Trotsky’s Support for Fascism

10/07/2019 Adrian Chan-Wyles (PhD) Leftwing Political Analysis One comment
Trot-b1081f5fa7b7a05aa7dbef6cec1488f7Trotsky – Collaborator with Fascism!
РОЛЬ ТРОЦКОГО В КАНУН ВТОРОЙ МИРОВОЙ ВОЙНЫ

(Translated by Adrian Chan-Wyles PhD)

Translator’s Note: The original Russian language title of this article is ‘РОЛЬ ТРОЦКОГО В КАНУН ВТОРОЙ МИРОВОЙ ВОЙНЫ’, which can be translated as ‘Trotsky’s Role on the Eve of WWII’. I have used the working (English) title of ‘Trotsky’s Support for Fascism (1938)’, as this best represents the main point of the information presented. This text was posted upon the Russian language blog entitled ‘Сообщество‘ or ‘Back in the USSR’ dated 4th July, 2013. I have checked all the Trotsky quotes in English, but have retained a distinctly ‘Russian’ outlook in their translation here, as I think it is important for the understanding of this distinctly ‘Russian’ historical episode.

What did Trotsky actually do? He concocted a Fourth International in 1938, and to do this he had to be seen as advocating a ‘distinct’ (and ‘unique’) set of policies. He falsely distinguished Joseph Stalin (and the Soviet Government) from the Soviet people (avoiding the inconvenient fact that Joseph Stalin was continuously ‘voted’ into office), whilst calling for his false construct of ‘the people’ to militarily overthrow Joseph Stalin (when all they had to do was just ‘vote’ him out of office). Trotsky proposed the following alliances between his followers; a) Nazi Germany, b) the Roman Catholic Church and c) all forces of reaction opposed to the USSR (this included the capitalist West, Zionist groupings and other religions, etc). Adolf Hitler wanted the total destruction of the Slavic race and the Bolshevik (Communist) ideology (which he viewed as a Jewish conspiracy), whilst the Roman Catholic Church was slightly more modest in its war aims, as it wanted only the destruction of the Bolshevik regime and what it viewed as its ‘atheist’ ideology (although the Roman Catholic Church did assist Nazi Germany in its Holocaust against the Jews both inside and outside the USSR). The other forces of reaction wanted the destruction of the Bolshevik regime and the end of Socialism in the USSR, so that modern capitalism could take its place (this was finally achieved in 1991).

Trotsky, in his distorted vision, believed that he could make use of Hitler’s fascist armies (and those of its allies) in any attack upon the USSR, and then he and his clique would magically ‘take’ power from the Nazi Germans once Stalin was dead and the Kremlin in ruins! Many of Hitler’s allies, such as certain polish, Ukrainian, Estonian, Slovakian, Scandanavian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Italian, Finnish and Romanian populations, were devout Roman Catholics following the pro-fascist edicts of Pope Pius VII! Today, many Trotskyite Movements ‘hide’ this history and deny its very existence as they perpetuate the lie that Trotsky was a loyal ‘Leninist’.

This is obviously untrue, as the Collected Works of Lenin demonstrate. Trotsky, in his mania for power, betrayed the Communist (Marxist-Leninist) cause and in so doing collaborated with fascism and compromised with capitalism. This is the (false) narrative that underlies most hostile Western historical narratives of the USSR, which stand in stark contrast (as they lack any practical or factual foundation), to the legitimate histories of people who actually lived in the USSR and experienced its reality first-hand (of course, we may discard the ‘paid’ testimonies of so-called ‘dissidents’ and ‘defectors’). Finally, when I have lectured on, or discussed topics in opposition to Trotsky, of all the well-researched charges I make against him, it is his collaboration with fascism that really embarrasses and upsets his modern Trotskyite devotees – after-all, they are contemporary victims of Trotsky’s historical lies – and it is on this point that I am continuously asked for an academic ‘reference’. These facts about Trotsky are well-known in Russia and have been so for decades and I have chosen the following text to convey these issues. Due to the vagaries of the internet, I have included a direct link to the Russian language article and have included the entire Russian language text following the conclusion of this translation. ACW (10.7.2019)

Throughout the 1930s, Trotsky became, without exaggeration, a world expert (and leading exponent) of anti-Communism. Even today, right-wing ideologists are studying the work of Trotsky in search of weapons against the history Soviet Union (and especially against Stalin).

