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Trotsky and the Bulletin of the Opposition
SAMUEL KASSQW
Trotsky and the Bulletin of the Opposition *
When Trotsky began his first European exile in 1902, he had little money, but at least he was not alone. The European Left had not yet tasted power, and so it was kinder to its own. In Vienna, Victor Adler gave the young refugee money to continue on his journey. In London, Lenin could be roused from bed to pay the cab driver in the middle of the night. How different were the last bitter years in Turkey, France, Norway, and Mexico! The Revolution had triumphed in Russia, and Social Democracy had come to power in a number of countries, but there was no room for Trotsky. In his wanderings, he became part of the 1930s, like the thousands of German Jews roaming the high seas in search of some forsaken Latin American harbor. Europe was collapsing. There was no room for the stateless. But Trotsky did not accept his lot, and his final defeat did not engulf his hopes. To the very end, he was a great voice from the nineteenth century, an intellectual who had seen his dreams come true for a brief moment in 1917 and would never lose his faith in the working class. In exile, he would preach the ideology in whose name he was banished. Many had not forgotten Trotsky's own tenure:
* Biulleten' Oppozltsii (Bol'shevikov-Lenintsev) [Bulletin of the Opposition of Leninist Bolsheviks, hereinafter cited as Bulletin of the Opposition], Vol. I (1929-30), Nos. 1-2 to 18; Vol. II (1931-33), Nos. 19 to 37; Vol. III (1934-37), Nos. 38 to 61; Vol. IV (1938-41), Nos. 62 to 87 (New York: Monad PressPathfinder Press, 1973). STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM
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Kronstadt, the militarization of labor. Trotsky offered no apologies. He was determined to fight back. So, when he arrived in Buyuk Ada in 1929, he started the Bulletin of the Opposition. That very decision reflected his faith in the Party, which he hoped would rally against Stalin and the bureaucracy. " The Party lived on rumors; Stalin had all the facts." 1 Trotsky founded the Bulletin to correct this situation. He hoped it would be read throughout Russia, like Herzen's Kolokol. Nevertheless, George Lichtheim was correct in his assessment that Trotsky's influence in the 1930s was small indeed. Could it have been any different? There are obvious reasons, over which Trotsky had no control, for his increasing isolation on the Left. Fascism was on the march. Stalin was not perfect, but he represented the power of a great state-the one hope of stopping Hitler in an era of Franco, Munich, and appeasement. Yet, ultimately, Trotsky's failure was his own. He had a choice of two roles: pretender to the throne or the conscience of the Revolution. He was not a convincing pretender; but he could have become an intellectual mentor of the Left. The European Left in the 1930s obviously needed a completely new direction, but Trotsky failed to provide it. What kind of direction? Victor Serge suggests the answer in his Memoirs of a Revolutionary. After Serge's release from Soviet exile, he collaborated with the exiled Trotsky but the final break soon came. Serge had begged Trotsky to "include in the Opposition's program a declaration of freedom for all parties accepting the Soviet system.... The only problem which revolutionary Russia, in all the years from 1917 to 1923, utterly failed to consider was the problem of liberty, the only declaration which it had to make afresh and which it never made is the Declaration of the Rights of Man." 2 Serge's article infuriated Trotsky, who broke off all relations and answered with a bitter attack in the Bulletin. How much greater the stature of the Bulletin would have been had it carried Serge's later articles alongside those of Trotsky. It was Serge who drew the correct conclusion: I came to the conclusion that our Opposition had simultaneously contained two opposite lines of significance. For the great majority of its members it had meant resistance to totalitarianism 1. "My trebuern sodeistviia," Bulletin of the Opposition, No.7 (NovemberDecember 1929), p. 39. 2. Victor Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 349.
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in the name of the democratic ideals expressed at the beginning of the Revolution; for a number of our old Bolshevik leaders it meant on the contrary the defense of doctrinal orthodoxy which , while not excluding a certain tendency toward democracy, was authoritarian through and through.... If [Trotsky] in his exile from the U.S.S.R.... had made himself the ideologist of a renewed socialism , critical in outlook and fearing diversity less than dogmatism, perhaps he would have attained a new greatness. But he was the prisoner of his own orthodoxy, the more so since his lapses into unorthodoxy were being denounced as treason. He saw his role as that of one carrying into the world at large a movement which was not only Russian but extinct in Russia itself, killed twice over, both by the bullets of its executioners and by changes in human mentality."
Attitude Toward the Right Wing Even a cursory reading of the Bulletin bears out Serge's indictment. For example, in October 1929, Trotsky published, with a laudatory postscript, an open letter to the Central Committee signed by Rakovsky, Kossior, and Okudzhava. Rakovsky, who in August 1936, was to call for Zinoviev's execution and later suffer a similar fate himself, devoted much of the letter to a strong but well-reasoned attack on many of Bukharin's major theories. Then Rakovsky proceeded to offer a "Marxist" explanation of the Bukharin " deviation." "The social base of the Right Wing danger in the party is composed of petit bourgeois elements ... the battle against the Right Wing danger can succeed only with a purge of all elements who oppose Leninism with Rightist theories." 4 Obviously Trotsky was quite hostile to any idea of a "Popular Front" in the Party against Stalin, especially a popular front with the Right Wing Opposition which he undercut at every available opportunity. The very first issue of the Bulletin helped to undermine Bukharin's already shaky position by publishing the account of his attempts to involve Kamenev in a joint bloc against Stalin." While he was still in Alma Ata, in 1928, Trotsky had urged his followers to support Stalin against the Right. Trotsky's attacks on Bukharin in the Bulletin illuminate the flaws 3. Ibid. , p. 350. 4. "Zaiavlenie v Ts.K. i Ts .K.K.," Bulletin 0/ the Opposition, No . 6 (October 1929), p. 4. 5. Bulletin 0/ the Opposition, Nos . 1-2 (July 1929), p. 15. See also another interesting letter, "Protiv Pravoi Oppozitsii ," in the same issue.
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in character and political acumen that helped explain Trotsky's political defeat in the 1920s. In 1931, Trotsky reviewed Bukharin's 1918 pamphlet From the Collapse of Tsarism to the Fall of the Bourgeoisie, which argued that the Russian Revolution could succeed only with the help of the European proletariat. & Now Trotsky, an old Menshevik and a leader of the August Bloc, accused Bukharin of ideological inconsistency.' By 1932, the time had come for a new" August Bloc "-of the Left, Center, and Right-to curb Stalin's growing power. It was not too late. Moderates in the Politburo had overruled Stalin on the question of Riutin's execution. The year 1933 saw some concessions to the peasants. As Professor Stephen Cohen points out: The "Riutin Affair," as it became known, was a turning point in the politics of the 1930s. On one level, Stalin's defeat merely reaffirmed the sacrosanct prohibition against shooting Party members. On another, however, it demonstrated that Politburo moderates were now determined to resist his grasp for greater, more arbitrary power within and over the Party ... at the same time as later became clear the Riutin Affair dates Stalin's determination to rid himself of such restraints represented by the existing Bolshevik Party, its elite and its political tradition."
