CHAPTER 6

TROTSKY'S POST-CAPITALIST PERSPECTIVE

6.1 Trotsky's pre-1917 position on Bolshevism

From somewhat obscure beginnings, Leon Trotsky quickly became a leading figure in the anti-capitalist struggle in Russia. After the rise of Stalin and his banishment from Russia in January 1928, he, and his followers, eventually founded an anti-capitalist organisation known as the Fourth International. This organisation (with numerous accompanying splits) lasted well into the 20th century. Within the sectarian groups which claim allegiance to Leon Trotsky it is a widely established opinion that Trotsky consistently upheld the same anti-capitalist tradition as Lenin and the Bolsheviks. However, this opinion is only partially true. For example, Trotsky's adherence to Leninism and Bolshevism certainly did not pre-date the Russian revolution. Even after the October capture of power Trotsky often disagreed and held views which were opposed to those of Lenin on quite important issues.

Thus, it is an extremely significant fact that Trotsky did not join Lenin and the Bolsheviks until July 1917. Yet this significance has been both understated by many supporters of Trotsky and overstated by his opponents. That is to say his supporters have minimised this fact by concentrating on Trotsky's independent revolutionary credentials prior to October 1917. On the other hand his opponents, mainly from the Stalinist camp, have maximised his disagreement with the Bolsheviks, to undermine his revolutionary credentials.

Such dualistic partisanship, which usually orbits around the question of whether Trotsky was a good Bolshevik or not, misses the essential importance of the fact that until July 1917 (i.e. even after the February overthrow of the Czar) he had occupied a political position which was closer to the Mensheviks than the Bolsheviks. However, in intellectual terms he was independent of both groups. Indeed, prior to July 1917 despite his Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP) membership, whenever not deported, he invariably played an almost independent role, and related directly to the struggles of the Russian working class. For most of that time he was deeply critical of many aspects of Lenin and Bolshevism. Nevertheless, it is the nature of Trotsky's early criticism, which although partially recognised, is insufficiently considered even by his supporters, which we shall now consider. Trotsky's first major criticism of Bolshevism arose, around the controversy over the rules for the Russian Social Democratic Party, in 1902. Trotsky described Lenin and the Bolshevik position in the following manner:

"In the internal politics of the Party these methods lead, as we shall see below, to the Party organisation 'substituting' itself for the Party, the Central Committee substituting itself for the Party organisation, and finally the dictator substituting himself for the Central Committee;" (Trotsky 'Our Political Tasks'. page 77.)

It has been occasionally noted how this analysis remarkably foresaw the eventual development of the Bolshevik directed post-capitalist society under Stalin. Twenty years after this warning, the Communist Party secretaries did become more powerful than the Party members, the Central Committee became more powerful than the Party officials, and Stalin, in accomplishing a dictatorship, also became more powerful than the Central Committee. So stunningly accurate is this prediction that it is hard to understand why this aspect of Trotsky's criticism has not been considered more thoroughly by his followers, or by Trotsky himself!

His later analysis, as a committed member of the Bolsheviks, whilst being much more detailed, for example in the book 'Revolution Betrayed', was, despite this detail, much less accurate. Trotsky, before he was a member of the Bolshevik tendency, was able to project the logic at work in the principles being adopted by the then small conspiratorial group of Bolsheviks and accurately forecast how they might turn out on a much larger scale. During that early period, Trotsky saw Bolshevism, and Leninism, as a new form of Jacobinism within the anti-capitalist struggle. In the final section of the above noted work, Trotsky referred directly to the idealist contradiction of the Jacobins, personified by Robespiere. It was notable, commented Trotsky, that along with an absolute faith in a metaphysical ideal of mankind, Robespiere, for example, had a total distrust toward real men. In the Russian situation, the ideal had become the Bolshevik Party and its organisational principle - centralism. This substitution, Trotsky argued, came from an essential mistrust by Lenin, of the mass of ordinary people. Of the Jacobin within the modern revolutionary party, meaning Lenin and his co-thinkers, Trotsky hoped they would leave the Russian Social Democratic Party. He then went on to say;

"..in so far as he keeps a formal link with the organisation and at the same time keeps his Jacobin mentality of distrust and suspicion toward the unorganised forces and the future, he will show inability to evaluate the development of the Party." (ibid. page 124.)

The unorganised forces were the mass of anti-fuedal peasants and anti-capitalist workers. By the last phrase, in the above quote, we can be sure that Trotsky meant an inability to evaluate the development of the Party from the standpoint of the working class. It is possible to be certain of this because Trotsky made his central watchword in the above noted document; 'Long live the self-activity of the proletariat.'. Although at that time, in the anti-capitalist struggle, he distanced himself from Lenin and the Bolsheviks, he placed no distance between himself and the self-activity of the proletariat. The year 1905 saw Trotsky working alongside the workers of St. Petersburg in the Workers' and Peasants' Soviet. Trotsky, was elected President of the Soviet, and served that body until his arrest, along with other representatives of the Petersburg Soviet. In a detailed account of the 1905 period, (entitled '1905') Trotsky noted that the political intelligentsia's intervention in the revolutionary events of 1905 was both pitiful and negligible. Trotsky was practically the only revolutionary intellectual of any standing who took an active part in the revolutionary events of 1905. However, it was not the absence of other middle-class revolutionaries which maintained his conviction that it would be the proletariat which would lead the revolution. For the young Trotsky, as with Marx, it was the economic situation of the proletariat which made them the only serious and substantive revolutionary anti-capitalist class. It was this class organising the economic and political strikes in factories and railways, in January 1905, which propelled the opposition to the Czar further in the direction of revolution.

It was also a meeting of workers' deputies making a decision to form a 'general council' which in fact was to develop into the first Soviet. This organisation was actually formed to generalise and co-ordinate the workers' struggle against the capitalists, not to provide a verbal arena, or career ladder, for would be revolutionary leaders, as it was later to become. Out of that practical struggle Trotsky was able to recognise clearly the logic of the progress of an anti-capitalist revolution which was led by the working classes. His understanding, at that time, differed qualitatively from that of Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

As we have noted, during that same period, Lenin considered that although the workers would lead the revolution, the economic and social conditions of Russia would be such that a post-capitalist society could not be implemented. For this reason a period of capitalist development would have to exist for an indefinite interval. Since a majority of Russia's working poor were peasants there would also need to be an alliance between them and the workers. This alliance was perceived as a coalition of political organisations. For the Bolsheviks this meant that the political, and subsequent economic result of the coming revolution, would be a capitalist democracy. As the peasants were a majority of the population the logic suggested that the Bolsheviks, as workers' representatives in that coalition, would also be in a minority. It was a situation that was expected to last until the social and economic conditions matured sufficiently for the anti-capitalist revolution to be seriously put on the agenda.

At that time Trotsky disagreed. He argued that in the development of the revolution the workers would lead the seizure of power and would be forced, by their own needs, to go beyond the capitalist stage. In wishing to feed, clothe and house themselves they would have to meet a capitalist lock-out by taking over production. In taking over production they would have to consider the co-ordination of production and the organisational forms necessary to pursue that goal. It is interesting to note that at this point in his political career, Trotsky was still maintaining the concept of working people identifying and fighting for their own needs. Returning to the differences between himself and Lenin, Trotsky argued that Lenin's position was tantamount to the working class imposing a political limitation upon itself because it understood theoretically that the revolution in which it was taking a leading role, should be a bourgeois one. For Trotsky this was hopelessly idealistic and formalistic. The problem with the Bolshevik position, he considered, was that it only visualised the anti-capitalist struggle of the workers until the moment of the revolution's political triumph.

Earlier in the above mentioned booklet, Trotsky quoted Marx, on how the proletarians in their anti-capitalist revolution would criticise itself constantly and return to things already accomplished in order to begin them afresh. In other words workers would create approximate solutions to political, social and economic problems and return to these imprecise solutions to fine tune them, modify them or even scrap them. Individually, and in groups, workers would have no inflated egos which prevent mistakes being recognised, admitted and quickly rectified. Prophetically, Trotsky predicted that on the first day of any future revolutionary government which did not allow the working class to fulfil its needs and interests, the workers would enter into conflict with that government. This was something which, as we have indicated, happened frequently in the Soviet Union. In noting the differences between Menshevism and Bolshevism, Trotsky wrote;

"..while the anti-revolutionary aspects of Menshevism have already become fully apparent, those of Bolshevism are likely to become a serious threat only in the event of victory." (Trotsky. '1905' pub. Pelican Books. page 332.)

