DIALECTICS AND ECLECTICISM.
"SCHOOL" AND "APPARATUS"
Among Comrade Bukharin's many excellent traits are his theoretical ability and keen interest in getting at the theoretical roots of every question. That is a very valuable trait because you cannot have a proper understanding of any mistake, let alone a political one, unless you dig down to its theoretical roots among the basic premises of the one who makes it.
Responding to this urge, Comrade Bukharin tended to shift the controversy into the theoretical sphere, beginning from December 30, if not earlier.
In his speech on that day he said: "That neither the political nor the economic factor can be ignored is, I believe, absolutely incontrovertible -- and that is the theoretical essence of what is here known as the 'buffer group' or its ideology " (p. 47).
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The gist of his theoretical mistake in this case is substitution of eclecticism for the dialectical interplay of politics and economics (which we find in Marxism). His theoretical attitude is: "on the one hand, and on the other", "the one and the other". That is eclecticism. Dialectics requires an all-round consideration of relationships in their concrete development but not a patchwork of bits and pieces. I have shown this to be so on the example of politics and economics.
That of the "buffer" has gone to reinforce the point. You need a buffer, and it is useful when the Party train is heading for a crash. No question about that at all. Bukharin has built up his "buffer" problem eclectically, by collecting odd pieces from Zinoviev and Trotsky. As a "buffer", Bukharin should have decided for himself just where, when and how each individual or group had made their mistake, whether it was a theoretical mistake, one of political tact, factional pronouncement, or exaggeration, etc. He should have done that and gone hammer and tongs at every such mistake. But he has failed to understand his task of "buffer", and here is good proof of it.
The Communist group of Tsektran's Petrograd Bureau (the C.C. of the Railwaymen's and Water Transport Workers' Union), an organisation sympathising with Trotsky, has stated its opinion that, "on the main issue of the trade unions' role in production, Comrades Trotsky and Bukharin hold views which are variations of one and the same standpoint". It has issued Comrade Bukharin's report in Petrograd on January 3,1921, in pamphlet form (N. Bukharin, The Tasks of the Trade Unions, Petrograd, 1921). It says:
"Comrade Trotsky's original formulation was that the trade union leadership should be removed and suitable comrades found to take their place, etc. He had earlier advocated a 'shake-up', but he has now abandoned the idea, and it is therefore quite absurd to use it as an argument against him" (p. 5).
I will let pass the numerous factual inaccuracies in this statement. (Trotsky used the term "shake-up" at the Fifth All-Russia Conference of Trade Unions, November 2-6. He mentions "selection of leadership" in Paragraph 5 of his theses which he submitted to the Central Committee on
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November 8, and which, incidentally, some of his supporters have published as a leaflet. The whole of Trotsky's pamphlet, The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions, December 25, reveals the same kind of mentality, the same spirit as I have pointed out before. When and how he "abandoned" this attitude remains a mystery.) I am now dealing with a different matter. When the "buffer" is an eclectic, he passes over some mistakes and brings up others; he says nothing of them in Moscow on December 30, 1920, when addressing thousands of R.C.P. functionaries from all over Russia; but he brings them up in Petrograd on January 3, 1921. When the "buffer" is a dialectician, he directs the full brunt of his attack at every mistake he sees on either side, or on all sides. And that is something Bukharin does not do. He does not even try to examine Trotsky 's pamphlet in the light of the "shake-up" policy. He simply says nothing about it. No wonder his buffer performance has made everyone laugh.
To proceed. In that same Petrograd speech he says (p. 7):
"Comrade Trotsky's mistake is insufficient support for the school-of-communism idea."
During the December 30 discussion, Bukharin reasoned as follows:
"Comrade Zinoviev has said that the trade unions are a school of communism, and Trotsky has said that they are a technical and administrative apparatus for industrial management. I see no logical grounds for proof that either proposition is wrong; both, and a combination of both, are right" (p. 48).
Bukharin and his "group" or "faction" make the same point in their thesis 6: "On the one hand, they [the trade unions] are a school of communism . . . and on the other, they are -- increasingly -- a component part of the economic apparatus and of state administration in general" (Pravda, January 16).
That is where we find Comrade Bukharin's fundamental theoretical mistake, which is substitution of eclecticism (especially popular with the authors of diverse "fashionable" and reactionary philosophical systems) for Marxist dialectics.
