Speech to the Joint Plenum of the CC and the CCC

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Trotsky [reading his speech]: Comrade Stalin said yesterday that the Opposition stands under the banner of ‘Trotskyism.” The primary and essential characteristic that he gives for “Trotskyism” is its denial of the theory that socialism can be built in one country. This question, comrades, is still up for discussion — in my opinion; and I don’t think it will be withdrawn from the agenda in the period ahead. To invoke this or that resolution as having already dealt with this question, even if that were true, would only bring us back to the problem that such a resolution was obviously mistaken and would have to be revised. In fact, however, this has never been taken up as a separate question in its full dimensions, and no resolution that was the least bit definitive has ever been passed on this subject.

Voice from the floor: Maybe you'd answer the questions put to you yesterday?

Trotsky: Moreover, precisely on this question it is most glaringly evident how unserious is the attempt to misrepresent our approach to the question as “Trotskyist," rather than Marxist or Leninist. [Shouts from the floor.] As I understand it, what is under discussion is a political tendency which is condemned above all for its political line — its so-called “Trotskyism,” which allegedly differs from Leninism. It is in regard to precisely this basic charge against us that I am now making clarifications for the joint plenum. I assert, comrades, that this basic charge is fundamentally incorrect. You can’t, after all, just dismiss the fact that as late as 1924, i.e., even after the death of Vladimir Ilyich, Stalin formulated his opinion in a very clear and exact way that it is impossible to build socialism, that is, a socialist society, in one country. It turns out that only two years ago, even after Lenin’s death, Stalin expounded a “Trotskyist” view on the question of building socialism in one country.

Kaganovich: You talk about yourself.

Voice: This has already been discussed.

Trotsky: You might say that Stalin made a mistake and then corrected himself. But how could he make such a mistake on such a question? If it were true that as far back as 1915 Lenin gave us the theory of building socialism in one country (which of course is totally untrue); if it were true that afterwards Lenin did nothing but substantiate and develop that point of view (which is totally untrue); how then, we must ask, could Stalin, while Lenin was still alive, in the last period of Lenin’s life, have developed an opinion on such a highly important question of the kind that found expression in Stalin’s quotation of 1924? It seems that on this fundamental question Stalin had simply always been a Trotskyist and only after 1924 did he stop being one.

Antipov: Answer the questions that were put to you. Talk about point four. There’s no use trying to distract us.

Kaganovich: You tell us about the discussion of 1915.

Trotsky: It wouldn’t be a bad thing if Comrade Stalin could find in his writings even one quotation showing that before 1925 he discussed the building of socialism in one country. He won’t find any. And Bukharin? Here are three quotations, one from 1917 and the other two from 1923. They all testify to the fact that we Oppositionists are at present, on this most important question, developing the point of view which was common to the party as a whole not only during Lenin’s life but even two years ago or a year and a half ago, in other words, since Lenin died. Bukharin was discussing the proletariat in Russia and the fact that it was heading toward power, toward socialism. “However, this task which ‘is placed on the agenda’ in Russia, cannot be resolved ‘within national boundaries.’ Here the working class comes up against an insurmountable barrier which can be broken through only by the battering ram of the international workers’ revolution” [Class Struggle and Revolution in Russia (Moscow, 1917), pp. 3-4], In 1919 Bukharin said even more than that: “The period of a rise in the productive forces can begin only with the victory of the proletariat in several major countries” [in the magazine Kommunistichesky Internatsional, no. 5, September 1919, p. 614]. Thus according to Bukharin, not just the building of socialism but even a rise in the productive forces can only begin after the victory of the proletariat in several major countries. The conclusion is that the fullest possible development of the world revolution is necessary.

Shouts from the floor: Talk to the point!

Trotsky: And finally, Bukharin also said that “the International …”

Shouts: This can’t be allowed. Stick to the point. Why are you dodging direct questions? [General commotion. The chair calls the session to order.]

Trotsky: … Bukharin said that “the International will make possible the practice of mutual aid on the part of the proletariat of various countries and without economic and other types of mutual support the proletariat is in no position” — no position! — “to build the new society” [Kommunistichesky Internatsional, no. 8, May 1919, p. 94], With this I am replying directly to the assertion Comrade Stalin made here, under the same agenda point which we are now taking up, the assertion that the alleged turn of the Opposition away from Leninism and onto the road of so-called “Trotskyism” took place above all around the question of socialism in one country. I would further remind you that the Communist League of Youth program, adopted in 1921 and still in force, has the same position, clearly formulated, as the one for which we are accused of “Trotskyism.”

Shouts: Stick to the point. You don’t have the nerve to answer the charges.

Trotsky: I ask you, comrades, does this mean that Bukharin in 1917, 1919, and 1921 was a Trotskyist on this question? No. At that time precisely on this question he was closer to Marx, Engels, and Lenin than on many other questions. And the Communist League of Youth program? It is true that Comrade Shatskin has made a rather naive attempt to take upon himself the full responsibility for drafting that program.

