Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) was a close associate of Lenin
during the Russian Revolution and Early days of the Bolshevik State. He held a
seat on Russia’s powerful Communist Party eight member Politburo until 1926. He
shared Lenin’s undying belief in the Dictatorship of the Proletariat through
violent revolution and class struggle. He held to that fanatically until his
last day. He wrote voluminously throughout his life in newspapers, journals and
books, including his own biography and an extensive history of the Russian
Revolution.
The Bolsheviks, who undertook a successful coup in Petrograd
in November 1917, began immediately to stifle democratic governance. The first
day that the popularly elected Constituent Assembly convened, of which the
Bolsheviks were a minority, they used the military to shut it down and dispersed
it (January 1918).
Karl Marx promoted a hypothesis, based on Hegelian
dialectics, which presumed historical determinism would inevitably be the end
of capitalism. Feudalism is succeeded by Bourgeois society then subsumed by
large capitalist enterprises that dominate the society. However, Capitalism’s
increasing efficiencies will predictably impoverish the working class or rather
Imperial competition will lead to international warfare, both would precipitate a
revolution led by this Revolutionary Proletariat. This revolutionary
proletariat over a period will produce a classless society.
Lenin advanced the idea a small, disciplined revolutionary
Marxist Party could become the vanguard of the proletariat and conduct a
society into a Communist utopia, skipping the stages that included Bourgeois
parliamentary politics. Russia as you would know had a tiny working class of a
couple million industrial workers and 100 million peasants. It was far from a
state typified by Marx that was heavily industrialized and would be expected to
see this transition into revolution and a communist classless society. Under Lenin’s
ideas this revolutionary Proletariat would violently struggle against counter-revolutionary
forces, using whatever means necessary for their success.
Trotsky, while ostensibly a Menshevik (Minority) since
the 2nd Party Congress of 1903, joined the Bolsheviks(Majority) in
the 1917 after the overthrow of the Romanov monarchy and the institution of
parliamentary government. From then on he clung to Lenin’s nostrum of the
Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the justice of violent class struggle
against counter-revolutionary forces. Bolsheviks had abjured any participation
with parliamentary government, in opposition to the Mensheviks. Bolsheviks
insisted on a party of highly disciplined, dedicated revolutionary workers, not simply
political supporters.
The handles for each of the factions of the Russian
Socialist Party were due to the boycotting of the 1902 Congress by the
Mensheviks that left the Bolsheviks the majority of the party at the Congress.
Trotsky, who was already well known for his energetic
work in the 1905 failed Revolution, participated in the coup d’etat of November
1917 that overthrew the Provisional government and for his leading military role in
the Russian Civil war. His energy at rallying the Red Army Forces contributed significantly
to the Bolsheviks regime to survive and led to great popularity with Russian
people. In an army that lacked strictness, he was not above using violent measures including summary execution to
enforce military discipline.
Trotsky had asked Stalin to be removed from the Southern
Front for insubordination but Lenin and the leadership never consented for his
removal. During this conflict Stalin had reached out to Trotsky to make some tentative
amends but was rebuffed, according to Volkogonov in his biography, Trotsky,
Eternal Revolutionary. This certainly contributed to the animosity between these two future candidates for the leadership of the Party.
In March 1921 when it appeared that the Bolsheviks
had won the Civil War, Trotsky endorsed the crack down on the Kronstadt naval
rebellion that protested violent suppression of strikes in Petrograd and
demanded democratic reforms. Kronstadt sailors had been one of the first to
support the 1917 Revolution. The Bolsheviks took 12 days of fighting to
suppress the rebellion. 3,000 sailors were killed or wounded and more than
1,200 were executed afterwards. For many this was the end of the hopes for a
truly democratic revolution. Trotsky, a member of the Politburo, condoned the crackdown.
At that very same time in 1921 the 10th Party
Congress banned dissent; internal factions were forbidden. These included the
Workers Opposition that promoted syndicalism and Democratic Centralists that
desired more power to the Soviets (Councils). The party becomes dedicated to
being monolithic. Discussion, dissent or disagreement becomes forbidden unless
directed by the leadership of the Party. Lenin and Trotsky sanctioned this
regime. By the Civil War (1918-1921) Lenin and the Bolshevik party, along with
Trotsky, had built a one-party state, ready, willing and able to crush
opposition. It would come to haunt Trotsky in the power struggles between him
and the leadership in the Politburo.
