Trotskyism or Leninism
By Harpal Brar
Preface
One of the myths perpetrated by Trotskyites, with not inconsiderable help from the imperialist bourgeoisie, is that Leninism and Trotskyism are synonymous; that Trotsky was, after Lenin, the most brilliant and greatest Bolshevik (some even implying that Lenin was a great Trotskyist); that Trotsky was the true inheritor of Leninism, and a worthy successor to Lenin, but was, alas, deprived of his rightful place by the cunning manoeuvres of a third-class mediocrity and oriental despot to boot, i.e., Joseph Stalin. This anti-communist myth, repeated ad nauseam decade after decade in truly Goebbels fashion, not only in Trotskyite publications but also in classrooms by petty-bourgeois professors and teachers of history and sociology, not to mention the imperialist press and electronic media, this myth has acquired the force of a public prejudice. This prejudice is the product of deliberate distortion and falsification by Trotskyism and its bourgeois allies, of Marxism-Leninism, of deliberate inventions, deceptions, innuendoes, omissions and their tendentious interpretations of the history of the Great October Revolution and the revolutionary practice and role of the USSR, on the one hand, and the ignorance of those on whom these deceptions, distortions and downright falsifications are practised, on the other hand. Anyone who has made some study, let alone a deep study, of the subject cannot but be aware of the total falsity of this myth. It is the aim of this book to expose this myth and lay bare the truly reactionary, counter-revolutionary, essence of the petty-bourgeois ideology of Trotskyism, which is as irreconcilably hostile to Marxism-Leninism as is the bourgeoisie to the proletariat – notwithstanding its pseudo-Marxist, ultra-'left' and ultra-'revolutionary' terminology.
The task I set myself in this book is to show that Leninism and Trotskyism are mutually exclusive; that Trotskyism is irreconcilably opposed to Leninism; that those claiming to be Marxist-Leninists are duty bound, in the interests of the proletariat, to wage a ruthless and uncompromising struggle against Trotskyism; that they have to bury Trotskyism, as an ideological trend in the working-class movement. Further, I seek to demonstrate that after the death of Lenin in January 1924, as Leninism was upheld by the Bolshevik Party, now under the leadership of Stalin, Trotskyism continued its ceaseless onslaught on Leninism, with some tactical adjustments to the form of its attack. It now attacked Leninism and the Party's Leninist policy under the guise of attacking 'Stalinism' in the name of Leninism. For all that, Trotskyism continued its counter-revolutionary struggle against revolutionary Leninism, albeit without overtly and specifically naming Lenin as its target. Be it-said to the honour of the Bolshevik Party and to its leader, Stalin, Trotskyism was dealt blows equally as shattering as those delivered against it during Lenin's lifetime, causing it to suffer ignominious defeat. In particular I seek to emphasise three specific features of Trotskyism – features which bring it into irreconcilable contradiction with Leninism.
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