A Scornful Attitude to the Peasantry -3

BASMANOV

In Trotsky's "theory of permanent revolution" leaping over the stages of revolution is organically connected with belittling the role of the peasantry as a force capable of siding with the working class in the struggle against the system of monarchy and" landed estates and the remnants of feudalism, and finally being an ally in the process of breaking up the exploiters' society. Trotsky did not wish to see the urgency of the agrarian problem in Russia, with the age-old peasant striving to get rid of landowner and semi-feudal dependence. He ignored the fact that life itself compelled the peasants to take part in the revolutionary struggle, since among its aims was the liquidation of social oppression in the village. Trotsky saw in the peasant only a proprietor, and did not notice his other side — that of the worker. He rejected the revolutionary capabilities of the many-million peasant masses that made up the bulk of the population of Russia. "So long as the peasantry remains in the vice of estate and social slavery," wrote Trotsky in 1915, "it continues, in its spontaneous out- bursts against the old regime, to retain all the characteristics of economic and ideological dissociation and lack of political consciousness, cultural backwardness and helplessness, which always and in every movement paralyse its social energy and force it to stop just when genuine revolutionary action is about to start."

According to Trotsky's scheme, the proletariat was doomed to carry on the struggle against tsarism and the landowners, surrounded by disbelief and hostility on the part of the peasants. Even if some of the peasants, he announced, were to follow the working class, conflict would inevitably arise between them as soon as the revolution achieved victory. In the pamphlet Results and Perspectives, written in 1906, he asserted: "Left to its own resources, the working class of Russia will inevitably be crushed by the counter-revolution the moment the peasantry turns away from it."

Trotsky was also putting forward these same views as to the reactionary character of the peasant masses a few weeks before the February Revolution. In January 1917 he wrote: "There is again incomparably less hope in the revolutionary role of the peasantry as a class than there was in 1905."

Having said that in 1905 the peasantry had betrayed the expectations of the Bolsheviks, Trotsky deliberately painted a gloomy picture of the events of the first Russian revolution. For the sake of his idea, he "forgot" that in spite of being scattered and unorganised, the peasantry, even in 1905, had showed itself to be a revolutionary force and the ally of the working class.

Trotsky's statements were implacably opposed to the Marxist idea of uniting "the proletarian solo" with "the peasant chorus" as the revolution went on. Here, too, the "theory of permanent revolution" was the very opposite of Lenin's programmatic proposition that the working class should establish an alliance with the peasantry as an indis- pensable condition of the victorious outcome of the revolution. His prophecy of a possible collision between the working class and the peasantry brought Trotsky into the camp of the Mensheviks. They also sowed doubt as to the possibility of a revolutionary victory, and considered that the working class would only have a chance of success when it made up the majority of the nation.

The experience of the February and October revolutions brilliantly confirmed Lenin's strategic plan, which had been worked out as far back as the beginning of the twentieth century, of bringing about an alliance between the working class and the peasantry. "Things have turned out just as we said they would," Lenin stated in November 1918. "The course taken by the revolution has confirmed the correctness of our reasoning. First, with the 'whole' of the peasants against the monarchy, aganst the landowners, against medievalism (and to that extent the revolution remains bourgeois, bourgeois-democratic). Then, with the poor peasants, with the semi-proletarians, with all the exploited, against capitalism, including the rural rich, the kulaks, the profiteers, and to that extent the revolution becomes a socialist one.

The practical experience of the revolution itself thus dealt a resounding blow to Trotsky's insistence on the "conserva- tive" and "reactionary" nature of the peasantry. Neither was his "prophecy" justified that the peasants would "make war" on the working class and would be a deadly threat to the gains of the revolution. As soon as it had seized power, the proletariat, led by the party of Bolsheviks, resolved the urgent democratic problems and in this way ensured the support of the overwhelming majority of the peasants. The alliance between the industrial workers and the working peasants became the reliable foundation of Soviet power.

How did Trotsky react to historical events developing contrary to his "theory", which was artificial and divorced from life? In The Permanent Revolution, he admitted: "It is possible to find articles, for instance, in which I expressed doubt as to the future revolutionary role of the whole of the peasantry as a class." And in the same breath he declared that the Bolsheviks had overestimated the role of the peasantry as an ally, and that no one had been nearer the truth than he was.

