THE Soviet trade union debates erupted in the period
following the Russian civil war. The main protagonists in this controversy were
the Leninists and the Trotskyites. Both sides held opposed positions about how
communists should relate to the trade unions and the masses in general in the
new period of peaceful construction following the victory of the Bolsheviks in
the civil war. This essay looks at J.V. Stalin’s contributions to this debate,
and draws conclusions as to the significance of this controversy, which turned
into a bitter factional struggle within Soviet communism.
With the rise of the concealed representatives of the
bourgeoisie in the international communist movement, which fact found expression
in Khrushchevite revisionism and which later led to eurocommunism, Stalin’s
writings have often been neglected, or undervalued by those under the complete
or partial influence of Krushchevite revisionist or Trotskyite thinking.
This whole or partial neglect of Stalin’s works means that
not every Communist is aware of Stalin’s contribution in the Soviet trade union
debates of 1920-1921. But if the revisionists saw fit to suppress the writings
of Stalin, then it becomes all the more important to subject his works to close
scrutiny.
The Soviet trade union debate of 1920-1921 was the first
concerted attempt of the Trotskyites to challenge the Leninist leadership of the
party. Trotsky had wanted to run the trade unions on militaristic lines, and had
called for a "shake-up" of the unions, a "tightening of the screws", and the
militarisation of Labour, which brought howls of protest from the trade unions
and the Communist Party. After the defeat of the Trotskyites and the other
oppositionists, Stalin at the 1924 conference of the RCP (B), which had the
issue of inner-Party democracy on the agenda, reminded the delegates of the
Trotskyite "shake-up" policy because, as it became evident, history seemed to be
repeating itself, Stalin noted that
‘…we knew that no great difference separates the Trotsky of
the Tenth Congress period from the Trotsky of today, for now, as then, he
advocates shaking up the Leninist cadres’. (J.V. Stalin: Works 6; p.29)
Indeed, formerly Trotsky had called for the "shake-up" of the
unions. This meant in practice removing those cadres who Trotsky found
disagreeable, and who Trotsky saw as standing in the way of his "militarisation"
of labour policy. They, in turn, would be replaced by Trotsky’s own appointees,
who backed his policy, supporters… many of whom Trotsky had gathered around him
in the civil war period. Stalin noted that the Trotsky of 1920-1921 and 1924
were very similar and that
‘The only difference is that at the Tenth Congress he wanted
to shake up the Leninist cadres from the top, in the sphere of the trade unions,
whereas now he wants to shake up the same Leninist cadres from the bottom, in
the sphere of the Party. He needs democracy as a hobbyhorse, as a strategic
manoeuvre. That’s what all the clamour is about’. ( J.V. Stalin: Works 6; p.29)
Trotsky’s ambition to take over the trade unions and the
party was constantly rebuffed by the Leninist cadres regardless of the form in
which the challenge manifested itself. In his attempts to take over the trade
unions, the Trotskyites had relied on a bureaucratic manoeuvre. Lenin was
prompted to chide Trotsky for
‘…an out-and-out bureaucratic approach’. (V. I. Lenin: CW.
Vol. 32; p.73)
But in their attempts to take over the Soviet Communist
party, the Trotskyites, with Trotsky in the front rank, having placed himself at
the head of the anti-Leninist opposition after much dithering, decided to play
the democracy card, and in a completely unprincipled fashion at that. Trotsky,
the former advocate of a bureaucratic command approach to the trade unions and
working class in general, now claimed to represent the forces of democracy
within the Communist party. Trotsky, to an external audience, was adept at
playing the role of the great ‘democrat’ in party affairs when he began to lose
power, but those in the know were never easy to deceive.
The enemies of the Communists welcomed this surprising
development, and it was therefore to be expected that leading Mensheviks would
cheer him on. They saw in the Trotskyite opposition the possibility of
disintegrating the united, disciplined forces of the Soviet Communist party. One
leading Menshevik, S. Ivanovich, wrote
‘Let us be thankful to it for its activities, because they
help all those who regard the overthrow of Soviet power as the task of the
socialist parties’. (S. Ivanovich, quoted in: J.V. Stalin’s Works 6; p. 46)
The Central Committee, on Stalin’s initiative, had decided to
raise the issue of inner-party democracy. But rather than follow this
initiative, the opposition and Trotsky hastened to seize on the issue, to steal
a march from the party leadership in such a way as to by-pass the central
committee. Thus began a struggle over the question of the status of the central
committee, which further deepened the cleavage between the Leninist leadership
and the Trotskyite opposition.
