Marxman
5th October 2002, 10:16
Why didn't Trotsky take power?
Quite a few writers have raised the question: "Why didn't Trotsky use his position, especially his authority in the Red Army, to seize power at the time?" In a recent book, The Ideas of Leon Trotsky, edited by H. Ticktin and M. Cox, we find the following assessment: "Trotsky has been attacked on the grounds that he was no politician. As we have argued above, there is an element of truth in the chargeÉ The second charge against Trotsky is that he misunderstood the nature of the new regime under Stalin. This and the charge that he was no politician are linked in that it would have been his duty to have taken power from Stalin, if he had understood the nature of the counter-revolution that was to occurÉ he failed to understand the true nature of the beast in the crucial years when he could have prevented its rise." (H. Ticktin and M. Cox, The Ideas of Leon Trotsky, pp. 13-6.)
The whole episode is here reduced to the struggle of individuals and their particular qualities. These arguments are mere echoes of the arguments of the historians E.H. Carr, Richard B. Day, Moshe Lewin and Isaac Deutscher, who also saw the struggle largely in terms of personalities. Carr claims that Trotsky "failed to the last to understand that the issue of the struggle was determined not by the availability of arguments but by the control and manipulation of the levers of power. Later he argues: "He had no stomach for a fight whose character bewildered and eluded him. When attacked, he retreated from the arena because he instinctively felt that retreat offered him the best chance of survival." (E. H. Carr, Socialism in One Country, Vol. 2, p. 43.) Moshe Lewin again makes a similar criticism: "He [Trotsky] also had the weakness of a man who was too haughty and, in a sense, too idealistic to indulge in the political machinations inside the small group of leaders. His position as an outsider, on account of his past and his style, prevented him from acting when the moment came - for him, it only came once - with the necessary determination." (M. Lewin, Lenin's Last Struggle, p. 140.)
The fact is that the struggle was not an issue of personal power, of Trotsky versus Stalin, but a struggle of living forces. Those who argue that Trotsky only had to use the Red Army to take power display a complete lack of understanding of the nature of power itself. Power is not a product of the will of individual "great men", as Nietzsche and others imagined, anticipating the ideology of Fascism. It is a reflection of the balance of forces between the classes in society. To use the army as a political force inevitably leads directly to Bonapartism. That is ABC for a Marxist. Bonapartism can only exist in certain conditions, normally when the contending classes in society are deadlocked. This creates conditions where the state apparatus lifts itself above society and acquires a certain degree of independence. Trotsky, just as Lenin before him, always placed his hopes in the working class. The workers sympathised with the positions of the Opposition, but were too exhausted and disappointed to do anything about it. They remained passive. The veteran Yugoslav Communist and Oppositionist Ante Ciliga, who was in Russia in the mid-1920s, comments on the mood of the workers at this time:
"The impression that these meetings and private conversations left on me was favourable, on the whole; but I was struck by the passive attitude of many of the workers. One felt that they had neither interest nor enthusiasm, but on the contrary a frigidity of manner, an exaggerated reticence. It was depressing. The workers seemed to say by their silence: it is all very well but what does it mean to us? One had to pester each person to get a word out of him." (A. Ciliga, The Russian Enigma, p. 21.)
As Trotsky explained in one of his last writings: "On the side of the Opposition was the youth and a considerable portion of the rank and file; but on the side of Stalin and the Central Committee were first of all the specially trained and disciplined politicians who were most closely connected with the political machine of the general secretary. My illness and my consequent non-participation in the struggle was, I grant, a factor of some importance; however, its importance should not be exaggerated. In the final reckoning it was a mere episode. All-important was the fact that the workers were tired. Those who supported the Opposition were not spurred on by a hope for great and serious changes. On the other hand the bureaucracy fought with extraordinary ferocity."
Passive support and sympathy was not enough to prevent the advance of the bureaucracy. Of course, a victory of the revolution in, say, China, would have completely transformed the situation, reviving the spirits of the Russian workers, and halting the bureaucratic counter-revolution in its tracks. But instead of victories there only came news of defeats, as a direct consequence of the policies of the Stalin-Bukharin leadership.
