LENIN DENOUNCES
TROTSKY
[10 POSTINGS]
One need only read all 45 volumes of
Lenin's Collected Works as well as
some of his other writings to see that he
often criticized and
vehemently denounced Trotsky. Those who seem to
think Trotsky was the
proper carrier of Lenin's torch definitely need to read
the following 10
postings in this regard. But first we should note
Lenin's compliments
of Stalin.
A couple of noteworthy instances are
the following.
In a 1913 article in the Social
Democrat entitled The
National Programme of the R.S.D.L.P. Lenin
stated,
"Why and how the national question has, at the present time,
been
bought to the fore...is shown in detail in the resolution itself.
There is hardly any need to dwell on this in view of the clarity of
the situation. This situation and the fundamentals of a
national
programme for Social-Democracy have recently been dealt with
in Marxist theoretical literature (the most prominent place
being
taken by Stalin's article." He is referring to the writing
by Stalin
entitled Marxism and the National Question.
At the 11th
Congress of the R.C.P. (B) in 1922 Lenin was
more flattering toward Stalin
when he said, "It is terribly difficult to
do this; we lack the
men! But Preobrazhensky comes along and
airily says that Stalin has
jobs in two Commissariats. Who among
us has not sinned in this
way? who has not undertaking several
duties at once? And
how can we do otherwise? What can we
do to preserve the
Nationalities; to handle all the Turkestan,
Caucasian, and other
questions? These are all political questions!
They have to be
settled. These are questions that have engaged
the attention of
European states for hundreds of years, and only
an infinitesimal number of
them have been settled in democratic
republics. We are settling them;
and we need a man to whom the
representatives of any of these nations can go
and discuss their
difficulties in all detail. Where can we find such a
man?
I don't think Comrade Preobrazhensky could suggest any better
candidate than Comrade
Stalin.
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NOW
WE CAN MOVE ON TO THE FIRST POST
Lenin Denounces Trotsky
POST #1
It is very important to note that the
following statements about
Trotsky's ideas, tactics, and personality were
made by Lenin, not Stalin.
At the Second
Congress of the R.S.D.L.P in 1903 Lenin said in the
Third Speech in the
Discussion on the Agrarian Programme,
"Therein lies
the fundamental difference between us and the liberals,
whose talk
about changes and reforms 'pollutes' the minds of the
people. If
we were to set forth in detail all the demands for the
abolition of
serf-ownership, we should fill whole volumes. That is
why we mention
only the more important forms and varieties of
serfdom, and leave it to our
committees in the various localities to
draw up and advance their particular
demands in development of
the general programme. Trotsky's remark to
the effect that we
cannot concern ourselves with local demand is wrong,
for the
question...is not only a local one."
At the same Congress Lenin made an extremely
important and
farsighted comment with respect to Trotsky's theoretical
wisdom.
He stated,
"To come to the main
subject, I must say that Comrade Trotsky
has completely misunderstood
Comrade Plikhanov's fundamental
idea, and his arguments have therefore
evaded the gist of the matter.
He has spoken of intellectuals and
workers, of the class point of view
and of the mass movement, but he
has failed to notice a basic
question: does my formulation narrow or
expand the concept of a
Party member? If he had asked himself
that question, he would
have easily have seen that my formulation narrows
this concept,
while Martov's expands it, for (to use Martov's own
correct statement)
what distinguishes his concept is its
'elasticity.' And in the period of
Party life that we are now
passing through it is just this 'elasticity'
that
undoubtedly opens the
door to all elements of confusion, vacillation,
and opportunism.
To refute this simple and obvious conclusion it has
to be proved that
there are no such elements; but it has not even
occurred to Comrade Trotsky
to do that. Nor can that be proved, for
everyone knows that such
elements exist in plenty, and they are to be
found in the working class
too....
Comrade Trotsky completely misinterpreted
the main idea of my
book, What Is To Be Done? when he spoke about the
Party not being
a conspiratorial organization. He forgot that in
my book I propose a
number of various types of organizations, from the
most secret and most
exclusive to comparatively broad and 'loose'
organizations. He forgot
that the Party must be only the
vanguard, the leader of the vast masses
of the working class, the whole
(or nearly the whole) of which works
'under the control and direction'
of the Party organizations, but the
whole of which does not and should
not belong to a 'party.' Now let
us see what conclusions Comrade
Trotsky arrives at in consequence
of his fundamental mistake. He
had told us here that if rank after
rank
of workers were arrested, and
all the workers were to declare that they
did not belong to the Party,
our Party would be a strange one indeed!
Is it not the other way
round? Is it not Comrade Trotsky's argument
that is strange? He
regards as something sad that which a
revolutionary with any experience at
all would only rejoice at.
If hundreds and thousands of workers who
were arrested for taking
part in strikes and demonstrations did not
prove to be members of
Party organizations, it would only show that we
have good
organizations, and that we are fulfilling our task of keeping a
more
or less limited circle of leaders secret and drawing the
broadest
possible masses into the
movement."
In an article written in 1905
entitled "Social-Democracy and the
Provisional Revolutionary Government"
Lenin spoke of Parvus and
said,
"He
openly advocated (unfortunately, together with the windbag
Trotsky in a
foreward to the latter's bombastic pamphlet 'Before the
Ninth of
January') the idea of the revolutionary-democratic
dictatorship, the idea
that it was the duty of Social-Democrats to
take part in the
provisional revolutionary government after the
overthrow of the
autocracy."
Later in the same article
Lenin stated,
"It would be extremely harmful
to entertain any illusions on
this score. If that windbag Trotsky now
writes (unfortunately,
side by side with Parvus) that a Father Gapon could
appear
only once,' that 'there is no room for a second Gapon.\,' he does
so simply because he is a windbag. If there were no room in
Russia
for a second Gapon, there would be no room for a truly
'great'
consummated democratic revolution."
In a 1904 letter to Stasova,
Lengnik, and others Lenin stated,
A new pamphlet by
Trotsky came out recently, under the editorship
of *Iskra*, as was
announced. This makes it the "Credo" as it were of
the new Iskra.
The pamphlet is a pack of brazen lies, a distortion of
the facts....
The pamphlet is a slap in the face both for the present
Editorial Board of
the C.O. and for all Party workers. Reading a
pamphlet of this kind you
can see clearly that the "Minority" has
indulged in so much lying and
falsehood that it will be incapable of
producing anything
viable...."
In a 1905 article entitled
"Wrathful Impotence" Lenin stated,
'We shall remind
the reader that even Mr. Struve, who has
often voiced sympathy in
principle with Trotsky, Starover, Akimov,
and Martynov, and with
the new-Iskra trends in general and the
new-Iskra Conference in
particular--even Mr. Struve was in his
time obliged to acknowledge that
their stand is not quite a correct
one, or rather quite an incorrect one."
At the 1907 Fifth Congress of the R.S.D.L.P Lenin
stated,
"A few words about Trotsky. He
spoke on behalf of the
'Centre,' and expressed the views of the
Bund. He fulminated
against us for introducing our 'unacceptable'
resolution. He
threatened an outright split, the withdrawal of
the Duma group,
which is supposedly offended by our resolution. I
emphasize
these words. I urge you to reread our
resolution.... When Trotsky
stated: 'Your unacceptable resolution
prevents your right ideas
being put into effect,' I called out to him:
'Give us your resolution!'
Trotsky replied: 'No first withdraw
yours.' A fine position indeed for
the 'Centre' to take, isn't
it? Because of our (in Trotsky's opinion)
mistake
('tactlessness') he punishes the whole Party.... Why did
you not get
your resolution passed, we shall be asked in the
localities. Because
the Centre (for whom Trotsky was speaking)
took umbrage at it, and in a
huff refused to set forth its own
principles! That is a position
based not on principle, but on the
Centre's lack of principle."
Speaking at the same Congress Lenin objected to
Trotsky's
amendments to the Bolshevik resolution on the attitude
towards
bourgeois parties by saying,
"It
must be agreed that Trotsky's amendment is not Menshevik,
that it
expresses the 'very same,' that is, bolshevik, idea. But
Trotsky has
expressed this idea in a way that is scarcely better
(than the
Menshevik--Ed.).... Trotsky's insertion is redundant, for
we are
not fishing for unique cases in the resolution, but are laying
down the
basic line of Social-Democracy in the bourgeois
Russian
revolution."
While later
discussing the same issue (the attitude the party
should have toward
bourgeois parties) Lenin said,
"The question
of the attitude of Social-Democracy towards
bourgeois parties is one of
those known as 'general' or 'theoretical'
questions, i.e., such that are not
directly connected with any definite
practical task confronting the Party at
a given moment. At the
London Congress of the R.S.D.L.P, the Mensheviks
and the Bundists
conducted a fierce struggle against the inclusion of
such questions
in the agenda, and they were, unfortunately, supported
in this by
Trotsky, who does not belong to either side. The
opportunistic
wing of our Party (notice that that is the group with which
Trotsky
allied himself--Ed.) like that of other Social-Democratic
parties,
defended a 'business-like' or 'practical' agenda for the
Congress.