This is another crucially correct prediction by Trotsky on the transformation of Leninism and Bolshevism from a revolutionary force to an anti-revolutionary force, after its victory. It is an observation that many have recognised with hindsight, but few could have predicted it with Trotsky's foresight. However, when the above book was reprinted in 1922, after Trotsky had joined the Bolsheviks, Trotsky added a note to the above statement to the effect that the threat had not materialised. In light of what we now know, the earlier prediction carries an uncanny resemblance to what eventually materialised, whilst this later (1922) disclaimer sounds remarkably short-sighted and considerably premature. Of course, the anti-revolutionary aspects of Bolshevism became absolutely clear after Stalin took control, but as we have seen they had begun much earlier than this. However, Trotsky didn't accept the fact of this counter-revolution within Bolshevism until a further decade of Stalin's control had done its work.

We can see from the ample evidence supplied by Lenin and Trotsky themselves, that for a number of years Trotsky had profound disagreements with Lenin and the Bolsheviks. In 1905, for example, Lenin described Trotsky, none too flatteringly, as a 'windbag' and this was no isolated instance. In later years Lenin included Trotsky among those within the Russian Social Democratic Party, whom he accused of liquidationism. This term was used by Lenin to describe those whose views would lead to an undermining and destruction of the disciplined revolutionary Marxist party Lenin was trying to build. According to Lenin, over the period from 1905 to 1916, Trotsky was variously; 'fond of sonorous, meaningless, pompous and empty catch phrases', or he was; 'the representative of the worst remnants of factionalism', he was also; 'unable to think out his ideas, and evaded questions and avoided facts'. Such words were not only made in response to Trotsky's writings of 1903 and 1905, which were certainly not meaningless or empty, but were sentiments which were repeated, amongst others, by Lenin as late as 1920. There was also more than a mere suggestion of the sectarian leader rubbishing a rival leader in Lenin's pre-October 1917 tirade against Trotsky.

6.2 Trotsky's position after October 1917

In a previous chapter we have had occasion to mention that Lenin, in a defence of Trotsky against Bolshevik Party members, had stated that since joining them there had been no better Bolshevik. Despite the prior critical relationship between the two, this opinion has considerable justification, for in 1920, three years after joining the Bolsheviks, Trotsky made a statement which revealed his utter conversion to their post-capitalist vision. It was on the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In a debate on the role of Trade Unions, Trotsky, who although he disagreed with Lenin on the role of Trade Unions in the new society, nonetheless turned his critical attention to the Workers Opposition group:

"They seem to have placed the workers right to elect their representatives above the party, as though the party did not have the right to defend its dictatorship even if that dictatorship were to clash for a time with the passing moods of the workers democracy....What is indispensable is the awareness, so to speak, of the revolutionary historical birthright of the party to maintain its dictatorship in spite of the temporary wavering in the spontaneous moods of the masses.." (Quoted in T. Cliff. 'Trotsky' Volume 2, published Pluto Press. page 174.)

This quote shows perhaps more than any other that by 1920 Trotsky had unequivocally adopted Lenin's sectarian position on the question of the relationship between Party and the working class in post-capitalist society. The quote also reveals a degree of patronising contempt for working people. Their feelings and views are considered by Trotsky to be the result of moodiness and temporary wavering. He seems by this time to have completely forgotten his earlier prediction that any revolutionary government which did not allow the working class to fulfil its needs and interests would come into conflict with that class. The needs and interests of workers are here declared to be moodiness, and the revolutionary government, which now included Trotsky, suddenly had been granted the right to prevent the workers from carrying out their perceived needs and interests. The above statement reveals a large measure of elitist arrogance. It is as if wavering and moodiness did not occur within the ranks of this Party of revolutionary intellectuals - which of course it did! Worse still, the anti-capitalist position of Marx, which viewed the workers as having not only the revolutionary right to elect their own representatives, but also the duty to be wary of them once elected, had been reversed by Trotsky into its opposite.

This arrogant way of thinking is normally associated with Feudal Aristocrats, Bourgeois Capitalists and the later Stalin regime, yet it is clearly displayed by Trotsky as far back as 1920. Trotsky at that particular congress exhibited his complete ideological conformity to Lenin on the question of the purpose of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and this also placed him in opposition to the needs and interests of the working class. The above statement also vividly chronicles Trotsky's departure from the carefully considered positions of Marx.

The very term ('historical birthright'), used by Trotsky to emphasise this departure from the side of the working class, is also perhaps somewhat revealing. We are entitled to ask; 'where in the history of the working class or anti-capitalist struggle, had such a dictatorial birthright been confirmed upon self-appointed party political elites like the Bolsheviks?' Marx makes no mention of such a birthright and his knowledge of revolutionary anti-capitalist matters was considerable. Of course, Marx died in 1883, so could such a historical birthright have arisen after the death of Marx? If it did, Trotsky failed to allude to it in his carefully considered polemic with Lenin and Bolshevism in 1905. Further, if this historic birthright arrived after 1905 then by 1922 it was not very historic. However, nowhere from within the history of working class or anti-capitalist struggle is it possible to substantiate this assertion by Trotsky. At the time Trotsky wrote the above words, the only example of so-called democratic party political elites assuming the right to maintain dictatorships against those who they said they represented arose in the case of the French Jacobins in the 1790's. The only other examples on the 'left' are now to be found in the annals of Bolshevism. Such a 'revolutionary historic birthright' resides nowhere except in the minds of Jacobin-type middle-class intellectuals who assume they have the right to represent anyone they consider needs them. Whereas, Trotsky in 1922 was emphatically denying the right of the working class to elect their own representatives, Marx, after extensively studying the experience of the various revolutionary uprisings in France - including the Paris Commune - asserted it. Marx had stated;

"...universal suffrage was to serve the people, constituted in communes as individual suffrage serves every other employer in the search for the workmen and managers in his business. And it is well known that companies, like individuals, in matters of real business generally know how to put the right man in the right place, and, if they for once make a mistake, to redress it promptly. On the other hand, nothing could be more foreign to the spirit of the commune than to supersede universal suffrage by hierarchical investiture." (Marx. Class Struggles in France. Peking Edition page 72)

The last sentence is very telling. Hierarchical investiture was precisely the practice of the Bolsheviks (remember Lenin's Better fewer, but Better') when they appointed party members to positions of responsibility and power in their distorted version of post-capitalist society. The same process was used in creating the state structures which Trotsky was defending against the demand for elections. Universal suffrage, the right of all to vote for their representatives, according to Marx was to serve the people organised in Communes as a means to vote for, and remove when necessary, the few remaining representatives needed by the new form of society. Marx placed no limitations or qualifications upon this policy, for it was the political means of exercising the dictatorship of the proletariat and (along with the smashing of the capitalist state and transferring the means of production into the hands of the various communities) of ensuring that power remained with the working people. Marx was clear, unlike Trotsky, that workers in a post-capitalist society should have the power to put the right person in the right place and if they found they had made a mistake, to redress it promptly.

Marx did not consider the workers and peasants of 19th century France as too backward or uncultured to exercise such power directly themselves. Trotsky, on the other hand, along with Lenin and a majority of the Bolsheviks, considered the workers and peasants of 20th Century Russia were too uncultured and backward to control their own organisations. Marx did not change his opinion on the role of the working class throughout his lifetime, yet Trotsky completely reversed his own opinion in a little over ten years. How could Trotsky move from a position of having an accurate criticism of Bolshevism and a full knowledge of Marx's position, to something almost completely opposite? He was also opposed to Marx on the question of the state at an even earlier stage. Writing in 1906, after the failure of the 1905 revolution in Russia, Trotsky felt able to conclude that;

"The development of the social division of labour, on the one hand, and machine production on the other, has led to the position that nowadays the only co-operative body which could utilise the advantage of collective production on a wide scale is the State." (Trotsky 'Results and Prospects.' Pub. New Park Publications. page 90.)

Trotsky here does not indicate what kind of state nor how this fits with the opinion of Marx that the 'state as such' needed to be smashed. The fact that Bolshevik grand plans for the Soviet Union coincided with Trotsky's opinion that the only body capable of taking advantage of collective production was the state, cannot but have influenced him. So much so that it apparently allowed him to overlook his previous reservations on the exercise of power by the Party, for the Party in many ways, under Bolshevism, was the nerve centre of the state.