Trotsky went on asserting that the peasantry could not display political initiative and was passive. It was therefore impossible to see whom it would follow — the working class or the bourgeoisie. Examining the future development of the political situation in the economically less developed coun- tries, he said that the peasantry would not be able to show itself as a revolutionary force; moreover, it would grow less active than it had been "in the epoch of the old bourgeois revolutions". 1 V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 300.

From this Trotsky drew the conclusion that as long as imperialism existed in the world the slogan on the right of oppressed nations to self-determination was unrealistic and mere propaganda.

Trotsky tried to prove the futility of any effort towards national liberation. He wrote in 1930: "In the conditions of an imperialist epoch a national-democratic revolution can only be brought to victory if social and political relations in the given country have developed enough to allow the proletariat to assume the leadership of the masses. But what if this has not yet happened? In that case the struggle for national emancipation will bring poor results, and these will be to the detriment of the working masses."

Trotsky's conclusions about the national liberation struggle in many ways echoed what he had predicted with regard to the revolution in Russia. The only difference was that Trotsky used more gloomy colours in painting a political portrait of the peasantry in the less developed countries. While Lenin and the Communist parties aimed at an alliance between the international working class and the peasantry of the less developed countries, Trotsky virtually wrote off the national liberation movement as a force in the world revolution.

As far back as 1915, Lenin pointed out that Trotsky was playing into the hands of the forces "who by 'repudiation' of the role of the peasantry understand a refusal to raise up the peasants for the revolution". 1 In the years before the revolution Trotsky played into the hands of those forces which tried to prove that there was no future for a socialist revolution in Russia on the grounds that the country was backward, and the majority of the population were peasants.

After the October Revolution Trotsky's views on the futility of revolutionary action in colonial and dependent countries objectively came very close to the arguments of imperialist reaction, which was also trying to instil into the exploited masses the idea that they were doomed, and that there was no hope for any sort of action in the cause of national liberation. The Rejection of the Possibility of a Socialist Revolution in One Country

In the years preceding the October Revolution, the Bolshevik Party was faced with the question of whether it was possible for a socialist revolution to be victorious first in one country. This question had an enormous practical and theoretical significance. The working out of the scientifically based strategy and tactics of the Bolshevik party and the international revolutionary movement as a whole depended on the right answer.

Lenin formulated the theory of the transformation of a bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution as far back as 1905, and this theory contained propositions leading to the conclusion that the victory of socialism in one country was possible. Based on laws inherent in the devel- opment of revolution, Lenin's theory inspired revolutionaries with faith in victory, which depended, in the main, on the ability of the working class to head the revolutionary move- ment and lead the masses.

A deep and scientific analysis of imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism enabled Lenin to show later that the development of various capitalist countries proceeded very unevenly, and that some of them forged ahead, while others lagged behind. Imperialism increased the economic and political oppression of the working class, strengthened reaction in all fields, and brought the conflict between labour and capital to a head. The uneven development of capitalism in conditions of imperialism made a deep impression on the political life of the different countries and on the constantly changing balance of class forces.

Weak links in the imperialist system were bound to appear. "...The workers' revolution," Lenin pointed out, "develops unevenly in different countries, since the conditions of polit- ical life differ. In one country the proletariat is too weak and in another it is stronger.'"

Weak links, Lenin taught, were not necessarily to be found in countries where capitalism was most developed and the proportion of proletarians in the population was the highest. These links were to be found where the internal political contradictions had reached breaking-point and there were objective and subjective prerequisites for the ripening of a revolutionary situation and for resolute massive action against the system of imperialist exploitation.

In the epoch of imperialism the rivalry between separate imperialist states became more intensive as they strove for supremacy in the world arena, for spheres of influence, marketing outlets and the sources of raw materials. This rivalry became so severe that it hindered common action by the imperialist forces against a country where the develop- ment of the revolution questioned the very existence of capitalist relations.

"Uneven economic and political development," wrote Lenin in 1915, "is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone." 1

Lenin urged the working class of Russia, and together with it the proletariat of other countries, not to wait until such time as conditions in other countries might be favour- able, but boldly to break through the imperialist front so long as there were circumstances that objectively and subjec- tively made revolution possible.