The Bulletin ignored both the Riutin Affair and the possibility that the moderate wing of the Politburo might be the last chance to save some vestige of the Party's independence. Instead, the Bulletin painted an erroneous picture of a monolithic apparatus, which completely identified with Stalin. The March 1933 issue published a highly unflattering article on Kirov." According to the Bulletin's anonymous correspondent, an imperious Kirov threatened Leningrad workers with deportation to the Solovetsk islands for nonfulfillment of work quotas and boasted of the many Party members whom he 6. "Bukharin 0 Permanentnoi Revoliutsii," Bulletin of the Opposition, No. 23 (August 1931), p. 18. 7. Incidentally, Trotsky was quite sensitive about his past. In the November 1930 issue of the Bulletin, he wrote that" of course the August Bloc, which aimed for the reconciliation of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks was a mistake, but it occurred in 1913, lasted about two or three months-and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then." Obviously, such articles did not raise Trotsky's stature. "Blok Levykh i Pravykh," Bulletin of the Opposition, Nos. 17-18 (November-December 1930), p. 24. 8. Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution (New York: Knopf, 1973), p, 344. 9. "Pis'mo iz Moskvy," Bulletin of the Opposition, No. 33 (March 1933), p.26.
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had dispatched to the same fate. That same year, Trotsky attacked the minor concessions made to the peasantry, notwithstanding the fact that they must have been a source of obvious relief to the Party as a whole. By that time, the Bulletin's already limited circulation in the Soviet Union had begun to drop as a result of the growing efficiency of the repressive machinery. But might not one conclude that Trotsky's dogmatism and his schematic evaluation of the domestic situation had helped undercut still further his already questionable influence? Why did not Trotsky, who had so eloquently dissected the sectarian tactics of the German KPD, call for an all-Party alliance against Stalin as the greater evil? Trotsky was silent. the same Trotsky who had warned the German Left that, if Hitler came to power, "he will ride like a terrific tank over your skulls and spines. Your salvation lies in merciless struggle. Only a fighting unity with social democratic workers can bring victory. Make haste, communist workers, you have very little time to lose." 10 Trotsky and Stalin
Trotsky failed to understand the enemy. His critique of Stalinism was brilliant but flawed; he showed compelling insights into Stalinism but little appreciation of Stalin himself. In his open letter to the Party, published in the Bulletin in the beginning of 1932, Trotsky wrote You know Stalin no worse than myself.... Stalin's power was never in his personality but in the apparatus: or, it was in Stalin's person only to the extent to which he was the most finished epitome of the bureaucratic automaton. Separated from the apparatus, Stalin is ... a nullity, an empty void.I!
Like many of Trotsky's opinions, this one contained some incisive flashes that were more relevant for the long run than for the immediate situation. Trotsky went on to say, "The man who yesterday was the symbol of the might of the apparatus might well be tomorrow in everyone's eyes the symbol of its bankruptcy." Trotsky's misconception of Stalin resulted in an erroneous appraisal of his economic and social policies-and the real sources of 10. Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Outcast (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 143. ll. "Otkrytoe pis'mo Prezidiumu Ts.I.K'a Soiuza SSR," Bulletin of the Opposition, No. 27 (March 1932), p. 5.
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his political power. In November 1930, Trotsky minimized the significance of Stalin's turn toward forced industrialization and the expulsion of Rykov, Tomsky, and Bukharin from the Politburo. According to Trotsky, "Just as the rout of the Left Opposition at the Fifteenth Party Congress ... preceded the turn to the Left ... the rout of the Right Opposition presages an inevitable turn to the Right." 12 (Indeed, Number 9 of the Bulletin informs us that the major beneficiary of collectivization was ... the Kulak.) We read that Kirov's assassination was the result of the dialectical interplay of two opposing forces-the self-interest of the bureaucracy coming into conflict with the rising aspirations of the masses. Trotsky rejected the idea that Stalin alone was responsible for launching the purges in order to consolidate his total power. In May 1938, Trotsky warned that "explaining the present regime in terms of Stalin's personal lust for power is too superficial." 13 Trotsky himself had failed to explain why the purges were begun after an economic upturn, nor did he point out why the purges smashed the same apparatus in whose interest they were supposedly unleashed. At times, Trotsky's idee fixe of Stalinism even led him to exaggerate its appeal to the European bourgeoisie. We read in Number 44 of the Bulletin that the Franco-Soviet Pact of 1935 served the interest and was signed at the behest of the French Right! Now that the Revolution has been strangled in China, Germany, Austria and Spain; now that European fascism has seized power, now that we have seen the fall of the Comintern and the degeneration of the Soviet bureaucracy, the bourgeoisie of France, England, and Italy ask Hitler .. why risk a crusade against the U.S.S.R.? .. Stalin is strangling the Revolution anyhow. Reach an agreement with him.
Trotsky changed his mind on this question in his 1936 book, The Revolution Betrayed.
Views on the Economy The early issues of the Bulletin contained many interesting articles on collectivization and the Five-Year Plans, a comprehensive critique that Trotsky summarized in The Revolution Betrayed. To his credit, 12. "Chto dal'she," Bulletin of the Opposition, Nos. 17-18 (NovemberDecember 1930), p. 22. 13. "Agoniia kapitalizma i zadachi Chetvertogo Internatsionala," Bulletin of the Opposition, No. 66 (May-June 1938), p, 19.
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Trotsky published important contributions that contradicted his own views. One of the most interesting was Yakov Gref's study of collectivization in Number 11. Gref argued that even the primitive and ill-conceived collectivization of 1930 would be more productive than the system of individual farming. In a postscript, Trotsky registered strong disagreement, arguing that the tempo of collectivization had to be proportional to the state's ability to provide the necessary technological equipment. In the same article, Gref suggested that the great influx of peasants into the cities would result in a hybrid peasantized proletarian culture, which could provide a sound base of support for Stalinism. Unfortunately, subsequent issues of the Bulletin carried few articles of the caliber of Gref's. One exception was the contributions of Christian Rakovsky. Somehow, Rakovsky, in poor health and exiled in Siberia, managed to send Trotsky a brilliant analysis of the domestic situation on the eve of the Sixteenth Party Congress. Rakovsky saw little hope for the five-year plan. The " successes" of the first year were based on a rapid expansion of the labor supply rather than on the growth of fundamental capital resources. Transport was in chaos. Galloping inflation destroyed the living standard of the working class. There was no monetary system to facilitate rational planning. Collectivization lacked an adequate industrial basis. Rakovsky called for a retreat but cautioned the reader not to confuse him with Bukharin: "The difference between us and the Rightists ... is the same as the difference between an army in organized retreat and the mad flight of deserters from the field of battle." 14 In the end, only Europe could save the five-year plan and the Marxist Revolution in Russia. Both Trotsky and Rakovsky underestimated the economic and political resources of the modern state in the early years of the five-year plan. Trotsky did not see the possibilities latent in the command economy, the compatibility of terror with primitive industrialization. Some time later, in The Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky praised the great achievements of the five-year plan but emphasized the brutal price-the suppression of the working class democracy, the supplantation of a true Marxist Party by a careerist bureaucracy, and drastic social stratification. Trotsky emphasized that Soviet Russia still remained a workers' state because the means of production were not yet in private hands, but the situation was transitional and highly volatile. He saw either a return to capitalism or a resumed march toward socialism, either a counterrevolution or another revolu14. Kh. Rakovsky, " Na s"ezde i v strane," Bulletin of the Opposition, Nos. 25-26 (November-December 1931), p. 30.
