We have sketched the disastrous policy of ultra-leftism pursued by the Comintern from 1923 to 1925 and the even more disastrous rightist policy adopted subse-quently, culminating in the tragic fate of the Chinese revolution. We have observed that these defeats were the direct result of the disregard of the strategic lessons of Marxism as developed by Lenin and Trotsky. How had it come about that the revolutionary International founded by Lenin had declined in this manner? We remarked earlier that no political trend grows in a vacuum, and found it necessary to discover the social bases of the opportunism of the 2nd International in its period of decline. Similarly no Marxist analysis of the 3rd International is complete without an attempt to discover the social basis—that is, the real historical reason—for its decline.
The Russian working class, by the privilege of its historical backwardness, as we might say, was able to make its revo-lution before any of the advanced countries of the West. But the moment it had made the leap ahead of these coun-tries it found itself forced to bear the full consequences of its own backwardness. That is to say, the Russian working class, a minority in a predominantly peasant country, on coming to power was faced with the problems of a low level of productivity in industry, a small scale and primi-tive agriculture, an exceedingly poor system of transport, illiteracy, and a host of other problems cultural as well as economic which were the heritage left to it by Czarism. To add to these difficulties, the Russian workers who had received the country in an exhausted condition after three years of imperialist war, were compelled for another three years to fight the armies of capitalist intervention at enor-mous cost to the country. The Russian working class might still have been able to solve the pressing problems before them if they had been helped, as their leaders had expected, by the spread of the revolution to the advanced European countries. However, although the revolutionary wave in Europe proved sufficient to save the young work-ers’ state in the first and most critical period of its exist-ence, nevertheless the revolution failed to conquer and gain a foothold in Europe. In these circumstances the ebb of the world revolution was reflected also within the workers’ state. There arose within the Communist party and the Soviets a bureaucracy, which substituted itself for the masses, and which proceeded to usurp the masses of political power by destroying internal democracy in the party, converting the Soviets into the instruments of the bureaucrats, and concentrating power in its hands.[1]
LENIN SEES THE DANGER
Lenin with his customary perspicacity was the first to note the alarming trend of the growth of bureaucracy and to warn against it. As early as January, 1921, in an article on the trade union question, he wrote, “A workers’ state is an abstraction. Actually we have a workers’ state with this peculiarity, firstly, that it is not the working class po-pulation that predominate in the country, but the peasant population; and, secondly, it is worker’s state with the bureaucratic distortions.” (Selected Works of Lenin . Vol. 9, page 33).
In the spring of 1921, Lenin had introduced the change from War Communism to the policy of NEP. The mea-sures of premature socialism had been necessary during the period of civil war, and the peasant had supported these extreme measures because he knew that the defeat of the Bolsheviks would mean his losing the land. But once the civil war was over and the land safe, the peasant began first of all to refuse to produce and then to revolt. Under NEP Lenin abolished the system of requisition of grain, allowed the peasant to pay a tax in kind, and by degrees gave the peasant the right to trade.[2] NEP was a retreat, and a necessary retreat. But it had its danger. It gave an impetus to the development of the Kulak class and to the birth of new layers of exploiting elements in the Soviet Union. This factor accentuated the growth of the bureaucracy, which began to lean more and more on the kulaks, intellectual strata and labour aristocracy.
After the first victories of the Soviet regime had become apparent a large number of people who had nothing in common with revolution had found their way into the party. Lenin had drawn attention to this in 1921. “The party must be purged of rascals and bureaucrats” he wrote, “of dishonest or wavering communists,” and of Mensheviks who have repainted their ‘façade’ but who in their hearts have remained Mensheviks”. (Purging the Party, Selected Works , Vol. 9). In March 1922, when the policy of NEP was in full swing he deemed it necessary to repeat this warning. In a letter to Molotov demanding a longer period of probation for new members, he writes: “our party is less politically trained than is necessary for real proletarian leadership in the present difficult situation, especially in view of the overwhelming preponderance of the peasantry, which is rapidly awakening to independent class politics.”—(New condition of Party Membership, Selected Works , Vol. 9).
In the middle of 1922 Lenin fell ill and was away from work for five months till October. In this period of absence he was able to see more clearly than anyone else what was wrong with the party. He saw the monstrous growth of bureaucratic power and its concentration in the hands of the Organisation Bureau of the Central Committee, which was in Stalin’s charge as General Secretary of the party from 1921. Lenin saw that Stalin had made use of absence to build around him, by the one-sided selection of men, a numerous faction of personal supporters. Lenin came back in October with the firm determination of fight-ing these back stage manoeuvres of the Secretariat. But after only a few weeks, bad health forced him again to retire from the field of activities. It was then (January 1923) that he wrote his letter to the party which came to be known as his Testament. Here, he demands the removal of Stalin from the post of General Secretary.
“Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, has concentrated an enormous power in his hands; and I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient caution,” he wrote. “Stalin is too rude, and this fact, entirely supportable in relations among us com-munists, becomes unsupportable in the office of General Secretary. Therefore, I propose to the Comrades to find a way to remove Stalin from that position and appoint another man who in all respects differs from Stalin only in superiority—namely, more patient, more loyal, more polite, and more attentive to comrades, less capricious, etc.”, he wrote in the postscript. (The Suppressed Testament of Lenin —Pioneer Publishers).
As long as there remained a glimmer of hope for Lenin’s recovery his wife Krupskaya kept the document under lock and key. In 1924, after Lenin’s death she handed it over to the Secretariat of the Central Committee with the request that it should be placed before the party Congress. Despite the insistence of Krupskaya this was not done. And after the reading of the document to a selected number of party leaders, the publication of the document was prohibited. The document has, however, seen the light of day, thanks to the Left Opposition.[3]
In his last article “Better less but Better” (4th March 1923), as a counter to the rising bureaucracy Lenin demands the reorganisation of the People’s Commissariat of Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, of which the Commissar was Stalin. He says that it is inevitable that this reform will meet the resistance of “all our bureaucracy,” both the Soviet and the party bureaucracy. “We have a bureau-cracy” he adds, “not only in the Soviet institutions, but in the party institutions.”
In March 1923, Lenin’s health finally broke down and he died in January 1924. During these months Stalin—in alliance with Zinoviev and Kamenev—concentrated his personal hold by the intensive bureaucratisation of the party apparatus. The party bureaucracy and the bu-reaucracy of the State organisation were steadily fused into one. When Lenin died, the bureaucracy headed by Stalin were already in control of the party.
If Lenin had lived, there is no doubt that the bureaucracy would not have won so easily. But it is a matter for spe-culation to what extent even he, with his enormous pres-tige, would have been able to influence the course of events. There is a limit to the role of individuals, however great and powerful, in history. On this question, we can do no better than quote from Trotsky’s introduction to Lenin’s Testament published by the Left Opposition.
“The course of subsequent events in the Kremlin and in the Soviet Union was determined not by a single docu-ment, even though it were the testament of Lenin, but by historical causes of a far deeper order. A political reaction after the enormous effort of the years of the insurrection and the civil war was inevitable. The concept of reactions must here be strictly distinguished from the concept of counter-revolution. Reaction does not necessarily imply a social overturn—that is, a transfer of power from one class to another. Even Czarism had its periods of progres-sive reform and its periods of reactions. The mood and orientations of the ruling class changes according to cir-cumstances. This is true also of the working class. The pressure of the Petty-bourgeoisie upon the proletariat tired from the tumult entailed a revival of petty bourgeois tendencies in the proletariat itself and a deep wave of re-action on the crest of which the present bureaucratic appa-ratus headed by Stalin rose to power.”
THE LEFT OPPOSITION
The Left Opposition took shape for the first time as a distinct political grouping in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1923, headed by Leon Trotsky. The 10th Party Congress under Lenin’s direction had adopt-ed a resolution for the vigorous execution of the policy of party democracy. The 12th Congress had in 1922 re-affirmed this resolution, but nothing had been done to implement it.
Consequently, on 8th October 1923, Trotsky wrote a letter to the Central Committee of the party expressing his views on this subject and on the national economy. “In the fiercest moments of War Communism the system of appointment within the party did not have one tenth of the extent it has now. Appointments of the secretaries of provincial committees is now the rule. That creates for the secretary a position essentially independent of the local organisation A very broad strata of party work-ers has been created, entering into the governing apparatus of the party who completely renounce their own party opinion, before whom every decision stands in the nature of a summons or command,” wrote Trotsky. He was followed by a letter signed by 46 party leaders who joined hands with him on most of the essential ideas he had set down.
Soon after, Trotsky was surrounded by a group which came to be known as the “Moscow Opposition” and which was in fact the beginning of the Left Opposition. Their aim was a genuine application of the resolution on party de-mocracy and the co-ordination of industry with agriculture on the basis of a plan in economy.
“Trotsky pointed out that the workers’ republic could overcome the obstacle of a primitively organised and managed agriculture and enter the broad highway towards socialism, only by laying a solid foundation in the form of a big scale machine industry. With such a base, the proletariat would be able to satisfy the needs of the peasantry for cheap manufactured products. By pursuing a policy of systematically reducing the economic and political importance of the exploiting peasants (the kulaks) it would commence in earnest the socialist transformation of an agriculture provided with the technical equipment of large industry.
“To accomplish these ends, Trotsky recommended the centralisation of national economy and its harmonious direction by means of a national long term plan, pointing to the success attained in 1920 by planned economy in the field of restoring the efficiency of railroad transportation”. (Max-Shachtmann—History and Principles of the Left Opposition ).
