Donkey and Trotsky

Donkey and Trotsky

Hello again everyone. Today we continue with the second part of the series. Our topic will be the Stalin and Trotsky rivalry. We will start with the situation in Russia at the end of World War 1 and finish around the time of Trotsky’s death and the dissolution of the Comintern. My greatest wish was to get this part ready by November 7, but I couldn’t manage it due to my laziness and some setbacks. Still, we begin by saying better late than never. Lastly, I cannot go without congratulating the victory of the USA’s first Muslim Socialist in NYC with my most sincere joy.

The Situation in Russia at the End of the Great War

Marx thought the fire of revolution would be ignited in a country that had completed its industrialization. According to his thesis, the working class created by industrialization and the injustices they were subjected to would be the main source of the revolution, but it did not happen that way. The fire of revolution was lit in Russia. To understand the reasons for this, one must first look at Russia’s economic situation. First of all, Russia had not been able to complete its industrialization. The peasant reforms that were made remained on paper, and the vast majority of peasants continued their lives under the serfdom system. This system prevented peasants from owning property or migrating. Since there was no migration, a working class to fill the massive factories was not forming, and Russia continued its life as an agricultural paradise. The Great War, however, ruined this whole situation even more.

“Amateurs study strategy, professionals study logistics” Dwight D. Eisenhower

Primarily, Russia was caught unprepared for the war. For a war of this scale, it conscripted peasants as militia forces. Thus, agricultural production collapsed. Secondly, terrible losses were being incurred at the front (around 6 million dead, wounded, and prisoners by 1917). For this reason, morale in the army had collapsed, and desertions had increased. The Brusilov Offensive in September is one of the biggest examples of this. The Russians had gained a great advantage, and the Galician front had actually collapsed, but the loss of 800,000 men and logistical losses turned this victory into a pyrrhic one. As a result of all these developments, the most fatal mistake was made by Tsar Nicholas II. The Tsar took the entire command of the army under his control and consequently became responsible for all the defeats. With the war economy, the country was on the brink of bankruptcy. Inflation could not be controlled. Since the agricultural economy and logistics system had collapsed, necessary shipments could not be made; as a result, food and fuel shortages began to occur in the army and in large cities, even in the capital Petrograd. The people were literally freezing and starving. All these hardships were exhausting the people’s patience day by day. By 1917, the Russian people had become a powder keg; all that was needed was a spark.

The February Revolution (8 March 1917)

The spark needed for people to take action emerged on February 23 according to the Julian calendar, which is March 8, International Women’s Day, according to the Gregorian calendar. Women textile workers who took to the streets in the capital Petrograd were chanting “Bread”. Unexpectedly, this protest grew, and workers from other factories also joined. In the following period, the protests began to take on a political nature. The slogans being chanted were now “Down with the Tsar” or “No to War”. A general strike was declared, and life in the city came to a halt. It was precisely at this point that things fell apart. The Tsar gave the order to suppress the protestors by force. In this way, just as in 1905, an end would be put to this turmoil. But he was mistaken on this point, which brought about his end. The garrison in the city this time was mostly composed of newly conscripted peasants, and they did not obey the order; on the contrary, they joined the rebels. This became the final nail in the coffin of Tsardom. In the following period, a dual power era was entered. The liberal and bourgeois politicians in the Duma forced the Tsar to abdicate and formed an official government. At the same time, the workers and soldiers formed the Petrograd Soviet among themselves. While the Provisional Government had legitimacy, the Soviet had power in the streets.

At this point, I think it’s necessary to talk a bit about the concept of the Soviet. As Marx also argued, the administration of a dictatorship of the proletariat should be a council republic. And in an environment where communication was not as developed as it is today, the Soviet concept took on an important task: “Grassroots organizing”. Peasants in villages, workers in factories, and soldiers in barracks established their own soviets and elected delegates from among themselves. These delegates were sent to the central soviet (e.g., the Petrograd Soviet). They also had the authority to recall the delegates they elected at any time. As a result, they had a much more direct democratic system. Actually, the Soviet concept is similar to the cooperative concept, only cooperatives control the economic characteristics of a region on a voluntary basis, whereas soviets represented the people in a more political sense.