In 1982, when Reagan proclaimed a new anti-communist crusade, Henri Bernard, an honorary professor at the Royal Military School of Belgium, published a book spreading the following message:

“The Communists in 1982 are the Nazis in 1939. We are weaker in front of Moscow than we were in August 1939 in front of Hitler.”

All the standard statements of Le Pen, leader of the French National Front, look like this:

“Terrorism is not an act of several madmen. The basis of everything is the Soviet Union and its secret network of international terrorism.”

“The Christian left is the pain of the West.

The synchronicity for peace demonstrations shows that they are inspired by Moscow. “

“British commandos who were going to die in the Falklands showed that moral values still exist in the West.”

The tactics chosen by such recognized anti-Communists as Bernard are very interesting. This is how a man who – despite his contempt for “left Christians” – unites himself with Trotsky:

“In life, Lenin was, like Trotsky, an ordinary person … His personal life is full of nuances…

With the natural course of events after Lenin, Trotsky was to become the head of the USSR … he was the chief architect of the October Revolution, the winner in the Civil War, the creator of the Red Army …

Lenin highly respected Trotsky. He thought of him as a successor. He believed that Stalin was too rude …

Trotsky rebelled against the establishment of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, which paralyzed the communist machine …

Artistic, highly educated, unwilling to adapt to circumstances, often foreseeing the course of events for a long time ahead, he could not get along with the main dogmatists in the party …

Stalin was a nationalist, such a feeling did not exist neither in Trotsky, nor in Lenin …

With Trotsky, foreign Communist Parties could regard themselves as a force whose sole purpose was to establish a Socialist Order. With Stalin, they worked for the Kremlin and its ongoing imperialist policy.”

We present here some of the main theses put forward by Trotsky between 1937-1940, which show the essence of his absolutely (fascistic) anti-Communist struggle. Such evidence explains why people from Western intelligence agencies, such as Henri Bernard, use Trotsky to fight the the legitimate (Marxist-Leninist) Communists. They also shed light on the class struggle between the Bolsheviks and the opportunists and on some aspects of the so-called ‘purges’ of 1937-1938.

The Enemy is the New Aristocracy, the New Bolshevik Bourgeoisie

For Trotsky, the main enemy was at the head of the Soviet Union: it was the “new Bolshevik aristocracy,” the main anti-Socialist and anti-democratic stratum of society; a social stratum who lived like the “well-off bourgeois in the United States”. Here is how he expressed it in this connection:

“The privileged bureaucracy… now represents the most anti-Socialist and most anti-democratic sector of Soviet society.”

“We blame the ruling clique for transforming ourselves into a new aristocracy, oppressing and plundering the masses… The upper bureaucracy lives about the same kind of life as the prosperous bourgeois in the United States and other capitalist countries.”

These speeches make Trotsky indistinguishable from the Menshevik leaders, when they led a counter-Revolutionary armed struggle together with the armies of the whites and the interventionists. The main and most important point is that these expressions are also indistinguishable from the expressions of the classical right as expressed within the imperialist (capitaist) States.

Compare Trotsky with the main ideologists of anti-Communists from the International Confederation of Christian Unions (ICC) – PJ.S. Serrarenz – who wrote in 1948:

“Again, ‘classes’ and rich people, thanks to Stalin… Just like in capitalist society, the elite are rewarded with money and power. This is what ‘France Ouvriere’ termed ‘Soviet aristocracy’. This weakly compares it with the aristocracy created by Napoleon “.

After World War II, the French association ‘France Ouvriere’, to which Serrarens referred, was created and directly funded by the CIA. The Lambertist, Trotskyist group has worked – and is still working – in this disinforming and Trotskyite orientation. At the same time, the ICHS, whether in Italy or Belgium, workedwith the CIA directly to defend the capitalist system in Europe. This policy was pursued in part, by turning the workers against legitimate (Marxist-Leninist) Communism, and using the repulsive ‘anti-capitalist’ demagogy adopted from the Social Democrats and the Trotskyites: in the Soviet Union, according to this disinformation, there was a ‘new class of rich people’, or a ‘Soviet aristocracy’, etc.

