Source: International Press Correspondence, Vol 7, No. 2, January 6, 1927, pp. 34-39.
Transcription/HTML Markup: Martin Fahlgren for the Leon Trotsky Internet Archive.
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2007). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Comrades, first I should like to ask you not to limit my time. The question on the agenda turns, as on an axis, around the so-called Trotskyism. One of the younger comrades very fittingly made a list – and this list is not even fully complete – of those comrades in this hall who have spoken against so-called Trotskyism: Bukharin, Kuusinen, Treint, Pepper, Birch, Stern, Brandt and Remmele to say nothing of the three-hour speech of Comrade Stalin.
This discussion, which is coming to a close here, is a rather peculiar discussion. Our Central Committee, in January this year, addressed a circular to brother Parties. In this circular it is stated: “The CC of the CPSU is unanimous in the view that the extension of the discussion on the Russian question into the ranks of the Comintern is not desirable.” Consequently this international discussion did not take place officially, we, at least, did not participate in it. Yet here a discussion is to be closed which officially was never opened, which comes to a head in the charge of “Trotskyism”.
The theory of Trotskyism was artificially manufactured – against my will, against my convictions, against my real views. In order to prove that I am not the responsible political editor of the doctrine of Trotskyism ascribed to me, I will urge this gathering to grant me unrestricted time to speak (Minimum two hours).
(Comrade Trotsky was granted one hour.)
Comrades, I take the floor on this important question even though we have read in today’s Pravda, in our Central organ, that the mere fact that Comrade Zinoviev spoke here is to be characterized as an attempt at factional activity. I believe that this is not correct. The decision of the Enlarged Executive, on the motion of Comrade Riese, to permit representatives of the Opposition of the CPSU to speak, was not conceived and adopted in this spirit. The speeches of Comrades Thälmann and Ercoli contained an entirely different tone, and the communication from our Central Committee which was read today did not say that by our appearance here we would violate our declaration of October 16. Nor is this so. Had the Central Committee said so, I should never have asked the Presidium to grant the floor. To be sure, the Central Committee said that an appearance here might give an impetus to the renewal of the faction struggle, but it left the decision on this to us. In the communication of the CC, it is recalled that at the Fifth World Congress, despite an invitation, I declined to appear because the Thirteenth Congress of our Party had already decided the questions then involved. Comrades, as against this, I must remind you that the Fifth World Congress condemned me in a decision because I did not want to speak. In this decision it was said that I was resorting to formal grounds to avoid appearing before the highest forum of the International and expressing my opinion here.
When Comrade Zinoviev and myself maintain that our appearance does not constitute an appeal, this is of course intended only in the very definite sense that we, first, do not introduce any resolution, and second that we, insofar as it depends on our intentions and our actions, will express our ideas in such a way that those comrades in the International who sympathize with us, will not be aroused to factional struggle, but, on the contrary, they will be restrained from factional activity. The charge that our appearance in itself constitutes a violation of the declaration of October 16th is false, because the declaration of October 16th and the reply to it by the CC reserves for us the possibility of defending our ideas in the avenues provided by the statutes.
Comrades, I have already stated that the axis of the discussion is so-called Trotskyism. Our honourable chairman translated me wrongly when he put the question as if I pretended to stand personally in the centre of the discussion. That is by no means the case. What is involved here is a political and not a personal question. What is involved here is a political question which, however, as already stated, against my will and wrongly, has been tied up with my person and my name, not by me, but by the comrades who criticize our views.
The speech of Comrade Stalin, at least to its first half – for I have unfortunately been able to read only this in today’s issue of the Pravda – is nothing else than one single charge of “Trotskyism” levelled against the Opposition. This charge is built upon citations torn from decades of political literary activity, in attempts to answer questions of this day, which arise out of a new stage of economic and social life with us and in the whole International, by diversion, by all kinds of logical manoeuvres with old differences that have been eliminated by the facts themselves. And again, this whole artificially fabricated construction turns around the fact that in my political life, in my political activity, I stood for years outside of the Bolshevik Party, and in certain periods combated quite vigorously the Bolshevik Party and important ideas of Lenin. This was a mistake on my part! The fact that I have entered the Bolshevik Party, and of course without setting any “conditions” – for the Bolshevik Party recognizes no conditions in its program, tactics, organization, and Party membership – this naked fact was proof that everything which separated me from Bolshevism was discarded on the threshold of the Party.
