On the Psychology of Capitulation

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The capitulation of Radek, Smilga, and Preobrazhensky is in its own way a major political fact. It shows above all how completely a great and heroic generation of revolutionaries whose destiny it was to pass through the experiences of the war and the October Revolution has spent itself. Despite the ludicrous form of the capitulation there are undoubtedly elements of tragedy in it: three old and meritorious revolutionaries have removed their names from the roll of the living. For very many centrists the road to revival is opened. For capitulators it is closed. They have deprived themselves of the most important thing: the right to command confidence. This they can never regain.

If, however, Radek, Preobrazhensky, and Smilga can no longer be teachers of revolution that does not mean that nothing is to be learned from their experience. No, the history of their capitulation is full of instruction. At our disposal, fortunately, is all the correspondence of the Bolshevik-Leninists exiled during 1928. These letters were by no means private, in the strict sense of the word. They were articles, sometimes even theses, distributed in multiple copies and reproduced in all sorts of ways. The form they had of letters was only an emergency form due to conditions of exile.

It is startling to read today arguments from Radek’s pen which irreparably discredit his renegacy. While we all were together, even the weak and the morally semi-bankrupt held on. But when everyone was left to his own devices, the weak and morally bankrupt began to seek one another out. In this way was created a small group of candidates for capitulation. The rank is not very high. But even at this level Radek and the others, getting caught in contradictions, have by force of habit formulated arguments devastating to even their own future.

As is known, in 1927 Radek was on the extreme flank of the Opposition on the question of Thermidor and of two parties. Opposing Zinoviev’s conciliatory mood of the time, Radek wrote, “The crisis our party is going through means a severe crisis for the revolution for many years. In this crisis the only realistic orientation is an orientation toward our cothinkers, those who have thought out the problems to the end, and are prepared for all blows on account of it. Only a crystallized nucleus of those who know what they want and are wholeheartedly fighting for their own aims can affect the chaff." These are excellent words and today they form the basis of the activities of the revolutionary Communist Opposition.

Radek did not hold on for long. His wavering began in February of the following year. However, at the time he still resolutely rejected the road of capitulation. In the same way he spoke of the deserters as contemptible. On May 10, Radek wrote indignantly to Preobrazhensky of Zinoviev and Pyatakov, “Doing violence to their convictions, they recant. It is impossible to help the working class by falsehood.” Thus, Radek did not think it conceivable that capitulators could, sincerely and honestly, renounce their views. From the evidence of the facts, how could anyone think it? On June 24, Radek wrote to Comrade Trotsky, “Such a renunciation would be all the more ridiculous since the test of history has brilliantly demonstrated their correctness.”

The views of the Opposition were formed at the beginning of 1923. In the middle of 1928, i.e., in the sixth year of the political test, Radek fully asserted their correctness. But a year later, having spent it in exile, Radek together with the other pair of deserters put out a statement summarized in the words, “The party was right to condemn our platform."

Such is the ideological and moral catastrophe of spiritually bankrupt revolutionaries!

For the outside world, the trio’s capitulation created a sensation. For the Opposition cadres, it was nothing unexpected. From his own correspondence it is clear that Radek now and then had to defend himself against the suspicion that he was paving the way to capitulation. The younger comrades protested with great frankness. The older revolutionaries expressed themselves more cautiously, but essentially they had no illusions. On September 9, 1928, Comrade Trotsky wrote to one of the comrades in Moscow, “I don’t know if the results of the congress deepen or lessen the differences with Preobrazhensky. However bitter it is to say it, I have drawn up a balance sheet of the last few months for myself to the effect that the matter is beyond repair. Our ways are too different. It is impossible to bear these emotional outbursts for long."

The correspondence in itself is strikingly clear and so instructive that we see no need to give lengthy quotations in these preliminary lines. We give extracts from the letters in all cases from the originals which are in our possession. We reproduce all the quotations literally, only when necessary replacing initials with real names.

On May 10, 1928, Radek wrote to Preobrazhensky from Tobolsk:

“I reject the Zinovievites and the Pyatakovites as Dostoevskyites. Doing violence to their convictions, they recant. It is impossible to help the working class by falsehood. Those who are left should tell the truth."

On June 24, Radek wrote to Comrade Trotsky:

“No one can contemplate renunciation of our views. Such a renunciation would be all the more ridiculous since the test of history has brilliantly demonstrated their correctness.

“Smilga is running to extremes: not in the maintenance of his point of view but in his tone. We must never speak of the center as did the Wrangelites of the time (i.e., when Stalin tried to undermine the Opposition with a Wrangel officer)."