Thu Mar 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

70 years after his murder: To continue Trotsky’s battle is to reconstruct the IV International

This article was published on the 70th anniversary of Trotsky’s assassination. We are publishing it again because the Arab revolution, the European resistance and struggles, and the U.S. crisis urge us to put on the agenda the discussions on the Fourth International reconstruction and the need to solve the revolutionary proletariat leadership crisis.

On August 20th, 1940, Trotsky was murdered in Coyoacan, Mexico, where he was exiled. This great Russian revolutionary received a blow from a GPU (Russian political police) agent complying with an order from Stalin, his former party comrade. Trotsky died the following day due to this blow. 30.000 people went to his funeral in Mexico.

Many were those who tried to make this death as an episode of a “personal struggle for power” between two Russian leaders. On the contrary, as Trotsky himself said, the history of his fate has always been linked to the history of class struggle.

Therefore, to talk of the 70 years after that murder refers to one of the most important political battles of the XX century. Without it, we would hardly have been able to face the challenges of our days.

One of the main Bolshevik leaders

In the 1905 Russian Revolution, Trotsky was the president of the Soviet of Petrograd, a massive proletarian organisation, and the embryo of what would be the future workers’ state. He also was at the head of the Revolutionary Military Committee, leading the raid at the Winter Palace that led to the takeover by the workers in 1917. In the new workers’ state – among other vital tasks – Trotsky organized and commanded the Red Army, which led the Bolsheviks to win the civil war (1918-1921) against 14 armies of the main imperialist powers.

Together with Lenin, Trotsky was also one of the founders and an outstanding figure of the III International, the Communist International. In his testament (December 1922) Lenin wrote that Trotsky was “the most capable man in the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party”.

Battle against bureaucratization 

The construction of the new Russian workers’ state, however, was taking place in more adverse circumstance than what its leaders had imagined. The other revolutions, which started cropping throughout Europe after the end of the First World War, were all defeated and the Russian Workers’ State remained isolated.

The first socialist revolution in history became triumphant in a culturally and economically backward country and not in one of the main imperialist countries.

Furthermore, the civil war – triumphant as it was – claimed a heavy toll of lives among the best of the proletarian vanguard that surfaced during the revolution, leaving a vacuum that was filled by more backward and more adjustable elements.

All these factors contributed to the assertion of bureaucratic tendencies in the new workers’ state. In the latest days of his life, Lenin carried out a relentless struggle against these bureaucratic tendencies inside the soviet state closely linked to the bureaucratic deformation of the Bolshevik Party.

After Lenin’s death, it was Trotsky who continued this battle while Stalin, Secretary General of the party was the main instigator of these bureaucratic tendencies.

Relentless persecution by bureaucracy

Stalinist bureaucracy was the opposite of Bolshevism in the policy, theory, programme, morals, in the conception of the party and of the workers’ state. Consequently, in order to sustain their privileges, the bureaucrats needed to destroy the heritage of the Bolsheviks, their revolutionary conception in all aspects. In order to do all this in the name of “bolshevism”, however, it was necessary to destroy not only the conceptions but also to annihilate all those who were part of this bolshevik heritage, from the party itself down to the best members of the proletarian vanguard, both wrought in the great events of class struggle.

That means that bureaucracy could only seize power definitely through the struggle against the proletarian vanguard, against proletarian democracy in the party and in the soviets and in this way, all those who opposed bureaucratic power were driven away and ultimately eliminated politically and physically.

The Moscow trials were the best expression of that inasmuch as they built huge calumnies and falsification against the main bolshevik leaders. Thus they represent the greatest institutionalization of morals totally opposed to bolshevism, where political discussion always prevailed over slander or moral attacks. This process led to the execution of most of the members of the CC of the party of the times of Lenin apart from several prominent militants and leaders of the Red Army. Some outstanding bolshevik leaders formed part of the Left Opposition and consistently fought against bureaucracy. Many of them died in Siberia even before the Moscow trials, unlike other leaders who, under torture, duress and blackmail made “confessions” supporting Stalin’s falsifications and revised the conceptions and ideas they had so far defended.

