Is Trotsky really right?
We propose to consider the work of LD Trotsky "Joseph Stalin. Experience characteristics ", published in the book" Trotsky L. Portraits of revolutionaries "(Moscow, 1991, p. 46 – 60), in the part concerning the Second World War. For ease of analysis, Trotsky’s text is highlighted in bold.
“The alliance of Stalin and Hitler [1], so startling, inevitably grew out of fear of [the Soviet] bureaucracy before the war. This alliance could be foreseen: diplomats should only change points in time. This union was foreseen, in particular, by the author of these lines. But gentlemen diplomats, like mere mortals, usually prefer plausible predictions to correct predictions. Meanwhile, in our crazy era, correct predictions are most often implausible. ” (pp. 58).
Here, of course, we are talking about foreign diplomats, since Soviet diplomats themselves were part of the Soviet bureaucracy. The matter is not in the “glasses”, but, firstly, in the organic rejection of the Bolshevik regime by the West, and secondly, in the historically established geopolitical rivalry between Russia and Great Britain. That is, in the future, the Nazi regime presented itself to Britain, the United States and France as enemy No. 2.
When Trotsky speaks of fear of “[Soviet] bureaucracy before the war,” he thus refutes the hypothesis of the attack against Hitler being prepared by Stalin, so developed in particular by V. Rezun (V. Suvorov).
Here we also see a reproach to the Soviet nomenclature for abandoning Trotsky’s idea of a permanent revolution.
"A union with France, with England, even with the United States could benefit the USSR only in the event of war." (pp. 58).
In peacetime, an effective union of the USSR with these powers was not possible due to political short-sightedness, or rather, the ideological intransigence of Great Britain, which became the cause of its political short-sightedness. Suffice it to recall the assassination in 1934 of French Foreign Minister Louis Bart, who spoke in favor of creating a collective security system with the Soviet Union.
France’s new foreign minister, Pierre Laval, who replaced the murdered Bart, took the path of appeasing Germany, and later Italy, which the French government needed, acutely feeling the German threat. So, in January, 1935 in Rome, Laval and Mussolini signed the so-called "Rome Pact", also known as the "Laval Agreement - Mussolini" - a package of agreements by which France tried to disrupt the German-Italian rapprochement, and Italy - to get diplomatic support their actions in Africa.
However, the growth of public discontent and the activity of Soviet diplomacy forced Laval to take concrete steps to create a system of collective security. December 5 1934 in Geneva, the People's Commissar MM. Litvinov and Laval signed an agreement on the mutual interest of the USSR and France in concluding the Eastern Regional Pact, that is, a mutual assistance agreement, the idea of which, in the whole of Eastern Europe, was put forward at the time to Bart. December 7 Czechoslovakia acceded to this agreement. Despite the fact that because of the German opposition, the Eastern Pact project was not implemented, the Geneva Protocol created conditions for concluding full-fledged agreements on mutual assistance between the USSR and France in Paris and the USSR and Czechoslovakia in Prague in May 1935. Moscow and Paris demonstrated during Laval’s visit to Moscow in May 1935. However, the French government agreed to start negotiations on concrete steps to provide mutual assistance in the event of war only in the spring of 1938, that is, after occupying ii Czechoslovakia.
“But the Kremlin most wanted to avoid war. Stalin knows that if the USSR, in alliance with democracies, had emerged victorious from the war, then on the road to victory, he would certainly have weakened and dropped the current oligarchy. The task of the Kremlin is not to find allies for victory, but to avoid war. This can be achieved only by friendship with Berlin and Tokyo. This is the initial position of Stalin since the Nazi victory (pp. 58).
Here Trotsky, as shown story, wrong. First, Stalin, of course, understood that war was inevitable. Secondly, as is well known, “on the road to victory,” the USSR did not at all “throw off the current oligarchy,” and did not even “weaken” it. As a result of World War II, Stalin became a victorious leader, and the USSR became a superpower with ambitions for world leadership.
“It is also impossible to close our eyes to the fact that it is not Chamberlain [2], but Hitler appeals to Stalin. In the Fuhrer, the owner of the Kremlin finds not only what is in himself, but also what he lacks. Hitler, bad or good, was the initiator of a great movement. His ideas, no matter how miserable they were, managed to unite millions. This is how the party grew, which armed its leader with a power not yet seen in the world. Nowadays, Hitler - a combination of initiative, treachery and epilepsy - is going no less and no more than how to rebuild our planet in the image and likeness of his own (p. 58 – 59).
Here the kinship of the totalitarian souls of Hitler and Stalin is evident.
