Is this a genuine Trotsky quote?

[JimmyJazz]

The soldiers lagged behind the shop committees... the committees lagged behind the masses .... The Party also lagged behind the revolutionary dynamic - an organization which had the least right to lag, especially in a time of revolution... The most revolutionary party which human history until this time has ever known was nevertheless caught unawares by events of history. It reconstructed itself in the fires, and straightened out its ranks under the onslaught of events. The masses at the turning point were a hundred times to the left of the Party.

I read this quote in What Is To Be Undone (http://books.zcommunications.org/books/WITBU/witbu05.html) by Michael Albert. But when I went to look at the reference, the author had gotten the quote second-hand: "5. Trotsky quoted in Obsolete Communism: A Left Wing Alternative, McGraw Hill Book Company, New York. 202." Compared to the issue of whether the fact that it states is true, it probably doesn't matter whether the quote itself is genuine...but I'm still curious.

Googling it doesn't get you anything except a link to What Is To Be Undone, btw.

[Yehuda Stern]

The quote has a familiar ring to it. I don't know if it's genuine or not, but certainly Lenin and Trotsky have said things in this spirit many times about both 1905 and 1917. In both cases, they indicated that both Mensheviks and most of the Bolshevik leaders were caught off guard by the radicalization and the revolutionary uprising of the masses, and at times even opposed or stood to the right of it. Maybe someone who owns a copy of Obsolete Communism can try and find out where it quotes from?

[Bilan]

Obsolete Communism: A Left Wing Alternative

Great book. ;)

Anyhow, according to "In Defence of Marxism", Lenin said it.


In a revolution everything turns into its opposite. In the words of the Bible "the last shall be first, and the first last." We can observe the same thing in any strike. The workers in a particular factory can remain passive for many years. On the surface nothing seems to be happening, but beneath the surface of calm there is a seething mood of discontent. Sooner or later, over some small incident, the subterranean mood of discontent breaks through to the surface in the form of a strike. In every strike we see a change of mood among the workers. Formerly backward, passive and inert sections move into action. They can even jump over the heads of the more politically advanced organized layer. Not for nothing did Lenin assert in 1917 that the masses are always a hundred times more revolutionary than the most revolutionary party.

Source. (http://www.marxist.com/history-russian-revolution-alan-woods290107.htm)

[fanoflenin]

Is Yehuda a common Jewish name, or does it mean something else. On stormshit dot org they have a thread for "Holocaust Stories" and the one who moderates or adds the most to it goes by Yehuda_Abraham... is he just mocking the Jewish people?

[Bilan]

Is that relevant?

[Yehuda Stern]

Yeah, what the fuck?

[JimmyJazz]

I have definitely heard Lenin and Trotsky say things like this about 1905; I feel like I've heard them say them about 1917 also, but I'm just not sure.

Seems like this particular quote is semi-apocryphal though.


On stormshit dot org they have a thread for "Holocaust Stories" and the one who moderates or adds the most to it goes by Yehuda_Abraham... is he just mocking the Jewish people?

I've seen that guy on SF, wondered the same thing.

[ComradeOm]

Just to give some context on the original quote, throughout 1917 Lenin was very much on the left of the party and battling furiously against the centre and right. He would have had first hand experience of just how revolutionary a party in which Kamenev et al commanded a majority could be. The quote can be read as a decided dig to the latter

[Tower of Bebel]

I remember this from The History of the Russian Revolution:

To a certain liberal who had affirmed at the beginning of May that the more the government moves to the left, the more the country moves to the right-meaning by “country,” of course, “the possessing classes”- Lenin replied: “the ‘country’ of workers and poorer and poorest peasants, I assure you, citizen, is a thousand times farther to the left than the Chernovs and Tseretellis, and a hundred times farther than we. Live a little and you will see.” Lenin estimated that the workers and peasants were “a hundred times” farther to the left than the Bolsheviks. This may seem a little unfounded: the workers and soldiers were still supporting the Compromisers, and the majority of them were on their guard against the Bolsheviks. But Lenin was delving deeper. The social interests of the masses, their hatred and their hope, were still only seeking a mode of expression. The policy of the Compromisers had been for then a first stage. The masses were immeasurably to the left of the Chernovs and Tseretellis, but were themselves still unconscious of their radicalism. Lenin was right in asserting that the masses were to the left of the Bolsheviks, for the party in its immense majority had not yet realised the mightiness of the revolutionary passions that were simmering in the depths of the awakening people. The indignation of the masses was nourished by the dragging-out of the war, the economic ruin and the malicious inactivity of the government.