Part 1: Trotskyist myths and Stalinist reality

1.1: Did Lenin hate Stalin?

I don't even know how this myth came to be. Its so wrong but for some reason will not die. Somehow, the same Lenin which called Stalin a "Marvellous Georgian" hated him. Fair enough, we cannot expect Trotskyists to have a grasp of how friendships work (otherwise they could have done something except help counterrevolution and experience splits).

Yet the closeness between the two was far from a secret. On 18/12/1922, The Central Committee had entrusted Stalin personally with making certain the regime set by the doctors is followed.
Maria Ulyanova, Lenin's sister, also shed some more light on the relations between the two. Due to his conditions, Lenin sunk to depression and became suicidal due to fear of paralysis. In this context, Stalin sent the following to the Politburo:

However, I must declare that I do not have enough strength to fulfill the request of V. Ilyich and am forced to abandon this mission, no matter how humane and necessary it is, which I bring to the attention of the members of the Bureau of the Central Committee.

_-Stalin, 1923_

The request Stalin refers to is a mercy kill. Lenin trusted Stalin so much, he made the latter promise giving Lenin cyanide if he ever became paralysed, which he would obviously not do unless their trust was absolute. Stalin opted to try cheering up Lenin instead, because understandably, he couldn't bring himself to carry out this request.

During this period Stalin was a more frequent visitor in comparison to others. He was the first to come to V. Ilyich. Ilyich met him amicably, joked, laughed and demanded that I should treat Stalin with wine and so on. In this and in other meetings they discussed Trotsky and from their talk in front of me it was clear that here Ilyich was with Stalin against Trotsky. Once the question of inviting Trotsky to Ilyich was discussed. This had a diplomatic character. The offer to Trotsky to become Ilyich’s deputy in Sovnarkom (Council of People’s Commissars – ed. R.D.) was made with the same motive. In this period Kamenev and Bukharin came to meet V. Ilyich, but Zinoviev did not come even once. And so far as I knew V. Ilyich never expressed any willingness to meet him.

After returning to work, in the autumn of 1922, V. Ilyich frequently met Kamenev, Zinoviev and Stalin in the evenings in his private office. Once in a while, I tried to part them, reminding them that the doctors had forbidden him to sit for long at work. They joked and explained that their meetings were simple discussions and not official talk.

-Maria Ulyanova, on Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s relation towards J. Stalin

Furthermore, even in the most "professional" situations, Lenin has shown his trust and respect regarding Stalin.

It is terribly difficult to do this; we lack the men! But Preobrazhensky comes along and airily says that Stalin has jobs in two Commissariats. Who among us has not sinned in this way? Who has not undertaken several duties at once? And how can we do otherwise? What can we do to preserve the present situation in the People’s Commissariat of Nationalities; to handle all the Turkestan, Caucasian, and other questions? These are all political questions! They have to be settled. These are questions that have engaged the attention of European states for hundreds of years, and only an infinitesimal number of them have been settled in democratic republics. We are settling them; and we need a man to whom the representatives of any of these nations can go and discuss their difficulties in all detail. Where can we find such a man? I don’t think Comrade Preobrazhensky could suggest any better candidate than Comrade Stalin.

-Lenin, Eleventh Congress Of The R.C.P.(B.)

I shall then seek ways and means. Please, pass this on to Stalin: incidentally, I request him to make an arrangement with Lalayants about work for Lalayants. I see, after my talk with Lalayants, that I cannot settle this. It has to be decided by Stalin in the Orgbureau or with the Orgbureau’s help.

-_Lenin, Letter to A.S. Yenukidze

Lenin has also shown concern for Stalin overworking himself.

Comrade Stalin is directed to immediately find himself deputies and assistants relieving him of work (other than general management and guidance of a principled nature) in government offices.

-Lenin, Draft Decision for the Plenum of the C.C., R.C.P.(B.) on Organising the Work of the Secretariat

And another story, one that I found to be very touching, had Lenin joyfully writing to Stalin about his recovery, and him being allowed to read by the doctors. I haven't found any other person he notified in such a manner. This detail was nothing professional. Regarding the work of the party, including it was redundant. It was included because Lenin wrote to a friend, he cared about Stalin and knew Stalin cared about him, so he chose to include this moment as well.

You can congratulate me: I have been permitted to read the papers! Old papers from today, and new ones from Sunday!

Yours, Lenin

-Lenin, Letter to J.V. Stalin
Notice the joyful tone Lenin uses here. He is genuinely happy to share this with Stalin, even excited to do so. This short letter demonstrates the real relation between the two perfectly.

Below, we will see Lenin also made great usage of Stalin during the civil war despite Trotsky objecting.

1.1.1: Lenin's testament // Boring topic, add this later

1.1.2: Lenin on Trotsky

Initially, I wanted to take a few good excerpts and cite the magnificent source which found them (Page 11, compiled by Dennis “Klo” McKinsey, the author of the legendary Real Stalin Series).
Instead, I decided to digitalize the material here, to make them easy to use and source. Cutting corners will be disrespectful both to the late Comrade McKinsey and his work.

