Leon Trotsky – the Fascist
Research and Translation by Adrian Chan-Wyles PhD
Author’s Note: The following article has been exclusively compiled for the British ‘Joseph Stalin – UK’ social media page and is hosted by the BMA (UK) site. The core of this article is an English translation of a Russian language text extracted from the 1994 (Russian language) book entitled ‘Forbidden Stalin’ (Запрещённый Сталин), authored by Lyudo MARTENS (Людо МАРТЕНС). This book is available in English translation from 'Pravda' entitled 'Another View of Stalin'. Where required, (particularly at the beginning), I have added an introduction to Trotsky by way of commentary, to set the stage for what quite rightly amounts to an ‘anti-Trotsky’ exposure. The unstable, illogical and contradictory mind-set exhibited by Trotsky does appear to indicate some form of psychological illness that was not only empowered (rather than treated or cured), but also openly encouraged by the forces of Western anti-Communism. Trotsky’s inability to exercise self-control and self-reflection culminated in his expulsion from the USSR, and the development of what might be better described as a schizophrenic mania, that personally obsessed over the downfall and destruction of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union (in Trotsky’s obviously troubled mind, the two had become inseparable and indistinguishable). What is remarkable is the extent to which Trotsky’s incoherent ramblings have become somehow associated with the genius of Karl Marx, when in reality Trotsky’s angst-ridden outpourings represent the antithesis of Marx. Whereas Marx (Lenin and Stalin) sought to over-throw the bourgeoisie – Trotsky sought to protect and strengthen it. Whereas Marx (Lenin and Stalin) sought to empower the proletariat - Trotsky sought to attack and disempower it. Trotsky’s crime are many, of course, but the greatest must be his 1938 call to his followers to openly aid and assist the powers of world fascism to attack and destroy the Soviet Union. Trotsky’s collusion with the anti-Communist Roman Catholic Church exhibits a further (and bizarre) deviation from the atheistic teachings of Marx. Finally, Trotsky’s assumption that capitalism could never be re-established in Russia was proved devastatingly ‘false’ in late 1991. ACW (22.11.2017)
Ever since Trotsky’s expulsion from the Soviet Union in 1929, Trotskyism has been a potent form of disinformation on the left. The irony is that despite possessing a thin veneer of leftist rhetoric, the foundations of Trotskyism are 1) bourgeois, 2) capitalist, and 3) fascist. Trotskyism is a rightwing lie that existed before the success of the Bolsheviks during the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and which was to be found in the basic principles of the Menshevik Movement. Many Mensheviks had spent time in the developed, capitalist West, and had allowed this experience to warp their judgement with regards to the true nature of the historical and socio-economic reality of the contemporary Russia they inhabit. The Mensheviks split with the Bolsheviks during the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903, where a number of Mensheviks expressed their distaste for an ascending Lenin (notably Martov), and disagreed with his vision for a pro-active and highly disciplined Revolutionary Party. Whereas Lenin wanted a clean break with all bourgeois elements within the RSDLP, Martov (who was openly supported by Trotsky), stated that the correct Revolutionary Path was one of co-operation with the existing Bourgeois State, (in fact Russia was still a Czarist State), and that the plight of the Workers and Peasants should be slowly improved over a long (and indefinite) period of time. Trotsky agitated for many years against Lenin, but suddenly switched his allegiance to the Bolsheviks when it became obvious Lenin was going to win power. This ability to switch side and abandon apparently long held beliefs certainly demonstrates the shallow and mercenary nature of Trotsky’s character. Trotsky was an opportunist and a careerist, but Lenin thought that despite his ideological weaknesses, he could be reformed through hard work and responsibility. This is why Trotsky was permitted to hold relatively high or influential offices in the USSR prior to his expulsion. This trust in Trotsky led directly to the bloody repression of the so-called ‘Kronstadt Rebellion’ of March, 1921, at a time when the Red Army (under the control of Trotsky) was defeating the foreign invaders and the White Russians. The Kronstadt Rebellion was the result of a small number of disaffected soldiers, sailors and civilians who took-up arms against the Bolsheviks, a move that was seen to be dangerous and indicative of White Russian influence. Trotsky was despatched with a Red Army detachment to negotiate and settle this matter amicably, but instead, Trotsky ordered the Red Army to attack the base and destroy the uprising. This led to around 1000 deaths amongst the protestors, with rumours that Trotsky had a similar number executed. Red Army loses are thought to have been around 1000 killed. Anti-Soviet history paints this incident as ‘typical’ of the totalitarian Bolshevik regime, but omits the fact that Lenin was shocked to hear what action Trotsky had independently taken without orders. Lenin had not ordered Trotsky to use violence in the manner in which he did, and again it is ironic that although Trotsky often attacked the record of the Bolshevik regime as being war-like and oppressive, it was he ‘Trotsky’ who had committed one of the greatest examples relating to this allegation. With regard to his handling of the Kronstadt Rebellion, Trotsky thought and behaved like a ‘fascist’, a proclivity he would entertain to a much greater degree, later in his life.
To be clear, following his conversion to the Bolshevik cause, and his ascendency through the ranks, Trotsky fully supported the Bolshevik regime and was instrumental in both its defence and development. However, upon leaving the Soviet Union, he changed his rhetoric altogether, and one is left wondering as to whether he ever held any sincere Revolutionary opinions at any time in his life. Trotsky transformed himself over-night from being a supporter and builder of Communism, to being regarded world-wide as an expert in anti-Communism. What was Trotsky’s ‘new’ manner of interpreting the USSR? Trotsky re-invented Stalin as a ‘nationalist’ and a ‘racist’. Trotsky then re-interpreted the Soviet Union under Stalin as being a rightwing, imperialist State held together by a highly oppressive bureaucratic system. Furthermore, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (with its headquarters in the Kremlin) had many local branches spread throughout the world (i.e. the regional ‘Communist Parties’), which existed as a means for Stalin (Trotsky always ‘personalized’ issues), to extend Soviet imperialist influence beyond the geographical boundaries of Russia. Of course, all of this is lies, but it has proven a potent mix of imagination, ignorance and paranoia over the years. The danger is that those who do not know very much about the true nature of the USSR will come into contact with Trotskyite organizations and Trotskyite propaganda, and gain an entirely ‘false’ and ‘ahistorical’ impression. Again, the shallowness and pettiness of the man is clear for all to see.