When Comrade Bukharin speaks of "logical" grounds, his whole reasoning shows that he takes -- unconsciously,
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perhaps -- the standpoint of formal or scholastic logic, and not of dialectical or Marxist logic. Let me explain this by taking the simple example which Comrade Bukharin himself gives. In the December 30 discussion he said:
"Comrades, many of you may find that the current controversy suggests something like this: two men come in and invite each other to define the tumbler on the lectern. One says: 'It is a glass cylinder, and a curse on anyone who says different.' The other one says: 'A tumbler is a drinking vessel, and a curse on anyone who says different'"(p. 46).
The reader will see that Bukharin's example was meant to give me a popular explanation of the harm of one-track thinking. I accept it with gratitude, and in the one-good turn-deserves-another spirit offer a popular explanation of the difference between dialectics and eclecticism.
A tumbler is assuredly both a glass cylinder and a drinking vessel. But there are more than these two properties, qualities or facets to it; there are an infinite number of them, an infinite number of "mediacies" and inter-relationships with the rest of the world. A tumbler is a heavy object which can be used as a missile; it can serve as a paper weight, a receptacle for a captive butterfly, or a valuable object with an artistic engraving or design, and this has nothing at all to do with whether or not it can be used for drinking, is made of glass, is cylindrical or not quite, and so on and so forth.
Moreover, if I needed a tumbler just now for drinking, it would not in the least matter how cylindrical it was, and whether it was actually made of glass; what would matter though would be whether it had any holes in the bottom, or anything that would cut my lips when I drank, etc. But if I did not need a tumbler for drinking but for a purpose that could be served by any glass cylinder, a tumbler with a cracked bottom or without one at all would do just as well, etc.
Formal logic, which is as far as schools go (and should go, with suitable abridgements for the lower forms), deals with formal definitions, draws on what is most common, or glaring, and stops there. When two or more different definitions are taken and combined at random (a glass
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cylinder and a drinking vessel), the result is an eclectic definition which is indicative of different facets of the object, and nothing more.
Dialectical logic demands that we should go further. Firstly, if we are to have a true knowledge of an object we must look at and examine all its facets, its connections and "mediacies". That is something we cannot ever hope to achieve completely, but the rule of comprehensiveness is a safeguard against mistakes and rigidity. Secondly, dialectical logic requires that an object should be taken in development, in change, in "self-movement" (as Hegel sometimes puts it). This is not immediately obvious in respect of such an object as a tumbler, but it, too, is in flux, and this holds especially true for its purpose, use and connection with the surrounding world. Thirdly, a full "definition" of an object must include the whole of human experience, both as a criterion of truth and a practical indicator of its connection with human wants. Fourthly, dialectical logic holds that "truth is always concrete, never abstract", as the late Plekhanov liked to say after Hegel. (Let me add in parenthesis for the benefit of young Party members that you cannot hope to become a real, intelligent Communist without making a study -- and I mean study -- of all of Plekhanov's philosophical writings, because nothing better has been written on Marxism anywhere in the world.*)
I have not, of course, run through the whole notion of dialectical logic, but what I have said will do for the present. I think we can return from the tumbler to the trade unions and Trotsky's platform.
"A school, on the one hand, and an apparatus on the other", says Bukharin, and writes as much in his theses. Trotsky's mistake is "insufficient support for the school-
* By the way, it would be a good thing, first, if the current edition of Plekhanov's works contained a special volume or volumes of all his philosophical articles, with detailed indexes, etc., to be included in a series of standard textbooks on communism; secondly I think the workers' state must demand that professors of philosophy should have a knowledge of Plekhanov's exposition of Marxist philosophy and ability to impart it to their students. But all that is a digression from "propaganda" to "administration".
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of-communism idea"; Zinoviev errs by being lukewarm on the apparatus "factor".
Why is Bukharin's reasoning no more than inert and empty eclecticism? It is because he does not even try to make an independent analysis, from his own standpoint, either of the whole course of the current controversy (as Marxism, that is, dialectical logic, unconditionally demands) or of the whole approach to the question, the whole presentation -- the whole trend of the presentation, if you will -- of the question at the present time and in these concrete circumstances. You do not see Bukharin doing that at all! His approach is one of pure abstraction: he makes no attempt at concrete study, and takes bits and pieces from Zinoviev and Trotsky. That is eclecticism.