According to Trotsky, those opposing this ‘new aristocracy, the overwhelming and plundering mass’, were ‘the one hundred and sixty million who were deeply disappointed’. This ‘people’ defended the collectivization of the means of production and the planned economy from the ‘vulgar and despotic Stalinist thieves’. In other words, excluding the ‘Stalinists’, the rest of the people were pure and only opposed Stalin! We are listening to Trotsky:

“From twelve to fifteen million privileged people are the people who organize parades, demonstrations and ovations… But apart from these favourites, there are still one hundred and sixty million who are deeply disappointed…

The antagonism between the bureaucracy and the people is measured by an increase in the cruelty of the totalitarian government …

Bureaucracy can only be crushed by a new political Revolution.”

“The economy is planned on the basis of the nationalization and collectivization of the means of production. This State economy has its own laws, which are less and less consistent with the despotism, ignorance and banditry of the Stalinist bureaucracy.”

Since, according to Trotsky, as a return to capitalism has become impossible, any opposition to Stalin’s Soviet Union, be it social democratic, revisionist, bourgeois or counter-Revolutionary, has become permissible. It was the voice of ‘one hundred and sixty million who were deeply disappointed’ which sought to ‘defend’ the generalization of the means of production from the ‘new aristocracy’. This is how Trotsky became a unifying voice of hope for all reactionary forces, anti-Socialists and fascists.

Bolshevism and Fascism

Trotsky was one of the first to put Bolshevism and fascism on a par. This idea was popular in the thirties in reactionary Catholic parties. The Communist Party was their sworn enemy, the fascist party was their most important bourgeois opponent. Once again from Trotsky:

“Fascism is winning victory after victory, and his best ally is the one who makes his way around the world, this is Stalinism.”

“Indeed, nothing distinguishes Stalin’s political methods from Hitler. But the difference in results on an international scale is significant.”

“An important part of the Soviet apparatus, which is becoming more and more important, is formed from the fascists who still have to recognize themselves as such. Comparing the Soviet regime with the fascists would be a great historical mistake … But the symmetry of political superstructures and the similarity of totalitarian methods and psychological profiles are striking …

The agony of Stalinism is the most terrible and most disgusting spectacle on Earth.”

Here, Trotsky presented one of the first versions of the most important issue of propaganda by the CIA and the fascists in the 1950s, namely the topic of ‘Red Fascism’. Using the word fascism, Trotsky tried to direct the hatred that the masses felt towards the terrorist dictatorships of big capital onto Socialism. After 1944-1945, all German, Hungarian, Croatian and Ukrainian fascist leaders, who fled to the West, put on masks of “democrats”; they praised the ‘democracy’ of the USA, the new forces of hegemonism, and the main source of support for the reaction and fascist forces in the world. These ‘old” fascists, faithful to their criminal past, developed the same theme: ‘Bolshevism is the same fascism, but even worse.’

Further, we note that by the time European fascism had already begun its wars (in Ethiopia and Spain, the seizure of Austria and Czechoslovakia), Trotsky insisted that ‘the worst and most disgusting performance’ on Earth was the ‘agony of socialism’!

Defeatism and Surrender to Nazi Germany

Trotsky became the main propagandist of defeatism and capitulationism in the Soviet Union. His demagogic ‘World Revolution’ contributed to a better strangulation of the Socialist Revolution. Trotsky promoted the idea that in the event of a fascist aggression against the Soviet Union, Stalin and the Bolsheviks would ‘become traitors’, and that under their leadership the defeat of the Soviet Union would be inevitable. Here are his thoughts on this:

“The military situation of the Soviet Union is contradictory. On the one hand, we have a population of 170 million people, awakened by the greatest Revolution in history… with a more or less developed military industry. On the other hand, we have a political regime that has paralyzed all the forces of the new society… I am sure of one thing: the political regime will not survive the war. A social regime that is the nationalized property of production is incomparably more powerful than a political regime that has a despotic character… The present perpetuators of this political regime (or bureaucracy) are afraid of the prospect of war, because they know better than us, that they will not survive in a war against their regime.”

Once again: on the same side ‘170 million’ ‘good’ citizens, awakened by the Revolution. It remains only to wonder who woke them up, if not the Bolshevik Party and Stalin: in the years 1921-1928, the peasant masses were not exactly ‘awakened’. These ‘170 million’ had a ‘developed military industry’. As if this is not the Stalinist policy of collectivization and industrialization carried out thanks to his steel will, which allowed an arms industry to be created in record time! Thanks to his exact line, his will, his ability to organize, the Bolshevik regime awakened the forces of the people, whose fate was ignorance, prejudice and the primitive labour of inividuals. According to the provocateur Trotsky, the Bolshevik regime paralyzed these social forces! And Trotsky gives all sorts of absurd predictions: the Bolshevik regime certainly will not survive the war! So, two propaganda themes that were dear to the Nazis could be found in Trotsky’s writings: defeatism and anti-Bolshevism.

