsky was defeated Radek fell in line with the center
>He went as far as turning in someone who was genuinely party of a Trotskyist conspiracy and tried to give him a letter
>later he’s forced out of the party and then arrested, presumably in part for being in the opposition a decade previously
>under some mixture of duress, socialist patriotism, and loyalty to Stalin, he admits false guilt and names fake accomplices
This interpretation requires 0–1 political reversals (he might have just been an opportunist all along) or sincere changes of heart instead of 3 under your interpretation. The null hypothesis is a far more conceivable story and more favored by Occam’s razor.

>>2455215
The slander against Bukharin, Tukhachevsky, Kamenev, Radek, etc, make me so ass mad. Most of all Tukhachevsky.

These are men who's pinky toes did more for the real movement then any of us will do in ten lifetimes. Who risked life and limb. And we are to believe believe they en masse suddenly decided to become German and Japanese agents? Along with countless hundreds of other dedicated Bolsheviks?

And these idiot sectarians believe this, presumably because some fucking asthmatic nerd had the audacity to try to earnestly sell them a shitty newspaper one time five years ago? Get a fucking hold of yourselves.

I miss when this site was a place where you could have an actual discussion, rather than a place where people screamed past eachother until the thread hits bump limit.

My impression of Trotsky, having both read him and about him, is that he was a moderately important figure in the Russian Revolution who found himself of the wrong side of party politics and was shown the door. He wasn't some evil genius twisting his mustache and laughing like a cartoon villain, he was Some Guy who was butthurt that the Soviet Union was moving on without him. Ideologically, he was not really meaningfully different from MLism, and if he were put in charge instead of Stalin, things probably wouldn't have gone all that differently.

It reminds me a lot of what happened with us and Leftychan. They didn't break off because of some fundamental disagreement with us in terms of how the site is run, they broke off because of petty internet drama, and are mostly defined by said petty internet drama.

>>2455480
I think it was one lone moron who derailed the thread with Moscow trials Trutherism. When you roll with pigs you get covered with shit. They are seemingly sufficiently chastised now and we can resume a productive thread.

>>2455218
>>2455231
https://istmat.org/node/36068
>joint resolution by the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the Party, issued on November 17, 1938, titled “On Arrests, Prosecutor Supervision, and the Conduct of Investigations.”
After the Great Purge the NKVD was accused by Stalin of routine grave misconduct and many NKVD officers were themselves purged. learn your history.

>>2455564
>first time ever shown anywhere: 2006 publication titled "tragedy of Soviet village"
Yeah, nah. You can even see how they try to grab as many targets to smear them in "they knew everything and said nothing!" sauce, lol. Suffice it to say that no document, first printed in 1930-40s, ever mentioned any of this nonsense

>>2455381
>This interpretation requires 0–1 political reversals (he might have just been an opportunist all along) or sincere changes of heart instead of 3 under your interpretation

???? Radek was a trot aka opportunist listening to Trotsky throughout. Conspiracy demanded a lot of, well, conspiracy, and they've said as much "under torture"

>>2455479
>The slander against Bukharin, Tukhachevsky, Kamenev, Radek

Why these men didn't defend themselves in the Moscow Trials, mr. assmad? Why nobody can answer me this simple question without falling into conspiracy theories?

>>2455564
And if you don't want to agree with me, well, tough luck, because OTHER evidence from the archives (which are sacred and weren't tampered with in any way, shape or form) contains Stalin's signature under orders to shoot dead tens of thousands of people. "Stalin didn't know!" doesn't fly if you subscribe under the "archives are sacred" dogma

>>2455882
And if you don't agree with the very possibility of anticommunist forgeries, just look fucking outside at all the "evidence" fascoids use to fight communists with. Why would you assume that such people coming to rule the (post-)Soviet archives in 80-90s wouldn't just fake evidence? After all, there never ever was an expertise of the documents in the archives (well, except for the most dire ones, like order 00447, which has shown us that it was written on two different typewriters)

>>2455882
>???? Radek was a trot aka opportunist listening to Trotsky throughout. Conspiracy demanded a lot of, well, conspiracy, and they've said as much "under torture"
no, your view requires 3 reversals. As i tried to explain in good faith earlier.

>Radek is a member of the left opposition and a political ally of Trotsky
<Reversal 1: Sometime before 1929 he decides to stop cooperating with Trotsky
>He snitches on a guy who smuggles him a letter from Trotsky
<Reversal 2: Sometime, after this event, he decides to begin conspiring with Trotsky, despite having previously shown no interest in this
>Sometime later, Radek is arrested
<Reversal 3: without being subjected to torture or duress of any kind, Radek has a political epiphany and decides to cooperate, admit guilt, and denounce Trotskyits, despite the fact that it will not save his life
>Radek is killed

it's not a parsimonious view. it strains incredulity.

>>2455900
>politicians fight each other
<therefore it was impossible for Radek to be in cahoots with Trotsky

Besides, Soviet court was suspecting Radek of defending some cooperator before 1929 by denying contacts with Trotsky. It's funny how presenting the Moscow Trials as show trials with coordinated confessions doesn't hold up to evidence presented lol

>>2455922
you've simply not responded to the issue i've raised

>>2448302
Back to Reddit

Continuing from >>2455480, I respect Trotsky and his works in a way that I don't a lot of other non-ML Marxist theorists, because he was in fact involved with the Russian revolution, meaning that, at least to some degree, he was able to put ideas that he condoned into action.

I will say that a lot of what he says feels like it's in response to the Soviet Union specifically, and that he likely wouldn't be espousing these views if he weren't kicked to the curb, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think it's good to have the perspective of someone who was burned by a machine that he helped to build. Even if you don't think his ideas are worthwhile, it's still worth reading him to get that point of view.

>>2448309
>militarization of labor
marx and engels called for industrial armies (particularly for agriculture) in the manifesto

>>2455102
>
> Political shift: After becoming disillusioned with the left, particularly following the murder of a friend by members of the Black Panther Party, Horowitz underwent a major ideological conversion.
lmao this mfer hired the fbi bitch they had to dump in the bay

>>2449273
>>2454682
>>2454683
Rent free lmao

>>2455940
Yes, Moscow Trials as a coordinated show is a conspiracy theory - geocentrism from your pic. Seeing Moscow Trials for what they were, i.e. defendants crossexaminated into telling on each other and themselves - is heliocentrism

Trotsky was right about most things but I will never ever join the RCI and shill newspapers alongside a bunch of student activists all day.
Trotskyists ruin Trotskyism.

>>2448087
Meh. Had some good theory, and these anons more or less encapsulate what I think of him.
>>2454735
>>2458830
>>2455480

A man with an extremely polarising legacy, but some solid theory to boot.

He's not some devil, but he's far from an angel of socialism either. Honestly, it's been close to a hundred years. I think it's about time we put down our ice picks and leave him to freeze over.