Here is another example to clarify the picture. I know next to nothing about the insurgents and revolutionaries of South China (apart from the two or three articles by Sun Yat-sen, and a few books and newspaper articles I read many years ago). Since there are these uprisings, it is not too far-fetched to assume a controversy going on between Chinese No. 1, who says that the insurrection is the product of a most acute nation-wide class struggle, and Chinese No. 2, who says that insurrection is an art. That is all I need to know in order to write theses à la Bukharin: "On the one hand, . . . on the other hand". The one has failed to reckon with the art "factor", and the other, with the "acuteness factor", etc. Because no concrete study is made of this particular controversy, question, approach, etc., the result is a dead and empty eclecticism.
On the one hand, the trade unions are a school, and on the other, an apparatus; but they also happen to be an organisation of working people, an almost exclusive organisation of industrial workers, an organisation by industry, etc.* Bukharin does not make any analysis for himself, nor does he produce a shred of evidence to prove why it is that we should consider the first two "facets" of the question
* Incidentally, here again Trotsky makes a mistake. He thinks that an industrial union is designed to control industry. That is wrong. When you say that a union is an industrial one you mean that it admits to membership workers in one industry, which is inevitable at the present level of technology and culture (in Russia and elsewhere).
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or object, instead of the third, the fourth, the fifth, etc. That is why his group's theses are an eclectic soap bubble. His presentation of the "school-apparatus" relationship is fundamentally eclectic and wrong.
The only way to view this question in the right light is to descend from empty abstractions to the concrete, that is, the present issue. Whether you take it in the form it assumed at the Fifth All-Russia Conference of Trade Unions, or as it was presented and slanted by Trotsky himself in his platform pamphlet of December 25, you will find that his whole approach is quite wrong and that he has gone off at a tangent. He has failed to understand that the trade unions can and must be viewed as a school both when raising the question of "Soviet trade-unionism", and when speaking of production propaganda in general, and even when considering "coalescence" and trade union participation in industrial management, as Trotsky does. On this last point, as it is presented in Trotsky's platform pamphlet, the mistake lies in his failure to grasp that the trade unions are a school of technical and administrative management of production. In the context of the controversy, you can not say: "a school, on the one hand, and something else on the other"; given Trotsky's approach, the trade unions, whichever way you look at them, are a school. They are a school of unity, solidarity, management and administration, where you learn how to protect your interests. Instead of making an effort to comprehend and correct Comrade Trotsky's fundamental mistake, Comrade Bukharin has produced a funny little amendment: "On the one hand, and on the other."
Let us go deeper into the question. Let us see what the present trade unions are, as an "apparatus" of industrial management. We have seen from the incomplete returns that about 900 workers -- trade union members and delegates -- are engaged in industrial management. If you multiply this number by 10 or even by 100 -- if it helps to clarify your fundamental mistake let us assume this incredible speed of "advance" in the immediate future -- you still have an insignificant proportion of those directly engaged in management, as compared with the mass of six million trade union members. This makes it even clearer that it
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is quite wrong to look to the "leading stratum", and talk about the trade unions' role in production and industrial management, as Trotsky does, forgetting that 98.5 per cent (6 million minus 90,000 equals 5,910,000 or 98.5 per cent of the total) are learning, and will have to continue to do so for a long time to come. Don't say school and management, say schooI of management.
In his December 30 argument against Zinoviev, whom he accused, quite groundlessly and incorrectly, of denying the "appointments system", that is, the Central Committee's right and duty to make appointments, Comrade Trotsky inadvertently drew the following telltale comparison:
"Zinoviev tends to overdo the propaganda angle on every practical matter, forgetting that it is not only a source of material for agitation, but also a problem requiring an administrative solution" (p. 27).
Before I explain in detail the potential administrative approach to the issue, let me say that Comrade Trotsky's fundamental mistake is that he treats (rather, maltreats) the questions he himself had brought up in his platform pamphlet as administrative ones, whereas they could be and ought to be viewed only from the propaganda angle.
In effect, what are Trotsky's good points? One undoubtedly good and useful point is his production propaganda, but that is not in his theses, but in his speeches, specially when he forgets about his unfortunate polemics with the allegedly "conservative" wing of the trade-unionists. He would undoubtedly have done (and I believe he will do) a great deal of good in the trade union commission's practical business, as speaker and writer, and as a member of the All-Russia Production Propaganda Bureau. His platform theses were a mistake, for through them, like a scarlet thread, runs the administrative approach to the "crisis" and the "two trends" within the trade unions, the interpretation of the R.C.P. Programme, "Soviet trade-unionism", "production training" and "coalescence". I have listed all the main points of Trotsky's "platform " and they all happen to be topics which, considering the material at Trotsky's disposal, can be correctly approached at the present time only from the propaganda angle.
