27.06.2001

Trotsky and Lenin?s ?Testament?

Paul Flewers examines indications of a changed outlook

One thing that unites both supporters and critics of Trotsky is that they agree that the one great change in his political life was when he decided to join the Bolsheviks in the dramatic days of 1917, after having spent over a decade subjecting them and their leader, Lenin, to a barrage of criticism.

Trotsky justified his change in allegiance by saying that Lenin had effectively adopted the theory of permanent revolution by rejecting his own theory of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, and, not without meeting resistance, reoriented his party onto the course of establishing in Russia a proletarian regime as the first stage of a Europe-wide revolution. This is fair enough: Lenin?s April theses showed a distinct turn from the - to be honest - incomprehensible idea of Russia?s next stage being the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry within a bourgeois republic, to the concepts outlined in Trotsky?s theory.

This article, however, looks at another reorientation in Trotsky?s political career, one that was more significant than his joining the Bolsheviks in 1917, as it represented a change in a fundamental facet of his political thinking; a change, moreover, that was for the better, and one which remains of great significance for socialists today.

The legacy of the Second International

The various factions of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party were part of the Second International, and although they tended to be more radical than many of their west European comrades, as it was not very realistic being a mild reformist in the tsarist empire, they adhered to the ?tatist and paternalistic approach of the International. Anyone who peruses the major works of Karl Kautsky, the main theoretician of the International and the mentor up until 1914 of the Bolsheviks, will notice that there is an absence of any discussion around how the victorious working class will exercise its power under the dictatorship of the proletariat, particularly in respect of ideas concerning the relationship between the management of industry at local levels and the administration of the economy at regional and national levels, and those concerning the relationship between the working class and its political organisations.

This is the case even with Kautsky?s most radical work, The road to power, first published in 1909. Here he talks about the liberation of the proletariat requiring ?supplanting private property in the capitalist means of production and power with social ownership and the replacement of private production with social production?, without once looking at the mechanics of the process (K Kautsky The road to power Atlantic Highlands 1996, p1).

This is why Lenin?s writings in 1917, in particular State and revolution and Can the Bolsheviks retain state power?, are so significant. Drawing upon his observations of the rise of workers? control and other examples of working class activity in Russia, they raise the question of how workers would be able to coordinate their activities on a local level with the direction of the national economy under a proletarian regime. And although there were significant gaps in the narrative - for instance, State and revolution cuts off at the point when Lenin planned to talk about the crucial matter of the relationship between the revolutionary party and the working class - and his proposals were rather abstract, these writings represented a considerable break from and advance upon what his mentors in the Second International had to say on these matters.

A range of objective factors prevented the Bolsheviks from maintaining a proletarian dictatorship in a democratic manner, and this dictatorship became manifested in the rule of the Soviet Communist Party, which ended up acting as a substitute for the dispersed and d?class? proletariat. Nevertheless, there was also a subjective factor behind this process. It is legitimate to investigate the degree to which Lenin?s comrades understood his writings on the exercising of proletarian power. Very few people could have written State and revolution, to be sure, but the real issue is the question of how many Bolsheviks took its prescriptions to heart.

Lenin?s subsequent writings show how he saw the proletarian regime being narrowed down from the working class ruling as a whole in 1917, to being represented by its active members in 1918, by the party in 1919, and towards the end of his life by the party leadership - and its senior members to boot. In the very difficult conditions existing within the Soviet republic during the Civil War, however, it is clear that the Bolsheviks, including Lenin, fell back towards the ?tatist and paternalistic attitudes of the Second International, which, under those conditions, acted as a barrier to the resurrection of soviet democracy, and helped the party to become divorced from the working class, rising above it and ruling in its name.

Although Trotsky?s theory of permanent revolution shows the possibility of a proletarian revolution in a backward country, the sections in his Results and prospects about the mechanics of a proletarian dictatorship do not go further than the usual Second International statements on the benefits of the common ownership of the means of production under a socialist regime. Indeed, there is little evidence prior to 1923 of Trotsky promoting a democratic proletarian course - either as a lone wolf within Russian social democracy or afterwards as a leader of the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet state.

