Trotsky is good at appearing “right” because he plays fast and loose with the details so he can retroactively claim to have been for or against something after it already happened.
One example off the top of my head (forgive me if I misremember the specifics) is the NEP, which according to Trotsky and Trotskyites was originally his idea that Lenin initially disagreed with but eventually came around to. But, ignoring the fact that timing matters and a year is a long-ass time in a revolutionary period, the details also matter, since the goal wasn’t to retreat to capitalism but to very carefully reintroduce certain market incentives to help develop certain sectors of the economy that had been obliterated during the war. So you can’t just claim “oh I had this idea first” when your idea, at least according to Lenin, would overly benefit the Kulak class without adequately fostering a respective proletariat (or something along those lines). Lenin goes into this in great detail both when he dismisses Trotsky’s plan and also when he introduced the NEP.
But he was also an asshole, notoriously elitist and dismissive of anyone he deemed intellectually inferior.
Honestly reading through the debates and speeches from the party meetings and congresses is great for breaking through a lot of the ahistorical western bullshit.
Trotsky is good at appearing “right” because he plays fast and loose with the details so he can retroactively claim to have been for or against something after it already happened.
One example off the top of my head (forgive me if I misremember the specifics) is the NEP, which according to Trotsky and Trotskyites was originally his idea that Lenin initially disagreed with but eventually came around to. But, ignoring the fact that timing matters and a year is a long-ass time in a revolutionary period, the details also matter, since the goal wasn’t to retreat to capitalism but to very carefully reintroduce certain market incentives to help develop certain sectors of the economy that had been obliterated during the war. So you can’t just claim “oh I had this idea first” when your idea, at least according to Lenin, would overly benefit the Kulak class without adequately fostering a respective proletariat (or something along those lines). Lenin goes into this in great detail both when he dismisses Trotsky’s plan and also when he introduced the NEP.
But he was also an asshole, notoriously elitist and dismissive of anyone he deemed intellectually inferior.
Honestly reading through the debates and speeches from the party meetings and congresses is great for breaking through a lot of the ahistorical western bullshit.