The state is a sphere of coercion. It would be madness
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to renounce coercion, especially in the epoch of the dictatorship of the proletariat, so that the administrative approach and "steerage" are indispensable. The Party is the leader, the vanguard of the proletariat, which rules directly. It is not coercion but expulsion from the Party that is the specific means of influence and the means of purging and steeling the vanguard. The trade unions are a reservoir of the state power, a school of communism and a school of management. The specific and cardinal thing in this sphere is not administration but the "ties " "between the central state administration" (and, of course, the local as well), "the national economy and the broad masses of the working people" (see Party Programme, economic section, §5, dealing with the trade unions).
The whole of Trotsky's platform pamphlet betrays an incorrect approach to the problem and a misunderstanding of this relationship.
Let us assume that Trotsky had taken a different approach to this famous question of "coalescence" in connection with the other topics of his platform, and that his pamphlet was entirely devoted to a detailed investigation of, say, 90 of the 900 cases of "coalescence" where trade union officials and members concurrently held elective trade union posts and Supreme Economic Council posts in industrial management. Let us say these 90 cases had been analysed together with the returns of a selective statistical survey, the reports of inspectors and instructors of Rabkrin and the People's Commissariats concerned: let us say they had been analysed in the light of the data supplied by the administrative bodies, the results of the work, the headway in production, etc. That would have been a correct administrative approach, and would have fullyy indicated the "shake-up" line, which implies concentrating attention on removals, transfers, appointments and the immediate demands to be made on the "leading stratum". When Bukharin said in his January 3 speech, published by the Tsektran people in Petrograd, that Trotsky had at first wanted a "shake-up" but had now abandoned the idea, he made another one of his eclectical mistakes, which is ridiculous from the practical standpoint and theoretically inadmissible for a Marxist. He takes the question in the abstract, being unable (or
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unwilling) to get down to brass tacks. So long as we, the Party's Central Committee and the whole Party, continue to run things, that is, govern, we shall never -- we cannot -- dispense with the "shake-up", that is, removals, transfers, appointments, dismissals, etc. But Trotsky's platform pamphlet deals with something else, and does not raise the "question of practical business" at all. It is not this but the "trends within the trade union movement" (Trotsky's thesis 4, end) that was being debated by Zinoviev and Trotsky, Bukharin and myself, and in fact the whole Party.
This is essentially a political question. Because of the substance of the case -- this concrete, particular "case " -- it is impossible to correct Trotsky's mistake by means of eclectic little amendments and addenda, as Bukharin has been trying to do, being moved undoubted]y by the most humane sentiments and intensions.
There is only one answer.
First, there must be a correct solution of the political question of the "trends within the trade union movement", the relationship between classes, between politics and economics, the specific role of the state, the Party, the trade unions, as "school" and apparatus, etc.
Second, once the correct political decision has been adopted, a diversified nation-wide production propaganda campaign must be carried through, or, rather, systematically carried forward with persistence and patience over a long term, under the sponsorship and direction of a state agency. It should be conducted in such a way as to cover the same ground over and over again.
Third, the "questions of practical business" must not be confused with trend issues which properly belong to the sphere ofgeneral Party talk" and broad discussions; they must be dealt with as practical matters in the working commissions, with a hearing of witnesses and a study of memoranda, reports and statistics. And any necessary "shake-up" must be carried out only on that basis and in those circumstances: only under a decision of the competent Soviet or Party organ, or of both.
Trotsky and Bukharin have produced a hodgepodge of political mistakes in approach, breaks in the middle of the transmission belts, and unwarranted and futile attacks
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on "administrative steerage". It is now clear where the "theoretical" source of the mistake lies, since Bukharin has taken up that aspect of it with his example of the tumbler. His theoretical -- in this case, gnosiological -- mistake lies in his substitution of eclecticism for dialectics. His eclectic approach has confused him and has landed him in syndicalism. Trotsky's mistake is one-track thinking, compulsiveness, exaggeration and obstinacy. His platform says that a tumbler is a drinking vessel, but this particular tumbler happens to have no bottom.
CONCLUSION
It remains for me to go over a few more points which must be dealt with to prevent misunderstanding.
