PICKAX TO THE PEN -- or, PROGRESS ON THE "NEW CRITICISM"
By L. Couturier
‘[The following article first appeared in La Quatriéme Internationale, the newspaper of the Parti Communiste Internationaliste,' French section’ of the Fourth Inter- _ national. The translation is by World Outlook. - The subheadings appear in the original. J
I.
"There are the things we do because, after all, we
have to eat." -- Aragon (The Unfinished Novel. *)
Leon Trotsky is certainly the most slandered'of men, the’ pages mounting into the hundreds of millions. Before and since he was killed with a pickax wielded by a GPU agent, Stalinist hacks throughout the world disseminated the distortions and ‘falsifications of history fabricated by the Kremlin.
Trotsky had become an agent: of imperialism, in alliance with the German, Spanish and Japanese fascists. He now worked at a single task -- to assassinate Stalin and destroy the regime installed by the October revolution. The "great democrats" Sayers and Kahn, in their work The Great Conspiracy, which became the Holy Bible and Scripture of the PCF [Parti communiste frangais -- French Communist party] after the war, wrote: "The death of Leon Trotsky left only. one living candidate for the Napoleonic role in Russia; Adolph Hitler."
At the Twentieth Congress, Khrushchev had requested the creation of "a serious manual of the history of our party, written in accordance with scientific. Marxist objectivity."
There followed some rehabilitations of victims of the Stalinist purges. We asserted, however, that the bureaucracy would never fully rehabilitate Trotsky. His criticism of Soviet society was by far the most profound and perceptive, consequently the most dangerous to Stalin's successors. At present they no longer dare to call the founder of the Red Army a fascist agent but they either maintain a strict silence about him or pick up the old shopworn arguments used around: 1930 for conditioning public opinion to accepting the bloody purges.
We know that certain demands are now being made. by the young generation. in “the Soviet Union which is seeking to ascertain the truth about the Revolution and its leaders. In France ,_ the interest is no less keen, being reflected in a notable circulation of Trotsky's works, which bourgeois publishers are beginning to issue because they find. it profitable.
: This new situation is a source of considerable concern to the leaders of: the PCF. No longer can they simply copy the editorials from Pravda, since there are no more trials of "Trotskyite saboteurs," and it becomes a bit tricky to keep on paraphrasing the History of the C.P.S.U., each succeeding edition of which adds unexpectéd revela-— tions (but known, of course, for some forty years, to every militant who has engaged in the least study). o
' Under: these conditions, one resource remained: to take things up in the Nouvelle Critique (New Criticism]. This magazine: holds: letters patent of nobility, for it has © _ been interested in Trotskyism a very long time.
Falsification across the Ages
As a result, Frangois Hincker wrote an article entitled "Lenin and Trotsky" which appeared in- the April 1966 issue. In the hurried style of a pieceworker, this gentleman tries to settle accounts with Trotsky in nine pages. The article contains many gems, flagrant lies stand “beside truncated texts, dnd a thick ‘glue composed. of complacent ignorance and malice serves ‘to hold everything together. It is an unpleasant chore to have to engage in a debate at such a low level, but there is no escape from sampling the strange brew offered by the "Review of Militant Marxism". in order to help "a certain number of readers, students in particular, who.have encountered the obstacle of leftism in the course of their political activities." .. +
‘Let us begin with the opening statement:
"The author does not claim to present - new ‘elements: of a historical nature; he only separates the facts from the mythology advanced “in Trotskyist literature -- and by heavens ‘that mythology is abundant! ".
Come now, my dear fellow, you are far too modest! Let us leaf through some back numbers of Nouvelle Critique together from the days before you began participating so brilliantly in editing it, and let us see how your magazine then spoke about Trotsky ‘and the Fourth International. There is, for instance, the interminable series of articles penned at the time by Pierre Hervé entitled "From Trotsky to Tito." Then, too, your review. never dissociated itself from the conclusions of the Moscow Trials. It has always remained faithful to Stalin's declaration: "In reality, Trotskyism long ago ceased to be a Communist faction. In reality, Trotskyism is a vanguard detachment of the counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie, which is leading the struggle against Communisn, against the Soviet power, against the building of socialism in the U.S.S.R." (1931)
In your article, Trotsky is no longer presented in this way. You criticize his ideas, his personality, his role, in a very superficial way, I must admit, but at least you seem to consider him as a figure belonging to the working-class movement and no longer as a member of Interpol. And these are "new elements of a historical nature," if in studying history one has nothing but the documents published by the PCF to go by.
When and where did the Nouvelle Critique make its own self-criticism? This indeed would be an "autocritique Nouvelle" (New Self-Criticism) but we fear we will have to wait a long time for that. , ‘
His looseness in the use of references and the modifications (to say the least ...) he introduces in quotations testify to the author's seriousness.