(Interjection by Remmele: “How can such a thing be discarded on the threshold of the Party!”)
This, comrades, is of course not to be interpreted in that formal sense in which Comrade Remmele seems to grasp it, but in the sense that the differences were overcome in the struggles and experiences of political life, for crossing the threshold of the Party means precisely that what was non-Bolshevik in my activity had been eliminated by the facts and by the ideological experiences that grew out of them. In any event I gladly grant Comrade Remmele and everybody else the right to consider himself a better Bolsheviks, more revolutionary Communists, than my humble self. After all, that is not the involved. The responsibility for my career I alone must bear. The Party knows me only as its member, who now defends his ideas before this forum.
The differences of that time when I was outside of the Bolshevik Party were quite weighty. They concerned, broadly, the concrete appraisal of class relationship within Russian society and the perspective resulting therefrom with regard to the next Revolution. On the other hand, these differences concerned the methods and ways of Party structure and the relationship to Menshevism. In both of these questions – and I declared this in writing when such a demand was put to me – in both of these questions by far not all of the comrades that are here were in the right as against me, but Comrade Lenin, his doctrine, and his Party, were absolutely right as against me. In a reply to comrades who doubted this I wrote:
“We proceed from the point that, as experience has shown, in all more or less fundamental questions, whenever one of us disagreed with Lenin, the right was entirely on the side of Lenin.”
And further:
“In the question of the mutual relations between proletariat and peasantry, we stand completely on the ground of the theoretical and tactical teachings which Lenin formulated on the basis of experiences in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, as well as the experiences in Socialist construction (smychka, fraternisation of workers and peasants).” [1]
The theory which is now dragged into the discussion (quite artificially and not in the interest of the cause) – the theory of permanent revolution – I have never considered and not at that time either, when I did not recognize it “gaps” – as a universal theory which holds good generally for all revolutions – as a super-historical theory as Marx expressed himself in a letter. It was confined entirely to a definite stage of development in the historical evolution of Russia. I know only a single literary product – and this also came to my knowledge only a few weeks ago – in which an attempt was made to create from this theory a universal theory, and to present it as an improvement upon the theoretical conceptions of Lenin. I shall read this citation to you. I need not say that I have absolutely nothing in common with this interpretation:
“Russian Bolshevism, born in the nationally limited revolution of 1905-6, had to go through the purification ritual of liberation from all typical features of national peculiarity, in order to win full rights of citizenship in international ideology. Theoretically, this cleansing of Bolshevism from the national taint which clung to it was carried out by Trotsky in 1905, who tried in the idea of the permanent revolution to bring the Russian Revolution into connection with the whole international movement of the proletariat.”
This was not written by me; this was written in 1918 by a comrade by the name of Manuilsky.
(Interjection by Manuilsky: “Well, I said a stupid thing, and you repeat it!”)
A stupid thing? I agree – absolutely. (Laughter.) But you need not worry about Comrade Manuilsky. Of course it is a very painful story, for he himself calls it a stupid thing. But Comrade Manuilsky, who has here ascribed to me a quite undeserved magnificent heroic deed, will promptly ascribe to me two equally undeserved mistakes, and in this way he will balance his bookkeeping. (Laughter.)
