Comments on: The Firebrand

By: Charles Salmon

Charles Salmon — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 03:53:12 +0000

Interesting write up by Adam Kirsch. No mention of Trotsky’s Canadian visit and arrest in Nova Scotia in 1917. A quick and interesting read at: http://silverdonaldcameron.ca/trotsky.html

By: Andrew Mays

Andrew Mays — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:41:18 +0000

At Louis’s weblog the “Jewish Question” is alive and well just like it were 1933.

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/category/jewish-question/

By: shriber

shriber — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:51:57 +0000

“The real explanation is the destruction of many of the most politically advanced Soviet workers in a horrible civil war that involved 21 invading countries, including the U.S. This, plus the hollowing out of the Soviet economy, left the country in a demoralized state ripe for the growth of a bureaucratic layer. This was Trotsky’s analysis in countless articles and in a number of books.”

This is Trotskyite nonsense.

By: shriber

shriber — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:50:33 +0000

There is a lot of information about leftist antizionism here:

“The Road to Utopia: The Origins of Anti-Zionism on the British Left”
Professor Colin Shindler

http://www.soas.ac.uk/events/event54010.html

By: Jacob Arnon

Jacob Arnon — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:02:01 +0000

To Robert Cohen, I read in an essay by the former Trotkyite Irving Howe that a grandson of Leon became a Talmudic student. Do you have any information about that?

Trotsky not only failed to forsee events in the Middle East, he failed to forsee events in Europe in general and in his own country in particular.

Why anyone holds him in high esteem is beyond me.

By: Louis Proyect

Louis Proyect — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:39:13 +0000

I am not surprised that Adam Kirsch would be incapable of understanding how Stalin triumphed, agreeing basically that Stalin outmaneuvered him by taking advantage of Trotsky’s “aloofness”. Blah-blah.

The real explanation is the destruction of many of the most politically advanced Soviet workers in a horrible civil war that involved 21 invading countries, including the U.S. This, plus the hollowing out of the Soviet economy, left the country in a demoralized state ripe for the growth of a bureaucratic layer. This was Trotsky’s analysis in countless articles and in a number of books.

For people with an interest in an analysis that transcends the banal personality-driven interpretation of Mr. Kirsch, I recommend “The Revolution Betrayed” at http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/index.htm.

By: ROBERT E. COHEN

ROBERT E. COHEN — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:57:37 +0000

Dear Adam: As always, an insightful and fascinating book review. I went to my bookcase to find “Trotsky and The Jews” by Joseph Nedava, born in Russia in 1915 and living in Israel since 1925. Dr. Nedava winds up his chapter on Trotsky & Zionism with this comment: “Failing to foresee the onrush of events in the Middle East generally, and Palestine in particular, and never being able to guage correctly the dynamic forces underlying the Zionist movement,Trotsky regarded Zionism to the last as–to use his own term–’a tragic mirage,’ leading nowhere.”

Indeed in 1928 his sympathies seemed too be more with the Arabs as “workers” v. the Jews.

Another interesting quote among many: “By converting his sons to the Lutheran faith, Trotsky might have been trying unconsciously and vicariously to identify himself with his forerunner [Karl Marx] in the socialist conception.’ (44)
Thank you for your article.

Shalom, Cantor Bob Cohen

By: Jacob Arnon

Jacob Arnon — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:56:01 +0000

Stan Nadel says:

“I don’t know about the book but this review misses Trotsky’s long history as a Menshevik opponent of Lenin and his authoritarianism. It is true that once he joined Lenin and the Bolsheviks Trotsky became a hard liner, leading the troops against the protesters at Kronstadt and even advocating drafting all workers into the army to subject them to military discipline. But the Trotsky of 1918-24 was not the Trotsky of earlier or later years and if Service thinks that Trotsky was no different from Stalin then he has made a serious error of judgment.”

I believe it is you who are missing the point. Trotsky even as an opponent of Lenin was pretty militant and ruthless towards the “his class enemies.”

What disillusioned him about the Social Democrats was their willingness to compromise with the bourgeois State.

The difference between Trotsky and Stalin was that the later was willing to use the same ruthless methods on his comrades while Trotsky reserved his brutality mostly towards his class enemies.

To my mind his untrustworthiness as a human being was evident in his unpitying attitude towards his people during pogroms committed by the whites and the reds as well as his similar uncaring attitude towards his immediate family as they were being murdered by Stalin’s agents.

Why do some Jews still defend Trotsky?

By: Stan Nadel

Stan Nadel — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:14:55 +0000

I don’t know about the book but this review misses Trotsky’s long history as a Menshevik opponent of Lenin and his authoritarianism. It is true that once he joined Lenin and the Bolsheviks Trotsky became a hard liner, leading the troops against the protesters at Kronstadt and even advocating drafting all workers into the army to subject them to military discipline. But the Trotsky of 1918-24 was not the Trotsky of earlier or later years and if Service thinks that Trotsky was no different from Stalin then he has made a serious error of judgment.