But the party apparatus was already in the control of the bureaucracy. What Trotsky wrote was twisted beyond recognition. He was accused of factionalism, of pitting the “Old Guard” against the Youth, of “underestimating the peasantry”. Trotsky’s supporters were removed from every position of influence and subjected to intimidation in office and in factory. Students were expelled from the Universities. The Red Army was purged. Rakovsky was sent to London, Krestinsky to Berlin. Lenin had said that more workers should be introduced into the party… In January 1924 Stalin’s secretariat shepherded 100,000 raw recruits into the party, and in May another 100,000 more. All were given the power to vote. The result of the 13th Party Congress held in May 1924 was a foregone conclusion. The Opposition were defeated. The public-ation of Lenin’s Testament, which Krupskaya had vainly attempted to have placed before the Conference, was prohibited.
In October 1924, Trotsky published his “Lessons of Octo-ber”. This was the signal for a widespread and concerted attack on him. The bogey of “Trotskyism” was invented. It was stated that “Trotskyism” was opposed to Leninism. The pre-war differences between Lenin and Trotsky were raked up, exaggerated, distorted, and a flood of articles and pamphlets let loose on a surprised public. The workers were confused and bewildered by the attacks on Trotsky whom they had learned to regard as co-leader with Lenin in the October revolution, organiser of the Red Army, and the foremost Bolshevik leader next to Lenin. But the workers were exhausted by the efforts in the period of civil war and they had received a crushing blow with the defeat of the German proletariat in 1923. The German defeat no doubt hastened the defeat of the Opposition. On the other hand, supporting the bureaucracy were the new class of kulaks and the traders in the towns, who had grown up under NEP.
But it took four years to drive the Left Opposition out of the party. The names of Lenin and Trotsky were too closely associated and the traditions of Leninism too deeply rooted.
ZINOVIEV AND KAMENEV JOIN THE OPPOSITION
Zinoviev and Kamenev in their role of old and very close colleagues of Lenin, had been the spear-head of the anti-Trotsky drive which commenced in 1924 but in 1925 differences began to develop between the Zinoviev-Kamenev group and the centrist group of Stalin. Matters came to a head on the question of Stalin’s theory of Socialism in one country. Zinoviev and Kamenev opposed this un-Marxist and anti-Leninist theory. Leaning on the ‘Rights’ in the party (Bukharin, Rykov, and others), Stalin commenced his drive against Zinoviev and Kamenev at the end of 1925.
In 1926, alarmed at the turn of events, and under pressure of the revolutionary Leningrad proletariat, Zinoviev and Kamenev came over to the Left Opposition, acknowledging that the “Trotskyists” had been right on all fundamental questions. They were joined in this step by a large group of Bolsheviks. A united opposition was formed on the basis of the “Platform of the Opposition” to which we shall have occasion to refer later. It was in this period that Zinoviev stated that fighting Trotsky had been the “greatest mistake of his life.” He also admitted that the legend of “Trotskyism” had been invented as an instrument in the struggle for power. Krupskaya who had also joined the Opposition in 1926, declared “Were Lenin alive, he would most assuredly be in a G.P.U. prison”.
There was an accretion of strength of the Opposition. After the coming over of Zinoviev, practically the whole of the Leningrad party organisation supported the Oppo-sition. But the party bureaucracy, now possessed of great power was solidly for Stalin. The kulak traders, who had grown at an alarming rate, between 1924 and 1927, were all, naturally, supporters of Stalin against the Opposition. Utilising all the forces of the party and the state at his disposal Stalin set out to smash the Oppo-sition. The entire Leningrad Committee was arbitrarily displaced. The Opposition platform was refused publica-tion as an anti-party document. Imprisonment and exile followed for infringing party discipline. Every kind of pressure was brought to bear on Oppositionists by the bureaucratic machine. In the 1927 demonstration in Mos-cow and other large towns on the anniversary of the October revolution, Oppositionists who marched with the slogan “Fulfil the Testament of Lenin” were set upon and dispersed by specially selected troops. Trotsky was fired on in the street. Oppositionists meetings were broken up by gangs organised by party committees.
In November 1927 the Oppositionists were expelled from the party. In December the 15th Congress ratified the action of the leadership. Trotsky and many other leaders were exiled. Zinoviev and Kamenev capitulated, were par-doned, and re-commenced their denunciations of “Trotsky-ism.” The terror fell on the worker Oppositionists, driving them underground. By 1929 there were 5,000 Oppositionists in prison. The Bolshevik party of Lenin was no more.[4]
SOCIALISM IN A SINGLE COUNTRY
The rise of the bureaucracy usurping the party and the masses was reflected quite early in the theoretical field by the appearance of the theory of Socialism in a single country.
