Just What Was Fundamentally Wrong with Bolshevism?

November 29, 2012 By Steven Plaut Comments (76)

I recently read the new biography of Trotsky by Oxford don Robert Service, published in 2009 by Pan Books.  It is well-written and surprisingly interesting.  The book does a great public service in describing the life of the actual Trotsky, whose previous “biographies” were little more than hagiographies written by his toady worshippers (people like Isaac Deutscher).  The last time that I had taken any interest in Trotsky was when I was a teenager and had fleeting delusions of believing in “socialism.”   Reading the new book as an adult and as an economist, I found it a useful opportunity to contemplate the rise of one of the most oppressive regimes in human history.   I have gathered some thoughts and impressions here and I hope they will be of interest…… Bolshevik leaders (Trotsky in particular) generally had never done a day of honest labor in their lives in any factory or farm; their entire “careers” consisting of political activism…..… As just one example of the problem, should the price of shoes in a “workers’ state” be high in order to benefit shoe workers producing shoes, or low to benefit workers who are consumers? And if the representatives of the proletariat cannot make up their minds about the price of shoes, then how the Devil can they decide what constitutes “worker interest” in thousands of other dilemmas.    To Read More.....