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It is obvious to anyone who thinks dialectically that actions which are ostensibly the same kind of actions can be right or wrong depending on the circumstances -- or rather, on the cause in the name of which they were performed. Both Lenin and Trotsky were quite explicit on this point. Is there, for instance, anything wrong with slaughtering children? No. It was right, argued Trotsky, to slaughter the children of the Russian czar because it was politically expedient. . If we reject the principle that the end justifies the means, we can only appeal to higher, politically irrelevant moral criteria; and this, Trotsky says, amounts to believing in God. (en) |
