A certainly infamous figure which is dreaded by most Marxists-Leninists, with good reason at least. However, one thing that the dialectical principle teaches us is that to overcome something, its useful, positive, or correct aspects must be preserved.
I became less and less against the historical figure of Trotsky, but I remain anti-Trotskyist, because there are a big difference between Trotsky and Trotskyism. What made me change my mind over time was realizing that I have actually never read anything by Trotsky, I still don’t know his biography, but it’s a fact that he was very relevant in the October Revolution.
After reading the first two chapters of The revolution betrayed, I noticed how Trotsky’s 1936 analysis on the relationship between the peasantry and the state industry under the NEP was correct up to the academic standards of E. H. Carr (1950–1978),[1] Charles Bettelheim (1978)[2] and R.W. Davies (1980)[3], using statistical data available at their time. I don’t know about Trotsky’s conclusion on the character of the Soviet state because I haven’t read his work in full.
Much like Stalin, Trotsky is a very contradictory figure, so it’s very hard to simplify them by picking a side and denying the usefulness of the other. It’s a dogmatic mentality that we should strive to avoid at all costs, because the truth is the whole, not the single perspective we pick. The intention of this post is a call for us to overcome these barriers that hamper our understanding of the past, and therefore, the present. I have noticed how many Marxists-Leninists are able to read works produced by bourgeois academics, yet preserve a hatred for certain figures (such as Trotsky, Bukharin, Khrushchev, etc.) so big that they cannot understand the historical place of them.
14 volumes of A history of Soviet Russia, published between the years of 1950 and 1978. ↩︎
Charles Bettelheim (1978). Class struggles in the USSR, second period: 1923–1930. New York: Monthly Review Press. ↩︎
R. W. Davies (1980). The socialist offensive: the collectivisation of Soviet agriculture, 1929–1930. The industrialisation of Soviet Russia, vol.1. Palgrave Macmillan ↩︎
It was to draw attention, because Trotsky is one of the most reviled historical figures by Marxists-Leninists, yet I was showing an example of how our generalizations of these historical figures usually cannot fully encompass their historical place. I was inspired to do this post because I was naturally against Trotsky as a Marxist-Leninist, but I’ve never read any of his works. I have once even read excerpts of Mein Kampf to write about Nazi ideology, but not once I touched Trotsky’s works, funny enough. This was my intention with the post as I made clear here:
I can say for sure, I don’t know Trotsky’s, nor Bukharin’s, nor Khrushchev’s historical place. I don’t know their motives, their reasoning behind their actions, their intentions and political purposes. In a writing published on Pravda in 6 November 1918, Stalin writes:
Why did Trotsky, whose contribution was immense in the victory of the revolution (as noted in John Reed’s book Ten days that shook the world) would later become a traitor? What motivated him to become a revolutionary, and later a reactionary? That’s what I’m saying: I have no idea, I am fully ignorant on this. I do not understand Trotsky’s historical role, and the fact that I was so disgusted by the idea of reading Trotsky didn’t help either. This is what inspired me to make this post: my dogmatic approach to this question, to simply say “Trotsky bad” didn’t help me at all in understanding historical facts. Based on this approach, I was doing the same thing that Trotskyists do to Stalin, simply denounce him dogmatically without understanding his historical role.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. What are my “needs,” as you see it? 🤔
The idea of NEP was not the idea of a single person. It was decided collectively through the Central Committee, which included Lenin, Trotsky, Kamanev, Stalin, Bukharin, Zinoviev and others. It was a response to the unsustainable practice of war communism and confiscation of agricultural products. The tax in kind, which was buying products produced by peasants, was enacted. Along that, commodity production and private property were allowed with certain restrictions, and this inevitably gave rise to economic differentiation, which would manifest in the form of the kulaks.
Over time, the tax in kind as was established at the beginning of the 1920’s proved to also be unsustainable as seen with the grain procurement crises of 1927-28. When certain members of the Politburo enacted a top-down approach to collectivization in 1930, by that time, Kamanev, Zinoviev, Bukharin and Trotsky were all expelled before they even established a bloc of counter-revolutionary action. While some of them were already factions inside the party, a phenomenon quite common in the history of the CPSU, they organized an anti-party counter-revolutionary bloc in response to their expellings.