#Number	Date[Year-Month-Day]	Source	Quote
#1	1903	Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.	Therein lies the fundamental difference between us and the liberals, whose talk about changes and reforms “pollutes” the minds of the people. If we were to set forth in detail all the demands for the abo lition of serf-ownership, we should fill whole volumes. That is why we mention only the more important forms and varieties of serfdom, and leave it to our committees in the various localities to draw up and advance their particular demands in development of the general programme. Trotsky’s remark to the effect that we cannot concern ourselves with local demands is wrong, for the question of the khizani and the temporarily bound peasants is not only a local one. Moreover, it is known in agrarian literature.
#2	1903	Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.	To come to the main subject, I must say that Comrade Trotsky has completely misunderstood Comrade Plekhanov’s fundamental idea, and his arguments have therefore evaded the gist of the matter. He has spoken of intellectuals and workers, of the class point of view and of the mass movement, but he has failed to notice a basic question: does my formulation narrow or expand the concept of a Party member? If he had asked himself that question, he would easily have seen that my formulation narrows this concept, while Martov’s expands it, for (to use Martov’s own correct expression) what distinguishes his concept is its “elasticity.” And in the period of Party life that we are now passing through it is just this “elasticity” that undoubtedly opens the door to all elements of confusion, vacillation, and opportunism. To refute this simple and obvious conclusion it has to be proved that there are no such elements; but it has not even occurred to Comrade Trotsky to do that. Nor can that be proved, for everyone knows that such elements exist in plenty, and that they are to be found in the working class too. The need to safeguard the firmness of the Party’s line and the purity of its principles has now become particularly ·urgent, for, with the restoration of its unity, the Party will recruit into its ranks a great many unstable elements, whose number will increase with the growth of the Party. Comrade Trotsky completely misinterpreted the main idea of my book, What Is to Be Done?, when he spoke about the Party not being a conspiratorial organisation (many others too raised this objection). He forgot that in my book I propose a number of various types of organisations, from the most secret and most exclusive to comparatively broad and “loose” (lose) organisations.[See present edition, Vol. 5.—Ed.] He forgot that the Party must be only the vanguard, the leader of the vast masses of the working class, the whole (or nearly the whole) of which works “under the control and direction” of the Party organisations, but the whole of which does not and should not belong to a “party.” Now let us see what conclusions Comrade Trotsky arrives at in consequence of his fundamental mistake. He has told us here that if rank after rank of workers were arrested, and all the workers were to declare that they did not belong to the Party, our Party would be a strange one indeed! Is it not the other way round? Is it not Comrade Trotsky’s argument that is strange? He regards as something sad that which a revolutionary with any experience at all would only rejoice at. If hundreds and thousands of workers who were arrested for taking part in strikes and demonstrations did not prove to be members of Party organisations, it would only show that we have good organisations, and that we. are fulfilling our task of keeping a more or less limited circle of leaders secret and of drawing the broadest possible masses into the movement.
#3	1904 October, 14	Letter to: YELENA STASOVA, F. V. LENGNIK, AND OTHERS	A new pamphlet by Trotsky came out recently, under the editorship of Iskra, as was announced. This makes it the “Credo” as it were of the new Iskra. The pamphlet is a pack of brazen lies, a distortion of the facts. And this is done under the editor ship of the C.O. The work of the Iskra group is vilified in every way, the Economists, it is alleged, did far more, the Iskra group displayed no initiative, they gave no thought to the proletariat, were more concerned with the bourgeois intelligentsia, introduced a deadly bureaucracy everywhere—their work was reduced to carrying out the programme of the famous “Credo”. The Second Congress was, in his words, a reactionary attempt to consolidate sectarian methods of organisation, etc. The pamphlet is a slap in the face both for the present Editorial Board of the C.O. and for all Party workers. Reading a pamphlet of this kind you can see clearly that the “Minority” has indulged in so much lying and falsehood that it will be incapable of producing anything viable, and one wants to fight, here there is some thing worth fighting for.
#4	1905 April, 12	Social-Democracy and the Provisional Revolutionary Government	The Russian proletariat, however, is at present a minority of the population in Russia. It can become the great, overwhelming majority only if it combines with the mass of semi-proletarians, semi-proprietors, i.e., with the mass of the petty-bourgeois urban and rural poor. Such a composition of the social basis of the possible and desirable revolutionary-democratic dictatorship will, of course, affect the composition of the revolutionary government and inevitably lead to the participation, or even predominance, within it of the most heterogeneous representatives of revolutionary democracy. It would be extremely harmful to entertain any illusions on this score. If that windbag Trotsky now writes (unfortunately, side by side with Parvus) that “a Father Gapon could appear only once”, that “there is no room for a second Gapon”, he does so simply because he is a windbag. If there were no room in Russia for a second Gapon, there would be no room for a truly “great”, consummated democratic revolution. To become great, to evoke 1789-93, not 1848-50, and to surpass those years, it must rouse the vast masses to active life, to heroic efforts, to “fundamental historic creativeness”; it must raise them out of frightful ignorance, unparalleled oppression, incredible backwardness, and abysmal dullness. The revolution is already raising them and will raise them completely; the government itself is facilitating the process by its desperate resistance. But, of course, there can be no question of a mature political consciousness, of a Social-Democratic consciousness of these masses or their numerous “native” popular leaders or even “muzhik” leaders. They cannot become Social-Democrats at once without first passing a number of revolutionary tests, not only because of their ignorance (revolution, we repeat, enlightens with marvellous speed), but because their class position is not proletarian, because the objective logic of historical development confronts them at the present time with the tasks, not of a socialist, but of a democratic revolution.
#5	1905 July, 26	Wrathful Impotence	We shall remind the reader that even Mr. Struve, who has often voiced sympathy in principle with Trotsky, Starover, Akimov, and Martynov, and with the new-Iskra trends in general and the new-Iskra Conference in particular—even Mr. Struve was in his time obliged to acknowledge that their stand is not quite a correct one, or rather quite an incorrect one
#6	1907	The Fifth Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party	A few words about Trotsky. He spoke on behalf of the “Centre”, and expressed the views of the Bund. He fulminated against us for introducing our “unacceptable” resolution. He threatened an outright split, the withdrawal of the Duma group, which is supposedly offended by our resolution. I emphasise these words. I urge you to reread our resolution attentively. Is it not monstrous to see something offensive in a calm acknowledgement of mistakes, unaccompanied by any sharply expressed censure, to speak of a split in connection with it? Does this not show the sickness in our Party, a fear of admitting mistakes, a fear of criticising the Duma group? The very possibility that the question can be presented in this way shows that there is something non-partisan in our Party. This non-partisan something is the Duma group’s relations with the Party. The Duma group must be more of a Party group, must have closer connections with the Party, must be more subordinate to all proletarian work. Then wailings about insults and threats of a split will disappear. When Trotsky stated: “Your unacceptable resolution prevents your right ideas being put into effect,” I called out to him: “Give us your resolution!” Trotsky replied: “No, first withdraw yours.” A fine position indeed for the “Centre” to take, isn’t it? Because of our (in Trotsky’s opinion) mistake (“tactlessness”), he punishes the whole Party, depriving it of his “tactful” exposition of the very same principles! Why did you not get your resolution passed, we shall be asked in the localities. Because the Centre took umbrage at it, and in a huff refused to set forth its own principles! (Applause from the Bolsheviks and part of the Centre.) That is a position based not on principle, but on the Centre’s lack of principle.
#7	1907	The Fifth Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party	It must be agreed that Trotsky’s amendment is not Menshevik, that it expresses the “very same”, that is, Bolshevik, idea. But Trotsky has expressed this idea in a way that is scarcely better. When we say “simultaneously” we are expressing the general character of present-day politics. This general character is undoubtedly of such a nature that conditions force us to come out simultaneously both against Stolypin and against the Cadets. The same is true with regard to the treacherous policy of the Cadets. Trotsky’s insertion is redundant, for we are not fishing for unique cases in the resolution, but are laying down the basic line of Social-Democracy in the bourgeois Russian revolution.
#8	1907	The Attitude Towards Bourgeois Parties	The question of the attitude of Social-Democracy towards bourgeois parties is one of those known as “general” or “theoretical” questions, i.e., such that are not directly connected with any definite practical task confronting the Party at a given moment. At the London Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., the Mensheviks and the Bundists conducted a fierce struggle against the inclusion of such questions in the agenda, and they were, unfortunately, supported in this by Trotsky, who does not belong to either side. The opportunist wing of our Party, like that of other Social-Democratic parties, defended a “business-like” or “practical” agenda for the Congress. They shied away from “broad and general” questions. They forgot that in the final analysis broad, principled politics are the only real, practical politics. They forgot that anybody who tackles partial problems without having previously settled general problems, will inevitably and at every step “come up against” those general problems without himself realising it. To come up against them blindly in every individual case means to doom one’s politics to the worst vacillation and lack of principle.
#9	1909	The Aim of the Proletarian Struggle in Our Revolution	As for Trotsky, whom Comrade Martov has involved in the controversy of third parties which he has organised— a controversy involving everybody except the dissentient— we positively cannot go into a full examination of his views here. A separate article of considerable length would be needed for this. By just touching upon Trotsky’s mistaken views, and quoting scraps of them, Comrade Martov only sows confusion in the mind of the reader; for scraps of quotations do not explain but confuse matters. Trotsky’s major mistake is that he ignores the bourgeois character of the revolution and has no clear conception of the transition from this revolution to the socialist revolution. This major mistake leads to those mistakes on side issues which Comrade Martov repeats when he quotes a couple of them with sympathy and approval. Not to leave matters in the confused state to which Comrade Martov has reduced them by his ex position, we shall at least expose the fallacy of those arguments of Trotsky which have won the approval of Comrade Martov.
#10	1909	The Aim of the Proletarian Struggle in Our Revolution	Trotsky’s second statement quoted by Comrade Martov is wrong too. It is not true that “the whole question is, who will determine the government’s policy, who will constitute a homogeneous majority in it”, and so forth. And it is particularly untrue when Comrade Martov uses it as an argument against the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. Trotsky himself, in the course of his argument, concedes that “representatives of the democratic population will take part” in the “workers’ government”, i.. e., concedes that there will be a government consisting of representatives of the proletariat and the peasantry. On what terms the proletariat will take part in the government of the revolution is quite another question, and it is quite likely that on this question the Bolsheviks will disagree not only with Trotsky, but also with the Polish Social-Democrats.
#11	1909	The Aim of the Proletarian Struggle in Our Revolution	Lastly, the most fallacious of Trotsky’s opinions that Comrade Martov quotes and considers to be “just” is the third, viz.: “even if they [the peasantry] do this [“support the regime of working-class democracy”] with no more political understanding than they usually support a bourgeois regime.” The proletariat cannot count on the ignorance and prejudices of the peasantry as the powers that be under a bourgeois regime count and depend on them, nor can it assume that in time of revolution the peasantry will remain in their usual state of political ignorance and passivity. [...] To think otherwise would be like supposing that some vital organs of an adult can retain the size, shape and development of infancy.
#12	1909	The Aim of the Proletarian Struggle in Our Revolution	In any case, Comrade Martov’s conclusion that the conference agreed with Trotsky, of all people, on the question of the relations between the proletariat and the peasantry in the struggle for power is an amazing contradiction of the facts, is an attempt to read into a word a meaning that was never discussed, not mentioned and not even thought of at the conference.
#13	1909 - 1910	The Faction of Supporters of Otzovism and God-Building	Concealing their ideological kin, afraid to declare their real platform, the new faction is trying to fill up the gaps in its ideological stock-in-trade by borrowing words from the vocabulary of old splits. The “new Proletary”, the new Proletary line”, shout Maximov and Nikolayev imitating the fight against the new Iskra in the old days. It is a trick that might beguile certain political infants, But you are not even capable of repeating old words, gentlemen. The “point” of the slogan “against the new Iskra” was that when the Mensheviks took over Iskra. they themselves had to start a new line of policy, whereas the Congress (the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. in 1903) had endorsed the line of the old Iskra. The “point” was that the Mensheviks (through the mouth of Trotsky in 1903-04) had to declare: the old Iskra and the new are poles apart. And to this day Potresov and Co. are trying to remove from themselves the “traces” of the period when they were guided by the old Iskra.
#14	1910	Notes of a Publicist	But the strongest abuse from Axelrod and Alexinsky only serves to screen their complete failure to understand the meaning and importance of Party unity. Trotsky’s (the Viennese) resolution only differs outwardly from the “effusions” of Axelrod and Alexinsky. It is drafted very “cautiously” and lays claim to “above faction” fairness. But what is its meaning? The “Bolshevik leaders” are to blame for everything—this is the same “philosophy of history” as that of Axelrod and Alexinsky.
#15	1910	Notes of a Publicist	This question needs only to be put for one to see how hollow are the eloquent phrases in Trotsky’s resolution, to see how in reality they serve to defend the very position held by Axelrod and Co., and Alexinsky and Co. In the very first words of his resolution Trotsky expressed the full spirit of the worst kind of conciliation, “conciliation” in inverted commas, of a sectarian and philistine conciliation, which deals with the “given persons” and not the given line of policy, the given spirit, the given ideological and political content of Party work. It is in this that the enormous difference lies between real partyism, which consists in purging the Party of liquidationism and otzovism, and the “conciliation” of Trotsky and Co., which actually renders the most faithful service to the liquidators and otzovists, and is therefore an evil that is all the more dangerous to the Party the more cunningly, artfully and rhetorically it cloaks itself with professedly pro-Party, professedly anti-factional declamations.
#16	1910	Notes of a Publicist	As is known, the proposal of the Mensheviks was not adopted. Trotsky, who put himself forward as candidate for the Central Organ in the capacity of neutraliser, was defeated. The candidature of a Bundist for the same post (the Mensheviks in their speeches proposed such a candidate) was not even put to the vote. Such is the actual role of those “conciliators”, in the bad sense of the word, who wrote the Vienna resolution and whose views are expressed in Yonov’s article in No. 4 of Otkliki Bunda, which I have just received. The Mensheviks did not venture to propose a Central Organ with a majority of their own trend, although, as is seen from Martov’s argument above quoted, they recognised the existence of two opposite trends in the Party. The Mensheviks did not even think of proposing a Central Organ with a majority of their trend. They did not even attempt to insist on a Central Organ with any definite trend at all (so obvious at the plenary session was the absence of any trend among the Mensheviks, who were only required, only expected, to make a sincere and consistent renunciation of liquidationism). The Mensheviks tried to secure “neutralisation” of the Central Organ and they proposed as neutralisers either a Bundist or Trotsky. The Bundist or Trotsky was to play the part of a matchmaker who would undertake to “unite in wedlock” “given persons, groups and institutions”, irrespective of whether one of the sides had renounced liquidationism or not. This standpoint of a matchmaker constitutes the entire “ideological basis” of Trotsky’s and Yonov’s conciliation. When they complain and weep over the failure to achieve unity, it must be taken cum grano salis. It must be taken to mean that the matchmaking failed. The “failure” of the, hopes of unity cherished by Trotsky and Yonov, hopes of unity with “given persons, groups and institutions” irrespective of their attitude to liquidationism, signifies only the failure of the matchmakers, the falsity, the hopelessness, the wretchedness of the matchmaking point of view, but it does not at all, signify the failure of Party unity.
#17	1910	Notes of a Publicist	The draft of this resolution was submitted to the Central Committee by myself, and the clause in question was altered by the plenum itself after the commission had finished its work; it was altered on the motion of Trotsky, against whom I fought without success. [...] Trotsky’s proposal to substitute “overcoming by means of broadening and deepening” for the fight on two fronts met with the ardent support of the Mensheviks and the Vperyodists. [...] Here you have the material—little, but characteristic material—which makes it clear how empty Trotsky’s and Yonov’s phrases are.
#18	1910	Notes of a Publicist	Of this we shall speak further on, where it will be our task to demonstrate the utter superficiality of the view taken by Trotsky [...] For the present we must dwell on another question, namely the question of the causes and significance of the action of the plenum in deleting the word liquidationism from the resolution. To explain it purely as a result of the misguided zeal of conciliators like Trotsky, Yonov and Co. would be incorrect. There is yet another factor here. The point is that a considerable portion of the decisions of the plenum were passed not on the usual principle of the minority submitting to the majority, but on the principle of an agreement between the two factions, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, with the mediation of the nationals. [...] In this sentence, Comrade Yonov speaks in hints. Like Trotsky, he considers such a mode of expressing his thoughts extremely “tactful”, non-factional and specifically pro-Party. In point of fact, this is the very method employed by sectarian diplomats which does nothing but harm to the Party and the pro-Party cause.
#19	1910	Notes of a Publicist	Hence the “conciliatory” efforts of Trotsky and Yonov are now ridiculous and miserable. These efforts can only be explained by a complete failure to understand what is taking place. They are harmless efforts now, for there is no one behind them except the sectarian diplomats abroad, except ignorance and lack of intelligence in some out-of-the-way places.
#20	1910	Notes of a Publicist	The conciliators à la Trotsky and Yonov mistook the special conditions which allowed conciliationist diplomacy to blossom forth at the plenum for the general conditions of present-day Party life. They made the mistake of taking this diplomacy—which played its part at the plenum owing to the presence of conditions that gave rise to a deep striving for conciliation (i.e., for Party unity) in both of the principal factions—as an aim in itself, as a lasting instrument in the game between “given persons, groups and institutions”.
#21	1910	Notes of a Publicist	The “conciliators” à la Trotsky and Yonov—having pushed their way to the front at the plenum, and having obtained the opportunity to play their part as “neutralisers”, as “judges”, in eliminating squabbles and satisfying “claims” against the Bolshevik Centre
#22	1910	Notes of a Publicist	the group of Mikhail and Co., the group of Potresov and Co. Should Trotsky and Yonov take it into their heads to “reconcile” the Party with the given persons, groups and institutions, then we all pro-Party Bolsheviks and all pro-Party Mensheviks would regard; them simply as traitors to the Party, and nothing more.
#23	1910	Notes of a Publicist	I refuse to enter into any negotiations about any concessions, since the Party is obliged now to break with these independents, to fight against them resolutely as full-fledged liquidators. And I can speak with confidence not only for myself but for all the pro-Party Bolsheviks. The pro-Party Mensheviks, through Plekhanov and others, have expressed themselves clearly enough in the same spirit; and since this is the state of affairs in the Party, the “conciliator”-diplomats à la Trotsky and Yonov will either have to abandon their diplomacy or leave the Party and join the independents.
#24	1910	Notes of a Publicist	The heinous crime of the spineless “conciliators” like Yonov and Trotsky, who defend or justify these people, is that they are causing their ruin by making them more dependent on liquidationism. Whereas the decisive action of all the non-factional Social-Democrats against Mikhail and Co. and against Potresov and Co. (surely, neither Trotsky nor Yonov would venture to defend these groups!) might have brought some of the Golos captives of liquidationism back into the Party—the grimaces and the affectation of the “conciliators”, while in no way reconciling the Party with the liquidators, only inspire the Golosists with “in sensate hopes”.
#25	1910	Notes of a Publicist	Incidentally, these grimaces and this affectation of the “conciliators” are, undoubtedly, to a large extent due simply to a failure to understand the situation. It is only owing to lack of understanding that Comrade Yonov can confine himself to the question of the publication or non-publication of Martov’s article, and that the Viennese supporters of Trotsky can reduce the question to “conflicts” oft the Central Organ. [...] and by divorcing from the same chain of events the “conflicts” on the Central Organ, Trotsky and Yonov deprive themselves of the possibility of understanding the events that are taking place.
#26	1910	Notes of a Publicist	That this position of Yonov and Trotsky is wrong should have been obvious to them for the simple reason that it is refuted by facts.
#27	1910	How Certain Social-Democrats Inform the International About the State of Affairs in the R.S.D.L.P.	Don’t you begin to guess, reader, to whose “non-factional” pen this article belongs? You are not mistaken, of course. Yes, it is the “non-factional” Comrade Trotsky, who has no compunction about openly advertising his faction’s propaganda sheet. He provides the insufficiently informed German readers with the same appraisal of the policy of the Party majority as that made by the liquidators. [...] Trotsky, Voinov and Streltsov have fraternally joined hands in opposing the Party line....
#28	1910	An Open Letter to All Pro-Party Social-Democrats	The liquidators and otzovists have an excellent under standing of conciliatory phrase-mongering and make excel lent use of it against the Party. The hero of such phrases, Trotsky, has quite naturally become the hero and sworn advocate of the liquidators and otzovists, with whom he agrees on nothing theoretically but in everything practically.
#29	1910	An Open Letter to All Pro-Party Social-Democrats	having done everything possible through the pages of the Central Organ to make clear the anti-Party character of the Vperyodists, Golosists and Trotsky...
#30	1910	An Open Letter to All Pro-Party Social-Democrats	If Trotsky and similar advocates of the liquidators and otzovists declare this rapprochement “devoid of political content”, such speeches testify only to Trotsky’s entire lack of principle, the real hostility of his policy to the policy of the actual (and not merely confined to promises) abolition of factions.
#31	1910	An Open Letter to All Pro-Party Social-Democrats	If the Central Committee does not want to draw this inevitable conclusion from the lessons of the plenum and its results, then let it hand over the conduct of Party work—and of work for the restoration of unity—to the alliance of the Golosists, Vperyodists and Trotsky. This will be more straightforward and honest, and we shall keep aloof from this alliance which has in actual fact demonstrated its anti-Party character.
#32	1910	An Open Letter to All Pro-Party Social-Democrats	And, after the experience of the plenum, we must repeat: not everyone who voices cheap phrases about partyism is really pro-Party. The Golosists and Vperyodists split the Party after the plenum. That is a fact. Trotsky was their advocate in this matter. That is also a fact.
#33	1910	Letter to the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.	Further, on the 26th November (N.S.), 1910, Trotsky carried through a resolution in the so-called Vienna Party Club (a circle of Trotskyites, exiles who are pawns in the hands of Trotsky) which he published as a separate leaflet. I append this leaflet. In this resolution, open war is declared on Rabochaya Gazeta,[15] the organ of the Bolsheviks and Plekhanov’s group.
#34	1910	Letter to the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.	Further, on the 26th November (N.S.), 1910, Trotsky carried through a resolution in the so-called Vienna Party Club (a circle of Trotskyites, exiles who are pawns in the hands of Trotsky) which he published as a separate leaflet. I append this leaflet. In this resolution, open war is declared on Rabochaya Gazeta,[15] the organ of the Bolsheviks and Plekhanov’s group.
#35	1910	Letter to the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.	Trotsky;s call for “friendly” collaboration by the Party with the Golos and Vperyod groups is disgusting hypocrisy and phrase-mongering. Everybody is aware that for the whole year since the Plenary Meeting the Golos and Vperyod groups have worked in a “friendly” manner against the Party (and were secretly supported by Trotsky). Actually, it is only the Bolsheviks and Plekhanov’s group who have for a whole year carried out friendly Party work in the Central Organ, in Rabochaya Gazeta, and at Copenhagen, as well as in the Russian legal press.
#36	1910	Letter to the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.	Trotsky’s attacks on the bloc of Bolsheviks and Plekhanov’s group are not new; what is new is the outcome of his resolution: the Vienna Club (read: “Trotsky”) has organised a “general Party fund for the purpose of preparing and convening a conference of the R.S.D.L.P.”.
#37	1910	Letter to the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.	This indeed is new. It is a direct step towards a split. It is a clear violation of Party legality and the start of an adventure in which Trotsky will come to grief. This is obviously a split. Trotsky’s action, his “fund”, is supported only by the Color and Vperyod groups. There can be no question of participation by the Bolsheviks and Plekhanov ’s group. That the liquidators (of Color) in Zurich have already supported Trotsky is comprehensible. It is quite possible and probable that “certain” Vperyod “funds” will be made available to Trotsky. You will appreciate that this will only stress the adventurist character of his undertaking.