The battle against Trotsky was not the only one, but it was the most important, firstly because he was the most highly regarded party leader after Lenin and therefore, the most dangerous one. He was also one of the most unfaltering opponents, the one who has always been unfalteringly in the defense of the USSR against the attacks by imperialism and also for the need of a political revolution of the masses to overthrow bureaucracy and bring proletarian democracy back. In spite of the fact that most of his family had been murdered by Stalin, he never succumbed to the blackmail of bureaucracy and based on solid Marxism he was never deluded by the brusque swerves to the left or to the right of the Stalin leadership. That is why Trotsky was the main menace for Stalin: he could successfully lead the workers’ battle and defeat bureaucracy and restitute socialist democracy; he could lead a future wave of revolutionary struggles in the USSR or in Europe, he could organize a new international leadership that could lead a new revolution to triumph. Any of these hypotheses jeopardized the very existence of the bureaucracy as a privileged caste.

Why did Stalin order Trotsky’s assassination?

Trotsky was the first leader exiled in USSR. Then he was expelled from the party and the country; they took his nationality away from him. The most diverse accusations were made up against him and a strong international campaign meant to run him down as a leader: he was alternatively presented as an agent of fascism, of imperialism and sworn enemy of the Russian Revolution and the Soviet State. That is why his photographs next to Lenin were destroyed, his past as a revolutionary leader concealed and distorted. This persecution against Trotsky reached a peak when Stalin issued the order to murder him. He believed that by killing the most important figure of the “Trotskyist” movement, the one that linked the old generation of Russian revolutionaries with new generations, he could end the entire movement. The first attempt failed on 24th May 1940, a new try hit the target.

The Third International was destroyed by Stalinism

Trotsky’s death was a severe blow for all those who defended the continuity of bolshevism in the days of bureaucratic degeneration of the bolshevik party and were known as “Trotskyists”.

Stalinist bureaucracy not only seized the workers’ state and the bolshevik party but also has degenerated it. It also usurped the III International, which had been built as the World Party of the Socialist Revolution after the II International betrayed workers during the I World War by supporting each of their own bourgeois governments. From being a revolutionary instrument of the workers in the struggle for power all over the world, the III International in the hands of Stalin became a servant of the interests of the soviet bureaucracy in the world. That is why, faced with the great events of class struggle between the two great wars (Such as the 1923-1925 Chinese Revolution, the Spanish civil war or the government of the Popular Front in Spain) the III has always been the main hindrance against new revolutionary victories. Finally, the great episode that led Trotsky to split away with the III and regarded it as lost for the revolution is the disastrous policy of the German CP that allowed for the ascent of nazism in that country.

Contrary to Stalin’s expectations, Trotsky’s death did not end the heritage of the III International, the great legacy of the Bolsheviks to the world revolution. If that was so, we owe it essentially to what Trotsky considered to be “the most important task” of his life: the construction of the IV International (1938).

The Fourth continues the battle of the Leninist Bolsheviks

Fragile as it was, the IV International was the link between the entire generation of revolutionaries who had headed the first victorious socialist revolution, led the first workers’ state and built the III Communist International and the new generation of revolutionaries that surfaced between the First and the Second World Wars, that sought a revolutionary alternative to social democracy and Stalinism.

On the one hand it is the political, theoretical, ideological continuity of the III International, as well as of its programme, founded by the Bolsheviks and that is why members of the trend organized by Trotsky (first, the International Left Opposition and the IV International later on) referred to themselves as “Bolshevik-Leninist”. When the Stalinist leadership was carrying out the revision of the main historic works of the Bolsheviks and the III international, Trotsky’s trend updated the Marxist capital in the light of the new events of class struggle, such as the degeneration of the Russian workers’ state and the upsurge of fascism. All this work crystallized in the Transitional Programme, founding document of the IV International, written by Trotsky.

On the other hand, the IV was the response within the scope of organization to the crisis of revolutionary leadership, initiated as an outcome of the degeneration of the III. That is why it emerged as a revolutionary leadership, a minority still, alternative to social democracy and Stalinism that would, in a new moment of class struggle, lead new revolutionary ascents be it against imperialist bourgeoisie or against bureaucracy.

That is how the IV International crowned the battle waged by Trotsky against the degeneration of the Workers’ State, the Bolshevik Party and even the Communist International.

Without Trotsky

The newly founded IV International having an extremely fragile, young and inexperienced leadership, had to cope with great events of class struggle, such as the II World War, the defeat of fascism and the great revolutionary ascent that followed.

