On 13 Aug 2020 at 17:54, knhiebert@... wrote:

In your opinion, how
should Trotsky have responded at that time?
ken h

He should have supported the Ethiopian side of the Italo-Ethiopian war, but
refrained from glorifying Haile Selassie.

Trotsky's stand with regard to Haile Selassie has been an important part of the
Trotskist canon for decades. It is repeatedly cited in the Trotskyist movement
during discussions on the attitude to various wars. It was even cited by both (!)
sides during a public debate among British Trotskyists over whether to support
the struggle of the Taliban as anti-imperialist. (See
http://www.communistvoice.org/28cTaliban.html and
http://www.communistvoice.org/29cEmir.html)

So, given the importance of the example of the Italo-Ethiopian war to Trotskyist
theorizing, it is astonishing that it is hard to find any Trotskyist discussion of what
happened in Ethiopia during the war and as a result of the war. Indeed, so far I
haven't found any example of that. This shows something fundamentally wrong,
even deeper than simply a wrong stand on a particular issue.

One would think that revolutionary theory should be checked and rechecked
against what actually happens in the world. To fail to do so is gross irresponsibility
towards the workers and activists who pay the consequences if the theory is
wrong.

But instead the Trotskyist movement, while repeatedly citing "On Dictators and
the Heights of Oslo", has not only ignored, but hid the facts of what went on. The
article is cited over and over without even mentioning that Selassie fled Ethiopia
ten days later, to say nothing of later developments. The RCIT's Yossi Schwartz
makes a big point of Trotsky's article, but says nothing about Selassie fleeing
Ethiopia. Pathfinder Press has published a collection of Trotsky's articles which
adds an abundance of explanatory notes, but is quiet in these notes on Selassie
fleeing. Lengthy Trotskyist articles can be found on an abundance of events and
countries, but somehow not on what happened in Ethiopia during the
Italo-Ethiopian war. This shows a guilty conscience, to say nothing of a disdain for
the people and national groups of Ethiopia and Eritrea whose history is important.
African history matters!

-- Joseph Green


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