Leon
Trotsky: Letter to N. I. Bukharin
January
9, 1926
[Leon
Trotsky, The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1926-1927), New York
1980, p. 36-44, title: “Three
Letters to Bukharin”]
Dear
Nikolai Ivanovich:
I
am thankful for your
note,
since it gives us an opportunity — after a long interval — to
exchange views on the most urgent questions of party life. And since,
by the will of fate and the party congress, you and I are serving on
the same Politburo, an honest attempt at such a comradely
clarification of the issues can, at any rate, do no harm.
Kamenev
reproached you at a meeting [right after the Fourteenth Congress]
with the fact that previously you had objected to measures of extreme
administrative pressure in relation to the “Opposition”
(apparently referring to 1923-24) but now you support the most
drastic steps in relation to Leningrad. My thought, expressed out
loud, was essentially this: “He has acquired the taste.” Taking
up this remark of mine, you write: “You think that I have ‘acquired
the taste,’ but this ‘taste’ makes me tremble from head to
foot.” By no means did I intend, by this accidentally voiced
observation, to suggest that you take pleasure
in
extreme repressive measures by the apparatus. My thought was rather
that you have accommodated
yourself
to such measures, grown
used
to them, and are not inclined to notice their impact and effect
outside the circles of the dominant elements of the apparatus.
In
your note you charge that “out of formal considerations about
democracy,” I don’t want to see the real state of affairs. But
what do you yourself see as the “real state of affairs”? You
write: “(1) The Leningrad apparatus is hardened to the core; the
upper echelons are welded into one; they have been in power without
any changes for eight years — they are welded together in their
daily lives. (2) The secondary leadership is hand-picked; it is
impossible to change all their minds (the top brass) — that is
utopian. (3) What they seek to play upon, their main theme, is that
the economic privileges of the industrial workers will be taken away
(credits, factories, etc.); this is unconscionable demagogy.” From
this you conclude that “it is necessary to win people over from
below,
while crushing resistance from above.”
It
is by no means my purpose to polemicize with you or to recall the
past. That is pointless. But in order to get at the essence of the
problem, I must nevertheless say that you have produced a formulation
which counterposes
the party apparatus to the rank and file
in the sharpest, harshest, and most glaring way. Your “construction”
is as follows: There is a tightly knit, or as you put it, thoroughly
“hardened” group at the top, and a secondary leadership
hand-picked from above; then there is the party rank and file,
deceived and corrupted by the demagogy of this apparatus; and beyond
that, the mass of non-party workers. Of course, in a private note you
may express yourself in stronger terms than in an article. But even
making allowance for that, the result is an absolutely devastating
picture. Every thinking member of the party will wonder: If a
conflict hadn’t arisen between Zinoviev and the CC majority, would
the top brass in Leningrad have continued to maintain for a ninth and
a tenth year the kind of regime it established during the past eight
years?
The
“real state of affairs” is not at all as you see it. Actually it
is this — the impermissible character of the Leningrad regime was
revealed only because a conflict arose between it and the
top brass in Moscow,
certainly not because the Leningrad
ranks made
a protest, expressed dissatisfaction, etc. Can it be that this
doesn’t hit you right in the eye? If Leningrad, i.e., the most
cultured proletarian center, is ruled by a “hardened” clique,
“welded together in their daily lives,” and a hand-picked
secondary leadership, how is it that the party organization has
failed to notice this? Are there really no vital, honest, and
energetic party members in the Leningrad organization to raise the
voice of protest and win over the majority of the organization to
their side — even if their protest meets with no response from the
CC? After all, we aren’t talking about Chita or Kherson (although
there too of course we can and should expect that a Bolshevik party
organization would not, over a period of years, tolerate barbarities
by the upper echelons). We are talking about Leningrad, where
unquestionably the most proletarian and the most highly skilled
vanguard of our party is concentrated. Do you really not see that it
is precisely in this and in nothing else that the “real state of
affairs” consists? And now, when you give some thought, as you
should, to this state of affairs, you must conclude: Leningrad is by
no means a world unto itself. In Leningrad one finds only a sharper
and more deformed expression of the negative characteristics which
are typical of the party as a whole. Is this really not clear?
To
you it seems that “because of formal considerations about
democracy” I fail to see the realities in Leningrad. You are
mistaken. I have never proclaimed democracy to be “sacred,” as
one of my former Mends once did [that is, Bukharin].
