LENIN-TROTSKY CORRESPONDENCE
By Pierre Frank
THE TROTSKY PAPERS 1917-1922. (Vol. I: 1917-1919.) Edited and anno-
tated by Jan M, Meijer. The Hague: Mouton. 1964. 858 pp.
90 florins [#25].
The Trotsky archives at the Houghton Library of Harvard Uni-~ versity in the United States, include a file containing copies of more than 800 items (telegrams, letters, documents), composed mainly of Trotsky's correspondence with Lenin and a few other revolutionists in high civil or military posts in the five-year period 1917-1922.
The International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam undertook some years ago to publish this material. Dr. Jan M. Meijer was placed in charge and the first volume has now appeared. It includes 435 items covering the years 1917-1919 along with extensive annotations by Dr. Meijer.
It is a notable bilingual publication, the Russian text and an English translation appearing on facing pages. The work is of the highest scholastic order. Dr. Meijer has checked the documents in the Trotsky archives against those texts published in the Soviet Union, his aim being to verify their accuracy as to names, dates, references, etc. He notes that in Stalin's time not a single item from the collection was used in attacking Trotsky, although Stalin would most certainly have taken anything suitable if it had existed, He likewise notes that whatever Trotsky's reasons were for assembling the file, which contains only a part of the Lenin-Trotsky correspondence in 1917-1922, the selection made by Trotsky, as the collection itself shows, was not dictated by any likes or dislikes or the objective of bolstering a predetermined view. The compilation was intended as a contribution to the study of the history of the Soviet Union and, consequently, of the world.
Dr. Meijer likewise observes that certain previous publications of some of these documents were not adequate. He indicates the differences in his notes. Some of the items published in Moscow omitted the name of the recipient, utilizing his post instead. The reason for this is obvious; one can only pity the Soviet historians who were compelled to proceed in such a way.
“In 1924, Trotsky conceded to the demand of the Lenin Institute in Moscow and sent them the originals in return for a promise to send him photostatic copies. He received only 58 copies, which are in the Trotsky archives. The other copies were made by his secretaries before the originals were given up.
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Volume I, which has just appeared, contains a certain number of documents relating to Brest-Litovsk. They do not add much to what is already known on this subject. (We are not of course referring to the Stalinist lies, nor to the distortions which the post-Stalinists still indulge in, but to the genuine documents on this subject, beginning with the minutes of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party.)
The exceptional interest of this book lies in the documents relating to the civil war and the formation of the Red Army. The second half of 1918 and particularly the year 1919, was the most crucial period in the history of the young revolutionary power, locked in struggle with the uprisings of the Whites and invasions by foreign armies. After having written his History of the Russian Revolution, which deals with the taking of power in October 1917, Trotsky wanted to turn to a history of the Red Army, in which he would most certainly have utilized the documents now published in The Trotsky Papers 1917-1922.
The years 1918-1919 constitute a period without precedent. Even in 1792, the Convention did not have to begin at such a low level either in the state structure or the army as the Soviet power. If a long-established government, whose authority is recognized by the people it heads, runs into such difficulties as to place its very existence in danger in a war, what must be said of a situation where a government's authority is questioned on all sides! Moreover, the hopes aroused by revolutions in Hungary and Bavaria did not last long. In place of receiving aid, the revolutionary power, struggling for its existence, had to seek ways of helping revolutionary Hungary.
These documents give a partial view of the way the leadership functioned at that time, particularly the way two men -- one at the center of the state which was being built, the other at the head of the army that was created in the struggle itself -- saw the problems and solved them, .
The documents consist primarily of notes, written in telegraphic style. There is very little about political developments. (These were formulated elsewhere by Lenin and Trotsky in relation to their leadership of broad layers of militants and the masses.) They were not written with the aim of having them published for the education of the workers. They were exchanges of observations, of remarks, with explanations put as succinctly as possible in order to rapidly reach the decisions on which hinged many human lives and the very existence of the Revolution,
It is clear from these documents that the highest decisions depended at certain crucial moments on the positions taken by these two men, Not that the others did not count, did not voice their opinions, did not take part in the decisions, but Lenin's opinion and Trotsky's presence were in certain circumstances decisive,
The reasons for this can be grasped all the better through these documents as they reflect the chaos in which the power, the
Bolshevik party, had to operate. A chaos that extended everywhere. Army recruitment was often followed by massive desertions; discipline vanished faster than it could be forged; the various commands often proved deficient in capacities or qualities; transport and communications often broke down. Supplies were insufficient, arms and munitions were lacking where they were needed and ended up more than once in uncertain hands. Units organized at great effort fell to pieces from one day to the next. An enemy at the frontiers, but also an enemy within, Finally, particularly among the revolutionists, habits ‘and reflexes did not fit the needs of the new circumstances, Quite often they proved incapable of remodeling themselves to fit the new _tasks. Under such conditions, even men of great worth could not avoid being defeated, beaten, at times. Consequently they could not but © appreciate all the more these two men who, in this chaos showed themselves to be the most clear-sighted, the most resolute. When they saw things eye-to-eye, their positions easily won general agreement.