“Stalin’s figure and his path are different. Not Stalin created the device. The apparatus created Stalin. But the apparatus is a dead machine, which, like a pianol, is incapable of creativity. Bureaucracy is imbued with the spirit of mediocrity. Stalin is the most prominent mediocrity of the bureaucracy. His strength lies in the fact that he expresses the instinct of self-preservation of the ruling caste more firmly, more resolutely and mercilessly than all others. But this is his weakness. He is perceptive at short distances. Historically, he is short-sighted. An outstanding tactician, he is not a strategist. This is proven by his behavior in 1905, during the last 1917 war of the year. Consciousness of his mediocrity, Stalin always carries in himself. Hence his need for flattery. Hence his envy towards Hitler and secret admiration for him. ” (pp. 59).
Here Trotsky is clearly exaggerating.
“According to the story of the former head of Soviet espionage in Europe, Krivitsky [3], Stalin was greatly impressed by the purges made by Hitler in June 1934 of the year in his own party.
"This is the leader!" Said the sluggish Moscow dictator to himself. Since that time, he has clearly imitated Hitler. The bloody purges in the USSR, the farce of the "most democratic constitution in the world", and finally, the current invasion of Poland - all of this was inspired by German genius with a mustache by Charlie Chaplin to Stalin. " (pp. 59).
It is unlikely that this was the cause of Stalinist repression.
“The Kremlin’s lawyers — sometimes, incidentally, his opponents — are trying to establish an analogy between Stalin’s union of Hitler and the Brest-Litovsk peace 1918 of the year. The analogy is similar to mockery. Negotiations in Brest-Litovsk were conducted openly in the face of all mankind. The Soviet state in those days did not have a single combat-ready battalion. Germany attacked Russia, seized the Soviet regions and military reserves. The Moscow government had no choice but to sign the peace, which we ourselves openly called the capitulation of an unarmed revolution to a powerful predator. There was no question of our help to Hohenzollern [4]. As for the current pact, it was concluded in the presence of the Soviet army of several million; his immediate task is to facilitate Hitler's defeat of Poland; finally, the intervention of the Red Army under the guise of the “liberation” of 8 by millions of Ukrainians and Belarusians leads to the national enslavement of 23 by millions of Poles. Comparison reveals not a resemblance, but the exact opposite. ” (pp. 59).
Trotsky is silent that he personally refused to sign a peace treaty with the Germans in Brest-Litovsk in February 1918.
Yet his “immediate task,” that is, the Non-Aggression Pact, is not “to facilitate Hitler's defeat of Poland,” but to push the USSR’s borders west on the eve of the war with Germany, a war Stalin had no doubts about.
“With the occupation of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, the Kremlin is trying first and foremost to give the population patriotic satisfaction for a hated union with Hitler. But Stalin had his own personal motive for invading Poland, almost as always - a revenge motive. In 1920, Tukhachevsky, the future marshal, led the Red troops to Warsaw. Future Marshal Egorov was advancing on Lemberg [5]. Stalin walked with Yegorov. When it became clear that Tukhachevsky on the Vistula was threatened with a counterattack, the Moscow command gave Yegorov an order to turn from Lemberg direction to Lublin in order to support Tukhachevsky. But Stalin was afraid that Tukhachevsky, taking Warsaw, would “intercept” Lemberg from him. Hiding behind the authority of Stalin, Egorov did not fulfill the order of the bid. Only four days later, when the critical situation of Tukhachevsky was fully revealed, Yegorov’s army turned to Lublin. But it was too late: the disaster broke out. At the top of the party and the army, everyone knew that Stalin was responsible for the defeat of Tukhachevsky. The current invasion of Poland and the seizure of Lemberg have a rematch for Stalin over the grand failure of 1920 of the year. ” (p. 59 – 60).
It is known that Stalin was a vindictive and vindictive man. Otherwise he would not be Stalin! Nevertheless, Stalin was, above all, a pragmatist, otherwise he would not come to the Yaroslavl station to personally accompany the Japanese delegation, led by Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, after signing the "Neutrality Pact between the USSR and Japan" 13 on April 1941.
“However, the superiority of Hitler’s strategist over tactical man Stalin is obvious. By the Polish campaign, Hitler ties Stalin to his chariot, deprives him of his freedom to maneuver; he compromises him and in the process kills the Comintern. No one will say that Hitler became a communist. Everyone says that Stalin became an agent of fascism. But even at the price of a humiliating and treacherous union, Stalin will not buy the main thing: peace " (pp. 60).