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tion. In the meantime, Trotsky explored the concept of Thermidor, with its overtones of a political shift to the right on the basis of the economic and social gains of the Revolution. Actually, Stalin instituted a revolution from above, which fomented such rapid social and economic changes as to defy all historical analogies including that of Thermidor. Somehow, Trotsky, for all his unquestioned brilliance, failed to come to terms with the implications of Stalin's headlong break with the past, his use of Communism as a modernizing force. Indeed, the five-year plan was a milestone in the history of the twentieth century, and Communism since then has faced the problem of reconciling the modernizing imperative with the ideological goal of a classless society (to borrow Lowenthal's concept). Nevertheless, although Marxism did not deal explicitly with the problem of modernization, this has been the major source of its appeal in the twentieth century. Trotsky did not foresee that Asia and Africa would offer the main chance. Europe was still the center of his analysis. Was Trotsky or anyone at the time capable of analyzing the Soviet society of the 1930s? Could Marxist analysis deal with such a drastic pace of social change? The state created a new kind of working class whose political and social character still await detailed study, but, to a large extent, Stalin achieved his command economy. Along with widespread dissatisfaction, the five-year plan saw the reawakening of revolutionary enthusiasm, which had lagged during the years of the NEP. Stalin could also rely on a strong feeling of Russian patriotism. And, by keeping society and the elite in constant flux, both social and physical, Stalin did create a new and unique type of regime. The impression remains that Trotsky was never really comfortable with the fact that in the twentieth century the "superstructure" has achieved great ability to influence the "base." One thinks back to Lenin in 1917-1918, wavering between" state and revolution," on the one hand, and strong admiration for the German war economy, on the other. For Trotsky, periods of central direction and command economy could only be transitions on the road to socialism. Eventually, the working class, enlarged and strengthened by state-imposed industrialization, would find its voice. (The returns are still not in, but Trotsky's conceptual framework is more relevant today than it was in the 1930s.) The Bulletin published many fascinating, if one-sided, glimpses into the Soviet scene of the early 1930s. The September 1929 issue contains, for example, L. S. Sosnovsky's descriptions of the initial
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stages of collectivization in Bernaul with interesting glimpses into the mood of the poor peasants, who feared that collectivization would strengthen the position of the Kulaks in the villages. Other letters in subsequent issues of the Bulletin describe the negative reaction of many Party officials to Stalin's "Dizzy with Success" speech. In July 1932, an anonymous correspondent, who was obviously highly connected, noted the presence of OGPU representatives at meetings of the Politburo. "In general all distinctions have faded. You don't know where the Party ends and the police begins." The general theme was popular dissatisfaction with the regime. Only one correspondent suggests that many workers for patriotic reasons supported Stalin's policies. There is good material, however, on the concentration camps and conditions of political exile in the Soviet Union. The August 1930 issue described the situation of the Left Opposition in exile15 rubles a month, no right to work. Hunger strikes were answered with merciless beatings. The correspondent complained that even the Mensheviks got better treatment. In January 1936, the Bulletin included a graphic account of his imprisonment by A. Tsiliga, a former member of the Politburo of the Yugoslav Communist Party. Arrested in 1930, he and his comrades were sent to the infamous Verkhne-Uralsk Isolator. In 1933, the OGPU extended their sentences for two more years to punish a hunger strike. The Verkhne-Uralsk Isolator afforded Tsiliga the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Zinoviev, who was deeply engrossed in studying the problems of fascism. Tsiliga's story, which was continued in subsequent issues, is indispensable to any student of the Soviet repressive apparatus. The Bulletin and the International Situation
Trotsky's best articles were those that described the international situation, especially the Chinese fiasco (see Ch'en Tu-hsiu's letter to the Party in 1929) 15 and the death throes of the Weimar Republic. Trotsky's brilliant analysis of fascism, while not perfect, is still immensely useful to the contemporary historian. Trotsky perceived correctly that, although there was a direct relationship between big business and the Nazi Party, the latter represented a dynamic and independent political force with the ability to crush the German labor movement. Trotsky argued that the same structural crisis of capitalism that spawned Hitler also presented 15... Pis'mo Chen Du-siu [Ch'en Tu-hsiu]," Bulletin 0/ the Opposition, Nos. 15-16 (September-October 1930), p. 19.
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priceless opportunities to the working class, if its leadership could only find the correct strategy. He criticized the tactics of the Comintern and urged the German Communist Party to drop its sorry slogan of social fascism, which hindered any chance to collaborate with the SPD. Trotsky, in 1933, foresaw that the internal economic contradictions of the Third Reich would force it into war, probably with the Soviet Union. He also emphasized the long-term instability of Hitler's regime, which, he felt, would be forced into closer collaboration with big business and the army. But Trotsky might have been wrong on one very important pointhis assessment of the political physiognomy of the German lowermiddle classes. If only the Left would unite and show effective political leadership, then the Kleinbiirger might rally to the Red Flag, or so Trotsky argued." Hitler's success, he argued, could be attributed at least partially to the weak leadership of the working class. Nevertheless, Trotsky did not analyze the peculiar historical circumstances that had shaped the political behavior of the German lower-middle classes. (One should compare his articles on Germany with those he wrote on France, especially during the Popular Front period. In urging the French Left to abandon the alliance with the Radical Party, Trotsky does not explain why the French petit bourgeoisie showed somewhat more resistance to fascism than their German counterparts.) The problem of the middle class was crucial to Trotsky's whole theory of permanent revolution. If the petit bourgeoisie and white collar workers would not swing left in crisis situations, then it was clear that the very possibility of leftist revolution in mature industrial societies was due for reconsideration. Was the working class really strong enough to seize power in such societies? Indeed, there were serious grounds for questioning whether the proletariat in the West was even a revolutionary force. Trotsky did not consider the possibility that industrial society had developed new rules of political behavior. One could argue that, as far as Europe was concerned, the revolutionary potential of a given group was in inverse proportion to its level of organization. The small shopkeeper was more vulnerable in many respects than was the union member; he was also a more volatile political actor. If organization was a critical determinant of political behavior in industrial societies, then it was logical to assume that social upheaval would favor the Right and not the Left. 16. "Burzhuaziia, me1kaia burzhuaziia i proletariat," Bulletin of the Opposition, Nos. 29-30 (September 1932), p. 26.
