Trotsky

[unixknight]

So before I get into the meat of the post, with your kind indulgence I'd like to give the background for this subject.

I've been learning Russian as a hobby for some time now.  Being bilingual is fun, being trilingual is better.  Pursuant to this goal, I started watching the series "Trotsky" on Netflix.  It's a historical drama, made in Russia, featuring Leon Trotsky, one of the original revolutionaries that brought about the Communist takeover in Russia during WWI.  It's subtitled but I try not to read them unless I have to.  Anyway, there's a scene in which a young-ish Leon Trotsky is in Paris in 1904 and has been invited to a soiree by a woman he's interested in.  She describes the event as a sort of dinner party.  In reality, it was much more hedonistic, with people drinking, laughing, carrying on, doing drugs, etc.  Trotsky is disgusted by this, and gives a sort of monologue before leaving the party.  

The speech was... well it was pretty darn convincing.  It made me see what the Communist revolutionaries saw.  He criticized the posh, hedonistic lifestyle of wealthy Parisians, living off of the labor of the working class whom they were stealing from.  He sneered at these partygoers for believing themselves to be superior to the people of the working class who were the ones making it possible for this kind of lifestyle to exist.  I admit, for a few minutes I was taken aback, and it led me to wonder... Had I been in that room, would Trotsky's words have convinced me?  Would I have joined the October Revolution several years later?

So I began to ponder, and ask myself some tough questions about what I believe, why I believe it, and whether it was actually right.  This is the conclusion I came to:

Were men like Trotsky, Lenin and Marx right?  No.  No they weren't.  They were absolutely, catastrophically wrong.  They were wrong because even though their words were all about fairness, equality, justice and morality, what they were really obsessing over is money.  The proletariat were the victims because, simply,  they had less money than the rich.  As if happiness, joy and fulfilment were tied to the size of one's bank account.  Trotsky believed that it was wrong that he could be at a party where some young man could show up, eat, drink, dance, do some drugs and maybe take a woman home with him, and that was why he was happier than the steelworker who made the steel girders holding up the walls of the venue.  

But is he?  I mean, going to a party and doing all that sounds like fun and all... But who is the happier man?  The guy who spends his time living an admittedly luxurious and carefree life, or the man who works an honest day's labor and comes home to a warm, loving family?  I come home every day to my wife and 3 of my kids, in my house.  I'm happy.  Would I trade places with someone who lives like Paris Hilton?  Absolutely not.  Would I trade places with Bill Gates, who also has a wife and kids and a zillion dollars?

No.

To the best of my knowledge Gates is not a man of religion.  For many such people, the pursuit of wealth and possession is the biggest difference between them and the ordinary guy.  It's the thing that fills in the void.  The number of dollars in my bank account is insignificant next to his, and yet I feel more successful in my life because I have something deeper, more valuable, more fulfilling than yachts and vacation houses.  Sure, I'd love to be so financially secure that I didn't have to worry about holding down a job, but that's a selfish fantasy.  A person who doesn't work (whether taking care of the home/family or at a job outside the home) isn't contributing to the good of the community, and that's not a goal to aspire to.  (Obviously that doesn't apply to children and retired people.)  I wouldn't want to live like one of those Parisian partygoers, simply because they lived empty, meaningless lives. 

It's about spirituality.  Why would I trade the security of knowing my place in eternity for a few more zeroes behind the balance on my bank statement?  And yet this is what guys like Trotsky obsessed over.  (Or at least, it's what their rhetoric convinced people to obsess over.)  They spoke of revolution and equality and the rise of the common man but it all boiled down to class envy and the façade of fairness.  The Communist Revolution was based on a philosophy of utter materialism wrapped in a veneer of social justice.  It wasn't honorable.  It wasn't noble, and it wasn't right.  Of course it comes as no surprise that the leaders of the October Revolution went on to be ruthless men of power and wealth.  What other kind of people would a purely materialist philosophy attract?  Why would you expect them to be anything but what they were?  Duh!

The opposite of materialism is spirituality, in whatever form that takes.  It's little wonder the Soviet Union became completely hostile to religion when religion is the antithesis of materialism.

[Fether]

1 hour ago, unixknight said:

So before I get into the meat of the post, with your kind indulgence I'd like to give the background for this subject.