“Berlin knows to what extent the Kremlin clique demoralized the army and population in the struggle for self-preservation …

Stalin continues to undermine the moral strength and the general level of resistance of the country. Careerists without honour and conscience, on which Stalin is forced to rely, will betray the country at a difficult time.”

In his hatred of Communism, Trotsky incites the Nazis to wage war against the Soviet Union. He, an ’eminent expert’ on the Soviet Union, told the Nazis that they had every chance of winning the war against Stalin: the army and the population were demoralized (false!), Stalin frustrated resistance (false!) And that the Stalinists would capitulate at the beginning of the war (false!).

In the Soviet Union, Trotskyist propaganda produced a double effect. It cultivated defeatism and capitulationism, saying that fascism was guaranteed victory with such a rotten and incompetent Soviet leadership. Moreover, this propaganda called for attempts at ‘uprisings’ and murders of Bolshevik leaders ‘who will betray you in difficult times’. The leadership, which was categorically predetermined to fall during any future war, could well fall at the beginning of that war. On this instruction, Troysky called upon his followers to unite with anti-Soviet and opportunist groups in any battle to bring-down the USSR!

In both cases, Trotsky’s provocations directly helped the Nazi Germans.

Trotsky and the Tukhachevsky Plot

In the chapter devoted to the military plot of Tukhachevsky, we will show that an extensive anti-Communist organization really existed in the personnel of the Red Army. Impressive was the position of Trotsky in relation to this phenomenon.

Here is a written testimony about Trotsky’s attitude to the Tukhachevsky case:

“Here I have to state what my relations were with Tukhachevsky where… I never considered the Communist convictions of this officer of the old guard to be serious …

The generals fought to protect the security of the Soviet Union from what was being done in the interests of Stalin’s personal security.”

“The army needs honest, capable people, as well as economists and scientists, independent people with a broad mindset. Every man and woman with independent thinking is in conflict with the bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy must lose one of its heads to save itself… A person who is a true general, like Tukhachevsky, needs independent assistants, other Generals around him, where he will evaluate each person according to his inner values. The bureaucracy needs obedient people, confused people, slaves, and these two types of people are in conflict in each State.”

“Tukhachevsky, and with him the entire pedigree of military personnel, disappeared in the fight against the police dictatorship hanging over the officers of the Red Army. According to its public characteristics, the military bureaucracy is no better than the civil bureaucracy… If the bureaucracy is considered as a whole there two functions: power and control. Now these two functions have come into sharp conflict. To ensure good governance, totalitarian power must be destroyed…

What does the new duality of power mean: the first step is the disintegration of the Red Army or the beginning of a new civil war in the country?

The current generation of commissars means control of the Bonapartist clique over the military and civil administration, and, therefore, over the people…

The current commanders who grew up in the Red Army cannot be divorced from it and have absolute authority gained over many years. On the other hand, commissioners recruited from the sons of bureaucrats who have neither Revolutionary experience, nor military knowledge, nor even ideological capital. Such is the archetype of the careerists of the new school. They are only called to command, because they are ‘alert’, that is, they represent the police in the army. Commanders show them their hatred for what they serve. The dual command regime turns into a struggle between the political police and the army, and the central authority on the side of the police…

The development of the country, especially the growth of its new needs, is incomparable with totalitarian husks; That is why we see a tendency to resist the bureaucracy in all manifestations of life… In the field of technology, economics, education, culture, defense, people with experience, knowledge of science and authority automatically reject the agents of the Stalinist dictatorship, which are mostly uncultured and uncouth cynics like Yezhov and Mehlis.”

First of all, Trotsky had to admit that Tukhachevsky and those like him were never Communists: previously, Trotsky himself defined Tukhachevsky as a candidate for a military coup like Napoleon. Moreover, wanting to preserve a possible ally in a merciless struggle with Stalin, Trotsky denied the existence of a bourgeois counter-Revolutionary opposition in the army elite. In fact, he supported any opposition against Stalin and the Bolshevik Party, including Tukhachevsky, any other disruptive elements, etc. Trotsky led the united political front with all the anti-Communists in the army. This clearly shows that Trotsky could come to power only in alliance with the counter-Revolutionary forces. Trotsky declared that those who fought against Stalin and the leadership of the party in the army actually fought for the security of the country, while the officers loyal to the party defended Stalin’s dictatorship and his personal interests.