What emerges, therefore, is the following: after his defeat
in the trade union debate for promoting a bureaucratic command approach to the
working class, and the rejection of his policy of the "militarisation of
labour", Trotsky assumed the pose of the great champion of the democratic forces
in the communist party. It is, however not easy to reconcile the real Trotsky
with the picture of the party democrat, a picture beloved of his followers
today.
What is certain is that after being denounced for his
bureaucratic proclivities by Lenin during the Soviet trade union debates,
Trotsky saw the need to change his image or risk alienating the party further.
Previously he had relied on the bureaucratic elements to gain control of the
trade unions, later, he calculated that by posing as the ‘democrat’ in the
struggle against Stalin, he would increase his chances of gaining control of the
Soviet communist party leadership and drive out the Leninists. However, like his
trade union venture, this manoeuvre too eventually failed.
Trotsky’s new found love for democracy was exposed several
times. During the trade union debates Lenin castigated him for anti-Soviet
behaviour for refusing to serve on a commission set up to deal with the current
differences over the trade unions, and Stalin relates an incident which exposes
Trotsky’s antipathy to democratic-centralist procedure. The story is that at a
Central Committee meeting of the party in 1923, Trotsky unceremoniously walked
out of a CC meeting when reminded by one member, named Komorov, that CC members
are obliged to abide by CC decisions. Stalin, a witness, relates that
‘…Trotsky jumped up and left the meeting’. (J. V. Stalin:
Works 6; p. 39)
But not only did Trotsky storm out of the CC meeting when
reminded of his obvious party duties to abide by Central Committee decisions,
Trotsky also refused to return to the said CC meeting, rebuffing a delegation
sent to appease and bring him back. Stalin remarked that
‘…Trotsky refused to comply with the request of the plenum,
thereby demonstrating that he had not the slightest respect for his Central
Committee’. (J. V. Stalin: Works 6; p.39)
In this essay we examine the contribution of J.V. Stalin in
the controversy around the trade union issue, for this issue was pivotal in the
development of the soviet workers state.
Lenin had argued that Trotsky’s mistakes threatened the very
survival of the workers states. Only by remembering this evaluation by Lenin can
we judge Stalin’s contribution. Stalin wrote "Our Disagreements" on January 5th,
1921. It must be said with emphasis that "Our Disagreements" is an unsurpassed
exposition and summary of the trade union issue, which broke on the Soviet
Communist party during 1920-1921. Stalin’s article presents a clear, concise,
analysis of the essence of the debates concerning the role and task of the trade
unions under socialism.
Some background information is necessary to understand how
the trade union dispute arose in the Russian Communist party during 1920-1921.
The Bolsheviks had finally won the civil war instigated by the anti-Bolshevik
elements, who had been encouraged by the advance of the German army into the
Ukraine, a development which was partly to blame on Trotsky for opposing Lenin’s
policy of signing an immediate peace with German imperialism at Brest Litovsk in
1918, which would have halt the Kaiser’s advance. Trotsky had put forward the
policy of ‘neither war or peace’, which the German imperialists ignored. The
Bolshevik’s ascendancy in the civil war was made possible by the regime known as
"war communism", based on forced requisition of grain from the peasants and a
general regime of coercion to aid the war effort.
With the conclusion of the civil war emergency militaristic
methods, increasingly came into disrepute. Peacetime conditions gave rise to a
new mood, not only in the urban working class but even more so in the peasantry.
Everyone thought it was time for a change of methods. This meant a switch from
methods of "coercion" to a more milder regime in which "persuasion" would play
the principal part in mobilising the masses to repair and rebuild the economy
which had been brought to its knees by the ravages of the civil war. Indeed, the
revolts at the Kronstadt naval base and the revolt of the peasants in the Tambov
region had underlined the need for a more consensual regime.
Because the regime of war communism had brought the
Bolsheviks victory in the civil war, Men like Trotsky wanted to continue with
this authoritarian method of leadership in the hope that this approach would
serve to put Soviet industry, transport and the country back on its feet. As was
the case in the army, it was thought by Trotsky and his supporters that the
militaristic style and methods of leadership could work wonders in these spheres
also. It was with this intention in mind which led Trotsky to put forward the
policy of "tightening the screws" and the "shake-up" policy. Trotsky called for
the militarisation of Labour, and ended up taking a very bureaucratic approach
to the working class.
