Trotskyism

Lenin on Trotsky and Trotskyism

The Right of Nations to Self-Determination
"The obliging Trotsky is more dangerous than an enemy! Trotsky could produce no proof, except "private conversations" (i.e., simply gossip, on which Trotsky always subsists), ........ . How obliging Trotsky is! "

"Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion and desert one side for the other. At the present moment he is in the company of the Bundists and the liquidators. And these gentlemen do not stand on ceremony where the Party is concerned."

Judas Trotsky's Blush of Shame
" it is this Judas who beats his breast and loudly professes his loyalty to the Party, claiming that he did not grovel before the Vperyod group and the liquidators. Such is Judas Trotsky's blush of shame. "

“It is impossible to argue with Trotsky about principles, for he has no views at all. It is possible and necessary to argue with convinced Liquidators and Otzovists [a group of Bolsheviks demanding the recall from the Duma of the Bolshevik deputies]. With a man who only plays at covering up the mistakes of both of them, one does not argue: one exposes him as a diplomat of the lowest order.” (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Russian Edition, Vol. XV, pp. 303-304.)

“Trotsky distorts Bolshevism, for Trotsky never has been able to get any definite views on the rôle of the proletariat in the Russian bourgeois revolution. Much worse, however, is his distortion of the history of that revolution.” (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Russian Edition, Vol. XV, p. 15.)

Lenin, Letter to Zinoviev

Trotsky behaves like a despicable careerist and factionalist ..... ... He pays lip-service to the Party and behaves worse than any other of the factionalists.

The Anonymous Writer in "Vorwärts"
The pamphlet is a reply to an anonymous, scurrilous article by Trotsky in Vorwärts against the Prague Conference and its decisions.

The Liquidators Against the Party

"The bloc comprising the liquidators, Trotsky, the Vperyod group, the Poles, the pro-Party Bolsheviks (?), the Paris Mensheviks, and so on and so forth, was foredoomed to ignominious failure, because it was based on an unprincipled approach, on hypocrisy and hollow phrases"

Pravda (Vienna) -- a factional newspaper published by the Trotskyists from 1908 to 1912 ..Its editor was Trotsky. Under cover of "non-factionalism", the newspaper opposed Bolshevism from the outset, and upheld liquidationism and otzovism

The Aim of the Proletarian Struggle
"By just touching upon Trotsky's mistaken views, ....... Trotsky's major mistake is that he ignores the bourgeois character of the revolution and has no clear conception of the transition from this revolution to the socialist revolution. ........., we shall at least expose the fallacy of those arguments of Trotsky"

The Climax of the Party Crisis

"During that year (1910), the Golos and Vperyod groups and Trotsky, all in fact, moved away from the Party precisely in the direction of liquidationism and otzovism-ultimatumism."

Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity

" Trotsky's "workers' journal" is Trotsky's journal for workers, as there is not a trace in it of either workers' initiative, or any connection with working-class organizations"................ "Everybody knows that Trotsky is fond of high-sounding and empty phrases"........................"that fact proves that we were right in calling Trotsky a representative of the "worst remnant of factionalism.............Although he claims to be non-factional, Trotsky is known to everybody who is in the least familiar with the working-class movement in Russia as the representative of "Trotsky's faction ".."

"Trotsky, however, possesses no ideological and political definiteness, for his patent for "non-factionalism", as we shall soon see in greater detail, is merely a patent to flit freely to and from, from one group to another. "

"Trotsky is very fond of using, with the learned air of the expert, pompous and high-sounding phrases to explain historical phenomena in a way that is flattering to Trotsky"

"What appeals to the liquidators and Trotsky is only the European models of opportunism,"

The Trade Unions and Trotsky's Mistakes
"there are a number of theoretical mistakes in Trotsky's and Bukharin's theses: they contain a number of things that are wrong in principle. Politically, the whole approach to the matter is utterly tactless. Comrade Trotsky's "theses" are politically harmful."

Inner-Party Struggle in Russia

" Trotsky declares: "It is an illusion" to imagine that Menshevism and Bolshevism "have struck deep roots in the depths of the proletariat". This is a specimen of the resonant but empty phrases of which our Trotsky is a master"

"This truly "unrestrained " phrase-mongering is merely the "ideological shadow" of liberalism. Both Martov and Trotsky mix up different historical periods "

" Trotsky distorts Bolshevism, because he has never been able to form any definite views on the role of the proletariat in the Russian bourgeois revolution. "

"Trotsky, on the other hand, represents only his own personal vacillations and nothing more. In 1903 he was a Menshevik; he abandoned Menshevism in 1904, returned to the Mensheviks in 1905 and merely flaunted ultra-revolutionary phrases; in 1906 he left them again; at the end of 1906 he advocated electoral agreements with the Cadets (i.e., he was in fact once more with the Mensheviks); and in the spring of 1907, at the London Congress, he said that he differed from Rosa Luxemburg on "individual shades of ideas rather than on political tendencies". One day Trotsky plagiarizes from the ideological stock-in-trade of one faction; the next day he plagiarizes from that of another, and therefore declares himself to be standing above both factions. "

Notes of a Publicist " This question needs only to be put for one to see how hollow are the eloquent phrases in Trotsky's resolution, to see how in reality they serve to defend the very position held by Axelrod and Co., and Alexinsky and Co.

In the very first words of his resolution Trotsky expressed the full spirit of the worst kind of conciliation, "conciliation" in inverted commas, of a sectarian and philistine conciliation, which deals with the "given persons" and not the given line of policy, the given spirit, the given ideological and political content of Party work. ...... and the "conciliation" of Trotsky and Co., which actually renders the most faithful service to the liquidators and otzovists, and is therefore an evil that is all the more dangerous to the Party the more cunningly, artfully and rhetorically it cloaks itself with professedly pro-Party, professedly anti-factional declamations. "

Tenth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

"The Congress summed up the discussion on the trade unions' role in economic development, condemned the ideas of the Trotskyites, the Workers' Opposition, the Democratic Centralism group and other opportunist trends, and approved Lenin's platform by an overwhelming majority, terming the trade unions as a school of communism, and suggesting measures to develop trade union democracy"

Bourgeois Intelligentsia's Methods of Struggle
"We say: Gentlemen, members of the groups that trust Martov and Dan, and want to "unite" with them, all of you August bloc people, Trotskyists, Vperyodists, Bundists, and so on, and so forth, please come out in the open and show your true colours!"

The New Faction of Conciliators, or the Virtuous

"The conciliators call themselves Bolsheviks, in order to repeat, a year and a half later (and specifically stating moreover that this was done in the name of Bolshevism as a whole !), Trotsky's errors which the Bolsheviks had exposed."

Trotsky's Diplomacy and a Certain Party Platform "Trotsky's particular task is to conceal liquidationism by throwing dust in the eyes of the workers... It is impossible to argue with Trotsky on the merits of the issue, because Trotsky holds no views whatever."