It is a glaring fact that Mr. Hincker has not read a single work by Trotsky but judges and quotes him via Stalin, Bukharin and Isaac Deutscher.
From the serious work of Deutscher, so scrupulous on the historical plane, Hincker has scrounged several ideas, several quotations, which he has seasoned lightly in the best Stalinist style, and presented as the fruits of his own personal labor.
Before replying to him on several fundamental questions, we will offer a few examples showing how free from prejudice is this "militant Marxist" which Mr. Hincker doubtlessly considers himself to be.
(a) The somewhat theatrical excerpts from orders addressed by Trotsky to the Labor Armies are taken from Volume I of Deutscher's book (p. 495-96); but Deutscher clearly identifies these as only excerpts. Also, he specifies that the text appeared in Pravda January 16, 1920, and that at the time Lenin supported Trotsky's efforts toward some militarization of labor. These provisos are of no interest to Hincker.
(b) The "famous thesis,of the Permanent Revolution" which was to become the heart of Trotskyism was elaborated in the pamphlet of April 1904 entitled Our Political Tasks. Wrong —- or rather a too hasty reading of Deutscher's work. The latter makes a detailed analysis of Trotsky's polemical document, which is primarily directed against Lenin in his role as organizer of a centralized party but without broaching the theory of permanent revolution at all. It is not until 1906, in The Balance and the Prospects, that Trotsky presented his theory in schematic form for the first time. :
. (c) "In April 1917, in his draft report to the April conference, which, as we know, had the task of planning the lines of development of the October Revolution, Lenin foresaw a problem with the petty bourgeoisie, among whom he ranked Trotsky alongside of Martov." Mr. Hincker is not even capable of correctly quoting something which was included in Volume 36 of Lenin's Works. (Editions sociales, Vol. 36, p. 461 [French edition]). The item is an outline of a report on the April conference which Lenin made at a membership meeting on May 8 (21) 1917. He foresaw the development of: "the hesitations of the petty bourgeoisie: Trotsky, Larin and Bienstock, Martov, Novaya Zhizn." Trotsky had returned from the United States four days previously and Lenin did not yet know his position on the provisional government. He was soon to learn that the articles written by Trotsky in the United States were very close to the April theses, in contrast to the position of the "old Bolsheviks" present in Petrograd (Stalin, Kamenev, etc.), who were for critical support of Prince: Lvov's government.
(a) "It is true that there were points of agreement, particularly on the national question in 1921, when Lenin and Trots joined together in fighting Stalin's Great Russian tendencies twith regard to Georgia)."
Here Hincker tries hard to play the gracious lord, but.once again he is wrong. In 1921 Lenin gave Trotsky no support whatever in his protests against Stalin's handling of the Georgian problem. In October 1922, Lenin still had confidence in Stalin. It was not until December 1922.that he became aware of the real situation, disavowed Stalin and made an alliance with Trotsky. But by juggling the dates in this way, Hincker is
able to talk about the year 1922 as one marked by total opposition between Lenin and Trotsky in.the Political Bureau...We will return to this point.
(e) "Again, in 1923, in his famous ‘letter to the Congress,' the so-called 'Testament,' Lenin brings up Trotsky's Menshevik past."
Lenin could not have brought up Trotsky's Menshevik past since the latter broke with the Mensheviks in the autumn of 1904 and was in disagreement with them on the ques-— tions of bourgeois liberalism and revolutionary perspectives.
What is mentioned in the "Testament" is Trotsky's "non-Boishevism" (Editions sociales, Vol. 36, p. 607). :
Lenin, referring to Trotsky's non-Bolshevik past, said he was not to be blamed for this any more than Zinoviev and Kamenev were to be blamed for the. October episode. In August-September 1956, the magazine Les Cahiers du_communisme (The Notebooks of Communism) already falsified this text, referring to "Trotsky's non-Bolshevik spirit."
The falsifiers follow in each other's footsteps and resemble each other...
From Chronicler to Theoretician
With the help of such unsavory methods, Mr. Hincker expands his "demonstration, " utilizing by-products of the anti-Trotskyist campaign of 1924-1925: a
-- Trotsky underestimated the peasantry.
-- Trotsky took an absurd position at Brest-Litovsk.
-- Trotsky was against war Communism when it was necessary and critical of the NEP as soon as it was adopted.
-- Trotsky and Lenin were in opposition to each other during the whole year of 1922.
