by Ludo Martens
Trotsky `defended' the Soviet Union, but not the Soviet Union of Stalin and the Bolshevik Party. He pretended to defend the Soviet Union `with all our might', i.e. with his few thousand followers in the USSR! Meanwhile, these few thousand marginals should have prepared an insurrection against Stalin and the Bolshevik Party! Good defence, to be sure.
Even a hardened anti-Communist such as Tokaev thought that Trotsky's writings played into the hands of the German aggressors. Tokaev was anti-Communist, but a partisan of British imperialism. At the beginning of the war, he made the following reflexions:
`The peoples of the U.S.S.R., guided by their elemental feelings in the face of mortal danger, had made themselves one with the Stalin rйgime .... The opposed forces had joined hands; and this was a spontaneous act: the average Soviet outlook was: `Side even with the Devil, to defeat Hitler.' ... opposition to Stalin was not only harmful to the international anti-Axis front but was also equivalent to antagonism to the Peoples of the U.S.S.R.'
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Tokaev, op. cit. , p. 188.
With the approach of World War II, Trotsky's main obsession, if not the only one, became the overthrow of the Bolshevik Party in the Soviet Union. His thesis was that of the world far-right: `whoever defends, directly or indirectly, Stalin and the Bolshevik Party, is the worst enemy of socialism'. Here are Trotsky's declarations:
`The reactionary bureaucracy must be and will be overthrown. The political revolution in the USSR is inevitable.'
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Trotsky, Le gouvernement soviйtique applique-t-il toujours les principes dйfinis il y a vingt ans? (13 January 1938). La lutte, pp. 159--160.
`Only the overthrow of the Bonapartist Kremlin clique can make possible the regeneration of the military strength of the USSR .... The struggle against war, imperialism, and fascism demands a ruthless struggle against Stalinism, splotched with crimes. Whoever defends Stalinism directly or indirectly, whoever keeps silent about its betrayals or exaggerates its military strength is the worst enemy of the revolution, or socialism, of the oppressed peoples.'
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Trotsky, A Fresh Lesson: After the ``Imperialist Peace'' at Munich (10 October 1938). Writings, vol. 11, p. 68.
When these lines were being written in 1938, a fierce class struggle was developing on the world scene, between fascism and Bolshevism. Only the most right-wing ideologues of French, British or U.S. imperialism or of fascism could defend Trotsky's thesis:
`Whoever defends Stalinism directly or indirectly ... is the worst enemy'.
Trotsky encouraged terrorism and armed insurrection
From 1934 on, Trotsky called over and over for the overthrow of the Bolsheviks, through terrorism and armed insurrection.
In April 1938, Trotsky claimed that it was inevitable that there would be, in the USSR, attempts against Stalin and the other Bolshevik leaders. Of course, he continued to claim that individual terror was not a correct Leninist tactic. But, you see, `the laws of history tell us that assassinations attempts and acts of terror against gangsters such as Stalin are inevitable'. Here is how Trotsky put forward in 1938 the program of individual terror.
`Stalin is destroying the army and is crushing the country .... Inplacable hatred is accumulating around him, and a terrible vengeance hangs over his head.
`An assassination attempt? It is possible that this rйgime, which has, under the pretext of fighting terrorism, destroyed the best brains in the country, will ultimately suffer individual terror. One can add that it would be contrary to the laws of history that the gangsters in power not be suject to acts of vengeance by desperate terrorists. But the Fourth International ... has nothing to do with despair and individual vengeance is too limited for us .... In as much as Stalin's personal future concerns us, we can only hope that his personal lot is to live long enough to see his system collapse. He will not have to wait long.'
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Trotsky, Caпn Dougachvili va jusqu'au bout, p. 238.
Hence, for Trotskyists, it would be `against the laws of history' that one would not attempt to kill Stalin, Molotov, Zhdanov, Kaganovich, etc. It was an `intelligent' and `clever' way for the clandestine Trotskyist organization to put forward its terrorist message. It did not say `organize assassination attempts'; it said: `the terrorist vengeance against Stalin is part of the laws of history'. Recall that in the anti-Communist circles that Tokaev and Alexander Zinoviev frequented, there was much talk of preparation for assassination attempts against the Bolshevik leaders. One can easily see what forces were being `inspired' by Trotsky's writings.
Trotsky alternated his calls for individual terrorism with propaganda for armed insurrections against the Bolshevik leadership. In general, he used the veiled and hypocritical formula of `political revolution'. During a debate with the Trotskyist Mandel, in 1989, we said that Trotsky called for armed struggle against the Soviet rйgime. Mandel got angry and cried out that this was a `Stalinist lie', since `political revolution' meant popular revolution, but pacific. This anecdote is an example of the duplicity systematically taken by professional anti-Communists, whose primary task is to infiltrate leftist circles. Here, Mandel wanted to reach out to the environmentalist audience. Here is the program of anti-Bolshevik armed struggle, put forward by Trotsky:
`(T)he people ... have lived through three revolutions against the Tsarist monarchy, the nobility and the bourgeoisie. In a certain sense, the Soviet bureaucracy now incarnates the traits of all the overthrown classes, but without their social roots nor their traditions. It can only defend its monstrous privileges through organized terror ....