Trotsky’s fascist theorizing reached a peak between 1937 and 1940, a period that coincides with the purges of 1936 to 1938 in the USSR itself. Although Trotsky had been exiled from the Soviet Union, he encouraged a ‘fifth column’ in the USSR to agitate for the downfall of the Bolshevik regime. Trotsky’s activities by this time were interpreted by the Soviet Authorities as simply being part of the world-wide bourgeois opposition to the establishment of Scientific Socialism. Trotsky formulated that the Bolsheviks in Russia now formed a new ‘bourgeoisie’, but displaying his own lack of Marxist understanding, he also referred to this imagined phenomenon as a new ‘aristocracy’. Trotsky falsely stated that whilst ordinary Russians starved, the Bolshevik elite lived a life of luxury similar to that enjoyed by the middle class in the United States. Although untrue, this message of hypocrisy has gone down well with capitalists, who actually do live well compared to those they exploit (the point being that capitalists do not ‘pretend’ to be fair, and that Bolsheviks are closet capitalists). Although Russia did not possess the kind of material wealth evident in the USA, this did not stop Trotsky – a former member of the so-called ‘Bolshevik elite’ – from claiming that the Russian working class had been ‘pillaged’ and all their wealth stolen by the Soviet State. These speeches made Trotsky appear indistinguishable from the Menshevik leaders who had waged a counter-Revolutionary armed struggle (together with the armies of Whites and Interventionists) during the Russian Civil War (1918-1921) against Lenin. These speeches were also indistinguishable from the rhetoric employed by classical rightists from within the imperialist states. Trotsky’s rhetoric can be favorably compared with a number of anti-Communist ideologues emanating from the Christian right in the West, who continuously accused the Soviet Union of being another form of capitalist State practicing class differentiation (similar to that associated with Napoleon).
After WWII, the USA – via the CIA – began to agitate in Europe against the influence of the Soviet Union, whereby ‘Socialist’ false-fronts were stablished as a mean to attract workers and indoctrinate them with Trotskyite anti-Soviet ideology. Many of these ‘Socialist’ false-fronts have proven highly effective and still exist throughout the world today, acting as beacons for anti-Soviet narratives. These entities move the workers away from the legitimate study of Marx and Engels, and toward an exclusively ‘Trotskyite’ (or ‘bourgeois’) interpretation of events. This in reality is the practice of pseudo-history, and represents a ‘bourgeois’ re-imagining of the USSR along capitalist lines. In as much as, a small number that comprise the Bolshevik elite (of around 12 – 15 million) hold the general population of 150 million in a state of virtual slavery through a planned economy, collectivization and forced military conscription. This is what Trotsky termed ‘Stalinism’. Since, according to Trotsky, it was historically impossible to return Russia to the state of capitalism, then any opposition to the Soviet System - be it from the Social Democrats, the revisionists, the bourgeoisie, the counter-Revolutionaries, or even the fascists - was permissible. Trotsky became the spokesman for the hopes of all reactionary forces, anti-Socialists and fascists, by claiming that he spoke for the 150 million Soviet citizens who lived (as he thought) in a state of virtual slavery.
Trotsky was one of the first to equate Bolshevism with fascism, and imply that both ideologies amounted to the same thing. What irked Trotsky was that the Soviet ideologues defined Soviet Communism as Marxist-Leninism, and as such stated that the Soviet System rejected all forms of fascism (i.e. ‘racism’ and ‘anti-Communism’), and stood in opposition to all forces of International Fascism. Nevertheless, Trotsky’s idea that the two ideologies were indistinguishable was popular in the 1930’s, and was particularly strong in reactionary Catholic circles. The Vatican and the Catholic Church viewed the atheistic Communist Party as their sworn enemy, and the world fascist movement as their closest (bourgeois) ally. Trotsky stated:
‘Fascism must triumph and win the final victory, but its best ally is the one who paves the way around the world, this is Stalinism.’
‘Indeed, nothing distinguishes Stalin's political methods from Hitler, but the difference in results on an international scale is significant.’
‘An important part of the Soviet apparatus, which is becoming more and more important, has been formulated by fascists who still have to admit that they are fascists. A direct comparison of the Soviet regime with the fascist regime would be a great historical mistake ... But the symmetry of political superstructures and the similarity of totalitarian methods and psychological profiles are striking ... The agony of Stalinism is the most terrible and most disgusting performance on Earth.’
Here, Trotsky develops one of the first versions of the most important disinformation elements used by the CIA (and fascist groups) during the 1950s – namely the theme of ‘red fascism’. Using the word fascism, Trotsky tried to harness the hatred felt by the masses in response to the terrorist dictatorships of the major capitalist States, and unjustly diverted it toward Soviet Socialism. After 1944-1945 all German, Hungarian, Croatian and Ukrainian fascist leaders who fled to the West, put on the masks of ‘democrats’; they praised the ‘democracy’ of the United States, the new forces of US hegemonism, and became the main source of support for the reactionary and fascist forces in the world. These ‘old’ fascists, loyal to their criminal past, developed the same theme: ‘Bolshevism is not only the same fascism, it is far worse.’ This inverted Trotskyite thinking repackages the immense crimes of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi German regime as ‘freedom fighting’, and the Soviet sacrifice of 27-40 million casualties as a hopeless slaughter for no reason (perpetuated not by Hitler and his invading armies, but of Stalin and the Soviet Authorities which made the ordinary Soviet people unnecessarily ‘resist’ the actions of their Nazi ‘liberators’). Furthermore, by the time the forces of European fascism had already begun its oppressive and destructive wars (in Ethiopia and Spain, as well as the seizure of Austria and Czechoslovakia), Trotsky assured the world that no matter what the fascists did – ‘the most terrible and most disgusting performance’ on Earth was the ‘agony of Socialism’!
