"Trotsky....was a revelation," says Indian Maoist

Comrade Neeraj Jain on Stalin and Trotsky

Written by Neeraj Jain Sunday, 15 May 2005

We received this document from comrade Neeraj Jain in Pune, India. For twenty years comrade Neeraj was active in the Maoist movement in India. Then recently he discovered the writings of Trotsky. As he says, “I only began reading Trotsky a year ago. It was a revelation! It was writing in the best tradition of Marx, Engels and Lenin. It came as a shocker to me… the Maoist movement in India is silent on Trotsky’s criticisms of Stalin, criticisms which are totally in the spirit of Marxism-Leninism.” We may not necessarily agree on everything comrade Neeraj has to say about Mao, but we believe this document is of great interest as it shows that among comrades from a Maoist background there is a rethinking taking place and the writings of Trotsky have a big role to play in the process.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Chapter 1: Debate between Stalin and Trotsky on economic policy

Chapter 2: Women, family, youth and culture

Chapter 3: Changes in the Red Army

Chapter 4: Socialism in one country

Chapter 5: On foreign policy

Chapter 6: The complete victory of socialism in the USSR (!)

Chapter 7: Trotsky’s analysis of problems of socialism: a comment