Trotsky was one of the most determined centralisers during the Civil War, with his plans for labour armies and the militarisation of industry, which he vividly codified in his book, written in the heat of the war, Terrorism and communism. Moreover, this work was a sophisticated justification for the substitution of the rule of the revolutionary party for the rule of the proletariat. One cannot deny that under the conditions pertaining during and immediately after the Civil War, the Soviet authorities were obliged to appoint officials to areas in which the Soviet institutions had been dispersed and personnel killed by enemy forces, or to direct labour in order, say, to rebuild the administrative, transport and industrial infrastructure in areas where a suitable workforce did not exist. However, to continue, as the Bolsheviks did, with such administrative methods, and, particularly in respect of Trotsky?s ideas about labour militarisation, to try to develop what were emergency, short-term measures into long-term, extensive practices and schemes, clearly indicate deep-running political and theoretical problems.

Anti-communist writers have long asserted that Stalin?s crash industrialisation scheme from 1929 merely put into practice on a grand scale what Trotsky had proposed in 1920. (See, for example, Alfred Meyer, ?Lev Davidovich Trotsky? Problems of communism November-December 1967; Vladimir Brovkin Behind the front lines of the Civil War Princeton 1994, p275. Nevertheless, at the time, at least one bourgeois commentator, a fiercely anti-Bolshevik British army intelligence officer sent to work with Kolchak?s White army, thought Trotsky?s ideas were an ideal way of getting these lazy Russians to work - see Francis McCullagh Prisoner of the reds: the story of a British officer captured in Siberia London 1921, p94.)

This can be expected, as for these people the very idea of a planned economy and the supersession of the market is an anathema, an offence against all economic and social laws. Nevertheless, even someone as sympathetic to Bolshevism and Trotsky as Isaac Deutscher claimed that ?a decade later Stalin ? was to adopt Trotsky?s ideas in all but name?: ?There was hardly a single plank in Trotsky?s programme of 1920-21 which Stalin did not use during the industrial revolution of the 1930s.? Deutscher lists them: the conscription and direction of labour, unions to have a ?productionist? outlook and to be arms of the state, ?socialist emulation?, Taylorism, and so on (I Deutscher The prophet armed Oxford 1979, p515).

Deutscher confronts this with some discomfort, and does not hide his disapproval. Other Trotskyists have not commented on this awkward question. Tony Cliff criticises Trotsky?s policies during War Communism, but does not compare them with Stalin?s policies after 1929 (T Cliff Trotsky 1917-1923: the sword of the revolution London 1990, pp169, 179), whilst Richard Brenner?s introduction to Trotsky makes no mention at all of his ideas about the militarisation of labour, thus failing to introduce his readers to one of Trotsky?s least admirable proposals (R Brenner Trotsky: an introduction London, nd). Ernest Mandel strongly condemns Trotsky?s labour militarisation schemes, but qualifies this by pointing to ?Trotsky?s proposal that the trade unions should train workers to take the place of the factory directors in the running of the big enterprises?, which, he says, ?would be an obvious step in the direction of workers? self-manage?ment? (E Mandel Trotsky as alternative London 1995, p55). Mandel appears to miss the point that in the absence of workers? democracy in the factory, such a proposal would merely result in the elevation of workers into the enterprise management. In fact, this is precisely what happened during the five-year plans in the 1930s, when many thousands of workers became managers, and by so doing entered the ranks of the Soviet bureaucracy.

Rather than skate over this negative side of Trotsky?s career, those who wish to uphold the revolutionary aspects of Bolshevism and the Left Opposition must confront it, try to understand how he came to it, how and when he attempted to break from it, and how successful he was in reorienting himself.

Lenin?s ?Testament?

Lenin?s health had been poor after his first stroke in May 1922, and during his enforced semi-retirement he started to look critically at the condition of the Soviet state and the ruling party. It is clear that although he hated to admit it, he felt that his death was drawing near. And so, at the end of 1922, he dictated some notes to be read to the next party congress, should he not survive until then. These notes are usually called his ?Testament?, and are an appraisal of six of the members of the party?s top leadership.