#38	1910	Letter to the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.	It is clear that this undertaking violates Party legality, since not a word is said about the Central Committee, which alone can call the conference. In addition, Trotsky, having ousted the C.C. representative on Pravda in August 191O, himself lost all trace of legality, converting Pravda from an organ supported by the representative of the C.C. into a purely factional organ.
#39	1910	Letter to the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.	Trotsky in the last number of Pravda (and in his lecture in Zurich) goes all out to flirt with Vperyod. The liquidators in Russia sabotaged the work of the Russian Central Committee. The liquidators abroad want to prevent a plenary meeting abroad—in other words, sabotage anything like a Central Committee. Taking advantage of this “violation of legality”, Trotsky seeks an organisational split, creating “his own” fund for “his own” conference.
#40	1910	Letter to the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.	The roles have been assigned. The Golos group defend Potresov and Co., as a “legal shade of opinion”, the Vperyod group defend otzovism, as a “legal shade of opinion”. Trotsky seeks to defend both camps in a “popular fashion”, and to call his conference (possibly on funds supplied by Vperyod). The Triple Alliance (Potresov+Trotsky+Maximov) against the Dual Alliance (Bolsheviks+Plekhanov’s group). The deployment of forces has been completed and battle joined. You will understand why I call Trotsky’s move an adventure; it is an adventure in every respect.
#41	1910	Letter to the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.	It is an adventure in the ideological sense. Trotsky groups all the enemies of Marxism, he unites Potresov and Maximov, who detest the “Lenin-Plekhanov” bloc, as they like to call it. Trotsky unites all to whom ideological decay is dear, all who are not concerned with the defence of Marxism; all philistines who do not understand the reasons for the struggle and who do not wish to learn, think, and discover the ideological roots of the divergence of views. At this time of confusion, disintegration, and wavering it is easy for Trotsky to become the “hero of the hour” and gather all the shabby elements around himself, The more openly this attempt is made, the more spectacular will be the defeat.
#42	1910	Letter to the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.	It is an adventure in the party-political sense. At present everything goes to show that the real unity of the Social-Democratic Party is possible only on the basis of a sincere and unswerving repudiation of liquidationism and otzovism. It is clear that Potresov (together with Golos) and the Vperyod group have renounced neither the one nor the other. Trotsky unites them, basely deceiving himself, deceiving the Party, and deceiving the proletariat. In reality, Trotsky will achieve nothing more than the strengthening of Potresov’s and Maximov’s anti-Party groups. The collapse of this adventure is inevitable. Finally, it is an organisational adventure. A conference held with Trotsky’s “funds”, without the Central Committee, is a split. Let the initiative remain with Trotsky. Let his be the responsibility.
#43	1910	Letter to the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.	Three slogans bring out the essence of the present situation within the Party: [...] 3. Struggle against the splitting tactics and the unprincipled adventurism of Trotsky in handing Potresov and Maximov against Social-Democracy.
#44	1911	To the Central Committee	We resume our freedom of struggle against the liberals and anarchists, who are being encouraged by the leader of the “conciliators”, Trotsky. The question of the money is for us a secondary matter, although of course we do not intend to hand over the money of the faction to the bloc of liquidators+anarchists+Trotsky, while in no way renouncing our right to expose before the international Social-Democratic movement this bloc, its financial “basis” (the notorious Vperyodist “funds” safeguarded from exposure by Trotsky and the Golosists), etc.
#45	1911	To the Central Committee	The Vperyodists, thanks to the “conciliatory” support of Trotsky and Golos, have consolidated themselves as a faction with its own transport, its own agency, and have grown many times stronger since the plenum of January 1910. There has been a full development of what was already outlined quite clearly at the plenum (for instance, the defence of the anarchist school, by Trotsky + the Golosists). The bloc of the liberals and anarchists with the aid of the conciliators is shamelessly destroying the remnants of the Party from outside and helping to demoralise it from within. The formalistic game of “inviting” the Golosists and Trotskyists on to the central bodies is finally reducing to impotence the already weakened pro-Party elements.
#46	1911	The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia	The subject indicated by the above title is dealt with in articles by Trotsky and Martov in Nos. 50 and 51 of Neue Zeit. Martov expounds Menshevik views. Trotsky follows in the wake of the Mensheviks, taking cover behind particularly sonorous phrases.
#47	1911	The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia	The theory that the struggle between Bolshevism and Menshevism is a struggle for influence over an immature proletariat is not a new one. We have been encountering it since 1905 (if not since 1903) in innumerable books, pamphlets, and articles in the liberal press. Martov and Trotsky are putting before the German comrades liberal views with a Marxist coating.
#48	1911	The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia	Trotsky declares: “It is an illusion” to imagine that Menshevism and Bolshevism “have struck deep roots in the depths of the proletariat”. This is a specimen of the resonant but empty phrases of which our Trotsky is a master. The roots of the divergence between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks lie, not in the “depths of the proletariat”, but in the economic content of the Russian revolution. By ignoring this content, Martov and Trotsky have deprived themselves of the possibility of understanding the historical meaning of the inner Party struggle in Russia.
#49	1911	The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia	For the same reason Trotsky’s argument that splits in the international Social-Democratic movement are caused by the “process of adaptation of the social-revolutionary class to the limited (narrow) conditions of parliamentarism”, etc., while in the Russian Social-Democratic movement they are caused by the adaptation of the intelligentsia to the proletariat, is absolutely false. Trotsky writes: “While the real political content of this process of adaptation was limited (narrow) from the standpoint of the socialist, final aim, its forms were unrestrained, and the ideological shadow cast by this process was great.” This truly “unrestrained” phrase-mongering is merely the “ideological shadow” of liberalism. Both Martov and Trotsky mix up different historical periods and compare Russia, which is going through her bourgeois revolution, with Europe, where these revolutions were completed long ago.
#50	1911	The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia	Martov’s arguments on the Russian revolution and Trotsky’s arguments on the present state of Russian Social-Democracy definitely confirm the incorrectness of their fundamental views. We shall start with the boycott. Martov calls the boycott “abstention from politics”, the method of the “anarchists and syndicalists”, and he refers only to 1906. Trotsky says that the “boycottist tendency runs through the whole history of Bolshevism—boycott of the trade unions, of the State Duma, of local self-government bodies, etc.”, that it is the “result of sectarian fear of being swamped by the masses, the radicalism of irreconcilable abstention”, etc. As regards boycotting the trade unions and the local self-government bodies, what Trotsky says is absolutely untrue. It is equally untrue to say that boycottism runs through the whole history of Bolshevism; Bolshevism as a tendency, took definite shape in the spring and summer of 1905, before the question of the boycott first came up. In August 1906, in the official organ of the faction, Bolshevism declared that the historical conditions which made the boycott necessary had passed.
#51	1911	The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia	Trotsky distorts Bolshevism, because he has never been able to form any definite views on the role of the proletariat in the Russian bourgeois revolution. But far worse is the distortion of the history of this revolution.
#52	1911	The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia	in spite of Trotsky’s assertions, this gulf between the views of “intellectuals” reflects only the gulf which in fact existed at the end of 1905 between the classes, namely, between the revolutionary proletariat, which fought, and the bourgeoisie, which behaved in a treacherous manner.
#53	1911	The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia	Failing to understand the historical and economic significance of this disintegration in the era of counter-revolution, of this falling away of non-Social-Democratic elements from the Social-Democratic Labour Party, Trotsky tells the German readers that both factions are “falling to pieces”, that the Party is “falling to pieces”, that the Party is “demoralised.”
#54	1911	The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia	It is not true. And this untruth expresses, firstly, Trotsky’s utter lack of theoretical understanding. Trotsky has absolutely failed to understand why the plenum described both liquidationism and otzovism as a “manifestation of bourgeois influence on the proletariat”. Just think: is the severance from the Party of trends which have been condemned by the Party, and which express bourgeois influence on the proletariat, an indication of the Party’s disintegration, of its demoralisation, or is it an indication of its becoming stronger and purer?
#55	1911	The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia	Secondly, in practice, this untruth expresses the “policy” of advertisement pursued by Trotsky’s faction. That Trotsky’s venture is an attempt to create a faction is now obvious to all, since Trotsky has removed the Central Committee’s representative from Pravda. In advertising his faction Trotsky does not hesitate to tell the Germans that the Party is falling to pieces, that both factions are falling to pieces and that he, Trotsky, alone, is saving the situation. Actually, we all see now—and the latest resolution adopted by the Trotskyists (in the name of the Vienna Club, on November 26, 1910) proves this quite conclusively—that Trotsky enjoys the confidence exclusively of the liquidators and the Vperyodists.
#56	1911	The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia	The extent of Trotsky’s shamelessness in, belittling the Party and exalting himself before the Germans is shown, for instance, by the following. Trotsky writes that the “working masses” in Russia consider that the “Social-Democratic Party stands outside [Trotsky’s italics] their, circle” and he talks of “Social-Democrats without Social-Democracy”. How could one expect Mr. Potresov and his friends to refrain from bestowing kisses on Trotsky for such statements? But these statements are refuted not only by the entire history of the revolution, but even by the results of the elections to the Third Duma from the workers’ curia.
#57	1911	The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia	Trotsky writes that “owing to their former ideological and organisational structure, the Menshevik and Bolshevik factions proved altogether incapable” of working in legal organisations; work was carried on by “individual groups of Social-Democrats, but all this took place outside the factions, outside their organisational influence”. “Even the most important legal organisation, in which the Mensheviks predominate, works completely outside the control of the Menshevik faction.” That is what Trotsky writes. But the facts are as follows. From the very beginning of the existence of the Social-Democratic group in the Third Duma, the Bolshevik faction, through its representatives authorised by the Central Committee of the Party, has all the time assisted, aided, advised, and supervised the work of the Social-Democrats in the Duma. The same is done by the editorial board of the Central Organ of the Party, which consists of representatives of the factions
#58	1911	The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia	When Trotsky gives the German comrades a detailed account of the stupidity of “otzovism” and describes this trend as a “crystallisation” of the boycottism characteristic of Bolshevism as a whole, and then mentions in a few words that Bolshevism “did not allow itself to be overpowered” by otzovism, but “attacked it resolutely or rather in an unbridled fashion”—the German reader certainly gets no idea how much subtle perfidy there is in such an exposition. Trotsky’s Jesuitical “reservation” consists in omitting a small, very small “detail”. He “forgot” to mention that at an official, meeting of its representatives held as far back as the spring of 1909, the Bolshevik faction repudiated and expelled the otzovists. But it is just this “detail” that is inconvenient for Trotsky, who wants to talk of the “falling to pieces” of the Bolshevik faction (and then of the Party as well) and not of the falling away of the non-Social-Democratic elements!
#59	1911	The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia	Trotsky, on the other hand, represents only his own personal vacillations and nothing more. In 1903 he was a Menshevik; he abandoned Menshevism in 1904, returned to the Mensheviks in 1905 and merely flaunted ultra-revolutionary phrases; in 1906 he left them again; at the end of 1906 he advocated electoral agreements with the Cadets (i.e., he was in fact once more with the Mensheviks); and in the spring of 1907, at the London Congress, he said that he differed from Rosa Luxemburg on “individual shades of ideas rather than on political tendencies”. One day Trotsky plagiarises from the ideological stock-in-trade of one faction; the next day he plagiarises from that of another, and therefore declares himself to be standing above both factions. In theory Trotsky is on no point in agreement with either the liquidators or the otzovists, but in actual practice he is in entire agreement with both the Golosists and the Vperyodists.
#60	1911	The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Struggle in Russia	Therefore, when Trotsky tells the German comrades that he represents the “general Party tendency”, I am obliged to declare that Trotsky represents only his own faction and enjoys a certain amount of confidence exclusively among the otzovists and the liquidators. The following facts prove the correctness of my statement. In January 1910, the Central Committee of our Party established close ties with Trotsky’s newspaper Pravda and appointed a representative of the Central Committee to sit on the editorial board. In September 1910, the Central Organ of the Party announced a rupture between the representative of the Central Committee and Trotsky owing to Trotsky’s anti-Party policy. In Copenhagen, Plekhanov, as the representative of the pro-Party Mensheviks and delegate of the editorial board of the Central Organ, together with the present writer, as the representative of the Bolsheviks, and a Polish comrade, entered an emphatic protest against the way Trotsky represents our Party affairs in the German press. Let the readers now judge for themselves whether Trotsky represents a “general Party”, or a “general anti-Party” trend in Russian Social-Democracy.
#61	1910 December 23-24	The State of Affairs in the Party	Martov’s article in Golos, No. 23, and Trotsky’s statement of November 26, 1910 in the form of a “resolution” of the “Vienna Club”, published as a separate leaflet, present the question to the reader in a manner which completely distorts the essence of the matter. Martov’s article and Trotsky’s resolution conceal definite practical actions—actions directed against the Party. Martov’s article is simply the literary expression of a campaign launched by the Golos group to sabotage the Central Committee of our Party. Trotsky’s resolution, which calls upon organisations in the localities to prepare for a “general Party conference “independent of, and against, the Central Commit tee, expresses the very aim of the Golos group—to destroy the central bodies so detested by the liquidators, and with them, the Party as an organisation. It is not enough to lay bare the anti-Party activities of Golos and Trotsky; they must be fought. Comrades to whom the Party and its revival are dear must come out most resolutely against all those who, guided by purely factional and narrow circle considerations and interests, are striving to destroy the Party.
#62	1910 December 23-24	The State of Affairs in the Party	The other “reason” advanced by Igorev is that the plenary meeting would be made up mostly of exiles. But this does not prevent the Golos group from lending every support to Trotsky’s purely émigré plan of calling a “general Party” conference independently of, and against, the Central Committee.... The Golos group have decided to disrupt any and every attempt to convene the Central Committee.
#63	1910 December 23-24	The State of Affairs in the Party	Trotsky’s statement, though outwardly entirely unconnected with Martov’s jeering at the adversities of the Party, and with the attempts of the Golos supporters to sabotage the Central Committee, is actually connected with the one and the other by inseverable ties, by the ties of “interest”. There are many Party members who still fail to see this connection. The Vienna resolution of November 26, 1910, will undoubtedly help them understand the essence of the matter.
#64	1910 December 23-24	The State of Affairs in the Party	The resolution consists of three parts: (1) a declaration of war against Rabochaya Gazeta (a call to “rebuff it resolutely” as one of the “new factional group undertakings”, using Trotsky’s expression); (2) polemics against the line of the Bolshevik-Plekhanov “bloc”; (3) a declaration that the “meeting of the Vienna Club [i.e., Trotsky and his circle][4] resolves: to organise a general Party fund for the purpose of preparing and convening a conference of the R.S.D.L.P.”. We shall not dwell on the first part at all. Trotsky is quite right in saying that Rabochaya Gazeta is a “private undertaking”, and that “it is not authorised to speak in the name of the Party as a whole”. Only Trotsky should not have forgotten to mention that he and his Pravda are not authorised to speak in the name of the Party either. In saying that the Plenary Meeting recognised the work of Pravda as useful, he should not have forgotten to mention that it appointed a representative of the Central Committee to the Editorial Board of Pravda. When Trotsky, in referring to ’the Meeting’s decisions on Pravda, fails to mention this fact, all one can say about it is that he is deceiving the workers. And this deception on the part of Trotsky is all the more malicious, since in August1910 Trotsky removed the representative of the Central Committee from Pravda. Since that incident, since Pravda has severed its relations with the Central Committee, Trotsky’s paper is nothing but a “private undertaking”, and one, moreover, that has failed to carry out the obligations it assumed. Until the Central Committee meets again, the only judge of the relations between Pravda and the Central Committee is the Central Committee representative appoint ed by the Plenary Meeting who has declared that Trotsky behaved in a manner hostile to the Party. That is what emerges from the question, so opportunely raised by Trotsky, as to who is “authorised to speak in the name of the Party as a whole”.
#65	1910 December 23-24	The State of Affairs in the Party	Therefore, we declare, in the name of the Party as a whole, that Trotsky is pursuing an anti-Party policy; that, by failing to make the least mention of the Central Committee in his resolution (as if he had already come to an understanding with Golos that the work of the Central Committee would be sabotaged), and by announcing in the name of one group abroad the “organisation of a fund for the purpose of convening a conference of the R.S.D.L.P.”, he is contravening Party legality and is embarking on the path of adventurism and a split. If the efforts of the liquidators to sabotage the work of the Central Committee meet with success, we, as the sole body authorised to speak in the name of the Party as a whole, will immediately declare that we take no part whatever in Trotsky’s “fund” or in his venture, and that we shall recognise as a general Party conference only one convened by the Central Organ, not one convened by Trotsky’s circle.
#66	1910 December 23-24	The State of Affairs in the Party	While calling upon Party members to fight resolutely for this solution based on Party legality, we shall try to investigate “the fundamental principles” of the differences which the Golos group and Trotsky are in a hurry to carry to the point of a split—the former, by obstructing the work of the Central Committee, and the latter, by ignoring it and “organising a fund” for the purpose of convening a “conference of the R.S.D.L.P.” (no joke!) by Trotsky’s circle. Trotsky writes in his resolution that at present “there is no basis for the struggle on principle” being waged by the “Leninists and Plekhanovites” (in thus substituting personalities for the trends of Bolshevism and pro-Party Menshevism, Trotsky aims at disparagement, but succeeds only in expressing his own lack of understanding).
#67	1910 December 23-24	The State of Affairs in the Party	Yes or no? Does Trotsky regard the Potresovs who were specifically mentioned In the Central Organ, as a “Party trend” or not? This is precisely a question of the “application in practice” of the decisions of the Plenary Meeting, and it is now a year since it was posed by the Central Organ clearly, bluntly, and unambiguously, so that there could be no evasions! Trotsky is trying again and again to evade the question by passing it over in silence or by phrase-mongering; for he is concerned to keep the readers and the Party ignorant of the truth, namely, that Mr. Potresov’s group, the group of sixteen, etc., are absolutely independent of the Party, represent expressly distinct factions, are not only doing nothing to revive the illegal organisation, but are obstructing its revival, and are not pursuing any Social-Democratic tactics. Trotsky is concerned with keeping the Party ignorant of the truth, namely, that the Golos group represent a faction abroad, similarly separated from the Party, and that they actually render service to the liquidators in Russia. And what about the Vperyod group? Trotsky knows perfectly well that ever since the Plenary Meeting they have been strengthening and developing their separate faction, disposing of funds independently of the Party, and maintaining a separate factional school in which they teach, not “consistent Social-Democratic tactics”, but that “otzovism is a legal shade of opinion”; in which they teach otzovist views on the role of the Third Duma, views expressed in the factional platform of Vperyod. Trotsky maintains silence on this undeniable truth, because the truth is detrimental to the real aims of his policy. The real aims, however, are becoming clearer and more obvious even to the least far-sighted Party members. They are: an anti-Party bloc of the Potresovs with the Vperyod group—a bloc which Trotsky supports and is organising. The adoption of Trotsky’s resolutions (like the “Vienna” one) by the Golos group, Pravda’s flirtation with the Vperyod group, Pravda’s allegations that only members of the Vperyod group and Trotsky’s group are active in the localities in Russia, the publicity given by Pravda to the Vperyod factional school, Trotsky’s direct assistance to this school, these are all facts which cannot long remain concealed. Murder will out.
#68	1910 December 23-24	The State of Affairs in the Party	The substance of Trotsky’s policy is “harmonious work” carried on by Pravda together with the factions of the Potresovs and Vperyod. The various roles in this bloc have been clearly cast: Mr. Potresov and Co. are continuing their legalistic work, independently of the Party, work of destroying the Social-Democratic Party; the Golos group represent the foreign branch of this faction; and Trotsky has assumed the role of attorney, assuring the naïve public that “consistent Social-Democratic tactics” has taken “firm root among all Party trends”. The Vperyod group also enjoy the services of this attorney, who pleads their right to maintain a factional school and resorts to hypocritical and formal phrases in order to gloss over their policy. Naturally, this bloc will support Trotsky’s “fund” and the anti-Party conference which he is convening, for here the Potresovs and the Vperyod group are getting what they want, namely, freedom for their factions, blessings of the conference for those factions, a cover for their activity, and an attorney to defend that activity before the workers. Therefore, it is from the standpoint of “fundamental principles” that we must regard this bloc as adventurism in the most literal meaning of the term. Trotsky does not dare to say that he sees in Potresov and in the otzovists real Marxists, real champions of loyalty to the principles of Social-Democracy. The essence of the position of an adventurer is that he must forever resort to evasions. For it is obvious and known to everyone that the Potresovs and the otzovists all have their own line (an anti-Social-Democratic line) and that they are pursuing it, while the diplomats of Golos and Vperyod only serve as a screen for them.
#69	1910 December 23-24	The State of Affairs in the Party	The most profound reason why this bloc is doomed to failure—no matter how great its success among the philistines and no matter how large the “funds” Trotsky may succeed in collecting with the assistance of Vperyod and Potresov’s “sources”—is that it is an unprincipled bloc.
#70	1910 December 23-24	The State of Affairs in the Party	When Trotsky declares that the rapprochement between the pro-Party Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks is “devoid of political content” and “unstable”, he is thereby merely revealing the depths of his own ignorance, he is thereby demonstrating his own complete emptiness. For it is precisely the fundamental principles of Marxism that have triumphed as a result of the struggle waged by the Bolsheviks against the non-Social-Democratic ideas of Vperyod, and as a result of the struggle waged by the pro-Party Mensheviks against the Potresovs and Golos.
#71	1910 December 23-24	The State of Affairs in the Party	This began after the Plenary Meeting. We have so far not seen harmonious work between Potresov and the Vperyod group and Trotsky; all we have seen is group diplomacy, juggling with words, solidarity in evasions. But the Party has seen the pro-Party Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks work in harmony for a whole year, and anyone who is capable of valuing Marxism, any one who holds dear the “fundamental principles” of Social-Democracy, will not doubt for a moment that nine-tenths of the workers belonging to both groups will be fully in favour of this rapprochement.
#72	1910 December 23-24	The State of Affairs in the Party	It is precisely from the standpoint of “fundamental principles” that Trotsky’s bloc with Potresov and the Vperyod group is adventurism. And it is equally so from the stand point of the Party’s political tasks. These tasks were indeed pointed out by the Plenary Meeting unanimously, but that does not mean that they can be reduced to that banal phrase—combining legal with illegal work (for the Cadets[10] also “combine” the legal Rech[11] with the illegal Central Committee of their party)—which Trotsky deliberately uses in order to please the Potresovs and the Vperyod group, who do not object to hollow phrases and platitudes.
#73	1910 December 23-24	The State of Affairs in the Party	Nor must it be forgotten that at the Meeting all the representatives of the non-Russian nationalities (joined at the time by Trotsky, who is in the habit of joining any group that happens to be in the majority at the moment) declared in a written statement that “in point of fact it would be desirable to describe the trend mentioned in the resolution as liquidationism, against which it is essential to fight”.
#74	1910 December 23-24	The State of Affairs in the Party	Thirdly and lastly, Trotsky’s policy is adventurism in the organisational sense; for, as we have already pointed out, it violates Party legality; by organising a conference in the name of one group abroad (or of a bloc of two anti-Party factions—the Golos and Vperyod factions), it is directly making for a split. [...] We call upon all Social-Democrats to fight resolutely for Party legality, to fight the anti-Party bloc, for the sake of the fundamental principles of Marxism, and in order to purge Social-Democracy of the taint of liberalism and anarchism.