Comrades, on another occasion in recent years, I have encountered the theory of permanent revolution in that caricatured form which is from time to time retrospectively ascribed to me. This was at the Third World Congress. Just recall the discussion that developed on my report on the international situation and the tasks of the Comintern. At that time I was accused of defending almost liquidatory tendencies – although I defended them in complete agreement with Lenin – against several comrades who maintained that the capitalist crisis would proceed permanently and that it would become sharper. My position, that we were confronted with possible stabilization and marked improvements, etc., and that from this the tactical consequences must be drawn, was branded by some of the ultra-leftists as almost semi-Menshevik. This was done in first rank by Comrade Pepper, who, as far as I remember at that time made his first maiden appearance upon the stage of the International.
(Interjection by Pepper: “But you had to accept my proposals for the resolution.”)
So? Since Comrade Pepper, despite my restricted speaking time, interrupts me from the Presidium, I must remind him that I know of three gospels of Comrade Pepper. The first gospel, at the Third World Congress, was the following: The Russian Revolution requires a permanent, uninterrupted revolutionary activity in the West, and therefore he defended the false tactic of the March action (Germany, 1921).
Then Comrade Pepper went to America and on his return brought back these glad tidings: the International must support the bourgeois La Follette Party because in America the revolution will be brought about not by the workers, but by the ruined farmers. That was his second gospel.
The third gospel we hear from him now: namely, that the Russian Revolution requires neither the farmer-revolution in America, nor the March action in Germany, but that it will, quite unaided, build up Socialism in its own home. A sort of a Monroe Doctrine for the building of Socialism in Russia. This is the third gospel of Comrade Pepper. Despite my grey hairs I am ready to learn also from Comrade Pepper, but it is impossible for me to re-learn so radically every two years.
Comrades, I do not believe that the biographical method can bring us to a decision in questions of principle. Of course, I have made mistakes in many questions, especially at the time of my struggle against Bolshevism. If from this it follows that political questions as such are not to be discussed according to their inner content, but according to biographies, then we should formulate a list of the biographies of all the delegates. I, personally, can refer to a rather significant precedent. There once lived in Germany a man named Franz Mehring, who, after a long and energetic struggle against the Social Democracy entered that Party as quite a mature man, who first wrote a history of the German Social Democracy as its enemy – not as a servant of Socialism, but as its enemy – and then he wrote an excellent work on German Social Democracy, as its friend. On the other hand, there are Kautsky and Bernstein who never opposed Marx openly, and who both stood under the thumb of Frederick Engels; Bernstein is also known as the one who disposed of the literary heritage of Engels. Nevertheless, Franz Mehring went to his grave as a Marxist, as a Communist, whereas the other two still live as reformist lackeys of capitalism. So, while biography is important, it is not decisive.
Not one of us has a biography free from mistakes and shortcomings. Lenin made the fewest mistakes in his life, but even he was not altogether without mistakes. In our struggles with him we were always in the wrong when more important questions of principle were involved.
Comrade Stalin, who enumerates others’ mistakes here, should not forget to count also his own. While the permanent revolution, insofar as it differed from the Leninist conception, was wrong, nevertheless, much was correct in it, which in turn led me to Bolshevism. The permanent revolution did not prevent me, after the experiences in the struggle with Bolshevism in which I was wrong, to embark upon the same tactics, in principle, in America in 1917, which Comrade Lenin proposed and carried out in the Party. After the February revolution, Comrade Stalin launched upon false tactics which Lenin characterized as a Kautskyist deviation (in an article in Pravda and in the resolution on the conditional support of the Provisional Government). On the national question, on the question of the foreign trade monopoly, on the question of the dictatorship of the Party, and other questions, Stalin also later made quite serious mistakes, but the most serious of all, which he is making now, is his theory of Socialism in one single country.
The history of this question has been excellently portrayed here by Comrade Zinoviev, and I am absolutely convinced that every comrade who takes the pains to study the question carefully – of course not formally, according to the citations, but in the spirit of the writings from which the citations are taken – must inevitably come to the conclusion that the tradition of Marxism and Leninism is entirely on our side.[2] Of course, tradition alone does not decide. One might say: from a Marxist standpoint we are now in duty bound to subject to revision the former decisions on the possibility or impossibility of building Socialism in a single country. Just let this be said! But I see no reason for such a revision. The old slogan retains its full justification, and I believe that the further this theme is developed – it is a very important theme for the whole International and this very thing has moved me to take the floor here – the more this theme is developed, the more the heralds of this new theory come into contradiction not only with the fundamental basis of our teachings, but also with the political interests of our cause.