Shatskin: I wrote it.

Skrypnik: You drag Shatskin in, too?

Trotsky: It seems that in 1921 Shatskin arrived independently, through his own thinking, at the idea that the whole former tradition of Marxism was wrong and, coming to that conclusion, found it possible to introduce and embody in the Communist League of Youth program his own Trotskyist heresy. [Commotion.]

Shvernik: You’d do better to talk about the charges that have been brought against you.

Trotsky: Neither Bukharin nor Stalin, it turns out, noticed this. [Shouts.] I will get to the other charges brought against me after I have answered the charge which is most fundamental and involves basic principles. Neither Stalin nor Bukharin noticed this, i.e., they did not notice that the Communist League of Youth program had a point about the link between the building of 'socialism and the world revolution, which is formulated in exactly the same way that we, the Opposition, formulate it now. This also went unnoticed by Lenin, who knew how to notice a great deal. [Commotion.]

Petrovsky: Comrade chairman, you must make the speaker stay closer to the point under discussion.

Voroshilov: Right!

Kaganovich: Did you argue with Lenin in 1915 or didn’t you?

Shout: Tell us about your article in 1915.

Trotsky: If I am not interrupted, I will tell you about Lenin’s article of 1915, where Stalin’s mistake is most obvious of all.

No one, it turns out, noticed that on a fundamental question, on the question of the link between socialist construction and the world revolution, there was a Trotskyist heresy in the Communist League of Youth program, which has been in existence for several years and which is still in existence.

Shout: And who set you straight? Didn’t Lenin?

Trotsky: I ask again, were Bukharin’s statements really accidental? [Commotion. The chair calls for order.] Is the Communist League of Youth program an accident? An accident? Everything that Marx, Engels, and Lenin wrote on this question is swept aside, except for one single quotation of 1915, distorted by Stalin, and Comrade Stalin referred to this very quotation under point four on the agenda, although I am now being interrupted for doing the same. I must now say a few words about this quotation.

Voices: You’d do better to answer about Thermidor, Clemenceau, and the question of two parties. Answer all the charges brought against you.

Shout: You don’t have the nerve to answer the charges.

Voice: That’s enough about that quotation!

Trotsky: I would like to point out that it was none other than Comrade Stalin — under this very point on the agenda — who said that the Opposition had departed from Leninism on the question of building socialism in one country, that that was our sin of sins, that that was the essential expression of “Trotskyism.” And just as the chair did not stop Stalin from speaking on that question, I ask the chair to give me the opportunity to make the necessary clarifications on this basic question. [Commotion. Shouts: This is a mockery! Enough!] In the theses on war and peace … [Uproar.]

Rykov (the chairman): Earlier I received a great many complaints from members of the plenum about the problem that Comrade Zinoviev’s speech did not deal with the agenda point that was up for discussion. [Voices: Right!] This led me to give several of the speakers who followed him the opportunity to touch on the same topics that Comrade Zinoviev did. But it seems to me that if we want to finish point four today, we will sooner or later have to get down to a discussion of it. [Voices: Right!] Therefore it would seem to me that these requests are quite pertinent and that we should devote the rest of our session to discussion of the matter raised in Comrade Ordzhonikidze’s report — the proposal for the expulsion from the Central Committee of two of its members, Zinoviev and Trotsky. [Voices: Right!]

Trotsky: Comrades, if all the other speakers, in the limits of the time allowed them, were given the chance to speak about all the questions which in their opinion were involved under point four on the agenda, I would think that I, who am being charged before the joint plenum of the CC and CCC on this question, that I at any rate could not be denied the same right. In his report — and no one reproached him for this — Comrade Ordzhonikidze dealt with all, or nearly all, the questions that are the subject of differences …

Voices: Not so! Nothing of the kind!

Talberg: Speak to the point!

Trotsky: … even the question of how I assess the effect of a good or bad harvest on the Soviet economy. Now, comrades, it is your right to deny me the floor, hut within the limits of the forty-five minutes allowed me, I can say only what I think is necessary about the charges brought against me. If the chair decides that that is wrong, the chair can of course deny me the floor, and then it would be up to the plenum to confirm this decision or not. I would have no choice but to comply. But as long as I am at the speaker’s stand I can speak only about what I myself consider important and essential for the joint plenum to hear in regard to point four on the agenda.

Voice: You’ve said that twenty times already.

Voice: Tell us whether you’re going to dissolve your faction or not That’s what you should tell us.

Voice: We’ll listen to that.

Rykov (the chairman): I think I will be expressing the opinion of all the members of the plenum if I say that the plenum expects to hear something from Comrade Trotsky on the question that is now on the agenda [Voices: Right.], that the question of building socialism has already been discussed at congresses and conferences and has been voted on and the vote confirmed many times. [Voices: Right!] At any rate no one has placed that question on the agenda of this plenum.