#75	1911 January	Judas Trotsky’s Blush of Shame	At the Plenary Meeting Judas Trotsky made a big show of fighting liquidationism and otzovism. He vowed and swore that he was true to the Party. He was given a subsidy. [...] Judas expelled the representative of the Central Committee from, Pravda and began to write liquidationist articles in Vorwärts. In defiance of the direct decision of the School Commission appointed by the Plenary Meeting to the effect that no Party lecturer may go to the Vperyod factional school, Judas Trotsky did go and discussed a plan for a conference with the Vperyod group. This plan has now been published by the Vperyod group in a leaflet. And it is this Judas who beats his breast and loudly professes his loyalty to the Party, claiming that he did not grovel before the Vperyod group and the liquidators. Such is Judas Trotsky’s blush of shame.
#76	1911 July	Resolution Adopted by the Second Paris Group of the R.S.D.L.P. on the State of Affairs in the Party	At a time when the inner-Party struggle is becoming more acute, it is particularly important to make a fundamental statement on the cardinal problems of programme, tactics and organisation. People like Trotsky, with his inflated phrases about the R.S.D.L.P. and his toadying to the liquidators, who have nothing in common with the R.S.D.L.P., today represent “the prevalent disease”. They are trying to build up a career for them selves by cheap sermons about “agreement”—agreement with all and sundry, right down to Mr. Potresov and the otzovists—while of necessity maintaining complete silence as to the political conditions of this wonderful supposed “agreement”. Actually they preach surrender to the liquidators who are building a Stolypin labour party. [...] The meeting draws the attention of worker Social-Democrats, irrespective of factions, to the fact that the émigré leaders of the Vperyod group, and Trotsky, editor of Pravda, are pursuing a policy of supporting the liquidators and of an alliance with them against the Party and against its decisions.
#77	1911 September, 4	From the Camp of the Stolypin “Labour” Party	Compare this fact with the methods employed by people like Trotsky, who shout about “agreement” and about their hostility to the liquidators. We know these methods only too well; these people shout at the top of their voices that they are “neither Bolsheviks nor Mensheviks, but revolutionary Social-Democrats”; they zealously vow and swear that they are foes of liquidationism and staunch defenders of the illegal R.S.D.L.P.; they vociferously abuse those who expose the liquidators, the Potresovs; they say, that the anti liquidators are “exaggerating” the issue; but do not say a word against the definite liquidators, Potresov, Martov, Levitsky, Dan, Larin, and so on. The real purpose of such methods is obvious. They use phrase-mongering to shield the real liquidators and do everything to hamper the work of the anti-liquidators.
#78	1911 September, 4	From the Camp of the Stolypin “Labour” Party	Hence it is clear that Trotsky and the “Trotskyites and conciliators” like him are more pernicious than any liquidator; the convinced liquidators state their views bluntly, and it is easy for the workers to detect where they are wrong, whereas the Trotskys deceive the workers, cover up the evil, and make it impossible to expose the evil and to remedy it. Whoever supports Trotsky’s puny group supports a policy of lying and of deceiving the workers, a policy of shielding the liquidators. Full freedom of action for Potresov and Co. in Russia, and the shielding of their deeds by “revolutionary” phrase-mongering abroad—there you have the essence of the policy of “Trotskyism”. [...] At present Trotsky, together with Bundists like Mr. Lieber (an extreme liquidator, who publicly defended Mr. Potresov in his lectures and who now, in order to hush up the fact, is stirring up squabbles and conflicts), together with Letts like Schwartz,[4] and so on, is concocting just such an “agreement” with the Golosgroup. Let nobody be deceived on this score: their agreement will be an agreement to shield the liquidators. [...] P.S. These lines were already set up when reports appeared in the press of an “agreement” between the Golos group and Trotsky, the Bundist and the Lett liquidator. Our words have been fully borne out: this is an agreement to shield the liquidators in Russia, an agreement between the servants of the Potresovs.
#79	1911 October	The New Faction of Conciliators, Or the Virtuous	Conciliationism is the totality of moods, strivings and views that are indissolubly bound up with the very essence of the historical task confronting the R.S.D.L.P. during the period of the counter-revolution of 1908–11. That is why, during this period, a number of Social-Democrats, proceeding from essentially different premises, “lapsed” into conciliationism. Trotsky expressed conciliationism more consistently than anyone else. He was probably the only one who attempted to give the trend a theoretical foundation, namely: factions and factionism express the struggle of the intelligentsia “for influence over the immature proletariat”. The proletariat is maturing, and factionalism is perishing of itself. The root of the process of fusion of the factions is not the change in the relations between the classes, not the evolution of the fundamental ideas of the two principal factions, but the observance or otherwise of agreements concluded between all the “intellectual” factions. For a long time now, Trotsky—who at one moment has wavered more to the side of the Bolsheviks and at another more to that of the Mensheviks—has been persistently carrying on propaganda for an agreement (or compromise) between all and sundry factions.
#80	1911 October	The New Faction of Conciliators, Or the Virtuous	Every proposition the authors of the message put forward, they immediately refute. In every single proposition, the alleged Bolsheviks (who in reality are inconsistent Trotskyites) echo Trotsky’s mistakes.
#81	1911 October	The New Faction of Conciliators, Or the Virtuous	Who are its authors? They say they are Bolsheviks who “do not share the organisational views of official Bolshevism”. That looks as if it were an “opposition” only on the question of organisation, does it not? Read the next sentence: “... It is precisely the organisational questions, the questions of building and restoring the Part a are being put in the forefront now, as was the case eighteen months ago.” This is quite untrue, and constitutes the very error of principle which Trotsky made, and which I exposed a year and a half ago. At the Plenary Meeting, the organisational question probably seemed of paramount importance only because, and only insofar as, the rejection of liquidationism by all factions was taken to be real, because the Golos and the Vperyod representatives “signed” the resolutions against liquidationism and against otzovism to “console” the Party. Trotsky’s error was in continuing to pass off the apparent for the real after February 1910, when Nasha Zarya finally unfurled the banner of liquidationism, and the Vperyod group—in their notorious school at Capri—unfurled the banner of defence of otzovism. At the Plenary Meeting, the acceptance of the apparent for the real may have been the result of self-delusion. But after it, ever since the spring of 1910, Trotsky has been deceiving the workers in a most unprincipled and shameless manner by assuring them that the obstacles to unity were principally (if not wholly) of an organisational nature. This deceit is being continued in 1911 by the Paris conciliators; for to assert now that the organisational questions occupy the first place is sheer mockery of the truth. In reality, it is by no means the organisational question that is now in the forefront, but the question of the entire programme, the entire tactics and the whole character of the Party, or rather a question of two parties—the Social-Democratic Labour Party and the Stolypin labour party of Potresov, Smirnov, Larin, Levitsky, and their friends. The Paris conciliators seem to have been asleep for the eighteen months that have elapsed since the Plenary Meeting, during which time the entire struggle against the liquidators shifted, both in our camp and among the pro-Party Mensheviks, from organisational questions to questions of whether the Party is to be a Social-Democratic, and not a liberal, labour party. To argue now, let us say, with the gentlemen of Nasha Zarya about organisational questions, about the relative importance of the legal and illegal organisations, would be simply putting on an act, for these gentlemen may fully recognise an “illegal” organisation like Golos, which is subservient to the liquidators! It has been said long ago that the Cadets are recognising and maintaining an illegal organisation that serves monarchist liberalism. The conciliators call themselves Bolsheviks, in order to repeat, a year and a half later (and specifically stating moreover that this was done in the name of Bolshevism as a whole!), Trotsky’s errors which the Bolsheviks had exposed. Well, is this not an abuse of established Party titles? Are we not obliged, after this, to let all and sundry know that the conciliators are not Bolsheviks at all, that they have nothing in common with Bolshevism, that they are simply inconsistent Trotskyites?
#82	1911 October	The New Faction of Conciliators, Or the Virtuous	since August 1908. In comparing these well-known dates we involuntarily seek for an explanation of this strange “silence” of the conciliators, and this quest involuntarily recalls to our mind Trotsky and Ionov, who asserted that they too were opposed to the liquidators, but that they understood the task of combating them differently. It is ridiculous, comrades—to declare, three years after the struggle began, that you understand the character of this struggle differently! Such a difference in understanding amounts to not understanding it at all!
#83	1911 October	The New Faction of Conciliators, Or the Virtuous	How do they answer the question of why the work and the decisions of the Plenary Meeting, which primarily were meant to bring about unity, resulted in a split between the Central Committee Bureau Abroad (==liquidators) and the anti-liquidators? Our inconsistent Trotskyites have simply copied the answer to this from Trotsky and Ionov, and I am forced to repeat what I said in last May against those consistent conciliators.
#84	1911 October	The New Faction of Conciliators, Or the Virtuous	They say nothing, not a word, to explain matters, except that factionalism is a vice and non-factionalism a virtue. The only difference between Trotsky and the conciliators in Paris is that the latter regard Trotsky as a factionalist and themselves as non-factional, whereas Trotsky holds the opposite view.
#85	1911 October	The New Faction of Conciliators, Or the Virtuous	You make yourselves ridiculous when you and Trotsky hurl accusations of factionalism at one another, as if you were playing at ball; you do not take the trouble to think: what is a faction? Try to give a definition, and we predict that you will entangle yourselves still more; for you your selves are a faction—a vacillating, unprincipled faction, one that failed to understand what took place at the Plenary Meeting and after it. A faction is an organisation within a party, united, not by its place of work, language or other objective conditions, but by a particular platform of views on party questions. The authors of the message are a faction, because the message constitutes their platform (a very bad one; but there are factions with wrong platforms). They are a faction, because like every other organisation they are bound by internal discipline; their group appoints its representative to the Technical Commission and to the Organising Commission by a majority of votes; it was their group that drew up and published the message-programme, and so on. Such are the objective facts which show that outcries against factionalism are bound to be hypocrisy. Yet Trotsky and the “inconsistent Trotskyites maintain that they are not a faction because ... “the only” object of their uniting (into a faction) is to abolish factions and to advocate their fusion, etc. But all such assurances are merely self-praise and a cowardly game of hide-and-seek, for the simple reason that the fact that a faction exists is not affected by any (even the most virtuous) aim of the faction. Every faction is convinced that its platform and its policy are the best means of abolishing factions, for no one regards the existence of factions as ideal. The only difference is that factions with clear, consistent, integral platforms openly defend their platforms, while unprincipled factions hide behind cheap shouts about their virtue, about their non-factionalism.
#87	1911 October	The New Faction of Conciliators, Or the Virtuous	Trotsky provides us with an abundance of instances of scheming to establish unprincipled “unity”. Recall, for example (I take one of the most recent instances), how he praised the Paris Rabochaya Zhizn,[11] in the management of which the Paris conciliators and the Golos group had an equal share. How wonderful!—wrote Trotsky—“neither Bolshevik, nor Menshevik, but revolutionary Social-Democrat”. The poor hero of phrase-mongering failed to notice a mere bagatelle—only that Social-Democrat is revolutionary who understands how harmful anti-revolutionary pseudo-Social-Democracy can be in a given country at a given time (i.e., the harm of liquidationism and otzovism in the Russia of the 19O8–10 period), and who knows how to fight against such non-Social-Democratic tendencies. By his praise of Rabochaya Zhizn which had never fought against the non-revolutionary Social-Democrats in Russia, Trotsky was merely revealing the plan of the liquidators whom he serves faithfully—parity on the Central Organ implies the termination of the struggle against the liquidators; the liquidators actually enjoy full freedom to fight the Party; and let the Party be tied hand and foot by the “parity” of the Golos and Party men on the Central Organ (and on the Central Committee). This would assure complete victory for the liquidators and only their lackeys could pursue or defend such a line of action.
#88	1911 October	The New Faction of Conciliators, Or the Virtuous<footnote #5>	Of course, not all conciliators are alike, and surely not all the former members of the Russian Bureau could (and would) accept responsibility for all the pompous stupidities of the Paris conciliators who are merely echoing Trotsky.
#89	1911 December	Trotsky’s Diplomacy and a Certain Party Platform	Trotsky’s Pravda, No. 22, which appeared recently after a long interval in which no issue was published, vividly illustrates the decay of the petty groups abroad that attempted to base their existence on their diplomatic game with the non-Social-Democratic trends of liquidationism and otzovism.
#90	1911 December	Trotsky’s Diplomacy and a Certain Party Platform	The publication appeared on November 29, New Style, nearly a month after the announcement issued by the Russian Organising Commission. Trotsky makes no mention of this whatsoever!
#91	1911 December	Trotsky’s Diplomacy and a Certain Party Platform	As far as Trotsky is concerned, the Russian Organising Commission does not exist. Trotsky calls himself a Party man on the strength of the fact that to him the Russian Party centre, formed by the overwhelming majority of the Social-Democratic organisations in Russia, means nothing. Or, perhaps it is the other way round, comrades? Perhaps Trotsky, with his small group abroad, is just nothing so far as the Social-Democratic organisations in Russia are concerned?
#92	1911 December	Trotsky’s Diplomacy and a Certain Party Platform	Trotsky uses the boldest type for his assertions—it’s a wonder he never tires of making solemn vows—that his paper is “not a factional but a Party organ”. You need only pay some little attention to the contents of No. 22 to see at once the obvious mechanics of the game with the non- Party Vperyod and liquidator factions.
#93	1911 December	Trotsky’s Diplomacy and a Certain Party Platform	Take the report from St. Petersburg, signed S. V., which advertises the Vperyod group. S. V. reproaches Trotsky for not having published the resolution of the St. Petersburg Vperyod group against the petition campaign,[1] sent to him some time ago. Trotsky, accused by the Vperyod group of “narrow factionalism” (what black ingratitude!), twists and turns, pleading lack of funds and the fact that his paper does not appear often enough. The game is too obvious: We will do you a good turn, and you do the same for us—we (Trotsky) will keep silent about the fight of the Party people against the otzovists and, again, we (Trotsky) will help advertise Vperyod, and you (S. V.) give in to the liquidators on the question of the “petition campaign”. Diplomatic defence of both non-Party factions—isn’t that the sign of a true Party spirit?
#94	1911 December	Trotsky’s Diplomacy and a Certain Party Platform	Trotsky knows perfectly well that liquidators writing in legal publications combine this very slogan of “freedom of association” with the slogan “down with the underground party, down with the struggle for a republic”. Trotsky’s particular task is to conceal liquidationism by throwing dust in the eyes of the workers.
#95	1911 December	Trotsky’s Diplomacy and a Certain Party Platform	It is impossible to argue with Trotsky on the merits of the issue, because Trotsky holds no views whatever. We can and should argue with confirmed liquidators and otzovists; but it is no use arguing with a man whose game is to hide the errors of both these trends; in his case the thing to do is to expose him as a diplomat of the smallest calibre.
#96	1911	Fundamental Problems of the Election Campaign	There is nothing more repugnant to the spirit of Marxism than phrase-mongering. [...] But there is no point in imitating Trotsky’s inflated phrases.
#97	1911	Fundamental Problems of the Election Campaign	For mercy’s sake, dear man—why compete with Trotsky? Why try to stun the readers in general, and the workers in particular, with all that verbiage about the results of political amalgamation in the course of the political campaign? Or about consolidating those results? After all, it is nothing but words, merely giving yourself airs by the ponderous repetition of a simple idea.
#98	1911	Fundamental Problems of the Election Campaign	It Is wrong to think, as the Narodniks think with regard to the peasantry, and Trotsky with regard to the workers, that those collisions went beyond the limits of bourgeois society.
#99	1912	The Present Situation in the R.S.D.L.P.	Among the organisational centres the Executive Commit tee has included the little groups abroad; on the other hand, it has not invited the Social-Democratic group in the Duma. This is incredible, yet it is a fact. It will be useful for the Russian workers to know how Trotsky and Co. are misleading our foreign comrades.
#100	1912	The Present Situation in the R.S.D.L.P.	Both the Letts and Trotsky propose that the Executive Committee should exclude from the meeting this body, the only all-Russia body to have preserved unity! Even if the Letts were mistaken and on June 24 did not know what was known to all the workers in Russia, why did they not take the trouble prior to July 22, i.e., in the course of a whole month, to correct their mistake? Some mistakes are very useful to those who make them.
#101	1912	The Present Situation in the R.S.D.L.P.	The intention of the Letts and the liquidators who have misled the Executive Committee is to impose liquidationist candidates on us, against the majority of the Party in Russia, of the Social-Democratic group in the Duma, by means of a bloc of fictitious little groups abroad and to obtain money by fraud from the German workers. Such is the gist of the long speeches (of the Letts, Bundists, Trotsky and Co.). But this deception will not go unpunished.
#102	1912	The Present Situation in the R.S.D.L.P.	[...] and contrasted them with Zvezda and the St. Petersburg Pravda (not to be confused with Trotsky’s liquidationist Vienna Pravda) [...]
#103	1912	The Present Situation in the R.S.D.L.P.	After six months’ struggle against the Party, the liquidators were completely routed. The liquidators do not count at all in the Russian Social-Democratic labour movement. This is proved by the above-quoted data, which anyone can verify. Such are the facts published in Russia for a whole half-year, despite the bragging of Trotsky and the liquidators. It should be noted that Trotsky is a contributor to Zhivoye Dyelo. Furthermore, the Letts themselves, in their letter of June 24, admit that all the six groups, including Trotsky, the Menshevik Golos, and the leaders of Zhivoye Dyelo and Nevsky Golos, form the so-called Organising Committee. Therefore, our data prove that not only the liquidators, but all their pretentious friends abroad are of no account in the Social-Democratic labour movement in Russia. On the average, only one group of workers in Russia out of thirty sides with them. We give here the addresses and the dates of publication of all the Social-Democratic papers in St. Petersburg.
#104	1912 September	The Present Situation in the R.S.D.L.P.<#note:postscript>	Dear Comrades, it goes without saying that all that has been re ported to the Executive Committee is based on an untruth and is an invention pure and simple of the liquidators. We can affirm with confidence that that fable could have been told to the Executive only by the Letts, the Bundists, or even by Trotsky’s adherents, who only a short time ago closed “their” conference, which they would have liked to call a “party conference”, but which was in fact a liquidationist conference. In order not to state anything that could not be confirmed and not to quote our organisational correspondence, we shall limit ourselves here to pointing to a document published in St. Petersburg.
#105	1912 September	The Present Situation in the R.S.D.L.P.<#note:postscript>	From this alone the German comrades can see how shamelessly the Letts, the Bundists, Trotsky’s adherents and all such private informants are deceiving them. The point is, evidently, that all of them, probably including the Caucasians, wanted to obtain money on behalf of pretended “organisations”, whose existence cannot be confirmed or verified either by the Party Executive or by anyone else.
#106	1912	Can the Slogan “Freedom of Association” Serve as a Basis for the Working-Class Movement Today?	In the legal press, the liquidators headed by Trotsky argue that it can. They are doing all in their power to distort the true character of the workers’ movement. But those are hopeless efforts. The drowning liquidators are clutching at a straw to rescue their unjust cause.
#107	1912	The Platform of the Reformists and the Platform of the Revolutionary Social-Democrats	Look at the platform of the liquidators. Its liquidationist essence is artfully concealed by Trotsky’s revolutionary phrases. This camouflage may sometimes blind naive and altogether inexperienced people, and may even appear to be “reconciliation” between the liquidators and the Party. But the most cursory examination will rapidly dissipate this self-deception.
#108	1912	The Platform of the Reformists and the Platform of the Revolutionary Social-Democrats	They do not renounce the slogan of a republic—what a libel! They only “interpret” it in a suitable fashion, being prompted by considerations obvious to every philistine. It is a moot point whether there will be a revolution or not, says the man in the street simply, and Trotsky repeats it in a scholarly fashion in Nasha Zarya (No. 5, p. 21). A republic “only as a result of revolution”, but the “current” issue “in the present election campaign” is constitutional reforms!
#109	1912	The Platform of the Reformists and the Platform of the Revolutionary Social-Democrats	The revolutionary Social-Democrats have given their answer to these questions, which are more interesting and important than the philistine-Trotskyist attitude of uncertainty: will there be a revolution or not, who can tell? [...] Those, however, who preach to the masses their vulgar, intellectualist. Bundist-Trotskyist scepticism—“we don’t know whether there will be a revolution or not, but the ‘current’ issue is reforms”—are already corrupting the masses, preaching liberal utopias to them. [...] The diplomatic “reconciliation” of liquidationist views with those of the Party that was staged by Trotsky at the liquidationist conference does not in reality “reconcile” anything at all. It does not remove the greatest political fact, which determines the entire social and political situation in present-day Russia. That fact is the struggle between the reformist and the revolutionary Social-Democratic platforms;
#110	1912	The Illegal Party and Legal Work	The liquidators advocate an “open”, legal party. They are now afraid (the workers have made them afraid, and Trotsky advises them to be afraid) to say so plainly. They now say the same thing using little disguises. They say nothing about legalising the Party. But they advocate its legalisation by parts! [...] What simpletons the liquidators must have found if their story is true that these views were approved by the “anti-liquidators” brought by Trotsky!
#111	1912	The Illegal Party and Legal Work	Trotsky and the liquidators expelled from the Party are putting more “mildly” what Nasha Zarya and Dyelo Zhizni[2] said plainly in reviling the illegal Party: in their view, it is outside the narrow illegal Party that the most “active” are, and it is with these that one must “link oneself”. We—the liquidators who have broken away—are the active element; through us the “Party” must link itself with the masses.
#112	1912	The Illegal Party and Legal Work	P.B. Axelrod supplied Trotsky with liquidationist ideas. Trotsky advised Axelrod after the latter’s sad reverses in Nasha Zarya, to cover up those ideas with phrases that would muddle them up. [...] We have studied the ideas of liberal labour policy attired in Levitsky’s everyday clothes; it is not difficult to recognise them in Trotsky’s gaudy apparel as well.
#113	1912 July 19	Letter to the editor of Pravda	I advise you to reply to Trotsky through the post: “To Trotsky (Vienna). We shall not reply to disruptive and slanderous letters.” Trotsky’s dirty campaign against Pravda is one mass of lies and slander. The well-known Marxist and follower of Plekhanov, Rothstein (London), has written to us that he received Trotsky’s slanders and replied to him: I cannot complain of the Petersburg Pravda in any way. But this intriguer and liquidator goes on lying, right and left.
#114	1912 July 19	Letter to the editor of Pravda	P.S. It would be still better to reply in this way to Trotsky through the post: “To Trotsky (Vienna). You are wasting your time sending us disruptive and slanderous letters. They will not be replied to.”
#115	1913 February 16	The Question of Unity	It is amazing that after the question has been posed so clearly and squarely we come across Trotsky’s old, pompous but perfectly meaningless phrases in Luch No. 27 (113). Not a word on the substance of the matter! Not the slightest attempt to cite precise facts and analyse them thoroughly! Not a hint of the real terms of unity! Empty exclamations, high-flown words, and haughty sallies against opponents whom the author does not name, and impressively important assurances—that is Trotsky’s total stock-in-trade.
#116	1913 February 16	The Question of Unity	The workers will not be intimidated or coaxed. They themselves will compare Luch and Pravda; they will read, for example, the leading article in Luch No. 101 (“The Mass of the Workers and the Underground”), and simply shrug off Trotsky’s verbiage.
#117	1913 February 16	The Question of Unity	“In practice the question of the underground, alleged to be one of principle, is decided by all Social-Democratic groups absolutely alike....” Trotsky wrote in italics. The St. Petersburg workers know from experience that that is not, so. Workers in any corner of Russia, as soon as they read the Luch leading article mentioned above, will see that Trotsky is departing from the truth.
#118	1913 February 16	The Question of Unity	It is to the advantage of the liberals to pretend that this fundamental basis of the differences was introduced by “intellectuals”. But Trotsky merely disgraces himself by echoing a liberal tale.
#119	1913 June 15	Notes of a Publicist	Trotsky, doing faithful service to liquidators, assured himself and the naive “Europeans” (lovers of Asiatic scandal-mongering) that the liquidators are “stronger” in the legal movement. And this lie, too, is refuted by the facts. Take the Duma elections. In the Second Duma the Bolsheviks had 47 per cent of the worker curia; in the Third they had 50 per cent and in the Fourth, 67 per cent. Should these facts be believed, or should one believe Trotsky and the liquidators? [...] Should one believe these facts or the vows made by Luch, Trotsky, F. D. & Co.?
#120	1914 March 15	The Break-Up of the “August” Bloc	All who are interested in the working-class movement and Marxism in Russia know that a bloc of the liquidators, Trotsky, the Letts, the Bundists and the Caucasians was formed in August 1912.