Instead, of a voluntary and temporary organisational form, constructed for a definite purpose, the party became for Trotsky and all the Bolsheviks, a compulsory and permanent organisational form suitable for all purposes. Such a one-sided view is perhaps understandable, but it is certainly not excusable in those who considered themselves to have a scientific outlook. However, it is also less understandable why Trotsky, after having such a lengthy and deeply critical analysis of Bolshevism, should himself so completely fall victim to such a fetish. Lenin, for example, although making the building of the Bolshevik organisation his life's work, was quite prepared, and threatened more than once, to leave it. Yet after joining it, so strong became Trotsky's commitment to the Party that he had to be kicked out long after this beloved 'party' had proved its counter revolutionary nature to the working class and to many lesser-known revolutionary intellectuals. Trotsky's rapid transformation from scepticism and opposition to credulity and over indulgence is something of an enigma. His attachment to 'the party' became excessively subjective and explains his failure to break with it and condemn it when this might have been more effective. A further display of the extent of this obsessive regard for 'the Party' is contained in a speech to the Thirteenth Congress held in 1924. He claimed that:

"In the last analysis, the party is always right, because the party is the sole historical instrument that the working class possesses for the solution of its fundamental tasks.....I know that no one can be right against the party." (Trotsky. Challenge of the Left Opposition. Pub. Pathfinder Press. page 161.)

'In the last analysis the Party is always right'! How Stalin and the bureaucrats who controlled the party must have welcomed this statement. He went on to mention that the English had a proverb; 'My country right or wrong'. and argued that Russian Communists, could say with much more greater historical justification, that 'right or wrong, this is my party'. In the closing paragraph of his speech Trotsky announced the Left Opposition's 'total devotion to the cause of the party'. Thus in 1924, Trotsky was offering total and absolute devotion to an organisation which was already riddled with job-seekers, graft, and corruption, which Lenin had threatened to leave on a number of occasions, and which in only a couple more years would expel him and his supporters before systematically murdering and assassinating them. However, let us make a closer examination of the points raised by Trotsky's contribution to this debate on the direction of the Russian Communist Party in 1924.

i) The Party in the last analysis is always right. This is patently not true. It is also an abstract theoretical statement as well as being incorrect. The party is made up of a collection of individuals who can, and frequently will, be wrong whether in the first, last, or intermediate analysis. This particular source of error could be all the greater when the ideological direction of a party is in the hands of a small number of individuals. The particular party which Trotsky was addressing was frequently wrong. For example, prior to Lenin's April Thesis, its understanding of the forthcoming revolutionary developments was extremely muddled, and incidentally was quickly changed by the actions of a single individual - Lenin. So when Trotsky says he knows that no one can be right against the Party, he is not only profoundly wrong in theory, he is also demonstrably wrong in practice. More than that, this statement, by Trotsky, supposedly in line with Leninism, contradicts Lenin's position, who considered the Party to be frequently wrong. It also contradicts the later position of Trotsky himself when he eventually advocated the founding of the Fourth International in direct competition with 'the party'. Perhaps more tellingly, it is also in contradiction to a basic tenet of Marx outlined in the Theses on Fuerbach, that the proof of the correctness of theoretical propositions is to be found in the realm of practice of the real world, and therefore, not in the debates, resolutions and decisions of a political party.

ii) The party is the sole historic instrument possessed by the working class for the solution of its fundamental problems. This formulation by Trotsky is also abstract and incorrect. A political party is not possessed by a class but belongs to its members. It may represent a class, or seek to represent one, but does not by this fact belong to that class. In particular, the anti-capitalist Bolshevik grouping which developed into the Russian Communist Party, was not formed by the working class, nor were worker members in the majority. It was thus never 'possessed' by worker Bolsheviks let alone the Russian working class. The party, according to Trotsky, at this 13th Congress, had become the sole historic instrument for the solution of the fundamental problems of the working class. The fundamental problems for the working class are to be rid of capitalist and capitalistic forms of exploitation. Whether or not a 'single' instrument could ever suffice to solve these is a profoundly doubtful proposition. However, it is interesting that in the speech the system of committees of workers (the Soviets) which were created by workers are not considered important enough by Trotsky to be included as the sole important historical instrument, whilst the Bolshevik Party, created by middle-class revolutionary intellectuals, is. We have previously witnessed Trotsky, in his own words, asserting the right of the party to defend its dictatorship against the wishes of the workers, so when he then claims that the party was the single instrument of the working class we are witness to Trotsky engaged in contradictory mental gymnastics.

The previous two statements made by Trotsky, that, in the final analysis the Party was always right and that the party had a right to defend its dictatorship against the moods of the working class clearly show the relationship between party and class in Trotsky's consciousness after 1917. This authoritarian relationship has not been disavowed by Trotsky or (to my knowledge) by any of his followers. The implications are clear. They were made so by Trotsky before his total conversion to Leninism. Writing in 1906 Trotsky felt moved to write;

"Of course, parties are not classes. Between the position of a party and the interests of the social stratum upon which it rests, there may be a certain lack of harmony which later on may become converted into a profound contradiction." (Trotsky 'Results and Prospects'. page 118.)

Again another amazingly prophetic statement. In 1906 Trotsky knew that parties are not classes and that there may be a certain lack of harmony which may become converted into a profound contradiction' between the two. So how could the party always be right? How could the party be the sole historic instrument of a class? In actual fact if anything, the party of Lenin and the Bolsheviks had become the sole historic instrument for Russian middle-class revolutionary intellectuals and ex Czarist bureaucrats to overcome their own political frustration and govern Russia. To conclude that the party was even a useful historic instrument for the solution of the fundamental problems of workers could only be safely made after a lengthy evaluation of the success of this instrument in a variety of situations and circumstances. Despite some successes from October 1917, it was still far too early in 1924 to make such an unequivocal pronouncement, but not too early to evaluate it from the standpoint of the revolutionary intellectuals and party members. In fact, in the actual unfolding of events, the Russian Communist Party became the opposite of an instrument for solving workers fundamental problems. On the contrary, it served to actively prevent workers from solving their difficulties. More than that, 'the party' also became the instrumental means by which the anti-capitalist revolution was stifled and misled throughout Europe and the west. The fundamental conditions of oppression, domination and exploitation were not seriously addressed by the party of Lenin and Trotsky. Instead the party became the instrument by which the Russian working class were first divided, then marginalised, before being relegated by terror into social and economic submission.

By successive stages a majority of the Russian working classes made the Bolsheviks their representatives, trusted them and gave the power and initiative over to them. As we have seen, 'all power to the soviets', became within a very short time; 'all power to the Bolsheviks', and it is this transition from the ideas of Marx, based upon workers' self-activity, to the ideas of a Jacobin type elite, that Trotsky subsequently defended as correct. Incidentally, the earlier mentioned outburst, by Trotsky, on the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat was no conference tactic to placate the rising Stalinists, but completely in line with how he expressed himself four years earlier in 1920 in his onslaught against the German socialist Karl Kautsky.

As we have already noted, Kautsky had criticised some fundamental aspects of Bolshevik policy and practice including their interpretation of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Trotsky's polemic against Kautsky entitled 'Terrorism and Communism' was a vigorous defence of the Bolshevik interpretation of the dictatorship and the methods they had used, including the use of Terror. This particular booklet, was written whilst Trotsky was busily engaged with the Red Army in fighting the counter revolutionary activities of the White guards. This meant that the recently formed revolutionary government of the Bolsheviks was fighting for its life. It is therefore, not surprising then that Trotsky was keen to point out the violence of the counter revolutionary forces and note that it was they who refused to listen to reason and had started the terror in the first place. Whilst such a vigorous response is not surprising, Trotsky's complete distortion of Kautsky's position is cause for serious concern. Trotsky stated;

"Kautsky now repudiates the dictatorship of the proletariat at the very outset, as the tyranny of the minority over the majority." (Trotsky. 'Terrorism and Communism.' Pub. Pathfinder Press. page 44.)

It should perhaps be remembered that both Lenin and Trotsky had, previous to Kautsky's criticism of Bolshevism, held him in great esteem. They both referred to his writings and used them to illustrate their own points. For both of them, Kautsky was an intellectual figure of considerable importance in the international anti-capitalist movement of that time. So much so that any criticism of Bolshevism, by Kautsky, could be quite damaging. But the anger and vitriol produced by Lenin and Trotsky against Kautsky seem out of proportion to both his criticism and his stature at the time. I suggest that Kautsky had touched a raw nerve and that his criticism was too close to that issuing from within Russia and within the Communist Party itself. However, for a moment let us consider Kautsky's words in light of Trotsky's assertion quoted above. On the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat Kautsky quoted Marx's position from the Gotha programme, and then developed this point from Marx's 'On the Civil War in France'. Kautsky then stated:

"In examining this question one must be careful not to confuse dictatorship as a state of affairs with dictatorship as a form of government. It is only the question of dictatorship as a form of government which is a subject of dispute in our ranks." (K. Kautsky. 'Selected writings'. Pub. Vantage. page 115.)