THE PROCESS LEADING TO THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION

The February Revolution had overthrown Tsardom, but it had not solved any of the existing problems. One of the important reasons for this was the Duma’s desire to continue the war. According to them, having come to the end of the war and having given so many losses, they should not leave this war defeated. On the other hand, all the people wanted was peace. The Duma’s second mistake was their constant postponement of land reform. The peasants wanted the nobles’ lands to be confiscated, but the government was of the mind that they would do this through legal means after the war. As it happened, the people did not wait and began to occupy the lands themselves, and the government could not stop this. As a result of these two big mistakes, the economic burden brought by the war continued. Hunger and misery increased even more. The government could no longer prevent this. With the first of these mistakes, they lost the support of the soldiers, and with the second, the support of the peasants, to the Soviets.

If we are to talk about the events that were turning points in this process, these events are: Lenin’s return, the Kerensky Offensive, and the Kornilov affair.

Lenin returned to Russia in April 1917 and, as soon as he got off the train, he announced his famous April Theses; “No Support for the Provisional Government” “All Power to the Soviets” These theses pulled the socialists who were moderate towards the Provisional Government, and even some Bolsheviks (e.g., Stalin was conciliatory at first), to the Soviet side. Lenin immediately pulled the party onto a revolutionary line.

When a new offensive launched by the government at the front ended in a fiasco, the workers and soldiers in Petrograd started an uprising. Although the Bolsheviks thought it was still too early, they supported it so as not to leave them alone. This uprising was suppressed, and the Bolsheviks were accused of being German agents. Trotsky was arrested, Lenin fled to Finland. This was a temporary retreat for the soviets.

Lastly, let’s talk about the Kornilov affair. Commander-in-Chief Kornilov sent an army to the capital both to overthrow the government and to crush the anarchists in the capital; upon this, Kerensky made a deal with the Bolsheviks and released all the Bolsheviks from prison. As a result, the red militias organized by Trotsky thwarted this coup attempt, and power in Russia now passed into the hands of the Bolsheviks.

By October, the majority in the Petrograd and Moscow soviets was now with the Bolsheviks. Trotsky became the chairman of the Petrograd soviet and began to organize the actual uprising by establishing the revolutionary organization. Lenin returned from Finland and lit the fire of revolution, saying, “The time has come, we do not have the luxury to wait.” Only a shadow of the government remained, so the October revolution was as easy as picking a fruit from a branch.

Trotsky must be given credit for the revolution being so fast. The organization was so good that no significant resistance was met. When the people of Petrograd woke up in the morning, they saw that all strategic locations (train stations, telephone offices, telegraph exchanges, bridges, the state bank) had been captured by the Bolsheviks. In the afternoon, Lenin made his famous speech:

“The workers’ and peasants’ revolution, for which we have struggled, has been accomplished!”

At night, with the fall of the Winter Palace, the October revolution was completed. It seemed to have happened as smoothly as pulling a hair from butter. But it was not so. Consolidating power throughout all of Russia would not be easy, and they were at the beginning of a bloody civil war that would last 3 years.

Reasons for the Civil War

The civil war was not as simple as the Bolsheviks took power and the others opposed it. Primarily, they faced the Whites, composed of old generals, nobles, landowners, and even Mensheviks and moderate socialists. When the Bolsheviks remained in the minority in the first elections held, they shut down the assembly, and the means of seeking rights increasingly shifted to arms. On the other hand, with the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Soviets lost a great deal of territory and industry. Patriotic officers who saw this as treason defected to the Whites. The peasants, whose already scarce goods were confiscated due to war communism and political pragmatism, also finally shifted to this bloc.

The civil war turned into a complete struggle for survival for the Soviets. Upon this, Trotsky set about building a regular army from the militias. He set them to fight by taking the families of former tsarist officers hostage and constantly monitoring them. He initiated an incredibly harsh terror against the enemies of the revolution with the Cheka. The Whites also applied a similar terror to Jews and Bolsheviks in the places they captured. Towards the end of the war, the Bolsheviks were besieged around Moscow and Petrograd. However, the Whites could not achieve the unity among themselves to strike the final blow. The peasants on the side of the Whites were afraid that the landlords would return. On the other hand, the Bolsheviks held the main industrial and logistic centers. The Red Army was also more disciplined than the White army. Here, Trotsky must be given his due. As a result, the Reds won the civil war in 1921, but the country was in ruins. Under these conditions, Lenin had to abandon democratic ideals and turned to political pragmatism to survive. This political pragmatism would lead to a one-party rule based on the state’s authoritarianism; indeed, this authority reached its peak during Stalin’s rule.