`The defence of the country can only be organized by destroying the autocratic clique of saboteurs and defeatists.'
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Trotsky, Les dйfaitistes totalitaires, pp. 165, 169.
As a true counter-revolutionary, Trotsky claimed that socialism united the oppressive traits of Tsarism, the nobility and the bourgeoisie. But, he said, socialism did not have as large a social basis as those other exploiting rйgimes! The anti-socialist masses could therefore overthrow it more easily. Once again, here was a call for all the reactionary forces to attack the abhorent, toppling rйgime and to undertake the `Fourth Revolution'.
In September 1938, Austria had already been annexed. This was the month of Munich, where French and British imperialism gave the green light to Hitler to occupy Czechoslovakia. In his new Transitional Program, Trotsky set out the tasks of his organization in the Soviet Union, despite the fact that he himself admitted `as an organization ... unquestionably ``Trotskyism'' is extremely weak in the USSR.'
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Leon Trotsky, The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International. The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1974), p. 103.
He continued:
`(T)he Thermidorian oligarchy ... hangs on by terroristic methods .... the chief political task in the USSR still remains the overthrow of this same Thermidorian bureaucracy .... Only the victorious revolutionary uprising of the oppressed masses can revive the Soviet regime and guarantee its further development toward socialism. There is but one party capable of leading the Soviet masses to insurrection --- the party of the Fourth International.'
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Ibid. , pp. 103--106.
This document, which all Trotskyist sects consider to be their basic program, contains an extraordinary sentence. When would this `insurrection' and `uprising' have taken place? Trotsky's answer is stunning in its honesty: Trotsky planned his `insurrection' for when the Hitlerites attacked the Soviet Union:
`(T)he impetus to the Soviet workers' revolutionary upsurge will probably be given by events outside the country.'
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Ibid. , p. 105.
The next citation is a good example of duplicity. In 1933, Trotsky claimed that one of the `principal crimes' of the German Stalinists was to have refused the united front with social democracy against fascism. But, until Hitler took power in 1933, social democracy did its utmo
st to defend the capitalist rйgime and repeatedly refused unity proposals made by the German Communist Party. In May 1940, eight months after the European part of World War II had started, the great specialist of the `united front', Trotsky, proposed that the Red Army start an insurrection against the Bolshevik rйgime! He wrote in his Open Letter to the Soviet Workers:
`The purpose of the Fourth International ... is to regenerate the USSR by purging it of its parasitic bureaucracy. This can be only be done in one manner: by the workers, the peasants, the soldiers of the Red Army and the sailors of the Red Fleet who will rise up against the new caste of oppressors and parasites. To prepare this uprising of the masses, a new party is needed .... the Fourth International.'
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Trotsky, Lettres aux travailleurs d'URSS, p. 303.
At the time that Hitler was preparing war against the Soviet Union, the provocateur Trotsky was calling on the Red Army to effect a coup d'йtat. Such an event would have been a monstrous disaster, opening up the entire country to the fascist tanks!
Stalin and the anti-fascist war
With the 1929 economic collapse, the world capitalist system was in shambles. The time was ripe for another world war. It would soon break out. But where? And to what extent? Who would fight whom? These questions stood without answers for some time. Even after the `official' beginning, in 1940, the answers to these questions were still not clear.
These unanswered questions allow one to better understand Stalin's foreign policy during the thirties.
The Germano-Soviet Pact
Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933. Only the Soviet Union understood the dangers to world peace. In January 1934, Stalin told the Party Congress that `the ``new'' (German) policy ... recalls the policy of the former German Kaiser, who at one time occupied the Ukraine and marched against Leningrad, after converting the Baltic countries into a place d'armes for this march'. He also stated:
`(I)f the interests of the U.S.S.R. demand rapprochement with one country or another which is not interested in disturbing peace, we adopt this course without hesitation.'
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Stalin, Works, vol. 13, p. 309.
Until Hitler's coming to power, Great Britain had led the crusade against the Soviet Union. In 1918, Churchill was the main instigator of the military invervention that mobilized fourteen countries. In 1927, Great Britain broke diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and imposed an embargo on its exports.
In 1931, Japan invaded Northern China and its troops reached the Soviet border in Siberia. The Soviet Union thought at the time that war with Japan was imminent.
In 1935, fascist Italy occupied Ethiopia. To oppose the danger of fascist expansion, the Soviet Union proposed, as early as 1935, a collective system of security for Europe. Given this perspective, it signed mutual assistance treaties with France and Czechoslovakia. Trotsky made vicious attacks against Stalin who had, with these treaties, `betrayed' the French proletariat and the world revolution. At the same time, official voices of the French bourgeoisie were declaring that their country was not obliged to come to the aid of the Soviet Union, should it be attacked.