You
will perhaps recall that two years ago, during a session of the
Politburo at my home, I said that the ranks of the Leningrad party
were muzzled more than was the case elsewhere. This expression (I
confess, a very strong one) was used by me in an intimate circle,
just as you used in your personal note the words “unconscionable
demagogy.”
To
be sure, this did not prevent my remark concerning the muzzling of
the party ranks by the Leningrad party apparatus from being broadcast
through meetings and through the press. (That is another matter,
however, and — I hope — not a precedent.) But doesn’t this mean
I
did see
the real state of affairs? Moreover, unlike some comrades, I saw it a
year and a half and two and three years ago. At that time, during the
same session, I remarked that everything in Leningrad goes splendidly
(100 percent) five minutes before things get very bad. This is
possible only under a super-apparatus regime. Why then do you say
that I did not see the real state of affairs? True, I did not
consider Leningrad to be separated from the rest of the country by an
impenetrable barrier. The theory of a “sick Leningrad” and a
“healthy country,” which was held in high respect under Kerensky,
was never my theory. I said and I repeat now that the traits of
apparatus bureaucratism, characteristic of the whole
party,
have been brought to their extreme expression in the regime of the
Leningrad party. I must, however, add that in these two and a half
years (i.e., since the autumn of 1923) the apparatus-bureaucratic
tendencies have grown in the extreme not only in Leningrad but
throughout the entire party.
Consider
for a moment this fact: Moscow and Leningrad, the two main
proletarian centers, adopt simultaneously
and furthermore unanimously
(think of it: unanimously!)
at their district party conferences two resolutions aimed against
each other. And consider also this, that official party opinion,
represented by the press, does not even dwell on this truly shocking
fact.
How
could this have happened? What social trends are concealed beneath
this? Is it conceivable that in the party of Lenin, when there is
such an exceptionally serious clash of tendencies, no attempt has
been made to define their social, i.e., class, character? I am not
talking about the “moods” of Sokolnikov or Kamenev or Zinoviev
but about the fact that the two main proletarian centers, without
which there would be no Soviet Union, turned out to be “unanimously”
opposed to one another. How? Why? In what way? What are the special
(?) social (?!) conditions in Leningrad and Moscow which permit such
drastic and “unanimous” polar opposites? No one looks for them,
no one wonders about them. What then is the explanation? Simply this,
that everyone says inwardly, in silence
— the hundred percent counter-position of Leningrad and Moscow is
the work of the apparatus.
That, Nikolai Ivanovich, is the real state of affairs. And I consider
it in the highest degree alarming. Please try to grasp that!!
You
allude to the way the Leningrad top echelons are welded together “in
their daily lives” and you think that in my “formalism” I don’t
see that. But just by chance several days ago a comrade reminded me
of a conversation he and I had had more than two years ago. At that
time I proposed approximately the following line of thought: Given
the extremely apparatus-heavy character of the Leningrad regime,
given the apparatus arrogance of the ruling clique, the development
of a special “mutual protection” system in the upper ranks of the
organization is inevitable, and that in turn will inevitably lead to
very negative consequences in the outlook of the less stable elements
in the party and state apparatuses. Thus, for example, I regarded as
extremely dangerous the special kind of “insurance” through the
party apparatus for the positions of military, economic, and other
officials. Through their "loyalty” to the secretary of the
province committee they won the right, within the sphere of official
work, to violate orders or decrees in force on a statewide basis. In
the sphere of “daily life” they lived with the confidence that
they would not be held accountable for any of their “shortcomings”
in that sphere as long as they remained loyal to the secretary of the
province committee. Moreover, they had no doubt that anyone who tried
to bring objections of a moral or work-related kind against them
would find themselves categorized as Oppositionists, with all the
ensuing consequences. Thus you are greatly mistaken to think that
“because of formal considerations about democracy” I have failed
to note the reality, in particular the reality of “daily life.”
Only I did not have to wait until the conflict between Zinoviev and
the CC majority to see this unattractive reality and the dangerous
tendencies inherent in its further development
But
even in regard to “daily life” Leningrad does not stand alone. In
the past year we had on the one hand the Chita business, and on the
other that in Kherson. Naturally you and I understand that the Chita
and Kherson abominations are exceptions precisely because of their
excesses. But these exceptions are symptomatic.
