[bycha]

Hi. I’d like to share my corrections to that lecture.

Leon Trotzky (Leiba Bronstain was his actual name) lived in New York City in 1914, so he came to Russia from USA, not Switzerland.

The theory ‘Russia can get to communism straight from feodalism’ is much later invention. Lenin was convinced that the communist revolution if it happens in Russia only is doomed. Besides he was germanophile.
So his hope was the communist revolution in Germany. The treaty in Brest-Litovsk was signed in that way because Lenin expected the revolution in Germany as well. And it happened, that German revolution of 1918th.
It was a terrible Lenin’s disappointment when it failed. He didn’t know what to do next. So that ‘shortcut’ theory appeared.

Best regards.
A.

[Jason Jewell]

It has been a while since I listened to this lecture, and I don’t recall saying that Trotsky went to Russia straight from Switzerland. If I did, that was a misstatement. Trotsky was in Switzerland earlier in the war, then in France and Spain before going to New York. He went back to Europe in the spring of 1917.

[gutzmank]

Marx himself considered Russia way behind Germany in social and economic development–as indeed it was, by any objective measure. Marx too thought the revolution would begin in a Western country. It wasn’t just Lenin’s germanophilia that led him to think the revolution would start in Germany.

Nicholas I decided after the Crimean War that significant reform of his empire was necessary to bring Russia up to the economic level of France, Britain, Germany, etc. Alexander II had the same idea. Ditto Stolypin. The idea is also reflected in many of the great works of 19th-century Russian literature, such as FATHERS AND SONS. The shame of it is that Nicholas II was overthrown, then that Kerensky was. A terrible shame, Russia’s last century.

And then at the end of Communism, Gorbachev launches perestroika — to catch the USSR up with the West.

[bycha]

Germany in turn was way behind Britain or France.
Marx himself lived in London and the Bolsheviks tend to
gather their meetings in London as well.
Still Lenin expected the revolution specifically in Germany, and
not ‘sometime in the future’, but here and now.
I don’t actually think it was because of any of his -philia.
Rather Lenin knew some plans, or he thought he knew.

> Nicholas I decided after the Crimean War that significant
> reform of his empire was necessary to bring Russia up to …

Well yes, just i belive that the intention ‘to bring Russia up to the economic level of France…’
predated the Crimean war.
After all the idea of the war was to contain Russian quick development.
Though of course that war corrected many plans.

>The shame of it is that Nicholas II was overthrown,

Yep, it was a disaster.
I’ve been to Yekaterinburg recently and happened to visit
those places related to the last days of the Tsar’s family.
That was quite an emotional experience. Actually i didn’t expect it to be that emotional.

[Author]

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