THE TWILIGHT OF BOLSHEVISM

Back from the U.S.S.R. By Andre Gide. (Secker and Warburg.

2S. 6d.)

The Revolution Betrayed. By Leon Trotsky. (Faber and Faber.

I2S. 6d.)

The Moscow Trial. (January, 1937.) (The Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee. is.)

THREE years ago," says M. Gide, " I declared my admiration, my love, for the U.S.S.R." Today he still retains his love and his admiration, but tempered a little by what he saw when he went to Russia in 1936, to deliver an oration at' the grave of Maxim Gorki. This little book is merely a record of particular

scenes and incidents which struck his attention ; they are related with all the elegance and lightness of his beautiful

style, much of which is preserved in this admirable translation, so excellently and cheaply produced. M. Gide returned to France worried and troubled in his faith, for he had seen evidence of great inequality, of growing social distinctions, of a rigid intellectual orthodoxy, of original thought suppressed, of servile adoration of Stalin. To report such things evidently

gives him pain, though he does not think that they outweigh all the happiness which he saw in Russia ; and, as always with M. Gide, fear of abuse has not prevented him from speaking when he thinks silence inconsistent with honesty. The publication of this little book has brought him plenty of abuse from orthodox Communists ; it will only increase the affection

and admiration which others have long had for him and his writings ; but it is Communists themselves who ought to give it the most serious attention.

The question it inevitably inspires is whether the evidence M. Gide offers—the artist afraid to express his own opinion,

the telegram to Stalin which did not show enough respect, the Communist who did not believe there were tubes in Paris— is exceptional and accidental or characteristic. M. Trotsky's book is an attempt to answer that question.

It is unnecessary here to praise once again the brilliance and the insight of M. Trotsky's mind. He may not be a good Communist but he is a very good writer ; and he is exceptional above all in the application of historical thinking to current politics, in his ability to analyse the working of social forces, and to relate them to the material conditions of life. The theme of his new book is to be found in the sentence which he quotes from Marx : " A development of the productive forces is the absolutely necessary practical premiss [of Communism] because without it want is generalised, and with want the struggle for necessities begins again, and that means that all

the old crap must revive." What Marx with such contempt

called " the old crap " is the State, the bureaucracy, the police, and the social inequality which makes them necessary. Social- ism is an economy of abundance, only possible when the achievements of even the most advanced capitalist countries have been surpassed. The economy of Russia is still socialist only in form, and materially is an economy of want ; and the conflict between the material conditions and the socialist superstructure is reflected in every sphere of life. The first problem for the State is to increase productivity, and in Russia it has had to adopt such capitalist methods as wage d:ff:rentia- tion, speed-up, " Stalthanovism." These methods, together with the advantages of a socialist structure, have indeed had great success in increasing production, but only, to such an extent that, while abundance for all is still not possible, there is

wealth for a few : those few are the bureaucracy, the techni- cians, and skilled and privileged workers—ffie basis of a new bourgeoisie. Their privileged ,osition requires a dictatorship to defend it, not a dictatorship; of the proletariat, btit the dictatorship of Stalin, a species of Bonapartism. With great

force M. Trotsky emphasises that, while for Marx, Engels and Lenin, the triumph of socialism meant the dying away of the State, and its organs of power, in the U.S.S.R. the " triumph

of Socialism " proclaimed by Stalin has meant an increasingly oppressive State apparatus, a growth of bureaucracy, of police

supervision, of censorship, and an absolute prohibition of political parties and factions. He shows also how the inequality of wealth on which the bureaucracy depends is reflected in

every sphere of life, in the growth once again of a class of domestic servants, in the revival in the army of an officer rl ss, with titles and' deconitions, in an insistence that only the ideas of the dominant faction shall find expression—in fact, " all the old crap " once again.

This is but a brief ratan= of M. Trotsky's argument ; it is impossible to do full justice to it in a short space or to suggest the brilliance, versatility, wit, with which it is conducted. But perhaps enough has been said to show that it must be taken seriously, that, for those who wish to understand the U.S.S.R., it is not to be dismissed with such weapons as orthodox communists are now used to employ against their opponents. The Moscow Trial was perhaps such a weapon, an appeal ad baciliwn rather than to reason. Those who are not stunned by the club will not consider it a sufficient answer ; and this record of the trial will not persuade them to change their minds. The preface by Mr. R. T. Miller is appallingly naive. " The most familiar and conspicuous feature of the British or American trial, cross-examination, occurs here [in Russia] . . . before any court proceedings take place. Cases are usually not tried unless or until the Prosecutor has obtained enough evidence to make a conviction reasonably certain. Hence those amazingly frank and complete ' admissions in court.' " Is this a defence or a damning condemnation of the trial? " How did men like Pyatakov, Sokolzulcov and Radek find themselves at last fighting tooth and nail a revolutionary Government they had helped to create ? Only the crowded history of the Com- munist movement . . . can answer that question " ' ; and it depends whether you take the official or the true history which answer you get. But, above all, let an unprejudiced reader look at the trial itself, as reported here ; let him notice that, as Radek said and Vyshinsky did not deny, the whole case rested on the admissions of two defendants, without docu- mentary evidence ; let him notice what absurdities are admitted ; let him notice that the admissions sometimes conflict ; that each is carefully directed by leading questions ; that exact dates are never mentioned ; that some of the actions confessed were physically impossible ; that, between the Kamenev- Zinoviev trial and this, an entire new plot was " discovered " though Kamenev and Zinoviev also confessed " everything " and worked in complete co-operation with the " parallel centre " ; and then, with the whole history of political prosecutions in his mind ask what verdict he could give ; and ask also whether this resembles justice after the triumph of Socialism or as it has always been and always will be in the