c.c.-7
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On the other hand, the main arena for leftist revolution shifted to the restless societies of Africa and Asia. Indeed, revolution in these countries raised a greater threat to European capitalism than did the European working class itself. Trotsky devoted much attention to the political situation in the non-European world, but his main attention still centered on Europe. The September 1930 issue of the Bulletin, devoted largely to the question of the international revolution, published an extremely interesting letter by Ch'en Tu-hsiu, which detailed the Comintern's pressure on the Chinese Communist Party "to serve as lackeys for the Kuomintang." The publication of the letter, which from the point of view of the contemporary historian is one of the most valuable contributions to the Bulletin, afforded Trotsky the opportunity of commenting at length on the Chinese situation. In an article entitled "To the Communists of China and the Whole World," Trotsky reiterated his contention that the peasantry was not capable of playing an independent political role. "Only the hegemony of the proletariat in the decisive industrial and political centers of the country will create the essential prerequisite for the Red Army and the carrying of the Soviet system to the village." Trotsky ridiculed the idea of a democratic national revolution in the non-European countries. Once again we are struck by the "orthodoxy" of Trotsky's analysis. There is little fresh thinking on the role of the peasantry. Perhaps it is unfair to expect Trotsky to provide a comparative social political analysis of peasant behavior such as we find in Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. The Left, however, needed precisely this kind of new thinking rather than another round of combative articles dealing with the tactics of political struggle in such a country. Trotsky was too concerned with tactics and was immersed in an atmosphere of constant struggle. More was needed. He could better have combatted Stalinism by inspiring and calling for a new intellectual renaissance in the Marxist camp. To the very end, Trotsky fought the disillusioning brutality of the modern age with the dogged optimism of the nineteenth-century Russian revolutionary, for that was what he remained. Such was the essence of Trotskyism-an unyielding faith in the political capabilities of the proletariat, a dialectical analysis of modern society which foresaw more violent revolution until the proletariat gained final victory. Yet, perhaps there was no automatic correlation between economic development, on the one hand, and proletarian democracy,
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on the other. Maybe the world was about to see the final triumph, not of the proletariat, but of bureaucratic collectivism. Deserted by many of his erstwhile followers, Trotsky asked himself this final question in his Mexican exile. Suppose the proletariat did 110t seize power after the next world war? Then he would have to recognize that: [Stalinism] was rooted not in the backwardness of the country and not in the imperialist environment, but in the congenital incapacity of the proletariat to become a ruling class . . . if the world proletariat should actually prove incapable of accomplishing its mission ... nothing would remain but to recognize openly that the socialist program, based on the internal contradictions of capitalist society had petered out as a Utopia.... It is selfevident that [if the Marxist program turned out to be impracticable], a new minimum program would be required to defend the interests of the slaves of the totalitarian bureaucratic system.!?
Trotskyism Today Today, the "Trotskyist " tradition may once again be extremely useful in analyzing contemporary Soviet society. Most Western scholars have become aware of the inadequacy of the "totalitarian" model of the 1950s. There is a general consensus that the Soviet Union has outgrown the Stalinist structure of the "command society." Soviet society has begun a new period of more dynamic interaction between the political system and the economic structure. To quote Richard Lowenthal: The basic relation between the political system and the development of society has been reversed. Formerly the political system was in command. . . . Now the political system has to respond to pressure generated by an increasingly advanced society. Formerly, the Communist superstructure was concerned with forcibly transforming the system's economic and social basis.. . . Now the economic and social basis of the countries under Communist rule, having reached a state of development comparable to that of the modern West, is beginning to transform the political superstructure in the familiar manner described by the Marxist interpretation of history.t! 17. Deutscher, The Prophet Outcast, p, 468. 18. Quoted in William Taubman, "The Change to Change in Communist Systems: Modernization, Post-Modernization and Soviet Politics," in Henry W. Morton and Rudolf L. Tokes (eds.), Soviet Politics and Society in the 1970s (New York: Free Press, 1974).
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One aspect of " Trotskyism" is particularly useful today. It is time for scholars to examine once again the role of warking-class discontent as a lever for change in Communist societies and as a check on the policies of the apparatus. The potential far conflict between the managerial elite and the Party apparatus has received much attention, but there is just as much chance of conflict involving the working class, for at least three reasons. First. a salient feature of current Soviet economic problems is a growing labor shortage, which cannot be solved by massive imports of foreign labor or additional levies from the agricultural sector, which is already short-handed in the harvest season. The constant campaigns for labor productivity may have a disquieting effect on the labor force. A second feature is the increasing importance of younger workers, many of whom are only reluctant recruits to the labor force, having been denied access to the institutions of higher learning. A third feature is the gap between the growth rates of consumer goods industries and the heavy industry sector. In short, the Party may not be able to carry out its promise to raise the living standard unless it undertakes some basic economic reforms. Even if it does introduce decentralization and does give more power to the managerial elite, it may thereby aggravate working class discontent if the rationalization of the economy is accompanied by a temporary rise in unemployment or even a temporary fall in real wages. Might the Party then emerge once again as the protector of the working class? It is too early to pass final judgment on Trotsky. His Bulletin is more today than just another echo of the 1930s, if only because it can serve to amplify the understanding of one of the most extraordinary and complex Marxist thinkers. It is not overly difficult today to find inconsistencies in Trotsky's thought, but it does seem that many of his insights can provide at least a conceptual framework for an analysis of contemporary Soviet politics. One can argue plausibly that Bukharin was superior to Trotsky as a theoretician. Thanks to Cohen's brilliant study, we can conclude that Bukbarin showed a shrewder appreciation of the new problems that Marxism faced in the twentieth century. He would have been more sanguine about the prospect for a shift in the Party's role from one of constant mobilization to one of arbitration among various " interest groups" in a more pluralistic Soviet society. Bukharin was more open than Trotsky to a dialogue with Western sociology on such crucial issues as the problem of the" New Class," whose existence Trotsky denied on the grounds that the bureaucracy did not own the means of production. In dealing with state capitalism and
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imperialism, Bukharin suggested new approaches to the question of modern capitalist society, the sources of its political stability, and its ultimate vulnerability. In particular, Bukharin went further than Trotsky in dealing with the impact of war and national revolution on the modem world. He did not have all the answers, but he asked new questions, and in this he was a precursor of Djilas, Kolakowski's Marxist humanism, and Garaudy's dialogue with Christianity. The Left in power today must adjust to a social structure that has already achieved a considerable degree of social and economic development. In developing a new doctrine, the Left has a great opportunity to reconcile the advantages of collectivism and socialist planning with the need for individual freedom. The Left can show its superior ability to achieve a harmonious balance between economic growth and social environmental needs. To achieve all this, Communism must finally break with the legacy of the past. Trotsky occupies a unique place in this legacy. He never lost sight of the ultimate goal of realizing the dignity of man in a rational planned society. His devotion to the ideal of proletarian democracy was constant, from his earliest criticism of " What Is To Be Done" to his death in I940. But the fight for power was hard and the successful revolution was mocked by the devastation and poverty of the country which it had won. For Trotsky, only further struggle for a world revolution could redeem the promise of 1917. He was too closely involved in that struggle to break new ground: the Bulletin did not rise above" unorthodox orthodoxy." Trotsky would have been the first to reject any suggestion that he make even a bow toward "bourgeois ethics" and "formal democracy." He kept the courage of his convictions in an age of disclaimers, apologies, and recantation. That can only add to his greatness.