Trotsky became the chief propagandist of defeatism and capitulation in the Soviet Union. His idea of a ‘world revolution’ contributed to a preferred strangulation of the Socialist Revolution in the USSR. Trotsky propagated the idea that in case of fascist aggression against the Soviet Union, Stalin and the Bolsheviks ‘will become traitors’, and that under their leadership the defeat of the Soviet Union is inevitable. Here are his thoughts on this matter:
‘The military situation within the Soviet Union is contradictory: on the one hand, we have a population of 150 million people, awakened by the greatest Revolution in history ... with a more or less well-developed military industry. On the other hand, we have a political regime that paralyzes all the forces of the new society. In one thing, I am sure that the political regime will not survive the war. The social regime, which is the nationalized property of production, is incomparably more powerful than a political regime that has a despotic character ... Those who support this political regime and its bureaucracy are afraid of the prospect of war, because they know better than us that their regime will not survive in the war.’
Once again, on one side are the fabled ‘150 million’ ‘good citizens’, awakened by the Revolution. It remains only to wonder who woke them, if not the Bolshevik Party and Stalin: in 1921-1928 the peasant masses were not exactly ‘awakened’. These ‘150 million’ had a ‘developed military industry’. As if it were not the Stalinist policy of collectivization and industrialization, carried out thanks to its steel will, which allowed the creation of an arms industry in record time! Thanks to his precise line, his will, his ability to organize, the Bolshevik regime awakened the strength of the people, whose lot was ignorance, prejudice and primitive labour organisation. According to the rantings of provocateur Trotsky, the Bolshevik regime paralyzed these social forces! Trotsky gives all sorts of absurd predictions: the Bolshevik regime certainly will not survive the war! So, two propagandistic themes that were dear to the Nazis could be found in Trotsky's writings: namely defeatism and anti-Bolshevism.
‘Berlin knows to what extent the Kremlin clique demoralized the army and the population of the country in its struggle for self-preservation ... Stalin continues to undermine the moral forces and the general level of resistance of the country. Careerists without honour and conscience, on which Stalin must rely, will betray the country in a difficult time.’
In his hatred for Communism, Trotsky incited Hitler’s Nazi German regime to wage war with the Soviet Union. He, as an apparent ‘outstanding expert’ on the Soviet Union, told the Nazis that they had every chance of winning the war against Stalin: the army and the population were demoralized (a lie!), Stalin has upset the resistance (lie!) Stalinist and his ‘weak’ supporters will surrender at the beginning of the war (a lie!). In the Soviet Union, Trotskyist propaganda produced a double effect. It nurtured defeatism and capitulationism, stating that fascism was guaranteed victory, due to the USSR containing such rotten and incompetent leadership. This Trotskyite propaganda also called for attempted ‘uprisings’ and ‘murders’ of Bolshevik leaders, ‘who will betray the USSR in difficult times.’ This rhetoric was designed to weaken the Soviet Union from within, but it failed on all accounts. Of course, Trotsky did inspire certain groups of disaffected individuals here and there, but these groups were easily detected and eradicated from the Soviet Union. However, Trotsky’s pro-fascist stance did empower Hitler and encourage him to unleash a genocidal invasion of the Soviet Union which killed millions due to Trotsky’s encouragement.
Regarding the military conspiracy involving Tukhachevsky, it is clear that within the Cadres of the Red Army there really existed an extensive anti-Communist organization. Trotsky had been in a good position in relation to this phenomenon. With regard to Trotsky’s attitude toward Tukhachevsky, he states:
‘Here I must state what my relations with Tukhachevsky were ... The Communist convictions of this officer of the old guard I never considered serious ... The general fought to protect the security of the Soviet Union from what was done in the interests of Stalin's personal security.’
‘The army needs honest, capable people, as well as economists and scientists, independent people with broad thinking: every man and every woman with independent thinking comes into conflict with the bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy must lose one of its heads in order to preserve itself ... A person who is a real general like Tukhachevsky needs independent assistants, other generals around him, and he evaluates each person in accordance with his inner values. Bureaucracy needs humble people, entangled people, slaves, and two These types of people in conflict in each state.’
‘Tukhachevsky, and along with him the whole genre of his type of military personnel, disappeared in the fight against the police dictatorship hanging over the Red Army officers. According to its social characteristics, the military bureaucracy is no better than the civil bureaucracy ... If the bureaucracy is viewed as a whole, it is inherently possesses two functions: power and administration, these two functions have now come into acute contradiction. To ensure good governance, totalitarian power must be destroyed ...
What does the new duality of power mean: the first step towards the collapse of the Red Army or the beginning of a new civil war in the country? The current generation of commissars means the control of the Bonapartist clique over the military and civil administration, and, therefore, over the people ... The current commanders who grew up in the Red Army cannot be detached from it and have the unconditional authority acquired over many years. On the other hand, the commissars recruited from the sons of bureaucrats have no revolutionary experience, no military knowledge, or even ideological capital. Such is the archetype of careerists of the new school. They are called only to command, because they are ‘vigilant’, that is, they represent the police in the army. Commanders show them their hatred of what they serve. The dual command regime turns into a struggle between the political police and the army, and the central authority on the side of the police ...
The development of the country, especially the growth of its new needs, is incommensurable with the totalitarian husks; This is why we see a tendency to resist bureaucracy in all manifestations of life ... In the field of technology, economics, education, culture, defense, people with experience, with knowledge of science and with power automatically reject agents of the Stalinist dictatorship, who are mostly uncultured and uncouth cynics like Yezhov and Mehlis.’
Trotsky had to admitted that Tukhachevsky (and those who were like him) were never Communists: previously, Trotsky himself had identified Tukhachevsky as a candidate for a military coup like that of Napoleon. Moreover, in order to preserve a possible ally in the ruthless struggle against Stalin, Trotsky denied the existence of a bourgeois counter-revolutionary opposition in the army elite. In fact, he supported any opposition against Stalin and the Bolshevik Party, including Tukhachevsky, and others, etc. Trotsky headed the united political front along with all the anti-communists in the army. This clearly shows that Trotsky could come to power only in alliance with counter-Revolutionary forces. Trotsky declared that those who fought Stalin and the Party leadership in the army were in fact fighting for the security of the country, whereas officers loyal to the party defended Stalin's dictatorship and his personal interests.