I've been learning Russian as a hobby for some time now.  Being bilingual is fun, being trilingual is better.  Pursuant to this goal, I started watching the series "Trotsky" on Netflix.  It's a historical drama, made in Russia, featuring Leon Trotsky, one of the original revolutionaries that brought about the Communist takeover in Russia during WWI.  It's subtitled but I try not to read them unless I have to.  Anyway, there's a scene in which a young-ish Leon Trotsky is in Paris in 1904 and has been invited to a soiree by a woman he's interested in.  She describes the event as a sort of dinner party.  In reality, it was much more hedonistic, with people drinking, laughing, carrying on, doing drugs, etc.  Trotsky is disgusted by this, and gives a sort of monologue before leaving the party.  

The speech was... well it was pretty darn convincing.  It made me see what the Communist revolutionaries saw.  He criticized the posh, hedonistic lifestyle of wealthy Parisians, living off of the labor of the working class whom they were stealing from.  He sneered at these partygoers for believing themselves to be superior to the people of the working class who were the ones making it possible for this kind of lifestyle to exist.  I admit, for a few minutes I was taken aback, and it led me to wonder... Had I been in that room, would Trotsky's words have convinced me?  Would I have joined the October Revolution several years later?

So I began to ponder, and ask myself some tough questions about what I believe, why I believe it, and whether it was actually right.  This is the conclusion I came to:

Were men like Trotsky, Lenin and Marx right?  No.  No they weren't.  They were absolutely, catastrophically wrong.  They were wrong because even though their words were all about fairness, equality, justice and morality, what they were really obsessing over is money.  The proletariat were the victims because, simply,  they had less money than the rich.  As if happiness, joy and fulfilment were tied to the size of one's bank account.  Trotsky believed that it was wrong that he could be at a party where some young man could show up, eat, drink, dance, do some drugs and maybe take a woman home with him, and that was why he was happier than the steelworker who made the steel girders holding up the walls of the venue.  

But is he?  I mean, going to a party and doing all that sounds like fun and all... But who is the happier man?  The guy who spends his time living an admittedly luxurious and carefree life, or the man who works an honest day's labor and comes home to a warm, loving family?  I come home every day to my wife and 3 of my kids, in my house.  I'm happy.  Would I trade places with someone who lives like Paris Hilton?  Absolutely not.  Would I trade places with Bill Gates, who also has a wife and kids and a zillion dollars?

No.

To the best of my knowledge Gates is not a man of religion.  For many such people, the pursuit of wealth and possession is the biggest difference between them and the ordinary guy.  It's the thing that fills in the void.  The number of dollars in my bank account is insignificant next to his, and yet I feel more successful in my life because I have something deeper, more valuable, more fulfilling than yachts and vacation houses.  Sure, I'd love to be so financially secure that I didn't have to worry about holding down a job, but that's a selfish fantasy.  A person who doesn't work (whether taking care of the home/family or at a job outside the home) isn't contributing to the good of the community, and that's not a goal to aspire to.  (Obviously that doesn't apply to children and retired people.)  I wouldn't want to live like one of those Parisian partygoers, simply because they lived empty, meaningless lives. 

It's about spirituality.  Why would I trade the security of knowing my place in eternity for a few more zeroes behind the balance on my bank statement?  And yet this is what guys like Trotsky obsessed over.  (Or at least, it's what their rhetoric convinced people to obsess over.)  They spoke of revolution and equality and the rise of the common man but it all boiled down to class envy and the façade of fairness.  The Communist Revolution was based on a philosophy of utter materialism wrapped in a veneer of social justice.  It wasn't honorable.  It wasn't noble, and it wasn't right.  Of course it comes as no surprise that the leaders of the October Revolution went on to be ruthless men of power and wealth.  What other kind of people would a purely materialist philosophy attract?  Why would you expect them to be anything but what they were?  Duh!

The opposite of materialism is spirituality, in whatever form that takes.  It's little wonder the Soviet Union became completely hostile to religion when religion is the antithesis of materialism.