Trotsky and the Bulletin of the Opposition *
When Trotsky began his first European exile in 1902, he had little money, but at least he was not alone. The European Left had not yet tasted power, and so it was kinder to its own. In Vienna, Victor Adler gave the young refugee money to continue on his journey. In London, Lenin could be roused from bed to pay the cab driver in the middle of the night. How different were the last bitter years in Turkey, France, Norway, and Mexico! The Revolution had triumphed in Russia, and Social Democracy had come to power in a number of countries, but there was no room for Trotsky. In his wanderings, he became part of the 1930s, like the thousands of German Jews roaming the high seas in search of some forsaken Latin American harbor. Europe was collapsing. There was no room for the stateless. But Trotsky did not accept his lot, and his final defeat did not engulf his hopes. To the very end, he was a great voice from the nineteenth century, an intellectual who had seen his dreams come true for a brief moment in 1917 and would never lose his faith in the working class. In exile, he would preach the ideology in whose name he was banished. Many had not forgotten Trotsky's own tenure:
* Biulleten' Oppozltsii (Bol'shevikov-Lenintsev) [Bulletin of the Opposition of Leninist Bolsheviks, hereinafter cited as Bulletin of the Opposition], Vol. I (1929-30), Nos. 1-2 to 18; Vol. II (1931-33), Nos. 19 to 37; Vol. III (1934-37), Nos. 38 to 61; Vol. IV (1938-41), Nos. 62 to 87 (New York: Monad PressPathfinder Press, 1973). STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM
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Kronstadt, the militarization of labor. Trotsky offered no apologies. He was determined to fight back. So, when he arrived in Buyuk Ada in 1929, he started the Bulletin of the Opposition. That very decision reflected his faith in the Party, which he hoped would rally against Stalin and the bureaucracy. " The Party lived on rumors; Stalin had all the facts." 1 Trotsky founded the Bulletin to correct this situation. He hoped it would be read throughout Russia, like Herzen's Kolokol. Nevertheless, George Lichtheim was correct in his assessment that Trotsky's influence in the 1930s was small indeed. Could it have been any different? There are obvious reasons, over which Trotsky had no control, for his increasing isolation on the Left. Fascism was on the march. Stalin was not perfect, but he represented the power of a great state-the one hope of stopping Hitler in an era of Franco, Munich, and appeasement. Yet, ultimately, Trotsky's failure was his own. He had a choice of two roles: pretender to the throne or the conscience of the Revolution. He was not a convincing pretender; but he could have become an intellectual mentor of the Left. The European Left in the 1930s obviously needed a completely new direction, but Trotsky failed to provide it. What kind of direction? Victor Serge suggests the answer in his Memoirs of a Revolutionary. After Serge's release from Soviet exile, he collaborated with the exiled Trotsky but the final break soon came. Serge had begged Trotsky to "include in the Opposition's program a declaration of freedom for all parties accepting the Soviet system.... The only problem which revolutionary Russia, in all the years from 1917 to 1923, utterly failed to consider was the problem of liberty, the only declaration which it had to make afresh and which it never made is the Declaration of the Rights of Man." 2 Serge's article infuriated Trotsky, who broke off all relations and answered with a bitter attack in the Bulletin. How much greater the stature of the Bulletin would have been had it carried Serge's later articles alongside those of Trotsky. It was Serge who drew the correct conclusion: I came to the conclusion that our Opposition had simultaneously contained two opposite lines of significance. For the great majority of its members it had meant resistance to totalitarianism 1. "My trebuern sodeistviia," Bulletin of the Opposition, No.7 (NovemberDecember 1929), p. 39. 2. Victor Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 349.
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in the name of the democratic ideals expressed at the beginning of the Revolution; for a number of our old Bolshevik leaders it meant on the contrary the defense of doctrinal orthodoxy which , while not excluding a certain tendency toward democracy, was authoritarian through and through.... If [Trotsky] in his exile from the U.S.S.R.... had made himself the ideologist of a renewed socialism , critical in outlook and fearing diversity less than dogmatism, perhaps he would have attained a new greatness. But he was the prisoner of his own orthodoxy, the more so since his lapses into unorthodoxy were being denounced as treason. He saw his role as that of one carrying into the world at large a movement which was not only Russian but extinct in Russia itself, killed twice over, both by the bullets of its executioners and by changes in human mentality."
Attitude Toward the Right Wing Even a cursory reading of the Bulletin bears out Serge's indictment. For example, in October 1929, Trotsky published, with a laudatory postscript, an open letter to the Central Committee signed by Rakovsky, Kossior, and Okudzhava. Rakovsky, who in August 1936, was to call for Zinoviev's execution and later suffer a similar fate himself, devoted much of the letter to a strong but well-reasoned attack on many of Bukharin's major theories. Then Rakovsky proceeded to offer a "Marxist" explanation of the Bukharin " deviation." "The social base of the Right Wing danger in the party is composed of petit bourgeois elements ... the battle against the Right Wing danger can succeed only with a purge of all elements who oppose Leninism with Rightist theories." 4 Obviously Trotsky was quite hostile to any idea of a "Popular Front" in the Party against Stalin, especially a popular front with the Right Wing Opposition which he undercut at every available opportunity. The very first issue of the Bulletin helped to undermine Bukharin's already shaky position by publishing the account of his attempts to involve Kamenev in a joint bloc against Stalin." While he was still in Alma Ata, in 1928, Trotsky had urged his followers to support Stalin against the Right. Trotsky's attacks on Bukharin in the Bulletin illuminate the flaws 3. Ibid. , p. 350. 4. "Zaiavlenie v Ts.K. i Ts .K.K.," Bulletin 0/ the Opposition, No . 6 (October 1929), p. 4. 5. Bulletin 0/ the Opposition, Nos . 1-2 (July 1929), p. 15. See also another interesting letter, "Protiv Pravoi Oppozitsii ," in the same issue.
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in character and political acumen that helped explain Trotsky's political defeat in the 1920s. In 1931, Trotsky reviewed Bukharin's 1918 pamphlet From the Collapse of Tsarism to the Fall of the Bourgeoisie, which argued that the Russian Revolution could succeed only with the help of the European proletariat. & Now Trotsky, an old Menshevik and a leader of the August Bloc, accused Bukharin of ideological inconsistency.' By 1932, the time had come for a new" August Bloc "-of the Left, Center, and Right-to curb Stalin's growing power. It was not too late. Moderates in the Politburo had overruled Stalin on the question of Riutin's execution. The year 1933 saw some concessions to the peasants. As Professor Stephen Cohen points out: The "Riutin Affair," as it became known, was a turning point in the politics of the 1930s. On one level, Stalin's defeat merely reaffirmed the sacrosanct prohibition against shooting Party members. On another, however, it demonstrated that Politburo moderates were now determined to resist his grasp for greater, more arbitrary power within and over the Party ... at the same time as later became clear the Riutin Affair dates Stalin's determination to rid himself of such restraints represented by the existing Bolshevik Party, its elite and its political tradition."