Voroshilov (from the floor): This is the question you should speak on — Are you or are you not going to carry out …

Trotsky: If I am to understand the chair in the sense that I have the right to develop my thoughts further and to present the necessary conclusions from general considerations of principle, that fully agrees with the outline of the speech which I have here. [Laughter. Noise.]

Voice from the floor: That doesn’t agree with the agenda.

Voice from the floor: Don’t get into sophistries.

Kaganovich: Speak to the point.

Trotsky: If you mean to tell me that I don’t have the right to speak on what I consider essential before this plenum in relation to the charges against me [Commotion.], if the plenum does not feel it is necessary to hear me out, it has the right to deny me the floor. I would comply with that; that is the plenum’s right.

Kaganovich: You’ve been given forty-five minutes. Speak to the point. Don’t just keep jawing away.

Trotsky: What I am saying is that everything depends on what you think the point is. If there were no differences, everything would be very simple. But in my view of what the central issue is, I totally disagree with Comrade Kaganovich. That does not prevent him from presenting his point of view. And I am trying to present mine.

Voice: Speak to the point. [Commotion.]

Trotsky: On the question of what is the essence of the problem I disagree with Kaganovich in the same way as I do, for example, on the question of Amsterdam. But it seems to me I have the right to present my point of view.

In his theses on war and peace (January 7, 1918), Lenin said that “for the success of socialism in Russia a certain amount of time, several months at least, will be necessary”. What exactly did these words mean when he said them? What specific economic and social content did he invest them with?

Voroshilov (from the floor): You can send all that off and have it printed. [Commotion.]

Trotsky: In early 1918 Lenin wrote the following in his article “‘Left-Wing’ Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality”: “If in approximately six months’ time state capitalism became established in our republic, this would be a great success and a sure guarantee that within a year socialism will have been permanently consolidated and will have become invincible in our country”. During the period of transition to NEP Vladimir Ilyich referred to this quotation quite a few times. He quoted it in his speech to the Fourth Comintern Congress, adding immediately: “Of course this was said at a time when we were more foolish than we are now, but not so foolish as to be unable to deal with such matters”. It is quite clear … [Voice from the floor: We have to reconsider the time allowed him.] It is quite clear that Lenin’s ironic comment, “we were more foolish than we are now” referred to the low estimate of the length of time required, i.e., that "within a year socialism will have been permanently consolidated and will have become invincible in our country.” [Commotion.]

Rudzutak: This has nothing to do with the ruling of the Central Control Commission.

Trotsky: But how could Lenin have made such a low estimate of the time required for the final consolidation of socialism? [Commotion.] What material-productive content did he put in these words? And what, on the other hand, was the meaning of Lenin’s words, mitigating the irony of his remark, that we were “not so foolish [Commotion,] as to be unable to deal with such matters”? It is quite clear that when he spoke of the final consolidation of socialism Lenin did not mean the building of a socialist society in one year’s time … [Commotion.]

Rudzutak: This isn’t a speech but a reading of the complete collected works of Trotsky. …

Trotsky: … He did not mean the abolition of classes or the elimination of the antithesis between town and country in twelve months. What he meant primarily was the renewed operation of the plants and factories in the hands of the victorious proletariat.

That was the whole thing. [Commotion.] In order to understand Lenin’s approach to the question of building socialism you cannot tear isolated remarks out of context and arbitrarily reinterpret them, remarks spoken under various conditions, for various reasons and — most important — for various practical purposes. Lenin’s thought must be grasped in its historical development. Then we will find that what Lenin said about building socialism, what he said in 1915, for example, Le., more than two years before the October Revolution, can be understood correctly and without any possibility of disagreement only if we study the development of Lenin’s thought on the building of socialism in the years following the October Revolution, when it was no longer a matter of making a prognosis but of theoretically clarifying the living experience.

In 1915 Lenin wrote: “Uneven economic and political development is an unconditional law of capitalism. Hence the victory of socialism is possible at first in a few or even in one capitalist country alone. The victorious proletariat of that country, having expropriated the capitalists and organized socialist production at home, would stand opposed to the rest of the world — the capitalist world — drawing to its side the oppressed classes of the other countries, inspiring rebellions against capitalism in those countries, and in necessary cases even using military force against the exploiting classes and their state”. These words, which are still fairly general (it was only 1915!), nevertheless contain not only a polemic against the so-called revolutionaries who held that the revolution should begin simultaneously in all of Europe, if not throughout the world, but also — against the future “left-wing" Communists. First, Lenin was saying that the revolution could and should begin in a single country. Where? Wherever conditions first became ripe for it. Second, he seems even then to have been giving a warning that it is not enough just to seize power and immediately declare a revolutionary war against the whole capitalist world. [Commotion in the hall.]