Ticktin and Cox state that: "We have to suspect that Trotsky at first was not prepared to lead. Later, of course, he refused to take power. He was the leader of the Red Army, and in 1924 Antonov-Ovseenko, chief political commissar of the Red Army, actually proposed that Trotsky take over." (Ticktin and Cox, op. cit., p. 13.) This is typical of the superficial approach to history which reduces it to a struggle of individual personalities. In general, if you ask the right question you stand a good chance of getting the right answer. If you ask the wrong question you will invariably get the wrong answer. Messers Ticktin and Cox do not even know what question to ask in the first place, and therefore end in a mess. The Left Opposition were not Bonapartists but revolutionary Marxists. That being so, they could not look to the military for solutions to the problem. They based themselves on the working class - not for sentimental or arbitrary reasons, but because only the working class can bring about the socialist transformation of society. To base oneself on any other class or social group may achieve a change in society, but never in the direction of a healthy workers' state.
People like Ticktin and Cox imagine themselves to be superior to Trotsky, who, they imply, was either too stupid or too cowardly to take power, whereas Stalin, one must assume, was more intelligent and more courageous. These "wise" academics write glibly about "the question of power" and at the same time show that they do not have the slightest idea of what power is. Trotsky explained that "power is not a prize which the most 'skillful' win. Power is a relationship between individuals, in the last analysis between classes". (Trotsky, Writings 1935-36, p. 177.)
In the absence of the active participation of the workers, there were indeed conditions for Bonapartism in Russia. But the use of the military in politics is not a thing that can be disposed of like putting a sword placed back into its sheaf. To rely upon the Red Army to take power would have resulted, in the given conditions, not in the prevention of the political counter-revolution but, on the contrary, in enormously accelerating it. The sole difference would be that instead of a civilian bureaucracy, the military caste would be in power. The fact that Trotsky was at the head would have meant nothing. Either he would do the bidding of the officer caste (which was naturally ruled out), or he would be removed and replaced with someone who would. At that stage, the movement towards reaction had not yet acquired a definitive character. The bureaucracy was still feeling its way. Stalin's cautious policy reflected this fact. A military coup would have led very quickly to the consolidation of proletarian Bonapartism. The faces would have been different, but the essence the same. The whole process of degeneration would have been enormously speeded up. That is all.
Quite a few writers have raised the question: "Why didn't Trotsky use his position, especially his authority in the Red Army, to seize power at the time?" In a recent book, The Ideas of Leon Trotsky, edited by H. Ticktin and M. Cox, we find the following assessment: "Trotsky has been attacked on the grounds that he was no politician. As we have argued above, there is an element of truth in the chargeÉ The second charge against Trotsky is that he misunderstood the nature of the new regime under Stalin. This and the charge that he was no politician are linked in that it would have been his duty to have taken power from Stalin, if he had understood the nature of the counter-revolution that was to occurÉ he failed to understand the true nature of the beast in the crucial years when he could have prevented its rise." (H. Ticktin and M. Cox, The Ideas of Leon Trotsky, pp. 13-6.)
The whole episode is here reduced to the struggle of individuals and their particular qualities. These arguments are mere echoes of the arguments of the historians E.H. Carr, Richard B. Day, Moshe Lewin and Isaac Deutscher, who also saw the struggle largely in terms of personalities. Carr claims that Trotsky "failed to the last to understand that the issue of the struggle was determined not by the availability of arguments but by the control and manipulation of the levers of power. Later he argues: "He had no stomach for a fight whose character bewildered and eluded him. When attacked, he retreated from the arena because he instinctively felt that retreat offered him the best chance of survival." (E. H. Carr, Socialism in One Country, Vol. 2, p. 43.) Moshe Lewin again makes a similar criticism: "He [Trotsky] also had the weakness of a man who was too haughty and, in a sense, too idealistic to indulge in the political machinations inside the small group of leaders. His position as an outsider, on account of his past and his style, prevented him from acting when the moment came - for him, it only came once - with the necessary determination." (M. Lewin, Lenin's Last Struggle, p. 140.)
