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Post by patricksmcnally on Feb 26, 2023 18:02:09 GMT
> Trotsky even had an electric refrigerator in his New York flat in 1915 Is that a typo? Trotsky spent less than 3 months in New York in 1917. Where have you heard anything about him being in New York in 1915? About Schuyler's statement on "300 Jews," I pointed out in earlier posts of this thread that that is just rumor originating from Robert Wilton. > I think also that a major reason why Bolshevism triumphed in Russia but not in Germany That was because the German Social Democrats were allowed to take formal office and Ludendorff got out of the way. Subsequently Ludendorff made a lot of sleazy stab-in-the-back charges against the German Social Democrats. But if he had attempted to install a military dictatorship with a coup d'état like Admiral Kolchak did with the coup that Schuyler supported, then there very likely would have been a revolutionary civil war in Germany. The German Social Democrats calmed everything down so that the newly formed Communist Party of Germany was not able to recruit very much. > nor did they gain the popular support lost by the Old Regime As I've said already here, the main popular support went firstly to the Social Revolutionaries and secondly to the Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks did win some popular support among Russians at key points. But they would easily have been outvoted in favor of a coalition of SRs and Mensheviks. It was the White Terror which precluded any such choice since the Whites refused to tolerate any Left-wing government. > The fact of the matter is Bolshevik rule was disastrous (until Stalin) and the anti-Tsar types who weren't Jews, foreigners, party members, or criminal psychopaths turned on the revolution really fast. Nonsense. Popular support wherever it turned against the Bolsheviks simply shifted in favor of the Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and various offshoots such as the Greens. It never turned against the revolution and the Right-wing Whites never gained any popular support. > I think the Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill summed it up pretty well in 1920 Churchill was just shooting off his own arrogance here. Like most aristocrats, Churchill was dismissive of the extent to which the Russian population at large had become disenchanted with the Czarist monarchy and had instead turned to supporting Left-wing parties. > Even the late Neocon "Godfather" Irving Kristol was a former Trotskyite Communist. Kristol had a very limited association with the actual Trotskyist party of which he was never a member. Bill King went through a lot of the relevant facts about the neoconservatism-is-Trotskyism trope here: www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0304/0304neocontrotp1.htmwww.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0304/0304neocontrotp2.htm> Trotskyite Communism has always been the most Jewish of all. Complete rubbish. If one was going to pick out the specific tendency from the rival Russian Marxist factions which had the highest share of Jewish supporters it would be Menshevism, not Trotskyism. Julius Martov, Fyodor Dan, Raphael Abramovitch were all prominent Menshevik leaders. Even the Social Revolutionaries had many more Jewish members than were ever aligned with Trotsky. This myth about Trotskyism being "the most Jewish" is the Right-wing lie which circulates among people who never bother to research a subject. > The Jewish periodical Tablet has an interesting short piece (below) which admits the facts of Jews in Bolshevism but then tries to hand-wave it all away in the same spirit The article does quite correctly point out that "the Bolsheviks had very little support among the Jewish population, possibly the lowest amount of any of the multiple parties vying for support..." But that Tablet article does not really bother going into the relevant details which I have elucidated in earlier posts on this thread. To give a serious discussion one must cover all of the various revolutionary parties and elaborate not only on the degree to which various Jews supported these parties, but on the extent to which ordinary Russians supported them. Then one has to turn to addressing the actions of the Whites and how this forced Russians to choose between either Bolshevism or else a straight-up Right-wing counter-revolution, and the majority of Russians chose Bolshevism against the Whites (though most Jews and Russians alike would have preferred the Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks). > Recently, "Conservatard" Dennis Prager was supposed to speak at Arizona State University, and immediately a spate of Marxist professors and Librarians denounced the event. The events of the Russian Civil War are a long ago matter and need to be evaluated through a study of those times, separate from current controversy. > The semi-divine Tsar of all the Russias was probably quite Jew-aware himself ─ but that did not stop him from missing the forest for the trees. He was simply blind to the reality that the minimum which the Russian population was demanding was simply that a radical land reform be carried out which would break apart and redistribute all of the large landed estates and that people wanted an electoral Duma in which they would be able to vote in Left-wing labor parties similar to the Social Democrats in Germany. The events around 1905 showed the writing on the wall, but the Czar and his advisors were blind to it. |
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nazgul