They shied away from 'broad and general' questions.
They forgot
that in the final analysis broad, principled politics are
the only
real,
practical politics. They forgot that anybody who
tackles partial
problems without having previously settled general problems,
will
inevitably and at every step 'come up against' those general
problems
without himself realizing it. To come up against them
blindly in
every individual case means to doom one's politics
to
the worst vacillation and lack of principle."
And it is quite clear to which philosophy Trotsky
adhered.
POST # 2 WILL FOLLOW
LATER
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Lenin
Denounces Trotsky
POST #2
Our list of
statements about Trotsky by Lenin continues:
In 1909
Lenin wrote an article entitled "The Aim of the Proletarian
Struggle in our
Revolution" and said the following,
"As for
Trotsky, whom Comrade Martov has involved in the
controversy of third
parties which he has organized...we positively
cannot go into a full
examination of his views here. A separate article
of considerable
length would be needed for this. By just touching
upon Trotsky's
mistaken views, and quoting scraps of them,
Comrade Martov only sows
confusion in the mind of the reader....
Trotsky's major mistake is
that he ignores the bourgeois character
of the revolution and has no clear
conception of the transition from
this revolution to the socialist
revolution. This major mistake leads to
those mistakes on side
issues which Comrade Martov repeats when
he quotes a couple of them
with sympathy and approval. Not to
leave matters in the confused
state to which Comrade Martov has
reduced them by his exposition, we shall
at least expose the fallacy
of those arguments of Trotsky which have won
approval of Comrade
Martov."
Later in
the same article Lenin states,
"Trotsky's second
statement quoted by Comrade Martov is wrong
too. It is not true
that 'the whole question is, who will determine the
government's
policy, who will constitute a homogeneous majority in
it,' and so
forth. And it is particularly untrue when Comrade Martov
uses it
as an argument against the dictatorship of the proletariat and
the
peasantry. Trotsky himself, in the course of his argument, concedes
that 'representatives of the democratic population will take part' in
the
'workers' government,' i.e., concedes that there will be a
government
consisting of representatives of the proletariat AND the
peasantry.
On what terms the proletariat will take part in the
government of the
revolution is quite another question, and it is quite
likely that on
this
question the Bolsheviks will disagree not only with
Trotsky, but also
with the Polish Social-Democrats."
Notice how Lenin does not consider Trotsky to be a
bolshevik.
And finally, Lenin also states in the
same article,
"In any case, Comrade Martov's
conclusion that the conference
agreed with Trotsky, of all people, on
the question of the relations
between the proletariat and the peasantry
in the struggle for power
is an amazing contradiction of the facts, is an
attempt to read into a
word a meaning that was never discussed, not
mentioned, and not
even thought of at the conference."
In 1910 Lenin wrote several articles in which
he said the following:
Article= "Faction of
Supporter of Otzovism and God-Building" in
which he
said,
"The 'point' was that the Mensheviks (through the mouth
of
Trotsky in
1903-04) had to declare: the old Iskra and the new ones
are poles
apart."
Article= "Notes of a
Publicist" in which he said,
"With touching
unanimity the liquidators and the otzovists are
abusing the Bolsheviks
up hill and down dale. The Bolsheviks are
to blame, the Bolshevik
Centre is to blame.... But the strongest
abuse from Axelrod and
Alexinsky only serves to screen their complete
failure to understand
the meaning and importance of Party unity.
Trotsky's resolution only
differs outwardly from the 'effusions' of
Axelrod and Alexinsky. It is
drafted very 'cautiously' and lays claim
to 'above faction'
fairness. But what is its meaning? The 'Bolshevik
leaders' are
to blame for everything--this is the same 'philosophy of
history' as
that of Axelrod and Alexinsky.... This question needs only
to be
put for one to see how hollow are the eloquent phrases in
Trotsky's
resolution, to see how in reality they serve to defend the
very
position held by Axelrod and Co., and Alexinsky and Co.... It
is
in this that the enormous difference lies between real partyism,
which
consists in purging the Party of liquidationism and otzovism, and
the
'conciliation' of Trotsky and Co., which actually renders the most
faithful
service to the liquidators and otzovists, and is therefore *an
evil*
that
is all the more dangerous to the Party the more cunningly,
artfully and
rhetorically it cloaks itself with professedly pro-Party,
professedly
anti-factional declamations."
Later Lenin stated, "The draft of this resolution was submitted to
the
Central Committee by myself, and the clause in question was altered
by
the plenum itself after the commission had finished its work; it was
altered on the motion of Trotsky, against whom I fought
without
success."
And this was later followed
by,
"Here you have the material--little, but
characteristic material--which
makes it clear how empty Trotsky's and
Yonov's phrases are."
Referring to
Trotsky's stance while discussing liquidationism Lenin
says,
"Of this we shall speak further on,
where it be our task to
demonstrate the utter superficiality of the view
taken by Trotsky...."
In another stinging
indictment in the same article Lenin says,
"Hence
the 'conciliatory' efforts of Trotsky and Yonov are not ridiculous
and
miserable. These efforts can only be explained by a
complete
failure to understand what is taking place. They are
harmless efforts
now, for there is no one behind them except the sectarian
diplomats
abroad, except ignorance and lack of intelligence in some
out-of-the-way
places."
Continuing in the same vein, Lenin states,
"The heinous crime of *spineless 'conciliators'* like Yonov and
Trotsky,
who defend or justify these people, is that they are causing their ruin
by
making them more dependent on liquidationism....
That this position of Yonov and Trotsky is wrong
should have been
obvious to them for the simple reason that it is
refuted by facts."
In an article entitled "How
certain Social-Democrats Inform the
International About the State of Affairs
in the R.S.D.L.P." Lenin
stated,
"Yes, it
is the 'non-factional' Comrade Trotsky, who has no
compunction about
openly advertising his faction's propaganda
sheet."
In an article written in 1910 entitled "An Open
Letter to All Pro-Party
Social-Democrats" Lenin said about Trotsky,
"If Trotsky and similar advocates of the
liquidators and otzovists
declare this rapprochement 'devoid of political
content,' such speeches
testify only to Trotsky's *entire lack of
principle*, the real
hostility of
his policy to the policy of the
actual (and not merely confined to
promises) abolition of
factions."
POST #3 OF LENIN DENOUNCES TROTSKY WILL APPEAR
LATER
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Lenin
Denounces Trotsky
POST #3
Our list of denunciations of
Trotsky by Lenin continues:
In a 1911 letter "To the
Central Committee" Lenin said,
"We resume our
freedom of struggle against the liberals and
*anarchists*, who are
being encouraged by the leader of the
'conciliators,' Trotsky.
The question of the money is for us a
secondary matter, although of
course we do not intend to hand
over the money of the faction to the
bloc of
liquidators+anarchists+Trotsky, while in no way
renouncing
our right to expose before the international
Social-Democratic
movement this bloc, its financial 'basis' (the
notorious
Vperyodist 'funds' safeguarded from exposure by Trotsky
and
the Golosists)."
Later Lenin says,
"There has been a full development of what was already outlined
quite
clearly at the plenum (for instance, *the defence of the
anarchist
school, by Trotsky* + the Golosists). The bloc of liberals
and
anarchists with the aid of the conciliators is shamelessly
destroying
the remnants of the Party from outside and helping to
demoralize it
from within. The formalistic game of 'inviting' the
Golosists and
Trotskyists on to the central bodies is finally reducing
to impotence
the already weakened pro-Party elements."
In a 1911 article
entitled "Historical Meaning of Inner-Party
Struggle in Russia" Lenin
commented,
"The theory that the struggle between
Bolshevism and
Menshevism is a struggle for influence over an immature
proletariat
is not a new one. We have been encountering it since
1905 in
innumerable books, pamphlets, and articles in the liberal
press.
Martov and Trotsky are putting before the German
comrades
*liberal views with a Marxist coating*...."
Trotsky declares: 'It is an illusion' to
imagine that Menshevism
and Bolshevism 'have struck deep roots in the
depths of the
proletariat.' This is a specimen of the resonant
but empty phrases
of which our Trotsky is a master. The roots of
the divergence between
the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks lie, not in
the 'depths of the
proletariat,' but in the economic content of the
Russian revolution.
By ignoring this content, Martov and Trotsky have
deprived themselves
of the possibility of understanding the historical
meaning of the
inner-Party struggle in Russia."
Later in the same article Lenin
states,
"For the same reason Trotsky's
argument that splits in the
International Social-Democratic movement
are caused by the
'process of adaptation of the social-revolutionary
class to the
limited (narrow) conditions of parliamentarism,' while in
the
Russian Social-Democratic movement they are caused by
the
adaptation of the intelligentsia to the proletariat, is *absolutely
false*.
Trotsky writes.... This truly 'unrestrained'
phrase-mongering is
merely the 'ideological shadow' of liberalism.
