Putin tries to show off his historical knowledge but confuses Trotsky with German Social Democrat

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has said that Russia will not stop fighting in Ukraine and quoted German Social Democrat Eduard Bernstein, attributing the quote to the Soviet revolutionary Leon Trotsky (who was born Bronstein).

Source: Latvia-based Russian news website Meduza

Details: Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum, Putin said that Russia cannot stop fighting while Ukraine is conducting the counteroffensive.

According to Putin, people who "would like to act as intermediaries" keep asking him if Russia is ready to stop hostilities.

Commenting on this, the Russian dictator recalled the slogan "The movement is everything, the final goal is nothing", once again confusing Trotsky (Bronstein) with the German Social Democrat Bernstein.

Quote: "Well, how can we stop the fighting if the opposing side is carrying out a counteroffensive? What are we supposed to do? They will counterattack, and we’ll say: ‘Do we stop?’ We’re not Trotskyists who say ‘The movement is everything, the final goal is nothing.’ That's a bad theory."

The phrase Putin attributed to Trotsky was actually said by Bernstein. Trotsky himself (whose surname at birth was Bronstein) called this slogan "nonsense and vulgarity" in one of his articles.

Reportedly, this is not the first time Putin has got this wrong. He attributed the saying to Trotsky in 2008, and in 2011 as well.

Reference: Trotsky was born Leiba Bronstein in present-day Kirovograd Oblast (Ukraine) in 1879. He was one of the organisers of the 1917 October Revolution and a founding father of the Red Army. He collaborated with Lenin and was one of the most influential politicians during the formation of the USSR. Trotskyism is a revision of Marxism.

Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party and deported during a power struggle with Joseph Stalin's group in the 1920s.

He was killed in 1940 on Stalin’s orders in Mexico, where he was in exile.

Bernstein was a German Social Democrat, the ideologist behind a revision of Marxism (Bernsteinism), and a theorist of reformism. He was also a friend of Friedrich Engels, who subsequently criticised the teachings of Karl Marx, declaring the need for a "revision" of Marxism in the new historical conditions. He advocated reform, and in 1917, he was among the founders of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany, which he later wanted to see as "reformist".

Bernstein criticised the Bolsheviks for their dismissive attitude to objective conditions. He described Bolshevism as a specifically "Russian phenomenon" which utilised the harshest means of coercion and oppression.

In his opinion, the revolution in Germany after its defeat in the First World War went "smoothly" because of the maturity of society and the high level of democracy there.

He died in 1932, that is, before the outbreak of World War II.

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