Personality Study: Trotsky
Trotsky, being the Commissar Minister for War and the second most powerful man in Russia during the reign of Lenin, was sent to exile, and assassinated by an ice pick. His life was filled with honor, pride and most importantly, confidence. His gifted talent of public speak had an overwhelming effect on the people. He believed his theory of “Permanent Revolution” was the perfect structure of revolution suitable for Russia, it was suppose to bring hope and power to the Soviet Union, the communism will spread across the World and finally union the World under the control of Communism. However, this was never achieved, the Permanent Revolution was nothing but a dream of his, Trotsky was a naive idealist but not a practical revolutionary.
During the peace talk with Germans, Trotsky was assigned the main negotiator; it was clear to Trotsky that the Great War was undesirable and should be abandoned as soon as possible. In addition, on an ideological level, the war was one of capitalist where the only victims were the proletariat classes and the only winners were the capitalists. However on a practical level, the Russian Army was totally exhausted; the extent of the army’s capacity and morale had reached its limit. Nevertheless, Trotsky’s view was in hoping a wave of Communism would flow through other European countries and would overrun Germans’ government, making the treaty irrelevant.
However, the Germans were locked in for supporting the Soviet new government, a minimum of 3 million gold mark per month from the mid 1918 and it was contributed to the civil war effort. This idea of receiving benefits from other country by surrendering land itself is capitalist. And therefore this treaty itself was capitalist just like the Great War, however Trotsky disregarded this fact and signed the treaty due to his naive belief in the “Permanent Revolution”.
This Treaty event was ironic to the new government of they were using capitalism as an excuse to abandon the Great War
During the peace talk with Germans, Trotsky was assigned the main negotiator; it was clear to Trotsky that the Great War was undesirable and should be abandoned as soon as possible. In addition, on an ideological level, the war was one of capitalist where the only victims were the proletariat classes and the only winners were the capitalists. However on a practical level, the Russian Army was totally exhausted; the extent of the army’s capacity and morale had reached its limit. Nevertheless, Trotsky’s view was in hoping a wave of Communism would flow through other European countries and would overrun Germans’ government, making the treaty irrelevant.
However, the Germans were locked in for supporting the Soviet new government, a minimum of 3 million gold mark per month from the mid 1918 and it was contributed to the civil war effort. This idea of receiving benefits from other country by surrendering land itself is capitalist. And therefore this treaty itself was capitalist just like the Great War, however Trotsky disregarded this fact and signed the treaty due to his naive belief in the “Permanent Revolution”.
This Treaty event was ironic to the new government of they were using capitalism as an excuse to abandon the Great War
Bibliography: ¨ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War:“Course of events”, ¨ http://www.google.com/search?hl=zh-TW&q=define%3AStalin&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E5%B0%8B&lr= ¨ http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/l/leon_trotsky.html ¨ Modern History class note “Trotsky and Permanent Revolution” pg 73: “Stalin’s strength” pg 74-75 “Trotsky’s weaknesses” pg87-89 “Permanent Revolution” ¨ Modern History class note “Summary of Consolidation of Bolshevik Power”- ‘The result of War communism’, ‘Social’, ‘The Scissors Crisis”.