Both Martov and
Trotsky mix up different historical periods and compare
Russia,
which is going through her bourgeois revolution, with Europe,
where
these revolutions were completed long ago."
Subsequently Lenin says,
"As regards boycotting the trade unions and the
local
self-government bodies, what Trotsky says is *absolutely untrue*.
It is equally untrue to say that boycottism runs through the
whole
history of Bolshevism.... *Trotsky distorts Bolshevism*,
because
he has never been able to form any definite views on the role
of
the proletariat in the Russian bourgeois
revolution."
In the same article Lenin said
regarding Trotsky,
"It is not true. And this
untruth expresses, firstly, *Trotsky's
utter
lack of theoretical
understanding*. Trotsky has absolutely failed to
understand why
the plenum described both liquidationism and
otzovism as a
'manifestation of bourgeois influence on the
proletariat'.
Secondly, in practice, this untruth expresses the 'policy'
of
advertisement pursued by Trotsky's faction. That Trotsky's
venture
is an attempt to create a faction is now obvious to all, since
Trotsky
has removed the Central Committee's representative from Pravda.
In advertising his faction Trotsky does not hesitate to tell the
Germans
that the Party is falling to pieces, that both factions are
falling to
pieces and that he, Trotsky, alone, is saving the
situation. Actually,
we all see now--and the latest resolution adopted
by the Trotskyists
in the name of the Vienna Club, on November 26, 1910
proves this
quite conclusively--that *Trotsky enjoys the confidence
exclusively
of the liquidators and the Vperyodists*.
The extent of *Trotsky's shamelessness* in
belittling the Party and
exalting himself before the Germans is shown, for
instance, by the
following. Trotsky writes that the 'working
masses' in Russia consider
that the 'Social-Democratic Party stands
outside their circle' and he
talks of 'Social-Democrats without
Social-Democracy.
How could one expect Mr.
Potresov and his friends to refrain from
bestowing kisses on Trotsky
for such statements?
But these statements are
refuted not only by the entire history of
the revolution, but even by
the results of the elections to the Third
Duma from the workers'
curia....
That is what Trotsky writes.
But the facts are as follows....
When Trotsky
gives the German comrades a detailed account
of the stupidity of 'otzovism'
and describes this trend as a
'crystallization' of the boycottism
characteristic of Bolshevism
as a whole...the German reader certainly gets
no idea how much
subtle *perfidy* there is in such an exposition.
Trotsky's Jesuitical
'reservation' consists in omitting a small, very
small 'detail.' He
'forgot' to mention that at an official
meeting of its representatives
held as far back as the spring of 1909, the
Bolshevik faction
repudiated and expelled the otzovists. But it
is just this 'detail' that
is inconvenient for Trotsky, who wants to
talk of the 'falling to
pieces' of the Bolshevik faction (and then of the
Party as well) and
not of the falling away of the non-Social-Democratic
elements!....
One day Trotsky *plagiarizes* from the
ideological stock-in-trade
of one faction; the next day he plagiarizes
from that of another, and
therefore declares himself to be standing above
both factions. In
theory Trotsky is on no point in agreement with
either the liquidators
or the otzovists, but in actual practice he is in
entire agreement
with both the Golosists and the Vperyodists.
Therefore, when Trotsky tells the German comrades
that he
represents the 'general Party tendency,' I am obliged to
declare
that Trotsky represents only his own faction and enjoys a
certain
amount of confidence exclusively among the otzovists and
the
liquidators. The following facts prove the correctness of
my
statement."
After listing his
facts and referring to 'Trotsky's anti-Party
policy'
Lenin
states,
"Let the readers now judge for
themselves whether Trotsky
represents a 'general Party,' or a 'general
anti-Party' trend in
Russian Social-Democracy."
POST #4 OF LENIN
DENOUNCES TROTSKY WILL APPEAR
LATER
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Lenin
Denounces Trotsky
POST #4
Our on-going expose of Lenin's Opinion
of Trotsky continues:
In an article entitled
"Letter to the Russian Collegium of the
Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.
Lenin attacked Trotsky by
saying,
"Trotsky's
call for 'friendly' collaboration by the Party with the
Golos and Vperyod
groups is *disgusting hypocrisy and
phrase-mongering*. Everybody
is aware that for the whole year
since the Plenary Meeting the Golos
and Vperyod groups have
worked in a 'friendly' manner against the Party (and
were secretly
supported by Trotsky). Actually, it is only the
Bolsheviks and
Plekhanov's group who have for a whole year carried out
friendly
Party work in the Central Organ. Trotsky's attacks on the
bloc of
Bolsheviks and Plekhanov's group are not new; what is new is
the
outcome of his resolution: the Vienna Club (read "Trotsky") has
organized a 'general Party fund for the purpose of preparing and
convening a conference of the RSDLP
This indeed
is new. It is a direct step towards a split. It is *a
clear
violation of Party legality* and the start of an adventure in
which
Trotsky will come to grief. This is obviously a split....
It is quite
possible and probable that 'certain' Vperyod 'funds' will
be made
available to Trotsky. You will appreciate that this will
only stress
the adventurist character of his undertaking.
It is clear that this undertaking violates Party
legality, since
not a
word is said about the Central Committee, which
alone can call the
conference. In addition, Trotsky, having ousted the
C.C. representative
on Pravda in August 1910, himself *lost all trace
of legality*,
converting Pravda from an organ supported by the
representative
of the C.C. into a purely factional organ....
Taking advantage of this, 'violation of legality,'
Trotsky seeks an
organisational split, creating 'his own' fund for 'his
own'
conference."
After this critique
of Trotsky, Lenin really comes down solid on
him by stating,
"You will understand why I call Trotsky's move an
adventure; it is
an adventure in every respect.
It is an adventure in the ideological sense.
*Trotsky groups all
the enemies of Marxism*, he unites Potresov and
Maximov, who
detest the 'Lenin-Plekhanov' bloc, as they like to call
it. *Trotsky
unites all to whom ideological decay is dear*, *all
who are not
concerned with the defence of Marxism*; *all philistines* who do
not
understand the reasons for the struggle and who do not wish to
learn, think, and discover the ideological roots of the divergence
of
views. At this time of confusion, disintegration, and wavering it
is
easy for Trotsky to become the 'hero of the hour' and *gather
all the
shabby elements around himself*. The more openly this
attempt is made,
the more spectacular will be the defeat.
It
is an adventure in the party-political sense. At present
everything goes to
show that the real unity of the Social-Democratic
Party is possible
only on the basis of a sincere and unswerving
repudiation of liquidationism
and otzovism. It is clear that Potresov
and the Vperyod group
have renounced neither the one nor the
other. Trotsky unites them, basely
deceiving himself, *deceiving
the Party, and deceiving the
proletariat*. In reality, Trotsky will
achieve nothing more than
the strengthening of Potresov's and
Maximov's anti-Party groups.
The collapse of this adventure is
inevitable."
And Lenin concludes by
saying,
"Three slogans bring out the essence
of the present situation
within the
Party:...
3. Struggle against the splitting tactics
and the *unprincipled
adventurism of Trotsky* in banding Potresov and
Maximov against
Social-Democracy."
In a 1910 article entitled "The State of Affairs in
the Party" Lenin
again attacks Trotsky's anti-Party stance by saying,
"...Trotsky's statement of November 26,
1910...completely
distorts the essence of the matter....
It is not enough to lay bare the anti-Party
activities of Golos
and Trotsky; they must be
fought.
In the same article Lenin states,
"When Trotsky, in referring to the Meeting's
decisions on
Pravda, fails to mention this fact, all one can say about it is
that
*he is deceiving the workers*. And this deception on the part of
Trotsky is all the more *malicious*, since in August Trotsky removed
the
representative of the Central Committee from Pravda....
Therefore, we declare, in the name of the Party as
a whole, that
Trotsky is pursuing an anti-Party policy....
Trotsky is trying again and again to evade the
question by passing
it over in silence or by phrase-mongering; *for he
is concerned to
keep the readers and the Party ignorant of the truth*,
namely that
Potresov's group, the group of sixteen, are absolutely
independent
of the Party, represent expressly distinct factions, are
not only doing
nothing to revive the illegal organization, but are
obstructing its
revival, and are not pursuing any Social-Democratic
tactics. *Trotsky
is concerned with keeping the Party ignorant of
the truth*, namely,
that the Golos group represent a faction abroad,
similarly separated
from the Party, and that they actually render
service to the liquidators
in Russia....
Trotsky maintains silence on this undeniable truth,
because *the
truth is detrimental to the real aims of his
policy*. The real aims,
however, are becoming clearer and more obvious
even to the least
far-sighted Party members. They are" an
anti-Party block of the
Potresovs with the Vperyod group--a bloc
which Trotsky supports
and is organizing."