Trotsky believed in the justice of using terror and
repression in Class Struggle against counter-revolutionaries, as mentioned above with the crackdown on the Kronstadt naval base. And he was
additionally amoral when it came to economic matters. Trotsky wrote in
Terrorism and Communism (1920):
Repression for the
attainment of economic ends is a necessary weapon of the socialist
dictatorship.
The same Party he did so much to support would come to crush
him, his family and his associates. Ironically, his prescription for Stalin’s
ever increasing control over the party was to demand more democracy in the Party.
It was this same Party he helped create that had violently suppressed opposition
and had outlawed dissension, internal factions, within the Party at the 10th
Party Congress.
One of the first glaring missteps to claim Lenin’s mantel was
Trotsky’s absence from Lenin’s funeral. He was on holiday in Odessa and was
told that the funeral was Saturday when in fact it became Sunday. Nonetheless,
Trotsky should have made all efforts to reach Moscow at the earliest hour,
instead of consigning himself not to be present. Trotsky’s absence made a very
bad impression on the Party.
After Lenin’s early death in January 1924, a power struggle
began for leadership of the Bolshevik party and the leadership of Soviet
Russia. Earlier Lenin had asked Trotsky
to be his deputy in the government (Sovnarcom), basically second in line, but
he demurred; he was too busy with his publishing activities. This was a
colossal blunder.
Stalin, named General Secretary of the party, had control of
the membership and was ready to join with Kamenev and Zinoviev within the
Politburo to outnumber Trotsky. Trotsky found himself outvoted 7-1 immediately
in issues before the Politburo. Critically, Trotsky held himself above the fray
and chose to absent himself for long periods from Moscow, mostly excusing
himself for health reasons and occupying himself with his writing. He was a haughty,
prima donna and I wonder if he in some way expected the party to recognize he
was Lenin’s successor by acclamation, due to his popularity based on roles in
the Revolution and the Civil War.
Nearing death, Lenin had written a testament with negative
characterizations of Stalin, calling for his removal from the General
Secretariat, but the testament was never allowed to be released to the party
faithful. The Testament was read out to the 13th Party Congress
Central Committee after Lenin’s death, but Party members were not allowed to
take notes. Little was made of it, contrary to Trotsky’s expectations. Enough
criticism was leveled to others in the leadership beside Stalin that few wanted
dwell on his testament. Stalin’s position in the Party was not shaken.
Trotsky, ever the revolutionary, insisted that Soviet Russia
needed Permanent revolution to be successful, a revolution rolling across
national boundaries. This view was not nearly as popular with the Party as
Stalin’s claim that Russia could successfully build socialism in the one
country of Russia without an expanded Permanent revolution. Trotsky assumed
without it, Soviet Russia would be in the throes of militarism, defending
itself from capitalist attack.
Not engaged in any effective political coalition building,
he was continually outmaneuvered my Stalin. Trotsky was ousted from the
Politburo in 1926; he was removed from the Central Committee in October 1927. Trotsky
hadn’t made alliances in the military, either, despite his leading military
role in the Revolution and the Civil War.
Trotsky and his small faction of Oppositionists resorted to
attempting to ignite an uprising against the Party, so securely ensconced in
power. His supporters went to factory gates, trying to stir up the workers. At
the 10th Anniversary of the November 1917 revolution parade in
Moscow supporters of Trotsky, Kamenev (his brother in law) and Zinoviev
attempted to publicly protest. The troika is said by Trotsky to have been
driving around Moscow, stopped by police, they were led to the Platform to the
accompaniment of cheers. These types of demonstrations were utterly futile and
Trotsky was deluded to think otherwise.
This public disruption (November 1927) was not taken kindly
by the leadership of the Party. Trotsky, Kamenev, and Zinoviev were expelled
from the Communist Party. Kamenev and Zinoviev recanted their opposition soon
after and was graciously allowed to return to the Party; they will fall under
Stalinist oppression nonetheless in 1936 at the Show trials.