Developments from 1921 until Lenin’s death

War communism, applied to the people who were already economically exhausted during the civil war, had ruined the country. In order to prevent peasant and worker revolts, Lenin took a pragmatic step and began to implement the New Economic Policy (NEP). With this policy, people were allowed to sell their products in the market, and small businesses were allowed private ownership. With this, the economy recovered rapidly and hunger decreased, but debates flared up within the party about whether they were compromising their ideals. In the ongoing process, Lenin’s health problems began to emerge. With the strokes he suffered, he began to distance himself from politics day by day.

Lenin’s Final Struggle and Concerns

During Lenin’s illness, his mind was still clear, and he watched the developments within the party with concern. He had two main concerns:

A: The increase in bureaucracy and Great Russian Chauvinism

The state was becoming increasingly bureaucratized, and its revolutionary identity was being lost. Also, Stalin, who was the People’s Commissar for Nationalities at the time, treated the local communists in Georgia very harshly, which he, despite not being Russian himself, evaluated as Great Russian Bullying and sharply criticized Stalin for it.

B: The succession crisis

We have come to the exact heading that sheds light on our topic. Lenin was afraid that the two prominent figures in the party, Trotsky and Stalin, would split the party. In his testament, it was noted that Trotsky was the most capable member of the central committee but was overconfident, arrogant, and overly keen on administrative work. For Stalin, he said that he had accumulated too much power as general secretary and that he was not sure he would use this power wisely. In the following process, he made his final decision, and the instruction was given for Stalin to be removed from that post. However, Stalin had already taken control of the party bureaucracy. After Lenin died, this testament was suppressed and not disclosed to the party.

The War of Succession (1924-1929)

After Lenin died, there were several important figures vying for power. These were: Stalin, Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev. Stalin was afraid that Trotsky would become a Soviet Napoleon. Therefore, he eliminated his rivals one by one by making alliances and dividing them. Stalin also had incredible bureaucratic power from being the party secretary for many years; he was the one who appointed the party representatives in the provinces. First, he allied with Zinoviev and Kamenev to break Trotsky’s prestige in the army and the party, and consequently expelled him from the party and sent him into exile. In the process, Stalin’s allies realized the monster they had created. And they formed an alliance with Trotsky. Stalin, in turn, leaned towards an alliance with the right wing of the party. As a result, all three of them were expelled from the party in 1927. Trotsky was exiled first to Alma-Ata, then to Turkey. Finally, it was the right wing’s turn. Stalin no longer had any need for Bukharin. He expelled Bukharin from the party, accusing him of being a “capitalist restorationist”. Thus, by 1929, only Stalin remained from Lenin’s Politburo. By making all his potential rivals fight each other and turning the party bureaucracy into a mechanism of obedience, he had become the “Indisputable Leader” (Vojd).

Stalin Era Economy and Industrialization Policies

The Stalin-era economic structure was built on two main pillars

1. Forced Collectivization: Stalin needed abundant labor and cheap food to go to the cities for industrialization, so he wanted to forcibly seize the small plots of land owned by peasants during the NEP period and unite them under massive collective farms. This way, it would be easier to confiscate the goods produced. However, the peasants did not want to give up their already scarce goods and instead chose to burn their fields and kill their animals. Stalin was officially at war with his own people. As a result, millions of peasant families were exiled to labor camps in Siberia or shot. The consequence of these events for the state was massive famines. In 1932-33, an estimated 7 million people died of starvation in the Caucasus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. Despite everything, Stalin achieved his goal. Agriculture came under state control. A massive migration from villages to cities and cheap labor were secured.