On reading these documents, one sees the clear relations bes: tween Lenin and Trotsky, the reciprocal confidence, which remained even in the times when they differed. They constituted a tacit leading team, and one word is frequently repeated in these texts -= energy. They had to have an exceptional amount to overcome the weakness- ‘es, the insufficiencies. Even among the most intrepid revolutionists, they detected "softness"! In the post held by Trotsky, at the head of the army, particularly in his function of assuring leadership on the fronts where the dangers were greatest, this energy appeared in an extraordinary combination of power of persuasion in some cases, of pure and simple authority without discussion in others, in repressive measures in others. A combination that had to be established in an exact proportion each time under penalty of losing everything.
In the gigantic chaos, the supreme law was the victory of the revolution. Innumerable sacrifices had to be made.
Throughout the advances and the retreats, the victories and setbacks, the vicissitudes that were such that at the end of 1919 catastrophe was but a hair's-breadth from victory, the two who held the wheel firmly in hand, Lenin and Trotsky, never lost sight of the objective of creating a new order, More than once they had to change men in responsible posts, modify an organization, but they never forgot the necessity of establishing a new state, a new army. What difficulties they had to compel respect for everyone's rights and the jurisdiction of bodies! When repressive measures were required, Trotsky displayed rigorous concern for rules and court procedure, to “prevent arbitrariness so that revolutionary justice even in the severest of cases might be guaranteed,
Without attempting here to take up numerous questions raised in these documents, we will say a few words on two questions, each of which came up again after the victory in the civil war.
First of all on the question of the differences over the rela-
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tive. importance of the various fronts during the war. It is probable that military historians will discuss this for a long time to come, This will happen particularly after the foul atmosphere created by Stalin and his crew is completely gone, when it.will be possible to . speak honestly about Trotsky in the USSR. Brief. as the documents are, the characteristics of each front stand out clearly. Petrograd came to a close the soonest. There the proletariat of the city mobilized vigorously in response to Trotsky's appeal. The Eastern front had the most disciplined troops. They were sent to the other fronts to strengthen weaker formations to such a degree that the Eastern front was dangerously undermanned. The Southern front proved to be the most difficult, both in terrain, in relations with the nationalities there, in the peculiarities of the peasantry. Immense difficulties were added by the conduct of the command there (Stalin, Voroshilov, and others). It was there that Trotsky encountered many obstacles in creating a qualified command that would gear its activity into the over-all measures taken by the government. Victory was finally gained, but at what a price. As Trotsky wrote to Lenin:
"On that side the turn-about has been complete, Not even a trace remains of the Eighth Congress opposition. It is true that people have not bought their knowledge cheaply. . the Donetz Basin, Chartkov, Ekaterinoslav and many tens of millions of puds of grain.” (August i, 1919, p. 655.)
The other question was that of military poliey with regard to the "specialists"; that is the former officers of the Czarist army, who were utilized in the Red Army. To succeed in this was not simple and there were mistakes, although not many if the circumstances are borne in mind. One of the greatest difficulties in this field was the hostility among a great many cadres and party members to this policy. The motive, undoubtedly completely sincere, was hostility to introducing methods of rigorous discipline which ran up against the spirit of free discussion that had always characterized the party and the first formations of partisans. But behind this pretext was to be found in actuality the incapacity among many revolutionists to utilize these capacities, an inability to sort out what might be useful in the acquisitions of bourgeois civilization for the construction of the socialist world, From this came complete rejection which was translated into hostility, a mistrust, most often unreasoning, toward the "specialists" and their proposals.
Trotsky vigorously insisted on the turn that must be made in this field. He emphasized very strongly the differences between the army and the party:
w.o. . The army is, to the highest degree, an artificial organism which always develops vast centrifugal tendencies. Whereas the Party, as such, can allow itself a certain limit in its internal differences of opinion, beyond which it breaks up; and whereas this limit to differences of opinion permissible within revolutionary parties is narrowed down in the extreme in the epoch of revolution, when the
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Party is not making preparations for, but is engaged in action «= under the conditions of an intense and implacable civil war, such permissible differences of opinion are, within the army of the revolutionary class, reduced to the absolute minimum, The army is an artificial organism, and the unity of thought and planning which sustains this artificial organism must be maintained with a firmness all the more relentless the more savage be the objective conditions that tend to undermine the army. It is better to have in each division 10 Communists who have been delegated by the Party than a hundred who look on the army as an arena for discussion and for all sorts of group experiments." (March 1919, p. 331.)
The military policy advocated by Trotsky won out in the party, contributing to assuring the victory. But later a good many of those who had fought the policy made a complete about-face, Forgetting all the differences which Trotsky emphasized, the whole "artificial" character of the army, they became the fiercest introducers of military methods into the party, the economy, the: entire social structure. The same men who had struggled against military discipline, became the champions of Stalinist bureaucratism,
The Trotsky Papers 1917-1922, because of the nature of the contents. and, secondarily, the price of this edition, will have only limited circulation. We hope, however, that it will be found in the libraries of many workers! organizations. We hope, too that Volume II will soon appear.
Directeur-Gérant: Pierre FRANK. 1'éditeur).