Comrades, the premise of the theory is the law of the unevenness of imperialist development. Comrade Stalin charges me with a refusal to recognize, or with insufficiently recognizing this law. Nothing of the kind! The law of unequal development is not a law of imperialism, but a law of the whole history of mankind. Capitalist development in its first epoch intensified extraordinarily the economic and cultural differences between various countries; the imperialist development, i.e., the newest phase of capitalism, has not enlarged these differences of level but, on the contrary, has led to a rather extensive levelling. This levelling will never be complete. It will again and again break through the varying tempo of development, and thereby make impossible an imperialism stabilized upon a definite level.
On the whole, Lenin attributes unevenness to two things: firstly to tempo, and secondly to the level of economic and cultural development of the various countries. With regard to the tempo, imperialism has increased the unevenness to the highest degree; but with regard to the level of the various capitalist countries, it has called forth a levelling tendency precisely because of the variation of tempo. Anyone who does not understand this, does not understand the kernel of the question. Take England and India. The capitalist development in certain parts of India is much more rapid than was the capitalist development in England in its beginnings. The difference, the economic distance between England and India – is this today greater or smaller than fifty years ago? It is smaller. Take Canada, South America, South Africa on one hand and England on the other. The development of Canada, South America, South Africa, has proceeded during the last period with gigantic strides. The “development” of England is in stagnation, yes, even in decline. Therefore, the tempo is uneven as never before in history, but the level of development of these countries has been more closely approximated than 30 or 50 years ago.
What consequences are to be drawn therefrom? Very important ones! Precisely the fact that in certain backward countries of late the tempo of development has become more and more feverish, whereas in certain other old capitalist countries the development has slowed down or even retrogressed; precisely this fact makes impossible the Kautskyan hypothesis of a systematic organized hyper-imperialism, because in the various countries which are approaching one another in level – without ever reaching this equality – needs for markets, raw materials, jealousies are being developed identically. For this very reason, the danger of war is again becoming constantly sharper, and these wars must take on more and more gigantic forms. Precisely through this the international character of the proletarian revolution is assured and deepened.
World economy is not an empty abstraction, comrades, but a reality which has become more and more consolidated during the last 20 to 30 years by the accelerated tempo of development of backward countries and whole continents. That is a fact of fundamental importance, and precisely for this reason it is fundamentally false to consider the economic and political destiny of any single country apart from its relationship to the economic whole.
What was the imperialist world war? It was the uprising of the productive forces not only against capitalist property relationships, but also against the national boundaries of the capitalist states. The imperialist war was proof of the fact that these boundaries have grown too narrow for the productive forces.
We always maintain that the capitalist State is not able to master the productive forces developed by it, and that only Socialism can co-ordinate these productive forces which have grown beyond the limits of the capitalist States into a higher and more powerful economic whole. There is no road leading back to the isolated State!
What was Russia before the Revolution, before the war? Was it an isolated capitalist State? No, it was part of the capitalist world economy. This is the kernel of the thing. Anyone who ignores this disregards the fundamentals of all social and political consideration. Why did Russia enter the world war, despite its economic backwardness? Because it had bound up its destiny with European capitalism through finance capital. It could not do otherwise. And I ask you, comrades, what was it that gave the working class of Russia the opportunity to seize power? Above all things, the agrarian revolution. Without the agrarian revolution, without the “peasant war” – and this is what Lenin in his genius predicted and elaborated theoretically – the seizure of political power would have been impossible for the proletariat in our country. But did peasant war also create the premises for proletarian conquest of power in other revolutions? No, at best, for the bourgeoisie.
