The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-10-01
By LEON TROTSKY

IN the QUESTIONABLE, which YOU have lust handed
to me, l see that there are a number of points
which touch upon the internal life of our Party;
and in particular, upon differences of opinion
1t is a custom among us Boshevists to express our
minds on these questions within Party. l would
request you not to assume from my words that
am prepared to express myself freely to foreign
guests upon any question which may interest them;
l should prefer first of all to put before people
who are not members of our Party the thoughts
and considerations which might prevail upon them
to enter our Party and then to take stock of inter
nal differences of opinion. shall revert to this
question in conjunction with the danger of war;
will begin with the seventh question 1t runs
"Can it be said that the country of the
Sovlets represents democracy must it be
said that the dictatorship of class or por-
ton of this class-the Communist Party-rues
here?"
Whether or not calls Soviet Russia the land
OF democracy depends upon the significance one at
taches to the conception of democracy can quite
understand that from the standpoint of existing
American democracy our Soviet Union can be denied
the right to call itself democracy But I reserve
the right to deny from standpoint that the
United States constitutes a democracy. | might
place alongside Question a Question Tai aCan it
be said that the United States constitutes democracy
or is country which is administered by the dictator
ship OF big banks, trusts etc.," To this question
l should like to propose the following answer: In
the United States there rules under the cloak of
the outward forms of a political democracy the
dictatorship of the most highly concentrated capt.
tai. Where privileged minority rules the ex-
plotted majority, the minority is concerned to cloak
and disguise it's rulershp with various mystifica-
lions of religion, of hereditary monarchy or of
political democracy. The Soviet system is the die
tatorship of the working class which is not at all
concerned to deceive the others concerning the char
acter of its dictatorship and, in consequence, it
does not make use of camouflage.
A further and equally profound difference be-
tween the dictatorship of the working class which
is led by its vanguard, i.e., the Party, and the
dictatorship of feuda lords of capitalists is that
the feudal lords and capitalists try to maintain
their dictatorship forever, while the Communist
Party regards the dictatorship of the proetariat
as transitory, regime of the transition period
The object of revolutionary dictatorship is the crea-
ton of order of society which will no longer need
any state force at ALL because it will be based upon
the solidarity of the producers freed from expoita-
ton and from class barriers of every kind
Now for the eighth question:
"How is it that in the Soviet Union there
is not freedom of the Press and of speech for
all, including the opponents of the Soviet re-
gime?"
In order to answer this question one must here
too, be clear as to what is to be understood by
freedom of speech and the right to hold meetings
Everybody has the right to fly, but ii one has not
an aeroplane will hardly succeed in making use
of this right
In any democratic country the workers have a
right to their press. they have the right to hold
meetings and forth But the press needs
nrntng-works and paper: for meetings. rooms are