Voice from the floor: Speak on point four; quit dragging things out

Trotsky: … First of all it is necessary to gain time (the “breathing spell”) and “to organize socialist production at home.” Only then will it become possible to actively oppose the capitalist world [Commotion.] and encourage the oppressed classes of other countries to rise up in rebellion. Isn’t it obvious that we have here exactly the same thought that Lenin developed two and a half years later [Commotion.] in a much more concrete and rounded way in his polemic against the “left-wing” adherents of revolutionary war? Holding power by itself is not enough for waging war. In addition, production, once it is in the hands of the proletariat, must be organized properly to provide for the livelihood of the population, which means to ensure the very possibility of waging war. [Commotion.] And “several months at least” are needed for that. …

Thus, in the 1915 quotation Lenin was not discussing the building of socialist society but the initial organization of state production — in exactly the same sense that he discussed it later, in 1918, in his January theses on the Brest-Litovsk peace. In speaking of socialism, he had in mind the revived operations of the plants and factories after they had passed into the hands of the working class, the revival of regular ongoing production on new foundations, in order at least to feed the army that was fighting the war, in order to protect the socialist republic, and so that the international revolution could be extended. It was still possible to misunderstand Lenin in 1915. But how can we fail to understand him today, when he explained his old idea so exhaustively both in word and in deed!

We could cite hundreds of statements by Lenin from 1917 to 1923 against the “theory” of socialism in one country. Not one of them has been explained away or refuted by Stalin. It is ridiculous to counter all of that with one falsely interpreted quotation from 1915!

This question of building socialism in one country has become a matter of extraordinary importance today in connection with the imminent threat of war, and it confronts us in a very concrete and vital way. I accidentally came across a worker-correspondent’s report — you know the kind of worker-correspondents I mean, the kind who write, not for the press, but for the special information of their editors. At the end of February this year, after the Moscow province committee conference, where the question of the war danger was sharply posed, I was leafing through a notebook of such correspondents’ reports, not intended for publication, and found the following truly remarkable conversation among some workers.

Voices: Is this on point four?

Kaganovich: This is a swindle.

Rudzutak: When will you speak to the point on the agenda?

Shvernik: Come on, let’s hear from you on point four.

Trotsky: This happened at the state-owned Red October confections plant. A woman worker of about twenty-five is quoted first: “We don’t want a war, but if war is forced on us, we should stand up and defend our country.”

A worker of about forty: “You sing a pretty tune, but when are you going to come down to earth? Who asked you to get involved in British affairs and send money over there? You’re to blame yourself. It means you don’t want peace if you do such things.” The woman worker of about twenty-five: “When we help the British proletariat, we know they won’t return evil for good; but when a crisis comes, they’ll be able to stop the bloody slaughter that British capitalism is getting ready to unleash.”

A worker of about fifty … [Commotion. Laughter.] Gerasimov: No comments from the cemetery?

Voice: Nothing from a seventy-year-old woman?

Trotsky: A worker of about fifty: “Isn’t it better to live in peace and build for ourselves at home? The Communists have been painting slogans everywhere you look, that we can build socialism in one country. So why the hell go poking your nose into some other country, sending a couple of thousand to the British miners?”

The worker of about forty … [Commotion. Laughter.] Rudzutak: This is just Trotsky’s program.

Shvernik: Why is the age limit forty?

Trotsky: The worker of about forty: “Socialism can be built in one country and should be; if they themselves want to fight a war, let them — we don’t want to,” and so on.

This very eloquent report, not for publication, confirms that the theory of socialism in one country gives the workers a perspective. But it is a false perspective. It does not take in the international process as a whole and for that very reason the conclusions drawn from it are wrong. It weakens the understanding of the fact that in building socialism we are vitally, intimately, and directly linked with the destinies of the international revolution. And thus this perspective leads to non-revolutionary and pacifist conclusions, as is amply demonstrated by the correspondent’s report I just read you. This theory, if it becomes entrenched, will have an extremely negative effect on the development of the Communist International.

That is why the party must be given the chance to discuss this new theory, not according to ready-made textbook cliches … Rudzutak: You’re the one who’s reciting textbook cliches. Trotsky: … not textbook cliches but honest, open, and real discussion. The question should be placed before the Fifteenth Congress in good time — not in a sudden way but in a way that allows for a rounded ideological preparation, verification, and discussion, and for this a collection of materials must be published in time, and a discussion must be opened up in time in the pages of Bolshevik or some other periodical especially devoted to the pre-congress discussion. The Opposition must be given the chance to publish its speeches and articles on this question in a separate collection or together with the speeches and articles of representatives of the CC majority.

Stepanov: Is this on point four?

Ukhanov: You’d do better to read something from Chekhov.