Lenin later states,
"We must again explain the fundamentals of Marxism
to these
masses; the defence of Marxist theory is again on the order of
the
day. When Trotsky declares that the rapprochement between
the
pro-Party Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks is 'devoid of political
content' and 'unstable,' he is thereby merely revealing *the
depths
of his own ignorance*, he is thereby demonstrating *his
own
complete emptiness*."
Lenin
later follows this up with,
"...Trotsky, who is in
the habit of joining any group that happens
to be in the majority at
the moment....
Trotsky's policy is
adventurism in the organisational sense; for,
as we have already pointed
out, it violates Party legality...."
POST #5 OF LENIN
DENOUNCES TROTSKY WILL APPEAR
LATER
***************************************************************
Lenin
Denounces Trotsky
POST #5
Our continuing revelation
of Lenin's Opinion of Trotsky
proceeds
apace:
In a 1911 article
entitled "Judas Trotsky's Blush of Shame"
Lenin states,
"At the Plenary Meeting *Judas Trotsky* made a big
show of
fighting liquidationism and otzovism. He vowed and swore
that
he was true to the Party. He was given a subsidy....
Judas expelled the representative of the Central
Committee
from Pravda and began to write liquidationist articles....
And it is this Judas who beats his breast and
loudly professes
his loyalty to the Party, claiming that he did not grovel
before the
Vperyod group and the liquidators.
Such is Judas Trotsky's blush of shame."
In
a leaflet published in 1911 entitled "Resolution Adopted by
the Second Paris
Group of the R.S.D.L.P. on the State of Affairs
in the Party" Lenin
addressed this same theme by saying,
"People
like Trotsky, with his inflated phrases about the
R.S.D.L.P. and his
*toadying* to the liquidators, who have nothing
in common with the
R.S.D.L.P., today represent
'*the prevalent disease*.' They are trying
to build up a career
for themselves by cheap sermons about
'agreement'--agreement
with all and sundry, right down to Mr. Potresov and
the otzovists....
Actually they preach surrender to the liquidators
who are building
a Stolypin labour party."
And in the 1911 article entitled "From the Camp
of the Stolypin
Labour Party" Lenin revisits this issue by
saying,
"Hence it is clear that Trotsky and
the 'Trotskyites and
conciliators'
like him are *more pernicious than any
liquidators*; the convinced
liquidators state their views bluntly, and
it is easy for the workers to
detect where they are wrong, whereas the
*Trotskys deceive the workers*,
*cover up the evil*, and make it
impossible to expose the evil and to
remedy it. *Whoever
supports Trotsky's puny group supports a policy
of lying and of deceiving
the workers*, a policy of shielding the
liquidators. Full freedom of
action for Potresov and Co. in Russia,
and the shielding of their deeds
by 'revolutionary' phrase-mongering
abroad--there you have the essence
of the policy of 'Trotskyism'."
In an
article entitled "The New Faction of Conciliators, or the
Virtuous" Lenin
stated,
"Trotsky has been *deceiving the workers in
a most unprincipled
and shameless manner* by assuring them that the
obstacles to
unity were principally (if not wholly) of an
organizational nature.
This deceit is being continued in 1911 by the
Paris conciliators; for
to assert now that they organizational
questions occupy the first
place is sheer mockery of the truth.
In reality, it is by no means the
organizational question that is now
in the forefront, but the question
of the entire programme, the entire
tactics and the whole character
of the Party.... The conciliators
call themselves Bolsheviks, in order
to repeat, a year and a half
later, *Trotsky's errors* which the
Bolsheviks had exposed. Well,
is this not an abuse of established
Party titles? Are we not obliged,
after this, to let all and sundry
know
that the conciliators are not
Bolsheviks at all, that they have nothing
in common with Bolshevism,
that they are simply inconsistent
Trotskyites?"
In a 1911 article on the
same theme entitled "Trotsky's Diplomacy
and a certain Party Platform,"
Lenin states,
"Trotsky's particular task is to
conceal liquidationism by throwing
dust in the eyes of the workers.
It is impossible to argue with Trotsky on the
merits of the issue,
because *Trotsky holds no views whatever*.
We can and should
argue with confirmed liquidators and otzovists;; but it is
no use
arguing with a man whose game is to hide errors of both
these
trends; in his case the thing to do is to expose him as a
*diplomat
of the smallest caliber*."
In
an article entitled "Fundamental Problems of the Election
Campaign"
Lenin states,
"There is nothing more repugnant to
the spirit of Marxism than
phrase-mongering...."
And later on he states,
"But there is no point in imitating Trotsky's
inflated phrases."
In a
1912 pamphlet entitled "The Present Situation in the
R.S.D.L.P. Lenin
stated,"
This is incredible, yet it is a fact.
It will be useful for the Russian
workers to know how *Trotsky and Co.
are misleading our foreign
comrades*."
In another 1912 pamphlet entitled "Can the
Slogan 'Freedom
of Association' Serve as a Basis for the Working-Class
Movement
Today?" Lenin responds by saying,
"In the legal press, the liquidators headed by Trotsky argue
that it
can. They are doing all in their power to distort the true
character
of the workers' movement. But those are hopeless
efforts. The
drowning of the liquidators are clutching at a straw
to rescue their
unjust cause."
In a 1912
pamphlet entitled "Platform of the Reformists and
the Platform of the
Revolutionary Social-Democrats" Lenin stated,
"The
revolutionary Social-Democrats have given their answer
to these questions,
which are more interesting and important than
the *philistine-Trotskyist*
attitude of uncertainty; will there be a
revolution or not, who can
tell?....
Those, however, who preach to the
masses their *vulgar,
intellectualist, Bundist-Trotskyist
scepticism*--'we don't know
whether there will be a revolution or not, but
the current issue is
reforms'--are already *corrupting the masses, preaching
liberal
utopias to them*."
In the
1912 pamphlet entitled "The Illegal Party and Legal
Work" Lenin again
referred to Trotsky by saying,
"We have studied the
ideas of liberal labour policy attired in
Levitsky's everyday clothes;
it is not difficult to recognize them
in *Trotsky's gaudy apparel* as
well."
In a letter to the Editor of Pravda in 1912 Lenin
said,
"I advise you to reply to Trotsky throught the
post: 'To Trotsky.
We shall not reply to disruptive and slanderous
letters.' Trotsky's
dirty campaign against Pravda is one mass of lies
and slander. The
well-known Marxist and follower of Plekhanov,
Rothstein, has written to
us that he received Trotsky's slanders and replied
to him: I cannot
complain of the Petersburg Pravda in any way. But this
intriguer and
liquidator goes onlying, right and left.
P.S. It would
be still better to reply in this way to Trotsky through
the post: 'To
Trotsky. You are wasting your time sending us disruptive
and slanderous
letters...."
In a 1913 article in Pravda Lenin really
blistered Trotsky on the
question of Party unity by
saying,
"It is amazing that after the question has
been posed so clearly
and squarely we come across Trotsky's old,
pompous but perfectly
meaningless phrases in Luch No. 27 (113). Not a
word on the
substance of the matter! *Not the slightest attempt
to cite precise
facts and analyze them thoroughly!* Not a hint of the
real terms
of unity! Empty exclamations, high-flown words, and
haughty sallies
against opponents whom the author does not name, and
impressively important assurances--that is *Trotsky's
total
stock-in-trade*.
That won't do
gentlemen.... The workers will not be intimidated or
coaxed.
They themselves will compare Luch and Pravda...and simply
shrug off
Trotsky's verbiage....
You cannot satisfy the
workers with mere phrases, no matter how
'conciliatory' or honeyed.
'Our historic factions, Bolshevism and
Menshevism, are purely
intellectualist formations in origin,' wrote
Trotsky. This is the
*repetition of a liberal tale*....
It is to the advantage of the liberals to pretend
that this fundamental
basis of the difference was introduced by
'intellectuals.' But
*Trotsky
merely disgraces himself by echoing a
liberal tale*.
In a 1913 article entitled
"Notes of a Publicist" Lenin states,
"Trotsky,
doing faithful service to liquidators, assured himself and
the naive
'Europeans' (lovers of Asiatic scandal-mongering) that the
liquidators
are 'stronger' in the legal movement. And this lie, too,
is refuted by
the facts."
Lenin again blasted Trotsky in
an article published in 1914
entitled "Break-up of the 'August' Bloc" by
stating,
"Trotsky, however, has never had any
'physiognomy' at all; *the
only thing he does have is a habit of changing
sides*, of *skipping
from the liberals to the Marxists and back again*, of
mouthing scraps
of catchwords and bombastic parrot
phrases....
Actually, under cover of high-sounding,
empty, and obscure
phrases that confuse the non-class-conscious
workers, Trotsky
is defending the
liquidators....
But *the liquidators and
Trotsky...are the worst splitters*."
And in
an article entitled "Ideological Struggle in Working-Class
Movement"
Lenin states,
"People who (like the liquidators and
Trotsky) ignore or falsify this
twenty years' history of the
ideological struggle in the working-class
movement do tremendous harm
to the workers."