Stalinist leadership capitalized the defeat of fascism and rode the crest of the revolutionary ascent after the II World War. Communist parties led by Stalinism emerged strengthened from the II World War, leaving little space for those who, like the Trotskyists, opposed them.

At the same time, the new leadership of the IV International committed several mistakes capitulating to Stalinism and the new petty bourgeois leaderships. These errors prevented the IV International from becoming a strong vanguard organization at an international level and caused splits that destroyed the centralized organization. But in spite of all, Trotskyists did not disappear. Different trends claim to be Trotskyists, many of them keep on revising Trotsky’s way of thinking and have very little in common with his teaching. Other trends, such as the IWL-FI have always fought for the reconstruction of the IV International on the principled bases and so to respond to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership that we are going through even now.

The verdict of History

In spite of the errors of the “Trotskyists”, history proved Trotsky was right and Stalin was wrong.

For decades Stalinists slandered Trotsky accusing him of being a “counterrevolutionary” who wanted to destroy Soviet Union. However, it was the very Stalinist bureaucracy – the ones who accused Trotsky – who restored capitalism in the USSR thus putting an end to the first workers’ state in history.

It was also the verdict of history that bore out Trotsky’s characterization that unless a political revolution toppled the bureaucracy in the URSS, it would be the bureaucracy itself that would restore capitalism in that country.

Restoration of capitalism also proved in real facts that, unlike what Stalinists said, it was impossible to build socialism in only one country and that world socialist revolution was the only possible solution.

Mortal agony of capitalism and the validity of Trotskyism

It was not only against Stalinism that history proved Trotsky right. When the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe collapsed, world bourgeoisie proclaimed “the end of socialism” and the “triumph of capitalism”.

The current economic crisis and the increasing poverty that it causes among millions of workers all over the world are not only the most recent and the most visible expression of the mortal agony capitalism, which can only bring misery and destruction to the working class and the world toiling masses.

Faced with capitalist barbarism, which is reaching tremendous proportions, the need for the working class to take over through a worldwide socialist revolution is now more urgent than ever.

The crisis of mankind is – as Trotsky used to say – “the crisis of its revolutionary leadership” and this is another aspect that verifies the current validity of Trotskyism together with the need to reconstruct the IV International, which is precisely the world party for the socialist revolution.

Belief in the revolutionary force of the working class

Trotsky’s murder was therefore not Stalin’s personal revenge. The contrary is true. It was the culmination of a long struggle between two opposite projects for the world revolution and the Russian workers’ state.

Trotskyism was born during a deep outgoing tide of the great revolutionary struggles that had spread across the world in the later part of the First World War facing the great defeats of the world working class, such as fascism and the degeneration of the USSR.

Despite adverse times and the betrayals and calumnies he had to suffer, Trotsky always kept his revolutionary morals high and, above all, he believed in the power of the working class to overcome all the obstacles. In a letter to Angelica Balabanoff – titled “Against Pessimism” – (1937) he wrote, “We must take history the way it comes and, when it surfaces with such blatant outrage, then we must be ready to fight with our fists.”

Trotsky knew all the time that the battle perpetrated against him was a political battle, the produce of deep forces in the international situation. That is why, regardless his personal fate, the steadfastly kept up his deep faith in the revolutionary force of the working class to fight against imperialism and bureaucracy.

The great lesson to be learned from Trotsky was that he remained a consistent Marxist, revolutionary and internationalist up to the last day of his life even if he knew he had to swim upstream.

Continue Trotsky’s battle

The IWL-FI was founded to serve the purpose of reconstructing the IV International and that is what our struggle is for. We exist even today and we can fight this battle because we took up the Transitional Programme and its teachings and we try to update it all in accordance with our days.

We know that we are still a modest trend. However, many activists and revolutionaries join the IWL-FI due to its consistent battle against bourgeoisie and capitalism as well as against their agents inside the workers movement. Our strength comes from continuing the battle that Lenin and Trotsky fought to overcome the crisis of the revolutionary leadership, for the seizure of power by the working class and construction of socialism on an international level.

At a time when the deep crisis of Stalinism overlaps the agony of capitalism, we believe that the best homage we can pay to Trotsky – now that 70 years have elapsed since the day he was murdered – is to take up his teachings to reconstruct the IV International.

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