Although by Lenin?s robust standards of criticism, his remarks were considerably restrained, none of the Bolshevik leaders thus appraised came off lightly. Lenin was concerned that Stalin may not be able to wield properly the ?unlimited power? he had accrued in his hands. Trotsky, ?perhaps the most capable man? in the leadership, had ?displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work?. He aimed to remind the congress of Zinoviev?s and Kamenev?s defaulting on the eve of the October Revolution, but says that they were no more ?personally? to blame for this than Trotsky was for his ?non-Bolshevism?. Bukharin was ?a most valuable and major theorist?, but had ?never fully understood? the dialectic. Piatakov had ?outstanding ability?, but showed ?too much zeal for administrating and the administrative side of the work to be relied upon in a serious political matter?. Lenin concluded that these criticisms only applied to the present, on the assumption that those criticised might fail ?to find an occasion to enhance their knowledge and amend their one-sided?ness? (VI Lenin ?Letter to the Congress? CW Vol 36, Moscow 1971, pp593-5). Just what Lenin meant by Trotsky?s ?non-Bolshevism? is not clear from these cryptic notes. It could well be argued that it meant that Trotsky had not been able to construct an organisation with living links with the working class, rather than the mere fact that he had not been a member of the Bolshevik faction. Lenin?s attitude towards the Bolshevik organisation was practical - could it do its job? - rather than being based upon any mystical regard for it. If it no longer could serve its purpose, he would have abandoned it, and started anew.

Between then and the attack that robbed him of the ability to speak on March 7-8 1923, Lenin fired off a series of further notes, including one calling for Stalin?s removal from the post of the party?s general secretary. From then until his death 10 months later, Lenin was effectively a voiceless observer. The ?Testament? was read out to the delegates attending the 13th party congress in May 1924, and leaked copies were to appear in various publications outwith the Soviet Union, although the text was not officially published in that country until 1956.

What was the effect of Lenin?s ?Testament?? We do know what happened with Lenin?s comrades who were named in it. Stalin certainly was quite unable to wield the power in his hands with due care and restraint, and his subsequent career was to be marked by the steady boosting of his power, and the wielding of it in an increasingly irresponsible and ultimately deranged and demonic manner. Zinoviev and Kamenev continued to act in a manner which showed all too clearly that their reliability could not be trusted. Bukharin?s approach, particularly over the relationship between agriculture and industry, continued to be quite undialectical. Piatakov?s predilection with administration led him to break rapidly and thoroughly from the Left Opposition, and to become one of Stalin?s most bureaucratic subalterns in the 1930s. They did not ?amend their one-sidedness?. If anything, they just got worse.

Trotsky?s change of heart

And then there is Trotsky. Deutscher shows the changes that had already taken place in his approach, as the Bolsheviks ?in pursuit of their dream ? had built up an immense and centralised machine of power? to which one after another aspect of that dream had been surrendered, right down to their own freedom: ?Nobody had in 1920-21 gone farther than Trotsky in demanding that every interest and aspiration should be wholly subordinated to the ?iron dictatorship?. Yet he was the first of the Bolshevik chiefs to turn against the machine of that dictatorship when it began to devour the dream? (I Deutscher The prophet unarmed Oxford 1978, p73).

In the autumn of 1923, Trotsky published in Pravda several articles which subsequently appeared as The new course, and which complained of the baleful effects of bureaucratism, thus showing that he was sloughing off his bureaucratic and ?tatist tendencies prior to Lenin?s rebuke being revealed.

However, despite this, he also showed little enthusiasm for a thoroughgoing fight, and made some extremely dangerous concessions that could only have the effect of rapidly backfiring against him. For instance, he even publicly denied the existence of Lenin?s ?Testament? when it was published in the west by his friend, Max Eastman. His declaration in 1924 that one cannot be correct if one stands opposed to the party may have been an ironic or sarcastic statement, but few have ever seen it in that way. And if he meant it seriously, well, all one can say is that there is no place in Marxism for the concept of party infallibility. How could any of this possibly help the fight for a healthy Communist Party and Soviet state?

Nevertheless, the Platform of the Left Opposition of 1927, which was very much Trotsky?s work, was insistent on the need for the revival of workers? democracy, and this call was a key part of Trotsky?s writings throughout his last period of exile. His programme for the Soviet Union, best shown in The Death agony of capitalism and the tasks of the Fourth International of 1938 (and better known as the Transitional programme), which centred upon the revival of soviet democracy, including the legalisation of all parties recognising the soviet system, and the full involvement of workers? institutions in the running of society, stands in sharp contrast to the ?tatist stance that he took in 1920. And yet there was clearly a reluctance on the part of Trotsky to re-evaluate his pre-1923 ideas and activities.