The problem I have with comments like these is that there is this under-tone of “being rich is inferior to being middle class”. You said:

2 hours ago, unixknight said:

To the best of my knowledge Gates is not a man of religion.  For many such people, the pursuit of wealth and possession is the biggest difference between them and the ordinary guy.  It's the thing that fills in the void.  The number of dollars in my bank account is insignificant next to his, and yet I feel more successful in my life because I have something deeper, more valuable, more fulfilling than yachts and vacation houses.  Sure, I'd love to be so financially secure that I didn't have to worry about holding down a job, but that's a selfish fantasy.  A person who doesn't work (whether taking care of the home/family or at a job outside the home) isn't contributing to the good of the community, and that's not a goal to aspire to.  (Obviously that doesn't apply to children and retired people.)  I wouldn't want to live like one of those Parisian partygoers, simply because they lived empty, meaningless lives. 

In this, you also assume they are not working and benefiting society. It’s a massive fallacy in every culture that you must give up relationships and spirituality in order to make money. In truth, when coupled with financial intelligence and courage, wealth grows greatly as our moral and spiritual life grows.

The rich don’t just sit on their butts all pull from a seemingly endless fountain of $100 bills. They are rich cause they leveraged their money and took risks no one else would. They are the ones that invested in small business, own the rentals much of America lives in, and put it all on the line to better themselves and their family (not all of them of course).

saying the rich are less fulfilled than you are is just being short sighted.

I had a similar attitude forever. But then I discovered that the Truly wealthy people are some of the most self mastered, productive, motivated and often times deeply religious people I aspire to be like.

There are MANY wealthy people that believe and live some of the most moral and clean lives. Many of the greatest and wealthiest people in the world know pornography is evil, love their family, believe in God, get up at 4:30 in order to take care of their bodies and minds through exercising and reading.

...Now, I’ll leave my soap box right her just Incase I need to get back on it.

[unixknight]

21 minutes ago, Fether said:

In this, you also assume they are not working and benefiting society. 

I didn't say that at all.  I'm pointing out the flaw in Marxism, because it DOES assume that.

What I'm saying is that there's nothing unfair about one person having more money than someone else, because the true measure of the quality of life is not counted in dollars.  (Or rubles!)

Edited January 21, 2019 by unixknight

[Fether]

7 minutes ago, unixknight said:

I didn't say that at all.  I'm pointing out the flaw in Marxism, because it DOES assume that.

What I'm saying is that there's nothing unfair about one person having more money than someone else, because the true measure of the quality of life is not counted in dollars.  (Or rubles!)

I totally agree, I like everything you said about Marxism. I thought it was very honest and well thought out. 

My biggest complaint, however, was when you said 

 

3 hours ago, unixknight said:

To the best of my knowledge Gates is not a man of religion.  For many such people, the pursuit of wealth and possession is the biggest difference between them and the ordinary guy.  It's the thing that fills in the void.  The number of dollars in my bank account is insignificant next to his, and yet I feel more successful in my life because I have something deeper, more valuable, more fulfilling than yachts and vacation houses.  Sure, I'd love to be so financially secure that I didn't have to worry about holding down a job, but that's a selfish fantasy.

I don’t think it is selfish to desire financial security. Grant Cardon made a point that when we don’t have money, the only people we can financially impact for the better is ourselves. But the people with the most money are the ones that can freely change lives, donate large sums of money to their church (he isn’t a Latter-day Saint so money donations are probably more important than they are in our massively wealthy church) and offer the greatest service to those in need.

Being wealthy is an amazing thing, but not when it becomes the only thing.

[unixknight]

5 minutes ago, Fether said:

I totally agree, I like everything you said about Marxism. I thought it was very honest and well thought out. 

My biggest complaint, however, was when you said 

 

I don’t think it is selfish to desire financial security. Grant Cardon made a point that when we don’t have money, the only people we can financially impact for the better is ourselves. But the people with the most money are the ones that can freely change lives, donate large sums of money to their church (he isn’t a Latter-day Saint so money donations are probably more important than they are in our massively wealthy church) and offer the greatest service to those in need.

Being wealthy is an amazing thing, but not when it becomes the only thing.

I don't have a problem with wealthy people at all.  Bill Gates made his fortune on his own brains and work, so more power to him.  I don't even have a problem with people like Paris Hilton who inherited their money.  Remember that my remarks were within the context of materialism being a replacement for spirituality.