It is noteworthy that Trotsky’s analysis of the struggle inside the Red Army coincides with the analysis of Roman Kolkovitsa from his report to the US Army. First, Trotsky opposes party measures to ensure political control in the Red Army. In particular, Trotsky is attacking the return to the army of political commissars who will play a significant political role in the anti-fascist resistance during the war and will help young soldiers to maintain a clear political line, despite the incredible complexity of the problems posed by the war. Trotsky encouraged the elite and exceptional sentiments of the military, contrary to the Party, with the aim of splitting the Red Army and provoking a civil war. Further, Trotsky declared his disposition to independence, that is, the ‘professionalism’ of officers, saying that they are capable, honest and widely thinks that their opposition to the Party will increase! Similarly, anti-Communist elements like Tokayev defended their dissident bourgeois ideas in the name of independence and broad thinking!

Trotsky declared that there was a conflict between the ‘Stalinist’ government and the government of the country, and that he supported the government. In fact, the phenomenon he describes was antagonism between the Bolshevik Party and State bureaucracy. Like all the anti-Communists of the world, Trotsky slandered the Communist Party, calling it ‘bureaucratic’. In reality, the real threat of bureaucracy came from a part of the administrative apparatus, which was not Communist in its essence, and sought to get rid of the ‘suffocating’ political and ideological control of the party, to remain forever over the rest of society and gain various privileges and benefits. The political control of the Party over military and civilian leadership was particularly aimed at combating such tendencies of bureaucratic decay. When Trotsky wrote that in order to ensure good leadership of the country the Party should be eliminated, he was the spokesman for the most bureaucratic sentiments in the State apparatus.

In general, Trotsky defended the ‘professionalism’ of the military, technical, scientific and cultural personnel, that is, all technocrats who tried to get rid of Party control and wanted to ‘limit party influence on all aspects of life’, according to Trotsky’s instructions.

In the class struggle that took place in the State and the Party in the thirties or forties, the front line ran between the forces defending Stalin-Leninist positions and those who were inspired by technocracy, bureaucracy and militarism. And it is precisely the last force that will at one time achieve hegemony over the leadership of the Party during the Khrushchev coup.

Trotskyites – Provocateurs in the Service of the Nazi Germany

Trotsky aligned himself with fascism in this way; On the one hand he stated that the USSR must prepare to defend itself against a Nazi German invasion, whilst on the other, he stated that a crucial first part of this ‘defence’ has to include a ‘pre-emptive’ attack on the leadership and establishment of what he termed the ‘Stalinist leadership’ and all Soviet agencies loyal to Stalin. However, as the Nazi Germans – as Trotsky advocsted – would target Stalin and his Soviet (Communist) Government, it logically followed that the Nazi Germans, Trotsky (and by implications, Trotsky’s followers and reactionary elements such as the Roman Catholic Church), were all pursuing the same objectives, if not necessarily for the same reasons. Trotsky believed that the fascist-inspired destruction of the USSR was a price worth paying for freeing the Soviet people from what he thought to be the ‘tyranny’ of Soviet Communism, regardless of the loss of life and material destruction involved in such a potential eventuality. Trotsky believed that out of the ashes of this fascist nightmare, he would emerge as the ‘new’ leader of a Socialist System entirely made entirely in his own image (the religious symbolism is striking). This is how Trotsky became a tool in the hands of the Nazi Gerrmans. Recently, this history of Trotsky’s collaboration with fascism preseted at a rally at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), after which a talkative fan of Trotsky shouted: “It is not true! Trotsky always declared that he certainly protected the Soviet Union from imperialism!”

Yes, Trotsky has always appeared to defend the Soviet Union, implying that the destruction of the Bolshevik Party would be the best preparation for defense! The essential point is that Trotsky called for an anti-Bolshevik uprising, the benefits of which the Nazi Germans would have received, and not merely a handful of deluded Trotskyists. Trotsky preached an uprising in the name of the ‘best defense’ of the Soviet Union, but he obviously took an anti-Communist position (that benefitted Hitler) and mobilized all anti-Socialist forces. There is no doubt that the Nazi Germans were the first to appreciate this ‘best defense of the Soviet Union’ (as was Trotsky’s intention).