Yes, Stalin did not buy peace. But he continued to maneuver freely, as can be seen from the example of the “Neutrality Pact between the USSR and Japan” mentioned above, and the example of the Soviet-Finnish war 1939 – 1940. The Comintern, on the other hand, was abolished on 15 in May of 1943 by the need to open the 2 front by its allies in the anti-Hitler coalition.
“None of the civilized nations will be able to hide from the world cyclone, no matter how strict the laws on neutrality may be. Least of all, the Soviet Union will succeed. At each new stage, Hitler will place ever higher demands on Moscow. Today, he gives his Moscow friend a temporary storage "Great Ukraine". Tomorrow he will raise the question of who should be the master of this Ukraine. Both Stalin and Hitler violated a number of treaties. How long will the contract last? ” (pp. 60).
Here, as history has shown, Trotsky was right.
“The sanctity of allied commitments will seem like an insignificant prejudice when peoples will writhe in clouds of suffocating gases. "Save yourself, who can!" - will be the slogan of governments, nations, classes. The Moscow oligarchy, in any case, will not survive the war, which it so thoroughly feared. The fall of Stalin will not save, however, Hitler, who with the infallibility of a somnambulist is attracted to the abyss " (pp. 60).
Only valid in relation to Hitler.
“Hitler cannot rebuild the planet even with the help of Stalin. It will be rebuilt by others. ” (pp. 60).
Right!
“22 September 1939 of the year.
Coyoacan [6] » (pp. 60).
Author's notes:
[1] This is the 23 August non-aggression treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It is noteworthy that Trotsky’s work in question was dated less than a month after the conclusion of the “Pact”.
[2] Chamberlain, Arthur Neville - British Prime Minister in 1937 – 1940 He is sometimes confused with his brother, Joseph Austen Chamberlain, the British Foreign Secretary in 1924 – 1929, who was addressed in 1927 by “our response to Chamberlain”.
[3] Krivitsky, Walter Germanovich (his real name is Samuil Gershevich Ginsberg) - Soviet intelligence officer, defector, author of the book “I Was an Agent of Stalin: Notes of the Soviet Intelligence Officer” (M., 1996).
[4] This is the German Emperor Wilhelm II, who originated from the Hohenzollern dynasty.
[5] Lemberg - the Austrian name of the city.
[6] Coyoacan is a town in Mexico, currently part of the capital city of Mexico City.
“The alliance of Stalin and Hitler [1], so startling, inevitably grew out of fear of [the Soviet] bureaucracy before the war. This alliance could be foreseen: diplomats should only change points in time. This union was foreseen, in particular, by the author of these lines. But gentlemen diplomats, like mere mortals, usually prefer plausible predictions to correct predictions. Meanwhile, in our crazy era, correct predictions are most often implausible. ” (pp. 58).
Here, of course, we are talking about foreign diplomats, since Soviet diplomats themselves were part of the Soviet bureaucracy. The matter is not in the “glasses”, but, firstly, in the organic rejection of the Bolshevik regime by the West, and secondly, in the historically established geopolitical rivalry between Russia and Great Britain. That is, in the future, the Nazi regime presented itself to Britain, the United States and France as enemy No. 2.
When Trotsky speaks of fear of “[Soviet] bureaucracy before the war,” he thus refutes the hypothesis of the attack against Hitler being prepared by Stalin, so developed in particular by V. Rezun (V. Suvorov).
Here we also see a reproach to the Soviet nomenclature for abandoning Trotsky’s idea of a permanent revolution.
"A union with France, with England, even with the United States could benefit the USSR only in the event of war." (pp. 58).
In peacetime, an effective union of the USSR with these powers was not possible due to political short-sightedness, or rather, the ideological intransigence of Great Britain, which became the cause of its political short-sightedness. Suffice it to recall the assassination in 1934 of French Foreign Minister Louis Bart, who spoke in favor of creating a collective security system with the Soviet Union.
L. Bartu
France’s new foreign minister, Pierre Laval, who replaced the murdered Bart, took the path of appeasing Germany, and later Italy, which the French government needed, acutely feeling the German threat. So, in January, 1935 in Rome, Laval and Mussolini signed the so-called "Rome Pact", also known as the "Laval Agreement - Mussolini" - a package of agreements by which France tried to disrupt the German-Italian rapprochement, and Italy - to get diplomatic support their actions in Africa.