Why did our bourgeoisie not seize power? Because it was an integral part of the world bourgeoisie, because with the whole imperialist bourgeoisie, it had embarked on a downward grade before it seized power, because capitalist Russia was a fraction of world imperialism, and because it was the weakest link in the imperialist chain. Had the all-Russian state been an isolated State, had Russia stood aside from world development, from imperialism, aside from the movement of the international proletariat, if it had known neither the rule of finance capital in its industry, nor the ideological predominance of Marxism in the proletariat, then “on its own strength” it could not have reached the proletarian revolution so quickly. And anyone who believes that after the working class seize power, it could withdraw the country from world economy as easily as one turns out the electric light by turning the switch, has a basically false conception of things.
The precondition for socialism is heavy industry and machine-building. This is also the most important lever of Socialism, is that not so? How are things with respect to the technical equipment of our factories and workshops? According to the expert statistical estimates of Warzar we find that prior to the war, 63% of our technical equipment, our tools, our machines, were imported from abroad. Only one third was of native production. But even this third was made up of the simplest machines, the more complicated, most important machines, were brought from abroad. If you will consider the technical equipment of our factories, you will see the crystallized dependency of Russia, also the Soviet Union, upon world industry. Anyone who refuses to notice this, who speaks on this matter without even touching the economic-technical basis of the question in its connections with world economy and world politics, remains stuck in bare abstractions and causally collected citations.
In the course of the last decade, we have made practically no renewal of the basic capital of our industry. In the course of the civil war and War Communism, we imported no machines from abroad. That might gradually give rise to the idea that this industrial equipment belongs, so to speak, to the “natural resources” of our country and that upon the basis of “natural” foundation, we might, isolated, be able to build up Socialism to its completion.
But these are illusions. We have reached the end of the so-called re-establishment period; we have now reached approximately the pre-war level. However, the end of the reconstruction period is simultaneously the beginning of the re-establishment of our material connections with world industry. We must renew our basic capital, which is now going through a crisis; and anyone who thinks that already in the next years we will be able to produce with our own forces the whole equipment, or a large part of this equipment, is a dreamer. The industrialization of our country, which was set upon the agenda as one of the most important tasks of the Party by our Fourteenth Party Congress, for the immediate rather extensive future means not the lessening, but, on the contrary, the growth of our connections with the outside world, i.e. also our (of course mutual) dependence upon the world market, capitalism, its technique and industry and at the same time the growth of the struggle against the international bourgeoisie. This means that we cannot separate the question of building Socialism from the question of what is going to happen during that period of the building capitalist economy. These two questions stand in closest connection with one another.
If we are told: but, dear friends, surely you can build machines yourselves, we reply: Of course, if the whole capitalist world goes to the devil, we shall in a few decades be able to build far more machines than now. But if we “abstract” ourselves from the capitalist world – which, after all, does exist – if we intend to make with our own hands all machines, or at least the most important of them, already in the immediate future, i.e., if we attempt to ignore the division of labour in world industry, and jump over our economic past that has made our industry what it is now, in one word, if, according to the famous “Socialist” Monroe-Doctrine which is now being preached to us, we are to make everything ourselves, this will unavoidably mean an extreme slowing down of the tempo of our economic development. For it is entirely clear that a refusal to exploit the world market for filling the gaps in our equipment, will very seriously slow up our own development. But the rate of development is a decisive factor, for we are not alone on the earth: the isolated Socialist State for the time being exists only in the powerful imagination of the journalists and resolution writers. In reality, our Socialist state is constantly – directly or indirectly – under the equalizing control of the world market. The tempo of development is not an arbitrary matter. It is determined by world development as a whole, because in the last instance the world economy controls each of its sections even if the section in question is under the dictatorship of the proletariat and is building up a Socialist industry.
