- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Sloppy scholarship

Posted by: Stoller on December 20, 1999 at 16:08:57:

In Reply to: ABuser... posted by Red Deathy on December 20, 1999 at 13:54:18:

Stoller:
Another iffy quote attributed to Trotsky.

: No, actually, words from teh man's mouth (or pen) and considering the text I got it from is over 100 miles from me, I think I gave sufice details with which to find it...

No page number, eh? Just like Lark with his Crick quote: you throw off a one-liner and I'm supposed to go fetch it like a good dog to see whether or not YOU yanked it out of context? No thanks, dude, I know Trotsky's thinking well enough, thank you, to know that you are painting an innaccurate picture of the man.

Stoller:
How about THIS one that expresses his explicit acknowledgement of MASS action?:


There cannot even be talk here of coercing workers into revolution. There is no apparatus of repression here. Success can rest only upon the readiness of the majority of the toilers to take a direct or indirect part in the struggle and help bring it to a happy conclusion.


: Exactly, note the indirect part - my quote is followed by a comment that at least the active ambivillence of the majority is necessary, not the active support. he was a vanguardist to teh core: as I recall, and I can't sou8rce this one, his model was that of a steam piston, with the proles as the steam, and the vanguard party as the plunger...

Care to come up with a credible citation for that 'piston and plunger' bit? Page number, please...




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