Leon Trotsky:
"And what if Moscow, in the absence of a Popular Front, should have refused to give arms altogether? And what, we answer to this, if the Soviet Union did not exist altogether? Revolutions have been victorious up to this time not at all thanks to high and mighty foreign patrons who supplied them with arms. As a rule, counterrevolution enjoyed foreign patronage. Must we recall the experiences of the intervention of French, English, American, Japanese, and other armies against the Soviets? The proletariat of Russia conquered domestic reaction and foreign interventionists without military support form the outside. Revolutions succeed, in the first place, with the help of a bold social program, which gives the masses the possibility of seizing weapons that are on the territory and disorganizing the army of the enemy. The Red Army seized French, English, and American military supplies and drove the foreign expeditionary corps into the sea. Has this really been forgotten?"
Trotsky's writings on Spain are interesting in the light of the debate about the Syrian revolution. The argument that a bold programme wins more people over is probably good, though that that provision of arms doesn't matter may not really fit, given the lack of such political forces in Syria today.
I was actually looking to see if he said somewhere that the Soviet secret police murdering Trotskyists shouldn't prevent them fighting on the same side against Franco, and so looking for a comparison with Jabhat al-Nusra. maybe I'll just have to make the comparison without the cover of his authority.
No comments:
Post a Comment