Thesis 6 of Trotsky 's platform quotes Paragraph 5 of the economic section of the R.C.P. Programme, which deals with the trade unions. Two pages later, his thesis 8 says:
"Having lost the old basis of their existence, the class economic struggle, the trade unions. . . " (that is wrong, and is a hasty exaggeration: the trade unions no longer have to face the class economic struggle but the non-class "economic struggle", which means combating bureaucratic distortions of the Soviet apparatus, safeguarding the working people's material and spiritual interests in ways and means inaccessible to this apparatus, etc. This is a struggle they will unfortunately have to face for many more years to come). "The trade unions," says Trotsky, "have, for various reasons, not yet succeeded in mustering the necessary forces and working out the necessary methods enabling them to solve the new task, that of organising production " (Trotsky's italics, p. 9, thesis 8), "set before them by the proletarian revolution and formulated in our Programme."
That is yet another hasty exaggeration which is pregnant with grave error. The Programme does not contain any such formulation nor does it set the trade unions the task of "organising production". Let us go over the propositions in the Party's Programme as they unfold in the text:
(1) "The organisational apparatus" (but not the others) "of socialised industry should rely chiefly" (but not exclusively) "on the trade unions." (2) "They must to an ever
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increasing degree divest themselves of the narrow craft-union spirit" (how? under the leadership of the Party and through the proletariat's educational and other influence on the non-proletarian mass of working people) "and become large industrial associations, embracing the majority, and eventually all of the workers in the given industry."
That is the first part of the section of the Party Programme dealing with the trade unions. You will have noted that it starts by laying down very "strict conditions" demanding a long sustained effort for what is to follow. And what follows is this:
"The trade unions being, on the strength of the laws of the Soviet Republic and established practice, participants" (note the cautious statement: participants only) "in all the local and central organs of industrial management, should eventually arrive at a de facto concentration in their hands of the whole administration of the whole national economy, as a single economic entity" (note this: should arrive at a de facto concentration of management not of branches of industry and not of industry as a whole, but of the whole national economy, and moreover, as an economic entity. In economic terms, this condition may be considered fulfilled only when the petty producers both in industry and agriculture account for less than one-half of the population and the national economy). "The trade unions ensuring in this way" (the way which helps to realise all the conditions listed earlier) "indissoluble ties between the central state administration, the national economy and the broad masses of working people, should draw the latter" (that is, the masses, the majority of the population) "into direct economic management on the widest possible scale. At the same time, the participation of the trade unions in economic management and their activity in drawing the broad masses into this work are the principal means of combating the bureaucratisation of the economic apparatus of the Soviet power and making possible the establishment of truly popular control over the results of production."
There again, in that last sentence, we find a very cautious phrase: "participation in economic management"; and another reference to the recruitment of the broad masses as the chief (but not the only) means of combating
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bureaucratic practices; finally, we find a highly cautious statement: "making possible " the establishment of "popular " -- that is, workers' and peasants', and not just purely proletarian -- "control ".
It is obviously wrong to boil this down to the Party Programme "formulating" the trade unions' task as "organisation of production". And if you insist on this error, and write it into your platform theses, you will get nothing but an anti-communist, syndicalist deviation.
Incidentally, Comrade Trotsky says in his theses that "over the last period we have not made any headway towards the goal set forth in the Programme but have in fact retreated from it" (p. 7, thesis 6). That statement is unsupported, and, I think, wrong. It is no proof to say, as Trotsky did in the discussions, that the trade unions "themselves" admit this. That is not the last resort, as far as the Party is concerned, and, generally speaking, the proof lies only in a serious and objective study of a great number of facts. Moreover, even if such proof were forthcoming, there would remain this question: Why have we retreated? Is it because "many trade-unionists " are "balking at the new tasks and methods", as Trotsky believes, or because "we have not yet succeeded in mustering the necessary forces and working out the necessary methods" to cut short and correct certain unwarranted and harmful excesses of bureaucracy?
Which brings me to Bukharin's rebuke of December 30 (repeated by Trotsky yesterday, January 24, during our discussion in the Communist group of the Second Miners' Congress) that we have "dropped the line laid down by the Ninth Party Congress" (p. 46 of the report on the December 30 discussion). He alleged that at that Congress I had defended the militarisation of labour and had jeered at references to democracy, all of which I now "repudiate". In his reply to the debate on December 30, Comrade Trotsky added this barb: "Lenin takes account of the fact that . . . there is a grouping of opposition-minded comrades within the trade unions" (p. 65); that I view it from the "diplomatic angle" (p. 69), and that there is "manoeuvring inside the Party groups" (p. 70), etc. Putting such a complexion on the case is, of course, highly flattering for Trotsky, and
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worse than unflattering for me. But let us look at the facts.