In actual fact, as we can see from this extract, Kautsky was not repudiating the dictatorship of the proletariat, as Trotsky wrongly charged. Kautsky was, in fact, disputing whether Marx considered this to be compatible with dictatorship as a form of government, and thus the dictatorship of a particular political party. In the midst of a civil war and with a complete acceptance of the indispensability of the party this may have seemed like the same thing to Lenin and Trotsky but it certainly is not. Kautsky, in fact, agreed with many of the policies and sentiments of the Bolsheviks, but these agreements were ignored by Trotsky. In the opinion of this writer, Kautsky was wrong on a number of substantive points and mistaken in many others, it is also possible that his motives may have been suspect, but he was absolutely right to raise the central issue on how the post-capitalist organisation of working people was to be administered after a successful conquest of power. The extent of the disagreement, together with the complexity and importance of this question is confirmed by the number of times Lenin was forced to address this same issue.

It was such a disputed point that Lenin returned to it again and again in his articles and speeches to the Party. In fact, although Kautsky lost the battle of ideas with Lenin and Trotsky, the subsequent developments in the Soviet Union proved Kautsky right on this and a number of other issues, as anyone who reads Kautsky's thoughts on these question, can confirm for themselves. But few people could bring themselves to read Kautsky after Lenin and Trotsky had savaged him. Yet even if Kautsky had been totally wrong and Trotsky totally right, it was extremely sectarian of Trotsky to misrepresent Kautsky's position and then to pillory him for these falsified ideas, many of which were commonly accepted within Bolshevism. This was exactly the sort of unfair argument and distorted polemic, which would be used later to good effect by Stalin and Bukharin against Trotsky. Such methods can often win the immediate argument, and discredit the intended victim, but in the end they serve only to discredit the victor.

The booklet 'Terrorism and Communism' reveals an arrogant and sectarian side of Trotsky's personality that is missing in the majority of his other writings, but it also reveals more. The booklet, at the same time, confirms the earlier noted complete conversion of Trotsky to the Leninist position. In fact, in respect of one particular aspect of tremendous importance to the working class, Trotsky, in his polemic against Kautsky, goes much further than Lenin. This concerns the question of the organisation of Labour. Against Kautsky, Trotsky asserted:

"The very principle of compulsory labour service is for the communist quite unquestionable. 'He who works not, neither shall he eat'. And as all must eat, all are obliged to work. Compulsory labour service is sketched into our Constitution and in our Labour Code......The introduction of compulsory labour service is unthinkable without the application, to a greater or less degree, of the methods of militarisation of labour." (Trotsky 'Terrorism & Communism.' Pub. Pathfinder. page 146 -148.)

Compulsory labour is an unquestionable principle for a Communist, says Trotsky! Is it indeed? Compulsory labour is an unquestionable principle for a Fascist system, but under the kind of post-capitalist society envisaged by Marx, and the only form which would be supported by the working class, the matter of compulsion is very debatable. The arguments Trotsky used to support this so-called 'principle' are also somewhat suspect. 'He who works not, neither shall he eat.' For a start, not all who eat can work (e.g. the sick, the injured, the old, the very young, women in labour etc.) which makes Trotsky's point incorrect in detail as well as substance. Let us assume he means all able-bodied, fit people between certain ages shall be obliged to work in order to eat. First there is an essential difference between being obliged to work in order to eat and being compelled to work in accordance with a state plan which, as we have also seen, is what Trotsky is really driving at. In the first case internal hunger and/or concern for the family, drives the worker to work in exchange for food and essentials; in the second it is external compulsion or punishment. Under the Capitalist mode of production and exploitation, with the exceptions of substantial pockets of Slavery, there exists no direct compulsion to labour. Under Capitalism workers are not tied or directed to any single enterprise or industry. Within the limits of Capitalist exploitation and division of labour, labour is also often 'free' to combine and negotiate wages and conditions. Under the kind of post-capitalist society outlined by Trotsky, in his polemic with Kautsky, workers would not even enjoy these relative freedoms.

The later pages of this particular work by Trotsky are replete with references on the need to work for a centralised plan and in this he was in complete accord with Lenin. However, the latter part of the above abbreviated extract shows Trotsky going a step further and advocating the militarisation of labour. For Trotsky as well as for Lenin and the senior Bolsheviks, their understanding of a historically-determined, 'ideal' post-capitalist economic system, required elitist political and economic planning. Even as late as 1930 Trotsky still felt able to say that;

"Socialism is the organisation of a planned and harmonious social production for the satisfaction of human wants." ('History of the Russian Revolution'. Pub. Pelican. page 1236.)

The statement 'socialism is the organisation of a planned and harmonious social production', is further evidence of Trotsky's abstract idealisation of post-capitalist society. He was not content to allow the collectives of working people to define, after a period time (during which they may take stock and try various approaches) how post-capitalist society will function. At that point he was already convinced he knew what post-capitalist society 'was' and should look like. Trotsky, along with many others before him, felt he understood the 'true' pattern of history and its various stages. Trotsky was certain, absolutely certain, that the next stage of human history was going to be, and had to be, a planned industrialised economy on a larger and more impressive scale than capitalism. He therefore used all his influence and power to ensure his vision of the next stage was realised. This certainty flowed from a combination of intellectual arrogance and the inherited 'modern' concept of the progress of history being driven by scientific and economic development.

The historically identified stages of, Hunter/gatherer, Pastoralism, Slavery, Feudalism, and Capitalism are seen, according to this logical sequence, as an ascending spiral of progress in time, in which each stage has been superior in science, technology and industry to the one before it. In Trotsky's view, and others like him, therefore, the next stage after capitalism, would be superior to capitalism in its extent and in its use of science, technology and industry. To be superior in these fields, therefore, it would need centralised plans, high levels of work discipline and large-scale industry.

So the harmony referred to in the above quote was in relationship to the centralised bureaucratic timing and pace of productive forces. It was certainly not the harmony of working people meeting and deciding things for themselves. For Trotsky, a post-capitalist society meant not only the dictatorship of the Party over the working class, but also the compulsory militarisation and direction of labour of all working people. We should be clear - this is no marginal issue! As was noted in relationship to Lenin in the previous chapter, it means that the nature, the duration and the intensity of work for workers and peasants would be dictated by the Party, regulated by the Party appointed managers and enforced by the party-appointed state police. Can this be what working people and anti-capitalists desire for a post-capitalist society? I doubt it. But it is exactly what transpires if Trotsky's and the Bolshevik model of anti-capitalism is followed. For as Trotsky went on to declare:

"...we can have no way to socialism except by authoritative regulation of the economic forces and resources of the country, and in the centralised distribution of labour power in harmony with the general state plan. The labour state considers itself empowered to send every worker to the place where his work is necessary. And not one serious socialist will begin to deny to the labour state the right to lay its hand upon the worker who refuses to execute his labour duty." ( Trotsky 'Terrorism & Communism.' page 153.)

Authoritative regulation and centralised distribution of labour power. Well that couldn't be stated more clearly. The words 'to lay its hand upon the worker' obviously refer to various levels of punishment for refusing to go where one is sent and work as hard as one is told. As already noted the conditions would be closer to the labour conditions under Fascism. Indeed, if one inserted the word 'national' in front of 'socialist' in the previous quotation by Trotsky, it would perfectly fit the German National Socialist (i.e. Fascist)) attitude to working people. If the reader doubts this, just go back to the last quotation and re-read it mentally putting the word 'national' in front of the word 'socialist' each time it appears.