It is noteworthy that Trotsky's analysis of the struggle within the Red Army coincides with the analysis of Roman Kolkovits and his report to the US Army. First, Trotsky opposes party measures to ensure political control in the Red Army. Inparticular, Trotsky attacks the return to the army of political commissars who played a significant political role in the anti-fascist resistance during the war, and helped young soldiers maintain a clear political line, despite the incredible complexity of the problems posed by the war. Trotsky encouraged the elite and exceptional sentiments among the military against the party with the aim of splitting the Red Army and provoking a civil war. Further, Trotsky declared his disposition to independence, that is, the ‘professionalism’ of the officers, saying that they are capable, honest and broad-minded, so that their opposition to the party increases! Similarly, anti-Communist elements like Tokaev defended their dissident bourgeois ideas with reference to Trotsky’s ideas of independence and broad thinking!
Trotsky stated that there was a conflict between the ‘Stalinist’ government and the government of the country, and that he supported the government of the county over that of Stalin. In fact, the phenomenon that he describes was an antagonism between the Bolshevik Party and the state bureaucracy. Like all anti-Communists in the world, Trotsky slandered the Communist Party, calling it ‘bureaucratic’. In reality, the real threat of bureaucratism came from a part of the administrative apparatus that was not essentially Communist, and was looking for an opportunity to get rid of the ‘suffocating’ political and ideological control of the party in order to permanently remain above the rest of society, and gain all sorts of privileges and benefits. The Party's political control over the military and civilian leadership was especially aimed at combating such tendencies of bureaucratic disintegration. When Trotsky wrote that in order to ensure good leadership of the country the party must be liquidated, he was the spokesman of the most bureaucratic moods in the state apparatus.
In general, Trotsky defended the ‘professionalism’ of the military, technical, scientific and cultural cadres, that is, all technocrats who tried to get rid of party control and wanted ‘to limit party influence on all aspects of life’, in accordance with Trotsky's injunctions. In the class struggle that took place in the State and Party in the thirties and forties, the front line passed between the forces defending the Stalinist-Leninist positions, and those who were inspired by technocracy, bureaucracy and militarism. It is the last force that will achieve in its aims at the right time, manifesting as hegemony over the leadership of the Party under the Khrushchev coup.
Another fact that must not be over-looked (particularly in recent times) is that Trotsky inspired terrorism and armed demonstrations. Since 1934, Trotsky consistently called for the overthrow of the Bolsheviks through terrorism and armed protests. In April 1938, Trotsky declared that an attempt would inevitably be made in the USSR against Stalin and other Bolshevik leaders. Of course, he went on, individual terror contradicts Lenin's tactics, but he explained, ‘the laws of history tell us that assassination attempts and acts of terror against such brigands, like Stalin, are unavoidable.’ This is how, in 1938 Trotsky put forward a programme of individual terror:
‘Stalin destroys the army and crushes the country ... Irreconcilable hatred accumulates around him, and terrible revenge hangs over his head. Attempted murder? It is possible that the regime, which under the pretext of combating terrorism destroyed the best minds in the country, will eventually experience individual terror. Anyone can add that this would be against the laws of history, if the robber in power were not the object of acts of revenge from desperate terrorists. However, the Fourth International ... must not do anything from despair and personal thirst for revenge, and individual terror is too much for us ... As Stalin's personal future concerns us, we can only hope that his personal destiny is to live long enough, to see the collapse of his system. But he will not have to wait long.’
For the Trotskyists, it would be ‘against the laws of history’ if someone did not attempt to kill Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, or Zhdanov, etc. It was an ‘intelligent’ and ‘reasonable’ move for the secret Trotskyist organization to come forward with such a message. There was no mention of ‘organizing an attempted murder’; he said: ‘for Stalin to be avenged by terrorists is part of the laws of history.’ Recall that in the anti-Communist circles, which included Tokaev and Alexander Zinoviev, there was much talk about preparations for an attempted murder of the Bolshevik leaders. Everyone can easily establish that these forces were inspired by the writings of Trotsky. Trotsky alternated calls for individual terror with the propaganda of an armed uprising against the Bolshevik leadership. In general, he used the veiled and misleading formulation of his misinterpretation of a ‘political revolution’. During a dispute with the Trotskyite Mandel in 1989, it was said that Trotsky called for an armed struggle against the Soviet regime. Mandel got angry and began to shout that it was a ‘Stalinist lie’, since ‘political revolution’ means a people's revolution, but a peaceful one. This anecdote is an example of the duplicity systematically applied by professional anti-Communists, whose primary task is to introduce into the ranks of the left divergent Trotskyite propaganda. Here, Mandel wanted to address the audience of environmentalists. Here is the programme of anti-Bolshevik armed struggle put forward by Trotsky:
‘The defense of the country can be organized only through the destruction of the autocratic clique of saboteurs and defeatists.’
As a true Socialist-Revolutionary, Trotsky declared that Socialism united in itself the exploitative features of Czarism, the nobility and the bourgeoisie - but, he said, Socialism did not have that broad social base, like those other exploiting forces! Therefore, the anti-Socialist masses can overthrow Socialism much easier. It was a call to all reactionary forces to attack the disgusting, shaky regime and to hold the ‘Fourth Revolution’. In September 1938, Austria was already annexed. This was the month of Munich, where French and British imperialism gave Hitler a green light for the occupation of Czechoslovakia. In his new ‘Transitional Programme’, Trotsky set the tasks of his organization in the Soviet Union, despite the fact that he himself agreed that ‘as an organization ... Trotskyism is certainly extremely weak in the Soviet Union.’ He continues:
‘The Thermidorian oligarchy ... is kept at the expense of terrorist methods ... the main political task in the USSR is still the overthrow of this very Thermidorian bureaucracy ... Only a victorious revolutionary uprising of the oppressed masses can revive the Soviet regime and guarantee its further development to Socialism. There is only one party capable of leading the uprising of Soviet people - the Party of the Fourth International.’
This document, which all the Trotskyist sects regard as their main programme, contains a significant statement. When will this ‘rebellion’ and ‘performance’ take place? Trotsky's answer is striking in its directness: Trotsky planned his ‘uprising’ during the time the Nazi Germans attacked the Soviet Union:
‘The motivation for a revolutionary upsurge of Soviet workers, perhaps, will be given by events outside the country.’