The Bulletin ignored both the Riutin Affair and the possibility that the moderate wing of the Politburo might be the last chance to save some vestige of the Party's independence. Instead, the Bulletin painted an erroneous picture of a monolithic apparatus, which completely identified with Stalin. The March 1933 issue published a highly unflattering article on Kirov." According to the Bulletin's anonymous correspondent, an imperious Kirov threatened Leningrad workers with deportation to the Solovetsk islands for nonfulfillment of work quotas and boasted of the many Party members whom he 6. "Bukharin 0 Permanentnoi Revoliutsii," Bulletin of the Opposition, No. 23 (August 1931), p. 18. 7. Incidentally, Trotsky was quite sensitive about his past. In the November 1930 issue of the Bulletin, he wrote that" of course the August Bloc, which aimed for the reconciliation of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks was a mistake, but it occurred in 1913, lasted about two or three months-and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then." Obviously, such articles did not raise Trotsky's stature. "Blok Levykh i Pravykh," Bulletin of the Opposition, Nos. 17-18 (November-December 1930), p. 24. 8. Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution (New York: Knopf, 1973), p, 344. 9. "Pis'mo iz Moskvy," Bulletin of the Opposition, No. 33 (March 1933), p.26.
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had dispatched to the same fate. That same year, Trotsky attacked the minor concessions made to the peasantry, notwithstanding the fact that they must have been a source of obvious relief to the Party as a whole. By that time, the Bulletin's already limited circulation in the Soviet Union had begun to drop as a result of the growing efficiency of the repressive machinery. But might not one conclude that Trotsky's dogmatism and his schematic evaluation of the domestic situation had helped undercut still further his already questionable influence? Why did not Trotsky, who had so eloquently dissected the sectarian tactics of the German KPD, call for an all-Party alliance against Stalin as the greater evil? Trotsky was silent. the same Trotsky who had warned the German Left that, if Hitler came to power, "he will ride like a terrific tank over your skulls and spines. Your salvation lies in merciless struggle. Only a fighting unity with social democratic workers can bring victory. Make haste, communist workers, you have very little time to lose." 10 Trotsky and Stalin
Trotsky failed to understand the enemy. His critique of Stalinism was brilliant but flawed; he showed compelling insights into Stalinism but little appreciation of Stalin himself. In his open letter to the Party, published in the Bulletin in the beginning of 1932, Trotsky wrote You know Stalin no worse than myself.... Stalin's power was never in his personality but in the apparatus: or, it was in Stalin's person only to the extent to which he was the most finished epitome of the bureaucratic automaton. Separated from the apparatus, Stalin is ... a nullity, an empty void.I!
Like many of Trotsky's opinions, this one contained some incisive flashes that were more relevant for the long run than for the immediate situation. Trotsky went on to say, "The man who yesterday was the symbol of the might of the apparatus might well be tomorrow in everyone's eyes the symbol of its bankruptcy." Trotsky's misconception of Stalin resulted in an erroneous appraisal of his economic and social policies-and the real sources of 10. Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Outcast (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 143. ll. "Otkrytoe pis'mo Prezidiumu Ts.I.K'a Soiuza SSR," Bulletin of the Opposition, No. 27 (March 1932), p. 5.
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his political power. In November 1930, Trotsky minimized the significance of Stalin's turn toward forced industrialization and the expulsion of Rykov, Tomsky, and Bukharin from the Politburo. According to Trotsky, "Just as the rout of the Left Opposition at the Fifteenth Party Congress ... preceded the turn to the Left ... the rout of the Right Opposition presages an inevitable turn to the Right." 12 (Indeed, Number 9 of the Bulletin informs us that the major beneficiary of collectivization was ... the Kulak.) We read that Kirov's assassination was the result of the dialectical interplay of two opposing forces-the self-interest of the bureaucracy coming into conflict with the rising aspirations of the masses. Trotsky rejected the idea that Stalin alone was responsible for launching the purges in order to consolidate his total power. In May 1938, Trotsky warned that "explaining the present regime in terms of Stalin's personal lust for power is too superficial." 13 Trotsky himself had failed to explain why the purges were begun after an economic upturn, nor did he point out why the purges smashed the same apparatus in whose interest they were supposedly unleashed. At times, Trotsky's idee fixe of Stalinism even led him to exaggerate its appeal to the European bourgeoisie. We read in Number 44 of the Bulletin that the Franco-Soviet Pact of 1935 served the interest and was signed at the behest of the French Right! Now that the Revolution has been strangled in China, Germany, Austria and Spain; now that European fascism has seized power, now that we have seen the fall of the Comintern and the degeneration of the Soviet bureaucracy, the bourgeoisie of France, England, and Italy ask Hitler .. why risk a crusade against the U.S.S.R.? .. Stalin is strangling the Revolution anyhow. Reach an agreement with him.
Trotsky changed his mind on this question in his 1936 book, The Revolution Betrayed.
Views on the Economy The early issues of the Bulletin contained many interesting articles on collectivization and the Five-Year Plans, a comprehensive critique that Trotsky summarized in The Revolution Betrayed. To his credit, 12. "Chto dal'she," Bulletin of the Opposition, Nos. 17-18 (NovemberDecember 1930), p. 22. 13. "Agoniia kapitalizma i zadachi Chetvertogo Internatsionala," Bulletin of the Opposition, No. 66 (May-June 1938), p, 19.
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Trotsky published important contributions that contradicted his own views. One of the most interesting was Yakov Gref's study of collectivization in Number 11. Gref argued that even the primitive and ill-conceived collectivization of 1930 would be more productive than the system of individual farming. In a postscript, Trotsky registered strong disagreement, arguing that the tempo of collectivization had to be proportional to the state's ability to provide the necessary technological equipment. In the same article, Gref suggested that the great influx of peasants into the cities would result in a hybrid peasantized proletarian culture, which could provide a sound base of support for Stalinism. Unfortunately, subsequent issues of the Bulletin carried few articles of the caliber of Gref's. One exception was the contributions of Christian Rakovsky. Somehow, Rakovsky, in poor health and exiled in Siberia, managed to send Trotsky a brilliant analysis of the domestic situation on the eve of the Sixteenth Party Congress. Rakovsky saw little hope for the five-year plan. The " successes" of the first year were based on a rapid expansion of the labor supply rather than on the growth of fundamental capital resources. Transport was in chaos. Galloping inflation destroyed the living standard of the working class. There was no monetary system to facilitate rational planning. Collectivization lacked an adequate industrial basis. Rakovsky called for a retreat but cautioned the reader not to confuse him with Bukharin: "The difference between us and the Rightists ... is the same as the difference between an army in organized retreat and the mad flight of deserters from the field of battle." 14 In the end, only Europe could save the five-year plan and the Marxist Revolution in Russia. Both Trotsky and Rakovsky underestimated the economic and political resources of the modern state in the early years of the five-year plan. Trotsky did not see the possibilities latent in the command economy, the compatibility of terror with primitive industrialization. Some time later, in The Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky praised the great achievements of the five-year plan but emphasized the brutal price-the suppression of the working class democracy, the supplantation of a true Marxist Party by a careerist bureaucracy, and drastic social stratification. Trotsky emphasized that Soviet Russia still remained a workers' state because the means of production were not yet in private hands, but the situation was transitional and highly volatile. He saw either a return to capitalism or a resumed march toward socialism, either a counterrevolution or another revolu14. Kh. Rakovsky, " Na s"ezde i v strane," Bulletin of the Opposition, Nos. 25-26 (November-December 1931), p. 30.