Lenin's theory enabled the Bolshevik party to mobilise the working class for the victory of the socialist revolution and also oriented it on building socialism in Russia.

Besides this Lenin's theory of the possibility of a successful socialist revolution at first in one country is also a theory that outlines the prospects of the world revolutionary process and views world revolution as a sequence of national revolu- tions, taking place at different intervals depending on the maturity of objective and subjective conditions, and result- ing in the falling away of more and more links from imperialism.

In contrast to Lenin's scientific analysis of objective processes and his revolutionary proletarian optimism, Trotskyism offered defeatist assessments of the internal and external conditions of the socialist revolution. Its forecasts concerning the very coming to power of the working class in Russia, which Trotsky had talked so much about, were frankly pessimistic.

The "theoretical" foundation of Trotsky's attack on Lenin's thesis of the possibility of the victory of a socialist revolution in one country was his rejection of the law of uneven imperialist development. Trotsky considered that the determining factor for imperialism would be not a sharp- ening of contradictions, but the levelling tendencies which, he claimed, would be greater in the twentieth century than before the emergence of monopoly capital.

For instance, he stated: "The law of uneven development is older than imperialism. Capitalism is at present develop- ing very unevenly in various countries. But in the nineteenth century this unevenness was more pronounced than it is in the twentieth century. It is precisely because finance capital is an older form of capital, that imperialism develops stronger 'levelling' tendencies than pre-imperialist capital- ism."

Trotsky gave a one-sided analysis of the development of imperialism. He was hypnotised by the levelling tendency in the development of different countries under imperialism and refused to admit that this same levelling process did not decrease but, on the contrary, increased the effect of the law of uneven development. The more levelling there was, the deeper was the antagonism between imperialist states, and the sharper the conflict. Every power strives to gain a temporary lead, but this inevitably brings about an increase in international rivalry and arouses opposition among other imperialist predators.

Trotsky's conclusions go against history, and this can also be seen in the fact that he understood levelling as a process in which the foremost capitalist countries were to mark time while the other countries were rapidly overtaking them. Comparing the economic development of the fore- most capitalist countries with that of the countries of Asia and Africa, Trotsky asserted that crises and depression are typical of the former, and growing rates of capitalist devel- opment of the latter.'

What was more, Trotsky ignored the intransient character of the contradictions between imperialist states, and believed it possible to smooth them down and to merge the economies

of separate capitalist states into a united world economy. He refused to consider the fact that the development of monopoly capital was determined, both on the national and the international scale, by the struggle of two opposing prin- ciples — competition and monopoly. By laying too much stress on one of these principles — the monopolisation of economy on an international scale — Trotsky ignored the very sharp competitive struggle that went hand in hand with the strengthening of ties between monopolies.

The inevitable historical process of the internationalisa- tion of economic life cannot be fitted into the Procrustean bed of the state-monopoly form of economic relations exist- ing between separate capitalist countries. Whatever treaties the foremost monopolies may make between themselves, they must be accompanied by interpenetration and mutual displacement of rival capital, the disproportion in the economic development of individual countries, bitter trade rivalry, and the striving for supremacy of the largest monopoly groups. This deformed "collaboration" gives birth to a new chain of insoluble economic and political contradic- tions.

Analysing the development of world capitalist economy, Lenin wrote: "There is no doubt that the trend of develop- ment is towards a single world trust absorbing all enterprises without exception and all states without exception. But this development proceeds in such circumstances, at such a pace, through such contradictions, conflicts and upheavals — not only economic but political, national, etc. — that inevitably imperialism will burst and capitalism will be transformed into its opposite long before one world trust materialises, before the 'ultra-imperialist', world-wide amalgamation of national finance capitals takes place.'"

Trotsky's thesis, which ignored the specifics of the devel- opment of capitalism, gave rise to overestimation of the forces of imperialism and underestimation of the revolu- tionary potential of the national working class. Imagining the imperialist system as some sort of organically single mechanism, Trotsky asserted that a socialist revolution could be successful only if it had a global, or at least a European, character.

Only such a mounting, frontal attack by the international working class could, in his opinion, lead to fundamental changes both on a world scale and in separate countries. On this basis, he foretold defeat for any national revolu- tionary rising.

