A professional revolutionary called Bronstein adopted the then fashionable idea of a nom de guerre (Ulianov became Lenin; Dugashvili, Stalin) and became the Trotsky who is now having such a mysterious rise to fame thirty years after his death at the hands of a thug employed by his former comrade Stalin. He must at least have had a sense of humour for he took his new name from his Tsarist gaoler at the beginning of this century. And before we finish with it, the new name did not quite succeed in rubbing out the old one. When he fell foul of Stalin, the latter used to see to it that '“Bronstein” used to appear in brackets after “Trotsky”. Thus, without laying himself open to the charge of anti-semitism, Stalin was able to inform ignorant readers of Pravda that his opponent’s real name was obviously Jewish. (The Trotskyists in turn used to refer to “that dog Dugashvili”. Much good it did them. The Bolsheviks inherited the anti-semitism of the Tsars. And cherish it to this day.)
At the time of the abortive 1905 revolution, Trotsky was an opponent of Lenin. In due course he changed his mind and by the time of the 1917 revolution was Lenin’s chief supporter in the seizure of power. Not of course from the Tsar. That job had been done six months before by risings in St. Petersburg and Moscow while Lenin was in Zurich (he not only had no hand in the overthrow of the Tsar; he did not believe it when they told him). The Bolsheviks overthrew Kerensky who stupidly tried to keep up the slaughter in the war with Germany. Trotsky himself never made any special mark while Lenin lived except as his faithful henchman. The only episode he stamped with his own brand was the massacre of the Red Sailors at Kronstadt — the very sailors who had enabled Lenin to smash Kerensky in the Winter Palace but had the audacity to ask: “What about some freedom and democracy now we have overthrown the Tsarist tyranny?” In opposing the modern Trotskyists, a Labour Minister called Mrs. Williams has dug up the Kronstadt story. She forgot to mention (or didn’t know) that when the anarchist Goldman tried to stir up the Labour Party about the massacre shortly after it took place, her party — the thuggish Bevin and the pacific Lansbury — turned their backs on her.
After Lenin’s death, Trotsky and Stalin fought for the crown. As to what the quarrel was about, all the pundits used to write incomprehensible twaddle about revolution in one country, permanent revolution, etc. etc. ad nauseam. The Bolshevik Stalin murdered his rival gangster in the same way that the Nazi Hitler murdered his rival Roehm in the same grisly era. And is there any real point in retelling the story now? Hardly. It is merely that when one wonders what all the Trotskyist splinter groups are doing in the current recrudescence, it is as well to see who the original Trotsky was. And then we might know the explanation of the current Trotsky epidemic? Quite the contrary. We merely know that Trotsky was just another Leninist opportunist and had no special theory to contribute to present-day thought whatever. That he twisted and turned like any Stalinist, right to the end. And that the .imbeciles who now proclaim themselves his posthumous followers (and would cheerfully murder the other Trotskyists who do likewise) have no more connection with Trotsky than they have with Socialism. They would be horrified to hear it but Stalin and Trotsky were just Tweedledumski and Tweedledeeski.
So who are the Trots? A number of groups (some a bit bigger than the Socialist Party, some a bit smaller) who seem to hate each other’s guts as much as they hate the Communists and Maoists. There was a hilarious piece in the Observer (16th Jan.) describing a meeting in Friends’ House at which Gerry Healy, of the Workers’ Revolutionary Party, was denounced, in his presence, for writing a book actually accusing the leaders of the American Socialist Workers’ Party (the babble of names of all these Trotsky splinters is quite bewildering) of a crime. What crime? Why, nothing less than being accomplices in the murder of the old villain himself way back in 1940!
As the police haven’t bothered to arrest anyone and as the victims of the alleged libel don’t seem to have sued, either, one assumes that this is all some idiot game in which these fools — having nothing to contribute to Socialism — re-enact the feuds in Moscow in the ’20s. Tariq Ali was in the chair on behalf of the International Marxists (who are neither international nor Marxist) and play-acted a silly drama in which a gang of young asses marched in front of Healy so Ali couldn’t see him from the floor and the chairman then took a motion (carried? You bet!) refusing to hear the enemy. And these are the types who join in parades with banners demanding “Keep the fascists out.” What on earth do they think they are themselves? The meeting had brought over another of their stars from Belgium, Ernst Mandel, complaining that Healy was rocking the boat just when they were “getting accepted as a genuine force in the working class movement”. Were they now? Somehow one hadn’t realized it.
Phrase-mongers of the world unite. You really all stand for the same thing. Reform of capitalism. However much some of them prattle about Russia being state-socialist (but Trotsky insisted it was worth defending every acre with working-class blood right to the end), they all stand for “involvement in the workers’ day-to-day struggles” and similar claptrap. And not only is it difficult to detect the difference between the various warring groups and tendencies; it is quite impossible to see where they differ from the older gangs of capitalist reformers masquerading as socialists — the Communist Party and the Labour Party. A Guardian ignoramus called John Cunningham attempted to define the various splinters (4th Feb.) but left us groping in the dark — for which the poor devil could perhaps be excused. What was, though, quite inexcusable was that he had the nerve to state that the Trots were adopting “entryism” — more phrases — into the Labour Party even though they did not hold with Labour’s Constitution of which “the Marxist part” was Clause Four — “the common ownership of the means of production”. Now that’s Marxist right enough. But only the SPGB has ever advocated it and even the Guardian creep must know that Clause Four refers to the means of production and exchange. The last phrase is the give-away. What the devil would you want with means of exchange if all was socially owned? What these fools refuse to see is that the epitome of Clause Four has long been achieved in Russia. Which even Trots will now admit is state-capitalist and has not the remotest connection with Socialism.
Only one thing is certain. In a few years, all these groups will have joined those of times past in “the dustbin of history” (favourite phrase of all these? lefties). New insects will emerge to take their place in lousing up the working class. Large or small, the only Socialist Party will still be there. Hasten the day when the workers will start to see the wood for the trees.
L. E. Weidberg
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