POST #6 OF LENIN DENOUNCES TROTSKY WILL APPEAR
LATER
***************************************************************
Lenin
Denounces Trotsky
POST #6
Our ongoing
revelation of what Lenin thought of Trotsky proceeds
on
schedule.
In a 1914 article named "Disruption of
Unity" Lenin stated,
"Trotsky's 'workers' journal'
is Trotsky's journal for workers, as there
is not a trace in it of
either workers' initiative, or any connection with
working-class
organizations....
The question arises: what has
'chaos' got to do with it? Everybody
knows that *Trotsky is fond
of high-sounding and empty phrases*....
If there is any 'chaos'
anywhere, it is only in the heads of cranks who
fail to understand
this....
To sum up:
(1)
Trotsky does not explain, *nor does he understand, the
historical
significance of the ideological disagreements among the
various
Marxist trends and groups*, although these disagreements run
through the twenty years' history of Social-Democracy and
concern
the fundamental questions of the present day (as we shall show
later on);
(2) Trotsky fails to understand that
the main specific features of
group-division are nominal recognition of
unity and actual disunity;
(3) Under cover of
'non-factionalism' Trotsky is championing the
interests of a group
abroad which particularly lacks definite
principles
and has no basis in
the working-class movement in
Russia.
All that
glitters is not gold. *There is much glitter and
sound in
Trotsky's
phrases, but they are meaningless*....
But joking
apart (although joking is the only way of retorting mildly
to Trotsky's
insufferable phrase-mongering). 'Suicide' is a mere
empty phrase,
mere 'Trotskyism'....
If our attitude towards
liquidationism is wrong in theory, in
principle, then Trotsky should say so
straightforwardly, and state
definitely, without equivocation, why he thinks
it is wrong. But
Trotsky
has been evading this extremely important
point for years....
Trotsky is very fond of using,
with the learned air of the expert,
*pompous and high-sounding phrases* to
explain historical
phenomena in a way that is flattering to
Trotsky. Since 'numerous
advanced workers' become 'active agents'
of a political and Party
line which does not conform to Trotsky's line,
Trotsky settles the
question unhesitatingly, out of hand: these
advanced workers are
'in a state of utter political bewilderment,'
whereas he, Trotsky, is
evidently 'in a state' of political firmness and
clarity, and keeps to
the right line! And this very same Trotsky,
beating his breast,
fulminates against factionalism, parochialism, and the
efforts of
intellectuals to impose their will on the
workers!"
"Reading things like these, one
cannot help asking oneself;
*is it from a lunatic asylum that such voices
come*?"
Later in the same article Lenin
states,
"Those who accused us of being splitters, of
being unwilling or
unable to get on with the liquidators, were themselves
unable to
get on with them. The August bloc proved to be a
fiction and broke
up.
By concealing this
break-up from his readers, *Trotsky is deceiving
them*."
Still later, Lenin confronted a
problem I have often encountered
by
stating,
"*The reason why Trotsky avoids
facts and concrete references is
because they relentlessly refute all his
angry outcries and pompous
phrases*.... Is not this weapon
borrowed from the arsenal of the
period when Trotsky posed in all his
splendor before audiences of
high-school
boys?"
And finally, in the same article Lenin
shatters Trotsky,
his theory of Permanent Revolution, and his all
consuming equivocating, with which I am thoroughly familiar,
by
saying,
"Trotsky was an ardent Iskrist
in 1901-03, and Ryazanov described
his role at the Congress of 1903 as
'Lenin's cudgel.' At the end of
1903, Trotsky was an ardent Menshevik,
i.e., he deserted from the
Iskrists to the Economists. He said that
'between the old Iskra and
the new lies a gulf'. In 1904-05, he
deserted the Mensheviks and
occupied a vacillating position, now
co-operating with Martynov (the
Economist), now proclaiming his
**absurdly Left permanent revolution theory**. In 1906-07, he
approached the Bolsheviks, and in the spring of 1907 he declared that
he
was in agreement with Rosa Luxemburg.
In the period
of disintegration, after long 'non-factional'
vacillation,
he again went
to the right, and in August 1912, he entered into a bloc
with the
liquidators. He has now deserted them again, although
in
substance he reiterates their shoddy
ideas."
In another 1914 article entitled
"Objective Data on the Strength of
Various Trends" Lenin
commented,
"One of the greatest, if not the
greatest, faults (or crimes against
the working class) of the Narodniks
and liquidators, as well as of the
various groups of intellectuals such as
the Vperyodists, Plekhanovites
and Trotskyists, is their
subjectivism. At every step they try to pass
off their desires,
their 'views', their appraisals of the situation and
their 'plans', as
the will of the workers, the needs of the
working-class
movement."
In a
article published in 1914 entitled "The Right of Nations to
Self-Determination" Lenin stated,
"**The
obliging Trotsky is more dangerous than an enemy!**
Trotsky could
produce no proof, except 'private conversations"
(i.e., simply *gossip,
on which Trotsky always subsists*), for classifying
'Polish Marxists'
in general as supporters of every article by Rosa
Luxemburg....
Why did Trotsky withhold these
facts from the readers of his
journal? Only because it pays him
to speculate on fomenting
differences between the Polish and the
Russian opponents of
liquidationism and to *deceive the Russian workers* on
the question
of the programme."
And now
comes another comment that blows off Trotsky's
doors.
"**Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion
on any important
question of Marxism**. He always contrives to worm
his way into
the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert
one side
for the other. At the present moment he is in the
company of the
Bundists and the liquidators. And these gentlemen
do not stand
on ceremony where the Party is
concerned."
In an article first published in
1917 Lenin noted that Trotsky made
a number of errors by
saying,
"A number of Trotsky's tactical and
organizational errors spring
from this
fear...."
In an article published in 1915 in
the Social-Democrat entitled
"Defeat of One's Government in Imperialist
War" Lenin stated,
"This is an instance of
*high-flown phraseology with which Trotsky
always justifies
opportunism*....
The *phrase-bandying Trotsky* has
completely lost his bearings
on a simple issue. It seems to him
that to desire Russia's defeat
means desiring the victory of
Germany.... To help people that are
unable to think for themselves,
the Berne resolution made it clear
that in all imperialist countries
the proletariat must now desire the
defeat of its own government.
Bukvoyed and Trotsky preferred to
avoid this
truth....
*Had Bukvoyed and Trotsky done a little
thinking, they would have
realized that they have adopted the viewpoint on
the war held by
governments and the bourgeoisie, i.e., that they cringe
to the 'political
methodology of social-patriotism', to use Trotsky's
pretentious language*."
And in another 1915
article labeled "The State of Affairs in
Russian Social-Democracy"
Lenin comments,
"Trotsky, who as always entirely
disagrees with the
social-chauvinists in principle, but agrees with them in
everything
in practice...."
POST #7 OF LENIN DENOUNCES TROTSKY
WILL APPEAR
LATER
***************************************************************
Lenin
Denounces Trotsky
POST #7
More on Lenin's
Opinion of Trotsky will now be presented.
In
1915 article in the Social Democrat entitled "On the Two Lines
in the
Revolution" Lenin comments on Trotsky's failure to realize
the
importance of the peasantry by saying,
"The length *Trotsky's muddled thinking* goes to is evident from
his phrase
that by their resoluteness the proletariat will attract
the
'non-proletarian popular masses' as well! Trotsky has not
realized
that if the proletariat induce the non-proletarian masses
to
confiscate the landed estates and overthrown the monarchy,
then
that will be the consummation of the 'national bourgeois
revolution'
in Russia; it will be a revolutionary-democratic
dictatorship of the
proletariat and the peasantry!.... This is
such an obvious truth that
not even the thousands of phrases in scores
of Trotsky's Paris
articles will 'refute' it. *Trotsky is in fact
helping the liberal-labour
politicians* in Russia, who by 'repudiation'
of the role of the
peasantry understand a refusal to raise up the peasants
for the
revolution!"
In a 1921
pamphlet entitled "The Trade Unions, the Present
Situation and Trotsky's
Mistakes" Lenin drops a whole series of
bombs on Trotsky's theoretical
analyses by saying,
"My principal material is
Comrade Trotsky's pamphlet, The
Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions.
When I compare it with the
theses he submitted to the Central Committee, and
go over it
very carefully, I am amazed at the number of *theoretical
mistakes
and glaring blunders* it contains. How could anyone
starting a
big Party discussion on this question produce *such a
sorry
excuse for a carefully thought out statement*? Let me go
over
the main points which, I think, contain the original
*fundamental
theoretical errors*.
Trade
unions are not just historically necessary; they are
historically inevitable
as an organization of the industrial proletariat,
and, under the
dictatorship of the proletariat, embrace nearly the
whole of it.
This is basic, but Comrade Trotsky keeps forgetting
it; he neither
appreciates it nor makes it his point of
departure....
Within the system of the dictatorship
of the proletariat, the trade
unions stand, if I may say so, between the
Party and the government.