Trotsky: Comrade Yaroslavsky says that on the question of internal relations in the party, including those between the Central Committee and the party, …

Voice: And what do you think of the party, of which you are a member?

Trotsky: … the Opposition is said to hold the viewpoint of “Trotskyism.” But what does this Trotskyism consist of? Comrade Yaroslavsky specified what he meant by this charge in his report to the active membership in Kiev, where he cited the fact that the Opposition had sunk so low in its factional activity that Comrades Muralov and Kharitonov had placed amendments to the theses of Comrades Kalinin and Kuibyshev before the party fraction at the congress of Soviets. Of course it is Comrade Yaroslavsky’s right to judge these amendments. But that is not the problem. The very fact that they were brought before the fraction is what he calls factionalism and Trotskyism! Here are his exact words: “Why should the party fraction at the congress of Soviets discuss this question after the CC plenum approved the line of the CC? Can the fraction at the congress of Soviets be higher than the plenum? That is a Trotskyist conception of our party, that is, if you disagree with the CC plenum, you can appeal from a CC plenum to the fraction at a congress of Soviets.” Comrades, if this is your interpretation of Trotskyism, I assure you that the concept of Trotskyism would include every attempt by a party member to utilize his or her fully legitimate rights within the party. As for the particular question of appealing to the party fraction at a congress of Soviets, one could perhaps hold CC members to blame if they did that. But this did not involve CC members. Precisely on this question I have evidence of exceptional importance. Is it really true that appealing to the fraction at a congress of Soviets constitutes a violation of party rules, party traditions, party law? Is that really Trotskyism?

Voice: Comrade Trotsky, please finish up by speaking to the point.

Trotsky: On December 12, 1922, Comrade Lenin wrote to Frumkin and Stomonyakov, who were not CC members, at a time when he had a disagreement with the CC on the question of the monopoly of foreign trade. He wrote: “I will write Trotsky of my agreement with him and ask him to take upon himself, in view of my sickness, the defense of my position at the plenum. …

“I hope to write again today or tomorrow and send you my declaration on the essence of the given problem at the plenum of the Central Committee. At any rate, I think that this question is of such fundamental importance that in case I do not get the agreement of the plenum, I will have to carry it into the party congress and before that announce the existing disagreement in the fraction of our party at the coming congress of Soviets.”

On December 13, Vladimir Ilyich wrote me: “I think that you and I are in maximum agreement, and I believe that the State Planning Commission question, as presented in this case, rules out … any discussion on whether the State Planning Commission needs to have any administrative rights.”

Molotov: This is on the State Planning Commission. Not on Trotskyism.

Trotsky: No. The agreement was on the monopoly of foreign trade; the question of the State Planning Commission was secondary. But I think that the question of the monopoly of foreign trade is one of the cornerstones of Leninism — in a backward socialist country, surrounded by capitalist countries. That is precisely why Vladimir Ilyich intended to appeal to the party fraction. Hecontinued: “in the event of our defeat on this question we must refer the question to a party congress. This will require a brief exposition of our differences before the party fraction of the forthcoming congress of Soviets. If I have time, I shall write this, and I would be very glad if you did the same”.

On December 15, Vladimir Ilyich wrote: “I am sure that if we are threatened with the danger of failure,” — at the Central Committee plenum — “it would be much better to fail before the party congress and at once to address ourselves to the party fraction at the congress [of Soviets], than to fail after the congress”.

Also on December 15, Vladimir Ilyich wrote to me: “If for some reason our decision should not be passed we shall address ourselves to the party fraction at the congress of Soviets and declare that we are referring the question to the party congress.”

He continued: “If this question should be removed from the present plenum (which I do not expect and against which you should of course protest as strongly as you can on our common behalf), I think that we should address ourselves to the party fraction at the congress of Soviets anyway and demand that the question be referred to the party congress, because any further hesitation is absolutely intolerable”.

Finally on December 21, when the plenum, on Comrade Zinoviev’s initiative, reversed its previous, incorrect decision, Vladimir Ilyich wrote: “Comrade Trotsky. It looks as though it has been possible to take the position without a single shot, by a simple maneuver. I suggest that we should not stop and should continue the offensive …” Who was Vladimir Ilyich proposing to continue the offensive against?

Voice: Trotsky!

Trotsky: No. The offensive was against the Central Committee. Lenin continued: “… and for that purpose put through a motion to raise at the party congress the question of consolidating our foreign trade and the measures to improve its implementation. This should be announced to the party fraction at the congress of Soviets. I hope that you will not object to this and will not refuse to give a report to the fraction”.

That is what “Trotskyism” looks like in practice!

Now, comrades, the charge has been raised against me here of not telling the truth on the question of articles in Sotsialistichesky Vestnik, on the question of which side Sotsialistichesky Vestnik took in the fundamental differences over the question of the Chinese revolution.