It is of little reassurance to say, as conventional Trotskyist sectarian wisdom often has it, that the situation in Russia might have turned out differently if Stalin hadn't gained the upper hand. First because this is idealistic speculation, for things didn't turn out differently. Second, even if Stalin and his supporters had not dominated, the views and plans which Trotsky held to be consistent with post-capitalist society, would have meant resistance to them by working people. With firmly held views like those expressed above, Trotsky and his supporters would have no options. The 'compulsion', and 'laying hands upon', mentioned above would have needed special bodies of armed men and all the legal apparatus of arrest, conviction and confinement. The harmony of the 'plan' would determine the need for an army of state officials and bureaucrats to ensure its smooth functioning. In other words all the apparatus which Stalin had to put in place, as he carried out compulsory labour organisation and directed the completion of the five year plans, would have had to be put in place by Trotsky. Just as long as Trotsky adhered to the above ideas, - and he never renounced them - he would have been compelled to follow their logic. It doesn't matter that Trotsky may have been a more cultured, articulate and likeable person than Stalin. Such personal characteristics would not, in the final analysis, determine the level of resistance to the developing social and economic relationships of the Soviet Union. In one sense we can only speculate how Trotsky may have actually dealt with such an eventuality if he had succeeded Lenin, rather than Stalin, but there are at least two further clues. One is in relationship to the Trade Union debate, which took place in 1920, and the second is in relationship to the previously noted Kronstadt rebellion.

In the 1920 debate, Trotsky's perspective on the Trade Unions was based upon the need to intensify compulsion in the employment and deployment of working people. Lenin was for a relaxation of compulsion. Trotsky argued that since Russia was now a workers' state the workers had no need of protection from that state and therefore the trade unions should be transformed into the administrative apparatus for industrial management. In other words they should no longer be concerned with workers' rights but with the efficient carrying out of state economic policies as embodied in the state economic plans.

This was a development resisted by Party members in the Trade Unions. The episode confirms that Trotsky's hard-line hierarchical and centralist position which he articulated in the controversy with Kautsky, was no passing phase. It further demonstrates that this earlier formulation was not just produced in the heat of the civil war, but a deeply held proposal, and in line with his previous views on the development of post-capitalist society in Russia.

The second clue to how things might have turned out if Trotsky had won and Stalin lost the battle for leadership of the Bolsheviks, is in relationship to Trotsky's response to the previously mentioned rebellion at the Kronstadt fortress. As we have noted, Lenin considered the demands of the Kronstadt rebels were not very great. Also, as we have noted, the Bolsheviks themselves went much further than the Kronstadt demands, when they introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP). Yet Trotsky not only supported the attack upon the Kronstadt rebels but defended this action as heatedly as he had attacked Kautsky. In his pamphlet 'The Hue and Cry over Kronstadt', Trotsky informed the reader that;

"After the liquidation of Yudenich (in the winter of 1919) the Baltic fleet and the Kronstadt garrison were denuded of all revolutionary forces. All the elements among them that were of any use at all were thrown against Denikin in the South. If in 1917 - 1918 the Kronstadt sailors stood considerably higher than the average level of the Red Army and formed the framework of its first detachments as well as the framework of the Soviet regime in many districts, those sailors who remained in 'peaceful' Kronstadt until the beginning of 1921, not fitting in on any of the fronts of the civil war, stood by this time on a level considerably lower in general, than the average level of the Red Army." (Pamphlet. 'Hue and Cry over Kronstadt'. page 4.)

Once again we need to pause to consider the logic of this line of reasoning. Trotsky declared that by the time of the Kronstadt rebellion there were no revolutionary anti-capitalist forces left in the garrison. The above average and average levels of revolutionary forces had all been used up in the various battle fronts of the civil war. What was left at the time of the Kronstadt revolt was below average. It is interesting to note in this polemic that for Trotsky, it is the quality of the workers which had changed and not the quality of Bolshevism. For Trotsky, as for Lenin on this question, the slogan of 'Soviets without Communists' raised by the Kronstadt mutineers, was not a reflection of workers perceptions of Bolshevik Communists as a result of seeing them in action. On the contrary, it was seen as a reflection of counter revolutionary moods in the so-called 'below average' contingents of workers and peasants, who were left after the others had been transferred or killed.

Trotsky did not try to deny that the inhabitants of Kronstadt were workers and peasants, he merely attempted to sub-species them. Although he offers us no real proof, only polemical assertion, let us not contradict Trotsky's word about the inhabitants of the garrison and township of Kronstadt, and accept for the moment that they may have been below some hypothetical average. It is only possible to conclude from this, that Trotsky considered that, under a post-capitalist society, those workers whom he judged were 'below average' had no rights to an opinion, no right to challenge policies, or to campaign for policies in line with their own perceived needs and interests. Also a strange thing was happening in Trotsky's analysis of the social composition of Kronstadt. A middle-class intellectual was deciding which workers were above average and which were below. More tellingly perhaps is the fact that those who followed the Bolshevik line were being declared above average and revolutionary, whilst surprise, surprise, those who criticised or opposed that line were being classified as below average or counter revolutionary. Again things are upside down. The workers are being evaluated by Trotsky, and the Party, whilst the workers are not allowed to evaluate the Party and Trotsky. Not only that, but under this form of Bolshevik post-capitalism, 'below average' workers (i.e. those who didn't agree with Lenin and Trotsky, and actually said so) deserved to be not just ignored but ruthlessly punished and suppressed.

6.3 Trotsky's position after his expulsion from the Communist Party

Writing a popular defence of Bolshevism, Trotsky in a pamphlet entitled 'Stalinism and Bolshevism', made a very revealing point. It was that Stalinism rose dialectically from Bolshevism and not logically as the critics of Bolshevism were claiming. The claim, as far as it goes, was a partly valid one but it tells us nothing new. Stalinism may have arisen dialectically, and not logically, (although dialectics has its own logic) from within Bolshevism as Trotsky asserted. However, in correctly demanding a dialectical approach to the rise of Stalinism, Trotsky at the same time fails to give one. He does not demonstrate how Stalinism arose from within Bolshevism itself, nor does he indicate its political and organisational origins, within Bolshevism. In this and other works (The Revolution Betrayed, Whither Russia etc.), Trotsky does describe Stalin's post-Lenin, link with the bureaucratic state apparatus and how this reflected its material interests, but how both arose from Bolshevik practice and policies Trotsky says not a word.

So keen is Trotsky to defend Leninism and Bolshevism against accusations of assisting the rise of Stalin and the bureaucracy that he credits all the really important factors leading in that direction to those outside the Bolshevik party. An important consequence of this failure is that in none of his writings does Trotsky indicate how the rise of Stalinism (or bureaucratic centralism) can be avoided or defeated in the future. Under the guise of demanding a dialectical explanation, as against one involving conspiratorial forces, Trotsky provides a one-sided explanation which involves only the logic of external forces. The whole point about dialectical development is that it sees nothing as being still or fixed - and of course effected by external forces - but just as importantly it traces the new out of the old. It searches for those elements inside that, given the right circumstances outside, will be likely to flourish and develop.

The germs of degeneration in Bolshevism were not limited to the man Stalin, as was noted in an earlier chapter, he was merely the outstanding character who came to personify a definite tendency within Bolshevik anti-capitalism. That is to say the tendency of sectarianism. In explaining Stalinism, it is insufficient to indicate the many external factors influencing the development, it is also necessary to say why these stimulated certain tendencies within the Bolshevik Party rather than others. The point is perhaps easier to understand if the other term used by Trotsky, Bureaucratic Centralism, is considered. The anti-capitalist sectarianism and political centralism of Bolshevism became, even during Lenin's lifetime, bureaucratic centralism. This was part of the germ, in fact it was no small part either. The Bolshevik party already operated as a bureaucratic centralist organisation before the October Revolution and continued to do so afterwards.

A permanent organisation, with a hierarchical structure and a highly organised division of labour, requires a bureaucratic code of conduct. Information flows up and policy and appointments flow strictly downwards. Bolshevism had always been run as a hierarchy from the Central Committee down. We have already noted that Lenin was quick (quicker than Trotsky) to spot the development of bureaucracy both within the Bolshevik Party and within the State, and called repeatedly for its end, or rather an end to aspects of it. However, Lenin's call for an end to deference and red tape was a call for an end to the symptoms of bureaucracy, without a call for an end to the bureaucracy or the cause of bureaucracy, itself.