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Post by nazgul on Feb 26, 2023 19:27:46 GMT
> Declassified KGB documents show that Lenin was jewish. He was quarter-Jewish and apparently not aware of this during his lifetime. I cited the relevant reports in some of the early posts on this thread. Ein Jude ist ein Jude. Mischling. |
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Post by wheelbarrow on Feb 26, 2023 21:05:43 GMT
> Trotskyite Communism has always been the most Jewish of all. Complete rubbish. If one was going to pick out the specific tendency from the rival Russian Marxist factions which had the highest share of Jewish supporters it would be Menshevism, not Trotskyism. Julius Martov, Fyodor Dan Raphael Abramovitch were all prominent Menshevik leaders. Even the Social Revolutionaries had many more Jewish members than were ever aligned with Trotsky. This myth about Trotskyism being "the most Jewish" is the Right-wing lie which circulates among people who never bother to research a subject. Nonsense. We can go back to the MID report you and your friend misled readers about:
The main character Jewish communities outside of Russia were jubilant about was Trotsky - "the greatest Hebrew ruler and statesman since King Solomon," as they reportedly considered him. They probably didn't even know or care what Mensheviks were, and no-one should bother to either.
You seem to generally avoid talking about the wider international debut of the crime spree, especially the failed uprisings of 1917 and later in countries other than Russia. Is it because it more clearly underlines the foreign and anti-national character of communist movements and the prominence of a certain ethnic group?
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Post by 𝐒𝐜𝐨𝐭𝐭 on Feb 26, 2023 21:47:48 GMT
> Trotsky even had an electric refrigerator in his New York flat in 1915 Is that a typo? Trotsky spent less than 3 months in New York in 1917. Where have you heard anything about him being in New York in 1915? I actually don't recall the citation but I remembered it as being during the war and before American entry. Trotsky was an "International Jew," as somebody like Winston Churchill would put it. There is a good reason why they are always for open borders and breaking down all national barriers (except for Israel). But on the other hand, I don't think that the world revolves around Jews or anybody else. Perhaps, but we are not looking at a fact or two placed for study in complete vacuums. The gist of the subject seems to be the Jews. I don't see how you can completely remove Jews from either Bolshevism or Zionism and still make the analysis meaningful. Plus, Jews like to "own" History. Their historical narratives and viewpoints "are" History. "Our God is God," in Charlton Heston's voice. Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, a Jewish theologian who everybody calls a historian, is a good example of that. She sees theology as literal history. If you are not completely on side with her canonical narrative on the Holocaust, then you're just in Denial or even a Denier and should be silenced completely (even though she will give grudging lip service against hard censorship). Lipstadt may not be the spokesperson for "Jews" any more than Sammy Untermyer was in 1933, but don't tell them that. I agree that not everything is about Jews. However, historical context is important to historical revision, and that is part of historiography.  |
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Post by wheelbarrow on Feb 27, 2023 13:43:46 GMT
> Pat's proof that Russians are unrepentant communists Where did I ever such a phrase? It is simply a fact that the Whites were defeated not because of Jews supporting the Bolsheviks, but because the Right-wing Whites had no support from Russians. > The claim that anyone should distinguish too much between communist groups is comical. If you're going to lump all such groups together, then you come back to the fact that the vast majority of Russians supported the revolution and this was why it won. The only way you could make any serious argument rooted in historical fact that Russians wanted a different outcome is by distinguishing Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and such from the Bolsheviks. One can rationally argue that Russians in March 1917 were not envisioning a one-party state led by Lenin's party. But if you draw no distinctions, then this argument is nullified. The populations of every Eastern European country are to a significant degree eternally displeased with their leadership. The U.S. Congress has extremely low approval rating. Those entities operate just fine and will continue to operate just fine with the implied promise that they'll shoot or imprison anyone who interferes. That the weakness of the Tsar who refused to defend his seat of power created an opening where celebrities and intellectuals aped revolutionary rhetoric popularized by a rabid minority of activists is no more significant than a late night talk show host mocking the system of governance or some lowly worker groaning about his station in life. The unopposed "vanguard" carried the day, and on this I credit the stories of self-acclaim advanced by the criminals. At the same time, popular support of an alternative to the Tsar was gone as soon as the alternative became real. The "right wing" was defeated because the Tsar was weak and, as part of his short-lived political project, Kerensky put on a disarming neutral face while practically inviting Bolshevik rule. He spent the day before the October Coup lending rhetorical support to Bolshevik reprisals against the right wing.