In the transition to socialism the
dictatorship of the proletariat is
inevitable, but it is not exercised by an
organization which takes
in all industrial workers. Why not?....
What happens is that the
Party,
shall we say, absorbs the vanguard of the
proletariat, and this
vanguard exercises the dictatorship of the
proletariat.... But the
dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be
exercised through an
organization embracing the whole of that class, because
in all
capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most
backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and
so
corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that
an
organization taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly
exercise
proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a
vanguard
that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the
class.... From
this alone it is evident that there is something
fundamentally wrong
in principle when Comrade Trotsky points, in his
first thesis, to
'ideological confusion', and speaks of a crisis as
existing
specifically and particularly in the trade unions.... *It is
Trotsky
who is in 'ideological confusion'*, because in this key question
of the trade unions' role, from the standpoint of transition from
capitalism to communism, he has lost sight of the fact that we
have here
a complex arrangement of cogwheels which cannot
be a simple one; for the
dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be
exercised by a mass proletarian
organization. It cannot work
without a number of 'transmission
belts' running from the
vanguard to the mass of the advanced class, and
from the
latter to the mass of the working
people.
(Lenin is making precisely the point I made
several weeks ago
during one of my posts to this
newsgroup--Ed.)
...When I consider the role of the
trade unions in production,
I find that Trotsky's basic mistake lies in
his always dealing with
it 'in principle,' as a matter of 'general
principle.' All his theses
are based on 'general principle,' an
approach which is in itself
fundamentally wrong.... In general,
Comrade Trotsky's great
mistake, his mistake of principle, lies in the
fact that by raising
the question of 'principle' at this time he is
dragging back the
Party and the Soviet power. We have, thank
heaven, done with
principles and have gone on to practical
business. We chatted
about principles--rather more than we should
have--at the Smolny.
The actual differences, apart
from those I have listed, really
have nothing to do with general
principles. I have had to
enumerate my 'differences' with Comrade
Trotsky because,
with such a broad theme as 'The Role and Tasks of the Trade
Unions,' **he has, I am quite sure, made a number of
mistakes
bearing on the very essence of the dictatorship of
the
proletariat**.
...I must say that had
we made a detailed, even if small-scale,
study of our own experience
and practices, we should have
managed to avoid the hundreds of quite
unnecessary
'differences' and *errors of principle in which Comrade
Trotsky's pamphlet abounds*.
...While betraying
this lack of thoughtfulness, Comrade Trotsky
falls into error
himself. He seems to say that in a workers' state
it is not the
business of the trade unions to stand up for the
material and spiritual
interests of the working class. That is a
mistake. Comrade
Trotsky speaks of a 'workers' state.' May I
say that this is an
abstraction. It was natural for us to write about
a workers'
state in 1917; but it is now a patent error to say: 'Since
this is a
workers' state without any bourgeoisie, against whom
then is the
working class to be protected, and for what purpose?'
The point is that it
is not quite a workers' state. That is where
Comrade Trotsky makes one
of his main mistakes.... This will not do.
For one thing, ours
is not actually a workers' state but a workers'
and peasants' state.
And a lot depends on that.
...Well, is it right to
say that in a state that has taken this
shape
in practice the trade
unions have nothing to protect, or that we can
do without them in protecting
the material and spiritual interests of
the massively organized
proletariat? No, this reasoning is
theoretically quite wrong. It
takes us into the sphere of abstraction
or an ideal we shall achieve in
15 or 20 years time, and I am not
so sure that we shall have achieved it
even by then.
...At any rate, see that you choose
fewer slogans, like 'industrial
democracy,' which contain nothing but
confusion and are
theoretically wrong. *Both Trotsky and Bukharin
failed to think
out this term theoretically and ended up in
confusion*. ...I say:
cast your vote against it, because it is
confusion. Industry is
indispensable, democracy is not.
Industrial democracy breeds
some utterly false ideas. The idea of
one-man management
was advocated only a little while ago. We must not
make a mess
of things and confuse people: how do you expect them to
know
when you want democracy, when one-man management, and
when
dictatorship. But on no account must we renounce
dictatorship
either....
POST #8 OF LENIN DENOUNCES TROTSKY WILL APPEAR
LATER
***************************************************************
Lenin
Denounces Trotsky
POST #8
[LENIN'S VIGOROUS
DENUNCIATION OF TROTSKY'S POSITION
ON THE TRADE UNIONS CONTINUES--PART
2]
But to go on. Since September we have been
talking about switching
from the principle of priority to that of
equalization....
...Priority implies preference for
one industry out of a group of vital
industries because of its greater
urgency. What does such preference
entail? How great can it
be? This is a difficult question.... And so
if we
are to
raise this question of priority and equalization we must first of
all
give it some careful thought, but that is just what we fail to find
in
Comrade Trotsky's work; *the further he goes in revising his
original
theses, the more mistakes he makes*. Here is what we find in
his
latest theses:.... This is *a real theoretical muddle.
It is all wrong*....
The fourth point is
disciplinary courts. I hope Comrade Bukharin
will not take
offence if I say that without disciplinary courts the
role
of the trade
unions in industry, 'industrial democracy,' is a mere
trifle.
But
the fact it that there is nothing at all about this in your theses.
*"Great grief!' is therefore the only thing that can be said about
Trotsky's theses and Bukharin's attitude, from the standpoint of
principle, theory and practice*.
I am confirmed
in this conclusion when I say to myself: *yours is
not a Marxist approach to
the question.* This quite apart from the
fact that there are a
number of theoretical mistakes in the theses.
It is not a Marxist
approach to the evaluation of the 'role and tasks
of the trade unions,'
because such a broad subject cannot be
tackled without giving thought
to the peculiar political aspects of
the present situation. After all,
Comrade Bukharin and I did say
in the resolution...on trade unions that
politics is the most
concentrated statement of
economics.
...Comrade Trotsky says in his theses
that on the question of
workers' democracy it remains for the Congress to
'enter it
unanimously in the record.' That is not correct. There
is more to
it than an entry in the record; an entry in the record fixes what
has
been fully weighed and measured, whereas the question of
industrial democracy is from having been fully weighed, tried
and
tested. Just think how the masses may interpret this slogan
of
'industrial democracy.'
...*Trotsky's theses,
whatever his intentions, do not tend to
play up the best, but the worst in
military experience*. It must
be borne in mind that a political
leader is responsible not only
for his own policy but also for the acts
of those he leads.
...The last thing I want to tell
you about--something I called
myself a fool for yesterday--is that I
had altogether overlooked
Comrade Rudzutak's theses. His weak
point is that he does
not speak in ringing tones; he is not an
impressive or eloquent
speaker. He is liable to be
overlooked. Unable to attend the
meetings yesterday, I went through my
material and found his
leaflet called: 'The Tasks of the Trade Unions in
Production'.
Let me read it to you, it is not long.... (Lenin
then read
Rudzutak's pamphlet and says,--Ed.), I hope you see not why
I
called myself names. There you have a platform, and *it is
much
better than the one Comrade Trotsky wrote after a great
deal of thinking*,
and the one Comrade Bukharin wrote without
any thinking at all.
All of us members of the Central Committee
who have been out of touch
with the trade union movement for
many years would profit from Comrade
Rudzutak's experience,
and this also goes for Comrade Trotsky and
Comrade Bukharin.
The trade unions have adopted this
platform.
(Lenin concludes his article on the trade
unions by saying--Ed.)
The net result is that *there are a number of
theoretical mistakes
in Trotsky's and Bukharin's theses*: they contain a
number of
things that are wrong in principle. Politically, the
whole approach
to the matter is utterly tactless. *Comrade
Trotsky's 'theses' are
politically harmful*. The sum and
substance of his policy is
bureaucratic harassment of the trade
unions. Our Party
Congress will, I am sure, condemn and reject
it."
At the Second All-Russia Congress of
Miners in 1921 Lenin
wrote,
"The morbid
character of the question of the role and tasks
of the trade unions is due
to the fact that it took the form of a
factional struggle much too
soon. This vast, boundless question
should not have been taken up
in such haste, as it was done
here, and *I put the chief blame on Comrade
Trotsky for all
this fumbling haste and
precipitation*.
To illustrate my point, and to
proceed at once to the heart
of the matter, let me read you the chief of
Trotsky's theses.
(Lenin then reads Trotsky's short
statement--Ed.). I could quote
many similar passages from Trotsky's
pamphlet. I ask, by way
of factional statement: Is it becoming for
such an influential
person, such a prominent leader, to attack his Party
comrades
in this way? I am sure that 99% of the comrades,
excepting
those involved in the quarrel, will say that this should not
be done.
...What sort of talk is this? Is it
the right kind of language?
Is it
the right approach? I had
earlier said that I might succeed in
acting as a 'buffer' and staying out of
the discussion, because it
is harmful to fight with Trotsky--it does the
Republic, the Party,
and all of us a lot of harm--but when this
pamphlet came out, I
felt I had to speak
up.