The following quotation is a good example of a double approach. In 1933, Trotsky declared that one of the ‘principal crimes’ of the German Stalinists was their rejection of a united front with the Social Democrats against fascism, but before Hitler came to power in 1933, the Social Democrats did everything they could to preserve the capitalist regime and repeatedly refused to join forces with the German Communist Party. In May 1940, eight months after the outbreak of World War II, Trotsky, a great specialist in the ‘united front’, who suggested that the Red Army would begin an uprising against the Bolshevik regime! He wrote in his Open Letter to the Soviet workers:
‘The goal of the Fourth International ... is the revival of the USSR by purging it of the parasitic bureaucracy. This can be done only by one way: by workers, peasants, soldiers of the Red Army and sailors of the Red Fleet, who will rise against a new caste of oppressors and parasites. To prepare this uprising of the masses, we need a new party ... The Fourth International.’
At a time when Hitler was preparing for war with the Soviet Union, the provocateur Trotsky urged the Red Army to make a coup. Such an event would cause great disasters, opening the whole country up to the danger of fascist tanks.
©opyright: Adrian Chan-Wyles (ShiDaDao) 2017.
Russian Language Source:
http://maxpark.com/community/129/content/2072351
Ever since Trotsky’s expulsion from the Soviet Union in 1929, Trotskyism has been a potent form of disinformation on the left. The irony is that despite possessing a thin veneer of leftist rhetoric, the foundations of Trotskyism are 1) bourgeois, 2) capitalist, and 3) fascist. Trotskyism is a rightwing lie that existed before the success of the Bolsheviks during the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and which was to be found in the basic principles of the Menshevik Movement. Many Mensheviks had spent time in the developed, capitalist West, and had allowed this experience to warp their judgement with regards to the true nature of the historical and socio-economic reality of the contemporary Russia they inhabit. The Mensheviks split with the Bolsheviks during the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903, where a number of Mensheviks expressed their distaste for an ascending Lenin (notably Martov), and disagreed with his vision for a pro-active and highly disciplined Revolutionary Party. Whereas Lenin wanted a clean break with all bourgeois elements within the RSDLP, Martov (who was openly supported by Trotsky), stated that the correct Revolutionary Path was one of co-operation with the existing Bourgeois State, (in fact Russia was still a Czarist State), and that the plight of the Workers and Peasants should be slowly improved over a long (and indefinite) period of time. Trotsky agitated for many years against Lenin, but suddenly switched his allegiance to the Bolsheviks when it became obvious Lenin was going to win power. This ability to switch side and abandon apparently long held beliefs certainly demonstrates the shallow and mercenary nature of Trotsky’s character. Trotsky was an opportunist and a careerist, but Lenin thought that despite his ideological weaknesses, he could be reformed through hard work and responsibility. This is why Trotsky was permitted to hold relatively high or influential offices in the USSR prior to his expulsion. This trust in Trotsky led directly to the bloody repression of the so-called ‘Kronstadt Rebellion’ of March, 1921, at a time when the Red Army (under the control of Trotsky) was defeating the foreign invaders and the White Russians. The Kronstadt Rebellion was the result of a small number of disaffected soldiers, sailors and civilians who took-up arms against the Bolsheviks, a move that was seen to be dangerous and indicative of White Russian influence. Trotsky was despatched with a Red Army detachment to negotiate and settle this matter amicably, but instead, Trotsky ordered the Red Army to attack the base and destroy the uprising. This led to around 1000 deaths amongst the protestors, with rumours that Trotsky had a similar number executed. Red Army loses are thought to have been around 1000 killed. Anti-Soviet history paints this incident as ‘typical’ of the totalitarian Bolshevik regime, but omits the fact that Lenin was shocked to hear what action Trotsky had independently taken without orders. Lenin had not ordered Trotsky to use violence in the manner in which he did, and again it is ironic that although Trotsky often attacked the record of the Bolshevik regime as being war-like and oppressive, it was he ‘Trotsky’ who had committed one of the greatest examples relating to this allegation. With regard to his handling of the Kronstadt Rebellion, Trotsky thought and behaved like a ‘fascist’, a proclivity he would entertain to a much greater degree, later in his life.
To be clear, following his conversion to the Bolshevik cause, and his ascendency through the ranks, Trotsky fully supported the Bolshevik regime and was instrumental in both its defence and development. However, upon leaving the Soviet Union, he changed his rhetoric altogether, and one is left wondering as to whether he ever held any sincere Revolutionary opinions at any time in his life. Trotsky transformed himself over-night from being a supporter and builder of Communism, to being regarded world-wide as an expert in anti-Communism. What was Trotsky’s ‘new’ manner of interpreting the USSR? Trotsky re-invented Stalin as a ‘nationalist’ and a ‘racist’. Trotsky then re-interpreted the Soviet Union under Stalin as being a rightwing, imperialist State held together by a highly oppressive bureaucratic system. Furthermore, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (with its headquarters in the Kremlin) had many local branches spread throughout the world (i.e. the regional ‘Communist Parties’), which existed as a means for Stalin (Trotsky always ‘personalized’ issues), to extend Soviet imperialist influence beyond the geographical boundaries of Russia. Of course, all of this is lies, but it has proven a potent mix of imagination, ignorance and paranoia over the years. The danger is that those who do not know very much about the true nature of the USSR will come into contact with Trotskyite organizations and Trotskyite propaganda, and gain an entirely ‘false’ and ‘ahistorical’ impression. Again, the shallowness and pettiness of the man is clear for all to see.
Trotsky’s fascist theorizing reached a peak between 1937 and 1940, a period that coincides with the purges of 1936 to 1938 in the USSR itself. Although Trotsky had been exiled from the Soviet Union, he encouraged a ‘fifth column’ in the USSR to agitate for the downfall of the Bolshevik regime. Trotsky’s activities by this time were interpreted by the Soviet Authorities as simply being part of the world-wide bourgeois opposition to the establishment of Scientific Socialism. Trotsky formulated that the Bolsheviks in Russia now formed a new ‘bourgeoisie’, but displaying his own lack of Marxist understanding, he also referred to this imagined phenomenon as a new ‘aristocracy’. Trotsky falsely stated that whilst ordinary Russians starved, the Bolshevik elite lived a life of luxury similar to that enjoyed by the middle class in the United States. Although untrue, this message of hypocrisy has gone down well with capitalists, who actually do live well compared to those they exploit (the point being that capitalists do not ‘pretend’ to be fair, and that Bolsheviks are closet capitalists). Although Russia did not possess the kind of material wealth evident in the USA, this did not stop Trotsky – a former member of the so-called ‘Bolshevik elite’ – from claiming that the Russian working class had been ‘pillaged’ and all their wealth stolen by the Soviet State. These speeches made Trotsky appear indistinguishable from the Menshevik leaders who had waged a counter-Revolutionary armed struggle (together with the armies of Whites and Interventionists) during the Russian Civil War (1918-1921) against Lenin. These speeches were also indistinguishable from the rhetoric employed by classical rightists from within the imperialist states. Trotsky’s rhetoric can be favorably compared with a number of anti-Communist ideologues emanating from the Christian right in the West, who continuously accused the Soviet Union of being another form of capitalist State practicing class differentiation (similar to that associated with Napoleon).