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tion. In the meantime, Trotsky explored the concept of Thermidor, with its overtones of a political shift to the right on the basis of the economic and social gains of the Revolution. Actually, Stalin instituted a revolution from above, which fomented such rapid social and economic changes as to defy all historical analogies including that of Thermidor. Somehow, Trotsky, for all his unquestioned brilliance, failed to come to terms with the implications of Stalin's headlong break with the past, his use of Communism as a modernizing force. Indeed, the five-year plan was a milestone in the history of the twentieth century, and Communism since then has faced the problem of reconciling the modernizing imperative with the ideological goal of a classless society (to borrow Lowenthal's concept). Nevertheless, although Marxism did not deal explicitly with the problem of modernization, this has been the major source of its appeal in the twentieth century. Trotsky did not foresee that Asia and Africa would offer the main chance. Europe was still the center of his analysis. Was Trotsky or anyone at the time capable of analyzing the Soviet society of the 1930s? Could Marxist analysis deal with such a drastic pace of social change? The state created a new kind of working class whose political and social character still await detailed study, but, to a large extent, Stalin achieved his command economy. Along with widespread dissatisfaction, the five-year plan saw the reawakening of revolutionary enthusiasm, which had lagged during the years of the NEP. Stalin could also rely on a strong feeling of Russian patriotism. And, by keeping society and the elite in constant flux, both social and physical, Stalin did create a new and unique type of regime. The impression remains that Trotsky was never really comfortable with the fact that in the twentieth century the "superstructure" has achieved great ability to influence the "base." One thinks back to Lenin in 1917-1918, wavering between" state and revolution," on the one hand, and strong admiration for the German war economy, on the other. For Trotsky, periods of central direction and command economy could only be transitions on the road to socialism. Eventually, the working class, enlarged and strengthened by state-imposed industrialization, would find its voice. (The returns are still not in, but Trotsky's conceptual framework is more relevant today than it was in the 1930s.) The Bulletin published many fascinating, if one-sided, glimpses into the Soviet scene of the early 1930s. The September 1929 issue contains, for example, L. S. Sosnovsky's descriptions of the initial
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stages of collectivization in Bernaul with interesting glimpses into the mood of the poor peasants, who feared that collectivization would strengthen the position of the Kulaks in the villages. Other letters in subsequent issues of the Bulletin describe the negative reaction of many Party officials to Stalin's "Dizzy with Success" speech. In July 1932, an anonymous correspondent, who was obviously highly connected, noted the presence of OGPU representatives at meetings of the Politburo. "In general all distinctions have faded. You don't know where the Party ends and the police begins." The general theme was popular dissatisfaction with the regime. Only one correspondent suggests that many workers for patriotic reasons supported Stalin's policies. There is good material, however, on the concentration camps and conditions of political exile in the Soviet Union. The August 1930 issue described the situation of the Left Opposition in exile15 rubles a month, no right to work. Hunger strikes were answered with merciless beatings. The correspondent complained that even the Mensheviks got better treatment. In January 1936, the Bulletin included a graphic account of his imprisonment by A. Tsiliga, a former member of the Politburo of the Yugoslav Communist Party. Arrested in 1930, he and his comrades were sent to the infamous Verkhne-Uralsk Isolator. In 1933, the OGPU extended their sentences for two more years to punish a hunger strike. The Verkhne-Uralsk Isolator afforded Tsiliga the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Zinoviev, who was deeply engrossed in studying the problems of fascism. Tsiliga's story, which was continued in subsequent issues, is indispensable to any student of the Soviet repressive apparatus. The Bulletin and the International Situation
Trotsky's best articles were those that described the international situation, especially the Chinese fiasco (see Ch'en Tu-hsiu's letter to the Party in 1929) 15 and the death throes of the Weimar Republic. Trotsky's brilliant analysis of fascism, while not perfect, is still immensely useful to the contemporary historian. Trotsky perceived correctly that, although there was a direct relationship between big business and the Nazi Party, the latter represented a dynamic and independent political force with the ability to crush the German labor movement. Trotsky argued that the same structural crisis of capitalism that spawned Hitler also presented 15... Pis'mo Chen Du-siu [Ch'en Tu-hsiu]," Bulletin 0/ the Opposition, Nos. 15-16 (September-October 1930), p. 19.
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priceless opportunities to the working class, if its leadership could only find the correct strategy. He criticized the tactics of the Comintern and urged the German Communist Party to drop its sorry slogan of social fascism, which hindered any chance to collaborate with the SPD. Trotsky, in 1933, foresaw that the internal economic contradictions of the Third Reich would force it into war, probably with the Soviet Union. He also emphasized the long-term instability of Hitler's regime, which, he felt, would be forced into closer collaboration with big business and the army. But Trotsky might have been wrong on one very important pointhis assessment of the political physiognomy of the German lowermiddle classes. If only the Left would unite and show effective political leadership, then the Kleinbiirger might rally to the Red Flag, or so Trotsky argued." Hitler's success, he argued, could be attributed at least partially to the weak leadership of the working class. Nevertheless, Trotsky did not analyze the peculiar historical circumstances that had shaped the political behavior of the German lower-middle classes. (One should compare his articles on Germany with those he wrote on France, especially during the Popular Front period. In urging the French Left to abandon the alliance with the Radical Party, Trotsky does not explain why the French petit bourgeoisie showed somewhat more resistance to fascism than their German counterparts.) The problem of the middle class was crucial to Trotsky's whole theory of permanent revolution. If the petit bourgeoisie and white collar workers would not swing left in crisis situations, then it was clear that the very possibility of leftist revolution in mature industrial societies was due for reconsideration. Was the working class really strong enough to seize power in such societies? Indeed, there were serious grounds for questioning whether the proletariat in the West was even a revolutionary force. Trotsky did not consider the possibility that industrial society had developed new rules of political behavior. One could argue that, as far as Europe was concerned, the revolutionary potential of a given group was in inverse proportion to its level of organization. The small shopkeeper was more vulnerable in many respects than was the union member; he was also a more volatile political actor. If organization was a critical determinant of political behavior in industrial societies, then it was logical to assume that social upheaval would favor the Right and not the Left. 16. "Burzhuaziia, me1kaia burzhuaziia i proletariat," Bulletin of the Opposition, Nos. 29-30 (September 1932), p. 26.