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Post by patricksmcnally on Feb 28, 2023 17:38:23 GMT
"The main thrust of the agent's report appears to be that Jewish opinion in Paris is jubilant at their ethnic victory over Russians,"
This is already a bad example of using what is at best a 2nd-hand report. The statement of "their ethnic victory over Russians" is a bizarre notion that has no real parallel in the world. The Czarist monarchy was overthrown by the Russian people. That fact is clear in the historical record. Through this 2nd-hand report you reference the otherwise unidentified claim that French Jews allegedly considered Trotsky "the greatest Hebrew ruler and statesman since King Solomon." It is at least theoretically plausible that some fools who had zero connection with the newly formed Communist parties may have had said something like this. Possibly someone who was simply awed by seeing a Jew become a prominent commander such as Trotsky was in charge of the Red Army may have uttered such words. But nothing in any of the literature put out through the newly Communist International carries anything like that. This whole story is better regarded as a dubious rumor.
Since you brought up the matter of Communist parties forming in other countries, that's worth going to. In Germany especially, the Social Democratic Party had had many prominent Jews in its leadership. Karl Kautsky, Rudolf Hilferding, Eduard Bernstein, to name a few. The original appellation of "Jewish Marxists" was based on references to the German Social Democrats. Lenin's biggest hope at the time of 1917-8 was that the German Social Democratic Party would split and the result would be that a new German revolutionary party would form. He regarded Germany as a more industrially developed region which was better to see a Marxist program succeed if proletarian revolution occurred there.
As it happened, the main leaders of the German Social Democrats rejected the Bolshevik program. Even those who regarded the aims of the Russian Revolution with sympathy rejected Lenin's organizational model. Rosa Luxemburg was particularly notable here. Luxemburg, a Polish Jewess, had been a critic of Lenin's idea of a revolutionary party since the early 1900s. She had been demoralized in 1914 when she saw German working men march off to the slaughter, and so she was sympathetic to see a revolution led in Russia by Lenin denouncing the war. Despite this vague sympathy, she was clear in all her statements that a German working class party had to follow a different model than Lenin's idea of a revolutionary vanguard party (which he had modeled after Nechayev's earlier party).
Unfortunately, this resulted in Luxemburg being easily assassinated. Lenin went into hiding in August 1917 because he saw that he might be executed if the army caught him. Luxemburg was a fervent believer in staying close to the working class and didn't like to operate in secret. So she was easily picked up and assassinated. It's tragic because had she lived, the later Communist Party of Germany (KPD) that was formed after her death would never have become the puppet of Moscow that it degenerated into. Luxemburg would have had the prestige to make any wanna-be German Communists see that they needed to be their own separate party independent of Moscow.
As far as Lenin's hopes that a revolution would break out among the German working classes, it was the Social Democrats (including their prominent Jewish leaders) who played the main role in preventing this. It can be interesting to imagine an alternate history where Ludendorff and Hindenburg carry out a military coup d'état against the German government on November 10, 1918. This would be analogous to Admiral Kolchak's coup in Siberia which overthrew the popularly elected government of Social Revolutionaries and replaced with a corrupt gang which alienated the mass of Siberians and paved the way for the Red Army's victory.