In the Trotskyite controlled Tsektran, the Central Committee
of the Joint Trade Union of Rail and Water Transport Workers, this bureaucratic
attitude was already provoking dissension, leading increasingly to disaffection
with the communists. Trotskyite militaristic methods created the real danger of
a split between the working class and the communists. This in turn posed a
serious threat to working class political power. For Lenin the mistakes of
Trotsky
‘…leads to the collapse of the dictatorship of the
proletariat’. (V.I. Lenin: CW. Vol.32; p.85)
The basis of Trotsky’s errors was the confusion of the
working class with the army. In other words, Trotsky thought that the working
class could and should be commanded like the army in order to put industry back
on its feet. This was a failure to understand the correct relationship between
the methods of coercion and persuasion. Because Trotsky failed to take into
account the differences between the working class and the army, he pursued a
policy which could only produce alienation between the workers and the
communists.
For Stalin the difference between the Leninists and the
Trotskyites did not concern such matters as the appraisal of the trades union as
such. For instance, everyone agreed that there would be a certain coalescence,
or interpenetration between state organs and trade unions; everyone agreed real
unions capable of revitalising industry was needed. Also there was agreement on
the need for discipline in the trade union and working class as necessary
condition to get industry moving again. In short, said Stalin
‘…our disagreements are not disagreements about matters of
principle’. (J.V. Stalin: Works 5; p.4)
This observation by Stalin is backed up by Lenin who regarded
the differences with Trotsky has having
‘…nothing to do with general principles’. (V.I. Lenin: CW.
Vol. 32: p.22)
Stalin also agreed with Trotsky that membership of the trade
union leadership was ‘far from ideal’.
For Stalin, the essence of the differences between the
Leninists and the Trotskyites related to methods of approaching the working
class and drawing the masses into the work of rebuilding industry. This was a
view Stalin shared with Lenin. Stalin defended the Leninist position that the
contradiction was between two opposed methods of approach to the working class
and trade unions.
‘…the method of coercion (the military method) and the method
of persuasion (trade union method).
(J.V. Stalin: Works 5; p.5)
This was a lesson never to be forgotten by Stalin as the
later period of rapid Soviet industrialisation showed. The successes achieved
would not have been possible without a correct Leninist grasp of the correct
relationship between persuasion and coercion. Stalin, in "Our Disagreements",
extracts the essence of Lenin’s critique of the Trotskyite view and develops
it.
Trotsky had wanted to treat the working class like the army.
This was a fundamental mistake. Stalin reveals that Trotsky failed even to base
himself on the ground of Marxist class analysis! However, it was this class
nature of the issue which was the point of departure for Stalin. It was a fact
that the army was drawn largely from the peasantry. The peasantry and the urban
proletariat are different social classes, so that the approach to them could not
be the same. The army itself was not homogeneous, consisting as it did, of some
urban workers and a mass of peasants. Consequently, Stalin pointed out that the
Eighth Party Congress, which met in March 1919, recorded the fact that the
Soviet army consisted mainly of peasants and that
‘…the peasants will not go to fight for socialism, that they
can, and must be compelled to fight for socialism by employing methods of
coercion’. ( J.V. Stalin, Works 5; p. 6)
This was because the Soviet army was dominated by the peasant
element. This class formed, in the army, a petty-bourgeois stratum with the
psychology of the small commodity producer. Thus, it must not be thought that
the support which the peasants gave to the communist in the civil war was a
support for socialism. The peasants by and large were fighting for their own
petty-bourgeois-commodity class interest. They supported the Bolsheviks because
the latter defended their right to use the land.
For Stalin it was no surprise that methods of coercion became
necessary when it was a matter of getting the peasants to defend socialists
interests. Stalin pointed out that this
‘…explains the rise of such purely military methods as the
system of commissars and Political departments, Revolutionary Tribunals,
disciplinary measures, appointments and not elections to all posts, and so
forth’. (J.V. Stalin: Works 5; p.6)
The peasant masses had a petty-bourgeois mentality. This was
bound to be reflected in an army dominated by this class, and so a certain
coercion was needed to get it to fight for socialism. Stalin contrasted this
state of affairs with the working class. The mentality of this class is not
formed by petty bourgeois, small commodity production. Trotsky utterly failed to
realise this when he put forward his thesis in the pamphlet, ‘The Role and Tasks
of the Trade Unions’.