After WWII, the USA – via the CIA – began to agitate in Europe against the influence of the Soviet Union, whereby ‘Socialist’ false-fronts were stablished as a mean to attract workers and indoctrinate them with Trotskyite anti-Soviet ideology. Many of these ‘Socialist’ false-fronts have proven highly effective and still exist throughout the world today, acting as beacons for anti-Soviet narratives. These entities move the workers away from the legitimate study of Marx and Engels, and toward an exclusively ‘Trotskyite’ (or ‘bourgeois’) interpretation of events. This in reality is the practice of pseudo-history, and represents a ‘bourgeois’ re-imagining of the USSR along capitalist lines. In as much as, a small number that comprise the Bolshevik elite (of around 12 – 15 million) hold the general population of 150 million in a state of virtual slavery through a planned economy, collectivization and forced military conscription. This is what Trotsky termed ‘Stalinism’. Since, according to Trotsky, it was historically impossible to return Russia to the state of capitalism, then any opposition to the Soviet System - be it from the Social Democrats, the revisionists, the bourgeoisie, the counter-Revolutionaries, or even the fascists - was permissible. Trotsky became the spokesman for the hopes of all reactionary forces, anti-Socialists and fascists, by claiming that he spoke for the 150 million Soviet citizens who lived (as he thought) in a state of virtual slavery.
Trotsky was one of the first to equate Bolshevism with fascism, and imply that both ideologies amounted to the same thing. What irked Trotsky was that the Soviet ideologues defined Soviet Communism as Marxist-Leninism, and as such stated that the Soviet System rejected all forms of fascism (i.e. ‘racism’ and ‘anti-Communism’), and stood in opposition to all forces of International Fascism. Nevertheless, Trotsky’s idea that the two ideologies were indistinguishable was popular in the 1930’s, and was particularly strong in reactionary Catholic circles. The Vatican and the Catholic Church viewed the atheistic Communist Party as their sworn enemy, and the world fascist movement as their closest (bourgeois) ally. Trotsky stated:
‘Fascism must triumph and win the final victory, but its best ally is the one who paves the way around the world, this is Stalinism.’
‘Indeed, nothing distinguishes Stalin's political methods from Hitler, but the difference in results on an international scale is significant.’
‘An important part of the Soviet apparatus, which is becoming more and more important, has been formulated by fascists who still have to admit that they are fascists. A direct comparison of the Soviet regime with the fascist regime would be a great historical mistake ... But the symmetry of political superstructures and the similarity of totalitarian methods and psychological profiles are striking ... The agony of Stalinism is the most terrible and most disgusting performance on Earth.’
Here, Trotsky develops one of the first versions of the most important disinformation elements used by the CIA (and fascist groups) during the 1950s – namely the theme of ‘red fascism’. Using the word fascism, Trotsky tried to harness the hatred felt by the masses in response to the terrorist dictatorships of the major capitalist States, and unjustly diverted it toward Soviet Socialism. After 1944-1945 all German, Hungarian, Croatian and Ukrainian fascist leaders who fled to the West, put on the masks of ‘democrats’; they praised the ‘democracy’ of the United States, the new forces of US hegemonism, and became the main source of support for the reactionary and fascist forces in the world. These ‘old’ fascists, loyal to their criminal past, developed the same theme: ‘Bolshevism is not only the same fascism, it is far worse.’ This inverted Trotskyite thinking repackages the immense crimes of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi German regime as ‘freedom fighting’, and the Soviet sacrifice of 27-40 million casualties as a hopeless slaughter for no reason (perpetuated not by Hitler and his invading armies, but of Stalin and the Soviet Authorities which made the ordinary Soviet people unnecessarily ‘resist’ the actions of their Nazi ‘liberators’). Furthermore, by the time the forces of European fascism had already begun its oppressive and destructive wars (in Ethiopia and Spain, as well as the seizure of Austria and Czechoslovakia), Trotsky assured the world that no matter what the fascists did – ‘the most terrible and most disgusting performance’ on Earth was the ‘agony of Socialism’!
Trotsky became the chief propagandist of defeatism and capitulation in the Soviet Union. His idea of a ‘world revolution’ contributed to a preferred strangulation of the Socialist Revolution in the USSR. Trotsky propagated the idea that in case of fascist aggression against the Soviet Union, Stalin and the Bolsheviks ‘will become traitors’, and that under their leadership the defeat of the Soviet Union is inevitable. Here are his thoughts on this matter:
‘The military situation within the Soviet Union is contradictory: on the one hand, we have a population of 150 million people, awakened by the greatest Revolution in history ... with a more or less well-developed military industry. On the other hand, we have a political regime that paralyzes all the forces of the new society. In one thing, I am sure that the political regime will not survive the war. The social regime, which is the nationalized property of production, is incomparably more powerful than a political regime that has a despotic character ... Those who support this political regime and its bureaucracy are afraid of the prospect of war, because they know better than us that their regime will not survive in the war.’
