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66neurotic Soviet revolutionary leader was made by Lenin. the clearest expression of the unresolved residue ofLenin's perception on this point can not be considered Oblomovist tendencies in himself.accidental, since his political life represents in the main This problem is no historical curiosity. The Tavistocka self-conscious, successful struggle against precisely think-tanks, including the RAND Corporation, have notsuch tendencies within himself. Trotsky, as we have only studied Oblomovism in psychological depth,studies,demonstrated here, was a raging Oblomomovist by but Rockefeller manipulation of the Soviet leadershipcomparison with Lenin, literally taking to his bed with today is chiefly premised upon programs based on those"'cryptogenic" (i.e., psychogenic) maladies whenever specific neurotic susceptibilities.confronted with acute problems whose psychological Trotsky's break with Lenin in 1903, his wretched roleimplications he was unwilling to face. in the Russian movement during the 1911-14 period, hisAs we have emphasized, Trotsky was neurotically "cryptogenic" illnesses, his hysterical disregard for thepreoccupied with his persona, with peer-group opinion actuality of the international movement during the 1923-of him. His long years of relative isolation from 1929 27 period, and his opportunist concessions to theonwards, and his maverick independence prior to 1917 Stalinophobic centrist tendencies among the Cannonites,are deceptive phenomena; as Joffe's testament accurately are all examples of this persisting Oblomovist flaw.emphasizes, Trotsky lacked precisely Lenin's fierceAdmittedly, Trotsky's Oblomovism was relatively aindependence, state of Olympian mental health when" contrasted withWithin the leading strata of the North American and the paranoid extremes of the same disorder in Stalin•European Labor Committees, we understand the The most extreme forms of Oblomovism within therelevant problems most clearly• In the conclusion of Soviet leadership are identified by the use of"The Case of Ludwig Feuerbach," we distinguished cosmopolitanism as a term of opprobrium; Oblomovismcategorically between the enlightened and self-conscious in its extreme expression as naked Great Russianindidivual. The enlightened individual may have chauvinism. (It is not difficult to understand the roots ofdeveloped creative powers of the sort corresponding to the paranoia in Georgian Stalin's profession of Greatself-consciousness, but he locates such achievements as Russian chauvinism.)predicates of his bourgeois ego, rather than as thesubject, the substance of his identity. Self-conscious Intellectual Flawsinsights are for him achievements to be posessed by hisIn his frequent expressions of self-consciousbourgeois ego, rather than the substance, the identity ofhis existence. The psychodynamic of this atavistic awareness, Trotsky emphasized the non-existence of a• . specifically Trotskyist tendency; his was, for him, simplytendency among revolutionaries is found in the victim'sfeeling-state, his determination not to let go of that a Leninist tendency, lie was too sensible of reality tofeeling ofbeingthelovedinfantinhismother'sarms, his imagine that he had contributed any qualitativetheoretical advance to Marxian thought.willingness to mature beyond a state of innermost The one point on which he injudiciously veered fromidentity involving attachment to the warm comfort of that was on the theme of "peimanent revolution/; Onmother's skirts• We have pointed out Trotsky's explicit this point he may have erroneously considered himself,admission of such neurotic obsessions, and the directconnection between his psychopathology, his momentarily, a significant innovator, but then precludedOblomovism, and the Russian/peasant traditions of his such pretenses in a characteristic gesture of pride-filledself-deprecation. In fact, his only contribution in thatsocial origins. To be the son of a Russian peasant mother vein was a correct assessment of the special tacticalwho is also a Jewish mother is to suffer the preconditions policies_ required for a proletarian revolution in afor Oblomovism with a vengeance, peasant-dominated Russian population. Insofar as thisSuch tendencies appear clearly in Lenin only when wecontrast Lenin with Rosa Luxemburg. Lenin's inability tactical insight from the 1905 experience was woven intoa general theory, that theory had been earlier developedto actualize his internationalism is exemplary. Despite by Rosa Luxemburg and was contributed to the Parvushisimpulse toward an internationalist outlook, during Trotsky these through Luxemburg's earlier, vigoroushis years abroad he was detached from involvement ineducation of Parvus on this point•the German, Austrian and French movements, andnever developed a competent insight into them. His Similarly, the strategic and tactical formulations ofrejection of the Austrian-Menshevik "theory of national the Third Congress of the Comintern, which Lenin andstages" during the war never led him to break with the Trotsky jointly sponsored at that time, were a rathernationalist correlatives of that misconception. Lenin's truncated version of Luxemburg's organic developmentclinging to his psychoneurotic nationalities policy was of united-front policies from the body of her mass-strike

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