As presented by Trotsky, national revolution was like a bonfire, which could turn into a wildfire if it had space to spread. If the national revolution failed to "set fire" to neighbouring states and peoples it died out like a bonfire that was not fed. In other words, the success of the revolu- tion was finally determined not by the laws inherent in its development, but by the general historic background, by external factors.

In 1906 Trotsky asserted that if revolution was victorious in Russia, its fate would depend on whether the Russian working class would be able to assume the role of organiser of a world or an all-European attack on capital. "With government power in its hands, with the counter-revolution at its back, and with the European reactionary forces in front, it would send out to its comrades throughout the world the old rallying cry, which would then be the cry of the last attack: 'Proletarians of all lands, unite!' "

What would happen if the West European proletariat was not ready to respond to this call?

In that case, Trotsky replied, the revolution in Russia would be suppressed by the united force of the imperialist states. "It is hoping against hope," he wrote, "that revolu- tionary Russia could stand up against conservative Europe."

Not long before the October Revolution, Trotsky coun- tered Lenin's theory of the possibility of a victorious socialist revolution in one country with his slogan of a United States of Europe. He clamoured for support of a "United States of Europe without monarchy, without permanent armies, without ruling feudal castes, without a secret diplomacy".

This slogan at first actually avoided the question of a proletarian revolution. Its liberal-bourgeois character showed istelf in the fact that it called for the creation of a bourgeois United States. Lenin exposed it as unrealistic and reac- tionary. "Either this is a demand that cannot be imple- mented under capitalism, inasmuch as it presupposes the establishment of a planned world economy, with a partition of colonies, spheres of influence, etc., among the individual countries, or else it is a reactionary slogan, one that signifies a temporary union of the Great Powers of Europe with the aim of enhancing the oppression of colonies and of plunder- ing the more rapidly developing countries — Japan and America.'"

The slogan of the United States of Europe was an out- ward expression of the cosmopolitan and simultaneously defeatist "theory of permanent revolution". Having produced such a slogan in the years when Russia was on the road to revolution, Trotsky again showed his lack of faith in the possibility of a proletarian victory in one country, and his unwillingness to take into consideration the national pecu- liarities of the class struggle.

Having announced that the imperialist epoch had no room for the successful accomplishment of national revolutions, Trotsky thought only in terms of world-wide or at least all- European events. Priority was given to the tasks of the development of revolution in a global, international context. Trotsky rejected offhand Lenin's proposition that revolutions do not break out simultaneously, but come about as the result of the development of the class struggle in certain countries, nurtured by political conditions which cannot be identically the same in all countries and in all continents.

The slogan of the United States of Europe was no more than a piece of "revolutionary" rhetoric, meant to disguise Trotsky's lack of any sort of programme for revolutions in separate countries, from which eventually world revolution would take shape. The question of the actual means by which revolution should be achieved was drowned in irresponsible, pseudo-Left phrases about European and world revolution.

While Lenin's theory of the socialist revolution has inspired revolutionary energy in every national contingent of the working class, Trotsky's scheme for a permanent rev- olution, divorced from reality, left the working class, no matter in what country, without any concrete plan of action.

Trotsky's ideas were in fact disarming the working class and its revolutionary vanguard. In a letter addressed to the Sixth Congress of the Communist International in 1928,

Trotsky openly stated: "In our epoch, which is the epoch of imperialism, that is, world economy and world politics controlled by capitalism, none of the Communist parties can work out a programme that would be based to a greater or lesser extent on the conditions and tendencies of its own national development."

Even later on Trotsky did not give up his defeatist ideas concerning revolutions taking place in separate countries. In 1930 he again asserted that "the consummation of a revolution without a national framework is unthinkable".

Disregard of historical experience and of objective factors of social development became particularly obvious in Trot- sky's interpretation of the Great October Socialist Revolution. One would have thought that the victory of the revolution in Russia, proving as it did the correctness of Lenin's fore- cast of the possibility of breaking the imperialist chain in a single country, would have given Trotsky no option but to admit that in this case the practical experience of the revolution had upset his theoretical surmises.

Trotsky, however, preferred to turn everything upside down. As in other, similar situations, he set about proving that the historical process had apparently not developed as it should have done. Like all metaphysicians, he argued on the assumption that if practical experience did not fit into a theoretical scheme, so much the worse for practical experi- ence.