#121	1914 March 15	The Break-Up of the “August” Bloc	Exactly eighteen months passed. A tremendous period considering the upsurge of 1912–13. And then, in February 1914, a new journal—this time eminently “unifying” and eminently and truly “non-factional”—bearing the title Borba, was founded by Trotsky, that “genuine” adherent of the August platform. Both the contents of Borba’s issue No. 1 and what the liquidators wrote about that journal before it appeared, at once revealed to the attentive observer that the August bloc had broken up and that frantic efforts were being made to conceal this and hoodwink the workers. But this fraud will also be exposed very soon.
#122	1914 March 15	The Break-Up of the “August” Bloc	The August bloc—as we said at the time, in August 1912—turned out to be a mere screen for the liquidators. That bloc has fallen asunder. Even its friends in Russia have not been able to stick together. The famous uniters even failed to unite themselves and we got two “August” trends, the Luchist trend (Nasha Zarya and Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta) and the Trotskyist trend (Borba). Both are waring scraps of the “general and united” August banner which they have torn up, and both are shouting themselves hoarse with cries of “unity”! What is Borba’s trend? Trotsky wrote a verbose article in Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta No. 11, explaining this, but the editors of that liquidator newspaper very pointedly re plied that its “physiognomy is still unclear”.
#123	1914 March 15	The Break-Up of the “August” Bloc	Trotsky, however, has never had any “physiognomy” at all; the only thing he does have is a habit of changing sides, of skipping from the liberals to the Marxists and back again, of mouthing scraps of catchwords and bombastic parrot phrases.
#124	1914 March 15	The Break-Up of the “August” Bloc	In Borba you will not find a single live word on any controversial issue. This is incredible, but it is a fact. The question of the “underground”? Not a word. Does Trotsky share the views of Axelrod, Zasulich, F. D., L. S. (Luch No. 101) and so forth? Not a murmur. The slogan of fighting for an open party? Not a single word. The liberal utterances of the Yezhovs and other Luchists on strikes? The annulment of the programme on the national question? Not a murmur. The utterances of L. Sedov and other Luchists against two of the “pillars”[4]? Not a murmur. Trotsky assures us that he is in favour of combining immediate demands with ultimate aims, but there is not a word as to his attitude towards the liquidator method of effecting this “combination”!
#125	1914 March 15	The Break-Up of the “August” Bloc	Actually, under cover of high-sounding, empty, and obscure phrases that confuse the non-class-conscious workers, Trotsky is defending the liquidators by passing over in silence the question of the “underground”, by asserting that there is no liberal-labour policy in Russia, and the like.
#126	1914 March 15	The Break-Up of the “August” Bloc	Trotsky delivers a long lecture to the seven Duma deputies, headed by Chkheidze, instructing them how to repudiate the “underground” and the Party in a more subtle manner. This amusing lecture clearly points to the further break-up of the Seven. Buryanov has left them. They were unable to see eye to eye in their reply to Plekhanov. They are now oscillating between Dan and Trotsky, while Chkheidze is evidently exercising his diplomatic talents in an effort to paper over the new cracks.
#127	1914 March 15	The Break-Up of the “August” Bloc	But the liquidators and Trotsky, the Seven and Trotsky, who tore up their own August bloc, who flouted all the decisions of the Party and dissociated themselves from the “underground” as well as from the organised workers, are the worst splitters. Fortunately, the workers have already realised this, and all class-conscious workers are creating their own real unity against the liquidator disruptors of unity.
#128	1914 May 4	The Ideological Struggle in the Working-Class Movement	People who (like the liquidators and Trotsky) ignore or falsify this twenty years’ history of the ideological struggle in the working-class movement do tremendous harm to the workers.
#129	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	Trotsky’s “workers’ journal” is Trotsky’s journal for workers, as there is not a trace in it of either workers’ initiative, or any connection with working-class organisations.
#130	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	Trotsky calls his new journal “non-factional”. He puts this word in the top line in his advertisements; this word is stressed by him in every key, in the editorial articles of Borba itself, as well as in the liquidationist Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta, which carried an article on Borba by Trotsky before the latter began publication [...] The reason is that the label “non-factionalism” is used by the worst representatives of the worst remnants of factionalism to mislead the younger generation of workers.
#131	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	It is sufficient to recall these commonly known facts to realise what glaring falsehoods Trotsky is spreading. For over two years, since 1912, there has been no factionalism among the organised Marxists in Russia, no disputes over tactics in united organisations, at united conferences and congresses. There is a complete break between the Party, which in January 1912 formally announced that the liquidators do not belong to it, and the liquidators. Trotsky often calls this state of affairs a “split”, and we shall deal with this appellation separately later on. But it remains an undoubted fact that the term “factionalism” deviates from the truth. As we have said, this term is a repetition, an uncritical, unreasonable, senseless repetition of what was true yesterday, i. e., in the period that has already passed. When Trotsky talks to us about the “chaos of factional strife” (see No. 1, pp. 5, 6, and many others) we realise at once which period of the past his words echo.
#132	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	The question arises; what has “chaos” got to do with it? Everybody knows that Trotsky is fond of high-sounding and empty phrases. But the catchword “chaos” is not only phrase-mongering; it signifies also the transplanting, or rather, a vain attempt to transplant, to Russian soil, in the present period, the relations that existed abroad in a bygone period. That is the whole point. There is no “chaos” whatever in the struggle between the Marxists and the Narodniks. That, we hope, not even Trotsky will dare to deny.
#133	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	And that fact proves that we were right in calling Trotsky a representative of the “worst remnants of factionalism”. Although he claims to be non-factional, Trotsky is known to everybody who is in the least familiar with the working-class movement in Russia as the representative of “Trotsky’s faction”. Here we have group-division, for we see two essential symptoms of it: (1) nominal recognition of unity and (2) group segregation in fact. Here there are remnants of group-division, for there is no evidence whatever of any real connection with the mass working-class movement in Russia. And lastly, it is the worst form of group-division, for there is no ideological and political definiteness. It cannot be denied that this definiteness is characteristic of both the Pravdists (even our determined opponent L. Martov admits that we stand “solid and disciplined” around universally known formal decisions on all questions) and the liquidators (they, or at all events the most prominent of them, have very definite features, namely, liberal, not Marxist).
#134	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	It cannot be denied that some of the groups which, like Trotsky’s, really exist exclusively from the Vienna-Paris, but by no means from the Russian, point of view, possess a degree of definiteness. For example, the Machist theories of the Machist Vperyod group are definite; the emphatic repudiation of these theories and defence of Marxism, in addition to the theoretical condemnation of liquidationism, by the “pro-Party Mensheviks”, are definite. Trotsky, however, possesses no ideological and political definiteness, for his patent for “non-factionalism”, as we shall soon see in greater detail, is merely a patent to flit freely to and fro, from one group to another.
#135	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	To sum up: 1) Trotsky does not explain, nor does he understand, the historical significance of the ideological disagreements among the various Marxist trends and groups, although these disagreements run through the twenty years’ history of Social Democracy and concern the fundamental questions of the present day (as we shall show later on);
#136	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	2) Trotsky fails to understand that the main specific features of group-division are nominal recognition of unity and actual disunity;
#137	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	3) Under cover of “non-factionalism” Trotsky is championing the interests of a group abroad which particularly lacks definite principles, and has no basis in the working-class movement in Russia. All that glitters is not gold. There is much glitter and sound in Trotsky’s phrases, but they are meaningless.
#138	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	Although there is no group-division, i. e., nominal recognition of unity, but actual disunity, among you, Pravdists, there is something worse, namely, splitting tactics,” we are told. This is exactly what Trotsky says. Unable to think out his ideas or to get his arguments to hang together, he rants against group-division at one moment, and at the next shouts: “Splitting tactics are winning one suicidal victory after another”. (No. 1, p. 6.) This statement can have only one mending: “The Pravdists are winning one victory after another” (this is an objective, verifiable fact, established by a study of the mass working-class movement in Russia during, say, 1912 and 1913), but I, Trotsky, denounce the Pravdists (1) as splitters, and (2) as suicidal politicians.
#139	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	First of all we must express our thanks to Trotsky. Not long ago (from August 1912 to February 1914) he was at one with F. Dan, who, as is well known, threatened to “kill” anti-liquidationism, and called upon others to do so. At present Trotsky does not threaten to “kill” our trend (and our Party—don’t be angry, Citizen Trotsky, this is true!), he only prophesies that it will kill itself! This is much milder, isn’t it? It is almost “non-factional”, isn’t it?
#140	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	But joking apart (although joking is the only way of retorting mildly to Trotsky’s insufferable phrase-mongering). “Suicide” is a mere empty phrase, mere “Trotskyism”.
#141	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	If our attitude towards liquidationism is wrong in theory, in principle, then Trotsky should say so straightforwardly, and state definitely, without equivocation, why he thinks it is wrong. But Trotsky has been evading this extremely important point for years. If our attitude towards liquidationism has been proved wrong in practice, by the experience of the movement, then this experience should be analysed; but Trotsky fails to do this either. “Numerous advanced workers,” he admits, “become active agents of a split” (read: active agents of the Pravdist line, tactics, system and organisation). What is the cause of the deplorable fact, which, as Trotsky admits, is confirmed by experience, that the advanced workers, the numerous advanced workers at that, stand for Pravda? It is the “utter political bewilderment” of these advanced workers, answers Trotsky.
#142	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	Needless to say, this explanation is highly flattering to Trotsky, to all five groups abroad, and to the liquidators. Trotsky is very fond of using, with the learned air of the expert, pompous and high-sounding phrases to explain historical phenomena in a way that is flattering to Trotsky. Since “numerous advanced workers” become “active agents” of a political and Party line which does not conform to Trotsky’s line, Trotsky settles the question unhesitatingly, out of hand: these advanced workers are “in a state of utter political bewilderment”, whereas he, Trotsky, is evidently “in a state” of political firmness and clarity, and keeps to the right line!... And this very same Trotsky, beating his breast, fulminates against factionalism, parochialism, and the efforts of intellectuals to impose their will on the workers! Reading things like these, one cannot help asking oneself: is it from a lunatic asylum that such voices come?
#143	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	The overwhelming majority of the advanced workers declared in favour of supporting the “January (1912) line”. Trotsky himself admits this fact when he talks about “victories” and about “numerous advanced workers”. But Trotsky wriggles out of this simply by hurling abuse at these advanced workers and calling them “splitters” and “politically bewildered”! [...] In now trying to persuade the workers not to carry out the decisions of that “united whole”, which the Marxist Pravdists recognise, Trotsky is trying to disrupt the movement and cause a split.
#144	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	Trotsky’s “non-factionalism” is, actually, splitting tactics, in that it shamelessly flouts the will of the majority of the workers.
#145	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	that Trotsky, who for many months had practically vanished from the columns of Luck, had broken away, and had started “his own” journal, Borba. By calling this journal “non-factional”, Trotsky clearly (clearly to those who are at all familiar with the subject) intimates that in his, Trotsky’s, opinion, Nasha Zarya and Luch had proved to be “factional”, i. e., poor uniters. If you are a uniter, my dear Trotsky, if you say that it is possible to unite with the liquidators, if you and they stand by the “fundamental ideas formulated in August 1912” (Borba No. 1, p. 43, Editorial Note), why did not you yourself unite with the liquidators in Nasha Zarya and Luch?
#146	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	By concealing this break-up from his readers, Trotsky is deceiving them. The experience of our opponents has proved that we are right, has proved that the liquidators cannot be co-operated with.
#147	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	Here you have a characteristic and typical example of the liquidationist presentation of the question! Trotsky’s journal forgets about the Party; such a trifle is hardly worth remembering! [...] (Trotsky is fond of inappropriately talking about Europeanism) [...] What appeals to the liquidators and Trotsky is only the European models of opportunism, but certainly not the models of European partisanship. [...] “A detailed tactical resolution” will be drawn up by the members of the Duma! This example should serve the Russian “advanced workers”, with whom Trotsky has good reason to be so displeased, as a striking illustration of the lengths to which the groups in Vienna and Paris—who persuaded even Kautsky that there was “no Party” in Russia—go in their ludicrous project-mongering. But if it is some times possible to fool foreigners on this score, the Russian “advanced workers” (at the risk of provoking the terrible Trotsky to another outburst of displeasure) will laugh in the faces of these project-mongers.
#148	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	This is what the “advanced workers” of Russia will say to the various project-mongers, and this has already been said iii the Marxist press, for example, by the organised Marxists of St. Petersburg. Trotsky chooses to ignore these published terms for the liquidators? So much the worse for Trotsky. It is our duty to warn our readers how ridiculous that “unity” (the August type of “unity”?) project-mongering is which refuses to reckon with the will of the majority of the class-conscious workers of Russia.
#149	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	The name of chapter V in this article: "V. TROTSKY’S LIQUIDATIONIST VIEWS"
#150	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	As to the substance of his own views, Trotsky contrived to say as little as possible in his new journal. Put Pravdy (No. 37) has already commented on the fact that Trotsky has not said a word either on the question of the “underground” or on the slogan of working for a legal party, etc. That, among other things, is why we say that when attempts are made to form a separate organisation which is to have no ideological and political physiognomy, it is the worst form of factionalism. Although Trotsky has refrained from openly expounding his views, quite a number of passages in his journal show what kind of ideas he has been trying to smuggle in.
#151	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	Trotsky repeats the liquidationist slander against the Party and is afraid to mention the history of the twenty years’ conflict of trends within the Party.
#152	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	But Trotsky “deals with” history only in order to evade concrete questions and to invent a justification, or a semblance of justification, for the present-day opportunists!
#153	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	This is a very clear and very vehement, defence of the liquidators. But we will take the liberty of quoting at least one small fact, one of the very latest. Trotsky merely slings words about; we should like the workers themselves to ponder over the facts
#154	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	The reason why Trotsky avoids facts and concrete references is because they relentlessly refute all his angry outcries and pompous phrases. It is very easy, of course, to strike an attitude and say: “a crude and sectarian travesty”. Or to add a still more stinging and pompous catch-phrase, such as “emancipation from conservative factionalism”. But is this not very cheap? Is not this weapon borrowed from the arsenal of the period when Trotsky posed in all his splendour before audiences of high-school boys? Nevertheless, the “advanced workers”, with whom Trotsky is so angry, would like to be told plainly and clearly: Do you or do you not approve of the “method of struggle and organisation” that is definitely expressed in the above-quoted appraisal of a definite political campaign? If you do, then you are pursuing a liberal-labour policy, betraying Marxism and the Party; to talk of “peace” or of “unity” with such a policy, with groups which pursue such a policy, means deceiving yourself and others.
#155	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	The old participants in the Marxist movement in Russia know Trotsky very well, and there is no need to discuss him for their benefit. But the younger generation of workers do not know him, and it is therefore necessary to discuss him, for he is typical of all the five groups abroad, which, in fact, are also vacillating between the liquidators and the Party.
#156	1914 May	Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity	Trotsky was an ardent Iskrist in 1901—03, and Ryazanov described his role at the Congress of 1903 as “Lenin’s cudgel”. At the end of 1903, Trotsky was an ardent Menshevik, i. e., he deserted from the Iskrists to the Economists. He said that “between the old Iskra and the new lies a gulf”. In 1904—05, he deserted the Mensheviks and occupied a vacillating position, now co-operating with Martynov (the Economist), now proclaiming his absurdly Left “permanent revolution” theory. In 1906—07, he approached the Bolsheviks, and in the spring of 1907 he declared that he was in agreement with Rosa Luxemburg. In the period of disintegration, after long “non-factional” vacillation, he again went to the right, and in August 1912, he entered into a bloc with the liquidators. He has now deserted them again, although in substance he reiterates their shoddy ideas.
#157	1914 June 26	Objective Data on the Strength of the Various Trends in the Working-Class Movement	Only from such data can one learn and study the movement of one’s class. One of the greatest, if not the greatest, faults (or crimes against the working class) of the Narodniks and liquidators, as well as of the various groups of intellectuals such as the Vperyodists, Plekhanovites and Trotskyists, is their subjectivism. At every step they try to pass off their desires, their “views”, their appraisals of the situation and their “plans”, as the will of the workers, the needs of the working-class movement. When they talk about “unity”, for example, they majestically ignore the experience acquired in creating the genuine unity of the majority of Russia’s class-conscious workers in the course of two-and-a-half years, from the beginning of 1912 to the middle of 1914.
#158	1914	The Right of Nations to Self-Determination	The obliging Trotsky is more dangerous than an enemy! Trotsky could produce no proof, except “private conversations” (i. e., simply gossip, on which Trotsky always subsists), for classifying “Polish Marxists” in general as supporters of every article by Rosa Luxemburg. Trotsky presented the “Polish Marxists” as people devoid of honour and conscience, incapable of respecting even their own convictions and the programme of their Party. How obliging Trotsky is!
#159	1914	The Right of Nations to Self-Determination	When, in 1903, the representatives of the Polish Marxists walked out of the Second Congress over the right to self-determination, Trotsky could have said at the time that they regarded this right as devoid of content and subject to deletion from the programme. But after that the Polish Marxists joined the Party whose programme this was, and they have never introduced a motion to amend it. Why did Trotsky withhold these facts from the readers of his journal? Only because it pays him to speculate on fomenting differences between the Polish and the Russian opponents of liquidationism and to deceive the Russian workers on the question of the programme. Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other. At the present moment he is in the company of the Bundists and the liquidators. And these gentlemen do not stand on ceremony where the Party is concerned.
#160	1914	The Right of Nations to Self-Determination <#footnote>	We think, therefore, that there will, be an inevitable increase in the number of Polish Marxists who laugh at the non-existent “contradiction” now being “encouraged” by Semkovsky and Trotsky.
#161	1915+(exact date unknown)	Under a False Flag	The second epoch or, as Potresov puts it, “a span of forty-five years” (1870-1914), is characterised very inconclusively by him. The same incompleteness is the shortcoming in Trotsky’s characterisation of the same period
#162	1915+(exact date unknown)	Under a False Flag	The chief shortcoming in this characterisation, as in Trotsky’s characterisation of the same epoch, is a reluctance to discern and recognise the deep contradictions in modern democracy, which has developed on the foundation described above.
#163	1915+(exact date unknown)	Under a False Flag	[...] A number of Trotsky’s tactical and organisational errors (to say nothing of Potresov’s) spring from his fear, or his reluctance, or inability to recognise the fact of the “maturity” achieved by the opportunist trend [...] The link between opportunism and social-nationalism is, generally speaking, denied by Potresov, by Martov, Axelrod, V. Kosovsky (who has talked himself into defending the German democrats’ national-liberal vote for war credits) and by Trotsky.
#164	1915 July 26	The State of Affair’s in Russian Social-Democracy	Trotsky, who as always entirely disagrees with the social-chauvinists in principle, but agrees with them in everything in practice [...] The Organising Committee members and Trotsky seem to be predestined to hang on to the coat-tails of Kautsky and Bernstein, at the present juncture. [...] The Organising Committee, Trotsky, Plekhanov, and Alexinsky and Co. are naturally also satisfied with the Chkheidze group because for years the latter have proved their skill in shielding the opportunists and serving them.
#165	1915	Socialism and War	In Russia Trotsky, while also rejecting this idea, also defends unity with the opportunist and chauvinist Nasha Zarya group.
#166	1915	Letter to Alexandra Kollontai	Roland-Hoist, like Rakovsky (have you seen his French pamphlet?), like Trotsky, in my opinion, are all the most harmful “Kautskians”, in the sense that all of them in various forms are for unity with the opportunists, all in various forms embellish opportunism, all of them (in various ways) preach eclecticism instead of revolutionary Marxism.
#167	1915	Letter to Herman Gorter	Radek says that your pamphlet has come out in English. I am very glad to hear it—I shall now be able to read and understand it. I understand Dutch to the extent of approximately 30–40%. I congratulate you on your splendid at tacks on opportunism and Kautsky. Trotsky’s principal mistake is that he does not attack this gang.
#168	1915 November 20	On the Two Lines in the Revolution	This task is being wrongly tackled in Nashe Slovo by Trotsky, who is repeating his “original” 1905 theory and refuses to give some thought to the reason why, in the course of ten years, life has been bypassing this splendid theory. From the Bolsheviks Trotsky’s original theory has borrowed their call for a decisive proletarian revolutionary struggle and for the conquest of political power by the proletariat, while from the Mensheviks it has borrowed “repudiation” of the peasantry’s role. The peasantry, he asserts, are divided into strata, have become differentiated; their potential revolutionary role has dwindled more and more; in Russia a “national” revolution is impossible; “we are living in the era of imperialisnu,” says Trotsky, and “imperialism does not contrapose the bourgeois nation to the old regime, but the proletariat to the bourgeois nation.”
#169	1915 November 20	On the Two Lines in the Revolution	Here we have an amusing example of playing with the word “imperialism”. If, in Russia, the proletariat already stands contraposed to the “bourgeois nation”, then Russia is facing a socialist revolution (!), and the slogan “Confiscate the landed estates” (repeated by Trotsky in 1915, following the January Conference of 1912), is incorrect; in that case we must speak, not of a “revolutionary workers’” government, but of a “workers’ socialist” government! The length Trotsky’s muddled thinking goes to is evident from his phrase that by their resoluteness the proletariat will attract the “non-proletarian [!] popular masses” as well (No. 217)! Trotsky has not realised that if the proletariat induce the non-proletarian masses to confiscate the landed estates and overthrow the monarchy, then that will be the consummation of the “national bourgeois revolution” in Russia; it will be a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry!
#170	1915 November 20	On the Two Lines in the Revolution	A whole decade—the great decade of 1905-15—has shown the existence of two and only two class lines in the Russian revolution. The differentiation of the peasantry has enhanced the class struggle within them; it has aroused very many hitherto politically dormant elements. It has drawn the rural proletariat closer to the urban proletariat (the Bolsheviks have insisted ever since 1906 that the former should be separately organised, and they included this demand in the resolution of the Menshevik congress in Stockholm). However, the antagonism between the peasantry, on the one hand, and the Markovs, Romanovs and Khvostovs, on the other, has become stronger and more acute. This is such an obvious truth that not even the thousands of phrases in scores of Trotsky’s Paris articles will “refute” it. Trotsky is in fact helping the liberal-labour politicians in Russia, who by “repudiation” of the role of the peasantry understand a refusal to raise up the peasants for the revolution!
#171	1916	Letter to G.Y. Zinoviev	“Strekoza” in any case must be thrown out, as 1) it is not the thing; 2) we must wait (since it is not only a matter of Trotsky, but plus La Vie Ouvrière: for them it may be progress). 3) We had better deal with Trotsky in Sbornik Sotsial Demokrata; he has to be dealt with at greater length.
#172	1916	Letter to Henriette Ronald-Holst	If Kautsky and the Russian Kautskyites (including Trotsky) present the question wrongly, this is only another argument against the Kautskyites!
#173	1916	Letter to Henriette Ronald-Holst	What are our differences with Trotsky? This must probably interest you. In brief—he is a Kautskyite, that is, he stands for unity with the Kautskyites in the Inter national and with Chkheidze’s parliamentary group in Russia. We are absolutely against such unity. Chkheidze with his phrases (that he is for Zimmerwald: see his recent speech, Vorwärts 5/III) cloaks the fact that he shares the views of the Organising Committee and of the people taking part in the war committees. Trotsky at present is against the Organising Committee (Axelrod and Martov) but for unity with the Chkheidze Duma group!!
