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19 June 2013

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Suppressed Testament of Lenin - pt. 14

Author: Leon Trotsky
Website: RL Online
Department:
Page: 15 ( 15) pages

Summary: The Legend of "Trotskyism"

The Legend of "Trotskyism"

Let us recall the chief sign-posts of this question. From 1917 to 1924 not a word was spoken of the contrast between Trotskyism and Leninism. In this period occurred the October Revolution, the Civil War, the construction of the Soviet state, the creation of the Red Army, the working out of the party program, the establishment of the Communist International, the formation of its cadres, and the drawing up of its fundamental documents. After the withdrawal of Lenin from his work in the nucleus of the Central Committee, serious disagreements developed. In 1924 the specter of "Trotskyism" -- after careful preparation behind the scenes—was brought forth on the stage. The entire inner struggle of the party was henceforth carried on within the frame of a contrast between Trotskyism and Leninism. In other words, the disagreements created by new circumstances and new tasks between me and the epigones were presented as a continuation of my old disagreements with Lenin. A vast literature was created upon this theme. Its sharpshooters were always Zinoviev and Kamenev. In their character of old and very close colleagues of Lenin they stood at the head of "the Bolshevik Old Guard" against Trotskyism. But under the pressure of deep social processes this group itself fell apart. Zinoviev and Kamenev found themselves obliged to acknowledge that the so-called "Trotskyists" had been right upon fundamental questions. New thousands of old Bolshevists adhered to "Trotskyism."

At the July 1926 Plenum Zinoviev announced that his struggle against me had been the greatest mistake of his life—" more dangerous than the mistake of 1917." Ordzhonikidze was not entirely wrong in calling to him from his seat: "Then why did you dupe the entire party?" (See the already quoted stenographic Minutes.) To this weighty rejoinder Zinoviev officially found no answer. But he gave an unofficial explanation at a conference of the Opposition in October 1926. "You must understand," he said in my presence, to his closest friends, some Leningrad workers who honestly believed in the legend of Trotskyism, "you must understand that it was a struggle for power. The trick was to string together the old disagreements with new issues. For this purpose 'Trotskyism' was invented...."

During their two year stay in the Opposition, Zinoviev and Kamenev managed to expose completely the backstage mechanics of the preceding period when they with Stalin had created the legend of "Trotskyism" by conspiratorial methods. A year later, when it became finally clear that the Opposition would be compelled to swim long and stubbornly against the current, Zinoviev and Kamenev threw themselves on the mercy of the victor. As a first condition of their party rehabilitation it was demanded that they rehabilitate the legend of Trotskyism. They agreed. At that time I decided to reinforce their own previous declarations on this matter through a series of authoritative testimonials. It was Radek, no other than Karl Radek, who gave the following written testimony:

I was present at the conversation with Kamenev when L. B. [Kamenev] said he would openly declare at the Plenum of the Central Committee how they, that is, Kamenev and Zinoviev, together with Stalin, decided to utilize the old disagreements between L. D. [Trotsky] and Lenin so as to keep Comrade Trotsky from the leadership of the Party after Lenin's death. Moreover, I have heard repeated from the lips of Zinoviev and Kamenev the tale of how they had "invented" Trotskyism as a topical slogan.

December 25, 1927

Similar written testimonies were given by Preobrazhensky, Pyatakov, Rakovsky and Eltsin. Pyatakov, the present director of the State Bank, summed up Zinoviev's testimony in the following words:

"Trotskyism" had been invented in order to replace the real differences of opinion with fictitious differences, that is, to utilize past differences which had no bearing upon the present but which were resurrected artificially for the definite purpose mentioned above.

This is clear enough, is it not? And V. Eltsin, a representative of the younger generation, wrote:

None of the supporters of the 1925 Group (the Zinovievists) who were present raised any objections to this. Everyone received this information of Zinoviev as a generally known fact.

The above-cited testimony of Radek was submitted by him on December 25, 1927. A few weeks later he was already in exile, and a few months later on the meridian of Tomsk he became convinced of the correctness of Stalin's position, a thing which had not been revealed to him earlier in Moscow. But from Radek also the powers demanded, as a condition sine qua non , an acknowledgment of the reality of this same legend of "Trotskyism." After Radek agreed to this, he had nothing left to do but repeat the old formulas of Zinoviev which the latter had himself exposed in 1926, only to return to them again in 1928. Radek has gone further. In a conversation with a credulous foreigner he has amended the testament of Lenin in order to find in it support for this epigonist legend of "Trotskyism."

From this short historic review, resting exclusively upon documentary data, many conclusions may be drawn. One is that a revolution is an austere process and does not spare its human vertebrae

The course of subsequent events in the Kremlin and in the Soviet Union was determined not by a single document, even though it were the testament of Lenin, but by historical causes of a far deeper order. A political reaction after the enormous effort of the years of the insurrection and the Civil War was inevitable. The concept of reaction must here be strictly distinguished from the concept of counter-revolution. Reaction does not necessarily imply a social overturn—that is, a transfer of power from one class to another. Even Czarism had its periods of progressive reform and its periods of reaction. The mood and orientation of the ruling class changes according to circumstances. This is true also of the working class. The pressure of the petty bourgeoisie upon the proletariat, tired from the tumult, entailed a revival of petty-bourgeois tendencies in the proletariat itself and a first deep reaction on the crest of which the present bureaucratic apparatus headed by Stalin rose to power.

Those qualities which Lenin valued in Stalin—stubbornness of character and craftiness—remained, of course, even then. But they found a new field of action, and a new point of application. Those features which in the past had represented a minus in Stalin's personality-narrowness of outlook, lack of creative imagination, empiricism—now gained an effective significance important in the highest degree. They permitted Stalin to become the semi-conscious instrument of the Soviet bureaucracy, and they impelled the bureaucracy to see in Stalin its inspired leader. This ten-year struggle among the heads of the Bolshevik Party has indubitably proved that under the conditions of this new stage of the revolution Stalin has been developing to the limit those very traits of his political character against which Lenin in the last period of his life waged irreconcilable war. But this question, standing even now at the focus of Soviet politics, would carry us far beyond the limits of our historic theme.

Many years have passed since the events we have related. If even ten years ago there were factors in action far more powerful than the counsel of Lenin, it would now be utterly naive to appeal to the testament as to an effective political document. The international struggle between the two groups which have grown out of Bolshevism long ago outgrew the question of the fate of individuals. Lenin's letter, known under the name of his testament, has henceforward chiefly a historic interest. But history, we may venture to think, has also its rights, which moreover do not always conflict with the interests of politics. The most elementary of scientific demands—correctly to establish facts and to verify rumors by document -- may at least be recommended alike to politician and historian. And this demand might well be extended even to the psychologist.

Prinkipo, December 31, 1932.