• Five-year plans: These plans were the fastest example of industrialization in history. The focus was on heavy industry products such as iron-steel, coal, electricity, and machinery. Basic consumer goods were completely neglected. Besides this, massive industrial cities beyond the Urals and hydroelectric power plants in the north were established. In those times, the USSR was full of contradictions. On one hand, massive factories, new cities, an explosion in the literacy rate, and a modernizing society; on the other hand, millions of people dying of starvation, overcrowded labor camps, and the fear of an NKVD police officer knocking on the door at any moment. Ironically, Stalin achieved this industrial success by exploiting the workers. Capital, while exploiting workers, promised a commodity. Stalin, instead of this commodity, inserted the cult of heroism. Workers laboring under superhuman conditions were turned into heroes. The concentration camps are a very painful subject. Thus, the great workers’ paradise, the dictatorship of the proletariat, contradicting itself, was once again built on unpaid labor.

In the following period, with the second 5-year plan, the Russian people were able to achieve a measure of prosperity. This plan carried the aims of rectifying the shortcomings of the first, completing major projects that were not finished, and expanding the railway network, which had become unable to bear the load of the first five-year plan. The program progressed well until the 1936-37 period. In this period, called the peak of the Stalin era, practices like the bread ration card were abolished, and people gained access to more products. After ’36, with Nazi Germany in power, the equation changed. Rearmament began, and a large part of production was directed towards basic military goods, which caused the short period of prosperity to end.

THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF STALINISM

After absolute power, Stalin began to interfere in every stage of social life. He began to see himself less as a revolutionary or a servant working for the welfare of the people and more as a demi-god. In this context, to secure himself, he replaced the idealist cadres from the early years of the revolution with loyal and obedient administrators. By giving these administrators a taste of honey (privileges inaccessible to the public, holiday resorts, shopping at special stores, living in better houses, etc.), he created a loyal elite class for himself.

On the other hand, to build his cult of personality, his statues were erected everywhere, and the names of important cities were changed (Stalino, Stalingrad, etc.). History was rewritten. Trotsky’s role in the revolution was erased. In schools, newspapers, and films, his genius was constantly praised. Despite all these developments, he could not overcome his paranoia. He thought everyone was his enemy and feared every shadow. We see the effects of this in the Great Purge. He had the old revolutionaries of the party executed with the Moscow Trials. But he didn’t stop there. He was very afraid of the Napoleon example. Because he was paranoid that a general would emerge to seize his cruel and irrational rule, he set about purging the army immediately after the Moscow Trials. This attempt began with the Tukhachevsky Case. Mikhail Tukhachevsky was a Red Army marshal nicknamed the Red Napoleon. False evidence was created claiming he was a spy, and unlike the Moscow Trials, he was executed after a secret trial. Stalin did not stop there, and the purges and executions grew like an avalanche. The NKVD was getting new names from every officer interrogated. As a result of these trials:

3 out of 5 Marshals

13 out of 15 Army Commanders

8 out of 9 Admirals

50 out of 57 Corps Commanders

154 out of 186 Divisional Commanders were eliminated.

In total, between 35,000 and 40,000 officers were dismissed from the army, imprisoned, or shot.

Of course, as a result of all these trials, they suffered incredible defeats, first in the Winter War with Finland and then at the beginning of the Second World War. Although they were victorious at the end of the war thanks to their massive industry and commanders seasoned in battle, this cost the USSR 27 million casualties.

I want to talk a bit about Trotsky as well. After being exiled, Trotsky, who went first to Alma-Ata, then to Büyükada, Turkey, and from there to Mexico, continued his theoretical struggle. He defined the USSR as a degenerated workers’ state. The bureaucracy had betrayed the revolution, but the USSR still had to be defended. In 1938, he founded the 4th International, but under the pressure of both the police in capitalist countries and the USSR’s NKVD agents, the international remained marginal. In 1940, he was killed by Stalin’s agent Ramon Mercader, who struck him in the head with an ice axe.

Having reached this point in the article, I feel that I haven’t fully reflected my admiration for Trotsky and my anger towards Stalin, so let’s talk a bit about their aspects as theoreticians.