If Ludendorff had done something like this, then it is quite plausible that maybe a German civil war would have ensued with perhaps someone like Eugene Levine eventually emerging as the leader of Germany. That never became an issue because the Social Democrats were able to hold the support of the main body of German workers. So, the attempts at an uprising in Bavaria simply sputtered out. Even so, one should be aware that the events in Bavaria in 1919 did show that there were significant numbers of German workers and soldiers who were in a rebellious mood. Not enough to actually make a successful revolution. But you'd have to be really deranged to think that all of this was just a Jewish scheme concocted Levine or whoever. It was the fact the main Social Democratic Party was able to take office which made sure that most German workers did not support the attempt at a Bavarian uprising,
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Post by patricksmcnally on Feb 28, 2023 17:57:03 GMT
> Trotsky was an "International Jew," as somebody like Winston Churchill would put it. There is a good reason why they are always for open borders and breaking down all national barriers (except for Israel).
Obviously, the state of Israel did not exist at this time. Trotsky actually was offered by Zionists a chance to settle in Palestine shortly before his assassination. He rejected the offer with thanks. That might have saved his life if he had cozied with Zionists. But he felt committed to a different political movement. There's no point in trying to draw parallels with another era.
> I don't see how you can completely remove Jews from ... Bolshevism
Where did I "completely remove Jews from ... Bolshevism"? What I pointed out were the basuc facts that:
1) Up to 1917, many more Jews were involved with the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries (both separately or together) than were involved with the Bolsheviks.
2) The only parties which held any popular support among Russians in 1917 were the Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. No other party was a serious contender for political power in any form of electoral environment.
3) Jews only began joining the Bolsheviks on a large-scale when White pogroms left them no choice. It's a fact that Denikin's across much of Ukrainia was a pattern of capturing a town, having the local Jews come out to welcome his forces, starting a pogrom which began killing these Jews, and then when the Red Army recaptured the town having the Jews now join with the Bolsheviks.
4) The eventual White defeat was not brought about by x-percentage of Jews on this or that committee. It was a result of the fact that the brutality and corruption turned off so many Russians that they weren't willing to fight for them against the Bolsheviks. A government led by Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks could easily have been a popular alternative that would have won support. It would probably have had more Jews in it than the Bolshevik government did. But it would also have had more support from Russian workers and peasants. The White coups which seized power for the Right-wing made this possible and brought about the Bolshevik victory.
Now as long as one is clear on these facts, then one can easily describe the role of Jews in things. For example, Abram Gots was at the center of the first public show-trial in the USSR. As a leader of the Social Revolutionaries he might easily have been the head of a non-Bolshevik government which would have had real support from Russian peasants. But the Whites made this impossible.
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Post by patricksmcnally on Feb 28, 2023 18:10:19 GMT
"Kerensky put on a disarming neutral face while practically inviting Bolshevik rule."
I discussed Kerensky's problem in the earlier posts. The big issue at hand was that any government had to sign a prompt peace with Germany. The Russian public was honestly tired of the war and there was no way for any government, either Right or Left, to be able to continue it. Unfortunately, army officers like Kornilov and all of the conservatives in the Russian government (not among the people) were determined to carry on with the war to victory. If Kerensky had actually signed a peace with Ludendorff in March 1917, he probably would have been overthrown in a coup d'état. This was a hopeless position. There was just no good way of administering the Russian government while remaining committed to the First World War as a cause.
What the Russian government needed to do in spring 1917 was sign a fast peace with Kaiser Wilhelm II, and then decree a land reform for the peasants which breaks up all of the old gentry estates, while holding elections to a new Duma. The result would have been a big victory for Kerensky's party of Social Revolutionaries, with the Mensheviks following along by carrying the urban working-class vote. In such a context, people like Zinoviev and Kamenev (and possibly Stalin) would likely have broken from Lenin and instead joined the new government. Lenin and Trotsky would probably have remained bitter political rivals, as the circumstances which led to them forming an alliance in July 1917 would not be present.
But persisting with the war and delaying other measures was untenable.