#174	1916	Letter to G.Y. Zinoviev	It looks like it’s going to be something measureless. It’s ghastly. I don’t know what to do. Yet something has still to be written about opportunism (I have 1/2 of it ready), about defeatism and about Trotskyism (including the Duma group+P.S.D.).
#175	1916	The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up	Is it any wonder that we see in him a more sincere internationalist and a fellow-thinker who is closer to us than those who recognise self-determination as verbally and hypocritically as Kautsky in Germany, and Trotsky and Martov in Russia?
#176	1916	The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up	As for tile Kautskyites, they hypocritically recognise self-determination—Trotsky and Martov are going the same way here in Russia. Both of them, like Kautsky, say they favour self-determination. What happens in practice? Take Trotsky’s articles “The Nation and the Economy” in Nashe Slovo, and you will find his usual eclecticism: on the one hand, the economy unites nations and, on the other, national oppression divides them. The conclusion? The conclusion is that the prevailing hypocrisy remains unexposed, agitation is dull and does not touch upon what is most important, basic, significant and closely connected with practice—one’s attitude to the nation that is oppressed by “one’s own” nation.
#177	1916	The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up	No matter what the subjective “good” intentions of Trotsky and Martov may be, their evasiveness objectively supports Russian social-imperialism. The epoch of imperialism has turned all the “great” powers into the oppressors of a number of nations, and the development of imperialism will inevitably lead to a more definite division of trends in this question in international Social-Democracy as well.
#178	1916	The Peace Programme	And what about Trotsky? He is body and soul for self-determination, but in his case, too, it is an idle phrase, for he does not demand freedom of secession for nations oppressed by the “fatherland” of the Socialist of the given nationality; he is silent about the hypocrisy of Kautsky and the Kautskyists!
#179	1917	Letter to Alexandra Kollontai	Pleasant as it was to learn from you of the victory of N. Iv. and Pavlov in Novy Mir (I get this newspaper devilishly irregularly; it must be the fault of the post and not the dispatch department of the paper itself), it was just as sad to read about the bloc between Trotsky and the Right for the struggle against N. Iv. What a swine this Trotsky is—Left phrases, and a bloc with the Right against the Zimmerwald Left!! He ought to be exposed (by you) if only in a brief letter to Sotsial-Demokrat!
#180	1917	Letter to Inessa Armand	Trotsky arrived, and this scoundrel at once ganged up with the Right wing of Novy Mir against the Left Zimmerwaldists!! That’s it!! That’s Trotsky for you!! Always true to himself=twists, swindles, poses as a Left, helps the Right, so long as he can....
#181	1918 March 7	Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)	To prevent the collapse of the peace negotiations and to stop the adventuristic policy of the “Left Communists” and Trotsky being put into effect, Lenin got the Central Committee of the Party to pass a decision on the need for sustaining the peace negotiations for as long as possible and signing the peace terms only if the Germans should present an ultimatum. On January 27 (February 9), however, when the Germans demanded in the form of an ultimatum that the Soviet delegation should sign the peace terms they had proposed on January 5 (18), Trotsky, who was leading the Soviet delegation at this stage, ignored the Central Committee’s decision and in spite of Lenin’s demand refused to sign the peace treaty while stating simultaneously that Russia would cease waging war and would demobilise her army.
#182	1918 March 8	Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)	Comrade Trotsky says that it will be treachery in the full sense of the word. I maintain that that is an absolutely wrong point of view.
#183	1918 March 8	Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)	Now that I have explained why I am absolutely unable to accept Trotsky’s proposal—you cannot conduct politics in that way—I must say that Radek has given us an example of how far the comrades at our Congress have departed from empty phrases such as Uritsky still sticks to. I certainly cannot accuse him of empty phrases in that speech. He said, “There is not a shadow of treachery, not a shadow of disgrace, because it is clear that you retreated in the face of overpowering military force.” That is an appraisal that destroys Trotsky’s position. When Radek said, “We must grit our teeth and prepare our forces,” he was right—I agree with that in full—don’t bluster, grit your teeth and make preparations.
#184	1918 March 8	Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)	Title:Speeches Against Trotsky’s Amendments to the Resolution on War and Peace
#185	1918 March 8	Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)	The words that Comrade Trotsky proposes to introduce will gain the votes of those who are against ratification in general, votes for a middle course which will create afresh a situation in which not a single worker, not a single soldier, will understand anything in our resolution. [...] It seems to me that I have said: no, I cannot accept this. This amendment makes a hint, it expresses what Comrade Trotsky wants to say. There should be no hints in the resolution.
#186	1918 March 8	Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)	Title:Speech Against The Statement Of The “Left Communist” Group In Support Of Trotsky’s Amendment [...] I merely remind you, therefore, of what was said in my reply to the debate and, secondly, register my protest against a speech on grounds for voting being turned into a polemic to which I am not in a position to reply.
#187	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	My principal material is Comrade Trotsky ’s pamphlet, The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions. When I compare it with the theses he submitted to the Central Committee, and go over it very carefully, I am amazed at the number of theoretical mistakes and glaring blunders it contains. How could anyone starting a big Party discussion on this question produce such a sorry excuse for a carefully thought out statement? Let me go over the main points which, I think, contain the original fundamental theoretical errors.
#188	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	Trade unions are not just historically necessary; they are historically inevitable as an organisation of the industrial proletariat, and, under the dictatorship of the proletariat, embrace nearly the whole of it. This is basic, but Comrade Trotsky keeps forgetting it; he neither appreciates it nor makes it his point of departure, all this while dealing With “The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions”, a subject of infinite compass.
#189	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	From this alone it is evident that there is something fundamentally wrong in principle when Comrade Trotsky points, in his first thesis, to “ideological confusion”, and speaks of a crisis as existing specifically and particularly in the trade unions. If we are to speak of a crisis, we can do so only after analysing the political situation. It is Trotsky who is in “ideological confusion”, because in this key question of the trade unions’ role, from the standpoint of transition from capitalism to communism, he has lost sight of the fact that we have here a complex arrangement of cogwheels which cannot be a simple one; for the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised by a mass proletarian organisation. It cannot work without a number of “transmission belts” running from the vanguard to the mass of the advanced class, and from the latter to the mass of the working people. In Russia, this mass is a peasant one. There is no such mass anywhere else, but even in the most advanced countries there is a non-proletarian, or a not entirely proletarian, mass. That is in itself enough to produce ideological confusion. But it’s no use Trotsky’s pinning it on others.
#190	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	When I consider the role of the trade unions in production, find that Trotsky ’s basic mistake lies in his always dealing with it “in principle “, as a matter of “general principle”. All his theses are based on “general principle”, an approach which is in itself fundamentally wrong, quite apart from the fact that the Ninth Party Congress said enough and more than enough about the trade unions’ role in production, and quite apart from the fact that in his own theses Trotsky quotes the perfectly clear statements of Lozovsky and Tomsky, who were to be his “whipping boys” and an excuse for an exercise in polemics. It turns out that there is, after all, no clash of principle, and the choice of Tomsky and Lozovsky, who wrote what Trotsky himself quotes, was an unfortunate one indeed. However hard we may look, we shall not find here any serious divergence of principle. In general, Comrade Trotsky’s great mistake, his mistake of principle, lies in the fact that by raising the question of “principle” at this time he is dragging back the Party and the Soviet power. We have, thank heaven, done with principles and have gone on to practical business. We chatted about principles—rather more than we should have—at the Smolny. Today, three years later, we have decrees on all points of the production problem, and on many of its components; but such is the sad fate of our decrees: they are signed, and then we ourselves forget about them and fail to carry them out. Meanwhile, arguments about principles and differences of principle are invented. I shall later on quote a decree dealing with the trade unions’ role in production, a decree all of us, including myself, I confess, have forgotten.
#191	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	I have had to enumerate my “differences” with Comrade Trotsky because, with such a broad theme as “The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions”, he has, I am quite sure, made a number of mistakes bearing on the very essence of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But, this apart, one may well ask, why is it that we cannot work together, as we so badly need to do? It is because of our different approach to the mass, the different way of winning it over and keeping in touch with it. That is the whole point.
#192	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	Let me say this again: the actual differences do not lie where Comrade Trotsky sees them but in the question of how to approach the mass, win it over, and keep in touch with it. I must say that had we made a detailed, even if small-scale, study of our own experience and practices, we should have managed to avoid the hundreds of quite unnecessary “differences” and errors of principle in which Comrade Trotsky’s pamphlet abounds. Some of his theses, for instance, polemicise against “Soviet trade-unionism”.
#193	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	While betraying this lack of thoughtfulness, Comrade Trotsky falls into error himself. He seems to say that in a workers’ state it is not the business of the trade unions to stand up for the material and spiritual interests of the working class. That is a mistake. Comrade Trotsky speaks of a “workers’ state”. May I say that this is an abstraction. It was natural for us to write about a workers’ state in 1917; but it is now a patent error to say: “Since this is a workers’ state without any bourgeoisie, against whom then is the working class to be protected, and for what purpose?” The whole point is that it is not quite a workers’ state. That is where Comrade Trotsky makes one of his main mistakes. We have got down from general principles to practical discussion and decrees, and here we are being dragged back and prevented from tackling the business at hand. This will not do. For one thing, ours is not actually a workers’ state but a workers’ and peasants’ state. And a lot depends on that. (Bukharin : “What kind of state? A workers’ and peasants’ state?”) Comrade Bukharin back there may well shout “What kind of state? A workers’ and peasants’ state?” I shall not stop to answer him. Anyone who has a mind to should recall the recent Congress of Soviets, and that will be answer enough.
#194	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	I think, therefore, that it would be going a bit too far to challenge Comrade Tomsky to a battle of principles on this score (as Comrade Trotsky has done).
#195	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	it is strange to hear you say, like Trotsky, that the Party will have “to choose between two trends”. I shall deal separately with whether the Party must do any “choosing” and who is to blame for putting the Party in this position of having to “choose”. Things being what they are, we say: “At any rate, see that you choose fewer slogans, like ’industrial democracy’, which contain nothing but confusion and are theoretically wrong.” Both Trotsky and Bukharin failed to think out this term theoretically and ended up in confusion.
#196	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	And so if we are to raise this question of priority and equalisation we must first of all give it some careful thought, but that is just what we fail to find in Comrade Trotsky’s work; the further he goes in revising his original theses, the more mistakes he makes. Here is what we find in his latest theses [...]
#197	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	A study must be made of practical experience. I have signed decrees and resolutions containing instructions on practical coalescence, and no theory is half so important as practice. That is why when I hear: “Let’s discuss ’coalescence’”, I say: “Let’s analyse what we have done.” There is no doubt that we have made many mistakes. It may well be that a great part of our decrees need amending. I accept that, for I am not in the least enamoured of decrees. But in that case let us have some practical proposals as to what actually has to be altered. That would be a business-like approach. That would not be a waste of time. That would not lead to bureaucratic projecteering But I find that that is exactly what’s wrong with Trotsky’s “Practical Conclusions”, Part VI of his pamphlet.
#198	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	Trotsky’s theses deal with production propaganda. That is quite useless, because in this case theses are old hat.
#199	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	But the fact is that there is nothing at all about this in your theses. “Great grief!” is therefore the only thing that can be said about Trotsky’s theses and Bukharin’s attitude, from the standpoint of principle, theory and practice.
#200	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	On the other hand, as I said in my report to the Eighth Congress of Soviets, our application of coercion was correct and successful whenever we had been able to back it up from the start with persuasion. I must say that Trotsky and Bukharin have entirely failed to take account of this very important consideration.
#201	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	Trotsky came up with his theses and ideas about trade-unionism. How ever fine some of his points about production propaganda may be, he should have been told that all this was neither here nor there, quite beside the mark, and a step backward it is something the C.C. should not be dealing with at present.
#202	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	We then get down to brass tacks. A commission is set up, and the names of its members are published. Trotsky walks out, refuses to serve on the commission, and disrupts its work. What are his reasons? There is only one. Lutovinov is apt to play at opposition. That is true, and that also goes for Osinsky. Frankly speaking, it is not a pleasant game. But do you call that a reason? [...] The thing to do was to work with him, in spite of his “opposition campaign”, for this business of disrupting the work of a commission is bureaucratic, un-Soviet, un-socialist, incorrect and politically harmful. Such methods are doubly incorrect and politically harmful at a time when there is need to separate the wheat from the chaff within the “opposition”.
#203	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	Heroism, zeal, etc., are the positive side of military experience; red-tape and arrogance are the negative side of the experience of the worst military types. Trotsky’s theses, whatever his intentions, do not tend to play up the best, but the worst in military experience. It must be borne in mind that a political leader is responsible not only for his own policy but also for the acts of those he leads.
#204	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	I hope you see now why I called myself names. There you have a platform, and it is very much better than the one Comrade Trotsky wrote after a great deal of thinking, and the one Comrade Bukharin wrote (the December 7 Plenum resolution) without any thinking at all. All of us members of the Central Committee who have been out of touch with the trade Union movement for many years would profit from Comrade Rudzutak’s experience, and this also goes for Comrade Trotsky and Comrade Bukharin. The trade unions have adopted this platform.
#205	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	There you have an example of the real bureaucratic approach: Trotsky and Krestinsky selecting the trade union “functionaries”!
#206	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	The trade unions have the key role in these courts I don’t know how good these courts are, how well they function, and whether they always function. A study of our own practical experience would be a great deal more useful than anything Comrades Trotsky and Bukharin have written.
#207	1920 December 30	The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes	The net result is that there are a number of theoretical mistakes in Trotsky’s and Bukharin’s theses: they contain a number of things that are wrong in principle. Politically, the whole approach to the matter is utterly tactless. Comrade Trotsky’s “theses” are politically harmful. The sum and substance of his policy is bureaucratic harassment of the trade unions. Our Party Congress will, I am sure, condemn and reject it. (Prolonged, stormy applause.) E.D: To the suprise of no one, everyone agreed that Trotsky and his ""theories"" are harmful.
Author's note	2022	My home	It is important to mention, the above article of Lenin has MANY MORE ATTACKS on Trotsky, and you should read the whole thing. I presented the abridged version, as otherwise, I would have had to copy half the article, defeating the point of this chart (Yes, I do mean half the article, if not more.
#208	1921 January 23	The Second All-Russia Congress of Miners	The morbid character of the question of the role and tasks of the trade unions is due to the fact that it took the form of a factional struggle much too soon. This vast, boundless question should not have been taken up in such haste, as it was done here, and I put the chief blame on Comrade Trotsky for all this fumbling haste and precipitation. All of us have had occasion to submit inadequately prepared theses to the Central Committee and this is bound to go on because all our work is being done in a rush. This is not a big mistake, for all of us have had to act in haste. Taken by itself, it is a common mistake and is unavoidable because of the extremely difficult objective conditions. All the more reason, therefore, to treat factional, controversial issues with the utmost caution; for in such matters even not very hot-headed persons—something, I’m afraid, I cannot say about my opponent—may all too easily fall into this error. To illustrate my point, and to proceed at once to the heart of the matter, let me read you the chief of Trotsky’s theses.
#209	1921 January 23	The Second All-Russia Congress of Miners	I could quote many similar passages from Trotsky’s pamphlet. I ask, by way of factional statement: Is it becoming for such an influential person, such a prominent leader, to attack his Party comrades in this way? I am sure that 99 per cent of the comrades, excepting those involved in the quarrel, will say that this should not be done.
#210	1921 January 23	The Second All-Russia Congress of Miners	It won’t do at all. This point says that many trade unionists tend to cultivate in their midst a spirit of hostility and exclusiveness. What does that mean? What sort of talk is this? Is it the right kind of language? Is it the right approach? I had earlier said that I might succeed in acting as a “buffer” and staying out of the discussion, because it is harmful to fight with Trotsky—it does the Republic, the Party, and all of us a lot of harm—but when this pamphlet came out, I felt I had to speak up.
#211	1921 January 23	The Second All-Russia Congress of Miners	Trotsky writes that “many trade unionists tend to cultivate a spirit of hostility for the new men”. How so? If that is true, those who are doing so should be named. Since this is not done, it is merely a shake-up, a bureaucratic approach to the business. Even if there is a spirit of hostility for the new men, one should not say a thing like that. Trotsky accuses Lozovsky and Tomsky of bureaucratic practices. I would say the reverse is true. It is no use reading any further because the approach has spoiled everything; he has poured a spoonful of tar into the honey, and no matter how much honey he may add now, the whole is already spoiled.
#212	1921 January 23	The Second All-Russia Congress of Miners	My opponent asserts that certain people have been cultivating a spirit of hostility. This shows that the question is seen in the wrong light. We must sort things out. The All-Russia Conference was held in November, and that is where the “shake-up” catchword was launched. Trotsky was wrong in uttering it. Politically it is clear that such an approach will cause a split and bring down the dictatorship of the proletariat.
#213	1921 January 23	The Second All-Russia Congress of Miners	Even the best workers make mistakes. There are excellent workers in Tsektran, and we shall appoint them, and correct their bureaucratic excesses. Comrade Trotsky says that Comrades Tomsky and Lozovsky—trade unionists both—are guilty of cultivating in their midst a spirit of hostility for the new men. But this is monstrous. Only someone in the lunatic fringe can say a thing like that. This haste leads to arguments, platforms and accusations, and eventually creates the impression that everything is rotten.
#214	1921 January 23	The Second All-Russia Congress of Miners	That is just why Trotsky’s whole approach is wrong. I could have analysed any one of his theses, but it would take me hours, and you would all be bored to death. Every thesis reveals the same thoroughly wrong approach: “Many trade unionists tend to cultivate a spirit of hostility.” There is a spirit of hostility for us among the trade union rank and file because of our mistakes, and the bureaucratic practices up on top, including myself, because it was I who appointed Glavpolitput. What is to be done? Are things to be set right? We must correct Tsektran’s excesses, once we realise that we are a solid workers’ party, with a firm footing, and a head on its shoulders. We are not renouncing either the method of appointment, or the dictatorship. This will not be tolerated by workers with a twenty years’ schooling in Russia. If we condone this mistakes we shall surely be brought down. It is a mistake, and that is the root of the matter.
#215	1921 January 23	The Second All-Russia Congress of Miners	There’s no point, therefore, in quarrelling like children and raising factional disagreements. Has Comrade Trotsky brought up any new tasks? No, he hasn’t. The fact is that his new points are all worse than the old ones. Comrade Trotsky is campaigning to get the Party to condemn those who are balking at new tasks, and Tomsky and Lozovsky have been named as the greatest sinners.
#216	1921 January 23	The Second All-Russia Congress of Miners	In the whole of his speech there is one excellent passage on the experience of the Sormovo Works, where, he said, absenteeism was reduced by 30 per cent. This is said to be true. But I am a suspicious sort, I suggest that a commission be sent there to investigate and make a comparison of Nizhni-Novgorod and Petrograd. There is no need to have a meeting about this: it can all be done in commission. Trotsky says that there is an attempt to prevent coalescence, but that is nonsense. He says we must go forward. Indeed, if the engine is good; but if it isn’t, we must put it into reverse. The Party will benefit from this, because we must study experience.
#217	1921 January 23	The Second All-Russia Congress of Miners	Furthermore, when reference is made to the Programme, this should be done properly, bearing in mind that Party members know it thoroughly, and do not confine themselves to reading one extract, as Trotsky and Shlyapnikov have done.
#218	1921 January 23	The Second All-Russia Congress of Miners	It does not say branches of industry, as Trotsky does in his theses. One of his first theses quotes the Programme correctly, but another one says: organisation of industry. I’m afraid that is no way to quote. When you are writing some theses and you want to quote the Programme, you must read it to the end. Anyone who takes the trouble to read this Paragraph 5 right through and give it ten minutes’ thought will see that Shlyapnikov has departed from the Programme, and that Trotsky has leaped over it.
#219	1921 January 23	The Second All-Russia Congress of Miners	I repeat that nothing can break us, neither external nor internal forces, if we do not lead things up to a split. I say that Tsektran is more than a bludgeon, but exaggerating this has led up to a split. Anyone can be guilty of an excess of bureaucratic practices, and the Central Committee is aware of it, and is responsible for it. In this respect, Comrade Trotsky’s mistake lies in that he drew up his theses in the wrong spirit. They are all couched in terms of a shake-up, and they have all led to a split in the union. It is not a matter of giving Trotsky bad marks—we are not schoolchildren and have no use for marks—but we must say that his theses are wrong in content and must therefore be rejected. While not relevant, Written in the endnotes is something funny: "Prior to the Congress, on January 22-24, the R.C.P.(B.) group had four meetings to discuss the trade unions’ role and tasks, which were addressed by Lenin, Trotsky and Shlyapnikov. The absolute majority of the group supported Lenin’s platform, which won 137 votes; Shlyapnikov’s received 61, and Trotsky’s, 8."
#220	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Is Comrade Trotsky’s pamphlet The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions a factional pronouncement? Irrespective of its content, is there any danger to the Party in a pronouncement of this kind? [...] Trotsky’s pamphlet opens with the statement that “it is the fruit of collective work”, that “a number of responsible workers, particularly trade unionists (members of the Presidium of the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions, the Central Committee of the Metalworkers’ Union, Tsektran and others)” took part in compiling it, and that it is a “platform pamphlet”. At the end of thesis 4 we read that “the forthcoming Party Congress will have to choose [Trotsky’s italics] between the two trends within the trade union movement”. If this is not the formation of a faction by a member of the Central Committee, if this does not mean “heading for a crash”, then let Comrade Bukharin, or anyone of his fellow-thinkers, explain to the Party any other possible meaning of the words “factionalism “, and the Party “seems to be heading for a crash”. Who can be more purblind than men wishing to play the “buffer” and closing their eyes to such a “danger of a crash”?
#221	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Just imagine: after the Central Committee had spent two plenary meetings (November 9 and December 7) in an unprecedentedly long, detailed and heated discussion of Comrade Trotsky’s original draft theses and of the entire trade union policy that he advocates for the Party, one member of the Central Committee, one out of nineteen, forms a group outside the Central Committee and presents its “collective work” as a “platform”, inviting the Party Congress “to choose between two trends”! This, incidentally, quite apart from the fact that Comrade Trotsky’s announcement of two and only two trends on December 25, 1920, despite Bukharin’s coming out as a “buffer” on November 9, is a glaring exposure of the Bukharin group’s true role as abettors of the worst and most harmful sort of factionalism. But I ask any Party member: Don’t you find this attack and insistence upon’choosing” between two trends in the trade union movement rather sudden? What is there for us to do but stare in astonishment at the fact that after three years of the proletarian dictatorship even one Party member can be found to “attack” the two trends issue in this way ?