Let us give Hincker the floor once again:
"The idea that the poor peasantry in.Russia is incapable of an independent revolutionary movement and will only be awakened and led to power by the proletariat -- an idea which is fundamental to the theory of permanent revolution -- finally joined up with the Menshevik conception that the Russian problem was the same as the West European, as opposed to the Ieninist analysis of Russian originality, based.on the existence of an objectively revolutionary peasantry."
With every word a lie and an error. Trotsky never said that the peasantry (let alone the poor peasantry) was incapable of an independent revolutionary movement. In | The Balance and Prospects, he analyzes spontaneous peasant movements in Russia and in France. He demonstrates that the peasantry, because of its economic and social situation, the dispersed nature of its property, its “local-mindedness," never succeeded in leading a revolutionary movement capable of achieving the goals of the peasants' struggles. Although the peasant has fought, it has always been either for the bourgeoisie or for the landlord. And from 1905 on, Trotsky explained that the peasantry constitutes an immense revolutionary force in Russia but that-it needs a leadership. Only the young Russian proletariat, concentrated and combative, could assume this role. He is, at the same time, critical of Lenin's slogan of a "democratic dictatorship of the workers and peas-— ants," which implied that the peasantry was capable of creating a revolutionary party independent of the liberal bourgeoisie and able to deal on an equal basis with the party of the proletariat.
"It is altogether obvious that the proletariat executes its mission, just as the bourgeoisie did in former times, by winning the support of the peasantry and petty bourgeoisie. The proletariat leads the countryside, draws it into the movement, interests it in the success of its plans, but always remains at the head. It is not a dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. It is a dictatorship of the proletariat supported by the peasantry." (Trotsky, 1905. , .
History completely substantiated this view and in 1917 the old Bolshevik slogan was discarded. So far as the Mensheviks were concerned, their position was the opposite -~ since the future revolution had to carry out bourgeois tasks (parliamentary democracy, agrarian reform, etc.), it was up to the bourgeoisie to assume leadership, with the proletariat and its organizations contenting themselves with playing the role of a constructive opposition.
In trying to include Trotsky among the Mensheviks, poor Hincker is most unsuc-~ cessful; all he succeeds in doing is to pile up a series of incoherent remarks, conecluding with this gleaming pearl: "But at the time [in 1905], Lenin, the realist, was thinking of the Party rather than of the Revolution." What. admirable realism lies in this dichotomy, in which the Party stands in opposition to the Revolution! Truly, our author's Stalinist education has taught him perfectly how to dissociate these two "incompatible" elements. ~ ~~
Hincker has no more luck with the Brest=Litovsk period.
"At the time of the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, Trotsky, while not siding with the ultralefts, who advocated resuming the war, did reject the German ultimatum while at the same time announcing the withdrawal of the Russian army -- an absurd position which can: only be explained by Trotsky's illusion in spontaneity -- the proletariat, confronted ‘by a demand to attack Soviet Russia, would refuse ‘to do so and would: ‘Tevolg. "
“This illusion in “spontaneity, castigated with such disdain by -our critic, - was shared by the majority of the Bolshevik Central Committee, that is to say, by men with a different past and different education from that of -our author. Lenin, whose position in favor of an immediate peace turned out to be correct, was in a minority. The major~ ity of the Central Committee was’ divided between "left éommunists, " who wanted an immediate "revolutionary war" against Germany, and partisans of Trotsky's theses, calling for demobilization ‘of ‘the army, while’ refusing to sign a peace treaty, so that any eventual renewal of hostilitiés by the Germans would appear ‘before the ‘world as an odious imperialist aggression.
In order to know what took place at Brest- Litovsk, it is only necessary to read the minutes of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party: at the time. Unfortunately, while the work is on sale in Moscow and in Italy, the Nouvelle Critique publishers must no doubt have found it below their standards, so that it has fallen to the lot of the publishers of Editions Maspéro to make it available to French readers.
At the Central Committee meeting of January 11 (24), 1918, Trotsky's formula "We stop the war without concluding peace; we demobilize the army" received nine votes against seven.
- On February 22, Bukharin (curiously given a stellar role. by Hincker for his subsequent anti-Trotskyist texts) declared that he was ‘leaving the Central Committee and the editorial: board | of Pravda. . ;
On “February 23, the Central Committee went over to Lenin' Ss side by seven votes ™ to four, thanks to ‘the four abstentions of Trotsky, Krestinsky, Dzerzhinsky and Joffe. Trotsky explained that he was not convinced of the need to accept the German proposals immediately, but that in no case did he want to upset the unity of the party. The party faced the threat of a split at the moment. The only solution was to permit the creation of a najority, so as to: achieve a single line.
‘(fo be continued.) |
COST OF THE WAR IN VIETNAM
The cost to the United States for the war it is waging against the ‘