THE FALL OF TROTSKY B RADLAUGH once said, " Religions do
not die ; they change." Even when proper allowance has been made for Bradlaugh's rationalistic intention the aphorism contains an undoubted truth. And what is true of religions is also true of Constitutions—even of the American Constitution. Change in the Russian polity since the extraordinary revolution of October, 1917, has been much greater and more rapid than most people admit. Lenin himself was a master of change. He was one of the greatest realists of history ; he had his abstract theories—hundreds of them—but when one of his theories was brought to the test and would not work he smiled sardonically and threw it overboard without a tremor of mercy. Arch-theorist though he was he wanted his schemes to work. Before his death he had already consented to such modifications of Com- munism that it had almost ceased to be Communism. The peasants, the vast majority of the Russian popula- tion, had defeated him. In a minor degree the traders of the towns had also defeated him.
He admitted that the peasants simply would not till their fields in order to have their crops taken from them at prices which denied them special rewards for special energy and offered them only as a prize the glorious consciousness of having served the Soviet idea. It was much the same with the townsmen. Hence the New Economic Policy which reintroduced the principle of private gain. The State still nominally held the industries, but they were leased to private managers. What other modifications would have been accepted by Lenin had he lived it is impossible to say. No doubt there would have been many. But the strange thing is that his successors—the Triumvirate consisting of Zinovieff, Stalin and Kameneff—in effect decreed that the writings which he left behind him should be regarded as having a plenary verbal inspiration. These Evan- gelicals of Communism have referred everything to the touchstone of the Lenin scriptures. Every new pro- posal that receives no sanction there has been rejected as heretical. What a remarkable assumption that the man who was continually changing, and was not ashamed of his changes, should be regarded as having reached a finality of truth at the moment when he happened to die !
We do not mean that the situation we have described is in precise accordance with the intimate facts, but it does accord with the attitude which the Triumvirate publicly adopted for the purpose of discrediting Trotsky. Lenin, being himself a changeful man, tolerated the latitudinarianism of Trotsky ; but the Triumvirs have been showing themselves more Leninistic than Lenin.
The most interesting event that has happened in Russia for some time is that at last the Triumvirs have brought about the downfall of Trotsky. Unlike the First Triumvirate, which was formed by Caesar when he was disgusted to find that the Roman Senate had thrown over the capitalists, this latest Triumvirate has concentrated upon saving anti-capitalism from a man suspected of being too lenient to capitalism. Let us look at the history of this long personal duel. In his book The Lessons of October (published last autumn), which was full of criticisms injurious to the Bolshevist revolution, Trotsky apparently wrote his epitaph. Since the publication of the book there has been no cessation in the virulent pursuit of him and his reputation. True, he still remained Commissar of the Army, but his fate was sealed. For several weeks he has been lying ill and has been unable to reply to his enemies except at rare intervals. It indeed became a one-sided duel. As a correspondent of the Manchester Guardian points out, Moscow has been illuminated by sky signs advertising anti-Trotsky publications. The Triumvirs have had the field to themselves. They have raked up all the past history of Trotsky. They have reminded the Russian people that he joined the Bolshevists in 1917 only after he had failed to make a working arrangement with the Menshevists. They have explained that he always had a petit bourgeois mind and have emphasized the fact that in the autumn of 1923 he was the leader of those dissidents who warned the Central Communist Committee that it was too much of an autocracy and that it could never flourish until it tolerated variety of opinion.
Before his illness Trotsky was indeed never tired of demonstrating to the Communists that they were in danger of petrifaction. He wanted to democratize the party and infuse it with the blood of the young generation. He and his friends were " beaten to a frazzle," as Mr. Roosevelt used to say, and yet he was personally so powerful (did not the whole Red Army which he had created admire him ?) and so popular throughout the country that he was allowed to remain on as Commissar for War.
The end, however, has at last come. Although the incident has great personal importance and is a mile- stone in the history of Soviet Russia, it must not be supposed that it means any immediate change in the character of the Government. The event was inevit- able, and its effects were discounted long ago. The Bolshevist Government is as secure as ever it was and probably more secure. On the other hand, there are a great many Bolshevists within the pale who agree with Trotsky. They want more humanity, more liberality, a less rigid worship of frozen formulas ; and they are, for instance, tired of hearing it ridiculously pronounced by authority that there is a proletarian art as distinct from any other- kind of art.
Concessions will have to be made to the rising political generation. The " Big Three " will be able to accept modifications more easily now than at a time when it would have been said that they were surrendering to Trotsky. It will very likely be found that these great literalists were such pedantic fellows largely because they had not yet got rid of Trotsky.
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