c.c.-7
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On the other hand, the main arena for leftist revolution shifted to the restless societies of Africa and Asia. Indeed, revolution in these countries raised a greater threat to European capitalism than did the European working class itself. Trotsky devoted much attention to the political situation in the non-European world, but his main attention still centered on Europe. The September 1930 issue of the Bulletin, devoted largely to the question of the international revolution, published an extremely interesting letter by Ch'en Tu-hsiu, which detailed the Comintern's pressure on the Chinese Communist Party "to serve as lackeys for the Kuomintang." The publication of the letter, which from the point of view of the contemporary historian is one of the most valuable contributions to the Bulletin, afforded Trotsky the opportunity of commenting at length on the Chinese situation. In an article entitled "To the Communists of China and the Whole World," Trotsky reiterated his contention that the peasantry was not capable of playing an independent political role. "Only the hegemony of the proletariat in the decisive industrial and political centers of the country will create the essential prerequisite for the Red Army and the carrying of the Soviet system to the village." Trotsky ridiculed the idea of a democratic national revolution in the non-European countries. Once again we are struck by the "orthodoxy" of Trotsky's analysis. There is little fresh thinking on the role of the peasantry. Perhaps it is unfair to expect Trotsky to provide a comparative social political analysis of peasant behavior such as we find in Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. The Left, however, needed precisely this kind of new thinking rather than another round of combative articles dealing with the tactics of political struggle in such a country. Trotsky was too concerned with tactics and was immersed in an atmosphere of constant struggle. More was needed. He could better have combatted Stalinism by inspiring and calling for a new intellectual renaissance in the Marxist camp. To the very end, Trotsky fought the disillusioning brutality of the modern age with the dogged optimism of the nineteenth-century Russian revolutionary, for that was what he remained. Such was the essence of Trotskyism-an unyielding faith in the political capabilities of the proletariat, a dialectical analysis of modern society which foresaw more violent revolution until the proletariat gained final victory. Yet, perhaps there was no automatic correlation between economic development, on the one hand, and proletarian democracy,
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on the other. Maybe the world was about to see the final triumph, not of the proletariat, but of bureaucratic collectivism. Deserted by many of his erstwhile followers, Trotsky asked himself this final question in his Mexican exile. Suppose the proletariat did 110t seize power after the next world war? Then he would have to recognize that: [Stalinism] was rooted not in the backwardness of the country and not in the imperialist environment, but in the congenital incapacity of the proletariat to become a ruling class . . . if the world proletariat should actually prove incapable of accomplishing its mission ... nothing would remain but to recognize openly that the socialist program, based on the internal contradictions of capitalist society had petered out as a Utopia.... It is selfevident that [if the Marxist program turned out to be impracticable], a new minimum program would be required to defend the interests of the slaves of the totalitarian bureaucratic system.!?
Trotskyism Today Today, the "Trotskyist " tradition may once again be extremely useful in analyzing contemporary Soviet society. Most Western scholars have become aware of the inadequacy of the "totalitarian" model of the 1950s. There is a general consensus that the Soviet Union has outgrown the Stalinist structure of the "command society." Soviet society has begun a new period of more dynamic interaction between the political system and the economic structure. To quote Richard Lowenthal: The basic relation between the political system and the development of society has been reversed. Formerly the political system was in command. . . . Now the political system has to respond to pressure generated by an increasingly advanced society. Formerly, the Communist superstructure was concerned with forcibly transforming the system's economic and social basis.. . . Now the economic and social basis of the countries under Communist rule, having reached a state of development comparable to that of the modern West, is beginning to transform the political superstructure in the familiar manner described by the Marxist interpretation of history.t! 17. Deutscher, The Prophet Outcast, p, 468. 18. Quoted in William Taubman, "The Change to Change in Communist Systems: Modernization, Post-Modernization and Soviet Politics," in Henry W. Morton and Rudolf L. Tokes (eds.), Soviet Politics and Society in the 1970s (New York: Free Press, 1974).
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One aspect of " Trotskyism" is particularly useful today. It is time for scholars to examine once again the role of warking-class discontent as a lever for change in Communist societies and as a check on the policies of the apparatus. The potential far conflict between the managerial elite and the Party apparatus has received much attention, but there is just as much chance of conflict involving the working class, for at least three reasons. First. a salient feature of current Soviet economic problems is a growing labor shortage, which cannot be solved by massive imports of foreign labor or additional levies from the agricultural sector, which is already short-handed in the harvest season. The constant campaigns for labor productivity may have a disquieting effect on the labor force. A second feature is the increasing importance of younger workers, many of whom are only reluctant recruits to the labor force, having been denied access to the institutions of higher learning. A third feature is the gap between the growth rates of consumer goods industries and the heavy industry sector. In short, the Party may not be able to carry out its promise to raise the living standard unless it undertakes some basic economic reforms. Even if it does introduce decentralization and does give more power to the managerial elite, it may thereby aggravate working class discontent if the rationalization of the economy is accompanied by a temporary rise in unemployment or even a temporary fall in real wages. Might the Party then emerge once again as the protector of the working class? It is too early to pass final judgment on Trotsky. His Bulletin is more today than just another echo of the 1930s, if only because it can serve to amplify the understanding of one of the most extraordinary and complex Marxist thinkers. It is not overly difficult today to find inconsistencies in Trotsky's thought, but it does seem that many of his insights can provide at least a conceptual framework for an analysis of contemporary Soviet politics. One can argue plausibly that Bukharin was superior to Trotsky as a theoretician. Thanks to Cohen's brilliant study, we can conclude that Bukbarin showed a shrewder appreciation of the new problems that Marxism faced in the twentieth century. He would have been more sanguine about the prospect for a shift in the Party's role from one of constant mobilization to one of arbitration among various " interest groups" in a more pluralistic Soviet society. Bukharin was more open than Trotsky to a dialogue with Western sociology on such crucial issues as the problem of the" New Class," whose existence Trotsky denied on the grounds that the bureaucracy did not own the means of production. In dealing with state capitalism and
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imperialism, Bukharin suggested new approaches to the question of modern capitalist society, the sources of its political stability, and its ultimate vulnerability. In particular, Bukharin went further than Trotsky in dealing with the impact of war and national revolution on the modem world. He did not have all the answers, but he asked new questions, and in this he was a precursor of Djilas, Kolakowski's Marxist humanism, and Garaudy's dialogue with Christianity. The Left in power today must adjust to a social structure that has already achieved a considerable degree of social and economic development. In developing a new doctrine, the Left has a great opportunity to reconcile the advantages of collectivism and socialist planning with the need for individual freedom. The Left can show its superior ability to achieve a harmonious balance between economic growth and social environmental needs. To achieve all this, Communism must finally break with the legacy of the past. Trotsky occupies a unique place in this legacy. He never lost sight of the ultimate goal of realizing the dignity of man in a rational planned society. His devotion to the ideal of proletarian democracy was constant, from his earliest criticism of " What Is To Be Done" to his death in I940. But the fight for power was hard and the successful revolution was mocked by the devastation and poverty of the country which it had won. For Trotsky, only further struggle for a world revolution could redeem the promise of 1917. He was too closely involved in that struggle to break new ground: the Bulletin did not rise above" unorthodox orthodoxy." Trotsky would have been the first to reject any suggestion that he make even a bow toward "bourgeois ethics" and "formal democracy." He kept the courage of his convictions in an age of disclaimers, apologies, and recantation. That can only add to his greatness.