Could the things that happened in Chita have occurred had there not
been among the upper echelons in Chita a special, closed-in,
mutual-protection system, with independence from the rank and file as
its basis? Did you read the report of Shlichter’s investigating
committee on the Kherson business? The document is instructive to the
highest degree — not only because it characterizes some of the
Kherson personnel, but also because it characterizes certain aspects
of the party regime as a whole. To the question, “Why did all the
local Communists, who had known of the crimes of the responsible
workers, keep quiet, apparently for a period of two or three years?”
Shlichter received the answer; “Just try to speak up — you’ll
lose your job, you’ll get sent to the countryside, etc., etc.” I
quote, of course, from memory, but this is the gist of it. And
Shlichter exclaims apropos of this: “What! Up to now only
Oppositionists have told us that for this or that opinion they have
allegedly
(?!) been removed from posts, sent to the countryside, etc., etc. But
now we hear from party members that they do not protest against
criminal
actions
of leading comrades for fear of being fired, sent to the countryside,
expelled from the party, etc.” I cite again from memory.
I
must in all honesty say that Shlichter’s pathetic exclamation (not
at a public meeting but in a report at the Central Committee!)
surprised me no less than the facts he investigated in Kherson. It
goes without saying that the system of apparatus terror cannot stop
with so-called ideological deviations, real or invented, but must
inevitably extend to the life and activity of the organization as a
whole. If the rank-and-file Communists are afraid to express any
opinion that diverges or threatens to diverge from the opinion of the
secretary of the bureau, province committee, district committee,
county committee, etc., the same rank-and-file Communists will be
still more afraid to raise their voices against impermissible and
even criminal actions by officials in the central leadership. The one
follows inseparably from the other. Especially because a morally
tarnished official, in defending his post or his power or his
influence, inevitably attributes any reference to his “tarnish”
to the latest deviation, whatever it is. In such phenomena
bureaucratism finds its most flagrant expression.
Today
you condemn the Leningrad regime, exaggerating its apparatus
‘character in the process, i.e., portraying the situation as though
there were no
ideological bond of any kind between the upper echelons and the rank
and, file.
Here you fall into exactly the opposite error of the one you fell
into when, politically and organizationally, you followed in
Leningrad’s wake — and that was not so very long ago. Proceeding
from this error, you wish to drive one wedge out with another, so
that in the struggle against the Leningrad apparatchiks you want —
to tighten all the screws of the apparatus tighter than ever. In the
resolution of December 5, 1923, you and I jointly wrote that the
bureaucratic
tendencies in the party apparatus inevitably give rise, by way of a
reaction, to factional groupings
[see Challenge
of The Left Opposition (1923-25),
pp. 404-13]. And since that time we have had enough instances of this
to see that the
apparatus struggle against factional groupings
[only] deepens
the bureaucratic tendencies in the apparatus.
The
purely administrative struggle against earlier “Oppositions” —
a struggle which did not shrink from the use of any organizational or
ideological means whatever — resulted in all decisions being
adopted by party organizations in no other way than by unanimous
vote. You yourself have praised this unanimous voting more than once
in Pravda
and, following Zinoviev’s lead, have described it as the product of
ideological unity of mind. But then it turned out that Leningrad
“unanimously” opposed itself to Moscow, and you pronounce this
the result of the criminal demagogy of the hardened Leningrad
apparatus. No, the problem lies deeper. You have before you the
ultimate dialectics of the apparatus principle: unanimity
is suddenly transformed into its opposite.
Now you have opened up exactly the same kind of struggle, using the
same old stereotypes, against the new
Opposition. The
ideological range of the dominant echelons of the party is
constricted still more. Their ideological authority is inevitably
reduced.
The need for an intensification of apparatus regimentation follows
from this. This need has dragged you into the process 'as well. A
year or two ago, in Kamenev’s words, you “objected.” But now
you take the initiative, although in your own words it makes you
“tremble from head to foot.” I venture to say that in this
instance you personally represent a fairly accurate and sensitive
barometer of the degree of bureaucratization in the party regime over
the last two or three years.