Note that the dispute between Trotsky and Stalin was at that time very much in favor of Stalin. In the 15th Congress in 1927, Stalin’s position received 725,000 votes, while the Left Opposition received 6,000 votes. The Left Opposition represented no real political threat, but they were politically shut down anyways. Also note that while purges happened during Lenin’s time in the party to remove lazy officials and other undesirables, there was no expelling of high-profile members of the party, even the opportunist Trotsky. Lenin fought Trotsky with criticism not with political persecution.
This is not a twisting of a story, this is a critical evaluation of the political mistakes of Stalin and their allies. This is the reason why Stalin’s opponents had to resort to conspiratorial action, because in their minds, they were the “real revolutionaries” fighting against a “bureaucrat.” These political mistakes of Stalin gave rise to an opportunist who concealed their views and eventually became General Secretary, which was Khrushchev. Khrushchev was a Bukharinite because party democracy was so limited these views didn’t have the opportunity to be discussed and criticized.
Also note that this phenomenon happened after Stalin’s death, which was a sign that the party already had contradictions and they were triggered by the death of Stalin. The same thing happened after the death of Mao in the CPC, also a sign of the lack of party democracy. But note how this didn’t happen in the Communist Party of Cuba after Fidel’s death, nor in the Workers’ Party of Korea after Kim Il-sung’s or Kim Jong-il’s death. This can be a sign that these communist parties developed a sustainable internal democracy and that divergent opinions were treated through critical evaluation, not political persecution.
As I claim in the rest of the post (which consists of more than just the title), this isn’t really about Trotsky, it’s about fighting dogmatism. I used Trotsky to draw attention, and I have no intention, nor reason to rehabilitate Trotsky, I only used him as an example. I may have committed a mistake because I possibly gave reason to interpret it as a rehabilitation, but in no way there’s any need to rehabilitate Trotsky, only to fully contextualize his historical place. I’m also bringing attention to the fact that the political mistakes of the leadership were also responsible for the counter-revolutionary action of the opposition. While Trotsky was always a factionalist since his time as a Menshevik, the fact that he was increasingly politically irrelevant gave no reason to political persecution. The persecution against opponents actually radicalized this opposition. For instance, Zinoviev and Kamanev were very much against Trotsky, but when they themselves began to be expelled, they joined Trotsky in an anti-party bloc. The same later happened with Bukharin.
I also have no intention of exchanging private messages, as I think public discussions are more useful since others can read what we say, correct our positions and even learn from our discussions. Private messages would render this impossible.
Have a good night comrade.
Yet again, you completely misrepresent my points, but I digress. I also edited my previous comment to further respond to your previous statements.
It’s not that hatred and understanding are mutually exclusive. As I said:
I gave the emphasis on “so big” now so you can maybe understand my point. It’s not simply hatred, it’s the blind historical hatred that prevents one to dig deeper. Like Trotskyists hate Stalin so much they cannot see how much Trotsky was constantly an opportunist with frequent changing positions according to the political winds, without solid principles. They label Trotsky as a “real Leninist” not because of their study of Lenin, but based solely on their opposition to the historical figure of Stalin.
Did I mention it to excuse his actions whatsoever? You see how you twist it to mechanically make it appear one can only pick one side on Trotsky? Either he was an opportunist or he was a revolutionary. My point is that everyone is contradictory, every historical figure has contradictions along their lives. When I mention that Trotsky was a military leader of the October Revolution (which is a fact), you say I’m “excusing” his opportunism. Much like a Trotskyist would say I’m a Stalinist when I say that Stalin was a revolutionary leader of the USSR and not an autocratic bureaucrat. That’s exactly what I was saying at the beginning of the post, it’s a metaphysical dogmatism that prevents one from understanding the whole, the contradictions inherent of these historical figures, of historical movements and even the history of class struggle.
Like you said how every literature pre-(partial) opening of the archives is useless and “inferior work”, and one should actually read the primary sources. That’s not only a completely dogmatic statement but absolutely idealist, as if we have unrestricted access to the Soviet archives whenever we wish, and if the understanding of the Russian language is an ability every human on the planet is born with. The works I’ve mentioned use mostly Soviet historians as a source, and they had access to the Soviet archives nevertheless. For instance, here’s the bibliography of Charles Bettelheim’s Class struggles in the USSR:
If when one states historical facts you interpret it as picking a side, whether it’s about historical figures or class struggle in general, it shows a mistake on method nevertheless. I do not see history as history of individuals, I began focusing on individuals as a response to your initial comment, focused on Trotsky. I perhaps may have inadvertently made it look like I was “rehabilitating” Trotsky, although you were the only one who understood it that way so far, at least publicly in the comments.
Have a good day, comrade.