In order to industrialize our country we must import machines from abroad, and the peasant must export grain. Without export, no imports! On the other hand, the domestic market cannot consume all the products of agriculture. Thus, through the requirements of the peasantry on the one hand, and of industry on the other, we have been integrated into the world economy, and our connections with it (and consequently also our struggle against it) will from month to month become constantly stronger. We are more and more emerging from the isolation of war communism, and we are more and more entering the system of world economic connections and dependencies. And if one speaks about the theory of Socialism in one country and disregards the fact of “collaboration” and the struggle of our economy with the capitalist world economy, then I believe this is metaphysical sophistication.
Comrades, the rather one-sided discussion that has thus far taken place on this question, has in any event already had the good result of moving Comrade Stalin to express his ideas somewhat more clearly and sharply, thereby show their complete fallibility.
I take the most important sections from the first half of Comrade Stalin’s speech, in which the fallibility of the whole theory stands before us, so to say, in black on white.
Comrade Stalin asks:
“Is the victory of Socialism in the Soviet Union possible? . . . But what is the meaning of ‘building up Socialism’ if one translates this formula into the concrete language of classes? It means the overcoming of our Soviet bourgeoisie with our own forces in the course of the struggle.” (Just observe these thoughts! L.T.) Therefore, when one speaks of whether it is possible to build socialism in the Soviet Union, one wants to say thereby: is the proletariat of the Soviet Union able with its own forces, to overcome the bourgeoisie of the Soviet Union? Thus, and only thus, stands the question in solving the problem of building Socialism in our country. Upon this question, the Party gives an affirmative reply.” [3]
Here the whole question is therefore reduced to that of whether we are able to overcome our own bourgeoisie, as if the whole solution of the building of Socialism was already contained in this. No, that is not the case! The building of Socialism pre-supposes the destruction of the classes, the substitution of class society by the Socialist organization of all production and distribution. What is involved here is the overcoming of the contradiction between town and country, which again demands a deep-going industrialization of agriculture itself. And all this while we continue among capitalist surroundings. This question cannot be identified with a naked victory over our internal bourgeoisie.
One must always bear in mind that in various cases the words “victory of Socialism” have been understood differently. If we say, as Lenin did in 1915, that the proletariat of a single country can seize power, organize Socialist production, and take up the struggle against the bourgeoisie of neighbouring countries – what did he mean by the organization of socialist production? That which we already have accomplished in recent years: the factories and workshops were taken from the bourgeoisie, the necessary steps made for the assurance of production at State cost, so that the people can live and build and defend themselves against capitalist states, etc. This is of course also a victory of Socialism; it is likewise an organization of Socialist production; but it is obviously only the first beginning. From here, to the building of a Socialist society is still a very long way.
I repeat: when we speak of the building of Socialism in the full sense of this word, this means the destruction of classes, and furthermore also the dying off of the State. Now, says Comrade Stalin, we will carry out Socialist construction in the full sense of the word when we shall have overcome our bourgeoisie at home. But comrades, we really need the State and the army against the foreign foe. These things remain, comrades, as long as the world bourgeoisie exists. Can one believe, further, that from our own internal resources, economic as well as cultural, the classes of the proletariat and peasantry will dissolve into a uniform Socialist planned economy, even before the European proletariat captures power? For this purpose, we must still develop our technique in a very long way, and the premise for that is a growing grain export and a growing machine import. But for the time being, the machines are in the hands of the world bourgeoisie and it is also the purchaser of our grain. For the time being it dictates our prices, and thus we fall into a certain dependence upon and struggle with it.
In order to overcome this dependence it is by no means sufficient to overcome our own bourgeoisie, for what is involved is not the political elimination of the bourgeoisie – we eliminated it politically in our country in 1917 – what is involved is, despite the capitalist encirclement, i.e., the (economic, political, and military) struggle with the world bourgeoisie, to build up the isolated Socialist state. This can be done only if the productive forces of this isolated and, for the time being, still very backward state become stronger and more powerful than those of capitalism. Insofar as this involves not a year, or ten years, or even two decades, but a whole series of decades that are necessary for the complete building of Socialism, we can achieve this only if our productive forces show themselves more powerful than the productive forces of capitalism. The question, therefore, does not hinge upon the struggle of the proletariat against its own bourgeoisie, but upon the decisive struggle of the isolated new socialist society against the capitalist world system. Only in this way can we put the question.
