Leon Trotsky: Letter to Yevgeny A. Preobrazhensky

May 24, 1928

[Leon Trotsky, The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1928-1929), New York 1981, p. 101-103, title: “Preobrazhensky's Proposal”]

Dear Yevgeny Alekseyevich:

… After receiving your theses, I absolutely did not write a single word to anyone about them. I sent my proposal (or more accurately, my counterproposal) to you first. I don't know if you received it. I have asked everyone to whom I address letters to notify me by telegram of their receipt. Thus far I have not received a single telegram on this score. Three days ago I received from Kolpashevo the following telegram: "We emphatically reject Yevgeny's proposals and evaluation. Reply immediately. Smilga, Alsky, Nechaev." Yesterday I received a telegram from Ust-Kulom: "We consider Yevgeny's proposals incorrect. Beloborodov From Khristian Georgievich [Rakovsky] a letter came yesterday in which he expressed his attitude toward the "present moment" with the English phrase: "wait and see." Also yesterday I received letters from Beloborodov and Valentinov. They were both extremely upset over some letter that had been sent from the northeast to the west and that was filled with rotten moods. They are very hot under the collar. If they are conveying the contents of the letter accurately, then on this question I solidarize myself with them totally and completely and I don't recommend that anyone be indulgent to the impressionists.

Since my return from the hunting trip, that is, the last days of March, I have been sitting home without going out at all, with my pen in hand or nose in a book, roughly from seven or eight in the morning to ten at night. I am getting ready to take a break for a few days: Natalya Ivanovna, Seryozha, and I are going to Iliysk for some fishing on the Hi River. A report on this venture will be supplied to you in due time.

Do you understand what happened in the elections in France? So far I haven't been able to understand anything. Pravda has not even given the figures for the total number of voters, compared to the previous elections, so that it remains unknown whether the Communist percentage rose or fell. However, I intend to study this question in the foreign papers and then I'll write further. If you have any information on this point, or general observations, please let me know.

Are you up on the curious Bleskov-Zatonsky episode? Sosnovsky has sent clippings on this subject, along with highly interesting commentaries. Bleskov is a machinist in a Ukrainian factory, not a party member, who took "self-criticism" seriously and wrote Zatonsky a letter which a careful reading shows to be excerpted from a whole series of our documents. Zatonsky, by virtue of his inherent purity of soul and by virtue of a certain swelling of the head, did not grasp the essence of the matter or the "uniqueness" of the current moment. Owing to the above mentioned circumstances, that is, owing above all to swelling of the head, Zatonsky began ringing all the church bells without consulting the ultimate authorities [literally, without looking at the latest "saints' days" calendar]. He demanded that Bleskov's modest letter be printed in the pious newspaper Kharkov Proletarian. The editors, having decided that everything was being done according to the saints, carried out the request and accompanied Bleskov's letter with a minimum of officious bleating Oust in case). But as soon as Zatonsky's word reached the sensitive ears of the editors of Rabochaya Gazeta (telephone number such-and-such) Zatonsky was immediately numbered among the belly-achers and skeptics. The point of this remarkable episode is that Zatonsky, who it seemed had passed through all the tests of fire and water, and through pipes of all possible diameters, admitted publicly, in the press, that Bleskov's letter was "remarkable," genuinely proletarian, deeply sincere, and deserving of full attention, etc., etc. But Rabochaya Gazeta found Zatonsky's letter to be a real-and-for-sure document of petty-bourgeois deviation. This kind of mix-up is produced by the extraordinary increase in the complexity and shifting directions of the administrative winds. Zatonsky is only the first victim of these increased complications. As for the Bleskovs, probably no small number of them have yet to make their appearance.