Stalinism

Stalinism was an ideology based on extreme centralism, heavy industry fetishism, and tyranny. The dictatorship of the proletariat existed on paper; other than that, the worker had no say. All apparatuses of the state were in Stalin’s hands. The people in the lower echelons of management were constantly changing. An empire of fear reigned. As a result, no one could trust anyone, and everyone was constantly on edge. In everything from art to science, what Stalin said was law. The concepts of internationalism and world revolution were suspended. Russian nationalism returned, especially after the Second World War. Before this, while every nationality was equal within the USSR, Russian Culture later reassumed a ‘big brother’ role. As much as I appreciate political pragmatism, the pragmatism applied by Lenin and that of Stalin were not the same. While Lenin used pragmatism for the survival of the state, Stalin strived entirely for his own power. Stalin was not an intelligent man, but he was undoubtedly an incredibly insidious one. While the revolutionary cadres were trying to save the state, he was consolidating his own position by using the inner-party apparatuses in the best way. He even betrayed his comrades on the matter of revolution. By advocating socialism in one country, he neutralized the Comintern.

His two most important theses were:

1. Socialism in one country: radically breaking from classical Marxism, he argued that for socialism to survive, the Soviets must first be the strongest. On this path, the already weary Russian people defended Stalin instead of Trotsky, who constantly talked about revolution, and Trotsky was labeled a dreamer.
2. The Class Struggle Sharpens as Socialism Develops: According to Marxism, as socialism is established, classes should disappear, and conflict should decrease. Stalin claimed the exact opposite: “As we achieve success, our enemies will become even more rabid.” This “theory” was the tool for legitimizing the Great Terror of the 1930s. He explained why, despite socialism being established, thousands of people still needed to be shot as “enemies of the people” with this theory.

On the other hand, although he was not a great theoretician, he was unmatched at simplifying his words, slogans, and ideology and spreading them to the masses. The other revolutionaries were undoubtedly intelligent people, and because they had dealt with intellectuals all their lives, they could not descend to the level of the people. Stalin achieved this. Stalin removed Marxism from being a living method of scientific debate and turned it into a state ideology with predetermined answers. He killed dialectics and replaced it with a mechanical materialism. In his time, theory was nothing more than the art of justifying the last speech made by the “Vojd” (Leader).

In this context, Stalin is the most naive, most thick-headed, most vulgar figure I have ever seen in history. But he knew the rules of the game well, and he played by them. And that is why he succeeded.

Trotsky, on the other hand, was the most prestigious person in the party after Lenin. The idea of permanent revolution is the matured form of Lenin’s ideas. First of all, what is Trotskyism? This ideology, which rests on 4 foundations, mainly advocates for permanent revolution. The concept of permanent revolution has two dimensions. The first of these is the national dimension: In backward countries (with feudal remnants) like Russia, the bourgeoisie is very weak. The bourgeoisie cannot carry out “bourgeois democratic” tasks such as bringing democracy or implementing land reform. The working class must take power and carry out these tasks. That is, the revolution must not be “in stages” (first democracy, then years later, socialism) but “permanent”. The second dimension is the international one. According to him, Socialism cannot be completed in a single country. The world economy is interconnected. If a revolution that starts in one country does not spread to other countries (especially the developed West), it cannot survive.

The other foundations of Trotskyism are: the degenerated workers’ state, the transitional program, and internationalism. We just touched upon the degenerated workers’ state. Trotsky was aware that this trajectory was not good, but he still thought it should be supported and that an attempt should be made to correct it. In the transitional program principle, he roughly spoke of the need to strike a balance between today’s demands and the final revolution. Finally, in internationalism (which, in my opinion, is the most important part), he criticized Stalin’s neutralization of the Comintern. And we see the effect of this ineffectiveness in the Spanish Civil War. Because Stalin did not allow communist parties to ally with social democrats, communist parties in many countries were wiped out. In the Spanish Civil War, they could not stand against the fascists. As a result, the Comintern was completely dissolved in 1943 anyway, to curry favor with the Allied powers.

To wrap things up, because I do not have an academic purpose on this blog site and because I believe that if a writer writes in fear of the reader’s reaction, their pen will lose its originality, I grant myself the privilege of using a vulgar language without any hesitation. Stalin is the most idiotic man history has ever seen. He never deserved the position he was in. In this article, we see that Bakunin’s criticisms from the first part have come true. This state structure had a very important potential, but it was thrown in the trash. The power that could have turned the world into a paradise, had a sane person come along, turned into a machine of tyranny in the hands of the most idiotic man in history.

What will you say to this, Marx?