#222	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Let the reader go over these arguments carefully and ponder them. They simply abound in “gems”. Firstly, the pronouncement must be assessed from the standpoint of factionalism! Imagine what Trotsky would have said, and how he would have said it, if Tomsky had published a platform accusing Trotsky and “many” military workers of cultivating the spirit of bureaucracy, fostering the survivals of savagery, etc. What is the “role” of Bukharin, Preobrazhensky, Serebryakov and the others who fail to see—positively fail to note, utterly fail to note—the aggressiveness and factionalism of all this, and refuse to see how much more factional it is than the pronouncement of the Petrograd comrades?
#223	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Thirdly, Comrade Trotsky has unwittingly revealed the essence of the whole controversy which he and the Bukharin and Co. “buffer” have been evading and camouflaging with such care.
#224	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Comrade Trotsky’s theses have landed him in a mess. That part of them which is correct is not new and, what is more, turns against him. That which is new is all wrong.
#225	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Can it be denied that, even if Trotsky’s “new tasks and methods” were as sound as they are in fact unsound (of which later), his very approach would be damaging to himself, the Party, the trade union movement, the training of millions of trade union members and the Republic?
#226	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	that Comrade Trotsky, with his “shake-up” policy against Comrade Tomsky, was entirely in the wrong. For, even if the “shake-up ” policy were partly justified by the “new tasks and methods” (Trotsky’s thesis 12), it cannot be tolerated at the present time, and in the present situation, because it threatens a split.
#227	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	This event is basic and essential to an understanding of the political essence of our controversies; and Comrades Trotsky and Bukharin are mistaken if they think hushing it up will help matters. A hush-up in this case does not produce a “buffer” effect but rouses passions; for the question has not only been placed on the agenda by developments, but has been emphasised by Comrade Trotsky in his platform pamphlet. It is this pamphlet that repeatedly, in the passages I have quoted, particularly in thesis 12, raises the question of whether the essence of the matter is that “many trade unionists tend to cultivate in their midst a spirit of hostility for the new men”, or that the “hostility” of the masses is legitimate in view of certain useless and harmful excesses of bureaucracy, for example, in Tsektran.
#228	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	He will find that it is Comrade Zinoviev who quotes and operates with the facts, and that it is Trotsky and Bukharin who indulge most in intellectualist verbosity minus the facts.
#229	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Comrade Zinoviev showed that Comrade Trotsky’s accusation (made obviously, let me add, in an outburst of factional zeal) was quite a different one from Comrade Sosnovsky’s; Comrade Trotsky’s accusation was that Comrade Zinoviev’s speech at the September All-Russia Conference of the R.C.P. had helped to bring about or had brought about the split. (This charge, let me say in parenthesis, is quite untenable, if only because Zinoviev’s September speech was approved in substance by the Central Committee and the Party, and there has been no formal protest against it since.
#230	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	That is an absolutely precise and clear-cut statement of fact. It was made by Comrade Zinoviev in his first speech before thousands of the most responsible Party members, and his facts were not refuted either by Comrade Trotsky, who spoke twice later, or by Comrade Bukharin, who also spoke later.
#231	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	It has not entered anyone’s mind either to make scapegoats of such comrades or to undermine their authority (as Comrade Trotsky suggests, without the least justification, on page 25 of his report). Their authority is not being undermined by those who try to correct the “appointees’” mistakes, but by those who would defend them even when they are wrong.
#232	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	But the whole point is that there are no such disagreements. Comrade Trotsky has tried to point them out, and failed. A tentative or conciliatory approach had been possible—and necessary—before the publication of his pamphlet (December 25) (“such an approach is ruled out even in the case of disagreements and vague new tasks”); but after its publication we had to say: Comrade Trotsky is essentially wrong on all his new points.
#233	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	But, after all, it was Trotsky and Bukharin who put themselves into the ridiculous position by insisting in their theses on this very term, which is the one feature that distinguishes their “platforms” from Rudzutak’s theses adopted by the trade unions.
#234	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Trotsky’s “production atmosphere” is even wider of the mark, and Zinoviev had good reason to laugh at it. This made Trotsky very angry, and he came out with this argument: “We once had a war atmosphere. . . . We must now have a production atmosphere and not only on the surface but deep down in the workers’ mass. This must be as intense and practical an interest in production as was earlier displayed in the fronts. . . .” Well, there you are: the message must be carried “deep down into the workers’ mass” in the language of Rudzutak’s theses, because “production atmosphere” will only earn you a smile or a shrug. Comrade Trotsky’s “production atmosphere” has essentially the same meaning as production propaganda, but such expressions must be avoided when production propaganda is addressed to the workers at large. The term is an example of how not to carry it on among the masses.
#235	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	It is strange that we should have to return to such elementary questions, but we are unfortunately forced to do so by Trotsky and Bukharin. They have both reproached me for “switching “ the issue, or for taking a “political” approach, while theirs is an “economic” one.
#236	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Trotsky and Bukharin make as though they are concerned for the growth of production whereas we have nothing but formal democracy in mind. This picture is wrong, because the only formulation of the issue (which the Marxist standpoint allows ) is: without a correct political approach to the matter the given class will be unable to stay on top, and, consequently, will be incapable of solving its production problem either.
#237	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Trotsky replies: “What a thing to boast of: a pamphlet with the public baths as an example (p. 29),’and not a single word’ about the tasks of the trade unions” This is wrong. The example of the public baths is worth, you will pardon the pun, a dozen “production atmospheres”, with a handful of “industrial democracies” thrown in. It tells the masses, the whole bulk of them, what the trade unions are to do, and does this in plain and intelligible terms, whereas all these “production atmospheres” and “democracies” are so much murk blurring the vision of the workers’ masses, and dimming their understanding.
#238	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Comrade Trotsky also rebuked me for not “saying a word” (p. 66) about “the role that has to be played—and is being played—by the levers known as the trade union apparatus”. I beg to differ, Comrade Trotsky. By reading out Rudzutak’s theses in toto and endorsing them, I made a statement on the question that was fuller, plainer, clearer and more correct than all your theses, your report or co-report, and speech in reply to the debate.
#239	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Behind the effort to present the “production” standpoint (Trotsky) or to overcome a one-sided political approach and combine it with an economic approach (Bukharin) we find: 1)Neglect of Marxism, as expressed in the theoretically incorrect, eclectic definition of the relation between politics and economics;
#240	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	2 )Defence or camouflage of the political mistake expressed in the shake-up policy, which runs through the whole of Trotsky’s platform pamphlet, and which, unless it is admitted and corrected, leads to the collapse of the dictatorship of the proletariat;
#241	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	3)A step back in purely economic and production matters, and the question of how to increase production; it is, in fact, a step back from Rudzutak’s practical theses, with their concrete, vital and urgent tasks (develop production propaganda; learn proper distribution of bonuses in kind and correct use of coercion through disciplinary comrades’ courts), to the highbrow, abstract, “empty” and theoretically incorrect general theses which ignore all that is most practical and business-like. That is where Zinoviev and myself, on the one hand, and Trotsky and Bukharin, on the other, actually stand on this question of politics and economics.
#242	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Comrade Trotsky thought these words were “very much to the point”. Actually, however, they reveal a terrible confusion of ideas, a truly hopeless “ideological confusion”. Of course, I have always said, and will continue to say, that we need more economics and less politics, but if we are to have this we must clearly be rid of political dangers and political mistakes. Comrade Trotsky’s political mistakes, aggravated by Comrade Bukharin, distract our Party’s attention from economic tasks and “production” work, and, unfortunately, make us waste time on correcting them and arguing it out with the syndicalist deviation (which leads to the collapse of the dictatorship of the proletariat), objecting to the incorrect approach to the trade union movement (which leads to the collapse of the Soviet power), and debating general “theses”, instead of having a practical and business-like “economic” discussion as to whether it was the Saratov millers, the Donbas miners, the Petrograd metalworkers or some other group that had the best results in coalescing, distributing bonuses in kind, and organising comrades’ courts, on the basis of Rudzutak’s theses, adopted by the Fifth All-Russia-Trade Union Conference on November 2-6.
#243	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Let us now consider what good there is in a “broad discussion”. Once again we find political mistakes distracting attention from economic tasks. I was against this “broad” discussion, and I believed, and still do, that it was a mistake—a political mistake—on Comrade Trotsky’s part to disrupt the work of the trade union commission, which ought to have held a business-like discussion.
#244	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Trotsky is in the same boat. His charge is that “Lenin wants at all costs to disrupt or shelve the discussion of the matter in essence” (p. 65). He declares: “My reasons for refusing to serve on the commission were clearly stated in the Central Committee: until such time as I am permitted, on a par with all other comrades, to air these questions fully in the Party press, I do not expect any good to come of any cloistered examination of these matters, and, consequently, of work on the commission” (p. 69). What is the result? Less than a month has passed since Trotsky started his “broad discussion” on December 25, and you will be hard put to find one responsible Party worker in a hundred who is not fed up with the discussion and has not realised its futility (to say no worse). For Trotsky has made the Party waste time on a discussion of words and bad theses, and has ridiculed as “cloistered” the business-like economic discussion in the commission, which was to have studied and verified practical experience and projected its lessons for progress in real “production” work, in place of the regress from vibrant activity to scholastic exercises in all sorts of “production atmospheres”.
#245	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Take this famous “coalescence”. My advice on December 30 was that we should keep mum on this point, because we had not studied our own practical experience, and without that any discussion was bound to degenerate into “hot air” and draw off the Party’s forces from economic work. I said it was bureaucratic projecteering for Trotsky to propose in his theses that from one-third to one-half and from one-half to two-thirds of the economic councils should consist of trade unionists.
#246	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	And this already proves that what Trotsky wrote on this matter in his theses was an exercise in bureaucratic projecteering. To talk, argue and write platforms about “one-third to one-half” and “one-half to two-thirds” is the most useless sort of “general Party talk”, which diverts time, attention and resources from production work. It is empty politicking. All this while, a great deal of good could have been done in the commission, where men of experience would have refused to write any theses without a study of the facts, say, by polling a dozen or so “common functionaries” (out of the thousand), by comparing their impressions and conclusions with objective statistical data, and by making an attempt to obtain practical guidance for the future: that being our experience, do we go straight on, or do we make some change in our course, methods and approach, and how; or do we call a halt, for the good of the cause, and check things over and over again, make a few changes here and there, and so on and so forth.
#247	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	We who are breaking new ground must put in a long, persistent and patient effort to retrain men and change the old habits which have come down to us from capitalism, but this can only be done little by little. Trotsky’s approach is quite wrong. In his December 30 speech he exclaimed: “Do or do not our workers, Party and trade union functionaries have any production training? Yes or no? I say: No” (p. 29). This is a ridiculous approach. It is like asking whether a division has enough felt boots: Yes or no?
#248	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	And it is this rule that Comrade Trotsky has broken by his theses and approach. All his theses, his entire platform pamphlet, are so wrong that they have diverted the Party’s attention and resources from practical “production” work to a lot of empty talk.
#249	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	The whole of Trotsky’s pamphlet, The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions, December 25, reveals the same kind of mentality, the same spirit as I have pointed out before. When and how he “abandoned” this attitude remains a mystery.) I am now dealing with a different matter. When the “buffer” is an eclectic, he passes over some mistakes and brings up others; he says nothing of them in Moscow on December 30, 1920, when addressing thousands of R.C.P. functionaries from all over Russia; but he brings them up in Petrograd on January 3, 1921. When the “buffer” is a dialectician, he directs the full brunt of his attack at every mistake he sees on either side, or on all sides. And that is something Bukharin does not do. He does not even try to examine Trotsky’s pamphlet in the light of the “shake-up” policy. He simply says nothing about it. No wonder his buffer performance has made everyone laugh.
#250	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	The only way to view this question in the right light is to descend from empty abstractions to the concrete, that is, the present issue. Whether you take it in the form it assumed at the Fifth All-Russia Conference of Trade Unions, or as it was presented and slanted by Trotsky himself in his platform pamphlet of December 25, you will find that his whole approach is quite wrong and that he has gone off at a tangent. He has failed to understand that the trade unions can and must be viewed as a school both when raising the question of “Soviet trade-unionism”, and when speaking of production propaganda in general, and even when considering “coalescence” and trade union participation in industrial management, as Trotsky does. On this last point, as it is presented in Trotsky’s platform pamphlet, the mistake lies in his failure to grasp that the trade unions are a school of technical and administrative management of production. In the context of the controversy, you can not say: “a school, on the one hand, and something else on the other"; given Trotsky’s approach, the trade unions, whichever way you look at them, are a school. They are a school of unity, solidarity, management and administration, where you learn how to protect your interests. Instead of making an effort to comprehend and correct Comrade Trotsky’s fundamental mistake, Comrade Bukharin has produced a funny little amendment: “On the one hand, and on the other.”
#251	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	This makes it even clearer that it is quite wrong to look to the “leading stratum”, and talk about the trade unions’ role in production and industrial management, as Trotsky does, forgetting that 98.5 per cent (6 million minus 90,000 equals 5,910,000 or 98.5 per cent of the total) are learning, and will have to continue to do so for a long time to come. Don’t say school and management, say schooI of management.
#252	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Before I explain in detail the potential administrative approach to the issue, let me say that Comrade Trotsky’s fundamental mistake is that he treats (rather, maltreats) the questions he himself had brought up in his platform pamphlet as administrative ones, whereas they could be and ought to be viewed only from the propaganda angle.
#253	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	The whole of Trotsky’s platform pamphlet betrays an incorrect approach to the problem and a misunderstanding of this relationship.
#254	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Let us assume that Trotsky had taken a different approach to this famous question of “coalescence” in connection with the other topics of his platform, and that his pamphlet was entirely devoted to a detailed investigation of, say, 90 of the 900 cases of “coalescence” where trade union officials and members concurrently held elective trade union posts and Supreme Economic Council posts in industrial management. Let us say these 90 cases had been analysed together with the returns of a selective statistical survey, the reports of inspectors and instructors of Rabkrin and the People’s Commissariats concerned: let us say they had been analysed in the light of the data supplied by the administrative bodies, the results of the work, the headway in production, etc. That would have been a correct administrative approach, and would have fullyy\ indicated the “shake-up” line, which implies concentrating attention on removals, transfers, appointments and the immediate demands to be made on the “leading stratum”. When Bukharin said in his January 3 speech, published by the Tsektran people in Petrograd, that Trotsky had at first wanted a “shake-up” but had now abandoned the idea, he made another one of his eclectical mistakes, which is ridiculous from the practical standpoint and theoretically inadmissible for a Marxist. He takes the question in the abstract, being unable (or unwilling) to get down to brass tacks. So long as we, the Party’s Central Committee and the whole Party, continue to run things, that is, govern, we shall never—we cannot—dispense with the “shake-up”, that is, removals, transfers, appointments, dismissals, etc. But Trotsky’s platform pamphlet deals with something else, and does not raise the “question of practical business” at all. It is not this but the “trends within the trade union movement” (Trotsky’s thesis 4, end) that was being debated by Zinoviev and Trotsky, Bukharin and myself, and in fact the whole Party.
#255	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	This is essentially a political question. Because of the substance of the case—this concrete, particular “case “—it is impossible to correct Trotsky’s mistake by means of eclectic little amendments and addenda, as Bukharin has been trying to do, being moved undoubted]y by the most humane sentiments and intensions. There is only one answer. First, there must be a correct solution of the political question of the “trends within the trade union movement”, the relationship between classes, between politics and economics, the specific role of the state, the Party, the trade unions, as “school” and apparatus, etc. Second, once the correct political decision has been adopted, a diversified nation-wide production propaganda campaign must be carried through, or, rather, systematically carried forward with persistence and patience over a long term, under the sponsorship and direction of a state agency. It should be conducted in such a way as to cover the same ground over and over again. Third, the “questions of practical business” must not be confused with trend issues which properly belong to the sphere ofgeneral Party talk” and broad discussions; they must be dealt with as practical matters in the working commissions, with a hearing of witnesses and a study of memoranda, reports and statistics. And any necessary “shake-up” must be carried out only on that basis and in those circumstances: only under a decision of the competent Soviet or Party organ, or of both. Trotsky and Bukharin have produced a hodgepodge of political mistakes in approach, breaks in the middle of the transmission belts, and unwarranted and futile attacks on “administrative steerage”. It is now clear where the “theoretical” source of the mistake lies, since Bukharin has taken up that aspect of it with his example of the tumbler. His theoretical—in this case, gnosiological— mistake lies in his substitution of eclecticism for dialectics. His eclectic approach has confused him and has landed him in syndicalism. Trotsky’s mistake is one-track thinking, compulsiveness, exaggeration and obstinacy. His platform says that a tumbler is a drinking vessel, but this particular tumbler happens to have no bottom.
#256	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Incidentally, Comrade Trotsky says in his theses that “over the last period we have not made any headway towards the goal set forth in the Programme but have in fact retreated from it” (p. 7, thesis 6). That statement is unsupported, and, I think, wrong. It is no proof to say, as Trotsky did in the discussions, that the trade unions “themselves” admit this. That is not the last resort, as far as the Party is concerned, and, generally speaking, the proof lies only in a serious and objective study of a great number of facts. Moreover, even if such proof were forthcoming, there would remain this question: Why have we retreated? Is it because “many trade-unionists “ are “balking at the new tasks and methods”, as Trotsky believes, or because “we have not yet succeeded in mustering the necessary forces and working out the necessary methods” to cut short and correct certain unwarranted and harmful excesses of bureaucracy?
#257	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	One final remark on the minor question of priority and equalisation. I said during the December 30 discussion that Trotsky’s formulation of thesis 41 on this point was theoretically wrong, because it implied priority in production and equalisation in consumption. I replied that priority implied preference and that that was nothing unless you also had it in consumption. Comrade Trotsky reproached me for “extraordinary forgetfulness” and “intimidation” (pp. 67 and 68), and I am surprised to find that he has not accused me also of manoeuvring, diplomatic moves, etc. He has made “concessions” to my equalitarian line, but I have attacked him.
#258	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Actually, however, anyone who takes an interest in Party affairs, can turn to indisputable Party documents: the November resolution of the C.C. Plenum, point 4, and Trotsky’s platform pamphlet, thesis 41. However “forgetful” I may be, and however excellent Comrade Trotsky’s memory, it is still a fact that thesis 41 contains a theoretical error, which the C.C. resolution of November 9 does not. The resolution says: “While recognising the necessity of keeping to the principle of priority in carrying out the economic plan, the Central Committee, in complete solidarity with the decisions of the last All-Russia Conference (September), deems it necessary to effect a gradual but steady transition to equality in the status of various groups of workers and their respective trade unions, all the while building up the organisation on the scale of the union as a whole.” That is clearly aimed against Tsektran, and it is quite impossible to put any other construction on the exact meaning of the resolution. Priority is here to stay. Preference is still to be given to enterprises, trade unions, trusts and departments on the priority list (in regard to fulfilment of the economic plan), but at the same time, the “equalitarian line”—which was supported not by “Comrade Lenin alone”, but was approved by the Party Conference and the Central Committee, that is, the entire Party—makes this clear-cut demand: get on with the gradual but steady transition to equalisation. That Tsektran failed to carry out this C.C. resolution (November) is evident from the Central Committee’s December resolution (on Trotsky and Bukharin’s motion), which contains another reminder of the “principles of ordinary democracy”. The theoretical error in thesis 41 is that it says: equalisation in consumption, priority in production. That is an economic absurdity because it implies a gap between production and consumption. I did not say—and could never have said—anything of the sort. If you don’t need a factory, close it down. Close down all the factories that are not absolutely essential, and give preference to those that are. Give preference to, say, transport. Most certainly. But the preference must not be overdone, as it was in Tsektran’s case, which was why the Party (and not just Lenin) issued this directive: get on with the gradual but steady transition to equality. And Trotsky has no one but himself to blame for having come out—after the November Plenary Meeting, which gave a clear-cut and theoretically correct solution—with a factional pamphlet on “the two trends” and proposed a formulation in his thesis 41 which is wrong in economic terms.
#259	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Today, January 25, it is exactly one month since Comrade Trotsky’s factional statement. It is now patent that this pronouncement, inappropriate in form and wrong in essence, has diverted the Party from its practical economic and production effort into rectifying political and theoretical mistakes. But, it’s an ill wind, as the old saying goes.
#260	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	In the discussion by the Communist group of the Second All-Russia Miners’ Congress, Shlyapnikov’s platform was defeated despite the backing it got from Comrade Kiselyov, who commands special prestige in that union: our platform won 137 votes, Shlyapnikov’s, 62, and Trotsky’s, 8. The syndicalist malaise must and will be cured.
#261	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	In this one month, Petrograd, Moscow and a number of provincial towns have shown that the Party responded to the discussion and has rejected Comrade Trotsky’s wrong line by an overwhelming majority. While there may have been some vacillation “at the top” and “in the provinces”, in the committees and in the offices, the rank-and-file membership—the mass of Party workers—came out solidly against this wrong line.
#262	1921 January 25	Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin	Comrade Kamenev informed me of Comrade Trotsky’s announcement, during the discussion in the Zamoskvorechye District of Moscow on January 23, that he was withdrawing his platform and joining up with the Bukharin group on a new platform. Unfortunately, I heard nothing of this from Comrade Trotsky either on January 23 or 24, when he spoke against me in the Communist group of the Miners’ Congress. I don’t know whether this is due to another change in Comrade Trotsky’s platform and intentions, or to some other reason. In any case, his January 23 announcement shows that the Party, without so much as mustering all its forces, and with only Petrograd, Moscow and a minority of the provincial towns going on record, has corrected Comrade Trotsky’s mistake promptly and with determination. The Party’s enemies had rejoiced too soon. They have not been able—and will never be able—to take advantage of some of the inevitable disagreements within the Party to inflict harm on it and on the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia.