Once again, on one side are the fabled ‘150 million’ ‘good citizens’, awakened by the Revolution. It remains only to wonder who woke them, if not the Bolshevik Party and Stalin: in 1921-1928 the peasant masses were not exactly ‘awakened’. These ‘150 million’ had a ‘developed military industry’. As if it were not the Stalinist policy of collectivization and industrialization, carried out thanks to its steel will, which allowed the creation of an arms industry in record time! Thanks to his precise line, his will, his ability to organize, the Bolshevik regime awakened the strength of the people, whose lot was ignorance, prejudice and primitive labour organisation. According to the rantings of provocateur Trotsky, the Bolshevik regime paralyzed these social forces! Trotsky gives all sorts of absurd predictions: the Bolshevik regime certainly will not survive the war! So, two propagandistic themes that were dear to the Nazis could be found in Trotsky's writings: namely defeatism and anti-Bolshevism.
‘Berlin knows to what extent the Kremlin clique demoralized the army and the population of the country in its struggle for self-preservation ... Stalin continues to undermine the moral forces and the general level of resistance of the country. Careerists without honour and conscience, on which Stalin must rely, will betray the country in a difficult time.’
In his hatred for Communism, Trotsky incited Hitler’s Nazi German regime to wage war with the Soviet Union. He, as an apparent ‘outstanding expert’ on the Soviet Union, told the Nazis that they had every chance of winning the war against Stalin: the army and the population were demoralized (a lie!), Stalin has upset the resistance (lie!) Stalinist and his ‘weak’ supporters will surrender at the beginning of the war (a lie!). In the Soviet Union, Trotskyist propaganda produced a double effect. It nurtured defeatism and capitulationism, stating that fascism was guaranteed victory, due to the USSR containing such rotten and incompetent leadership. This Trotskyite propaganda also called for attempted ‘uprisings’ and ‘murders’ of Bolshevik leaders, ‘who will betray the USSR in difficult times.’ This rhetoric was designed to weaken the Soviet Union from within, but it failed on all accounts. Of course, Trotsky did inspire certain groups of disaffected individuals here and there, but these groups were easily detected and eradicated from the Soviet Union. However, Trotsky’s pro-fascist stance did empower Hitler and encourage him to unleash a genocidal invasion of the Soviet Union which killed millions due to Trotsky’s encouragement.
Regarding the military conspiracy involving Tukhachevsky, it is clear that within the Cadres of the Red Army there really existed an extensive anti-Communist organization. Trotsky had been in a good position in relation to this phenomenon. With regard to Trotsky’s attitude toward Tukhachevsky, he states:
‘Here I must state what my relations with Tukhachevsky were ... The Communist convictions of this officer of the old guard I never considered serious ... The general fought to protect the security of the Soviet Union from what was done in the interests of Stalin's personal security.’
‘The army needs honest, capable people, as well as economists and scientists, independent people with broad thinking: every man and every woman with independent thinking comes into conflict with the bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy must lose one of its heads in order to preserve itself ... A person who is a real general like Tukhachevsky needs independent assistants, other generals around him, and he evaluates each person in accordance with his inner values. Bureaucracy needs humble people, entangled people, slaves, and two These types of people in conflict in each state.’
‘Tukhachevsky, and along with him the whole genre of his type of military personnel, disappeared in the fight against the police dictatorship hanging over the Red Army officers. According to its social characteristics, the military bureaucracy is no better than the civil bureaucracy ... If the bureaucracy is viewed as a whole, it is inherently possesses two functions: power and administration, these two functions have now come into acute contradiction. To ensure good governance, totalitarian power must be destroyed ...
What does the new duality of power mean: the first step towards the collapse of the Red Army or the beginning of a new civil war in the country? The current generation of commissars means the control of the Bonapartist clique over the military and civil administration, and, therefore, over the people ... The current commanders who grew up in the Red Army cannot be detached from it and have the unconditional authority acquired over many years. On the other hand, the commissars recruited from the sons of bureaucrats have no revolutionary experience, no military knowledge, or even ideological capital. Such is the archetype of careerists of the new school. They are called only to command, because they are ‘vigilant’, that is, they represent the police in the army. Commanders show them their hatred of what they serve. The dual command regime turns into a struggle between the political police and the army, and the central authority on the side of the police ...
The development of the country, especially the growth of its new needs, is incommensurable with the totalitarian husks; This is why we see a tendency to resist bureaucracy in all manifestations of life ... In the field of technology, economics, education, culture, defense, people with experience, with knowledge of science and with power automatically reject agents of the Stalinist dictatorship, who are mostly uncultured and uncouth cynics like Yezhov and Mehlis.’
Trotsky had to admitted that Tukhachevsky (and those who were like him) were never Communists: previously, Trotsky himself had identified Tukhachevsky as a candidate for a military coup like that of Napoleon. Moreover, in order to preserve a possible ally in the ruthless struggle against Stalin, Trotsky denied the existence of a bourgeois counter-revolutionary opposition in the army elite. In fact, he supported any opposition against Stalin and the Bolshevik Party, including Tukhachevsky, and others, etc. Trotsky headed the united political front along with all the anti-communists in the army. This clearly shows that Trotsky could come to power only in alliance with counter-Revolutionary forces. Trotsky declared that those who fought Stalin and the Party leadership in the army were in fact fighting for the security of the country, whereas officers loyal to the party defended Stalin's dictatorship and his personal interests.
It is noteworthy that Trotsky's analysis of the struggle within the Red Army coincides with the analysis of Roman Kolkovits and his report to the US Army. First, Trotsky opposes party measures to ensure political control in the Red Army. Inparticular, Trotsky attacks the return to the army of political commissars who played a significant political role in the anti-fascist resistance during the war, and helped young soldiers maintain a clear political line, despite the incredible complexity of the problems posed by the war. Trotsky encouraged the elite and exceptional sentiments among the military against the party with the aim of splitting the Red Army and provoking a civil war. Further, Trotsky declared his disposition to independence, that is, the ‘professionalism’ of the officers, saying that they are capable, honest and broad-minded, so that their opposition to the party increases! Similarly, anti-Communist elements like Tokaev defended their dissident bourgeois ideas with reference to Trotsky’s ideas of independence and broad thinking!
Trotsky stated that there was a conflict between the ‘Stalinist’ government and the government of the country, and that he supported the government of the county over that of Stalin. In fact, the phenomenon that he describes was an antagonism between the Bolshevik Party and the state bureaucracy. Like all anti-Communists in the world, Trotsky slandered the Communist Party, calling it ‘bureaucratic’. In reality, the real threat of bureaucratism came from a part of the administrative apparatus that was not essentially Communist, and was looking for an opportunity to get rid of the ‘suffocating’ political and ideological control of the party in order to permanently remain above the rest of society, and gain all sorts of privileges and benefits. The Party's political control over the military and civilian leadership was especially aimed at combating such tendencies of bureaucratic disintegration. When Trotsky wrote that in order to ensure good leadership of the country the party must be liquidated, he was the spokesman of the most bureaucratic moods in the state apparatus.
