Stalin and Trotsky
The Real Situation in Russia. By Loon Trotsky. Translated by Max Eastman. (Allen and Unwin. 78. 6d.) Tun struggle between the two sections of the Bolshevik party represented by Stalin and Trotsky, respectively, has been the most conspicuous feature of the new Russia since Lenin died. Since both factions are bound to justify their every action in the name of " revolution " and " Leninism," it is not easy for us ordinary mortals to appreciate the issues involved. One thing seems clear, however, that Trotsky is the exponent of academic Communism, fiercely indignant (remember that Communism to its adherents is a religion) at the departures from the true faith of a Communist Govern-
ment, face to face with the realities of administration. As Mr. Eastman suggests in a picturesque phrase, " Stalin is leading the Russian workers back to capitalism with the red flag flying."
There are, indeed, three main points on which the difference of opinion is clear-cut and fundamental. First of all, Stalin appears to have committed himself, 'once for all, to the
Socialism in one country " theory, i.e., the heresy that, while all good Communists must maintain their vision of world revolution, the new Russia should first be developed into a self-supporting Communist State, if necessary with the help of foreign capital, so that it may serve as a pattern and an example to Communists in the rest of the world ; whereas the uncompromising Trotsky considers this an impossibility, and maintains that only by an aggressive policy bringing about the overthrow of the capitalist society in all countries will the world be made safe for Communism. There is this about the Lenin scriptures—that they provide almost equally good material for both interpretations. But evidently Stalin is learning from experience, while Trotsky is still furbishing up the Socialist propaganda of an earlier period.
In their respective views on the peasant question we see the same antithesis between Stalin's adjustment of his policy to realities and the orthodox Bolshevist view. In the latent conflict between urban and rural interest lies the great paradox of Leninism. The disciples of Karl Marx, whose theories were meant to be applied to a highly-developed industrial civilization, found themselves faced with the task of introducing them in a State which is still definitely primitive and whose basis is and must be agriculture. Trotsky takes his stand on the Marxian premise that only a powerful socialized industry can help the peasants transform agri- culture along collectivist lines. Like Lenin, he clings to the illusion that the centre of gravity of the national economy can be shifted away from agriculture to the workers in the towns. But this idea that Marxian doctrines can be applied in Russia to-day springs from the initial confusion between the political and economic revolution planned and schemed for by the Socialist intelligentsia and the social revolution which was effected by the spontaneous violence of workmen and peasants upon the sudden withdrawal in 1917 of all legal restraints. Because of the smychka, or temporary alliance, between factory workers and peasants for the overthrow of the old order, Lenin imagined that it would be possible for Russia, in the language of Marx, to pass at one bound from the bourgeois-democratic revolution (the Kerensky Provisional Government) to the proletarian revolution.
It is not for us to dogmatize, but one is entitled to think that Stalin, himself a poor peasant fr.,un Georgia, understands these things better than Trotsky, a Jew and an intellectual. The burden of Trotsky's lamentation is that, owing to the pressure of the Nepmen and the Kulaks, private capital has not by any means been destroyed in Russia, but that, on the contrary, it is increasing. The chief source from which this capitalism draws its strength is " those twenty- five million small farms " that form a mass in which the accumulation of capital continues steadily, thus undermining the whole Socialist structure.
Finally, we shall perhaps best understand what divides the two men, if we are quite clear in our heads as to the essential distinction between the Soviet system and the Bolshevist doctrine. The workers' and peasants' Soviets date from the period before the victorious Bolshevists seized power. They were not the creation of doctrinaire Socialists,
but were taken over and used as a ready instrument of govern- ment. Stalin still uses them as such, though there is, of
course, a tendency to reduce local autonomy and industrial autonomy to a minimnm for the more effective prosecution -of government. Trotsky, on the other hand, is still thinking in terms of the workers' State. In this book, therefore, the leitmotif is the same as the Labour propaganda of the Lansbury type in this country, a pathetic defence of the have-nots and a determination to paint in the most sombre colours the conditions of the toilers.
The comparison with trade unionism in Great Britain is instructive. The trade unions were formed in the first instance—like the Soviets—as units of organized labour .whose business it was to defend the interests of the workers in. industry against the employers. But in time, by a natural and inevitable process, there has developed out of the trade union movement a class of professional labour leaders, the trade union officials, many of whom have come to possess considerable administrative ability. The counterpart is to be found in that crystallized labour bureaucracy against which Trotsky and his supporters never cease to fulminate, As Mr. Eastman observes in his preface, " the Opposition is fighting for the ' life-interests ' of the lower ' classes, the rank-and-file industrial- workers . . . the poorer peasants, for forms of organization which will permit those interests to dominate politically over others." In sober fact, there is the same conflict between political and industrial interests which may be seen in any Labour-Socialist combination.
This book has been translated and printed in the United States from one of three copies smuggled out of Russia into Germany. It is in essence the platform of the Opposition no more and no less important than the programme of left. wing Socialism in this country—and equally irresponsible. As the work of a first-rate journalist it makes very much better reading than Stalin's Leninism, which the same pub- lishers gave us in the summer, but in both cases it is doubtful whether anyone unacquainted with the Communist creed will be able to make head or tail of some of the jargon em- ployed. Nevertheless, any book is welcome that can help people outside-Russia to appreciate the -new issues raised by Communism—in theory or in practice—on the one hand, and, on the other, the Soviet organizations. " Bolshevist" and " Soviet " represent, in fact, two distinct and often conflicting influences.
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