In that same discussion on December 30, Trotsky and Krestinsky established the fact that "as long ago as July (1920), Comrade Preobrazhensky had proposed to the Central Committee that we should switch to a new track in respect of the internal life of our workers' organisations" (p. 25). In August, Comrade Zinoviev drafted a letter, and the Central Committee approved a C.C. Ietter on combating red-tape and extending democracy. In September, the question was brought up at a Party conference whose decisions were endorsed by the Central Committee. In December, the question of combating red-tape was laid before the Eighth Congress of Soviets. Consequently, the whole Central Committee, the whole Party and the whole workers' and peasants' Republic had recognised that the question of the bureaucracy and ways of combating its evils was high on the agenda. Does any "repudiation" of the Ninth Congress of the R.C.P. follow from all this? Of course, not. The decisions on the militarisation of labour, etc., are incontestable, and there is no need for me at all to withdraw any of my jibes at the references to democracy by those who challenged these decisions. What does follow is that we shall be extending democracy in the workers' organisations, without turning it into a fetish; that we shall redouble our attention to the struggle against bureaucratic practices; and that we shall take special care to rectify any unwarranted and harmful excesses of bureaucracy, no matter who points them out.
One final remark on the minor question of priority and equalisation. I said during the December 30 discussion that Trotsky's formulation of thesis 41 on this point was theoretically wrong, because it implied priority in production and equalisation in consumption. I replied that priority implied preference and that that was nothing unless you also had it in consumption. Comrade Trotsky reproached me for "extraordinary forgetfulness" and "intimidation" (pp. 67 and 68), and I am surprised to find that he has not accused me also of manoeuvring, diplomatic moves, etc. He has made "concessions" to my equalitarian line, but I have attacked him.
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Actually, however, anyone who takes an interest in Party affairs, can turn to indisputable Party documents: the November resolution of the C.C. Plenum, point 4, and Trotsky's platform pamphlet, thesis 41. However "forgetful" I may be, and however excellent Comrade Trotsky's memory, it is still a fact that thesis 41 contains a theoretical error, which the C.C. resolution of November 9 does not. The resolution says: "While recognising the necessity of keeping to the principle of priority in carrying out the economic plan, the Central Committee, in complete solidarity with the decisions of the last All-Russia Conference (September), deems it necessary to effect a gradual but steady transition to equality in the status of various groups of workers and their respective trade unions, all the while building up the organisation on the scale of the union as a whole." That is clearly aimed against Tsektran, and it is quite impossible to put any other construction on the exact meaning of the resolution. Priority is here to stay. Preference is still to be given to enterprises, trade unions, trusts and departments on the priority list (in regard to fulfilment of the economic plan), but at the same time, the "equalitarian line" -- which was supported not by "Comrade Lenin alone", but was approved by the Party Conference and the Central Committee, that is, the entire Party -- makes this clear-cut demand: get on with the gradual but steady transition to equalisation. That Tsektran failed to carry out this C.C. resolution (November) is evident from the Central Committee's December resolution (on Trotsky and Bukharin's motion), which contains another reminder of the "principles of ordinary democracy". The theoretical error in thesis 41 is that it says: equalisation in consumption, priority in production. That is an economic absurdity because it implies a gap between production and consumption. I did not say -- and could never have said -- anything of the sort. If you don't need a factory, close it down. Close down all the factories that are not absolutely essential, and give preference to those that are. Give preference to, say, transport. Most certainly. But the preference must not be overdone, as it was in Tsektran's case, which was why the Party (and not just Lenin) issued this directive: get on with the gradual but steady transition to equality.
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And Trotsky has no one but himself to blame for having come out -- after the November Plenary Meeting, which gave a clear-cut and theoretically correct solution -- with a factional pamphlet on "the two trends" and proposed a formulation in his thesis 41 which is wrong in economic terms.
Today, January 25, it is exactly one month since Comrade Trotsky's factional statement. It is now patent that this pronouncement, inappropriate in form and wrong in essence, has diverted the Party from its practical economic and production effort into rectifying political and theoretical mistakes. But, it's an ill wind, as the old saying goes.
