Leon
Trotsky: Reply to a Friend's Letter
February
7, 1930
[Writing
of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 2, 1930, New York 1975, p. 96 f.]
Dear
Friend:
You
write that it is impossible to change the present hazardous course of
the Stalinist leadership by means of criticism and pressure, that it
can be changed only to an ultraright course, and that, therefore, it
is impossible to polemicize against the present ultraleft course
"from the right." If we take this thought to its
conclusion, it would mean that the whole of world communism is being
changed into a gamble on complete collectivization and the
liquidation of the kulaks in the space of two years. Is that
conceivable? Can it be accepted? No! I do not know if we are faced
with the last or next-to-last gamble of centrism, just as I do not
know how many zigzags there will be, how many turns, splits, and
upheavals on the road to building socialism (or, in the case of a
reversal, to the collapse of the dictatorship). But never, at any
stage, directly or indirectly, can we solidarize ourselves with an
illusory policy flowing from a false theoretical premise The gamble
on industrialization and complete collectivization flows entirely
from the theory of socialism in one country. Naturally, in the event
of success, they will have proved it in practice. But, unfortunately,
success along this line is totally excluded. Complete
collectivization means introducing all the contradictions of the
countryside into the collective farms. The "liquidation" of
the kulaks still outside the collective farms means camouflaging the
kulaks who reappear automatically inside the collectives.
Industrialization on the basis of subjective factors ("not to
dare to cite objective causes") means preparing a very severe
crisis. All this will be revealed long before the end of the
five-year plan. How can we not tell the party the truth? "The
right wing wants to join us,” you say. Temporarily,
some
of
the right wing might join us. But that danger is absolutely nothing
in comparison with the danger of compromising communism completely
and definitively on a world scale.
Don't
forget there is an International. Mad opportunism now spreads equally
along the line, on an international scale: for us it's "complete
collectivization"; for Germany they say it's to be "1923"
all over again; for the whole world it's the "third period."
The fate of communism is being staked on the card of bureaucratic
adventurism. Even if I thought that in an isolated USSR no other
policy was left but Stalinist adventurism, I would not hide this sad
truth, because it is necessary to protect the heritage of Marxist
thought and its future. But I think that it is impossible to measure
the internal resources of the October Revolution; there is no reason
to draw the conclusion that they are exhausted and that we should not
try to prevent Stalin from doing what he is doing.
Nobody
appointed us inspectors of historical development. We are
representatives of a definite current, Bolshevism, and we remain so
in the face of all changes and under all conditions. There is no
other answer on my part, nor can there be.