I
know that certain comrades, possibly you among them, have until
recent times been carrying out a plan somewhat as follows: give the
workers in the cells the opportunity to criticize things on the
workshop, factory, or district level, and at the same time, crack
down resolutely on every “opposition” emanating from the upper
ranks of the party. In this way, the apparatus regime as a whole was
to be preserved by providing it with a broader base. But
this experiment was not at all successful.
The methods and habits of the apparatus regime inevitably trickle
down from the top. If every criticism of the Central Committee and
even criticism inside the Central Committee is equated, under all
conditions, with a factional struggle for power, with all the ensuing
consequences, then the Leningrad Committee will carry out the very
same policy in relation to those who criticize it in the sphere of
its absolute powers. And under the Leningrad Committee there are
districts and sub-districts After that come the working groups and
collectives. The size of the organization doesn’t change the basic
trend. Criticizing a “red director” — if he enjoys the support
of the cell secretary — means the same for the members of a factory
workforce as criticizing the CC would mean for a CC member, a
secretary of a province committee, or a delegate to a congress. Any
criticism, if it is concerned with vital
questions,
is bound to infringe on someone, and the critic will invariably be
accused of a “deviation,” “squabbling,” or simply personal
insult. That is why it is necessary to begin all resolutions on party
and trade union democracy over and over again with the words: “In
spite of all the resolutions, decrees, and educational instructions,
in the local areas, such and such goes on,” etc. But in fact what
goes on in the local areas is only what goes on at the top. By using
apparatus methods to suppress the apparatus regime in Leningrad you
will only arrive at an even worse Leningrad regime.
This
cannot be doubted for a moment. It is no accident that the pressure
has been put on in Leningrad more strongly than anywhere else. In the
rural provinces with their scattered party cells, largely lacking in
culture, the role of the party-secretary apparatus will loom quite
large simply because of the objective conditions. And this must be
accounted as an inevitable
and — within limits that are nevertheless not excessive — a
progressive
fact.
But in Leningrad, with the high political and cultural level of its
industrial workers, matters are different. Here an apparatus
regime
can maintain itself only by greater
tightening of the screws,
on the one hand, and by demagogy, on the other. By smashing one
apparatus with another, before the ranks of the Leningrad party —
or the party as a whole — have understood anything whatsoever, you
are forced to supplement this work with counter-demagogy which is
very similar to the demagogy [you complain of].
I
have taken up only the question you raised in your note. But major
social questions show through the question of the party regime. I
cannot dwell on them in detail in this already overly long letter,
and anyway there is no time for that. But I would like to hope that
you will grasp my meaning from the following few words.
When
in 1923 the Opposition arose in Moscow (without the aid of the local
apparatus, and against its resistance) the central and local
apparatus brought the bludgeon down on Moscow’s skull under the
slogan: “Shut up! You do not recognize the peasantry.” In the
same apparatus-way you are now bludgeoning the Leningrad organization
and crying: “Shut up! You do not recognize the middle peasant.”
You are thus terrorizing the thinking habits of the best proletarian
elements in the two main centers of the proletarian dictatorship,
teaching them not to give voice to their own views, whether correct
or erroneous, not even to their anxieties concerning the general
questions of the revolution and of socialism. And meanwhile in the
rural areas, elements of [bourgeois] democracy are unquestionably
being strengthened and entrenched. Can’t you see all the dangers
that flow from this?
I
say once again that I have touched on only one aspect of the colossal
question of the future destiny of our party and revolution. I am
personally grateful to you that your note gave me occasion to express
these thoughts to you. Why have I written? To what end? Well, you
see, I think it is possible, as well as necessary and indispensable,
to make a transition from the present party regime to a more healthy
one — without convulsions, without new debates, without a struggle
for power, without “triumvirates,” “quadrumvirates” or
“novumvirates” — through normal and full-bodied work by all the
party organizations, beginning at the very top, the Politburo. That,
Nikolai Ivanovich, is why I wrote this long letter. I am totally
willing to continue our clarification of the issues and would like to
hope that it will not hamper but at least in part will help smooth
the road toward truly collective work in the Politburo and the
Central Committee, without which there will not be collective work in
any of the lower bodies of the party. It goes without saying that
this letter is not in any way and not in the slightest degree an
official party document. It is my private and personal letter to you
in reply to your note. It was typed only because it was dictated to a
stenographer, a comrade whose absolute party loyalty and discretion
are beyond all question.
Regards!
Yours,
L.
Trotsky