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Post by wheelbarrow on Feb 28, 2023 19:13:07 GMT
Unfortunately, this resulted in Luxemburg being easily assassinated. Quick interjection. Nothing unfortunate about Rosa Luxemburg being captured by the Garde-Kavallerie-Schützen-Division, shot, and tossed in the Landwehr canal. It is how the communist is effectively responded to. As for easily, the response was painfully slow and should have occurred at her and Liebknecht's first arrest. The Max Wexler treatment, if you will. (He's another wonderful character pushing communism in a country where the national population barely supported it in single digits at any time until military takeover.)
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Post by patricksmcnally on Mar 2, 2023 17:30:03 GMT
Like I said, the obsession which segments of the German Left subsequently took with Zinoviev's idea of "Bolshevization" was a consequence of Luxemburg's assassination. Luxemburg would never have allowed a party to be under the thumb of Moscow. She would have insisted on an independent German Left among the German working class. Luxemburg was never a "Jewish Bolshevik," contrary to any Right-wing propaganda. She consistently rejected Lenin's organizational methods and this was how she ended up being executed.
The thing is though that the main leading Social Democrats were still able to hold office since Ludendorff wasn't so crazy to attempt a coup against them the way Kolchak did against the Social Revolutionaries in Siberia. It was the influence of the Social Democrats and the (liberal) Catholic Centrists which calmed things down. If the political Right had attempted to seize power in Germany in 1918-9, it would have blown up in their face.
Going back to one bit of misconceived silliness which has been raised here, that foolish report alleging that French Jews supposedly regarded Trotsky as a "King of the Jews" in 1919, there's a very simple test for that nonsense. How many French Jews joined the Communist International when it was formed in 1919 and how many joined the French Communist Party when that was formed in 1920? Undoubtedly some did.
Boris Souvarine was born in Kiev to a Jewish family which moved to France in 1897. He was one of the founders of the French Communist Party, and he was even expelled from it a few years later because he expressed some sympathy for Trotsky. He never became a "Trotskyist" however, since he rejected Trotsky's fervent belief on the need to build a new revolutionary party among the working class.
I doubt that Boris Souvarine ever regarded Trotsky as a "King of the Jews." But then who did? Unless you can show that a significant number of French Jews immediately joined the Communist International when it was formed in 1919 and then headed into the French Communist Party when that was formed in 1920, then this silly story about someone in France supposedly having characterized Trotsky as a "King of the Jews" can be dismissed as just more White propaganda.
For comparison, the German Communist Party in 1927 had about 1,000 Jewish members among a party of about 140,000. That's perfectly consistent with Jews as a percentage of the German population. I can't offhand find any similar data about the French Communist Party, but it wouldn't be astonishing if they had some other prominent Jews like Boris Souvarine (who was expelled in 1924 from the party). But in any case, that is what should be your measuring criterion for judging this fable about Trotsky being seen as a "King of the Jews" among French Jews. The MID-rumor/report should be ignored, and you should look for evidence of French Jews actually supporting the political causes which Trotsky advocated.