Voice: We’ve heard.

Trotsky: I handed in a written declaration on a point of personal privilege which was not more than a page and a half in length. My request to have this read to the plenum was denied. The chair ruled that it should be appended to the stenographic record of the proceedings.

Now, comrades, in connection with the sharp questions that divide us, an attempt has been made to deduce from my article “What Is This Leading To?” which was directed against one of Moscow Agitprop’s clichéd texts …

Voice: You’re repeating textbook cliches yourself.

Talberg: You’re reading from a clich6d text.

Trotsky: … a text which was published in an edition of 5,000 by the print shop of the OGPU — an attempt has been made to deduce from this some terrible evidence of our insurrectionist intentions.

The Opposition is said to be preparing to fight for a different defense policy, following the example of the Clemenceau group in France during the war. And this supposedly points toward Left SR insurrectionism. But these things just don’t fit together.

Voice: They fit together very well.

Trotsky: If you talk about the Left SR uprising, you can’t talk about Clemenceau, and if you want to make evidence against the Opposition out of the Clemenceau matter, you can’t talk about the Left SR uprising. The Opposition, we are told, wishes to seize power like the Clemenceau group. The Opposition thinks — and it does not hide this from either the CC or the party — that its removal from the leadership hurts the interests of the party. Every serious ideological current cannot fail to hold such a view. We think that the removal of the Opposition from the leadership has had especially serious effects recently in regard to the line of the leadership in the Chinese revolution.

Voice: You won’t get back on the CC!

Trotsky: We think that similar mistakes of a principled nature can do especially great harm to the effort to defend the USSR precisely if there is a war. Therefore our view is that even in the case of a war, the party should preserve — or more exactly, should restore — a healthier, more flexible, and more correct internal regime, one that would permit timely criticism, timely warnings, and timely changes of policy. In what way does insurrectionism follow from this? If we return to the historical reference, which I drew from the political history of bourgeois parties in France to illustrate my idea, it will be seen that the Clemenceau opposition came to power not at all through insurrection, and not at all through the violation of the bourgeois legality they had there, but through their own bourgeois, capitalist legality, through the mechanics of French parliamentarism. The French parliament did not even change its composition. There were no new elections. On the basis of the experience of the war the French bourgeoisie, in the person of its ruling cliques, came to the conclusion that a ministry of Clemenceau, Tardieu, and Company would better correspond to its interests during the war than the ministry of Painlevé, Briand, and Company. Why should this historical example inspire thoughts of insurrectionism?

The objection may be raised — and we too will raise the objection — that we don’t have a parliamentary mechanism. Yes, fortunately we do not. But we have the mechanism of the party. The party must maintain control over all its institutions, ill wartime as well as in peace time. The party decides all fundamental questions at its congresses, regular and special. It is entirely possible for the party to arrive at the conclusion that the removal of the Opposition from its policy-making bodies was a mistake, and the party can correct this mistake.

Talberg: This is a lawyer’s speech.

Trotsky: Can the party, or can it not, correct what was done during the interval between two congresses? Can the party, or can it not, decide at a congress that in the interests of our defense, and our economy, in the interests of the Chinese revolution and the entire Comintern, that the leadership of the party should be organized on the same principles that Lenin outlined in his Testament? Can the party or can it not? I think it can. I am sure that the entire Opposition thinks it can. Here there is not even a hint of so-called insurrectionism — let alone the monstrous accusation concerning the policy of two parties, the policy of a split.

In order to reinforce the accusation of insurrectionism, so very ambiguously thrown out here, a rather unusual and peculiar business was organized in connection with the note I submitted to the Politburo on the military question.

Chubar: What fancy talk is this?

Trotsky: Such notes have been submitted dozens of times over the ten years of our revolution, by both CC members and nonmembers and by individual military personnel and groups of them. It never occurred to anyone that the sending of a letter to the CC by a party member calling attention to one or another irregularity in the organization of the armed forces or to an incorrect military policy in general constituted an anti-party step.

Chubar: And there never was a demonstration at the Yaroslavl station, right?

Trotsky: At the Eighth Congress, as has been described here already, there was a close-knit group called the Military Opposition, which in the sphere of military organization counterposed to the centralized proletarian line the line of decentralization and guerrilla methods. It never occurred to anyone to regard even that group as an anti-party tendency. Comrade Voroshilov claims that I didn’t dare show myself at the Eighth Congress precisely because of this issue. On this point I have submitted a statement of personal objection with a specific quotation from the decision of the Politburo, which instructed me to depart for the front, in spite of the congress, in view of our reverses in the east, our retreat from the vicinity of Ufa. Unfortunately this statement has also not been read to the plenum. The chairman has promised to have it appended to the minutes of these proceedings.