[JohnsonJones]

While Lenin was basically all about power (not really the money, more the power...though money sometimes goes hand in hand with it) and others within his circle, the reasonings for the October revolution are not actually specifically how you put it.  It was not that the Russian Peasant was jealous of the luxurious lifestyle that the nobility and wealthy possessed (though undoubtedly there were those), but more were angry when they had a child who died of starvation because they were not allowed to even eat the food they grew in some areas.  In the cities it was even worse, where even if there was food, you could not afford it and thus your entire family starved to death in front of your eyes, or died from exposure as you could not pay rent or buy the clothes to keep them warm.  Others were upset because the way they were conscripted and treated as chattel to die without thought rather than actually be treated as human beings.

In essence, they got tired of being treated as a disposable resource by those who were above them and all the terrible things that resulted because of it.  Of course, the uprising did not actually repair this dynamic, it only made the power of control change hands and focus it more strongly within an oligarchy of fewer individuals than what the nobility even had.

Thus, when a similar dynamic came to Russia again under Stalin, even though there were those who wanted to have another revolution, Stalin had more power and they had less and he violently deposed and killed millions.

The incentive, though, to be able to feed one's family and have enough to keep them from freezing to death in the winter (and winter in Russia can be quite harsh) should be something that many can understand.  They were not necessarily educated to know who or what they were fighting for, but they probably felt that something, anything, had to be better than what they were being forced through already.

There are many similarities between the Russian Revolution and the French Revolution (as well as several others).  In it you find many who are not that educated but want something better, see how badly the nobility treat them and only need the fuse to light the dynamite.  You then have a few intellectuals, most of whom think they are better than both the nobility AND the common man they are leading who start this fuse and lead a revolution, sieze power, only to be deposed later by the very people who they led to begin with. 

Lenin managed to survive, but he wasn't really the one leading the original revolution having been exiled and too far to really lead and even then, perhaps his early death was fortunate in that he remained the hero instead of seeing himself become the villain.  Trotsky (not sure about this series, but I'm about to give out spoilers on Trotsky's life here) himself found defeat later on and exile, which proved to be fortunate.  Many of his other leaders of the time were executed in later years. (though I should add, in a way, though in exile, eventually death found him as well via Stalin's assassins).

A very similar thing that happened with the French revolution and a few other revolutions that occurred around the world in that time period.

The common person normally wasn't well informed on what socialistic ideas or communism or other such political theory was out there.  They were motivated, not normally due to jealousy or coveting, but by a pure desire for survival and a right to be treated with at least a little dignity in the face of overwhelming disdain for these items towards the lower classes by those with wealth and power.

If the entire populace was more educated, I don't know what route it would have taken.  They may have chosen to go the route they did, or they may have chosen a different route and turned out more like how the US did with it's revolution, rather than how the French Revolution turned out.

Edited January 22, 2019 by JohnsonJones

[Traveler]

I agree with @JohnsonJones .  I would add that if we understand the notion of filthy lucre from ancient sources such as the Bible, Koran and other we would know that often the rich are not wealthy because of their labor but by taking financial advantage of those economically lower than them.  One such example is the employment of compound interest.  My brother once said you can know how well someone understand compound interest in if they pay it or receive it.

I once set down with a unwitting person wanting to purchase a sofa on sale so they thought they could save money by borrowing money with "revolving credit".  But then I sat down with them and showed how a purchase of $400 could end up in paying close to $20,000 for the sofa.

In Islam compound interest is the #1 indicator that Satan has taken over an institution - which is why so many in Islam rejoiced when 9/11 targeted the twin towers.  Please understand I do not condone violence - which I personally believe to be a greater indication of Satanic influence and yet I do understand that Satan knows how to capture the wealth of the world and use that to buy up armies to rein with violence.   And I believe that compound interest is corrupt way Satan have influenced the wealthy to despise the poor.

 

The Traveler

[unixknight]

Great post, @JohnsonJones.  Thanks for the details!

I don't disagree at all.  My OP is a reaction to the propaganda that has been used by the likes of Trotsky, Lenin, Chavez and Obama to rally support for an ideal that sounds like it elevates people, but really just drags even more people down.  It's important to understand why that kind of rhetoric works as well as why it's so wrong.