What Are the Exact Words of Trotsky on this Score:

“‘I cannot be’ for the USSR ‘at all. I am for the working masses who created the USSR, and against the bureaucracy, which usurped the revolutionary gains… The duty of a serious revolutionary is to declare quite frankly and openly: Stalin is preparing to defeat the USSR.”

“The old Bolshevik Party turned into a caste of apparatchiks…

We will defend the USSR against the imperialist enemy with all our might. However, the gains of the October Revolution will serve the people only if it shows its ability to act simultaneously against the Stalinist (Communist) bureaucracy, as we did before the Czarist bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie.”

“Only the uprising of the Soviet proletariat against the foundations of the tyranny of new parasites can save what remains in society from the gains of October… In this sense, and only in this sense, do we defend the October Revolution (and USSR) from imperialism, fascists and democrats, from the Stalin bureaucracy and from their ‘hired friends’.”

From these quotations it becomes clear that the words “we support the USSR in the struggle against imperialism” were said by an anti-Communist, who had to say them if he wanted to get even the slightest chance to be heard by the masses, ready to defend the Socialist regime to the bitter end. But only political blindness of people could hide from them the meaning of the word ‘defense’ in these quotes. This is how the traitors and enemies actually prepared the defense: “Stalin will betray, he is preparing a defeat; it means that Stalin and the Bolsheviks must be destroyed to defend the USSR.” Such propaganda perfectly suited the Nazi Germans.

Trotsky ‘defended’ the Soviet Union, but without Stalin and the Bolsheviks. He claimed the defense of the Soviet Union ‘with all his might’, that is, along with several thousand of his followers in the USSR! In the meantime, these several thousand outcasts were to prepare an uprising against Stalin and the Bolshevik Party! Wonderful defense, rest assured.

Even hardened anti-Communists, such as Tokayev, believed that Trotsky, with his writings, worked for the Nazi German aggressors. Tokayev was an anti-Communist, but a supporter of British imperialism. At the beginning of the war, he made the following confession: “The peoples of the USSR, driven by their inner feelings, in the face of mortal danger, united with the Stalinist regime… The opposing forces had hands tied; and it was a spontaneous act even with the devil to defeat Hitler”… the opposition to Stalin not only caused damage to the international struggle with the Axis countries (Rome-Berlin-Tokyo), but was equivalent to resisting all the peoples of the USSR. ”

With the approach of World War II, Trotsky’s main concern, if not the only one, was the overthrow of the Bolshevik Party in the Soviet Union. His main position was taken from the world of the extreme right: “He who defends Stalin and the Bolshevik Party, directly or indirectly, is the worst enemy of Socialism.” Here is an excerpt from Trotsky’s declaration:

“The reactionary bureaucracy must and will be overthrown. A political revolution in the USSR is inevitable.”

“Only the overthrow of the Bonapartist clique of the Kremlin can make the revival of the military power of the USSR possible… The struggle against war, imperialism and fascism requires a ruthless war against the stained Stalinism by crimes. his military power is the worst enemy of Revolution, Socialism, and oppressed people.”

When these lines were written in 1938, a fierce class struggle between Fascism and Bolshevism unfolded on the world stage. Only the far-right ideologues of French, British or American imperialism or fascism could support Trotsky’s thesis:

“The one who defends Stalinism, directly or indirectly … is the worst enemy.”

Trotsky Called for Terrorism and Armed Uprisings!

Since 1934, Trotsky has constantly called for the overthrow of the Bolsheviks through terrorism and armed uprisings.

In April 1938, Trotsky declared that an attempt on the life of Stalin and other Bolshevik leaders would inevitably happen in the USSR. Of course, he continued, individual terror is contrary to Leninist tactics. But you see, “the laws of history tell us that assassination attempts and acts of terror against brigands like Stalin are inevitable.” Here’s how in 1938, Trotsky put forward a programme of individual terror: “Stalin destroys the army and crushes the country .. Irreconcilable hatred accumulates around him, and terrible revenge hangs over his head”.

“Attempt to kill? It is possible that the regime, which, under the pretext of fighting terrorism, destroyed the best minds in the country, will eventually experience individual terror. Anyone can add that it would be against the laws of history if the robber in power were not the object of acts of revenge for desperate terrorists. But the Fourth International… should not do anything out of desperation and personal thirst for revenge, and individual terror is too much for us… Since Stalin’s personal future concerns us, we can only hope that his personal destiny is to live long enough to see the collapse of his system. But he will not have to wait long.”