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Post by patricksmcnally on Mar 2, 2023 20:55:10 GMT
Since the issue of where Rosa Luxemburg stood on things has come up, it's worth referring to her own words: www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch06.htm"When all this is eliminated, what really remains? In place of the representative bodies created by general, popular elections, Lenin and Trotsky have laid down the soviets as the only true representation of political life in the land as a whole, life in the soviets must also become more and more crippled. Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element. Public life gradually falls asleep, a few dozen party leaders of inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule. Among them, in reality only a dozen outstanding heads do the leading and an elite of the working class is invited from time to time to meetings where they are to applaud the speeches of the leaders, and to approve proposed resolutions unanimously – at bottom, then, a clique affair – a dictatorship, to be sure, not the dictatorship of the proletariat but only the dictatorship of a handful of politicians, that is a dictatorship in the bourgeois sense, in the sense of the rule of the Jacobins (the postponement of the Soviet Congress from three-month periods to six-month periods!) Yes, we can go even further: such conditions must inevitably cause a brutalization of public life: attempted assassinations, shooting of hostages, etc. (Lenin’s speech on discipline and corruption.)" I realize that their is a obsession with casting Luxemburg as a "Jewish Bolshevik" for ideological reasons. But an actual look at here own words shows otherwise. |
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Post by wheelbarrow on Mar 12, 2023 18:49:06 GMT
The MID-rumor/report should be ignored, and you should look for evidence of French Jews actually supporting the political causes which Trotsky advocated. No, this is exactly what I shouldn't do. First of all, it's not only the MID report that documents the phenomenon but other government reports and even Jewish memoirs of the era expressing similar feelings. Secondly, whether Jews supported Trotsky's specific "political causes" is irrelevant. The social phenomenon of Western European Jews supporting Communism, and particularly Trotsky, was because it loosely conformed with motifs of Judaism. Namely, their messiah is a politician-warrior who enters an existing conflict and secures material victories for Jews, including settling scores with old enemies and installing Jews as vessels for divine messaging to the rest of the world's peoples. Trotsky seemed to fit the bill, Communists punishing their enemies seemed to fit the bill, the global scope of Communism with Communist gobbledygook minted by Jewish intellectuals also seemed to fit the bill, hence they identified it as a Good Thing, even if the identification may have later petered out after the initial euphoria. Adherence to specific political causes misses the point and the mechanism. With opposition to anti-Semitism as a " major political factor in her political awakening," Rosa Luxemburg stood on infiltrating another location and then not staying in her own lane. Rosa Luxemburg's was another egomanical offering of aberrant internationalism, with her own guruship optimized to German political conditions. Covering for the big flop in the East with the distinctiveness of her own cult is no surprise. Same with other luminaries. |
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Post by patricksmcnally on Mar 13, 2023 17:14:49 GMT
> Secondly, whether Jews supported Trotsky's specific "political causes" is irrelevant. The social phenomenon of Western European Jews supporting Communism, and particularly Trotsky, was because it loosely conformed with motifs of Judaism.
This is exactly the kind of ideological jumble which created so much confusion. There was no particular support of Trotsky by west European Jews, and not even much for "Communism" in any meaningful sense. Of course, you could legitimately point out specific examples of Jews who did join the Comintern, as I did with the case of Boris Souvarine. But even if one went much further in looking up such people, this would still provide only a small batch of real examples. Relatively few Jews in France ever actually supported the Comintern.
"Rosa Luxemburg stood on infiltrating another location and then not staying in her own lane."
The only role which Luxemburg was playing at that time was to argue that a German working-class party should not follow the Bolshevik model. Her execution meant that more people were persuaded that Zinoviev was correct to want to Bolshevize the German Left.
The thinking which you're stating here encapsulates very well why the Whites lost the Russian Civil War. In Germany the Social Democrats were able to contain the influence of the Communist International among the workers. But if Ludendorff had attempted the kind of coup which Kolchak carried off in November 1918, then it's an open question how this would have ended. Rosa Luxemburg was not part of some imaginary Jewish conspiracy but rather had her own political theories which had placed her in conflict with Lenin since the early 1900s. Those conflicts were real for anyone who is not ideologically blindsided.
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Post by patricksmcnally on Mar 14, 2023 16:15:42 GMT
Just to fill in some biographical details about Rosa Luxemburg:
"In December 1914 she went into hospital for a short while; the long isolation and the disaster of the war were too much for her."
-- J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg, Volume 2, 417.
"Even before the outbreak of the war she had been in poor health, and the shock of events worsened her condition so much that she had to go into hospital."
-- Paul Froelich, Tosa Luxemburg, p. 214.
The idea that somehow Luxemburg was engaged in some elaborate Jewish conspiracy is an insane Right-wing delusion. Luxemburg was a woman who had become persuaded that the German working man was the best agent for shaping the future, and it depressed her to think of so many dying in the trenches. Lenin and Hitler share much more in common with each other than either of them does with Luxemburg. Both of the former two were each glad in their own way to see the outbreak of war in 1914. Lenin believed that it would augur the start of a European revolution. Hitler believed that it would revive the Aryan race out what he saw as the carcass of the Hapsburg Empire. Neither of them was particularly upset at the thought of the lives that would be lost in the war. Luxemburg was a sensitive woman who was pained to think of how German youth were now going to throw their lives away.