Unlike the army, or in contrast to the army, Stalin explained
that
‘…the working class is a homogeneous social sphere’. (J.V.
Stalin, Works 5; p.6)
Note Stalin means here that the working class shares the same
economic position in relation to capital. Stalin explained that the economic
interests of the working class
‘…disposes it towards socialism, it is easily influenced by
communist agitation, it voluntarily organises in trade unions and, as a
consequence of all this, constitutes the foundation, the salt, of the Soviet
state’. (J.V. Stalin: Works 5; pp. 6-7)
This was why in relation to the working class, communists
must utilise, contrary to what the Trotskyites were advocating, methods of
‘persuasion’. Persuasion was the trade union method. Stalin pointed out that
these were methods of
‘…explanation, mass propaganda, encouragement of initiative
and independent activity among the masses of the workers, election of officials
and so forth’. (J.V. Stalin: op.cit., p. 7)
Stalin, of course, unlike Trotsky, did not make the mistake
of adopting a one-sided view. Persuasion and coercion were two different,
opposed methods of approaching the working class. For Trotsky, with his
dangerous policy of imposing the ‘militarisation of labour’, thus treating the
working class like an army, coercion was to become the principal means of
mobilising the working class. In Trotsky’s scheme, ‘persuasion’ would play a
secondary role if any at all. The Leninist leadership of the party argued for
the reverse position. They argued that the civil war had ended; the country had
now a respite from war and had entered a period of peaceful construction. In
this new period, the methods of persuasion must become the primary means of mass
mobilisation, with coercion relegated to a secondary feature. This was not
simply an abstract debate about persuasion or coercion in approaching the
masses. Indeed, a wrong approach could contribute to the fall of the
dictatorship of the proletariat. Thus for both Lenin and Stalin it was quite
amazing that a leading figure like Trotsky could argue that the issue was not
‘political’.
Certainly, as already shown, Lenin made it clear that
Trotsky’s approach leads to the collapse of working class political power. This
was why the Leninist opposed the Trotskyite militarisation policy.
Trotsky’s militarisation policy, had it been implemented,
would have turned the working class masses against the communists and thus
facilitated the counterrevolutionary intrigues of the bourgeoisie. This was why
it was necessary for Leninist in the party leadership, who were not always in a
majority at the Central Committee level, to defeat this dangerous pseudo-leftist
Trotskyite policy.
The polarisation between the two approaches to the working
class, the Trotskyite approach of coercion and militarisation of labour and the
Leninist approach of persuasion, supported by Stalin, lead to a bitter factional
struggle between the two sides. This followed the factional pronouncement made
by Trotsky that the party
‘…will have to choose between two trends’. (V.I. Lenin: CW.
Vol. 32; p.26)
The struggle raged on in Moscow in an intense form
‘The struggle took an especially acute form in Moscow’.
(History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [Bolsheviks] Short Course;
Moscow, 1939; p.253)
And evidently, in Moscow,
‘…the opposition concentrated its main forces, with the
object of capturing the party organisation in the capital’. (Op.cit. p.253)
But apparently the Trotskyite and other oppositionist
attempts to capture the Moscow party organisation was frustrated
‘…by the spirited resistance of the Moscow Bolsheviks’. (Op.
cit., p. 254)
The struggle between the Leninists and the Trotskyites over
the issue of the trade unions, was not only restricted to Moscow. It spread,
like wildfire, even to the Ukrainian party. Here Molotov held the fort against
the anti-Leninist forces headed by Trotsky. The fight against the Anti-Lenin
faction in Baku was masterminded by Ordzhonikidze and, in central Asia, L.
Kaganovich, defeated the Trotskyites. In fact, in the trade union controversy
‘All the important organisations of the party endorsed
Lenin’s platform’. (Op. cit., p.254)
Today Trotskyites like to present the trade union debate as
if it never went beyond the form of an abstract, learned, intellectual debate
between leading party authorities. In fact, this is a false picture. The debate
over the trade unions, in which Trotsky led those who supported a militarisation
of a labour policy, was a bitterly fought factional dispute, between those who
one-sidedly represented the forces of bureaucratic command (the Trotskyites) and
those who represented the forces of democratic persuasion, (the Leninists).