In general, Trotsky defended the ‘professionalism’ of the military, technical, scientific and cultural cadres, that is, all technocrats who tried to get rid of party control and wanted ‘to limit party influence on all aspects of life’, in accordance with Trotsky's injunctions. In the class struggle that took place in the State and Party in the thirties and forties, the front line passed between the forces defending the Stalinist-Leninist positions, and those who were inspired by technocracy, bureaucracy and militarism. It is the last force that will achieve in its aims at the right time, manifesting as hegemony over the leadership of the Party under the Khrushchev coup.
Another fact that must not be over-looked (particularly in recent times) is that Trotsky inspired terrorism and armed demonstrations. Since 1934, Trotsky consistently called for the overthrow of the Bolsheviks through terrorism and armed protests. In April 1938, Trotsky declared that an attempt would inevitably be made in the USSR against Stalin and other Bolshevik leaders. Of course, he went on, individual terror contradicts Lenin's tactics, but he explained, ‘the laws of history tell us that assassination attempts and acts of terror against such brigands, like Stalin, are unavoidable.’ This is how, in 1938 Trotsky put forward a programme of individual terror:
‘Stalin destroys the army and crushes the country ... Irreconcilable hatred accumulates around him, and terrible revenge hangs over his head. Attempted murder? It is possible that the regime, which under the pretext of combating terrorism destroyed the best minds in the country, will eventually experience individual terror. Anyone can add that this would be against the laws of history, if the robber in power were not the object of acts of revenge from desperate terrorists. However, the Fourth International ... must not do anything from despair and personal thirst for revenge, and individual terror is too much for us ... As Stalin's personal future concerns us, we can only hope that his personal destiny is to live long enough, to see the collapse of his system. But he will not have to wait long.’
For the Trotskyists, it would be ‘against the laws of history’ if someone did not attempt to kill Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, or Zhdanov, etc. It was an ‘intelligent’ and ‘reasonable’ move for the secret Trotskyist organization to come forward with such a message. There was no mention of ‘organizing an attempted murder’; he said: ‘for Stalin to be avenged by terrorists is part of the laws of history.’ Recall that in the anti-Communist circles, which included Tokaev and Alexander Zinoviev, there was much talk about preparations for an attempted murder of the Bolshevik leaders. Everyone can easily establish that these forces were inspired by the writings of Trotsky. Trotsky alternated calls for individual terror with the propaganda of an armed uprising against the Bolshevik leadership. In general, he used the veiled and misleading formulation of his misinterpretation of a ‘political revolution’. During a dispute with the Trotskyite Mandel in 1989, it was said that Trotsky called for an armed struggle against the Soviet regime. Mandel got angry and began to shout that it was a ‘Stalinist lie’, since ‘political revolution’ means a people's revolution, but a peaceful one. This anecdote is an example of the duplicity systematically applied by professional anti-Communists, whose primary task is to introduce into the ranks of the left divergent Trotskyite propaganda. Here, Mandel wanted to address the audience of environmentalists. Here is the programme of anti-Bolshevik armed struggle put forward by Trotsky:
‘The defense of the country can be organized only through the destruction of the autocratic clique of saboteurs and defeatists.’
As a true Socialist-Revolutionary, Trotsky declared that Socialism united in itself the exploitative features of Czarism, the nobility and the bourgeoisie - but, he said, Socialism did not have that broad social base, like those other exploiting forces! Therefore, the anti-Socialist masses can overthrow Socialism much easier. It was a call to all reactionary forces to attack the disgusting, shaky regime and to hold the ‘Fourth Revolution’. In September 1938, Austria was already annexed. This was the month of Munich, where French and British imperialism gave Hitler a green light for the occupation of Czechoslovakia. In his new ‘Transitional Programme’, Trotsky set the tasks of his organization in the Soviet Union, despite the fact that he himself agreed that ‘as an organization ... Trotskyism is certainly extremely weak in the Soviet Union.’ He continues:
‘The Thermidorian oligarchy ... is kept at the expense of terrorist methods ... the main political task in the USSR is still the overthrow of this very Thermidorian bureaucracy ... Only a victorious revolutionary uprising of the oppressed masses can revive the Soviet regime and guarantee its further development to Socialism. There is only one party capable of leading the uprising of Soviet people - the Party of the Fourth International.’
This document, which all the Trotskyist sects regard as their main programme, contains a significant statement. When will this ‘rebellion’ and ‘performance’ take place? Trotsky's answer is striking in its directness: Trotsky planned his ‘uprising’ during the time the Nazi Germans attacked the Soviet Union:
‘The motivation for a revolutionary upsurge of Soviet workers, perhaps, will be given by events outside the country.’
The following quotation is a good example of a double approach. In 1933, Trotsky declared that one of the ‘principal crimes’ of the German Stalinists was their rejection of a united front with the Social Democrats against fascism, but before Hitler came to power in 1933, the Social Democrats did everything they could to preserve the capitalist regime and repeatedly refused to join forces with the German Communist Party. In May 1940, eight months after the outbreak of World War II, Trotsky, a great specialist in the ‘united front’, who suggested that the Red Army would begin an uprising against the Bolshevik regime! He wrote in his Open Letter to the Soviet workers:
‘The goal of the Fourth International ... is the revival of the USSR by purging it of the parasitic bureaucracy. This can be done only by one way: by workers, peasants, soldiers of the Red Army and sailors of the Red Fleet, who will rise against a new caste of oppressors and parasites. To prepare this uprising of the masses, we need a new party ... The Fourth International.’
At a time when Hitler was preparing for war with the Soviet Union, the provocateur Trotsky urged the Red Army to make a coup. Such an event would cause great disasters, opening the whole country up to the danger of fascist tanks.
©opyright: Adrian Chan-Wyles (ShiDaDao) 2017.
Russian Language Source:
http://maxpark.com/community/129/content/2072351