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Post by patricksmcnally on Mar 14, 2023 16:47:15 GMT
Some points about Leon Trotsky deserve reemphasis. Trotsky was not a skilled politician but was rather a dynamic speaker and writer. On certain points, he shares some things in common with Adolf Hitler. Both Trotsky and Hitler were able to inspire bands of followers when speaking to audiences. But Trotsky was inept at politics, and in the long run so was Hitler. Stalin, even with all of his often counter-productive paranoia, was much more of a practical politician. A consequence of these qualities of Trotsky was that his attempt to build a Fourth International resulted in groups which were perpetually prone towards hair-splitting sectarianism. They never grew into anything, but instead tended to repeatedly split apart into new rival factions. Meanwhile, they were steadily isolated from the greater body politic. In particular, the Socialist Workers Party was prosecuted under the Smith Act in November 1941 by the Roosevelt administration because of the claim that the USA was about to enter an imperialist war. Trotsky personally was refused refugee status by most countries around the world, including the US and UK. There is no indication of any Jews in New York or London ever trying to lobby for him to be admitted as a political refugee. In light of this, it's a really bizarre rumor to see circulated around that claims that somehow Trotsky was given strong sympathies by Jews. That's obviously a historically false claim. But some points may be made about it. Going back to the parallel between Trotsky and Hitler, there were some occasions when Hitler attracted praise from surprising sources. In his collection of writings Great Contemporaries, Winston Churchill gives a rather sympathetic portrait of Hitler. Also, the Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King made quite a few warm statements about Hitler: nationalpost.com/news/canada/he-loves-flowers-the-insane-true-story-of-the-day-canadas-prime-minister-met-hitlermacleans.ca/history/how-canada-got-onside-with-britain-before-world-war-2/None of this means that Churchill or King were ever followers of Hitler. On the contrary, they both willingly supported the war against Germany in September 1939. But Hitler was an impressive enough character that he could sometimes what might otherwise be seen as surprising statements from his own future enemies. The same thing would apply to Trotsky. Although all of the various MID-reports should be recognized as simply an uncritical repetition of White propaganda, and there is definitely no evidence of any broad support for Trotsky from either French Jews or any other Jewish population anywhere in the world, but it's reasonable to imagine that here and there may have been some scattered comments by some French Jews who were simply astounded to see a man like Trotsky playing such a leading role as he did in the USSR. None of this ever translated into any tangible assistance to Trotsky, obviously. Trotsky's own political temperament was not of the type of character that would be able to make effective use of this. A man like Stalin would have known how to latch onto such sentiments and make some political usage. Trotsky's perpetual mentality was that he did not treat any admirers seriously unless they were willing to join the revolutionary movement. I mentioned Boris Souvarine above in an earlier post. Souvarine had been one of the founders of the French Communist Party and he was expelled from it because he had expressed some sympathy for Trotsky. But in the 1930s, Trotsky was harshly critical of Souvarine because Souvarine was not rushing to join a Bolshevik-Leninist party the way that Trotsky thought everyone should be doing. Instead of recruiting Souvarine as a political follower, Trotsky simply ended up alienating another sympathizer Victor Serge. That was Trotsky's way. He couldn't make serious alliances with someone who was a sympathetic journalist, but who was not sold on the idea of forming a new Bolshevist-Leninist party to replace the parties of the Communist International. To imagine that somehow Trotsky was deriving benefits from a broad group of French Jews is really absurd. The most that may have happened is that, like I said, you probably could find some scattered instances of French Jews who had no interest whatsoever in Marxism but who were simply impressed to see a Jew commanding something like the Red Army. However, none of this would ever have been translated in practical politics by Trotsky. That was Stalin's way. |
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