Trotsky spared no effort to belittle the significance of the October Revolution, and tried to present it as a deviation from the "ideal" way which he had earlier depicted in his writings. Since it was not supported by simultaneous risings of the European proletariat, he regarded it as an episode not typical of the development of the world revolution. The victory of a revolution in one country, he claimed, was a "crisis phenomenon" thrown up by the march of historic events.

Trotsky's arguments about "crisis phenomena" were accom- panied by attempts to foist on the party of the victorious proletariat aims which would mean throwing away the gains of the October Revolution. Asserting that the Russian revolu- tion should at all costs spread beyond the national boun- daries, Trotsky propagated "revolutionary wars", and "fomenting" class struggle on an international scale.

Calls "To Carry the Revolution on Bayonets"

At different periods of his anti-Bolshevik, anti-Leninist activity, Trotsky gave prominence to various aspects of the "theory of permanent revolution". And each time his argu- ments proved to be in utter contradiction to the immediate tasks of the revolutionary movement.

After the October Revolution, Trotsky concentrated his efforts, under the guise of calling for "revolutionary wars" and stimulating revolution in other countries, on instilling defeatist sentiments and disbelief in the possibility of the Russian proletariat retaining state power.

After the October Revolution Lenin emphasised: ". . .The most significant change that has occurred is the foundation of the Russian Soviet Republic, and the preservation of the republic ... is most important to us and to the international socialist movement. .. '" He saw the chief task of Soviet power in those years as withstanding and repulsing the attacks of internal and external enemies, and beginning to build a socialist society, while doing "the utmost possible in one country for the development, support and awakening of the revolution in all countries'" 1

Trotsky declared this to be "national narrowness", and demanded that Soviet Russia should carry the revolution on the point of the "red" bayonets to other countries. He consid- ered the Great October Socialist Revolution merely as a jumping-off ground for carrying the war into the capitalist world. In his view the October Revolution could only influ- ence the march of world history if it could immediately provoke, "stimulate" and "push" revolutions in the whole world.

In the very first months after the October Revolution, Trotsky actually suggested the following alternative: either Soviet Russia had to enter into a revolutionary war with the capitalist world, or it should admit that the proletariat had seized power prematurely. At the 7th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1918 he announced that if the revolutionary proletariat could not wage a decisive battle against imperialism, "then say that Soviet power is too heavy a burden for the revolutionary proletariat, that we have arrived too early, and should go underground".

Trotsky also asserted that the Russian proletariat was not ready for revolution, and therefore it would be no great loss if it was unable to sustain a fight with the bourgeoisie. He said: "A bourgeois victory against us would be a blow to the development of the revolutionary movement in Europe, but it would not be comparable to what took place after the Paris Commune. .. . The European proletariat is more ripe for socialism than we are. Even if we were destroyed, there is not the slightest doubt that there could not be such a historical gap as there was after the Paris Commune." 1

While pressing for world revolution in words, Trotsky was trying to rob the working-class movement of its revolu- tionary bulwark. He urged the working class that had seized state power to embark on adventurist activity fraught with disastrous consequences for Soviet Russia. At the same time Trotsky confused the working class that still remained in conditions of capitalist exploitation, giving it illusions of some sort of "deliverance" from without.

Trotsky's precepts were dangerous because they intensified the attitudes of "petty-bourgeois revolutionism" which, during the first post-October months, were being spread among the ranks of the working class by those representatives of the petty-bourgeois strata who imagined that it was enough to issue a call to revolutionary war for all the nations to join in a battle that would sweep imperialism away finally and irrevocably. Lenin showed that ringing phrases about "revolutionary war" served as a screen for petty-bourgeois adventurers, who objectively were helping the enemies of the revolution. Addressing the supporters of "revolutionary war", he announced: ". . .In your objective role, you are a tool of imperialist provocation. And your subjective 'men- tality' is that of a frenzied petty bourgeois.. . .'"

In those years many believed that the sharpening of contradictions in capitalist countries might at any minute bring about a world revolution. Trotskyites ignored the growth of social conflicts. They worked on the crude assump- tion that world revolution would come about if events could somehow be hastened at the cost of a few sacrifices. It took great efforts on the part of Lenin and the whole Communist Party to prevent the Trotskyites and the "Left Communists" who acted with them from provoking Soviet Russia to political actions which would have been disastrous to her. Lenin convincingly proved that these views had nothing in common with Marxism, which rejects the "pushing" of revolutions. Revolutions mature in the first place when class contradictions within a country are exacerbated to the point of national crisis.

