The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-02-14
CONTINUED from last issus)

A10Nc NAASAuNAh9 Aho( VIM h1A ASN w
served that the revolution had already
passed from one phase to another
He feared most that progress would
be hindered by the party's falling into
the rut of Trotsky's abstract theory,
and again he accuses it of wanting to
spring over the peasants movement
before this was in our hands.
There was no need for Lenin to
change his equipment. The old Lenin-
list theory, the old feminist Bolshe-
visit conception of the character of the
Russian revolution, and of the rela-
lions between proletariat and peas
antry, were seen by Lenin to have
proved fully correct. And now we had
to advance further on the same lines.
But the greatest care must be taken,
in the advance, not to fall into Trot-
sky's mistaken footsteps. Twelve
years before 1917 Lenin had prophe-
sled that, after the revolutionary dem
ocratic dictatorship of the proletariat
and peasantry had been realized, we
should have to advance to the dicta-
torship of the proletariat, and must
create conditions under which the
peasantry cooperate with the prole-
tariat. without simply ignoring the
peasantry as Trotsky proposes. Boil
shevism does not need to borrow
weapons from the arsenal of Trotsly-
ism.
At the same time, there were some
Bolsheviki who did not advance so
rapidly from stage to stage required
by the tremendous acceleration of the
revolution caused by the enormous
pressure of the war. But this does not
in the least signify that Bolshevism
was on the wrong track, that it lead
into a bog instead of to victory or
that it had to be altered during the
revolution. And this is just what
Trotsky is trying to prove.
Trotsky has never grasped the es-
sentials of the feminist theory on the
relations between the working class
and the peasantry in the Russian revo-
luton. Even after October he did not
grasp it, and he did not grasp it when
our party successfully manoeuvred for
the realization of the dictatorship of
the proletariat without separation
from the peasantry. His own theory,
which in his opinion has proved en-
tirely right, has prevented him from
grasping the Bolshevist position. If
Trotsky's theory had proved correct,
this would signify that the Soviet
power would long since have ceased
to exist. This theory of permanent
revolution" which does not trouble
about the peasantry or provide any
cO1uffnn hr Of al
lance between the proletariat and the
peasantry, renders the labor govern
ment in Russia absolutely dependent
upon the immediate proletarian revo-
luton in the West. According to the
theory the proletariat, after having
taken over power, is plunged into the
most hopeless contradictions It's
power is limited by objective social
difficulties:
Their solution is prevented by the
economic backwardness of the coun-
try. Within the confines of a national
revolution there is no means of es-
cape from this contradiction" (Trot-
sky, 1905" Russian edition, p. 1861
Under such conditions a delay or
postponement of the proletarian world
revolution would have inevitably caus-
ed the immediate collapse of the work
ers' dictatorship in Russia. Thus the
adherents of the permanent revolu-
ton" are bound to pass through stages
of despair and profoundest pessimism
to attempts at overcoming the econ
omic backwardness of the country by
.orce, with the aid of military COM
hands.
Real Bolshevist policy, as pursued
by Lenin from February to October,
has nothing in common with either
this policy or this psychology.
How did matters really stand in
October and Immediately afterwards?
Seen from the standpoint of Marxism,
from the standpoint of the analysis of
the class forces of the revolution, was
not the acceptance of the social revo-
lutionary decree on landed property,
the experimentation of the SOVIET gov
eminent by the left S. r., the designa-
ton of the government created by the
October revolution as Workers and
Peasants government" all proposals
OF Lenin, was all this not a growing
development of the dictatorship of the
proletariat and peasantry into a sys-
tenn whose actual essence was already
the dictatorship of the proletariat?
II is possible to omit some of these
facts of the October revolution; but
then we do not arrive at any scien-
tific analysis of Lenin's policy. And
what about the transition from the
war communism to the new economic
policy, from the committees for the
impoverished peasantry to Lenin's
speech on the medium farmersY?
How can this be brought into harmony
with that theory of permanent revo.
luton which has proved so perfectly
correct?"
In 1915 Lenin wrote that life was al
ready a decade ahead of Trotsky's
magnificent theory. Now we can add
another eight years. Does the circum-
stance that life has passed Trotsky's
theory by for eighteen years justify
Trotsky In claiming to be able TO cor
rect Leninism by Trotskyism?