P. Laval (left) and B. Mussolini (right)
However, the growth of public discontent and the activity of Soviet diplomacy forced Laval to take concrete steps to create a system of collective security. December 5 1934 in Geneva, the People's Commissar MM. Litvinov and Laval signed an agreement on the mutual interest of the USSR and France in concluding the Eastern Regional Pact, that is, a mutual assistance agreement, the idea of which, in the whole of Eastern Europe, was put forward at the time to Bart. December 7 Czechoslovakia acceded to this agreement. Despite the fact that because of the German opposition, the Eastern Pact project was not implemented, the Geneva Protocol created conditions for concluding full-fledged agreements on mutual assistance between the USSR and France in Paris and the USSR and Czechoslovakia in Prague in May 1935. Moscow and Paris demonstrated during Laval’s visit to Moscow in May 1935. However, the French government agreed to start negotiations on concrete steps to provide mutual assistance in the event of war only in the spring of 1938, that is, after occupying ii Czechoslovakia.
P. Laval (left) and MM. Litvinov (right)
“But the Kremlin most wanted to avoid war. Stalin knows that if the USSR, in alliance with democracies, had emerged victorious from the war, then on the road to victory, he would certainly have weakened and dropped the current oligarchy. The task of the Kremlin is not to find allies for victory, but to avoid war. This can be achieved only by friendship with Berlin and Tokyo. This is the initial position of Stalin since the Nazi victory (pp. 58).
Here Trotsky, as shown story, wrong. First, Stalin, of course, understood that war was inevitable. Secondly, as is well known, “on the road to victory,” the USSR did not at all “throw off the current oligarchy,” and did not even “weaken” it. As a result of World War II, Stalin became a victorious leader, and the USSR became a superpower with ambitions for world leadership.
“It is also impossible to close our eyes to the fact that it is not Chamberlain [2], but Hitler appeals to Stalin. In the Fuhrer, the owner of the Kremlin finds not only what is in himself, but also what he lacks. Hitler, bad or good, was the initiator of a great movement. His ideas, no matter how miserable they were, managed to unite millions. This is how the party grew, which armed its leader with a power not yet seen in the world. Nowadays, Hitler - a combination of initiative, treachery and epilepsy - is going no less and no more than how to rebuild our planet in the image and likeness of his own (p. 58 – 59).
Here the kinship of the totalitarian souls of Hitler and Stalin is evident.
A.-N. Chamberlain
“Stalin’s figure and his path are different. Not Stalin created the device. The apparatus created Stalin. But the apparatus is a dead machine, which, like a pianol, is incapable of creativity. Bureaucracy is imbued with the spirit of mediocrity. Stalin is the most prominent mediocrity of the bureaucracy. His strength lies in the fact that he expresses the instinct of self-preservation of the ruling caste more firmly, more resolutely and mercilessly than all others. But this is his weakness. He is perceptive at short distances. Historically, he is short-sighted. An outstanding tactician, he is not a strategist. This is proven by his behavior in 1905, during the last 1917 war of the year. Consciousness of his mediocrity, Stalin always carries in himself. Hence his need for flattery. Hence his envy towards Hitler and secret admiration for him. ” (pp. 59).
Here Trotsky is clearly exaggerating.
“According to the story of the former head of Soviet espionage in Europe, Krivitsky [3], Stalin was greatly impressed by the purges made by Hitler in June 1934 of the year in his own party.
"This is the leader!" Said the sluggish Moscow dictator to himself. Since that time, he has clearly imitated Hitler. The bloody purges in the USSR, the farce of the "most democratic constitution in the world", and finally, the current invasion of Poland - all of this was inspired by German genius with a mustache by Charlie Chaplin to Stalin. " (pp. 59).
It is unlikely that this was the cause of Stalinist repression.
V.G. Krivitsky
“The Kremlin’s lawyers — sometimes, incidentally, his opponents — are trying to establish an analogy between Stalin’s union of Hitler and the Brest-Litovsk peace 1918 of the year. The analogy is similar to mockery. Negotiations in Brest-Litovsk were conducted openly in the face of all mankind. The Soviet state in those days did not have a single combat-ready battalion. Germany attacked Russia, seized the Soviet regions and military reserves. The Moscow government had no choice but to sign the peace, which we ourselves openly called the capitulation of an unarmed revolution to a powerful predator. There was no question of our help to Hohenzollern [4]. As for the current pact, it was concluded in the presence of the Soviet army of several million; his immediate task is to facilitate Hitler's defeat of Poland; finally, the intervention of the Red Army under the guise of the “liberation” of 8 by millions of Ukrainians and Belarusians leads to the national enslavement of 23 by millions of Poles. Comparison reveals not a resemblance, but the exact opposite. ” (pp. 59).
Trotsky is silent that he personally refused to sign a peace treaty with the Germans in Brest-Litovsk in February 1918.