Similarly, when Trotsky, in his pamphlet 'The New Course', described the bureaucratic development simply as an 'incorrect deviation', but still maintained the need for a strong centralised party apparatus, he was calling for an end to symptoms whilst staunchly supporting the cause. Trotsky was also wrong in his later writings when he asserted the primacy of the external conditions of the Soviet Union after Lenin's death had led to the degeneration of Bolshevism. As we have seen from Lenin's testimony, the bureaucratic tendencies were evident in the early stages and were unstoppable whilst Lenin was alive. It was not just that these negative tendencies suddenly sprouted after the revolution, but more that they were earlier kept in check within the Bolshevik faction of the RSDLP, by the political and social climate of Russia under the Czar. Place seeking, nomination, appointment, deference and arrogance, were all highly developed Bolshevik characteristics before the conquest of power. However, there were relatively few posts to be given and few perks to be dispensed. After the revolution, however, they were many such posts and an increasing number of perks.

Neither was it the failure of the revolution in the West, and the consequent isolation of the Soviet Union, which ensured the development of Stalinism. Such isolation could have pressed in the direction of a lower level of production and consumption, temporary problems with supply of certain materials and technology, developments toward regional autonomy etc. Adjusting to lower levels of economic production do not automatically produce political dictators, but rabid sectarianism does. Neither do such dictatorships automatically occur in backward countries with little culture, they have to be worked for and created. The reason Stalin could triumph at all was that Russia under the Bolsheviks was already run as a centralised bureaucratic system. It was purposefully run, under Trotsky and Lenin's leadership, as a one-party dictatorship which had full control of state power and the consequent privileges arising from that control. It was an economic and political system which all the leading Bolsheviks accepted as necessary. They saw no incompatibility between the dictatorship of a party hierarchy, the dictatorship of managers over their work-force and a workers post-capitalist society. We have also seen that many of the extreme policies which are normally associated with Stalin were advocated, and in some cases initiated, by Lenin and Trotsky. We need to be clear that Stalin was merely one dominant political personality who replaced another dominant personality within an established system of dictatorship and hierarchy. He then pursued the policies of that dictatorship extremely vigorously, not to mention ruthlessly.

Trotsky saw the symptoms of bureaucratic degeneration later than Lenin, but in the same manner as Lenin he failed to see how they arose from within the sectarian and centralised organisational principles and habits of the Bolshevik party and the needs of the centralised planned economy. Having recognised the bureaucratic deformations, Trotsky fought them on exactly the same ground that Lenin had been fighting them and had consistently failed in the struggle. Trotsky, as a relative newcomer to Bolshevism, was hardly likely to succeed where Lenin had come to a dead stop, particularly if he was advocating and using essentially the same policies. For it was these policies themselves which were causing the problems, not just how they were being implemented.

In his book, 'My Life', Trotsky reinterpreted, in a more favourable light, his historical opposition to Lenin and Leninism. He glossed over the fierceness of the critical battles between himself and Lenin, but he did not omit critical references to the other Bolshevik leaders. He noted for example that;

"One could write an instructive chapter on the leadership of the Leninists without Lenin.....When they happened to be separated from Lenin at a critical moment, they amazed one by their utter helplessness." (Trotsky 'My Life'. Pub. Pelican page 181.)

As late as 1928/29, Trotsky was able to hint at the inability of the Bolshevik Party leadership to respond to many situations within the anti-capitalist struggle. Yet this did not cause him to re-evaluate Bolshevism. He remembered that in '1905' he had been amazed by the utter helplessness of the Bolsheviks without Lenin, yet he made no attempt to re-appraise the value of the Party in 1917 which was still entirely reliant upon one person for political orientation. Trotsky offered a clearer explanation of his own transition from opposition to conformity in a document entitled 'Our Differences'. This was written during the campaign against the smears circulated by Stalin and Kamenev concerning Trotsky's past opposition to Bolshevism and Lenin. After making a somewhat revealing assertion that it was only possible for anyone to understand Lenin for what he was, after becoming a Bolshevik, he noted:

"I came to Bolshevism by a long and complicated road. Along this road I had no interests other than those of the revolution and the proletariat. I fought against Leninism when I thought that it was wrongly dividing the working class. When I realised my mistake as a result of years of experience, I came over to Leninism." (Trotsky. 'The Challenge of the Left Opposition 1923-25' Pub. Pathfinder page 267.)

Even the concept of coming to Bolshevism has semi-religious overtones, but this is not the most important consideration. He is saying he only realised his mistake after years of experience. This is undoubtedly something of a generalisation for the years of experience in question were from 1904 until July 1917. However, the implication of this admission was that in matters of Bolshevism Trotsky was admitting to being mistaken for well over a decade. So committed had he become, in the short time of his membership of the Bolshevik elite, that he had also become defensive and apologetic about his past, when in fact he had nothing to be defensive or apologetic about. His past had been exemplary both theoretically and practically. Theoretically he was in advance of Lenin and in practice he was as close, if not closer than Lenin to the actual struggle on the ground, particularly at decisive moments. So clear had been his understanding of the nature of the class struggle and the interaction with the party seeking to represent that class that, as we have seen, he had predicted the future degeneration of Bolshevism with amazing accuracy.

His assessment of the Bolshevik leaders, without Lenin, was clearer than any of his contemporaries - including Lenin. However, his new emotional and practical attachment to Bolshevism was eventually so great that he wrote off his own past opposition to Leninism as - simply a mistake! This servile explanation of his changed views clearly undermined his ability to fight Stalinism. In the eyes of friends and foes alike, if all his previous analysis on this fundamental issue had been a mistake, then he was more prone to mistakes than anyone else. But the historical legacy, left by Trotsky in this manner was worse than this. His public confession of 'mistakes' also undermined his ability to evaluate Leninism and Bolshevism from the standpoint of the working class. In saying he had been mistaken, he was forced to reject his 1904 analysis which was based upon the ideas of Marx. This becomes clear when the disputes with Stalin are examined from the standpoint of working people and not from the tactical viewpoints of internal Bolshevik factions.

In all his disputes with Stalin and the Stalinists Trotsky accepted and endorsed the following crucial points in relationship to post-capitalist society.

1. The dictatorial role of the single Party.

2. The existence and desirability within that party of a non-elected hierarchy.

3. A centralised planned economy with compulsory labour.

4. The inability of the working class and peasants to run their own society.

5. The hegemonic importance of Leninism in the success of October 1917 over the self activity of the working class..

None of these are in line with Marx's ideas. In accepting these points Trotsky and the Left Opposition were arguing from exactly the same sectarian political basis as Stalin and the rest of the triumvirate. The first four points were those advocated by Lenin. These principles were indisputable for both sides. It was the basis of the two factions competing claims to Leninist orthodoxy. This was also the reason why many onlookers both within the Party and outside it could not understand what the struggle was about and saw it merely as a personal struggle for power. The fifth point, together with the admission that his own past opposition to Bolshevism had been totally wrong, strengthened the Stalin faction's claim to inherit Lenin's leadership role and left Trotsky the weaker combatant seeking decisive influence within the Party. By accepting the principle of the dictatorial role of the Party and denying the workers a say in the direction of government, he also removed the possibility of calling upon these workers to have a say in the direction of the governing party when he eventually considered it was going badly wrong. Instead of the post-capitalist, socio-economic reconstruction being a practical, experimental, and worker-led development, it was perceived, by Trotsky, as an intellectual, centralised, sectarian-led grand plan. Trotsky's wholehearted acceptance of this left him with only a battle of secondary ideas with Stalin and his supporters.

In fully endorsing the existence and desirability of a non-elected hierarchy, prior to Lenin's death, he could hardly complain when the party leadership continued to operate this way after Lenin's death. In accepting, as indispensable, a centralised planned economy he was only advocating the same as the Stalin faction, but was seemingly more critical than they of the individuals who were putting that planning into practice. As we have seen, a top-down centralised plan cannot do without a managerial bureaucracy and an armed state to implement it. Under these conditions, the actual internal dialectical process of the party, described theoretically by Trotsky in 1904, now held Trotsky in its practical organisational grip. With his uncritical acceptance and conversion to Bolshevism, together with its distrust of the working class and oppressed masses, Trotsky had intellectually, politically and emotionally trapped himself into only being able to struggle on the limited terrain of the internal Party organisation, and Stalin was far more adept at that. This trap, of his own making, at first paralysed Trotsky into inactivity immediately after Lenin's death and then determined his future intellectual and political direction.

Trotsky's silence and inactivity during the crucial years of 1922 to 1924, whilst Stalin consolidated his hold on the Party apparatus, has puzzled many biographers and commentators. However, this political paralysis is less puzzling when Trotsky's writings are approached without being dazzled by his outstanding literary eloquence. The reality was that outside his literary criticism he had simply nothing to say in fundamental disagreement with the post-capitalist policies of the Stalinists and only slight quibbles on some minor issues.