I return now to the military document. In early 1924 at the VAK, formerly the Military Academic Courses, there was an incident involving a document — a memorandum to the Central Committee drafted with the participation of Comrades Dybenko, Fedko, Uritsky, Belov, and other comrades, on questions of military organization. Through Comrade Kakhanyan and others the signatures of party members in military work were gathered in support of this document, which was submitted to the CC. It is true that in that endeavor word was spread that no special risk would be run by signing, since the document was known to several members of the CC. The document circulated rather widely from hand to hand. It dealt with the same difficulties in military work that are dealt with in the memorandum I submitted, but it treated them from a different angle. All those who signed this statement not only were left untouched but some of the most active participants received rather significant promotions soon after the memorandum was submitted.

I believe that as a member of the CC I had the right to submit a memorandum written on the basis of information I obtained by conferring with several military personnel whom I directly named by name. But when I did that an absolutely monstrous outcry arose, with accusations and even threats. Since the last page was not completely written and this caused the submission of the statement to be postponed for half an hour, the entire mechanism of the plenum was set into motion around this question; Comrade Unshlicht appeared in the corridor of the White Palace of the Kremlin with a formal ruling by the plenum of the Central Committee. What was all this for? Even the term “military conspiracy” was heard. A military conspiracy expressed in the fact that a member of the CC submitted a memorandum of one copy to the CC and, in submitting it, named a few absolutely loyal and reliable party members by name with whom he had conferred on particular aspects of military work! What is all this done for? Everyone understands the reason. This was organized in order to store up material for possible future use in making a case against the Opposition on charges of insurrectionism. Of course, this kind of approach can in no case improve relations within the party, and cannot produce the more normal conditions of party life that we desire in the interests of the ideas we are defending, and desire no less than any other member of the party or any other member of the CC and CCC.

Here I must say that no matter how great our differences, no matter how sharp they may be, it is absolutely unheard of in relations among Communists, even in a heated dispute over an internal party matter, to accuse a party member of “having Communists shot.” And such an accusation was bound to provoke an extremely sharp reply, which in other circumstances might have been impermissible. When Comrade Yaroslavsky allowed himself to make such a statement at the CCC presidium, Comrade Ordzhonikidze immediately stopped him …

Voice from the floor: At the CCC Secretariat.

Trotsky: Absolutely right, at the Secretariat. And of course, since Comrade Ordzhonikidze stopped him, I did not venture to make the kind of retort that I was compelled to make here and which, of course, is absolutely impermissible within the framework of a leadership institution or a party institution in general. [Yaroslavsky: You called Communists Black Hundredists.] But unfortunately Comrade Voroshilov was not stopped from making his statement. In response to Comrade Voroshilov’s words, which of course no member of the party could let go unchallenged, to besmirch his reputation — anymore than I could — I submitted a written statement, which unfortunately has not been read to the plenum. In this written statement I established firmly something that should be clear to every one of us already, namely, that those who were shot under me, under my command, or on my direct orders, were deserters, traitors, and White Guards, and that Communists were never shot. Communists were shot by our class enemies, the White Guards. If a Communist happened to fall into the category of deserter or traitor, he of course was subject to being shot as a deserter … [Radchenko: What about Bakaev and Zalutsky ?] I will read to the plenum all the documents about Comrades Bakaev and Zalutsky if you will give me five or ten minutes. It is not true that I ever called for the shooting of Zalutsky and Bakaev. This question was investigated by the Central Committee at my request at the time. The situation was this. The Military Revolutionary Council issued an order, with CC approval, which said that all commissars must know the whereabouts of the families of the commanders that were attached to them, so that no commander whose family was located in enemy territory would be on the fighting line or in important posts in general, for such commanders might wish to reach their families and to do that might betray us and bring ruin to our fighting front and to hundreds and thousands of Red Army soldiers and commanders. The wording of the order was very strict in the sense that it obliged all commissars to attend to this matter. When there was wavering in one of the divisions on the Eastern Front because of treason by a group on the commanding staff, resulting in serious consequences for the whole sector, I was on the Southern Front. I learned of this act of treason by telegram and sent an inquiry by telegram to Comrades Smilga and Lashevich, ordering that the families of the traitorous commanders be taken prisoner immediately and held as hostages and according to the law of the time to have those family members shot who might have been accessories, accomplices, etc. The answer I got was that nothing was known about the families. Not knowing who the commissars were or what kind of commissars they were — and at that time there were cases of highly unreliable commissars; it was a time when the selection of personnel as commissars was not very reliable — I sent a telegram in which I said that commissars who did not know the whereabouts of the families of their commanding personnel should be brought before a tribunal and shot. This was not an order to have them shot. This was the usual kind of pressure that was practiced then. I have here dozens of telegrams from Vladimir Ilyich of the same kind, and I will read them now if you wish. [Voice: Don’t bother,] Lashevich and Smilga answered me: “Our commissars are so and so; they are excellent comrades; we will answer for them; and if you are displeased with us you can remove us.” To this I replied word for word: “Comrades, don’t be coy. You are top-notch commissars; there couldn’t be any better. I only want to say that you must do twenty times, a hundred times, better in keeping an eye on the families of commanders who may turn up on the other side of the enemy’s lines.” Comrades Bakaev and Zalutsky, as you know, were not shot; between me and those commissars stood such comrades as Smilga and Lashevich. When I sent the telegram I knew they would do nothing unwarranted. This was a form of military pressure common at the time. The CC was notified about all this by me at the time.