In the reissue of Terrorism and communism published in 1935, he skated over the whole experience of War Communism, saying that the Bolsheviks? policies were based upon their expectation of an imminent European revolution and a rapid shift towards socialism, thus avoiding the question of both the Bolsheviks? substitution of themselves for the working class and his own authoritarian outlook. Despite the fact that his Revolution betrayed, which appeared a year or so later, contained a profound and intricate explanation of the rise of the Soviet party-state apparatus into a bureaucracy that was developing its own interests and its ultimate transformation into a ruling ?lite, it too skated across his own role in this process, as did his uncompleted biography of Stalin, even though this book probed into the bureaucratic practices that were evident in the Bolshevik party prior to 1917. Trotsky?s insistence that Stalin?s Soviet Union remained a ?workers? state?, despite its political regime being worse than fascism, hardly clarified matters.

Although by no means can all of its shenanigans be blamed on Trotsky, the running of the Fourth International smacked more of Zinoviev?s manipulative management of the Communist International than the operation of a properly democratic international organisation of revolutionaries. Furthermore, Trotsky?s behaviour towards Victor Serge was most shabby, not least when Serge called for a reappraisal of the more questionable episodes in which the Bolsheviks had been involved, particularly the crushing of the Kronstadt revolt in 1921.

So why was Trotsky unwilling to match his call for the revival of soviet democracy with a reappraisal of War Communism Bolshevism? Firstly, it was not merely a case of Trotsky?s personal role, important as it was. It was a matter of his being a Bolshevik. To have said that his ?tatist stance was wrong, or at least open to review, would have put his entire reputation as a Bolshevik into question, as the Soviet Communist Party as a whole went along with the theory and practice of War Communism, if not with all of Trotsky?s proposals of the time. A re-evaluation would have permitted the Stalinists to have condem?ned all the more his ?non-Bolshevism?, and, already subjected to a barrage of lies and distortions, he did not wish to give them an opportunity to intensify their attack.

Secondly, it is true that some former adherents of Bolshevism had started their drift into social democracy, liberalism or overt reaction by attempting to re?appraise the record of the Bolsheviks in power, and Trotsky did not wish to give anyone an excuse to leave the revolutionary movement by opening up a discussion on this subject.

But Trotsky?s refusal to subject his record and that of Bolshevism as a whole to some sort of critique, particularly when such disasters as the crushing of the Kronstadt rebellion - to name only the most symbolic example - are taken into consideration, posed the danger of his being led into adopting a stance that could not ultimately avoid becoming uncritical and religious - the very opposite of the critical, inquiring attitude that is essential to Marxism. It could hardly have given the Stalinists much more ammunition to use against him, as by the mid-1930s their anti-Trotsky campaign had gone way beyond any discussion of facts, and reflected nothing more than the ravings of Stalin?s paranoid mind. And clinging dogmatically to ideas cannot guarantee that people will continue to adhere to an outlook, as some of the most dramatic repudiations of opinion have been by those who were formerly the most faithful.

The fight against bureaucratism

Lenin transcended to a partial but nonetheless important degree the limitations of the Second International in 1917, but the pull of its orthodoxy assisted his slide back into a paternalistic stance when objective conditions undermined his desires for the full involvement of the working class in the running of society. Nevertheless, it is significant that Lenin, sensing the nearness of his own death and aware that the Soviet leadership, already facing tremendous problems, would be in a worse position to deal with them without his presence, pointed to Trotsky?s bureaucratic attitude, his ?excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work?, as the latter?s calls for the militarisation of labour and far-reaching ?tatism during the Civil War were amongst the most stark manifestations of the way that the party-state apparatus was rising over the working class, and steadily substituting itself for it.

Lenin must have been aware that the commune-state that he envisaged in State and revolution had singularly failed to come into being. His remarks about Trotsky?s bureaucratic attitude suggests that he was pointing out that unless the ?most capable? of his colleagues understood this and did something positive about it, it might not ever see the light of day.

Although Trotsky made various theoretical, strategic and tactical mistakes from the time of The new course until his death in 1940, it is clear that of all those named in Lenin?s ?Testament?, he was the only one who attempted to address his negative points and reconsider his ideas, and - most importantly - he made a concerted effort to reassert the democratic thrust of Bolshevism that Lenin had demonstrated in 1917. Lenin?s criticisms fed into the disquiet that Trotsky was already starting to feel about developments within the party and state apparatus.

For all his faults, including his unwillingness theoretically to confront his own actions and ideas during the Civil War, Trotsky recognised that the bureaucratic tendencies that had developed in the Soviet Union were steadily stifling the positive aspects of Bolshevism, and he did heed Lenin?s words on the subject. And that is very much to his credit.