Rumour has it that some terrible things have been said about the disagreements on the Central Committee. Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries undoubtedly shelter (and have sheltered) behind the opposition, and it is they who are spreading the rumours, incredibly malicious formulations, and inventions of all sorts to malign the Party, put vile interpretations on its decisions, aggravate conflicts and ruin its work. That is a political trick used by the bourgeoisie, including the petty-bourgeois democrats, the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries, who, for very obvious reasons, hate -- and cannot help hating -- the Bolsheviks' guts. Every intelligent member of the Party is familiar with this political trick, and knows its worth.
Because of the disagreements on the Central Committee, it had to appeal to the Party, and the discussions that followed clearly revealed the essence and scope of these disagreements. That killed the rumours and the slander. The Party learns its lessons and is tempered in the struggle against factionalism, a new malaise (it is new in the sense that after the October Revolution we had forgotten all about it). Actually, it is an old malaise, with relapses apparently bound to occur over the next few years, but with an easier cure now well in sight.
The Party is learning not to blow up its disagreements. Let me quote at this point Comrade Trotsky's correct remark about Comrade Tomsky: "I have always said
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-- even when the polemic against Comrade Tomsky was at its bitterest -- that it is quite clear to me that only men with his experience and authority ought to be our trade union leaders. I told this to the Party group of the Fifth Conference of the Trade Unions, and repeated it at the Zimin theatre a few days ago. Ideological struggle within the Party does not mean mutual ostracism but mutual influence"[27] (p. 34 of the report on the December 30 discussion). The Party will naturally apply this correct approach to Comrade Trotsky himself.
During the discussion it was Comrade Shlyapnikov and his group, the so-called Workers' Opposition, who showed the most pronounced syndicalist trend. This being an obvious deviation from communism and the Party, we shall have to reckon with it, talk it over, and make a special propaganda effort to explain the error of these views and the danger of making such mistakes. Comrade Bukharin, who actually coined the syndicalist phrase "mandatory nominations" (by trade unions to management bodies) tries to vindicate himself in today's issue of Pravda, but I'm afraid his line of defence is highly ineffective and quite wrong. He wants us to know, you see, that he deals with the role of the Party in his other points. I should think so! If it were otherwise it would have been more than just a mistake, requiring correction and allowing some slight rectification: it would have been withdrawal from the Party. When you say "mandatory nominations" but neglect to add, there and then, that they are not mandatory for the Party, you have a syndicalist deviation, and that is incompatible with communism and the Party Programme If you add: "mandatory but not for the Party" you are giving the non-Party workers a false sense of having some increase in their rights, whereas in fact there will be no change at all. The longer Comrade Bukharin persists in his deviation from communism -- a deviation that is wrong theoretically and deceptive politically -- the more deplorable will be the fruits of his obstinacy. You cannot maintain an untenable proposition. The Party does not object to the extension of the rights of the non-Party workers in general, but a little reflection will show what can and what cannot be done in this respect.
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In the discussion by the Communist group of the Second All-Russia Miners ' Congress, Shlyapnikov's platform was defeated despite the backing it got from Comrade Kiselyov, who commands special prestige in that union: our platform won 137 votes, Shlyapnikov's, 62, and Trotsky's, 8. The syndicalist malaise must and will be cured.
In this one month, Petrograd, Moscow and a number of provincial towns have shown that the Party responded to the discussion and has rejected Comrade Trotsky's wrong line by an overwhelming majority. While there may have been some vacillation "at the top" and "in the provinces", in the committees and in the offices, the rank-and-file membership -- the mass of Party workers -- came out solidly against this wrong line.
Comrade Kamenev informed me of Comrade Trotsky's announcement, during the discussion in the Zamoskvorechye District of Moscow on January 23, that he was withdrawing his platform and joining up with the Bukharin group on a new platform. Unfortunately, I heard nothing of this from Comrade Trotsky either on January 23 or 24, when he spoke against me in the Communist group of the Miners' Congress. I don't know whether this is due to another change in Comrade Trotsky's platform and intentions, or to some other reason. In any case, his January 23 announcement shows that the Party, without so much as mustering all its forces, and with only Petrograd, Moscow and a minority of the provincial towns going on record, has corrected Comrade Trotsky's mistake promptly and with determination.
The Party's enemies had rejoiced too soon. They have not been able -- and will never be able -- to take advantage of some of the inevitable disagreements within the Party to inflict harm on it and on the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia.
January 25, 1921