Revolutionary
Humanism

Book Home

Trotsky and Trotskyism

Leon Trotsky was a gifted anti-capitalist intellectual who played a prominent role in the Russian Revolution, both in 1905 and again in 1917. Although not originally a member of the Bolshevik Tendency he eventually joined Lenin and the Bolsheviks and played a leading role as Commissar for Foreign Affairs and then Commissar for War, in the post-1917 Soviet Government. His early differences with Lenin and the Bolsheviks orbited around two issues. First, he predicted (in Permanent Revolution) the potential for a post-capitalist outcome of the Russian revolutionary crisis, when Lenin and the Bolsheviks (until April 1917) considered an indeterminate period of capitalism would be necessary. Second, he was extremely critical of Lenin’s view of how revolutionaries should be organised. For example, in 1902 he accurately predicted the future path of Bolshevism and Leninism developing into Stalinism:

"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, p.77.)

However, notwithstanding this amazingly accurate prediction, Trotsky, once he joined the Bolsheviks, went completely over to the Leninist dictatorial position and in many ways went further. In polemicising against the Workers Opposition group in 1920 he contradicted his earlier views and stated the following:

"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." (Quoted in T. Cliff, Trotsky vol 1, Pluto Press, p.174)

Here we note that Trotsky has abandoned his 1902 position on workers' ‘self-activity’ (and incidently Marx’s) and has slotted himself neatly into Lenin’s position of "Yes it is a dictatorship of one Party. This is what we stand for and shall not shift from this position." (Lenin, Complete Works, vol 29, p.535) Perhaps even more surprisingly, Trotsky went even further than this by declaring:

"The very principle of compulsory labour service is for the communist quite unquestionable…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 and Communism, Pathfinder, pp.146-8)

Is it indeed? Compulsory labour is an unquestionable principle for a fascist state, but under the kind of post-capitalist society envisaged by Marx, and the only form which would be supported by a majority of working people, compulsion and militarisation of labour is indeed a questionable principle. Indeed such compulsion and direction of working people does not occur under capitalism and they are at least, world wars excepted, theoretically ‘free’ to seek employment and organise unions to defend themselves. The whole point of a revolution against the capitalist system from the standpoint of workers is that they would become ‘free’ from exploitation and oppression by employers and the state. Under Trotsky’s vision workers would be still be exploited and oppressed, but now much more systematically by the so-called ‘workers’ state’:

"...we can have no way to socialism except by authoritative regulation of the economic forces and resources of the country….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 the labour state the right to lay its hand upon the worker who refuses to execute his labour duty." (Trotsky, p.153)

First, recall that German fascists started off by calling themselves National Socialists – hence the term Nazis. Second, just try going back over that last quote and inserting the word ‘national’ in front of the words socialism and socialist. Weird, isn’t it? With the word ‘national’ in front of socialism the above statement could just as easily come out of the mouth of Hitler or Goebels. And of course, laying hands (and other instruments of torture) upon those workers who refused to do what the state considered their duty was precisely how Stalin and the Stalinists tried to regulate the economic forces of the Soviet Union. All this was in line with Lenin’s authoritarian thoughts on ‘dictatorial powers by individuals’ within the Party and State. Of course, Trotsky was no fascist, but he was no less authoritarian than Lenin, Stalin and even the Nazis. Leftwing authoritarianism and rightwing authoritarianism may have some radical differences, but both consist of elite leaders who require loyal followers, and insist upon obedient, subservient workers. This question is not just of historical interest because there are many contemporary Trotskyists, and also Leninists, who still use the terms ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’ without having distanced themselves from or disavowed the authoritarian ideas of their ideological forerunners – Lenin and Trotsky. This is why, despite the fact that Trotsky contributed some important observations, descriptions and analysis, Trotskyism, as a coherent body of ideas, is essentially reactionary. Unfortunately this is not the only reactionary element within the Trotskyist tradition, for it has carried over into the modern anti-capitalist struggle many other sectarian, elitist and dogmatic attitudes which flourished in the Bolshevik Tendency and the later Communist Party. (See button on ‘Sectarianism’ or Chapter 6.)