Trotsky & a Public Trial for Nicholas II

 "The means justify the end,only if the end is justifiable."
-Leon Trotsky

What is interesting about Leon Trotsky is that I cannot bring myself to hate him. Maybe it is the thoughts of how the Soviet Union would have been if he and not Stalin had suceeded Lenin.
Or maybe it's the fact that he was assasinated by a soldier with an ice pick on Stalin's orders.

He had an interesting career.He was head of the Peteresburg Soviet,was chief of the negotiations at Brest-Livosk,and founded the Red Army.

"You were always right politically.Even more right than Lenin.Though you lacked his undominable will,and his refusal of any compromise,you were always right when it came to politics."Albert Ioffe's suicide letter to Trotsky.

In hindsight, even the more "reasonable" of the revolutionaries was entirely misguided.  Russia had no more chance of establishing a communist system according to Marxist guidelines than an ant has a chance of building a castle.

I don't hate him, either.  (I hate Stalin, though).  My great grandparents were early followers and friends of his.  But the naivite inherent in his political philosophy all-but guaranteed that he would fail.  Not to mention the failure to control the rage of the common revolutionary, which led the entire process into utter anarchy and resulted in the slaughter of millions.  If he truly had loved Russia, and understood Russia, he would have done differently.  

The more I think about it, Trotsky was a very smart man who made very foolish choices.He paid dearly for them later.

I have recently read Fate of the Romanovs.
One of the things that interested me is that Moscow wanted a trial.

Leon Trotsky in particular wanted."an open court that would unfold a picture of the entire reign(peasant polices,nationalities,culture,two wars etc.)The proceedings would be broadcast on radio;in villages the accounts of the proceedings would be read and commented on daily.
He wanted to be Soviet prosecutor.
Unfortunately,the trial date kept getting postponed due to Lenin's problems with his own party and the Mensheviks.

So what if in 1918 there had been a trial against Nicholas II?The mounting German pressure would not let the family be harmed,but would Nicholas been guilty?

On another forum someone told me that it would have been like with Saddam Hussein.

This would have been a great trial to see.All the witnesses and evidence...
So what do you think?

A quick but very good ref. web site:

[old ones removed]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-hrr/

AGRBear

Though I guess he did something wrong if he was on the Ban List of all those countries.

Though i am not a Mensevik Communist, Trotsky is one of my heroes.

I find it most fascinating that Trotsky was given the task of formulating the Red Army. What a project for an intellectual!!!  He created the largest army in the world at the time, one that effectivly fought White branches on all sides.

However, i don't feel Trotsky made any mistakes at all. His only one error was getting on Stalin's bad side long before WWI. So that once Trotsky had created the Red Army, he could be removed, and the powerful army could be used for Stalin's own purposes.

[not]

No, thats not what happened at all.
At the time Stalin wasn't a key figure, just a "mouthpiece" of Lenin.

Trotskyism is very interesting.
Can I get a reliable resource that is not Emma Goldman that can say he liquidated the anarchist headquarters?

Yeah, I'm back!

ON 9 January 1937, Natalia Sedova and Trotsky docked in Tampico (Mexico) where they were met by Frida Kahlo.  The artist placed at their disposal the Blue House, the Kahlo family home in Coyoacan, where the Trotskys lived until 1939.  (KAHLO, a book by Andrea Kettenmann and Benedikt Taschen)

Seems to me an idealist-I always like idealists, unless I don't have to live with them-or UNDER them!!! :-?
I think he beleived in his ideas...and he was not as meek and misearble in front of Stalin, like Kamenyev, Bukharin and all the gang...this makes him kinda symphatic-from far!

Angwen,

I agree, he made very foolish choices !


Tatiana+

The more I think about it, Trotsky was a very smart man who made very foolish choices.He paid dearly for them later.