In relationship to the topic of sectarianism, Trotsky undoubtedly considered he had the 'answers' and solutions to the problems of the party and class. He considered the party's reason for existence was not what it had in common with the working class but what criteria (Bolshevik centralism) distinguished it. He also demanded that the working class anti-capitalist movement, in Russia, subordinate itself to Bolshevism. By the time of the formation of the Left Opposition, Trotskyism was thoroughly sectarian. In fact on his own admission in relationship to the 'party' he had also quite definitely ceased to be revolutionary and become a reformist. Writing in 1928 after being banished by Stalin and whilst Stalin was busy with systematic torture, murder and show trials, Trotsky wrote;

"Of course for us the question is not of revolution, but of reform in the party, and through it, in the state." (Trotsky. 'Challenge of the Left Opposition'. 1928-29. Pub. Pathfinder Press. page 100.)

The author of the 'Permanent Revolution' had become by this time a permanent reformist with regard to this aspect of the organisation of the anti-capitalist struggle. In his later book 'The Revolution Betrayed' Trotsky again depicted the degeneration of the Bolshevik Party as a mixture of unavoidable bureaucratic deformation, failure of the revolution in the West, and the physical and psychological deterioration of the vanguard and the working class. In this quite lengthy and detailed book Trotsky again found nothing inherently wrong with the Bolshevik venture. The problems, and thus the faults, lay in everything but the Party of Lenin. For example, the merging of the Party with the State was advanced as causing indubitable harm to the Party. In Trotsky's eyes, the fact that the Party set the State up and controlled it did not seem to transfer any responsibility to the Party.

The fact that once handed the power, by the efforts of the working class, peasantry and their own rank and file, the Bolshevik leaders did not smash the state as Marx advocated, but reconstituted the existing state and strengthened it, is not even considered, by Trotsky, as a possible mistake. The fact that both the Party and State were staffed, in many cases, by exactly the same individuals is not considered by Trotsky as problematic for his defensive analysis. The fact that the Soviets were transformed by the Bolsheviks from genuine anti-capitalist and post-capitalist organs of workers, peasants and soldiers democracy, to 'theatres' for rubber stamping Bolshevik Party decrees, is not considered as a contributing factor to the betrayal of the revolution.

Instead, the real world turned out moody, disobedient and perverted, and 'infected' the Party of Lenin. The situation continued this way until it created the necessity for 'reform'. What is even more disappointing, given Trotsky's status as a theoretician, is that in all Trotsky's works on the degeneration of the Soviet society, there is no attempt to relate this direct experience to the analysis by Marx of the State as a parasitic excrescence. It is as if the analysis, by Marx, of the modern capitalist state, as the means by which the petty-bourgeoisie enrich themselves at the expense of the workers and simultaneously utilise it to hold the workers down, does not exist. The important contention by Marx that the old state, once smashed, should not appear again as an instrument above and against the working classes, is neither challenged by Trotsky nor even acknowledged as posing a serious contradiction to the Bolshevik programme. Neither is there any critical appraisal of Lenin's theoretical work 'State and Revolution' or any comparison of it with the actual course of events under Lenin's leadership. Trotsky's entire analytic output after 1923 is simply an eloquent and sophisticated defence of Bolshevism and Leninism, from the standpoint of a partisan intellectual and co-thinker, and not from the standpoint of its effects upon the development of the self-activity of the working class and the anti-capitalist struggle.

Trotsky's lengthy book 'History of the Russian Revolution' is more than just a comprehensive, historical assessment of the crucial events which took place prior to the revolution and up to the conquest of power. It is also part of the polemic between the Stalinist wing of Bolshevism and the Left Opposition. Nevertheless, perhaps more than any other post 1917 writings of his, the reality of the mass participation of workers, soldiers and peasants is revealed in this book even through the obscuring debris of polemical point-scoring. In responding to the Stalin-led rewriting of history to paint himself into centre stage of the revolution and to paint Trotsky out, Trotsky was compelled to describe the limitations of the Bolshevik Central Committee and to describe some, but not all, aspects of the self-activity of the working class organised in soviets, soldiers military committees and peasant land committees.

Yet, even in this work, over and over again his commitment to Bolshevism draws him back into constantly exaggerating the importance of the Bolshevik Party prior to and during the October revolution. As noted earlier it is Trotsky's eventual (and complete), acceptance of this Leninist policy between the years 1917 and 1920, which marks Trotsky's full conversion to Bolshevism and his break with the needs and interests of the working class. From then on he represented only himself and the needs of a left current among the revolutionary intellectuals, mainly from the middle class. If this conclusion seems impossible or unlikely, it is a possibility which, as we shall see later, Trotsky himself, once clearly predicted.

6.4 Trotsky's anti-capitalist legacy

In representing the degeneration of Bolshevism as a product of the Stalin-led bureaucracy and external circumstances, Trotsky was able to escape his own post-October 1917 complicity in that degeneration. At the same time he avoided having to come to terms with his own role in preparing a strong state and Army, which the Stalinists were able to use against the working class. Trotsky was able to cast his piercing gaze upon the intricacies and subterfuges of the Stalin faction and seemingly relate them convincingly to the material conditions of Soviet Russia, but missing from this gaze after October 1917 is a critical appraisal of the role of Lenin in the promotion of Stalin as an individual and the promotion, by himself and Lenin, of exactly the same category of economic policies which Stalin would make uniquely his own. Missing too from Trotsky's works is a sharply critical view of his own role in advancing and legitimating policies and attitudes toward working people, which were then implemented by Stalin. In failing to acknowledge the counter-revolutionary nature of substituting the actions of a party for the self-activity of the anti-capitalist working class, Trotsky was able to fraudulently present himself and Lenin, as continuing in the traditions of Marx. In failing to develop the criticisms of Bolshevism first put forward in 1903/04 Trotsky handed on to future generations of workers and anti-capitalists a partial and extremely distorted picture of the lessons of October 1917, and worse still, a distortion of what Marx actually stood for and what he was against.

If this verdict on a once revered anti-capitalist intellectual seems harsh then it should be remembered that the fate of the Russian working and oppressed classes was extremely severe. It should also be remembered in this context that the legacy of post-capitalist society and communism handed down to us newer generations of workers and anti-capitalists is one severely tarnished by the events in Russia. At the same time it should be remembered that Trotsky never withdrew or recanted his statements with regard to the Party, nor the methods of constructing post-capitalist society by compulsory labour. They remained within the totality of the ideas with which he bequeathed to subsequent generations of anti-capitalist revolutionaries. We should recall, for example, that the words concerning the Soviet Communist Party being the sole historical instrument, noted earlier, uttered by Trotsky at the Thirteenth Congress were no momentary histrionics, for he held onto that particular perspective for a further fourteen years and to the idea of 'the Bolshevik party' until his death.

In other words, from 1924 until his death in 1940, Trotsky, despite his earlier profoundly correct criticisms, idealised and fetishised the party of Lenin. When this was no longer possible, due to the obvious monstrosity called Stalinism, he idealised the Party he thought Lenin had tried to create. Thus the essentially 'true' and therefore 'correct' Bolshevism and Leninism, for Trotsky, was from the period he joined it until he became isolated within it. So strong was the experience of membership of the Communist Party, and the control this gave, (for a period 1917-1922) over the events of revolutionary Russia and beyond, that it transformed Trotsky's thinking on Bolshevism. In other words he made the classic political and intellectual's mistake of magnifying his own new circumstances and the consciousness emanating from it, and assumed this represented the needs of 'history' and the entire working class.

However, taking a broader view than Trotsky, we can now add to the already lengthy and combined experiences of working people in revolutionary anti-capitalist struggles the experiences of 1917 to 1993 in Russia. This shows that the Bolshevik (Communist) Party taken as a whole and taken over its entire lifetime, was unworthy of the trust placed in it by working people. It betrayed utterly the aspirations and energies of not only the Soviet working class but those of workers in every other country. Sadly, after 1917, Trotsky used his tremendous intellectual skills, not to argue for the self-activity of the working and oppressed classes, but to defend Bolshevik policies and his own actions during the period 1917 to 1924. In doing so he effectively prevented other evaluations from being seriously considered. An evaluation of the Russian Revolution, from the standpoint of the working and oppressed classes, has therefore rarely been made from within the revolutionary anti-capitalist left. The prowess and stature of Trotsky (and Lenin) as intellectual giants has stood in the way. However, for future generations less in awe of these two figures we can add this experience to Marx's warning that the working class must be wary of its own representatives. The additional warning is that the working class needs also to be absolutely on its guard against political parties or groups, no matter who they say they represent, or what ideas they say they champion. Such representatives (if workers need them at all) would need to be tested many times by workers themselves and removed from office if they fail. This means working people would have to hold the power (and maintain their hold on power) in order to remove them at a moments notice. This could only be achieved by the workers' votes and voices carrying more weight than those of such a Party. Yet everyone knows that, as in military affairs, an organised political group is stronger and can assert more influence than a larger unorganised group. After an anti-capitalist revolution the workers would, therefore, have to form, or maintain, a revolutionary political group themselves; in which case they would not need the revolutionary party.