...Even if there is a spirit of hostility for
the new men, one
should not say a thing like that. *Trotsky accuses
Lozovsky
and Tomsky of bureaucratic practices. I would say the reverse
is true*.
...Even the best workers make
mistakes.... Comrade Trotsky
says that Comrades Tomsky and
Lozovsky--trade unionists
both--are guilty of cultivating in their
midst a spirit of hostility
for the new men. *But this is
monstrous. Only someone in the
lunatic fringe can say a thing
like that*.
That is just why *Trotsky's whole
approach is wrong*. I
could have analyzed any one of his theses, but
it would take
me hours, and you would all be bored to death.
*Every thesis
reveals the same thoroughly wrong
approach*....
POST #9 OF LENIN DENOUNCES TROTSKY WILL APPEAR
LATER
***************************************************************
Lenin
Denounces Trotsky
POST #9
LENIN'S EXPOSURE OF TROTSKY'S
INADEQUACIES
CONTINUES--THE TRADE UNIONS (Part
3)
In another 1921 article on the same topic
entitled "Once Again on
the Trade Unions" Lenin
states,
"*Comrade Trotsky's theses have landed him
in a mess*. That part
of them which is correct is not new and, what is
more, turns against
him. That which is new is all wrong. I
have written out Comrade
Trotsky's correct propositions. They turn
against him not only on the
point in thesis 23 but on the others as
well.
...Can it be denied that, even if Trotsky's
'new tasks and methods'
were as sound as they are in fact unsound, *his very
approach would
be damaging to himself, the Party, the trade union
movement, the
training of millions of trade union members and the
Republic*?
...I decided there and then that policy
lay at the root of the controversy,
and that Comrade Trotsky, with his
'shake-up' policy against Comrade
Tomsky, was entirely in the
wrong.
...But 'shake-up' is a real 'catchword', not
only in the sense that after
being uttered by Comrade Trotsky at the
Fifth All-Russia Conference
of Trade Unions it has, you might say,
'caught on' throughout the Party
and the trade unions.
Unfortunately, it remains true even today in the
much more profound
sense that it alone epitomizes the whole spirit, the
whole trend of the
platform pamphlet entitled The Role and Tasks of the
Trade
Unions. Comrade Trotsky's platform pamphlet is shot through
with the
spirit of the 'shake-up-from-above' policy.
...but
after its publication we had to say: *Comrade Trotsky is
essentially
wrong on all his new points*.
This is most evident
from a comparison of his theses with
Rudzutak's
which were
adopted.... They are fuller and more correct than Trotsky's,
and
*wherever the latter differs from Rudzutak, he is
wrong*.
...The fourth point is that 'industrial
democracy' is a term that lends
itself to misinterpretation. It
may be read as a repudiation of dictatorship
and individual
authority. It may be read as a suspension of ordinary
democracy or a
pretext for evading it. Both readings are harmful, and
cannot be
avoided without long special commentaries.
...Trotsky's 'production atmosphere' is even wider of the mark, and
Zinoviev
had good reason to laugh at it.... Comrade Trotsky's
'production
atmosphere' has essentially the same meaning as
production
propaganda, but such expressions must be avoided when
production
propaganda is addressed to the workers at large. The
term is an
example of how not to carry it on among the
masses.
...Defence or camouflage of the political
mistake expressed in the
shake-up policy, which runs through the whole of
Trotsky's platform
pamphlet, and which, unless it is admitted and corrected,
*leads to
the collapse of the dictatorship of the
proletariat*.
...That is where Zinoviev and myself,
on the one hand, and Trotsky
and Bukharin, on the other, actually stand
on this question of politics
and economics.
I
could not help smiling, therefore, when I read Comrade
Trotsky's
objection in his speech.... Comrade Trotsky thought
these words
were 'very much to the point.' Actually, however, *they
reveal a
terrible confusion of ideas, a truly hopeless 'ideological
confusion*.'
...Comrade Trotsky's political mistakes, aggravated by
Comrade
Bukharin, distract our Party's attention from economic tasks and
'production' work, and, unfortunately, make us waste time on
correcting
them and arguing it out with the syndicalist deviation
(which leads to the
collapse of the dictatorship of the proletariat),
objecting to the
incorrect approach to the trade union movement
(which leads to the
collapse of the Soviet power), and debating
general 'theses' instead of
having a practical and business-like
'economic' discussion....
Once again we find political mistakes distracting
attention from
economic tasks. I was against this 'broad' discussion,
and I
believed, and still do, that it was a mistake--a political
mistake--on
Comrade Trotsky's part to disrupt the work of the trade
union
commission, which ought to have held a business-like
discussion.
*For Trotsky has made the Party waste
time on a discussion of
words and bad
theses*....
We who are breaking new ground must put
in a long, persistent
and patient effort to retrain men and change the
old habits which
have come down to us from capitalism, but this can only be
done
little by little. *Trotsky's approach is quite wrong*. In
his December
30th speech he exclaimed: 'Do or do not our workers, Party
and trade
union functionaries have any production training? Yes
or no?
I say: No. This is a ridiculous approach. It is
like asking whether
a division has enough felt boots: Yes or
no?
It is safe to say that even ten years from now
we shall have to
admit
that all our Party and trade union functionaries
do not have enough
production training....
...And it is this rule that Comrade Trotsky has broken by his
theses
and
approach. *All his theses, his entire platform pamphlet, are so
wrong
that they have diverted the Party's attention and resources
from
practical 'production' work to a lot of empty talk*.
...Trotsky's mistake is 'insufficient support for the
school-of-communism
idea';....
...Whether
you take it in the form it assumed at the Fifth
All-Russia
Conference of
Trade Unions, or as it was presented and slanted by
Trotsky himself in
his platform pamphlet of December 25th, you will
find that his whole
approach is quite wrong and that he has gone off
at a tangent. He has
failed to understand that the trade unions can
and must be viewed as a
school both when raising the question
of 'Soviet trade-unionism,' and
when speaking of production
propaganda in general.... On this
last point, as it is presented in
Trotsky's platform pamphlet, the mistake
lies in his failure to grasp
that the trade unions are a school of
technical and administrative
management of production. ...the
trade unions, whichever way you
look at them, are a school. They are a
school of unity, solidarity,
management and administration, where you learn
how to protect
your interests. Instead of making an effort to
comprehend and
correct *Comrade Trotsky's fundamental mistake*, Comrade
Bukharin
has produced a funny little
amendment.
...let me say that Comrade Trotsky's
fundamental mistake is that
he treats (rather maltreats) the questions he
himself had brought up
in his platform pamphlet as administrative ones,
whereas they could
be and ought to be viewed only from the
administrative angle....
The state is a sphere of
coercion. *It would be madness to
renounce
coercion, especially in
the epoch of the dictatorship of the proletariat*....
The Party is the
leader, the vanguard of the proletariat, which rules
directly.
*It is not coercion but expulsion from the Party that is the
specific
means of influence and the means of purging and steeling
the
vanguard.* The trade unions are a reservoir of the state power, a
school of communism and a school of management. The specific and
cardinal thing in this sphere is not administration but the 'ties'
'between
the central state administration,' 'the national economy and
the
broad masses of the working people.
The
whole of Trotsky's platform pamphlet betrays an incorrect
approach to
the problem and a misunderstanding of this
relationship.
This is essentially a political
question. Because of the substance
of the case--this concrete,
particular 'case'--*it is impossible to correct
Trotsky's mistake by
means of eclectic little amendments and
addenda*, as Bukharin has been
trying to do, being moved undoubtedly
by the most humane sentiments and
intentions.
*Trotsky and Bukharin have produced a
hodgepodge of political
mistakes in approach*, breaks in the middle of the
transmission belts,
and unwarranted and futile attacks on
'administrative steerage.' It is
now clear where the 'theoretical
source of the mistake lies, since
Bukharin has taken up that aspect of it
with his example of the tumbler.
His theoretical mistake lies in his
substitution of eclecticism for
dialectics. His eclectic approach has
confused him and has landed
him in syndicalism. **Trotsky's
mistake is one-track thinking,
compulsiveness, exaggeration and
obstinacy**.
...Incidentally, Comrade Trotsky
says in his theses that 'over the last
period we have not made any
headway towards the goal set forth in
the Programme but have in fact
retreated from it.' That statement is
unsupported, and, I think,
wrong.
...And Trotsky has no one but himself to
blame for having come
out--after the November Plenary Meeting, which
gave a clear-cut
and theoretically correct solution--with a factional
pamphlet on
'the two trends' and proposed a formulation in his thesis
41
which is wrong in economic terms.
Today,
January 25, it is exactly one month since Comrade
Trotsky's factional
statement. It is now patent that this
pronouncement,
inappropriate in form and wrong in essence, has diverted
the Party
from its practical economic and production effort into
rectifying
political and theoretical mistakes. But it's an ill
wind, as the old
saying goes.
