Soviet Defensism and World Revolution

(Quote of the Week)

Seventy-five years ago, Leon Trotsky, co-leader with V.I. Lenin of the 1917 October Revolution, made a statement denouncing the ongoing Moscow Trials and bloody purges of the Stalinist bureaucracy, which usurped political power from the Soviet proletariat beginning in 1923-24. That address, excerpted below, was read out to a mass meeting in New York City and spurred the formation of the Dewey Commission, which investigated and refuted Stalin’s sinister frame-up charges that Trotsky had conspired with Hitler to destroy the Soviet Union. As Trotsky stressed, it was Stalinist bureaucratic rule that fatally undermined the Soviet workers state. In Trotsky’s footsteps, the ICL fought to the end against capitalist counterrevolution in the USSR and carries forward the fight for new October Revolutions worldwide.

The fundamental acquisitions of the October Revolution, the new forms of property which permit the development of the productive forces, are not yet destroyed, but they have already come into irreconcilable conflict with the political despotism. Socialism is impossible without the independent activity of the masses and the flourishing of the human personality. Stalinism tramples on both. An open revolutionary conflict between the people and the new despotism is inevitable. Stalin’s regime is doomed. Will the capitalist counterrevolution or workers’ democracy replace it? History has not yet decided this question. The decision depends also upon the activity of the world proletariat....

If our generation happens to be too weak to establish socialism over the earth, we will hand the spotless banner down to our children. The struggle which is in the offing transcends by far the importance of individuals, factions, and parties. It is the struggle for the future of all mankind. It will be severe. It will be lengthy. Whoever seeks physical comfort and spiritual calm, let him step aside. In time of reaction it is more convenient to lean on the bureaucracy than on the truth. But all those for whom the word socialism is not a hollow sound but the content of their moral life—forward! Neither threats, nor persecutions, nor violations can stop us! Be it even over our bleaching bones, the truth will triumph! We will blaze the trail for it. It will conquer! Under all the severe blows of fate, I shall be happy, as in the best days of my youth, if together with you I can contribute to its victory! Because, my friends, the highest human happiness is not the exploitation of the present but the preparation of the future.

—Leon Trotsky, “I Stake My Life!” (1937), reprinted in Leon Trotsky Speaks (1972)