Re: The merits of Leon Trotsky as railways manager

[Mike Ballard <swillsqueal@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

--- Jurriaan Bendien <bendien@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> (...) Although Trotsky remained a prominent
> Bolshevik, his authority had
> once again been undermined. In the elections to the
> Central Committee, his
> popularity showed little sign of recovering from the
> depths of 1919. He
> finished a humiliating tenth."
>
> - Ian D. Thatcher, Trotsky (London/NY: Routledge,
> Routledge Historical
> Biographies, 2003), pp. 106-110.

I remember reading in Roy Medvedev's ON STALIN AND
STALINISM that Iosip was a bit shocked at the vote or
lack of them which he received in the 17th Party
Congress in 1934.  The purges began with a vengence
after that.

Here's something:

At the 17th Party Congress in 1934 there was a
substantial vote against Stalin. At party meetings,
the way you voted was to cross out the name of the
person you did not want elected. Of 1225 votes cast,
there were nearly 300 votes against Stalin. Only 3
people voted against Sergei Kirov, the popular
Communist party boss in Leningrad. Stalin had the
votes against him destroyed and the official version
was that only three voted against Stalin, the same as
for Kirov. Within four years, Kirov, along with half
the delegates to the 17th party Congress were shot on
Stalin's orders.

http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/histpol/hist108/lec6.html



Regards,
Mike B)


=====
*****************************************************************
So long as little children are allowed to
suffer, there is no true love in
this world.

ISADORA DUNCAN
"Memoirs," 1924
This Quarter
Autumn 1929

http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal

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