In 1936, Italy and Germany sent their йlite troops to Spain to fight the legal republican government. France and Great Britain adopted a `non-intervention' policy, leaving free reign to the fascists. They were trying to placate Hitler and to push him East.
In November of the same year, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Cominterm Pact, which Italy joined soon after. The Soviet Union was encircled.
On March 11, 1938, Radio Berlin announced a `Communist uprising in Austria' and the Wehrmacht (German army) pounced on that country, annexing it in two days. The Soviet Union took up Austria's defence and called on Great Britain and France to prepare collective defence. `Tomorrow will perhaps be too late', underscored the Soviet leadership.
In mid-May, Hitler concentrated his troops on the border with Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Union, with treaty obligations towards the threatened country, placed 40 divisions on its Western border and called up 330,000 reservists. But in September, Great Britain and France met in Munich with the fascist powers, Germany and Italy. Neither Czechoslovakia nor the Soviet Union were invited. The great `democracies' decided to offer Hitler the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia. Along with this treacherous act, Great Britain signed on September 30 a declaration with Germany in which the two powers stated that they regarded the agreement `as symbolic of the desire of our peoples never to go to war with one another again.'
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Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R., Documents and Materials Relating to the Eve of the Second World War (New York: International Publishers, 1948). vol. 1, p. 271.
France did the same in December. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union offered its aid to Czechoslovakia in case of German aggression, but this offer was declined. On March 15, 1939, the Wehrmacht seized Prague. By cutting up Czechoslovakia, Hitler offered a piece of the cake to the reactionary Polish government, which greedily gobbled up the bait.
A week later, the German army occupied the Lithuanian territory of Klaipeda, an important Baltic port. Stalin could see that the monster was advancing East and that Poland would be the next victim.
In May 1939, the Japanese army attacked Mongolia, which also had a military assistance treaty with the Soviet Union. The following month, Soviet troops, led by an unknown officer, Zhukov, took up battle with the Japanese army. It was a sizeable military confrontation: Japan lost more that 200 planes and more than 50,000 of its soldiers were killed or wounded. On August 30, 1939, the last Japanese troops left Mongolia.
The next day, another Soviet border was set aflame: Germany invaded Poland.
Everyone knew that this aggression would take place: to ensure an optimal position and begin his war either against Great Britain and France or against the Soviet Union, Hitler had to `resolve Poland's fate'. Let us look at the events of the previous months.
In March 1939, the Soviet Union began negociations to form an anti-fascist alliance. Great Britain and France allowed time to pass, maneuvered. By this attitude, the two great `democracies' made Hitler understand that he could march against Stalin without being worried about the West. From June to August 1939, secret British-German talks took place: in exchange for guaranteeing the integrity of the British Empire, the British would allow Hitler to act freely in the East. On July 29, Charles Roden Buxton of the Labour Party fulfilled a secret mission for Prime Minister Chamberlain to the German Embassy. The following plan was elaborated:
`Great Britain would express her willingness to conclude an agreement with Germany for a delimitation of spheres of interest ....
`1) Germany promises not to interfere in British Empire affairs.
`2) Great Britain promises fully to respect the German spheres of interest in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. A consequence of this would be that Great Britain would renounce the guarantees she gave to certain States in the German sphere of interest. Great Britain further promises to influence France to break up her alliance with the Soviet union and to give up her ties in Southeastern Europe.
`3) Great Britain promises to give up the present negotiations for a pact with the Soviet Union.'
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Ibid. , vol. 2, pp. 110--111.
The Soviet intelligence services ensured that Stalin was aware of these maneuvers.
In August 1939, negociations between Britain, France and the Soviet Union entered their final phase. But the two Western powers sent second rank delegations to Moscow, with no mandate to finalize an accord. Voroshilov insisted on binding, precise engagements so that should there be renewed German aggression, the allies would go to war together. He wanted to know how many British and French divisions would oppose Hitler should Germany invade the Soviet Union.
He received no response. He also wanted to draw up an accord with Poland so that the Soviet troops could engage the Nazis on Polish soil in case of German aggression. Poland refused, thereby making any possible accord effe
ctive. Stalin understood perfectly that France and Britain were preparing a new Munich, that they were ready to sacrifice Poland, encouraging Hitler to march on the Soviet Union. Harold Ickes, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, wrote at the time in his journal:
`(England) kept hoping against hope that she could embroil Russia and Germany with each other and thus escape scot-free herself.'
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Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954), p. 705.
`France would also have to renounce to Central and Eastern Europe in favor of Germany in the hope of seeing her wage war against the Soviet Union. Hence France could stay in security behind the Maginot Line.'