[Midwest LDS]

15 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

While Lenin was basically all about power (not really the money, more the power...though money sometimes goes hand in hand with it) and others within his circle, the reasonings for the October revolution are not actually specifically how you put it.  It was not that the Russian Peasant was jealous of the luxurious lifestyle that the nobility and wealthy possessed (though undoubtedly there were those), but more were angry when they had a child who died of starvation because they were not allowed to even eat the food they grew in some areas.  In the cities it was even worse, where even if there was food, you could not afford it and thus your entire family starved to death in front of your eyes, or died from exposure as you could not pay rent or buy the clothes to keep them warm.  Others were upset because the way they were conscripted and treated as chattel to die without thought rather than actually be treated as human beings.

In essence, they got tired of being treated as a disposable resource by those who were above them and all the terrible things that resulted because of it.  Of course, the uprising did not actually repair this dynamic, it only made the power of control change hands and focus it more strongly within an oligarchy of fewer individuals than what the nobility even had.

Thus, when a similar dynamic came to Russia again under Stalin, even though there were those who wanted to have another revolution, Stalin had more power and they had less and he violently deposed and killed millions.

The incentive, though, to be able to feed one's family and have enough to keep them from freezing to death in the winter (and winter in Russia can be quite harsh) should be something that many can understand.  They were not necessarily educated to know who or what they were fighting for, but they probably felt that something, anything, had to be better than what they were being forced through already.

There are many similarities between the Russian Revolution and the French Revolution (as well as several others).  In it you find many who are not that educated but want something better, see how badly the nobility treat them and only need the fuse to light the dynamite.  You then have a few intellectuals, most of whom think they are better than both the nobility AND the common man they are leading who start this fuse and lead a revolution, sieze power, only to be deposed later by the very people who they led to begin with. 

Lenin managed to survive, but he wasn't really the one leading the original revolution having been exiled and too far to really lead and even then, perhaps his early death was fortunate in that he remained the hero instead of seeing himself become the villain.  Trotsky (not sure about this series, but I'm about to give out spoilers on Trotsky's life here) himself found defeat later on and exile, which proved to be fortunate.  Many of his other leaders of the time were executed in later years. (though I should add, in a way, though in exile, eventually death found him as well via Stalin's assassins).

A very similar thing that happened with the French revolution and a few other revolutions that occurred around the world in that time period.

The common person normally wasn't well informed on what socialistic ideas or communism or other such political theory was out there.  They were motivated, not normally due to jealousy or coveting, but by a pure desire for survival and a right to be treated with at least a little dignity in the face of overwhelming disdain for these items towards the lower classes by those with wealth and power.

If the entire populace was more educated, I don't know what route it would have taken.  They may have chosen to go the route they did, or they may have chosen a different route and turned out more like how the US did with it's revolution, rather than how the French Revolution turned out.

Interesting points everyone. It's also important to understand the context of Russian casualties and failures in World War 1 to understand the October Revolution. While there had been some successes on the Eastern Front, especially against Austria, in general the Russian army went from one disaster to another, and millions of Russian soldiers were slain due to the incompetence of Russian generals and the Tsar. On top of the complaints you pointed out @JohnsonJones, the situation was intolerable and the regular Russian citizen justifiably called out for change. Unfortunately, as @unixknight points out, their desire for change was subverted by Marxists who claimed they wanted to help the common man when in reality they just wanted power and saw an opportunity to seize it. 

[unixknight]

12 minutes ago, Midwest LDS said:

their desire for change was subverted by Marxists who claimed they wanted to help the common man when in reality they just wanted power and saw an opportunity to seize it. 

One thing that helps understand the context of Trostky's motives was very early in the first episode when he's giving a speech to a bunch of demoralized Communist revolutionary soldiers.  He illustrates the lack of individual property rights by taking off a very nice watch that he'd been wearing, and gives it to one of the men.  This, he said, was because he did not own that watch.  Nobody did.  That meant he could freely give it to a comrade who had just as much right to it as he.

After the speech he returned to the train he'd arrived on, and took out a new watch from a box filled with them.  It was all show and manipulation.