Yet his “immediate task,” that is, the Non-Aggression Pact, is not “to facilitate Hitler's defeat of Poland,” but to push the USSR’s borders west on the eve of the war with Germany, a war Stalin had no doubts about.
“With the occupation of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, the Kremlin is trying first and foremost to give the population patriotic satisfaction for a hated union with Hitler. But Stalin had his own personal motive for invading Poland, almost as always - a revenge motive. In 1920, Tukhachevsky, the future marshal, led the Red troops to Warsaw. Future Marshal Egorov was advancing on Lemberg [5]. Stalin walked with Yegorov. When it became clear that Tukhachevsky on the Vistula was threatened with a counterattack, the Moscow command gave Yegorov an order to turn from Lemberg direction to Lublin in order to support Tukhachevsky. But Stalin was afraid that Tukhachevsky, taking Warsaw, would “intercept” Lemberg from him. Hiding behind the authority of Stalin, Egorov did not fulfill the order of the bid. Only four days later, when the critical situation of Tukhachevsky was fully revealed, Yegorov’s army turned to Lublin. But it was too late: the disaster broke out. At the top of the party and the army, everyone knew that Stalin was responsible for the defeat of Tukhachevsky. The current invasion of Poland and the seizure of Lemberg have a rematch for Stalin over the grand failure of 1920 of the year. ” (p. 59 – 60).
M.N. Tukhachevsky
A.I. Yegorov
It is known that Stalin was a vindictive and vindictive man. Otherwise he would not be Stalin! Nevertheless, Stalin was, above all, a pragmatist, otherwise he would not come to the Yaroslavl station to personally accompany the Japanese delegation, led by Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, after signing the "Neutrality Pact between the USSR and Japan" 13 on April 1941.
“However, the superiority of Hitler’s strategist over tactical man Stalin is obvious. By the Polish campaign, Hitler ties Stalin to his chariot, deprives him of his freedom to maneuver; he compromises him and in the process kills the Comintern. No one will say that Hitler became a communist. Everyone says that Stalin became an agent of fascism. But even at the price of a humiliating and treacherous union, Stalin will not buy the main thing: peace " (pp. 60).
Yes, Stalin did not buy peace. But he continued to maneuver freely, as can be seen from the example of the “Neutrality Pact between the USSR and Japan” mentioned above, and the example of the Soviet-Finnish war 1939 – 1940. The Comintern, on the other hand, was abolished on 15 in May of 1943 by the need to open the 2 front by its allies in the anti-Hitler coalition.
“None of the civilized nations will be able to hide from the world cyclone, no matter how strict the laws on neutrality may be. Least of all, the Soviet Union will succeed. At each new stage, Hitler will place ever higher demands on Moscow. Today, he gives his Moscow friend a temporary storage "Great Ukraine". Tomorrow he will raise the question of who should be the master of this Ukraine. Both Stalin and Hitler violated a number of treaties. How long will the contract last? ” (pp. 60).
Here, as history has shown, Trotsky was right.
“The sanctity of allied commitments will seem like an insignificant prejudice when peoples will writhe in clouds of suffocating gases. "Save yourself, who can!" - will be the slogan of governments, nations, classes. The Moscow oligarchy, in any case, will not survive the war, which it so thoroughly feared. The fall of Stalin will not save, however, Hitler, who with the infallibility of a somnambulist is attracted to the abyss " (pp. 60).
Only valid in relation to Hitler.
“Hitler cannot rebuild the planet even with the help of Stalin. It will be rebuilt by others. ” (pp. 60).
Right!
“22 September 1939 of the year.
Coyoacan [6] » (pp. 60).
Author's notes:
[1] This is the 23 August non-aggression treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It is noteworthy that Trotsky’s work in question was dated less than a month after the conclusion of the “Pact”.
[2] Chamberlain, Arthur Neville - British Prime Minister in 1937 – 1940 He is sometimes confused with his brother, Joseph Austen Chamberlain, the British Foreign Secretary in 1924 – 1929, who was addressed in 1927 by “our response to Chamberlain”.
[3] Krivitsky, Walter Germanovich (his real name is Samuil Gershevich Ginsberg) - Soviet intelligence officer, defector, author of the book “I Was an Agent of Stalin: Notes of the Soviet Intelligence Officer” (M., 1996).
[4] This is the German Emperor Wilhelm II, who originated from the Hohenzollern dynasty.
[5] Lemberg - the Austrian name of the city.
[6] Coyoacan is a town in Mexico, currently part of the capital city of Mexico City.
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