In this one month,
Petrograd, Moscow and a number of provincial
towns have shown that the
Party responded to the discussion and
*has rejected Comrade Trotsky's
wrong line by an overwhelming
majority*. While there may have
been some vacillation 'at the top'
and 'in the provinces', in the committees
and in the offices, the
rank-and-file membership--*the mass of Party
workers--came out
solidly against this wrong
line*.
...In any case, his January 23 announcement
shows that the Party,
without so much as mustering all its forces, and with
only Petrograd,
Moscow and a minority of the provincial towns going on
record, has
*corrected Comrade Trotsky's mistake promptly and
with
determination*.
The Party's enemies
had rejoiced too soon. They have not been
able--and will never be
able--to take advantage of some of the
inevitable disagreements within the
Party to inflict harm on it
and on the dictatorship of the proletariat in
Russia."
POST #10 OF LENIN DENOUNCES TROTSKY WILL APPEAR
LATER
***************************************************************
Lenin
Denounces Trotsky
POST #10
THIS POST IS OUR FINAL REVELATION OF
LENIN'S CRITICISMS OF TROTSKY
During a 1921
"Speech on the Trade Unions" Lenin stated,
"Comrade
Trotsky now laughs at my asking who started it all, and is
surprised that I
should reproach him for refusing to serve on the
commission. I
did it because this is very important Comrade Trotsky,
very important,
indeed; your refusal to serve on the trade union
commission was *a violation
of Central Committee discipline*."
In a 1922
article entitled "Reply to Remarks Concerning the Functions
of the
Deputy Chairmen of the Council of People's Commisars"
Lenin
said,
"Some of Trotsky's remarks are
likewise vague (for example, the
'apprehensions' in paragraph 4) and do
not require an answer; other
remarks made by him renew old disagreements,
that we have
repeatedly observed in the Political
Bureau....
As regards the Workers' and Peasants'
Inspection, *Comrade
Trotsky is fundamentally
wrong*....
As regards the State Planning Commission,
*Comrade Trotsky is
not only absolutely wrong but is judging something
on which he is
amazingly ill-informed*.
...The second paper from Comrade Trotsky...contains, first, an
extremely
excited but profoundly erroneous 'criticism' of the Political
Bureau
decree on setting up a financial triumvirate....
Secondly, this paper flings the same fundamentally wrong
and
intrinsically untrue accusations of academic method at the State
Planning Commission, accusations which lead up to *the
next
incredibly uninformed statement by Comrade
Trotsky*...."
In a letter to Lyubimov
written in 1909 Lenin stated,
"As regards Trotsky, I
must say that I shall be most vigorously
opposed to helping him if he
rejects (and he has already rejected it!)
equality on the editorial
board, proposed to him by a member of the
C.C. Without a
settlement of this question by the Executive
Committee on the Bolshevik
Centre, no steps to help Trotsky
are
permissible."
In a letter to
Alexandra Kollontai written in 1917 Lenin really
blasted Trotsky by
saying,
"Pleasant as it was to learn from you of the
victory of N.Iv.
and Pavlov in Novy Mir (I get this newspaper devilishly
irregularly;...it was just as sad to read about the bloc between
Trotsky
and the Right for the struggle against N. Iv. *What a
swine this
Trotsky is*--Left phrases, and a bloc with the Right
against the Zimmerwald
Left!! He ought to be exposed (by you)
if only in a brief letter to
the Social-Democrat!"
In another Letter to Kollontai written after
August 1915 Lenin stated,
"Roland-Holst, like
Rakovsky...like Trotsky, in my opinion, are all
the most harmful
'Kautskians,' in the sense that all of them in various
forms are for unity
with the opportunists, all in various forms
*embellish* opportunism, all of
them (in various way) preach eclecticism
instead of revolutionary
Marxism."
In an equally powerful letter to
Inessa Armand written about
the same time Lenin states,
"...Trotsky arrived, and *this scoundrel* at once
ganged up
with the Right wing of Novy Mir against the Left Zimmerwaldist!
That's it!! *That's Trotsky for you!! Always true
to
himself==twists,
swindles, poses as a Left, helps the Right, so long
as he can*...."
In a 1911 article entitled
"The State of Affairs of the Party"
Lenin
stated,
What is the attitude of the other factions
abroad? Trotsky, of
course, is solidly behind the
liquidators....
There are Party people, and
liquidators who have broken away
and set up a separate group.
Groups abroad, like those of Golos,
Trotsky, the Bund, and Vperyod, want to
cover up the break-away
of the liquidators, help them to hide under the
banner of the
R.S.D.L.P., and help them to thwart the rebuilding of the
R.S.D.L.P.
It is our task at all costs to rebuff the liquidators and,
despite
their
opposition, recreate the
R.S.D.L.P....
The 'conciliators' put their trust in
Trotsky, who has clearly
executed a full turn towards the
liquidators....
We Bolsheviks have resolved on no
account to repeat the error
of conciliationism today. This would mean
slowing down the rebuilding
of the R.S.D.S.P, and entangling it in a
new game with the Golos
people (or *their lackeys, like Trotsky*), the
Vperyodists and so forth."
In 1911 Lenin
stated in an article,
"We know that there are people
who, while recognizing the need
to fight the liquidators, object to a
complete break with them and
continue (even now!) to speak of 'conciliation'
or 'agreement'.
Among these people are not only *the 'loyal servitors'
of Trotsky,
whom very few people now take
seriously*."
In a 1912 "Report on the Work
of the International Socialist
Bureau" Lenin
stated,
"I was no longer about able to talk to the
Golos people and
looked at Trotsky with disapproval, especially over the
letter."
In a 1915 letter to Herman Gorter
Lenin stated,
"I congratulate you on your splendid
attacks on opportunism
and Kautsky. Trotsky's principal mistake
is that he does not attack
this
gang."
In a letter to Kamenev Lenin
stated,
"What is the purpose of our policy now, at
this precise moment?
To build the Party core not on *the cheap phrases
of Trotsky
and Co.* but on genuine ideological rapprochement between
the
Plekhanovites and the Bolsheviks."
In a
March 1916 letter to Henriette Roland-Holst Lenin
commented,
"What are our differences with
Trotsky? This must probably
interest you. *In brief--he is a
Kautskyite*, that is, he stands for
unity with the Kautskyites in the
International and with Chkheidze's
parliamentary group in Russia.
We are absolutely against such
unity.... Trotsky at present is against
the Organizing Committee
(Axelrod and Martov) but for unity with the
Chkheidze Duma group!!
We are decidedly
against."
In a 1909 Letter to Zinoview Lenin
stated,
"As regards Pravda, have you read Trotsky's
letter to Inok? If you
have, I hope it has convinced you that Trotsky
behaves like a despicable
careerist and factionalist of the Ryazanov-and-Co.
type. Either
equality on the editorial board, subordination to the CC
and no one's
transfer to Paris except Trotsky's (the scoundrel, he wants to
'fix up'
the who rascally crew of Pravda at our expense!)--or break with
this
swindler and and exposure of him in the CO. He pays lip-service to
the
Party and behaves worse than any other of the
factionalists.
In a 1916 letter to Zinoviev
Lenin said,
"We had better deal with Trotsky in
Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata;
he has to be dealt with at greater
length."
And finally, in another letter to
Zinoviev in the same year Lenin
stated,
"...It's
ghastly. I don't know what to do. Yet something has
still
to
be written about opportunism (I have 1/2 of it ready),
about
defeatism, and about Trotskyism (including the Duma group + P. S.
D.)."
COMMENTS BY TROTSKY ABOUT LENIN
And we must certainly not forget
the following opinions of Lenin
expressed by Trotsky in a 1913 Letter to
Chkeidze in which he stated,
"The wretched squabbling systematically provoked
by Lenin, that old hand
at the game, that professional exploiter of all that
is backward in the
Russian labour movement, seems like a senseless
obsession.... The entire
edifice of Leninism Is built on lies and
falsification and bears within
itself the poisonous elements of its own
decay."
WELL, THERE YOU HAVE IT LADIES AND GENTLEMAN;
SPELLED OUT BY 10 POSTS
IN ALL ITS GORY DETAIL.
NOW YOU KNOW WHY
TROTSKY WAS THE ONLY MAJOR LEADER NOT AT LENIN'S FUNERAL.
NOW YOU KNOW
WHY TROTSKY WAS NEVER SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED FOR THE
POSITION OF GENERAL
SECRETARY OF THE PARTY.
NOW YOU KNOW WHY TROTSKY'S PROGRAM WAS SOLIDLY
AND ROUNDLY REJECTED AT
THE 13TH PARTY CONGRESS IN 1924 AND THE 15TH PARTY
CONGRESS IN 1927, THE
LATTER BY A VOTE OF 740,000 T0 4,000.
AND
ABOVE ALL, NOW YOU KNOW WHY TROTSKYISM IS NOT
MARXISM-LENINISM.