had nothing to do with the Popular Front, but with the alignment of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev against Stalin, Bukharin and Rykov. As for the source, you may consult Isaac Deutscher's biography of Trotsky or any of the LO's writings, which used this same logic to entertain the possibility of siding with Stalin - still then impressionable with respect to 'left' or 'right' policies - over the more right-oriented Bukharin!

As for your question of when Trotsky might have sided with 'progressive' capitalist politicians -- well, have a look at his economic analysis of the Soviet Union in the 20's. In the wake of the spectacular failure of war communism, he was the first theorist to advocate loosening restrictions on private ownership and trade with capitalist countries; this is what eventually became the New Economic Policy, which was far more capitalistic than socialistic.

You accuse me of being promiscuous in my diagnosis of chavismo, but you're likewise playing fast and loose with ideological designations by equating national socialism with fascism. (There were stark differences between the political economies of Hitler and those of Mussolini, Franco and Mextases.) In fact, Trotsky once referred to Stalin's theory of 'socialism in a single country' - due to its unwillingness to bolster genuine working-class movements outside of Russia - as 'national socialism.'

Also, how would you compare Great Britain in the 1930's in imperialist terms to Great Britain in 2007? Do you think the founder of the Red Army, who spent his final years struggling with question of whether the revolution he led had yielded only a degenerated bureaucratic capitalist state, would fail to notice these and other historical differences?

Chavez forced through another Enabling Act in January of 2007 and plans to scrap executive term limits so he can fulfill his ambition of remaining in power until 2030. That would certainly make him, if not quite a dictator, then very much a de facto president-for-life. Do you think he'll shy from making further encroachments on legislative and judicial review because his "temporary" measures of rule by decree happen to expire on time? He doesn't seem to worry overmuch about simply passing more of those measures as they suit his proximate needs.

As for facilitating coups, do you forget how Chavez first gained popularity in 1992, attempting to establish his glorious Bolvarian regime with only the support of 1/10th of Venezuela's military? The plan to kidnap the democratically elected president as he returned to Milaflores seemed more characteristic of Pinochet.

As for tolerating an oppositional television station, the UK allows all manner of Islamist filth to be beamed in via satellite calling for the enslavement of women, the murder of atheists and homosexuals and promoting clerics who say they won't rest until the green flag of jihad flies over London.... An art house film depicting the future assassination of George W. Bush was recently screened, to warm critical reception, in the United States, and at least one novel, reviewed in the New York Times, has treated this same grim liberal fantasy in complete earnest. What do you suspect the assassination-obsessed Chavez's reaction to anything on this imaginative scale might be? He calmly reappointed Lucas Rincon Romero commander-in-chief of the army after Rincon was the one to announce Chavez's resignation from the presidency following the abortive coup in 2002. So he's mercurial in his punishment of old antagonists. Whatever you call this, it is not vaguely healthy or democratic.