So, for the Trotskyists, it would be “against the laws of history,” if someone had not attempted to kill Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Zhdanov, etc. It was an ‘intelligent’ and ‘reasonable’ move for a secret Trotskyist organization to come up with such a message. It did not mention the “organization of attempted murder”; but preferred: “the revenge of terrorists on Stalin as part of the laws of history”. Recall that in the anti-Communist circles, which included Tokayev and Alexander Zinoviev, there was much talk about preparing for the attempt to assassinate the Bolshevik leaders. Everyone can easily establish that these forces were inspired by the writings of Trotsky.

Trotsky alternated calls for individual terror with propaganda of an armed uprising against the Bolshevik leadership. In general, he used a veiled and deceptive formulation of the ‘political Revolution’. During a dispute with the Trotskyite Mandel in 1989, we said that Trotsky was calling for an armed struggle against the Soviet regime. Mandel became angry and shouted that this was a ‘Stalinist lie’, since ‘political Revolution’ means a People’s Revolution, but one that is peaceful. This anecdote is an example of duplicity, systematically used by professional anti-Communists, whose primary task is to infiltrate into the ranks of the left (i.e. ‘Entryism’). Here, Mandel wanted to appeal to the audience of environmentalists. Here is the programme of anti-Bolshevik armed struggle advanced by Trotsky:

“People… survived three Revolutions against the royal monarchy, the nobility and the bourgeoisie. In a sense, the Soviet bureaucracy now embodies the features of all the overthrown classes, but without their social roots and traditions. She can defend her enormous privileges only by organized terror…

The country’s defense can be organized only through the destruction of the autocratic clique of saboteurs and defeatists.”

As a true Social Revolutionary, Trotsky declared that Socialism united the exploiting features of Czarist, nobility and the bourgeoisie. But, he said, Socialism did not have that broad social base, as those exploiting forces! Therefore, the anti-Socialist masses can overthrow Socialism much more easily. It was a call to all the reactionary forces to attack the disgusting, precarious regime and to carry out the “Fourth Revolution.”

In September 1938, Austria was annexed. It was the month of Munich, where French and British imperialism gave Hitler the green light for the occupation of Czechoslovakia. In his new ‘Transition Programme’, Trotsky set the tasks of his organization in the Soviet Union, despite the fact that he himself agreed that “as an organization … Trotskyism is certainly extremely weak in the Soviet Union.” He continues:

“The Thermidorian oligarchy… is held at the expense of terrorist methods… the main political task in the USSR is still the overthrow of this very Thermidorian bureaucracy … Only a victorious Revolutionary uprising of the oppressed masses can revive the Soviet regime and guarantee its further development towards Socialism. There is only one Party capable of leading the uprising of the Soviet people – the Party of the Fourth International. ”

This document, which all Trotskyist sects regarded as the main programe, contains a significant statement. When will this “rebellion” and “performance” occur? Trotsky’s response is striking in its directness: Trotsky planned his ‘uprising’ at the time of the Nazi German attack on the Soviet Union:

“The motivation for the Revolutionary upsurge of the Soviet workers will probably be given by events outside the country.”

The following quote is a good example of a dual approach. In 1933, Trotsky declared that one of the ‘principled crimes’ of the German Stalinists was to abandon a united front with the Social Democrats against fascism. But until Hitler came to power in 1933, the Social Democrats did everything they could to preserve the capitalist regime and repeatedly refused to join forces with the German Communist Party. In May 1940, eight months after the start of World War II, a great specialist in the ‘united front’ Trotsky, suggested that the Red Army would launch an uprising against the Bolshevik regime! He wrote in his Open Letter to the Soviet Workers:

“The purpose of the Fourth International… is the revival of the USSR by cleansing it from the parasitic bureaucracy. This can be done only in one way: by workers, peasants, soldiers of the Red Army and sailors of the Red Fleet, who will rebel against the new caste of oppressors and parasites. To prepare this uprising of the masses, we need a new Party… The Fourth International.”

At a time when Hitler was preparing for war with the Soviet Union, the provocateur Trotsky called upon the Red Army to carry out a coup. Such an event would have caused tremendous disasters, opening the whole country to the Nazi German tanks!