Now we hear further:
“If this were false” – says Stalin – “if the Party had no ground to maintain that the proletariat of the Soviet Union is in a position to build a Socialist society despite the fact that our country is relatively backward, then the Party would have no reason (no reason! L.T.) to continue to retain power, it would be compelled to surrender power and continue as an opposition party.”
Then he repeats:
“One or the other” – says Comrade Stalin – “either we are in a position to build Socialism, and to finally build it, to overcome our national bourgeoisie – and then the Party must retain power and in the name of the world-wide victory of Socialism it must direct the work of Socialist construction in this country. Or else we are not in a position to overcome our bourgeoisie with our own power, since we cannot reckon with immediate (why “immediate”?! L.T.) aid from abroad by the victorious revolution in other countries, and then we must openly and honestly withdraw from the government and take a new direction towards the organizing of a new future revolution in the Soviet Union. Can the Party lie (Why: “lie”? L.T.) to its own class, and in this case to the working class? No, it cannot. Such a party deserves to be destroyed. Precisely because our Party has no right to lie to the working class, it must openly admit that the lack of certainty (not a defeat, but only the lack of certainty?! L.T.) with regard to the possibility of building Socialism in our country leads to the problem of power and the transition of our Party from the position of a governing party to that of an opposition Party.”
All this is absolutely false. Now, comrades, what did Lenin say about this?
(The chairman, Comrade Kolarov, calls the speaker’s attention to the fact that his time has expired.)
I was told that I would get an hour, just like Comrade Zinoviev.
The hour of Comrade Zinoviev, however, lasted an hour and 35 minutes. (Laughter.) I hope that you will give me the same time.
I have hardly said half of what I wanted to say to you. Of course, you have the full opportunity to deprive me of the floor now. That depends upon you. But I am only just beginning on the most burning questions.
Now, comrades, we have always maintained that our revolution is a part of the proletarian world revolution, which, while it may develop more slowly, is certain of its victory – and with this also our victory. We have always stigmatized the patriotic opportunists who considered the destiny of Socialism only in the isolated perspective of their particular state, regardless of whether they were still flirting with the revolutionary idea, or like most of them, had openly discarded this idea and accepted the reformist standpoint. We have always said that the proletariat of one single country had no right to wait for another country if it had any chance whatever to go forward, to seize power, to develop Socialist construction or exert military pressure, or more exactly, whether the one thing or the other, for only in this way does the world revolution develop. That our Party at the head of the proletariat seized power, that we are successfully building socialism, that thereby we have given the world proletariat a great example, that we are more and more consolidating our country economically and politically on a socialist road – all this is self-evident – is there any dispute about this? But precisely because we are a section of the world proletariat, of the world revolution – and that we foster its victorious development by our Socialist construction – precisely for this reason we cannot demand any special guarantee that in our country we shall build up socialism independent of the world revolution. But here it would seem that we, if we had demanded this guarantee (from whom?) and had not received it, we must resign, precipitate a ministerial crisis, and go over into opposition to the Soviet State, is not this a fundamentally false formulation of the question?
