User:RD/9k/Q21,44

Prototype notes

2144. Trotskyism: Counter-revolution in Disguise (Olgin 1935) -> Soviet record of the history of Trotskyism up to the first attack. relatively comprehensive, although I would expect no less. it was amusing to me when they got the trade unions incident in there, which had been one of my favorite historical anecdotes — and even better when there were apparently several more factual details to how badly Trotsky screwed it up. good history text. the only problem is I have questions about how complete its class analysis is. of all the statements made, I wouldn't dispute any of them but I do feel like there are some crucial statements missing that might just explain everything. Trotskyism was born out of a churning creek of petty bourgeoisie that could never pick a side? true. Trotsky was never integrated into the Russian revolution? true. I mean, he himself complains about that, so there's no denying it. the behavior of creeks of petty bourgeoisie can be ignored and brushed off as a factor in the motions of history? false. creeks of petty bourgeoisie are not periodically generating entire new competing Marxisms and separating whole racial movements from nation-states to then call all Marxists racist? false. the CPSU tended to totally dismiss these layers of society as people who exist, which actually did make sense in a country like theirs where it was a small portion of the population, but it's a rather terrible thing to present this point of view to other countries where conditions are very different. even if this layer is "unimportant" you still have to understand its behavior, and effectively, give it something to do before it gets into trouble. though Trotskyists literally don't believe it (and we can guess why.) the United States is filled to the brim with "petty bourgeoisie" and the problem only gets worse every time capitalism has a crisis. it's like rather than consolidating the bourgeoisie, crises in capitalism actually result in big corporations exploding, destroying the proletariat, and wildly creating petty bourgeoisie.

Claims

2145. Trotskyism is the shovel dream of small owners / Trotskyism is the shovel dream of the petty bourgeosie (small owners; Artisan types; mainstream Marxism-Leninism) -> I think this is only half the explanation but I can't disagree. I think you have to model it as the shovel dream of a separate unique cluster of "petty bourgeoisie", a subpopulation as a countable object, to where there can be plural groups which fail to unify because they're fundamentally separate objects. but at that point you've basically got it. yes, the "proliferation of Marxisms" and "plurality" I keep talking about are some very petty-bourgeois problems. but I can't just walk away from these problems because the oceans of petty bourgeosie that create them all really actually exist and have to be studied. they're the numerous, insular, backward peasants of the modern world.