In 1920-1921, Trotsky stood behind the forces of bureaucracy
and the militarisation of labour against the Leninist on the central committee
of theRCP(B). In the period of peaceful development, the contradiction between
those who, like Trotsky, represented the view that coercion should be the
primary means of mobilising the working class, and those, like Lenin and Stalin,
who came down in favour of persuasion, was in fact, a conflict between the
forces of bureaucracy and the forces of proletarian democracy. It is no wonder
then that the controversy over the trade unions raised the issue of democracy in
the working class.
For Stalin, the essence of this democracy was ‘persuasion’,
not coercion. In this view, obviously Trotsky was leading an anti-democratic
tendency. He had said the party would have to choose between these two trends.
(See Lenin: Vol.32; p.26) Stalin argued that
‘…conscious democracy, the method of proletarian democracy in
the unions, is the only correct method of industrial unions’. (J.V. Stalin:
Works 5; p.10)
In the trade union dispute, Trotsky had argued that the issue
was not political! In fact, he had an apolitical view of the whole matter
‘…Trotsky protested against the introduction of a political
element into the controversy about the trade unions, on the grounds that
politics had nothing to do with the matter’. (J.V. Stalin: Works 5; pp.12-13)
It was no wander then that Stalin could not take any
reference to democracy seriously when made by the Trotskyites. For Stalin,
Trotsky’s talk about ‘democracy’ was unprincipled and far removed from real
proletarian democracy, which was required to bring about the revival of an
industry shattered by civil war.
The significance of the Soviet trade union dispute was that
it led, as we have pointed out, to a bitter, factional struggle between Lenin’s
and Trotsky’s supporters in the RCP(B) and the trade unions. The essence of the
struggle was the conflict between the forces of proletarian democracy and the
forces of petty-bourgeois bureaucracy. In this struggle, the Trotskyites were
aiming to remove the Leninists from the leadership of the party. Not
surprisingly, this had always been Trotsky’s goal, even in the pre-1917 period
of the revolutionary movement.
The Soviet trade union dispute was the first attempt by the
forces of bureaucracy to seize power in the Soviet Union. And the attempt was
led by none other than Trotsky. Thus Stalin accused him of pursuing the
‘…old semi-bureaucratic and semi-military line’. (J.V.
Stalin: Works 5; p. 11)
And Stalin told the 13th Conference of the party in 1924 that
Trotsky was the
‘…patriarch of bureaucrats’. (J.V. Stalin: Thirteenth
Conference of the RCP (B); Works 6; p.29)
Therefore, Stalin not only accused Trotsky of taking a
bureaucratic course, but he also denounced him as the ‘patriarch of
bureaucrats’. Trotsky never forgot this jibe by Stalin. Trotsky’s pro-bureaucrat
image, known by all in the party, had contributed to him going down to political
defeat at the hands of the Leninists. Trotsky needed, more than anything else,
to throw off the ‘patriarch of bureaucrats’ image and do a political makeover,
so to speak. Trotsky saw that an overwhelming party majority had backed the
Leninists on this issue, in other words, supported the group opposed to
bureaucratisation. This lesson of his political defeat in the trade union
dispute was never lost on Trotsky. Trotsky now decided that to achieve his
ambition of gaining control of the Soviet communist party he would have to break
with representing the bureaucratic element. Stalin pointing out that Trotsky was
the ‘patriarch of bureaucrats’ had damaged his image immensely. Trotsky would
not forgive Stalin for this and, indeed, spent the rest of his life trying to
prove that it was Stalin who represented the forces of bureaucracy.
Stalin had held that a
‘most vigorous and systematic struggle must be waged against
the degeneration of centralism and militarised form of work into bureaucracy,
tyranny, officialdom and petty-tutelage over the trade unions’. (J.V. Stalin:
Works 5; p.10)
It was this anti-bureaucrat image of Stalin, which Trotsky
set out consciously to undermine and destroy
among Soviet Communist party members. Only by achieving this
could Trotsky hope to win sufficient supporters to remove the Leninist cadre in
the central committee, who, although in a minority at this level, enjoyed
widespread support in the party. Thus, Trotsky came up with his plan to
portrayed Stalin in the way that the latter had first, for good reason,
portrayed Trotsky with such a devastating effect.
