Brothers and Sisters,
The influence of bourgeois propaganda, the lack of availability of authentic Marxist-Leninist books and the influence of revisionism in the Communist movement (see previous posts for a definition of revisionism) has produced a situation where some folks mistakenly believe that Trotsky was a Communist hero. It ain't so. "(Trotsky's) policies," William Z. Foster, former leader of the Communist Party USA, said "would have been fatal to the Russian Revolution and would have brought about the restoration of capitalism in Russia." William Z. Foster explains, in History of the Three Internationals, that:
"Trotsky, whose whole history stamped him as an unstable petty-bourgeois radical and who did not join up with the Bolsheviks until 1917, was a confirmed factionalist and opportunist. Even after he joined the party he continued his opposition to Lenin on many points. When Lenin was in his final illness, during the autumn of 1923, Trotsky made a bid to capture the leadership of the Communist Party. He gathered together the several small opposition groups than in the party and issued an oppositional program, the 'Declaration of the Forty-Six.' The substance of this was to accuse the party leadership of gross bureaucracy, to instigate the youth against the party, to pronounce the N.E.P. a complete retreat, to demand freedom to build factional groupings, to condemn the party for the defeat of the German and Hungarian revolutions, to blame the many economic difficulties upon party mismanagement, and to pronounce the Russian Revolution itself in a state of 'Thermidorian degeneration.'
"It devolved upon Stalin to lead the party fight against this disruptive opposition, and he was to prove brilliantly capable of the task...Stalin, a profound Marxist and a relentless fighter, ideologically shattered the Trotsky case, and at the 13th conference of the party in January 1924, the opposition was condemned overwhelmingly as a 'petty-bourgeois deviation from Marxism.' During this fight Stalin produced his great book, The Foundations of Leninism, which played a big part in the controversy.
(William Z. Foster: Stalin was 'one of the greatest fighters ever produced by the world's working class')
"The defeated Trotsky, tongue-in-cheek, pledged himself to abide by the party decision, a pledge which, however, he immediately began to violate.
"Shortly afterward, the party...was confronted with the basic problem of defining its perspective. Stalin, in early 1925, met this tremendous theoretical task magnificently. He declared, and the Central Committee backed him up, that Soviet Russia possessed all the requirements for the building of socialism. Lenin had previously indicated the possibility, if need be, of building socialism in one country, Russia. Stalin's formulation was a bold departure from commonly held Marxist opinion, which was that in order to make the construction of socialism possible it would be necessary for the workers simultaneously to gain political power in several countries.
"Stalin's basic statement immediately drew fire from the adventurer Trotsky, who came forth with what he called the theory of 'permanent revolution.' Trotsky categorically denied the possibility of constructing socialism in Russia alone. He proposed, instead, an intensification of revolutionary struggle at home against the peasantry (all categories) and war abroad against the bourgeois governments. The fate of the Russian Revolution was at stake in this historic discussion. Stalin succeeded in making the party understand that Trotsky's line would have meant the overthrow of the Soviet government and the end of the Revolution. As a result, at the 14th party conference, April 1925, Trotsky's policy was defeated and Stalin's overwhelmingly endorsed. Again Trotsky agreed to abide by the party decision, but did not." (William Z. Foster, History of the Three Internationals, 1955)
William Z. Foster points out that Trotsky and his friend Zinoviev and their handful of supporters, held "a street demonstration against the party on November 7," 1927.
(William Z. Foster, former leader of the Communist Party USA)
In another book, History of the Communist Party of the United States, Foster says that:
"For several years prior to the sixth Comintern congress Trotskyism, which Lenin had long fought, had become a malignant pest in the Soviet Union. Leon Trotsky, always an opportunist and adventurer, made a reckless grab for the leadership of the Communist Party after the death of Lenin in 1924. The substance of his 'ultra-revolutionary' program was the provocation of civil war against the peasantry as a whole and the unfolding of aggressive foreign policy that could have only resulted in bringing about a war between the capitalist powers and the Soviet Union. His policies to force such an artificial revolution would have been fatal to the Russian Revolution and would have brought about the restoration of capitalism in Russia.
"The Soviet people wanted none of Trotsky's destructive program...At the time of the sixth congress of the Comintern, Trotsky was in exile, as a criminal against the Revolution." (William Z. Foster, History of the Communist Party of the United States, 1952)
And Trotsky became anti-Soviet to the core. "Trotsky, who had been expelled from the Soviet Union in 1929, organized abroad the 'Fourth International' in 1933, which was composed of skeleton groups in many countries. Among its other counter-revolutionary activities, it openly advocated the violent overthrow of the Russian Communist Party leadership and of the Soviet government." (William Z. Foster, History of the Three Internationals, 1955)
We warmly encourage people to read Olgin's Trotskyism: Counter-Revolution in Disguise.
http://marxists.org/archive/olgin/1935/trotskyism/index.htm
Enjoy the 1939 book authorized by the Central Committee of the CPSU: History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks).