The fact is that the struggle was not an issue of personal power, of Trotsky versus Stalin, but a struggle of living forces. Those who argue that Trotsky only had to use the Red Army to take power display a complete lack of understanding of the nature of power itself. Power is not a product of the will of individual "great men", as Nietzsche and others imagined, anticipating the ideology of Fascism. It is a reflection of the balance of forces between the classes in society. To use the army as a political force inevitably leads directly to Bonapartism. That is ABC for a Marxist. Bonapartism can only exist in certain conditions, normally when the contending classes in society are deadlocked. This creates conditions where the state apparatus lifts itself above society and acquires a certain degree of independence. Trotsky, just as Lenin before him, always placed his hopes in the working class. The workers sympathised with the positions of the Opposition, but were too exhausted and disappointed to do anything about it. They remained passive. The veteran Yugoslav Communist and Oppositionist Ante Ciliga, who was in Russia in the mid-1920s, comments on the mood of the workers at this time:
"The impression that these meetings and private conversations left on me was favourable, on the whole; but I was struck by the passive attitude of many of the workers. One felt that they had neither interest nor enthusiasm, but on the contrary a frigidity of manner, an exaggerated reticence. It was depressing. The workers seemed to say by their silence: it is all very well but what does it mean to us? One had to pester each person to get a word out of him." (A. Ciliga, The Russian Enigma, p. 21.)
As Trotsky explained in one of his last writings: "On the side of the Opposition was the youth and a considerable portion of the rank and file; but on the side of Stalin and the Central Committee were first of all the specially trained and disciplined politicians who were most closely connected with the political machine of the general secretary. My illness and my consequent non-participation in the struggle was, I grant, a factor of some importance; however, its importance should not be exaggerated. In the final reckoning it was a mere episode. All-important was the fact that the workers were tired. Those who supported the Opposition were not spurred on by a hope for great and serious changes. On the other hand the bureaucracy fought with extraordinary ferocity."
Passive support and sympathy was not enough to prevent the advance of the bureaucracy. Of course, a victory of the revolution in, say, China, would have completely transformed the situation, reviving the spirits of the Russian workers, and halting the bureaucratic counter-revolution in its tracks. But instead of victories there only came news of defeats, as a direct consequence of the policies of the Stalin-Bukharin leadership.
Ticktin and Cox state that: "We have to suspect that Trotsky at first was not prepared to lead. Later, of course, he refused to take power. He was the leader of the Red Army, and in 1924 Antonov-Ovseenko, chief political commissar of the Red Army, actually proposed that Trotsky take over." (Ticktin and Cox, op. cit., p. 13.) This is typical of the superficial approach to history which reduces it to a struggle of individual personalities. In general, if you ask the right question you stand a good chance of getting the right answer. If you ask the wrong question you will invariably get the wrong answer. Messers Ticktin and Cox do not even know what question to ask in the first place, and therefore end in a mess. The Left Opposition were not Bonapartists but revolutionary Marxists. That being so, they could not look to the military for solutions to the problem. They based themselves on the working class - not for sentimental or arbitrary reasons, but because only the working class can bring about the socialist transformation of society. To base oneself on any other class or social group may achieve a change in society, but never in the direction of a healthy workers' state.
People like Ticktin and Cox imagine themselves to be superior to Trotsky, who, they imply, was either too stupid or too cowardly to take power, whereas Stalin, one must assume, was more intelligent and more courageous. These "wise" academics write glibly about "the question of power" and at the same time show that they do not have the slightest idea of what power is. Trotsky explained that "power is not a prize which the most 'skillful' win. Power is a relationship between individuals, in the last analysis between classes". (Trotsky, Writings 1935-36, p. 177.)
In the absence of the active participation of the workers, there were indeed conditions for Bonapartism in Russia. But the use of the military in politics is not a thing that can be disposed of like putting a sword placed back into its sheaf. To rely upon the Red Army to take power would have resulted, in the given conditions, not in the prevention of the political counter-revolution but, on the contrary, in enormously accelerating it. The sole difference would be that instead of a civilian bureaucracy, the military caste would be in power. The fact that Trotsky was at the head would have meant nothing. Either he would do the bidding of the officer caste (which was naturally ruled out), or he would be removed and replaced with someone who would. At that stage, the movement towards reaction had not yet acquired a definitive character. The bureaucracy was still feeling its way. Stalin's cautious policy reflected this fact. A military coup would have led very quickly to the consolidation of proletarian Bonapartism. The faces would have been different, but the essence the same. The whole process of degeneration would have been enormously speeded up. That is all.