But Stalin himself probably scarcely thinks in the way that he formulated in his report. Otherwise he also should have resigned long ago. How did matters stand until very recently? Comrade Zinoviev has already read a citation by Stalin in 1924. Nevertheless I must repeat it, for if things stand this way, that unless we get a guarantee in advance of the possibility of building Socialism in a single country, we must resign from power – then I must ask: how about Comrade Stalin in 1924, not before Christ, not before the imperialist epoch, in which the law of the unevenness of development is supposed to have been still unknown, but only two years ago? I again remind you that Comrade Stalin at that time wrote the following:
“In order to overthrow the bourgeoisie, the efforts of a single country are sufficient; this is proved by the history of our revolution. For the final victory of Socialism, for the organizing of Socialist production, however, the efforts of one single country, and particularly of such a peasant country as Russia, will not suffice – for this we require the efforts of the proletarians of several highly-developed countries.” [4]
Yes, but in 1924 we did not resign from power, we did not go over to opposition to the workers’ state! Just think this over! If the tradition of our Party, if Bolshevism, if Leninism really at all times demanded faith in the possibility of the final victory of Socialism in a single country (and at that in a backward country) without a world revolution – if everyone who does not accept this is to be branded a Social Democrat, how does it happen that Comrade Stalin, who surely should know the traditions of our Party from his own experience, could write these lines even as late as 1924? Please explain this to me!
And now another riddle. I show you here the program and statutes of the Russian Leninist Communist Youth League. If you wish I will lay this little booklet upon the Presidium table. This program was adopted by our Party in September 1921, as a guide to the training of our whole youth movement. In the fourth paragraph of the program for the workers’ youth movement it is stated (please pay close attention, especially you comrades from the Young Communist International, because our Russian Youth League is after all a part of the Young Communist International):
“In the Soviet Union state power is already in the hands of the working class. In three years of heroic struggle against world capitalism the working class has established and fortified its Soviet government. Although Russia possesses enormous natural resources, it is nevertheless an industrially backward country in which a petty-bourgeois population predominates. The country can arrive at Socialism only through a proletarian world revolution, which epoch of development we have now entered.”
What is that? Perhaps pessimism? Discouragement? Perhaps even Trotskyism? I am not at present in a position to judge. But this is found in the program of our youth organization, which contains more than two million young workers and peasants. And if in defence of the new theory of Socialism in a single country it is said: surely, but one must give our youth a perspective – that is a favourite argument with Comrade Stalin – otherwise they might succumb to pessimism, to discouragement, or – God save us from this, especially at this late hour! – to Trotskyism, then I will ask: why has this misfortune not already overtaken us if the youth has had such a Trotskyist program for the last five years!
(Chairman, Comrade Kolarov, calls it to Comrade Trotsky’s attention that his time is up by ringing the bell.)
They always interrupt me in the most interesting places. I beg the Presidium and the Plenum to grant me the 35 minutes that I have mentioned.
The Chairman: Your time has expired.
Comrade Trotsky: I am extremely sorry, but of course I can do nothing but submit to the resolution that you intend to pass. The important arguments that I wanted to present, however, though unexpressed, will nevertheless retain their objective validity.
For this is not the last meeting of our International. And although this resolution will be adopted here unanimously – of that we are quite certain – especially after today’s speech by Comrade Smeral, who so expertly accuses us of Social-Democratic deviations – the facts nevertheless remain in existence. The facts will demonstrate their power, and the power of these facts will lend new strength to our arguments. This question will come up again at the sessions of our International, and I am firmly convinced that if not I then someone else will present before the Communist International the arguments which you have today refused to permit me to elucidate and which nevertheless retain their validity on this extremely important question.
[1] Memorandum written in September 1926. See “In Defense of the Opposition Bloc” in The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1926-27).
[2] See: Zinoviev’s Speech at the 7th Enlarged ECCI Plenum (on December 9).
[3] Stalin’s speech on December 7 is reproduced in his Works, vol. 9, pp. 3-64. On MIA: Once More on the Social-Democratic Deviations in Our Party.
[4] This is a quote from the first edition of Stalin’s Foundations of Leninism, quoted by Stalin himself in Concerning Questions of Leninism (Works Vol. 8, p. 65). The translation differs a little from the one above: ”To overthrow the bourgeoisie the efforts of one country are sufficient; this is proved by the history of our revolution. For the final victory of socialism, for the organisation of socialist production, the efforts of one country, particularly of a peasant country like Russia, are insufficient; for that, the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries are required.”