The very idea that socialism could be established in a single country is alien to the literature of revolutionary Marxism as well as to the entire history of Bolshevism. The Bolsheviks of course recognised the possibility of a seizure of power by the proletariat in a single country, while capitalist rule still remains undefeated in the others. From April 1917 they worked for such a seizure of power in Russia and in October took the lead in its achievement. But they never confused the “dictatorship of the prole-tariat” with the “establishment of Socialism”. They never maintained that it was possible to build socialism in Russia, except through the international revolution. The de-pendence of the revolution in Russia on the international revolution was frankly acknowledged by all the leaders of the Bolshevik Party in their writings and speeches both in the days of the October insurrection and afterwards.
Of the numerous statements of Lenin on this subject it is necessary only to quote the following written in March 1922 in order to make clear his views. “We have not completed even the foundation of socialist economy. This can still be taken away by the hostile forces of a dying capi-talism. We must be clearly aware of this and openly acknowledge it …There is absolutely nothing terrible, nothing offering a legitimate cause for the slightest dis-couragement, in recognising this bitter truth; for we have always taught and repeated this elementary truth of Marxism, that for the victory of Socialism the combined efforts of the workers of several advanced countries are necessary”—(“On Ascending a High Mountain”. Lenin Selected Works , Vol. 10. Pages 308-9).
Meanwhile, the programme of the Communist Youth in 1921 (ratified by the Politbureau including Lenin, Trotsky and. Stalin) states “Russia although possessing enormous na-tural resources, is nevertheless in the matter of industry a backward country, in which a petty bourgeois population predominates. It can come to Socialism only through the Socialist world revolution.”
In April 1924, in his “Problems of Leninism” Stalin himself echoed this idea of Lenin. “Can we succeed and secure the definitive victory of Socialism in one country without the combined efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries? Most certainly not. The efforts of a single country are enough to overthrow the bourgeoisie; this is what the history of our revolution proves. But for the definitive triumph of Socialism, the organisation of Socialist production, the efforts of one country alone are not enough particularly of an essentially rural country like Russia; the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries are needed.”
But in October 1924, less than a year after the death of Lenin, Stalin for the first time in the history of Bolshevism invented the theory that Socialism was possible in a single country. In April 1925 the theory was made party policy. Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Lenin’s widow Krupskaya and a host of other old Bolshevik leaders opposed this deviation from Marxism. The Opposition pointed out in vain that this error would serve as the starting point for leading the party away from Marxism and the goal of inter-national revolution. Party Members held up their hands and voted for this anti-Marxian reactionary theory as the policy of Lenin. Bureaucratic control of the party had strangled it. Internationalism, the corner-stone of Bolshevism, was swept away. It was henceforth to exist only as a facade.
If the defeat and expulsion of the Opposition represented the organisational triumph of the bureaucracy, the theory of Socialism in one country represented its ideological triumph. It became for the bureaucracy the ideological expression of its nationally confined interests. For, if Russia could build socialism by herself, then the world revolution became not a matter of necessity but of bene-volent sentiment. Henceforth the main business of the Comintern would be not revolution but the “defence of the U.S.S.R.” The theory of Socialism in one country clear-ed the way Fur the abandonment of the aim of world revolution by the Comintern, and its substitution by the policy of securing the defence of the U.S.S.R. by the Red Army and pacts with capitalist governments. The fate of the Communist International as a revolutionary organisation was sealed. With the triumph of the bureaucracy in 1928 it was transformed into an instrument for serving the day to day foreign policy of the Soviet bureaucracy in callous disregard of the needs of the international working class movement. By that same token, the real defence of the Soviet Union, which depends on international revolution, was sacrificed.
[1] There are few million such functionaries today. Their number is greater than the number of workers at the time of the October revolution. [2] It was in fact Trotsky who first saw the necessity of changes in War Communism. He made a proposal in 1920 to have a graduated tax on the peasants instead of requisition and to provide them with cheaper industrial goods. The Central Committee at the time, however, rejected the proposal. [3] Since the very existence of the Testament has been denied by Stalinists on various occasions where the situation permits them to do so, it may not be superfluous to add that if further verification is desired, the inquiring reader can refer to the article “The Right Deviation in the CPSU” appearing in Vol. 2 of “Leninism” by Stalin himself. Here Stalin uses a quotation from Lenin’s letter to discredit Bukharin’s abilities as a theoretician when he had no longer need of his services. Reference can also be found to the Testament in a speech by Stalin appearing in International Press Correspondence of November 17, 1927. [4] In the 7 years between the February revolution of 1917 and the death of Lenin (Jan. 1924) the Bolshevik party held 8 regular party congresses and 7 conferences. The 15th Congress of December 1927 was held after a lapse of two years after the 14th Congress. The 16th Congress was held 2 years later. Between the 16th and 17th Congresses (Jan. 1934) nearly 4 years were allowed to lapse. The same practice, as we shall see, was applied to the Congresses of the International.