Evidently, The rude factionalist Lenin hated was Trotsky. Name me another person Lenin criticised so much; Kautsky, perhaps!
For your information, this list is not even completed(yet) and I have no idea how much more material against Trotsky remains. This list will be updated further.

1.2: Did Lenin support Socialism in one country, or the permanent revolution?

One myth Kautskyists in denial like to repeat like a broken record is this. Lenin supported what he termed Trotsky's "absurd thesis". Evidently their understanding of Lenin's views differs little then their understanding of friendships. Much like its creators, this myth is a good-for-nothing rabid animal that needs to be put down.

Trotsky was an ardent Menshevik, i. e., he deserted from the Iskrists to the Economists. He said that “between the old Iskra and the new lies a gulf”. In 1904—05, he deserted the Mensheviks and occupied a vacillating position, now co-operating with Martynov (the Economist), now proclaiming his absurdly Left “permanent revolution” theory.

-Lenin, Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity

"Socialism in one country" is one of Lenin's most important contributions. You read that sentence correctly.

Thirdly, the victory of socialism in one country does not at one stroke eliminate all wars in general. On the contrary, it presupposes wars. The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in different countries. It cannot be otherwise under commodity production. From this it follows irrefutably that socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will for some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois. This is bound to create not only friction, but a direct attempt on the part of the bourgeoisie of other countries to crush the socialist state’s victorious proletariat. In such cases, a war on our part would be a legitimate and just war. It would be a war for socialism, for the liberation of other nations from the bourgeoisie. Engels was perfectly right when, in his letter to Kautsky of September 12, 1882, he clearly stated that it was possible for already victorious socialism to wage “defensive wars”. What he had in mind was defense of the victorious proletariat against the bourgeoisie of other countries.

-Lenin, The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution

The capitalists, the bourgeoisie, can at “best” put off the victory of socialism in one country or another at the cost of slaughtering further hundreds of thousands of workers and peasants. But they cannot save capitalism. The Soviet Republic has come to take the place of capitalism, the Republic which gives power to the working people and only to the working people, which entrusts the proletariat with the guidance of their liberation, which abolishes private property in land, factories and other means of production, because this private property is the source of the exploitation of the many by the few, the source of mass poverty, the source of predatory wars between nations, wars that enrich only the capitalists.

-Lenin, To An American Journalist’s Questions

Our press has always spoken of the need to prepare fora revolutionary war in the event of the victory of socialism in one country with capitalism still in existence in theneighbouring countries. That is indisputable. Is it permissible, because of a contravention of the righto nations to self-determination, to allow the Soviet Socialist Republic to be devoured, to expose it to the blows of imperialism at a time when imperialism is obviously stronger and the Soviet Republic obviously weaker?

-Lenin, The Revolutionary Phrase

And with us will go the masses of the more advanced countries, countries which have been divided by a predatory war, whose workers have passed through a longer period of training in democracy. When people depict the difficulties of our task, when we are told that the victory of socialism is possible only on a world scale, we regard this merely as an attempt, a particularly hopeless attempt, on the part of the bourgeoisie and of its voluntary and involuntary supporters to distort the irrefutable truth. The final victory of socialism in a single country is of course impossible. Our contingent of workers and peasants which is upholding Soviet power is one of the contingents of the great world army, which at present has been split by the world war, but which is striving for unity, and every piece of information, every fragment of a report about our revolution, every name, the proletariat greets with loud and sympathetic cheers, because it knows that in Russia the common cause is being pursued, the cause of the proletariat’s uprising, the international socialist revolution. A living example, tackling the job somewhere in one country is more effective than any proclamations and conferences; this is what inspires the working people in all countries.

-Lenin, Third All-Russia Congress Of Soviets Of Workers’, Soldiers’ And Peasants’ Deputies

Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone. After expropriating the capitalists and organising their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world—the capitalist world—attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, stirring uprisings in those countries against the capitalists, and in case of need using even armed force against the exploiting classes and their states. The political form of a society wherein the proletariat is victorious in overthrowing the bourgeoisie will be a democratic republic, which will more and more concentrate the forces of the proletariat of a given nation or nations, in the struggle against states that have not yet gone over to socialism. The abolition of classes is impossible without a dictatorship of the oppressed class, of the proletariat. A free union of nations in socialism is impossible without a more or less prolonged and stubborn struggle of the socialist republics against the backward states.

-Lenin, On the Slogan for a United States of Europe

More here

Stalin correctly attributed it to Lenin as well. Stalin developed it, but it started with Lenin.

Lenin, taking as his basis the law of the uneven development of the imperialist states, opposed to the opportunists his theory of the proletarian revolution about the victory of socialism in one country, even if that country is one in which capitalism is less developed. It is well known that the October Revolution fully confirmed the correctness of Lenin's theory of the proletarian revolution.

-Stalin, The October Revolution and the Tactics of the Russian Communists

1.2.1: Was the April thesis a adoption of Trotsky's ideas?

A myth propagated by people who do not read Lenin, for people who do not read Lenin. Nothing in the article supports this. Quite the contrary, Lenin adhered to the two stage theory Trotsky denied:

The specific feature of the present situation in Russia is that the country is passing from the first stage of the revolution—which, owing to the insufficient class-consciousness and organisation of the proletariat, placed power in the hands of the bourgeoisie—to its second stage, which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants.

-Lenin, The April Theses I am aware of a certain dishonest argument regarding Lenin's "Letter on Tactics", released shortly after the April Theses. They regard the following as agreement with Trotsky:

The person who now speaks only of a “revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry” is behind the times, consequently, he has in effect gone over to the petty bourgeoisie against the proletarian class struggle; that person should be consigned to the archive of “Bolshevik” pre-revolutionary antiques (it may be called the archive of “old Bolsheviks”).

-Lenin, Letters on Tactics Yet just 3 paragraphs above exists a refutation of this anti-leninist slander:

’The revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry” has already become a reality in the Russian revolution, for this “formula” envisages only a relation of classes, and not a concrete political institution implementing this relation, this co-operation. “The Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies”—there you have the “revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry” already accomplished in reality.

-Lenin, Letters on Tactics

Likewise, just one paragraph below:

The revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry has already been realised, but in a highly original manner, and with a number of extremely important modifications. I shall deal with them separately in one of my next letters. For the present, it is essential to grasp the incontestable truth that a Marxist must take cognisance of real life, of the true facts of reality, and not cling to a theory of yesterday, which, like all theories, at best only outlines the main and the general, only comes near to embracing life in all its complexity.

-Lenin, Letters on Tactics

Trotsky himself termed the April theses "paradoxical".

In his April theses which seemed so paradoxical, Lenin was relying against the old formula upon the living tradition of the party – its irreconcilable attitude to the ruling classes and its hostility to all half-way measures – whereas the “old Bolsheviks” were opposing a still fresh although already outdated memory to the concrete development of the class struggle.

-Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution

And in the same month as the release of the April Theses, Lenin criticised Trotsky(ism).

Trotskyism: “No tsar, but a workers’ government.” This is wrong. A petty bourgeoisie exists, and it cannot be dismissed. But it is in two parts. The poorer of the two is with the working class.

-Lenin, The Petrograd City Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.

I might be incurring this danger if I said: “No Tsar, but a workers’ government.”[13] But I did not say that, I said something else. I said that there can be no government (barring a bourgeois government) in Russia other than that of the Soviets of Workers’, Agricultural Labourers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies.I said that power in Russia now can pass from Guchkov and Lvov only to these Soviets. And in these Soviets, as it happens, it is the peasants, the soldiers, i.e., petty bourgeoisie, who preponderate, to use a scientific, Marxist term, a class characterisation, and not a common, man-in-the-street, professional characterisation. In my theses, I absolutely ensured myself against skipping over the peasant movement, which has not outlived itself, or the petty-bourgeois movement in general, against any playing at “seizure of power” by a workers’ government, against any kind of Blanquist adventurism;

-Lenin, Letters on Tactics

If we had said, “No tsar, but a dictatorship of the proletariat”, well, this would have meant skipping over the petty bourgeoisie. But what we are saying is—help the revolution through the Soviets. We must not lapse into reformism. We are fighting to win, not to lose. At the worst we count on partial success. Even if we suffer defeat we shall achieve partial success. We shall get reforms. Reforms are an auxiliary instrument of the class struggle.

-Lenin, The Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.)

And as expected, doubted Trotsky and his standing.

Trotsky, when editing his paper in Paris, never made it clear whether he was for or against Chkheidze. We have always spoken against Chkheidze, because he is a subtle mask for chauvinism. Trotsky has never made himself clear. How do we know that Larin, the editor of Internatsional, does not follow the same tactics?

-Lenin, The Petrograd City Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.

So many quotes wasted on an argument so devoid of merit...
But at least its out of the way.

1.3: Stalin never outmaneuvered Trotsky - He outdid him.

Another meritless myth Trots adore. Stalin, the ""cunning but dimwitted brute"" had ""stolen the party leadership from Trotsky"" using dubious means. I object to this view. The only crime Stalin was guilty of is being objectively better then Trotsky in every single metric.

For example, in 1927, a party referendum "narrowly" voted for Stalin, instead of for Trotsky: 724,000 for the former, 4,000 to the latter.

The results of the discussion? The results are known. Up to yesterday, it turns out, 724,000 comrades voted for the Party and a little over 4,000 voted for the opposition. Such are the results. Our oppositionists thundered that the Central Committee had become divorced from the Party, that the Party had become divorced from the class, that if "ifs" and "ans" were pots and pans they, the oppositionists, would certainly have had 99 per cent on their side. But since "ifs" and "ans" are not pots and pans, it turns out that the opposition has not even one per cent. Such are the results.

Stalin, The Fifteenth Congress of the CPSU But don't take my word for it; The Real Stalin Series has multiple sources confirming this claim!

Once again, a vote was taken on the subject of Trotsky and his Opposition. In a general referendum of all Bolshevik party members the overwhelming majority, by a vote of 740,000 to 4000, repudiated the Trotskyite Opposition and declared themselves in favor of Stalin’s administration. Sayers and Kahn. The Great Conspiracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946, p. 203

That Stalin had the Party membership solidly behind him in this controversy with Trotsky and his group is shown by a 1927 Party referendum in which the Trotskyist program was defeated by 725,000 votes to 6,000. Cameron, Kenneth Neill. Stalin, Man of Contradiction. Toronto: NC Press, c1987, p. 48

But before this step was taken there was a Party referendum on the question of the opposition policy– 724,000 members voted for the line of the Party, 4000 members voted for the Trotskyists and 2600 abstained from voting. Campbell, J. R. Soviet Policy and Its Critics. London: V. Gollancz, ltd., 1939, p. 40

1.3.1: Stalin was not allowed to resign

The first three were covered by "Socialist ML Musings". In 1925, 1926, and 1927 he presented his formal requests to resign. The first one, for example, was unanimously rejected by all the delegates, Including Trotsky. Stalin explained that:

What could I do? Desert my post? That is not in my nature; I have never deserted any post, and I have no right to do so, for that would be desertion. As > I have already said before, I am not a free agent, and when the Party imposes an obligation upon me, I must obey. A year later I again put in a request to the plenum to release me, but I was again obliged to remain at my post. What else could I do?

Stalin, The Trotskyist Opposition Before and Now, 1927

The fourth one is more obscure; Even in 1952, when Stalin asked to be replaced due to being old, the central committee denied his request. "Stalin, standing on the podium and looking into the hall, began talking about his old age and that he was unable to perform all the duties assigned to him. He can continue to carry out his duties as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and presiding over meetings of the Politburo as before, but he is no longer able to preside over meetings of the Secretariat of the Central Committe, as the General Secretary. Therefore, he asks to be released from that position, and for his request to be respected".

Malenkov was the first to respond, with the Author describimg him as as having "an expression of a person seeing more clearly then all others the deadly danger that hangs over everyones heads and has not been realised; it is impossible to agree to the request of Comrade Stalin, impossible to agree for him to resign from this position". Malenkov responded: "No, we ask you to stay!", after which the hall "buzzed with words": "No! You cannot! You must stay! Please take your request back!" and more.

After which Malenkov said: "Comrades! We must all unanimously ask Comrade Stalin, our leader and teacher, to continue being the General Secretary of the CPSU", followed by stormy applause.

Stalin responded: "There is no need to applause at the Plenum of the Central Committe. It is necessary to resolve issues without emotions, in a professional way, and I ask you to releas eme from the duties of teh General Secretary and Chairman of the Council of Ministers. I'm already old. I don't read papers anymore. Choose another secretary".

Marshal S.K. Timoshenko: "Comrade Stalin, the people will not understand this. We all as one elect you as our leader - The General Secretary of the Central Committee. There can be no other solution". Applauses ensued again. Stalin stood looking into the hall, waved his hand, and sat down.

(Рудольф Баландин, "Завещание Сталина". Rudolf Baladin, "Stalin's testament", P100-102)

1.3.2: Stalin tried to get along with Trotsky

1.3.3: Trotsky had a childish grudge to settle

1.3.4: A strategic mastermind compared to a military burden

1.3.5: Trotsky chose wrecking over compromise, despite Stalin's attempts for cooperation

Part 2: Trotskyism as counter-revolutionary cancer - How it almost murdered the Soviet Union

Khrushchev, the one Trot we missed

Part 3: Trotskyism as counter-revolutionary cancer - The global working class paid the price

Betraying the Chinese workers // [Ho Chi Minh and what he had to say]

Turncoats in Spain

Che adding insult to injury

Acknowledgements

This work would have never existed without Revolutionary Democracy and The Espresso Stalinist, as the information in both these pages was instrumental in making this article. Some of the material presented here was found in these two sites. I absolutely recommend giving both a visit.