Trotsky had little respect people of lesser intellect,
unless they were assisting him with his writing. Note Trotsky, Jewish from
Odessa region, had to enhance his Russia, and went on to learn
to speak and write German and French and some English; he studied mathematics
and physics until politics took over his life. He had a brilliant intellect.
This is a classic case of high IQ and mediocre emotional intelligence,
something Stalin was superb at. In his ascent to dictatorship, no one allied
with Stalin thinking here is some sinister monster who’s going to kill us all.
Later in the purges in the 1930’s he eliminated all of his prior allies and a
couple of his secret police henchmen like Yagoda and Yezhov, who were executed
as well after they had fulfilled their usefulness. Stalin was a master manipulator.
Trotsky was essentially a polemicist and historian. Not a
great theoretician, his one contribution to Communist thought was the aforementioned
idea of Permanent Revolution. He wrote voluminously, much of which was to pay
the bills after his exile.
After his expulsion from Soviet Russia, Trotsky began to advocate
violent overthrow of the Stalinist regime. He had virtually no means to see
this accomplished, but paranoid Stalin was incensed at his rhetoric and
insisted on him being silenced. Stalin’s paybacks were legendary. Trotsky
himself had to take ever increasing safety measures and often moved. He first
took up residence, after being expelled from Soviet Russia, on the island
Prinkipo, in the Sea of Marmara in Turkey in 1929, deemed sufficiently safe. But
there were exiled White Russians who would have loved to see his death as well.
Something Stalin would love to blame Trotsky’s death on. He remained there for
4 years hoping some western country would accept him. He subsequently went from
France to Norway then in 1937 to Mexico and lived with Diego Rivera, the famous
Mexican painter for two years. They had a falling out, due to it seems his too
intimate relationship with his artist wife Frieda Kahlo. In May, 1940 a group of assassins led by the
KGB, shot up his house with over a hundred bullets and a couple bombs that
failed to explode. He miraculously survived. He was assassinated in August 1940
at his heavily guarded house by an ice pick of an associate of his trusted female
assistant, she being unaware of his true identity as KGB agent.
Stalin wouldn’t be satisfied with Trotsky’s death. His
entire family fell under the wheel of Stalin’s organs of oppression except for
his second wife, Natalia. His youngest daughter succumbed to tuberculosis for
lack of medical care in 1928. His eldest daughter Zinaida committed suicide in
1933, out of despair in Berlin. Zinaida left her young daughter in Russia,
never to be heard from again. His first wife, Alexandra Sokolovskaya, who
introduced him to Communism and he abandoned in 1902 in Siberia with two
children, was swallowed up by the Gulag and died sometime around 1938. His son,
Lev Sedova, from his second marriage, who worked closely with him, died after
complications from an operation for appendix, in a private clinic, in 1938. He
went to the private facility under an assumed name fearing discovery by the
NKVD. His operation, initially successful, turned to fatal complications. Some
point to the NKVD as possible agent in his death. Sergei, his younger son, was
apolitical became an engineer, but Stalin came for him nonetheless and died
in the Gulag in 1937, charged with a trumped accusation of poisoning
co-workers. His wife died in the Gulag. His sister, Olga, wife of Kamenev of
Show Trial fame, was executed in 1941 in the Medvedev Forest. Her sons were
executed in 1937 and 1938. Wives of his sons, uncles and aunts, sisters and
their husbands all went under the maw of Stalinist oppression. His parents who
help support him throughout his adult life died prior to the rise of Stalin’s
full power, his father in 1920’s and his mother in 1910.
Finally, Trotsky was dedicated to violent class struggle,
command control of the economy, a one Party Communist State. It is not very
likely his rule would have been radically different than Stalin’s. He advocated
collectivization of agriculture and the rapid industrialization of the economy
before Stalin began to implement them in the late 1920’s after his exile. Even
after being exiled from Soviet Russia and advocating leadership change, he
makes no mention of the ghastly effects of the collectivization of agriculture
or the extensive Stalinist purges.
“Above all [the
Proletariat] must be completely free from the fictions of religion, ‘democracy’
and transcendental morality- spiritual chains forged by the enemy to tame it
and enslave it…..Welfare of the revolution – that is the supreme law!” He and
his family died under that law.
