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I wasn't talking about the man's actions as Commissar of the Red Army (at which he did a phenomenal job), but about his writings in which he describes his vision on the future. Did you read anything written by Trotsky?



I've read sections of his history of the revolution and his essay Terrorism and Communism. All the Bolsheviks, including Lenin and Kautsy, talked a good game about the future society, but their actions were another matter.

He was certainly a good military tactician during the Civil War, and a great liquidator of his opponents after, if you consider the latter something to be proud of, but obviously Stalin was even better than he was at outmanoeuvring and murdering those who disagreed with him.

From what I've read seems most of his promotion of democracy comes after he was kicked out of the party by Stalin, when he was in power he didn't have any problems with a lack of democracy within or without the party.Even after going into exile Trotsky defended the murder of the socialists. He is an interesting writer though.

On a similar theme, right now I'm reading Violence by Slavoj Zizek, I've always kinda liked his crazy readings of films and popular literature but here he comes across as a fairly simple-minded old school Bolshevik who is trying to revive the legitimacy of Leninism. Odd.