In the CCC session I showed the blank sheet that Vladimir Ilyich gave me precisely when these rumors about the shooting of Communists reached the Politburo. The question of Comrades Zalutsky and Bakaev is essentially a misunderstanding. But the regimental commissar Panteleev actually was shot during the battle of Kazan. In this case the commander and the commissar abandoned the front line — while we were surrounded — seized a steamer, and tried to steam upriver to Nizhny Novgorod. We stopped them, placed them on trial, and they were shot. We reported this matter to the Politburo. On this question the Politburo found our decision to be justified. Later on, when they told Lenin that Trotsky had had Communists shot, Lenin gave me, on his own initiative, a blank sheet expressing the highest form of confidence. I submitted this document to the Lenin Institute. The page is blank but at the bottom some words are written which you will also find in the stenographic record of the CCC session. “Comrades: Knowing the strict character of Comrade Trotsky’s orders, I am so convinced, so absolutely convinced, of the correctness, expediency, and necessity, for the success of the cause, of the order given by Comrade Trotsky that I unreservedly endorse this order. V. Ulyanov (Lenin).”

When I asked what this was for, Vladimir Ilyich said: “This is in case of the revival of such rumors. You will have a ready-made blank sheet on which you can write whatever decision may be required by the circumstances.” I never ventured to make use of this document; it remained in my possession as a historical document, which I have given to the Lenin Institute. It testifies to the fact that despite the differences that came up, Vladimir Ilyich trusted that I would not abuse his confidence, that I would not abuse my power to the detriment of the cause or to harm individual comrades — even in the most trying circumstances of civil war.

In connection with the question of … [Kaganovich: Speak about the Yaroslavl station. Voices: On Clemenceau. On Thermidor.] I am just now coming to that.

Comrade Ordzhonikidze has quoted here from the statement of last October 16. The main idea in that statement was the renunciation of factional activity. Was our October 16 statement sincere? You have sufficient information, comrades, indicating with how much energy the Oppositionist members of the CC pursued this obligation … [Commotion. Voices: Oho, you pursued factional activity with energy. You're laughing at us. In what respect?] … in respect to the fact that we called on Oppositionists not to withdraw into themselves, not to go off in a corner and whisper, not to hide from the party, but to openly present their views in the party organizations to which we all belong. It is true that every tendency must bear responsibility on the whole and in general for its supporters — not, of course, for each one individually but for all of them as a whole. However, something else is also true: the party regime bears some responsibility for the forms that criticism within the party takes. [Voices: Aha/]

On the question of the conditions formulated by Comrade Ordzhonikidze, I can only endorse wholeheartedly what Comrade Zinoviev has said here on this question. It would, of course, be wrong to regard these conditions as the terms under which this or that comrade would be kept on the Central Committee. That of course is not the issue. In the near future there will be a party congress, which, after a two-year interval, will decide — among other questions — the question of the composition of the party’s Central Committee. Expulsion or non-expulsion from the CC under these circumstances is merely an external symptom of a further shift in relations within the party in one or another direction, nothing more. [Shouts: Oho!] Precisely in the interests of the defense of the views we stand for in the party [Voice: Which you defend at the station.] our defense must be such that the party can test out these views on the basis of its experience of events and of the ideological struggle. The struggle within the party, with all its sharp polemics and their consequences, is not accidental. It has led to such incidents as the farewell gathering for a member of the CC at the Yaroslavl station. No one considers this normal. But no one can consider it normal that for months Pravda has treated members of the CC as enemies of the socialist republic. Both the one and the other are abnormal. And the two things are connected. You cannot separate or disconnect them. Despite the best intentions there will be no success unless a more normal and a healthier regime is created in the party. [Voices: What a regime!] We declare that we are ready to do everything we can to improve relations within the party before the Fifteenth Congress and through the Fifteenth Congress, despite our profound differences of principle [Voice: Permanent discussion!] and to make it easier for the CC to make use of Opposition forces for any work, civilian or military. Every Oppositionist, unless there is a hanger-on or someone in the Opposition by mistake — and of course there are such elements in the Opposition too — every Oppositionist will do this with a clear conscience.

Voices: Just words! Quit talking! It’s Tomsky's turn.

Chairman: Comrade Tomsky has the floor. [Applause.]