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Stalinist Recruitment
| Author(s) | Leon Trotsky |
|---|---|
| Written | 1 November 1930 |
The newspapers publish in almost every issue: "We nonparty workers, in reply to the duplicity of the opportunists, declare our adherence to the party.â
This is always followed by a list of workers with a note attached to each name: twenty years of industrial experience, twenty-five, twenty-nine, and even thirty-three. Thus these are workers who are forty or fifty years old. All of them were mature at the time of the October Revolution and the civil war. This did not prevent them from remaining outside the party. Only the duplicity of the two chairmen of the Council of People's Commissars, Rykov and Syrtsov, induced them to join the party.
What kind of workers are these who succeeded in retaining their jobs in a factory, often in the same factory, for a period of fifteen to twenty years prior to the revolution? These are the most meek, the most submissive, often simply servile elements, participants in religious processions, those who bring birthday presents to the boss. In the first years of the revolution they did not even dare to think of joining the party. But once it is ordered by the bosses, the authorities, they cannot refuse. These are the elements inside the working class to whom centrism more and more looks for support, while at the same time it silences the most advanced workers.