Stalin too would become the ‘patriarch of bureaucrats’. Thus,
Trotsky stole Stalin’s political argument for the purpose of using it against
its author. If the Leninist group, led by Stalin, in the leadership could be
denounced as ‘representatives’ of bureaucracy and bureaucrats themselves,
Trotsky surmised that the party membership would forget his past promotion of
bureaucracy and swing behind his group. This was essentially how the myths of
the ‘Stalinist bureaucracy’ came into being, arising out of the factional
struggle of Trotskyism against Marxism-Leninism in the Soviet communist party.
It was an effort of Trotsky to rid himself of his pro-bureaucracy image, while
simultaneously striving to undermine Stalin’s anti-bureaucrat image in the
party.
The result of this was that Trotsky rejected the Leninist
approach to the struggle against bureaucracy, turning the issue into a factional
one. Trotsky thus ignored Lenin’s injunction and the Soviet Communist party’s
policy that the struggle against bureaucracy should be based on a long-term
perspective. Stalin, on the other hand, remained on the foundation of Leninism
regarding the struggle against Soviet bureaucracy.
‘Our state apparatus is bureaucratic to a considerable
degree, and it will remain so for a long time to come’. (J.V. Stalin: Works 5;
p.369)
Stalin also outlined the dangers of the situation
Our Party comrades work in this apparatus, and the
situation-I might say the atmosphere-in this bureaucratic apparatus is such that
it helps to bureaucratise our Party workers and our Party organisations’. (J.V.
Stalin: Works 5; p.369)
Thus, Stalin, not only pointed out the bureaucratic dangers
facing the party, but also upheld the Marxist-Leninist view that the struggle
Soviet bureaucracy should be founded on a long-term view, and not reduced to a
one-sided anti-bureaucrat political platform.
Conclusion
In the trade union debate of 1920-1921, Stalin defended
Leninism. In his article ‘Our Disagreements’, Stalin goes to the essence of the
dispute. No clearer exposition is to be found. The trade union dispute brought
into the open two opposing views about how Communists should relate to the
working class. The Leninists defended the methods of persuasion and proletarian
democracy as the correct means of mobilising the working class. The Trotskyites,
on the hand, defended coercion and the militarisation of labour, thus
representing the forces of bureaucracy.
The trade union dispute was the first concerted attempts of
the Trotskyites to take over the Soviet Communist party. Lenin defeated them
with the help of men like Stalin, Molotov, Ordzhonikidze, and Kaganovich. The
defeat of the Trotskyites was imperative because their one-sided policy of
coercion, and calls for the militarisation of labour would facilitate the
intrigues of those who sought to turn the working class against the communists.
Lenin and Stalin exposed Trotsky as representing bureaucratic interests. Thus,
the trade union dispute can be regarded as the first attempt of bureaucracy to
seize power in the Soviet Union. These attempts were blocked by Lenin and Stalin
and other Leninists and received overwhelming support in the Soviet Communist
party.
The lesson of his defeat in the struggle over the trade
unions was not lost on Trotsky. By defending the working class against coercion,
the militarisation of labour and Trotskyite bureaucratic diktat, Lenin, with the
support of Stalin and others, had rallied the majority of the party to his
cause. Trotsky’s pro-bureaucrat image seriously undermined his political
standing in the RCP (B). Although Trotsky had
previously shown his contempt for party democracy by storming
out of a C.C. meeting when reminded by Komarov that C.C. members cannot refuse
to carry out C.C. decisions, Trotsky, nevertheless decided to don the mask of
democracy, after Lenin’s death, in his bid to gain control of the communist
party. In this struggle, Stalin denounced Trotsky as the ‘patriarch of
bureaucrats’. Since the Leninists had defeated the Trotskyites by defending the
working class against Trotsky’s bureaucratic proclivities, Trotsky decided he
would play the anti-bureaucrat in future against Stalin. Trotsky began a
campaign to smear his rivals with the bureaucratic brush, in the same way he had
been justifiably painted in the trade union debates. This Trotskyite ploy to
portray Stalin as the representative for Soviet bureaucracy failed to convince
the overwhelming majority of Soviet communists. Trotsky was again defeated in
the post-Lenin inner-party struggles.
Tony Clark, NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR MARXIST-LENINIST UNITY
November 14th, 2001