Trotsky again demonstrated his inability and unwilling- ness to give a scientific analysis of the internal political distribution of class forces, without which a correct assess- ment of the prospects of the revolutionary struggle was impossible. He did not believe in the revolutionary initiative of the working class, but pinned all his hopes purely on external pressures, which were to bring about some sort of internal social collisions, fundamentally change the polit- ical situation, awaken the "sleepers", and push the "waverers" into decisive action.

These views of Trotsky's came close to his vision of world revolution as a chain of battles and conflicts, carried forth from the main centre of insurrection by armed detachments. The victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, in his opinion, had been achieved not by the unbroken growth of political consciousness and activity of the broad masses, led by the Bolsheviks, but by the actions of armed detachments sent out after the fall of the Provisional Government to all parts of the country. Thus he stated: ". .. Improvised detach- ments of sailors and workers carried the revolution from Petrograd and Moscow throughout all of Russia and the Ukraine."

Trotsky approached international revolution with the same yardstick, and considered that it could be "carried" throughout the world by the armed detachments of Soviet Russia.

Theoretical disquisitions on the need for a "revolutionary war" between Soviet Russia and international capitalism were not enough for Trotsky. By his practical actions during the negotiations with German representatives at Brest he tried to drag Soviet Russia into such a war and expose her to the danger of military defeat,

As described by Lenin, the struggle against the pseudo- revolutionary adventurism of Trotskyites and other "Left- wing" opportunists during the Brest period was a bitter, humiliating, difficult, but essential and useful lesson. The Party emerged from this struggle stronger organisationally and ideologically and more clearly aware of the aims and problems of revolutionary development.

Trotsky, however, obstinately continued his attempts to impose on the Party the line of unleashing "revolutionary wars". In August 1919 he addressed a long letter headed "a strategic plan" for the conduct of "revolutionary wars" to the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party.

Trotsky proposed to turn the Red Army "to face the East", since there it would be more effective than in Europe. He wrote: "An army that at present cannot have a decisive influence on the European scales, can shatter the frail balance of Asiatic relations of colonial dependence, give a definite push to a rising of the oppressed masses, and guarantee the victory of such a rising in Asia."

He later announced that "the road to Paris and London lies through the towns of Afghanistan, the Punjab and Bengal", and he urged the formation of a cavalry corps of thirty to forty thousand horsemen "to be flung at India".

The fallaciousness of Trotsky's suggestions was self- evident. The existence of the Land of Soviets became the decisive factor in speeding up revolutionary and national liberation movements throughout the world after the October Revolution. Trotsky's "raids into the enemy's rear" could only strengthen the onslaught of world imperialist reaction against Soviet Russia. The adventurism of Trotsky's "recommendations" becomes even more understandable when one remembers that the country was then within a hair's breadth of disaster, and under pressure from external and internal reaction.

Defending his views on revolutionary wars as a means of bringing about world revolution, Trotsky attempted in 1929 to prove that it was supposedly essential to export the revolution, provided that the proletariat had sufficient resources for this.

This fundamentally wrong interpretation of the interna- tionalist duty of the proletariat Trotsky and his supporters used for treacherous attacks on the basic principles of the

Soviet Government's foreign policy worked out by Lenin. Proceeding from the idea of "revolutionary war", they opposed Lenin's policy of peaceful coexistence. Their notion of switching revolution at will from one country to another cut out the possibility of the existence, perhaps for a long time, of states possessing different social systems.

In the opinion of the Trotskyites, Soviet Russia should be in a condition of perpetual conflict with the capitalist world, taking every sort of risk, even to the point of self- sacrifice, and thus "stimulating" revolution in other countries. Any other policy, except that of the "revolutionary war" they recommended, was dubbed "national narrow-minded- ness".

The Trotskyites asserted that the interests of the interna- tional proletariat did not permit of any sort of agreement between Soviet Russia and the capitalist countries.

It is not surprising that, taking up a position "to the left of common sense", the Trotskyites violently attacked Lenin's plan for the building of socialism in the Soviet Union.

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