Alternatively they would have to do away with the threat altogether and disband all so-called revolutionary political groupings. Since workers need to work and also enjoy themselves, they are unlikely to want to maintain an intense political organisation of a revolutionary type. They would consequently have to take the step of banning all political groupings and make the form of economic and political decision-making revolutionary in itself. They would need to make it conform to their own needs and not the needs of political specialists. This, of course, could be in the form of networks of collectives organised in the working and geographical communities in which they work and live. In other words, more or less, in the form developed by the Paris Commune, outlined by Marx in 1871, and also developed embryonically elsewhere such as in Chile, Mexico and Argentina.

The experience of Bolshevism, in Russia, tragically confirms the anti-capitalist analysis of Marx, but it does so negatively. It proves beyond doubt that even a party led by two of the 20th centuries most outstanding full-time revolutionary intellectuals could not see further than their own right to rule and could not ensure that working people's power prevailed when workers and peasants had overthrown their former rulers. They could not even assure that a model of good practice was handed down to future generations of revolutionary workers and anti-capitalists. This same experience also shows that we can put more confidence in Trotsky's revolutionary analysis before 1917 than we can after it. The Russian situation also clearly demonstrates the limitations of the knowledge of intellectuals in 'leading' the struggles of the working class. That such a knowledgeable revolutionary intellectual, as Trotsky could be led to fetishise an organisation and continue to do so, for so long and in such a way, also shows the power of certain organisational forms (and associated experiences and reflexes) over the individual.

The Bolshevik Party succeeded in overthrowing capitalism, say the intellectual giants Lenin and Trotsky, so we must need a Bolshevik type party their followers reason. Such simplistic logic puts such members under the spell of those who later come along and promise them that in joining a Trotskyist or Leninist revolutionary sect, they are helping to build the (or a) real Party, which will be able to repeat the assumed success of Lenin and Trotsky. Many individuals, within such groups, seem to imagine they (and their leaders) can re-create Lenin's Party, minus the warts of Stalinism, without having seriously studied and evaluated the degeneration of Bolshevism for themselves. Trotsky, they imagine, has done that task for them.

Those who avoid the need for such critical analysis and evaluation manage to keep themselves busy; 'building the party'; 're-constructing the 4th international'; 'working to become the nucleus of a future party', intervening here, intervening there, etc., but what are they achieving in reality? As we have noted, they have faith and conviction - they must have, for they have no material proof of any substantive success to date. Faith and conviction are the essentials of mysticism, and religious certainty not of anti-capitalist and workers revolution. Alas, their so-called revolutionary faith, conviction and sectarian activity takes them away from the possibility of being part of, and helping create, a revolutionary anti-capitalist movement which will not allow the substitution of the Party for the class, or the substitution of the Central Committee for the Party, or the General Secretary for the Central Committee in any future post-capitalist society.

It was demonstrated in chapter 3, that many adherents of Bolshevism still continued the fetishisation of a Bolshevik type party, despite the contradiction between its avowed purpose and its actual development. So powerful is the mystique of Bolshevik excellence among what little remains of the Trotskyist and Leninist left, that it is worth the reiteration of a few well known facts from this and previous chapters in order to add further stress to the point.

In 1905, Bolshevism's revolutionary leadership was absent and unprepared for the revolutionary developments. Revolution actually caught the revolutionaries by surprise. In the aftermath of 1905, Bolshevism became factional and rabidly sectarian. In 1917 Lenin had to threaten to resign in order to get it to accept his April Theses (a post-capitalist perspective as distinct from a capitalist perspective) for Russia. Only months after this two senior Bolsheviks broadcast the secret plans for insurrection, to the opposition. It took a long-term non-Bolshevik, Trotsky, to bring the Military Revolutionary Committee - a crucial move in the insurrection - over to the Bolsheviks. During Lenin's lifetime the party consolidated its collective power over the working class. But in actual fact it had little collective know-how. Lenin himself considered that very few of the members of the Party, understood the Party programme.

During 1920, the Bolsheviks rejected the Kronstadt workers' demands for an easing of restrictions on trade and then physically suppressed them, only to adopt far more reactionary measures (i.e. the New Economic Policy) themselves weeks later. The Bolshevik Party was so dependent upon one man (Lenin) that after he died, ideologically it practically fell apart. And after Lenin died the party allowed Stalin to take control and institute a regime of extreme oppression over itself and the working class. The obsessive regard for the party caused even high ranking and intelligent individuals to recant their often correct views and to publicly humiliate themselves. The 'party', as a collective of anti-capitalist revolutionary individuals, failed utterly to control its own sectarian and elitist tendencies and systematically oppressed the working class and the peasants. At most of the decisive stages (except the moment of insurrection and during the wars of intervention) the Bolshevik Party failed the working class.

This was the Bolshevism which Trotsky defended, as Leninism, until he died. With the exception of the October insurrection (and even here they relied on working class soldiers and sailors) most real successes were when working people delivered the means for these successes to the Bolsheviks and the Bolsheviks appropriated them. For example; the creation of the Soviets was the action and creative work of the workers and peasants. This much was admitted by Lenin. Returning a Bolshevik majority to those Soviets, was also the act of workers and peasants. From the Bolshevik standpoint workers and peasants were astute enough to create the Soviets and elect Bolsheviks to a majority in them, yet not astute enough to make other serious decisions for themselves. From the Bolshevik standpoint the workers and peasants in Russia were astute enough to exert great heroism and endure great hardships in order to overcome the Czar, Capitalism and the armies of intervention, yet according to Lenin and Trotsky they were uneducated, uncultured moody and unreliable.

It is time to make a final point in relationship to Trotsky's post-capitalist degeneration. In his pamphlet 'Our Political Tasks' (1904) Trotsky had anticipated the various paths which a revolutionary Jacobin intelligentsia might take in relationship to the working class. He made in this pamphlet the following telling comment;

"The intelligentsia can be federalist or centralist, can tend toward autonomy or autocracy, democracy or dictatorship, without in any way changing its essence, nor the nature of its political interests....The nature of the intelligentsia is so plastic and supple that no one can enclose it once and for all...." (Trotsky. 'Our Tasks'. Pub. New Park Publications. page 107.)

In this document, Trotsky again made an uncannily accurate prediction. He recognised then that, unlike the working class, the political and social interests of a revolutionary intelligentsia could be served by many different organisational forms without detriment to its essential nature. He also recognised the suppleness and plasticity of the intellectual mentality in being able to move from one set of organisational concepts to another. In this sense Trotsky, as one of the 'intelligentsia', projected a potential path for his own future development as well as that of Lenin and other Bolsheviks. Sadly, he was among those intellectuals who, despite his other insights confirmed the accuracy of his own words. Trotsky was able to move from Menshevism, through independence, to Bolshevism; from workers' autonomy to authoritative regulation; from democracy to dictatorship and back to semi-independence, without ever once changing his middle-class intellectual essence.

It is quite clear from this that from the standpoint of the working and oppressed classes in society, whilst Trotsky contributed some important observations, descriptions and analysis, Trotskyism as a coherent body of ideas, is essentially reactionary. For, after 1917, Trotskyism (including the Trotskyism of current left anti-capitalist groups) actually uncritically upholds and perpetuates the programme and principles of Leninist party centralism, Bolshevik political sectarianism and the authoritarian state exploitation and control of working people's labour power. There remains a lot to be learned from studying individual writings of Trotsky, but it should always be born in mind that Trotskyism as a body of anti-capitalist and post-capitalist ideas carries within it a reactionary elitist (and destructively sectarian) dimension, just as Trotskyism as a contemporary body of anti-capitalist practice carries within it a strong divisive tradition. Both are aspects which need to be rejected and combated within the working class and anti-capitalist movements and any present or future genuine revolutionary anti-capitalist grouping.